Chapter Text
Friendship.
It was a concept Taylor thought about a lot lately.
When she was younger she had a pretty straight forward view on friendship. It was unilaterally good. Friendship could never be bad. Now she had a more sophisticated impression. For one, she now understood concepts like peer pressure and group think. She also understood that friendships came in many shapes and forms. Not all friendships were equal, and thus not all friendships were good.
This was common knowledge, but even more than that she understood that a greater, deeper friendship did not necessarily mean it was a good friendship. In fact, she wished she had less deep friendships nowadays and more shallow ones.
"Hey Taylor!"
Maybe if she pretended not to have heard her…
Taylor didn't speed up, otherwise it would look like she was running away. She did veer slightly to the right and into the larger mass of students that were heading into the building though.
Just before she got through the door she felt a hand wrap around her arm and pull her out of the crowd.
Emma smiled at her, a wide toothy grin that forced her eyes shut. Her clothes were expensive and pretty, with bright colors that contrasted Taylor's own dark hoodie and jeans. Emma used to try to get her to wear more cheerful clothing, but at some point she seemed to have an epiphany and stopped. Taylor wasn't really sure why.
Emma pulled her friend into a hug, a laugh slip out of her lips. Taylor would probably be the only one to recognize the slight hint of nervousness there. The frayed tips of Emma's red hair. Emma chewed her hair when she was nervous.
The girl pulled back, still smiling, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You weren't on the bus today."
It wasn't a question. "Sorry. Dad went in to work late today so he had time to drive me here." It wasn't a lie, though she doubted that the excuse would calm Emma down if she also told her that she was the one to suggest her dad take her to school.
The redhead let out another laugh, though now more relieved than anxious. "Oh! You should have called me! I thought something happened!" Read: I could have gone to your house and we could have gone together.
Taylor waved her hand dismissively. "I didn't think it was that big a deal."
"Well you should be more mindful of your friend's feelings." Emma put her hands on her hips, glaring at her. It was a pretty weak glare, if Taylor were being honest. The brunette didn't reply, simply turning to enter the school. Emma let out a noise of surprise and hopped into step beside her, having to power walk in order to keep pace with her taller friend.
Emma looked at her out of the corner of her eye, smiling. She held out her hand expectantly. "Phone."
Taylor barely suppressed a sigh. Emma had convinced her to get a phone shortly after she had managed to salvage their relationship after it hit a little bump in the road at the start of high school. Rather, Emma got the phone herself and forced it onto her.
"Here." Taylor dropped the phone into Emma's hand without needing to look. Emma hummed as she entered in her friend's password and began looking through it.
"Hey, what's this number?"
Taylor turned her head slightly to look at the phone screen that was currently being shoved into her face. She looked at it, examining the time stamp next to it as the two girls came to a stop in front of her locker. "That's just the number for the pizza place a couple blocks away from the house. Me and dad ordered some last night."
"Oh." Emma pulled the phone back, looking thoughtful. "I'm going to delete it anyways."
Of course. "Go ahead."
Soon enough Taylor got her phone back, and had retrieved what she needed from her locker. Emma didn't bother getting her textbooks, simply saying "We can just share!" The two were in all the same classes after all.
As they walked to their first class Emma, who had her fingers interlocked with those of her friend (who rather pointedly did not close her own finders around Emma's hand but also knew that trying to free herself from her grip would be a futile effort), suddenly spoke up. "Hey, did you see the news?"
"This morning?" Emma gave a small noise of affirmation. "No, I haven't."
"They found another body last night. Looks like its that vigilante again."
Right. Emma's favorite. "Shadow Stalker, right?" Not that she needed to ask, but at least it would keep her away from more awkward topics of conversation.
"Yep! He was really messed up. I think he was a rapist or something. His penis was gone, and she did that to that other guy, the one that was assaulting high schoolers, too." Emma's smile turned into a sharp grin as she spoke. Taylor took note of it, but didn't say anything. It was all too familiar now.
"I wonder if they'll ever catch her."
"Probably not. I mean, she's supposed to be able to turn into smoke or something, right?" She knew perfectly well what she could do, but there was no point calling her out on it. "And she's been a lot smarter than she used to be, so I don't think they'll catch her."
"It just takes one mistake."
Emma hummed. "I don't think she'll make one."
Silence passed between them. Emma seemed perfectly comfortable in it, moving closer under the pretense of the hallways being crowded so they were shoulder to shoulder, giving her friend's hand a squeeze. Taylor suppressed a shudder.
Taylor would be the first to admit that she wasn't the best socially. She was a pretty goofy kid growing up, and now she would be a loner if not for Emma's intervention. Then again, maybe her introverted nature was Emma's fault in the first place. Regardless, she wasn't the best at reading normal people, but abnormal people like Emma she could read just fine. It was obvious that Emma had…feelings. For her, that is.
For now though Emma was perfectly content just being friends, and Taylor would be too if not for the fact that she knew her friend wouldn't stay that way. Maybe she was a pessimist, but something would come around and make Emma feel their friendship (deep, unhealthy, suffocating friendship) was under threat.
And honestly, Taylor wasn't sure what would happen when that time came.
Madison Clements…was a friend.
And that was bad, because she was not Emma's friend.
"Hi Taylor! Come sit over here!"
She looked around. Despite trying to hurry to class Emma had slowed her down too much. There were only two empty seats. One next to Madison, and one on the opposite side of the room.
Honestly, when one option would clearly be bad for her health, then the choice was obvious.
Taylor power walked to the empty desk away from Madison, leaving her friend in the dust behind her, and took a seat.
Madison pouted at her before plastering a fake smile on her face and turned forward again. Emma looked like she was about to evict someone from their seat, but Mr. Gladly walked in at that moment and ushered her to sit next to Madison. The two honestly looked like a better fit for one another than Taylor did. They both wore similar clothing, except Madison tended to lean into her round face and short height and made an effort to look and act more cute than pretty. Still, the two could have passed as being part of the same clique if Emma wasn't shooting glares at the shorter girl every few seconds. Madison, for her part, only seemed to find Emma's efforts funny.
Taylor and Madison had met a month after she patched things up with Emma. They had been partners for an assignment in art class. All they had to do was make a collaborative piece of art. Anything, really. Taylor remembered being quite happy when she got paired up with her (Emma hadn't taken that class).
You wouldn't know it by looking at her, but Madison was surprisingly artsy. She was one of the better artists in the class, and was really good at drawing and painting. Taylor didn't have a phone then, so they'd communicated over PHO. They'd become friends over the course of the project (though Taylor felt bad that she didn't do much to contribute), the shorter girl's bubbly personality and exuberance reminding Taylor of her time at summer camp and the friends she made there.
It was near the end of the semester when Taylor was invited to her house for dinner. Madison had been in the bathroom, but no one had known that, so Taylor had been sent to go get her from her bedroom by the girl's mother. "She's drawing, so the door is probably locked. Just knock and let her know you're here." That had been what she said.
Taylor wasn't sure what possessed her to try opening the door when Madison didn't respond to the first knock. Maybe she wanted to see what her friend was working on. She remembered walking into the room and finding dozens of drawings and paintings all over the walls. Portraits of various people and paintings of capes (she idly noted the over representation of Case 53s, but she figured it was because they were so different that it made them fun to paint)…
Then she saw the open notebook on Madison's desk.
"Psst." Taylor turned to look at the boy sitting next to her who was placed a folded piece of paper on her desk. "From Madison."
She nodded, looking across the room at the girl in question who smiled and winked at her. Next to her Emma gave her an inquisitive look. Taylor shrugged her shoulders and smiled. That seemed to pacify the redhead a bit, though it did not escape her how her friend began chewing on her hair.
Taylor knew exactly what this was. It would probably be better not to open it, or to wait until she was alone, but she'd rather just rip the bandaid off now. And honestly, despite everything, she still liked Madison's art.
She covered the paper with one arm and carefully unfolded it, her eyes locking onto the sketch of a woman in a greco-roman toga laying on her side, one breast exposed as the woman posed. She had very conspicuous animal ears (a lynx?) and a tail, as well as a horseshoe shaped tattoo on her shoulder.
Though the body shape wasn't quite accurate, and the inhuman features were clearly fiction, the woman in the sketch was unmistakably her.
Just like all the sketches in that notebook. Various reimaginings of Taylor herself as a Case 53, sometimes with a second, also very familiar girl in the mix.
Taylor folded the piece of paper back up with a red face, sticking it in her back pocket. She glanced over and noticed Madison giving her a self satisfied smile. Luckily, Emma seemed to be more concerned with glaring at the girl than looking her direction, otherwise the girl might question what exactly Madison could have sent over to make her blush.
That wasn't to say her friend wouldn't ask anyways, but this way it was easier to give her a lie that wouldn't cause her to freak out.
Madison…at least the girl didn't act on her little…well…it was clearly a fetish, and the fact that she was at the center of it was…a lot of things, but at least the girl limited herself to these little coy invitations. Outside of them she was actually pretty fun to talk to and hang out with. Of course, Emma complicated things further, but keeping her friendships with the two girls mostly separate (and thus keeping them away from one another) was something that she had been managing for well over a year.
She just hoped Madison would remain satisfied with her drawings and their weird awkward friendship.
Sophia Hess was…something.
Honestly, they weren't exactly friends. Sophia Hess was the reason Emma almost left her, and now she refused to take Emma off her hands despite having tried to steal her before. Taylor wasn't sure sometimes which of those two facts made her dislike Sophia more.
Regardless, they weren't friends. They didn't share any classes, sit together at lunch, or anything of the sort. She only knew her through Emma, who still texted the dark skinned girl and would occasionally have sleepovers with her, but besides that they were complete strangers.
No, her and Sophia Hess were not friends.
Shadow Stalker on the other hand…
Taylor groaned as she turned over in her bed, glaring at the crouched figure knocking on her window, dressed in a black cloak and a black painted hockey mask. The moment it was obvious that she was awake, Shadow Stalker entered her Breaker state, turning into a sort of gas, like smoke, and slipped into the room.
"Sup, geek."
Taylor sat up in her bed, a scowl on her face. "What do you want?"
"Can't pop in to visit a friend?"
Taylor narrowed her eyes. "No. Not in the middle of the night, unannounced, and especially not when you look like some creep."
"Hey, I knocked, didn't I?"
Yeah…this time. Taylor remembered waking up with Shadow Stalker looming over her before. Scared her half to death the first time it happened. Even after it stopped being so surprising, it never stopped being creepy.
"Ugh. I'd prefer if you didn't drop in like this at all."
Shadow Stalker laughed. "What? You mean show up at the front door in my civvies? You were the one that said you didn't want anything to do with that side of me."
"No, I said I didn't want to be connected to a vigilante. A vigilante who has escalated to the point that I can't see them making you a ward like you say they would. I didn't want to be tied up in all this…cape stuff. That includes not having some creepy edge lord breaking into my house."
"Again, I knocked."
Taylor groaned. "Why are you really here?"
Though she couldn't see it, Taylor could tell Shadow Stalker was rolling her eyes. "I found something neat. Want to come see?"
"Is it a dead body?"
…
"God damnit Sophia."
"Hey! He was a pedophile! You said I could kill those!"
"I meant it more as a restriction as opposed to a goal." She did. Shadow Stalker used to be far more indiscriminate with who she shot. Petty thieves and random thugs were treated the same as murderers and rapists. After a lot of needling Taylor convinced her not to go after every criminal she found with lethal force.
The result? Shadow Stalker all but ignores most crime and goes out of her way to find criminals she is 'allowed' to kill.
Doesn't help that she has stretched her restrictions in the past.
"This isn't like the last 'pedophile' is it?"
"He was a pedophile though."
Taylor sighed. "I get what you mean. He was scum. I won't deny that. But looking at child pornography is not quite the same as, say, making that pornography, or assaulting children in general."
"Yeah yeah. Whatever." Taylor was a bit annoyed, but she knew from experience that Shadow Stalker listened more than she let on.
"Also, what's this I hear about you castrating people?"
"Hey! It was post mortem!"
"That doesn't make it better!"
"Hey, it was just to send a message, okay? I didn't get off to it or anything like that."
Taylor glared at her for a moment before she dropped it. "Okay. Just…don't go too far."
"Cool. So, want to go check out that dead body now?"
"Sophia Hess!"
"What? It isn't that far."
"…Sophia Hess…did you bring the body here?"
…
"No?"
God damnit.
"I think I would like your visits more if you didn't plant evidence in my yard."
"Hey, I'm not stupid. I don't just leave that stuff here." How thoughtful. "I bury that stuff in your asshole neighbor's yard." Of course.
Taylor pressed the palm of her hand against her face. "That is not okay, Sophia."
"Sheesh. Learn to take a joke." Taylor couldn't help but feel one of her jokes was going to get her either in jail or six feet in the ground one of these days.
"Just…get the body out of here. Preferably not within a mile of the house."
"Fine."
Shadow Stalker rolled her eyes again - Taylor could tell - but she didn't make any move to leave.
"Anything else?"
"Yep." Shadow Stalker moved forward, kneeling next to her bed.
"Um…what are you doing?"
"Got you a gift." Shadow Stalker reached into her cloak, rummaging around in a pouch she had strapped to her waist and pulled out a small silver ring with detailed floral engravings in it and a small emerald stud (that was probably fake). "Give me your hand."
Taylor felt her face heat up and she felt a nervous laugh slip out from her throat. "I-I don't think-Aren't we a bit too young for this?" Shadow Stalker paused, looking up at her silently. Taylor fidgeted. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to turn you down. We are too young, and I'm just not into you that way."
"What?" Pause. "Wait. Oh! No. That isn't-" Now Shadow Stalker was the one with a hand to her face. "It is a gift, not an engagement ring. Just…take it."
Taylor grabbed it, examining it closely. "This is pretty nice." She narrowed her eyes in the cape's direction. "And probably pretty expensive."
"Didn't steal it."
"Sophia, did the guy you just killed have this ring?"
…
"Damnit Sophia! No incriminating evidence in this house!"