Chapter Text
The church of Yes? didn’t have an official building. Yet. They were working on it. In the meantime, services were hosted in a public park. They were also still working on a schedule, since ‘once in a while’ didn’t seem to draw a large crowd. Not that Kristen needed a large crowd. She was still a little bit unsure about the whole Yes? thing. That was kind of the whole point, technically, but it was hard to preach to Craig and Tracker when she kept losing track of what she believed in.
Maybe it was just the difficulty of being a 16 year old church leader. Or maybe Yes? just wasn’t the right religion yet, and it just needed a little bit more fiddling before it felt like home again.
Either way, she far preferred spending her time with the other Bad Kids or hanging out with Tracker than working on churchy stuff. She could distract herself during the school year with homework and friendships (and a girlfriend!) pretty easily.
Summer break had been… rough.
The Bad Kids had semi-disbanded for the summer break, as they all went on their own ways, chasing side quests across Elmville. Riz kept himself walled up inside his office, Fabian searched for information on Aelwyn, Adaine studied for next year, and Fig and Gorgug toured and practiced. Theoretically, Kristen evangelized.
In reality, she spent a lot of time hanging out in the Faeth-O'Shaughnessey household. Kristen, Adaine, Tracker, and Jawbone had all moved into Sandralynn’s house shortly after the beginning of the summer. It was a bit crowded, but that was alright. It reminded Kristen of home.
She still felt a bit guilty that she didn’t really think of this house as home, yet. They had opened their home to her and she still felt like a stranger within it.
Kristen shared a room with Fig, who was almost always gone, whether on tour or at practice. Adaine was next door, but she got irritable if her studying was interrupted. And Tracker had friends and a job.
So Kristen drifted around the house, occasionally helping Sandralynn with housework or tagging along on errands for her work. Mostly she texted the bad kids and then waited a few hours for a response.
Sometimes she printed out posters for Yes? and hung them up around town, only to find them torn down a few days later. Jawbone said it was good for her to get out of the house anyway when she told him she wasn’t making a difference for anybody, that if it made a difference for her it was still good.
“That doesn’t really matter.” She had said the last time he pointed it out. It had been just her and Jawbone and Adaine home for dinner, though Adaine hardly counted since she was still reading at the dinner table.
“You matter, kid.” He responded, scooping some noodle casserole onto Kristen’s plate.
“Right.” Kristen responded without any intonation, already intently separating the olives from the rest of the casserole.
Adaine had closed the book- the title of which read “Oracles and how to Defeat Them”, which Kristen found troubling, in order to more quickly eat her dinner.
In a somewhat tactless attempt to end the current conversation, Kristen asked “So, you planning on going oracle hunting?”
“No.” Noodles were being stabbed aggressively from Adaine’s plate. After a moment's pause, she continued. “I need to know what tricks are up Fallinell’s sleeve.”
That was maybe not a turn for the better. “The Bad Kids wouldn’t let those stuffy old creeps get to you. You’re Our oracle.”
Adaine groaned. “Firstly, we’re not ‘Bad Kids’-”
Fig had entered the house silently (first time for everything), and butted into the conversation with a deliberate “I am.”
“Ok, I am not a bad kid-” she continued, only to be cut off again by Kristen.
“You totally brained our lunch lady on the first day of school. That’s pretty bad.”
“She wasn’t just any lunch lady, her name was Doreen, and she rocked.” Fig interjected, taking a spot at the kitchen table after leaving her various bags strewn across the kitchen floor.
“Girls, let’s remember that death can be a sensitive topic, alright?” Jawbone added from the head of the table, where he was watching the argument go down like it were a game of table tennis.
“Are you trying to police our language?” Fig asked, slopping casserole onto her own plate with a furious glop.
“No, I don’t think that’s right. I’m just reminding you to be as kind to each other as you would want somebody to be to you.” Jawbone said, and Kristen felt a little bit reassured. She got all out of whack when it didn’t feel like anybody was in charge, and sometimes it felt like neither Sandra Lynn or Jawbone were interested in parenting her so much as they were being her friend. It felt alienating, and then she felt guilty.
“I’m fine.” Adaine said, failing to convince anybody. Her book still sat on the table, and Fig, more perceptive of social cues than Kristen by a mile, clocked what the argument was actually about.
She took a deep breath. “I know I’m not usually very vulnerable-”
Kristen snorted, but averted her gaze in time to avoid the umbrage of Figueroth Faeth.
“Anyways, I know I’m not usually very vulnerable, but I’m trying to work on it. You’re one of my best friends. And I’d break the law to save you if those stuck up elven pricks got you.” Fig finished, pointing her fork at Adaine with conviction.
“You’d break the law for fun.” Adaine said, but she was smiling slightly.
“And to get your kisses in.” Kristen added, smiling wickedly.
“Do I want to know what that’s about?” Jawbone asked, seemingly unsure whether or not to be concerned.
Fig laughed, and kicked Kristen under the table. That certainly felt like home. Her brothers were prone to elbowing and kicking at the dinner table, especially when her mom wasn’t home.
The rest of the table continued conversation as usual, the brief dark cloud lifted from the dining room, but Kristen couldn’t stop thinking about her family dinners. They were probably eating at the same time, and knowing her mom (did she?),it was likely also a casserole. A staple at the Applebees household.
It felt lonely, knowing that a family dinner was going on and she wasn’t there. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t go back, necessarily. It’s just that she imagined that her mom trying to convince her that she needed to break up with Tracker is what hell would look like for her.
Kristen bit her lip. She hadn’t died since the beginning of freshman year. There was a distinct possibility in her mind that now, all things homosexual considered, she might go to hell. Helio was just some frat guy, and what if Yes? couldn’t really fix things for her?
“Can I be excused?” She asked.
“It’s may I. May I be excused.” Adaine corrected. If it were anybody else this would have been very frustrating but Kristen wasn’t even sure that Adaine did it on purpose. She supposed that it could be as absentminded as her starting the dinner prayer before every meal. A remnant of a bygone household.
“You can excuse yourself whenever you like, Kiddo.” Jawbone said, seemingly oblivious to whatever was going on inside Kristen’s head.
Her chair made a loud noise as she pushed it back and made her way towards the kitchen to scrape off her plate and put it next to the sink. It wasn’t Kristen’s turn to do dishes, so she can abscond to her room.
The room she shared with Fig (formerly just Fig’s room) had been divided roughly in two, with all of Fig's childhood things shoved into the closet. This meant both of them were storing their clothes in bookshelves and on top of the dresser, and the room overall looked quite messy.
With the rapid growth of the Faeth household to the Faeth-O’Shaughnessey household to the Faeth-O’Shaughnessey-Assorted claimed children household, beds were in somewhat short supply.
At the moment Kristen had a mattress but no bed frame, and slept opposite Fig, whose baby pink bed frame was in stark contrast with the heavy metal band posters hanging on the walls.
Without bothering to wash her face or say her nighttime prayers (it was up for debate whether or not Yes? needed to be prayed to), Kristen crawled into bed. She didn’t want to go to sleep so much as she wanted isolation.
More than anything else she desired the comfort of pulling up her worn ballerina comforter to her chin, and snuggling in. But she wasn’t at home, and she didn’t have her childhood comforter. Instead she had Fig’s, dyed black over the previous summer, but with faint floral patterns still visible.
Still, when she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was home. That the noises in the kitchen were her brothers squabbling and not two high school friends divvying up the leftover cake from a Faeth family reunion.
A tear rolled down Kristen’s face. At first she cried slow and soft, then hard and snotty. Still, Kristen could cry silently, she had certainly had enough practice last year. Because in the end, this was inevitable. She couldn’t keep living with her parents.
But still, the nagging voice in the back of her head reminded her that all it would take would be for her to be better, and then she could go home. And then they would love her and tuck her into bed.
She clutched her stuffed popcorn kernel to her chest, breathing in the warm scent of home as she tried to self soothe. It was always easier to catch your breath after crying when your mom was holding you.