Chapter Text
The moon lit the roads up brightly, and as they passed the warehouses south of the docks, the buildings became dingier, grayer and more decrepit. Behind one, a fire blazed in a barrel, a group of unhouse people huddle around it for warmth. Yards and bushes here were less maintained, and they stopped before a house with unconscious people in the yard. Linda flinched as she saw one teenager, arm tied off, needle still stuck in, nodding off against the porch.
“Tina? Baby? You in here?” The distinctive accent rang across the living room as Linda gingerly picked across bodies and beer bottles.
“Tina?” Bob called, crouching near a girl wearing the same blue outfit Tina had been wearing last night. He hesitated before touching her shoulder them sighed in relief when his daughter rolled over. “Lin, I got her.” He felt for a pulse, then lifted Tina into his arms. “Oh, God.” He mumbled under his breath. “She’s heavier than I expected. Okay.” They strapped her into the back seat , and Bob gently smoothed a blanket over her.
The immediate fear began to dissipate but rather than relief it only left them bone-deep exhausted. This was the fourth time this week they’d been out looking for her, and they didn’t expect it to be the last. Their eyes met across the center console as Bob slid into the driver seat and saw the lost hopeless feeling mirrored by their partner.
If somebody had told them they’d be strapping a drunk, high Tina in to their car at 2 am , trying to figure out what she’d taken this time and whether she’d taken too much they’d never have believed it. They would have been very wrong.
Bob was mostly exhausted, and a little sad; Linda determined, scared, but empathetic. Louise, however, was increasingly furious with her sister.
"No. Why are you babying her?" Louise demanded, following Bob down the hall to Tina's room. "Don't tuck her in. She made her choice." And it wasn't us. Louise does not admit out loud that she is hurt by Tina's choices, perplexed by Tina's decisions to follow Tammy around again, devastated but unable to do more than watch the downward spiral.
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Tina blinked awake the next morning. Everything ached, her mouth tasted like she'd choked down plain aioli and her head was pounding. She couldn't tell if she was hung over or coming down from - well, whatever she'd taken last night. Pills of some kind, anyway. Probably ecstasy, she thought, which made her a person who could talk to people, and oxy which made her anxiety less loud. Her hair was ratted and she had a vague memory of an equally trashed Oliver and his boyfriend trying to do - something - with her hair. Braid it, maybe. She first needed a shower, she decided, gathering clothes for the day and a towel. She had a bruise on her shoulder and a hickey on her neck, both of which she had no recollection of getting, and hoped the two were not related, or if they were that Jimmy Jr had given them to her. if she thought hard, she remembered disappearing under the docks with him before they'd all relocated to a house. He'd said something about a fight with Zeke and being upset, then he'd kissed her -
She brushed her teeth and then set about scrubbing herself clean, trying hard not to think too much about any of it. She was in control of her life. She was.