Work Text:
It’s impossible to shake Mrs. Raymore’s words. They keep looping, over and over, endlessly in her mind. As entrenched as the sound of that…that thing that started all this, that’s burning a hole in the pocket of her jacket, warm and pulsing against her hip like a living thing. Chrys resists the urge to reach into her pocket, to run her fingers along the carved edges of the ghoulish artifact. The pull she’d felt earlier, before, to put it to her lips and blow is gone now but there’s still a whisper in the back of her mind, persistent and insidious, joining that matter-of-fact tone Mrs. Raymore had used when she’d told her and Ellie they were going to die. Memento Mori. Remember you will die.
“You okay?”
Ellie’s voice is startling, which Chrys thinks is a testament to that voice in the back of her mind. How it could make her forget that she was sitting in the passenger seat of Ellie Gains’ car. She blinks, pulling her focus back to Ellie, to the present, to the infuriating way that the sunlight spilling through the car windows makes her hair almost an autumnal red.
“Oh. Yeah.” Chrys shifts, wrapping her arms around herself, mostly because it seems impossible to figure out what to do with her limbs, her body, when she’s so close to Ellie. Her muscles keep wanting to do things without her permission, like reach for Ellie’s hand on the steering wheel. “Just…” Chrys chews the inside of her cheek. “Thinking, I guess.”
Ellie nods, lips twitching like she wants to ask or maybe list off another round of scientifically based, completely logical reasons why a whistle can’t cause their imminent and horrible death. But instead she says, “I need to eat something” in a tone that makes it a directive rather than any sort of suggestion.
Still, Chrys nods because she’s pretty sure if she opens her mouth something incredibly stupid will come out, some sort of jumbled attempt at a joke about a lunch date that really wouldn’t be a joke at all. The inside of her check is raw but she keeps worrying at it.
“Can you grab the peanut butter crackers out of glove box?” Ellie asks, pointing with a lift of her chin. “There’s a diner closer into town that we can stop at but that should be a good for now.”
It comes as no surprise that the inside of Ellie’s glove compartment is a meticulously organized as everything else Chrys has seen about the girl so far. Her car is clean in the type of way that she had never realized a car could be before, smelling faintly of lemon and gardenia and in the glove box there’s a thin stack of carefully folded papers and a few loose hard candies and three packages of peanut butter crackers, one of which she quickly hands over to Ellie. Ellie unwraps the package, keeping her wrists braced against the steering wheel, and Chrys looks out the window because what kind of idiot weirdo watches someone’s hands as they open a freaking pack of peanut butter crackers.
Chrys Willet, that’s who.
“Want one?” Ellie asks, holding the crackers in her direction.
Chrys blinks at her. “Oh, uh…” She can’t remember the last time she’s eaten anything. There’s a press of teeth against her stomach, steadily gnawing away impatiently, revived by the smell of peanut butter. But still, the impulse to say no is right there at the tip of her tongue, the way she’s done with just about everything recently, since her father died. Since it had become so much easier not to need anything from anyone. And she feels like she’s taken so much from Ellie already.
Ellie lifts an eyebrow. “It’s just a peanut butter cracker.” She smirks for half a second before her expression shifts, eyes widening, and she pulls the package back. “Wait, you aren’t allergic are you? I should’ve-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Chrys says quickly, hand darting out to take one of the crackers before Ellie can change her mind. “I’m good. Thanks.” She stuffs it into her mouth with an embarrassing efficiency.
At least that manages to make Ellie smile. “You can grab another pack.”
Chrys shrugs. “No…I’m good. The diner…sounds good.”
Ellie smiles, nodding. “Okay. Cool.”
They split the rest of the crackers and the silence feels comfortable, warm and enveloping and even though there’s a dozen things that Chrys wants to blurt out, to ask, she forces herself to remain quiet. It’s getting harder to remind herself why she needs to keep Ellie at arm’s length, why it would be best for everyone if she did, especially Ellie, and the last thing she needs is for Ellie to give her more reasons why she should give up on that plan. Besides, there’s still something…off. Something that makes Chrys feel like she’s being watched, even now in the cozy shell of Ellie’s car, like there’s someone in the back seat with them right now. She shouldn’t be dedicating more of her brainpower to thinking about Ellie’s perfume than she is to considering the truth of what Mrs. Raymore had to say.
“Do you like The National?”
And Chrys does what she seems to be doing best these days, looking back at Ellie uncomprehendingly like she’s forgotten how someone is supposed to string a sentence together.
“The band,” Ellie adds and if Chrys isn’t mistaken, she blushes, just a little. It’s a dusting of color that goes down her neck, disappearing into the collar of her jacket. She fidgets with something on her phone and then faint sounds of music fill the car, melancholy and slow and quiet. “Or you can pick something.”
“No, it’s good. I…” She shrugs. “I like pretty much all types of music.”
For a brief moment, the words almost spill out, how that was something she and her dad always used to do, how Saturdays they would get bagels and coffee for him, hot chocolate for her and walk around the city looking through different record stores and how he’d tell her about this artist or that song and she’d listen with rapt attention while the cup in her hands warmed her palms and his words warmed the insides of her. How, when things were bad, really bad, he would lock himself in his office and listen to music loud enough that he could pretend nothing else was going on around him and she could always tell what he was feeling based on what songs he was listening to, which was a welcome change because the only thing he ever seemed to be feeling around her was angry. But telling Ellie anything about her, about her dad, is pretty much the opposite of keeping her at arm’s length. And so, Chrys swallows, her mouth tacky with the taste of peanut butter.
Ellie nods, smiling. “Yeah, me too. Like, even the embarrassing stuff.”
“No way. Music can’t be embarrassing.”
“You say that now,” Ellie says with a smirk, “but I had a pretty big Justin Bieber phase when I was younger.”
Chrys lifts an eyebrow. “How much younger?”
Ellie matches her expression, lips quirking. “Not telling.”
“Okay, then, maybe a little embarrassing.”
Ellie laughs as she pulls the car off the main road and into a parking lot and Chrys can’t help the swelling disappointment that moves through her at the idea that they’ve somehow reached their destination. That she has to get out of this car and back into the rest of the world, where it’s not just her and Ellie and Ellie’s easy, perfect smile. But still, she gets out of the car, the wind and chill nipping against her cheeks with the promise that winter is getting closer, that this grey, bleak, bare place she’s found herself in now is only going to get even more empty and dead with the coming cold.
The diner reminds Chrys of the dozens of places just like it back in Chicago, places she used to go with her friends, before, to do homework and goof off after school and then, later, at 2 AM with people she thought were friends but really weren’t, cutting out on checks that Chrys would consider going back to pay in the morning but never actually managed it. The host walks them through the mostly empty restaurant toward the back, where the windows offer a charming view of the parking lot and the smoke stacks from the factory buildings beyond, adding more grey to the already grey sky. Chrys stares at the view rather than looking at Ellie getting comfortable on the opposite side of the booth, though the gunmetal color of everything is no match for the brilliant blue of her eyes.
Ellie flips open the laminated menu, tapping her fingers absently on the surface of the table as she contemplates the options with more focus than Chrys thinks she’s ever seen anyone give a shitty diner menu. But maybe that’s just how Ellie Gains does everything, even befriend awkward junkie girls with dead dads and a clear lack of friends: single-minded determination when she has a target in her sights.
At least Ellie’s focus means that she can’t call Chrys out for watching her in probably the creepiest way possible.
Or, maybe not. Ellie lifts her gaze, pinning Chrys into place with those unavoidable eyes. “Sorry. Counting carbs.” She rolls her eyes. “I can probably do it in my sleep by now.”
“No, it’s fine. You’re fine,” Chrys says quickly, picking up her menu and hiding her face behind it hopefully before Ellie can notice her blushing. “Just…count away.”
Christ.
She isn’t sure what’s worse: Ellie thinking she’s weird for staring at her or Ellie thinking she’s weird about the diabetic thing.
Actually, she knows which one is worse. She’s just not sure which she prefers.
Thankfully, Ellie doesn’t seem any less chipper which the server comes around to take their order, flashing that smile Chrys still can’t believe she waxed poetically about to Ellie twelve hours ago. Maybe she doesn’t need to worry about keeping Ellie at arm’s length; maybe her natural talents will do that for her.
Once the server is gone and the table is cleared aside from rolled silverware and sweating water glasses, Ellie has nowhere else to put her attention but one Chrys Willet and it’s embarrassing how efficiently that smile works, sliding between her ribs and right through any walls Chrys might have imagined she’d put into place over the past year. “So.” She folds her hands on the surface of the table, looking at Chrys like she’s waiting for something that Chrys is so terrified she’ll hand right over.
Chrys clears her throat, shifting, the vinyl of the booth creaking with her movements. “So. I was thinking about what Mrs. Raymore said about-”
“So,” Ellie interrupts with a pointed lift of her eyebrows, “I was thinking maybe we leave the haunted death whistle talk for after lunch and maybe you could tell me something about yourself.” She tilts her head so those perfect curls fall past her shoulders. “Something real.”
Chrys feels her heart stutter, her breath clutching stubbornly at the sides of her throat rather than letting her actually exhale. There’s something about Ellie looking at her and asking for something real, something Chrys isn’t sure she actually knows how to find anymore, that makes her simultaneously want to cry and peel the skin off her bones. Ellie might actually kill her before Death has a chance.
“I…” Chrys manages a laugh that is one step above a choking cough before leaning forward, attempting to match Ellie’s intensity. “I really, really, love the color purple.”
Ellie huffs, rolling her eyes. “Funny.”
Chrys shrugs, slumping back against the booth. “Sorry. It’s just…” She fidgets with the roll of silverware, spinning it around. “Intense.”
Ellie cringes and Chrys immediately regrets the word choice, wishing she could stuff it back down her treacherously tight throat. “Yeah, I know I can get that way sometimes.” Her gaze drops toward the table, her smile faltering. “Sorry. I-”
“Intense can be good,” Chrys blurts out quickly and it’s so horribly embarrassing to have to suffer through the realization that she would do whatever she had to in order to make Ellie smile at her again. “I like…intense.” Including even embarrass herself, apparently. “I just don’t like…talking about myself.”
Ellie’s eyes lift again, a tentative smile back in place. “Come on. Something. What do you want to be when you get older? Dream job.”
Chrys almost laughs in her face, which wouldn’t do much to help with her goal of keeping Ellie smiling. She fidgets with the straw the server had given her, tearing at the paper as she feels Ellie’s question settle over her, heavy and sharp. What does she want to be? Alive. Clean. Someone worth the person her father died trying to save. But the idea of saying those words out loud, even to Ellie, especially to Ellie, makes her feel like something has reached into the softest parts of her and torn her to ribbons.
“Well, ever since I was a little kid,” Chrys says, “I’ve always wanted to be a bank teller. Just something about helping people make deposits." She shrugs. “Feels really noble.”
Ellie is looking at her, lips slightly parted in an expression that betrays her surprise, her inability to figure out exactly what she’s supposed to say to something like that. “Oh. That’s really-”
“I’m kidding.” Chrys laughs, putting the straw to her lips and blowing so that the paper still left hits Ellie right in the forehead. “Who actually dreams of being a bank teller? Not that I didn’t appreciate watching you try to figure out how to make it seem like you didn’t think it was stupid.”
Ellie flicks the paper back in her direction, shaking her head. “It’s not stupid,” she protests. “I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who dream of the exciting life of…deposits and withdrawals.”
“I guess we can’t all be like Dr. Gains,” Chrys teases. “Maybe I don’t know what I want to be yet, huh?”
Ellie smiles at her and Chrys hates it, she really does. How long she’s spent hardening herself against the world after waking up in the ER to find out that the wrong person survived. How quickly it is all undone. “Sounds exciting.”
How easily Ellie reminds her of everything she’s always, so desperately, wanted.
There’s no menu to hide herself behind this time but Chrys can only hope that Ellie doesn’t notice her ears reddening at the words. It feels too much like a compliment. “What kind of doctor do you want to be?”
It’s safer, much safer, to ask Ellie about herself instead. And a much more interesting topic of conversation, if Chrys says so herself.
“I know I want to focus my work in the ER,” Ellie says without hesitation, likely having answered this exact question from every adult she’s crossed paths with since entering high school. “That’s where I’ve been working for the past year and, I mean, they mostly just have me doing paperwork, changing out sheets and stuff but I’ve definitely seen plenty of all the horrible things that can happen to someone.”
Chrys snorts. “Don’t sound so excited about it.”
Ellie nudges her foot under the table and Chrys jumps at the touch. “You know what I mean,” she says with a shrug. “Just…you have to always be level-headed, no matter what happens. A split second is all you have to figure out what you need to do, how to save someone’s life. It’s just…” Ellie seems to catch herself suddenly, shrugging, sheepish. “Intense. I know.”
“I like intense,” Chrys says again. “Intense is good.”
Ellie presses her lips together, doing a poor job of hiding away her smile. “Thanks. But you aren’t going to distract me, you know?”
“Distract you? What do you mean?”
Ellie lifts her eyebrows. “You still haven’t actually told me anything real. I mean…do you even like purple?”
Chrys scoffs. It would be so easy to reach across the table and take Ellie’s hand. Or even stretch her leg out and nudge Ellie’s foot with her own. Is this real enough? she could ask. Because it’s probably the most real I’ve felt since my dad died.
But dead dads and junkie daughters are a bit too real, if experience has taught her anything. So her hands still firmly in her lap, her feet pulled out of reach of Ellie’s. “Yeah,” she says. “I love purple.”
“And…?”
Chrys feigns innocence. “And?”
Ellie sweeps a hand at her, palm up, like she’s expecting this little nugget of Chrys’ life to be placed gently inside. Or maybe she’d settle for Chrys’ hand instead, settle for pressing their palms together so that she can feel the Ellie’s steadily beating pulse against her own.
“Okay, ladies, here we go.”
The server doesn’t waste any time dropping the plates down onto the table, the rattling of dishes and the brusque refilling of water glasses honestly the best thing that Chrys thinks has happened to her recently. Saved by the bell, or, you know, the French toast.
Ellie seems less than impressed, twisting her mouth as she stares at Chrys across the table. “What auspicious timing,” she says dryly.
Chrys just gives her a grin, picking up her fork. “Thanks so much,” she says to the server, who is already heading off to check in with another table. She starts cutting into her stack of syrupy French toast with an enthusiasm that she hopes will deter any further questions. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”
Ellie picks up her own fork, clicking the tines briefly against the side of her plate before she says, “Who named you Chrysanthemum?"
Chrys falters, her fingers briefly flexing around her fork, before she spears a piece, trying to ignore the twinge in her chest. “My mom.” Before Ellie can follow up, she says, “How do you think Mason got the whistle? Did he take it? I feel like he would have to know better than to mess around with all that stuff, right?”
Ellie’s brow furrows, her lips pressing together. “Hmm…I don’t know…” She seems momentarily distracted, cutting into her food and lost in thought. Thankfully. “It doesn’t seem like the type of thing Mrs. Raymore would just leave sitting around.”
“It was weird…when I found it for the first time it was like…I dunno. Like the whistle wanted me to blow it.” Chrys shifts and suddenly she feels all too aware of the thing in her pocket, that press of carved wood against her skin, even through layers of clothing. There might as well be nothing between them for how close it feels to her, how warm.
Ellie crinkles her nose. “Whistles can’t-”
“Yeah, I know, Dr. Gains,” Chrys interrupts with a smirk. “No scientific proof of blah blah blah.”
Unfortunately it seems like she’s not entirely out of Ellie’s reach. It’s all too easy for Ellie to give her another nudge beneath the table, playful and annoyed, the press of the toe of her shoe into Chrys’ thigh like a fist squeezing her heart. “It’s the ‘blah blah blah’ that really makes it sound like I know what I’m talking about.”
When Ellie giggles, her nose crinkles up, the wrinkling of skin potentially the cutest thing Chrys has ever seen in her life. Somehow she manages to keep her composure and manages not to choke on all the French toast she’s been desperately shoveling in her mouth to keep herself from blurting out anything stupid. “I mean, I know you’re right,” she says around a mouthful, certainly not her best look, “it’s just superstition.”
Ellie nods but even as she does, her smile falters somewhat, that wrinkle between her eyes only deepening into a furrow, eyes darkening. “Yeah. Still…it is weird…isn’t it? I feel like I’ve seen…” She trails off, letting the words linger between them for a moment, her gaze far away. It makes Chrys feel cold, looking at her, that distant expression, the pinch of her lips, like whatever has been following her all day has just trailed an ice cold finger down the length of her spine.
But then Ellie blinks, shaking her head, forcing a smile. “Probably just a low blood sugar moment.”
Chrys frowns, reaching into her pocket, tightening her hand around the artifact. The carved grooves press into her skin, like teeth. It’s one thing to contemplate Mrs. Raymore’s words when thinking about her own death, that lurking figure she’s more and more certain she’d seen last night in the trees after all. It feels entirely different to think about Ellie calling death toward her, not when she seems like the most alive person Chrys has ever known.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s probably all just coincidence.”
Ellie nods and for the first time, the silence between them feels jagged and taunt, fraught with something Chrys doesn’t want to have to put a name to.
As they finish their food, Ellie seems content to give up on the third degree, instead telling a story that involves Rel and Grace and the Harvest Festival when they were freshmen. Chrys tries to listen instead of wondering if mysteriously violent Aztec Death Whistles take precedent over a potential date invitation to said Harvest Festival or not. The sound of Ellie’s voice at least quiets the rest of the noise in her mind, the constant soundtrack of her father’s desperate voice and the sound of breaking glass, twisting metal. It makes everything else recede into the back of her mind, just a little.
It’s disappointing for a number of reasons when the server finally clears their plates and brings their checks and the excuse to draw out this blessedly normal moment with Ellie comes to an end. Chrys shoves her hands into her jacket pockets as she follows Ellie back outside, curling her fingers to avoid brushing against the artifact persistently weighing her down. Does she ask about the Harvest Festival? Follow Ellie’s lead? Does she dare to-
Ellie turns to look at her across the hood of the car, lifting an eyebrow. “Are you down for another pit stop? You bringing up Mason gave me an idea.”
Chrys exhales, bobbing her head quickly. “Yeah, definitely.”
I’m up for anything, she wants to say, which might be the most dangerous combination of four words in the English language.
Somehow, though, it feels a little less terrifying to be saying them to Ellie.