#ch: jemima flowers

[magpiewritingthing]

where the girls run

Series: flowers

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Summary: With her twin missing in the Henbane, the second Junior Deputy steps foot back in Faith’s domain.

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Warnings: mentioned past child abuse & sexual assault & harassment, nongraphic violence, canon character death, one use of the c word

Other notes: not entirely sure on Faith's voice here tbh lmao 8);;;;; concrit would be welcomed in that area mostly

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Jemima remembers nothing of prayers, only the fear she used to feel when the old man used to rant and rave and the old man’s wife would only sit with indifference (or fear, she doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, anyway). Mom and Dad are agnostic, and raised her and Jason that way, instilling a sense of polite scepticism; at the very least, they were polite with Jerome and Joseph equally -- before they’d left to see Mom’s sister in Indiana for the week. Thinking of them now, as she steps a booted foot into the Henbane River, she hopes they’re still there, and didn’t return early to this hellhole.

The sickly-sweet stench of the Bliss irritates her nose. She sneezes, and does her best to wipe her nose, keeping her eyes beady. Hallucinations are likely, which she knows well, Solomon’s image outlined with hazy and glittering green imprinted on her brain for the foreseeable future, as long as her memory never starts to deteriorate. A baby’s cry hurts worse, of course.

She knows that Jason came here not long after returning from the Mountains, blood having formed patterns on his shirt. The Resistance had trusted him to take care of Faith, after having dispatched the Whitetail region of Jacob (despite the deaths of several Whitetail Militia, and especially their leader, Eli Palmer, staining his shirt and his hands just as much), and Jemima had to focus on John, and getting Hudson out of that rathole bunker. Jemima had finished with John (and would’ve taken the Baptist’s head -- for herself, for Mary May, for Nick, for Kim, for Carmina, for Joey, for the entirety of Holland Valley, for her brother, and God, if there is a God, she’d swear by that cunt’s hypothetical existence that she would’ve taken Jacob’s head, too, if Jason hadn’t told her to stay far away from the mountains), and had immediately set off in search of her brother who no-one had heard from in two days. Complete radio silence conjured up nightmares of Jason as an Angel, and more of him shooting himself in the head.

A Bliss bullet hits her in the leg. Natch!

Faith scares her. Joseph does too, in a way, with his hold and influence, a human epicentre of doom and disaster. John -- oh, John enraged her more than she could be scared of him, but she was, and was scared of Jacob although she never met him. The potential of their power (those that were alive) was something that gave her pause, made her think about wanting and wishing to turn back, redo this arrest business, get the National Guard involved, for fuck’s sake -- but one has to be brave, be very brave, to fight evil things. Oh yes, like a knight in shining armour fights a fearsome dragon. Of course, of course, Jemima is that exact kinda knight, isn’t she? Delusions of grandeur! It was a toss-up between PRIDE or WRATH on her chest -- the latter won out. At least later, if she survives long enough, she can turn it into something cool. Easier to minimise these horrible things rather than to face them with real bravery, she finds.

“Hello, Jemima.”

“Hey, Faith. Girl time?” Just two young women hangin’ out in a bunker, ya know.

“Sure! That’s why you came back, right?”

She doesn’t like the way that’s phrased, but then again, Faith scares her the most out of the Seeds. Ah, your would-be sister. She needs to stop thinking like that, in wistful would-bes and coulda-beens, but it’s difficult with the Bliss starting to take a real hold. The after-effects, the way it still lingers after the initial shot.

“I guess.” Playing along, and slurring just a touch. She’d come here for that? Or to kill Faith? And upset Joseph some more? If he even gives a flying shit about Faith, and not just what she means to the Project. But then the same might come into question about his brothers. Her mind’s going to fast to pin these thoughts down and pump them full of that sweet-ass coherence juice, though. Shame. If she weren’t drugged up to the eyeballs, and drowning under it still with every minute passing, she’d probably be able to outline a neat little essay-style thing about it all. Arguments and counter-arguments and all.

Faith seems to be enjoying this, of course, kicking her legs off the desk. Yeah, of course she’s the kinda girl to sit on desks. Jemima would to, if she weren’t tied to a rather sturdy chair (without wheels!) and starting to slouch in it. Does this Bliss shit just jellify your bones? The fuck?

The sister laughs. Faith (or Rachel?) or Jemima or both (all three), it’s not immediately clear, but Jemima is smiling because she heard it and it sounded good. “Did I say that out loud?” she asks.

“Yes, you did. And you should know already,” Faith says, slipping off the desk and booping Jemima on the nose, which is kinda annoying because now it feels like she has to rub it but she can’t because she’s tied up and wow! that's annoying! But Faith keeps talking, like her brothers: “It doesn’t turn your bones to jelly, but it can do that to your mind if there’s too much.” Angels. Ah. For a moment, she’d forgotten about the real horror of what can happen, having been lost in a good ol’ laugh with Funny Faith.

“Oh yeah,” she says quietly, then asks, suddenly panicking as a spark of memory stabs through green fog: “Where’s Jason? And Sheriff Whitehorse?”

And now Faith looks disappointed. It makes Jemima want to shrink into a ball. Reminding Faith about Whitehorse brings up what he’d said before, and what everyone else had regurgitated before him: that Faith was a liar and a manipulator and nothing she said could be trusted. Tracey, she thinks, is the only person closest to the truth about Faith, but even then, that was more about Rachel Jessop from before. A manipulator and a liar -- Jemima believes that, but it can’t be about everything. Not when she knows about that kinda truth.

Not personally. Or at least, not close enough to count it as such. Or is it? If it were anyone else who's heartrate spiked up when someone had presumed enough familiarity or boldness or confidence to not face consequences of any kind, Jemima would argue so. A hand on the hip -- what is that? Just flirting. It’s only ever “just flirting”. It’s the only most-dangerous thing anyone had dared try with her. College: what circle of Hell is that? Jemima counts herself lucky that she could choose, that she chose Solomon. Sweetest Solomon, too good for her, too kind, too understanding, and he would’ve been all that still if she’d chosen the other choice. She might’ve still had him.

“They’re elsewhere.” Short answer, and she worries more about her twin than about her boss (a girl is a liar only, and a girl is dispensable, it’s only trouble not worth getting into, only lies and manipulation and attention-seeking from a little girl with glaring bruises in a nice house and a nice town and a nice fucking county), but Faith’s recovered with a smile that Jemima will pretend she’s not questioning. “I heard you were coming to see me,” her voice is sickly-sweet, the sound translation of the smell of Bliss, “so I made sure they weren’t in the way so we could have our little girl talk in peace. Boys, you know?” Hands clasp on the arms of the wooden chair, and the stench of Bliss is so strong this close-up it makes Jemima’s eyes water, and she turns her face away to avoid looking the other girl (woman, she’s an adult woman now, she’s older than you for fuck’s sake, barely but still) in the eye. “They take up your time, they waste your time, they want to make your time all. about. them.”

Is this Faith? She is so angry. It’s not very Faith-like to be angry, is it? Not so viscerally.

“They do,” Jemima agrees, finally meeting Faith’s eye again, knowing and remembering several who fit the bill from school and college. Some of the guys at the station, too, come to think of it. Then she blurts out, “I believe you.” It seemed important to say, because Faith knows what everyone else is saying, and has said, and will continue to say about her, from way back then until the day she dies. Faith is not blind nor deaf to this.

It makes Faith lean back, looking more like Rachel might when faced with someone taking her side for once (Tracey did, Tracey tried, you must remember this, you are not unique to knowing Rachel and Faith), before it washes away again under a plaster smile, pearly teeth on display. “I know you do,” sounds like I knew you would, and it sounds like relief, but not quite trust. Forehead-to-forehead, she repeats, “I know you do.” Jemima closes her eyes then, leaning into this physical contact that Faith's allowing, because Faith might need this, something soft even if momentary.

Peace is spoiled by a baby’s crying, and Jemima whips her head away, this way and that, raw panic strangling her as she pulls and rattles at the rope that’s tight around her arms and torso. “Where is she?” she shouts, starting to cry and thrash in her chair.

Faith looks at her with odd fascination, like watching an insect. Then there’s more noise outside -- gunfire -- and Jemima howls because she can’t find her, and then Faith is gone yet again, and Jemima is left with Rhoda’s screeching cries in her ears, and fear for Jason's safety.

                                                                                     ---

Jason couldn’t bring himself to kill again, not even now when he was still wearing the same clothes unwashed. Not even a smart remark would seem to snap him out of his seemingly lasting stupor. It’s the shock, she tells herself. So it’s Jemima who takes to drowning instead. She’s not sure it’s worked, because when she turns to look back at the body, it’s disappeared. She has an hysterical thought: maybe Faith was never real.

She decides it doesn’t matter, since Joseph releases two barrels full of Bliss in front of the church.