#ellenmissouri

[magdaclaire]

my heart a rotary phone and yours the only number i dial

my ellenmissouri fic is officially fully done and posted on ao3

over the course of their lives, ellen harvelle only saw missouri moseley in person three times. a night, a long weekend, a month. over the phone, she still manages to be the throughline of her life.

[magdaclaire]

anyway stream my heart a rotary phone and yours the only number i dial

[magdaclaire]

call me whenever you’d like

a continuation of this, as ellenmissouri is still eating my frontal lobe

There's a lot of reasons to hate the hunter community, all said. So many lives lost that Ellen couldn't count them all if she tried, names she doesn't even remember anymore that have passed through the doors of The Roadhouse since her daddy opened it all that time ago. It's dangerous work, and a callous memory to be lost to, a cause with no great end. It can wear a person right through.

Any reason to hate it, at least the Campbells still let her know when Mary passes away.

The idea of not knowing is something that could have kept her up at night for years, waiting for Mary's one more phone call, waiting to know if she was okay, if she was even alive (she isn't, she isn't, Mary's dead, and Ellen can barely feel her hands), she's glad Mary's brother took care of things. Body already burnt like any hunter, at least Mary got a gravestone. God above, Mary's boys. What'll happen to Mary's boys? Sure enough, Mary's husband- John, Noah, something biblical- would take care of them, raise them how Mary would've, but no one could do anything quite like Mary could.

Even dead, Ellen can't let her be anything less than perfect in her head. A girl made of fireflies. A mother in flames.

Ellen's chest hurts, feels fit to burst, but there's more to be done than just grieve. There always is. She grabs the phone off the hook and twists her fingers in the chord, dialing a number so familiar she doesn't even look at where it's carved into the wall above the phone anymore. Well, that's almost true. Something nervous in her always checks the last two digits, doesn't trust her head more than her eyes however that may be, but she punches it in accurate and accepts the long distance cost.

"Hello Ellen Joleen," Missouri says as soon as she picks up the phone. Ellen smiles for the first time all day. Missouri never checks before she leaps right in.

"Hey Miz," she says, the familiarity smoothing in a little levity despite it all. Despite the occasion. She climbs onto the counter beside the phone jack and leans her head back against the cabinet.

"Hey sweetheart. How you holding up?"

"Not that well, as it happens. I've... got something to tell you," she says, her lips pressed together like an envelope closing up her sentence, the tension across her shoulders enough to make her clench her teeth.

"I- I know, Ellen," Missouri says, and Ellen's eyebrows crease. Oh no, not...

"Oh, Miz." There are times when she hates the lot that Missouri was served in life, even as much as Missouri has told her that she wouldn't rather it go to somebody else. She closes her eyes, bites her lip. Readies herself. She isn't ready.

"She was wearing a nightgown, El- our Mary! A nightgown! And she was trying to protect her baby, El, she didn't have any weapons on her or anything, Mary," Missouri rambles, her voice slowing out to accommodate the pace of her tears. Mary Campbell, known to have at least two guns and two knives besides, holy water coming off of her by the gallon, their Mary, died empty handed. Died protecting her child without anything to protect him with. A demon death nearly a decade after she had gotten out. Ellen catches her temple on the door handle of the cabinet, but strange enough, it doesn't feel like it matters much. And Missouri had to see that.

"Oh honey." Ellen means to say more, but Missouri. But Missouri.

"And there was no one to tell! Couldn't warn her civilian husband, couldn't call you, have you stuck in the same vicious waiting period I always am, just telling people that horrible things are going to happen and never being able to stop what I see. I saw her, Ellen. On that ceiling. On fire. Bleeding." Missouri's voice is thin, reedy, makes Ellen want to hold her fingers between her own, feel Missouri's heartbeat in her palms. Make sure she felt her there too. 

"And you were alone with it. And I never want you to be again, alright? Missouri Rose, you call me if you see something you don't need to bear alone. You shouldn't have had to hold that by yourself, now. I'm here. Lean on me, darlin'," she requests, her face unconsciously tilted up, her socked feet knocking slightly against the wooden base of the counter. They don't have Mary any longer, so much as they even had Mary in the last few years at all. What she knows is that she's going to do whatever she can to make things easier for Missouri. Whatever Missouri will let her.

"And what? Call you every time I see something? Bother you every day with my most innocuous visions of what might happen, even if it's not important? I could waste a lot of your time like that," Missouri says, the purse of her mouth clear as day through the sound of her voice, and Ellen loves knowing someone so well. A few more phone calls from Missouri Moseley certainly wouldn't run amiss around here. 

"If that's what it takes? Missouri, you can call me whenever you'd like. Day, night, in the small gray hours of the morning, doesn't matter much to me. I'm never gonna turn you away, okay? I'll always believe you. You know that, right?" she asks, making her voice a little harsher, rougher, her meanness coming out a little through her nose. It always gets her when they do this. Try to take everything on by themselves. Missouri and Mary used to do it both. Just because she doesn't get active in the hunting scene much anymore since her knee got blown out doesn't mean she can't do the work.

"I- Of course, El. Of course I know that. Believing me doesn't always mean you wanna hear every single vision, though, does it?" There's a sarcastic lilt to her voice, as if Ellen is doing something terribly naive again. She doesn't care. What's naivety in a world like this?

"Maybe I just think you deserve to be heard. To talk about it. I can help, Miz. Let me help," she requests, throwing it out as her last ditch effort into coaxing Missouri into allowing Ellen to help to carry some of the load. Missouri gives her a disapproving tut, only a little bit tinged by her sadness.

"Now, you're not playing fair, Ellen Joleen," she says, sniffling just a bit. What Ellen wouldn't give to hold her. To see her. They've only met in person twice, but Ellen doesn't think there's anything she wouldn't do for this girl. It's the least she deserves.

"Life hasn't been fair to you, Miz. I'm setting out on evening scores," Ellen says, her voice barely more than a whisper, the receiver pressed so hard against her jaw that it'll hurt if she keeps leaving it like this. Her good leg is pulled up on the counter with her, her bum knee left extended so it can get a little rest. There's hair coming out of her ponytail. She's not paying any mind to any of it.

"Eventually, I will see something that hurts you again," Missouri reminds her, her voice harder again. She's building her resolve to argue her way out of this again. Ellen frowns.

"And I won't blame you then, either, sweetheart, what are you worried about? What are you afraid of?"

"All of it, Ellen! I'm afraid of seeing more people die and I'm afraid of telling you about it. I'm afraid that I'll see so much death that one day it will suck every modicum of life out of me, and I'm afraid that one day, you'll notice that it's doing that too. I'm afraid that I will have this, I will have you, and then I won't, El. What if this is what makes you tired of the future? Tired of-"

"Tired of you?" Ellen asks, not wanting to let Missouri work herself to any more of a fit than she was already.

"Tired of me," Missouri confirms, steady and hollow. Scared, but sure.

"And what if I don't, Miz?"

"What if you don't?"

"What if I never get tired of you? What if I want you to share everything that fucks you up? What if I don't want you to be alone? What if I want to be the one that's with you? What if I never want us to stop calling each other and talking? What if I wanna know it all?"

"Then one day, I'll lose you too. You'll die, Ellen. And I'll see it. And I won't be able to stop it."

"So you never want to have me at all? Five, ten, twenty, hell, maybe thirty years of this, of us, we could have that, and you're willing to miss out because you don't wanna lose me? Miz, I'll die either way, baby. You'll die either way. You decide when the grief hits. We've already lost Mary," she says, and the wound is somewhere deep within her that might never heal, but different, maybe, then it wouldn't have been if they had been close in the years before Mary's death. Mary had called her every now and again, of course, but not nearly so often as Missouri has in the last years. There's a metallic sound on the other side of the line.

"You're not pulling any punches today, my dear," Missouri says, and Ellen can hear her pull on a cigarette. Missouri smokes inside often enough Ellen could recognize the sound anywhere. She hits her head back against the cabinet again.

"I'm trying to convince you to let me help take care of you. In what world would this be the battle I chose to begin pulling my punches during, babe?" she asks, wishing a little bit that she had a cigarette of her own, but she's trying not to smoke inside anymore. At least not in the kitchen. Makes the food taste weird.

"I am ill equipped for logic right now, Ellen, dear. Perhaps try again next time." Ellen raises a brow.

"So you will be calling next time then?" she drills in, unable to let it go when she knows that her friend, her Missouri, is hurting. She can't let her keep thinking it's alright that she does it alone.

"Well, I would hate to disappoint, wouldn't I?" Missouri teases, sounding all buttoned back up and presentable, and sharp edged Missouri Rose Moseley, perfect and pressed and nothing less than impressive. Ellen smiles despite it all.

"And so you would. You gonna be okay, sweetheart?" she asks, just one last time. Never can be too sure. Missouri chuckles.

"I always am, dear. I'll call you soon?" she asks. Ellen nods, even if Missouri can't see it.

"I'll pick up."

[magdaclaire]

call in the mourning

this is the final part and it’s the only one that its title isn’t directly referencing from the text. such is life. parts one two three and four.

ellenmissouri five part fic about grief and mourning and being a seer and a seer’s best friend. will be on ao3 soon in full.

It's all she can do not to fall all to pieces in the next day she's waiting for her best friend to die and for a man she doesn't trust to come back with the news. It's not like she can tell Jo what's ailing her, shortening her temper and winding her tighter than a clock, but it's not like the kid is oblivious. She's little still, but she reads people in that way Bill does, head tilted just a little bit to the side like she's looking right through you, not even five years old. She's brave like her Daddy too. Never afraid to tear Ellen a new one when she thinks she could be knowing better.

God, how's she supposed to do this alone? How does anybody do this alone?

Missouri is gonna be here in a day's time. She promised. Missouri Moseley isn't one to go back on a promise. She should be able to keep it together without a promise from anyone, let alone the woman she- the woman that- she isn't sure what she and Missouri are. What they always have been.

They had started calling about a week after Mary and Missouri cleared out of the Roadhouse, always Missouri ringing her line at first, before she found a place to settle down. Ellen used to pace up and down the hallway by the phone, wait for a phone call from Missouri that might not come for weeks, fingers tapping away against each other and haired pinned up tight. Before her Daddy died, he would look at her sideways for it, tell her to get back out to the bar if she was feeling so restless. So, Ellen did. She worked the bar through her worry over the elusive phone calls, and the phone calls still kept coming, until one day, something changed. Missouri gave her a number to call her back on, and Ellen was so excited she didn't even go to grab a paper and a pen, instead grabbing her knife straight from her pocket and carving it directly into the wall.

The moment after the impulse was through, she was almost glad her Daddy died in that month prior. It was the first time she ever had a thought like that. Now that she's further distanced from it, able to see her Daddy as who he was instead of who his daughter wanted him to be, she thinks it's okay. It's okay to have little moments of gratitude that her home is her own now. Even if how she came across her freedom is by losing her father. It's okay to let herself feel more than just the pain.

She reminds herself of that when she's putting Jo to bed that night, the routine quicker because Bill isn't around to slow it down. She supposes he might never will again. She supposes something Missouri sees might not happen. Just because she's seen no evidence of Missouri being wrong so far doesn't mean there never will be.

She can't even doubt Missouri for the sake of hope. Her bed catches her in a warm embrace even as she gets in it alone, and even so often as that's true, tonight, it feels final. Tonight, her loneliness, and not even that but her lonesomeness itself seems true. The whims of her emotion coming to fruition beneath her bed sheets.  The blanket is both too heavy and not heavy enough. There are no lights outside her window. She allows herself to think, just this once, about leaving the Roadhouse. Going out into the world and living in a big city with lights outside the windows, never hearing anything about hunting ever again save for what Missouri tells her. Maybe a call from Bobby and Rufus every now and again. Getting Jo into some city girl ballet program, or softball, or whatever the hell she wants. Being somewhere besides where she's always been.

It never changes the world to fantasize. Her bad knee aches even as she falls asleep.

Missouri arrives just after lunchtime, just when Jo has been put down for her nap, and John Winchester pulls in right after her. Ellen is barely holding herself together when she opens the door to let them both in. John Winchester tries to interrogate her and Missouri both about Missouri's presence in Ellen's house, as if he has any right, but Ellen pushes him to get the point: the location of her husband. With a hung head, Winchester leads her out to the back of his Chevy Impala, some twenty year old car you could hear from a mile away. Bill is sitting in the backseat, Winchester having sat his body up almost like he had climbed in there himself, hands crossed over his lap.

In a wild moment of errant thought, it might be the queerest way Bill has ever sat. Ellen doesn't know if the sound that comes from her then is a laugh or a choked off sob. Missouri takes her in her arms either way.

"Oh god, he's gone," she whispers. It's mostly to herself but Missouri hugs her tighter anyway, holds her up as Ellen's legs go weak beneath her. She'll be alone. Missouri will be here for two weeks, four weeks at most, and she'll be alone. No more sleeping through it when Jo climbs into bed with them, knowing that Bill will help her in. No more checking out the clientele with her best friend. No more of Bill's special daiquiris. No more Bill.

"I know, baby. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," Missouri says, a breath against Ellen's hair, fingers wrapped around her shoulder. God, how's she gonna do this? John Winchester leaves them alone with his car, walking away with his hands up and clasped behind his head as he walks away like it makes him look any more interesting for not knowing how to deal with an emotional situation. No one knows how to deal with emotional situations. Like most things, it all starts getting better when you start trying. How does she start packing this into smaller boxes? She's gotta make it smaller before Jo wakes up. She inhales a breath like fire and picks herself up off of Missouri's shoulder, wiping the tears from off her face. Start moving on the way you move anywhere: one step at a time.

Daddy always was good for a phrase or two. There are things he said that she'll remember her whole life through. Nobody's fault that as many of them are bad as good. She separates herself from Missouri and steps toward John, catching his attention before she's even come very far. So, his instincts are bad enough he can get Bill killed, but good enough to hear her coming. Ain't it typical? What's done is done.

"John, um," she says, and then she clears her throat, steels herself so her voice won't shake. "Can you take him out to the backyard for me? We're gonna have to build a pyre. Long as he's been in the game, Bill's known to want a hunter's funeral. We're gonna give it to him." She waits for John to give her a nod, which he does with a hard clench of his jaw that she doesn't care to impact, and she turns to go back to the bar. Missouri falls into step with her without a word of question, without even looking at her like she's batshit insane, and Ellen admires the loyalty, truly. She doesn't know if she could keep the same level of tempered calm that Missouri's putting off if a friend were doing what Ellen is doing. If a friend were acting how she's acting.

"Whatever you feel you need to do right now, Ellen Joleen, that's going to be the right thing to do. There is nothing that you could do that would make me think you're anything less than you've always been. I am here for you. All I want to do is help. You're not gonna scare me away," Missouri says. Ellen has always known she could read minds, has known since Missouri's too-wise eyes caught her cross ways across the bed when she was too old to be having girls sleeping over in her bed but too young to know better, to punch drunk in puppy love to stop herself from letting herself have everything. She never thought about what it would be like to have nothing after that. Mary's gone. Now Bill. Jesus and all the apostles.

"I don't know how I'm gonna do this, Miz," she says, her voice cracked and quiet as she opens the door to let them back into the back. Another twisted little moment, and she's almost laughing again. Fuck. What is she going to do? Mary's dead, Bill's dead, Daddy's dead, and Jo? Jo's the most alive thing she's got. If everything else in this life is going unsettle these waters, she's gotta keep this boat steady for Jo.

"We'll get through this. You and me," Missouri promises, and she holds her hand out for Ellen to take. It's not a command, or even a request. Merely an offer. And Ellen is getting worse and worse at denying herself the pieces of Missouri that she is allowed to have, more and more amenable to the gentle offers Missouri extends her, the displays of kindness and care. Bill was her best friend, and it should be said that he never let her go it alone. But God, if someone would touch her. If someone would hold her, and do it like they meant it, hold her like they want her in their hands. She and Missouri have been speaking into each other's ears for years now, and she knows Missouri better than just about anybody left in this world. She grabs Missouri's hand in her own. She laces their fingers.

"You'll be with me?" she asks, because not being sure has never been her friend. Missouri squeezes her fingers.

"Of course, sweetheart. All the way."

John Winchester helps her prepare the pyre and the body. Missouri stays in the house for this part, keeps an eye and an ear out for Jo even if Ellen is letting her have a bit of a long run of her nap this afternoon. She and John don't say much during the process further than the usual pass me that, and sorry, when she checks him in the shoulder with a pretty large stick and when he, she supposes, remembers that he was in attendance when her husband died. He doesn't stick around for much longer after the manual labor is done, Bill's body all wrapped up in his pyre like he was never there at all. She waves John Winchester out of her yard and wishes he had gone sooner.

She still has to wake up her baby and tell her that her Daddy's dead. They've talked to Jo about this before- about how her Daddy does a dangerous job, like cowboys in movies, like firefighters on television (because Bill wouldn't ever let himself get compared to a 'fucking cop, Elly, don't you remember those fuckheads at Kansas City pride that time we caught it?' and Ellen would always laugh and let him have his heroes). Telling her that Bill does dangerous work isn't this same thing. Ellen may not know much, but she knows enough to know that. She taps her knuckles on Jo's door before letting herself in, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Hey Joanna? Jo? You ready to wake up, baby?" she asks, nudging her daughter awake with her gentlest attempts. Jo rolls over and looks up at Ellen like she's been waiting for her all day, grin blown wide open and her eyes just as little-girl-happy as she imagines they could be. She would do anything to not have to tell her. She tells her anyway, stumbling a little bit over her words, but deciding on them well enough as they come. She's grateful for knowing Missouri is in the other room, knowing that she won't be alone once she and Jo come out of this. Jo doesn't understand. Ellen doesn't really expect her to. She'll bring her out for the pyre burning anyway. She can imagine an older Jo, tall as her and still with that attitude, hating her for all she's worth because she didn't get to come to her own Daddy's funeral.

She already knows that Jo is just like her in the worst kinda ways. It's something she might grow out of like Ellen never did, but she has her doubts. Just another thing she never grew out of, maybe.

Jo's excited to see Missouri, even if she's upset about her Daddy not being home; she's spoken to her Mama's friend on the phone a few times, chatted away happily with her while Ellen took care of the dishes, the laundry, something. Missouri teaching her little girl how to use a telephone with the sound of her sweet voice tinny over the distance almost made her feel like Miz was there for real. Now, she is. She's greeting Ellen's daughter with a bow of her head like Joanna is a little member of the royal family or something, giving her a glittering smile and pulling one out of Jo as well. She overhears something Jo says about Missouri finally coming out of the phone, but she can't bring herself out of her head enough to laugh.

Instead, she goes to the kitchen. Jo seems fine. It's because she doesn't understand, but Ellen doesn't know how to explain it better. How did her Daddy do this when Mama died? She remembers sitting by the window, waiting for her Mama to come home. Maybe her Daddy wasn't so good at it either.

"She wanted to watch one of her tapes and color, so I went ahead and set her up in the living room. You alright?" Miz says, startling Ellen as she finds the other woman suddenly standing down the counter from her. She must have walked into the room, might have even said hello, but Ellen wasn't aware of any of it. She really has been out of the game a long time, with this knee and how she's let it take over her whole life. She'll have to get back into shape now that Bill's gone. Somebody's gotta be able to keep up with Jo. It's gonna have to be her.

"No," she says, her voice so quiet it cracks, and Missouri catches her once again when she falls. Two more weeks of this. These arms around her and this body to fall into, this girl and her tender acceptance, this woman and her sweet voice. Missouri cups Ellen's face and moves her to where Ellen has to look at her, tips her face so that their foreheads can rest together. Ellen's breaths come in stilted hitches, her tongue glued to the roof of her mouth as she tries not to cry. Missouri's thumb runs a trail across her cheek.

"Show me what you've got, Elly. You're not gonna scare me away." Her voice is a rasping whisper. Ellen wants to kiss her more than she's ever wanted anything before. She's never let herself want anything like this. 

She's not good at denying herself her simpler desires right now. Missouri has never denied them before.

She doesn't this time either.

[magdaclaire]

the thing is that ellenmissouri makes me feel insane

[magdaclaire]

phone number on the dresser

tonally very different but following parts one and two

Ellen would like it put on the record at the very start that she doesn't have the best feeling about this.

She's not great at- well. She's not great at meeting people. Her Daddy still isn't sure about this business with her working front of the house, and he's got reason enough for his nerves on the matter- she's still not sure who she's becoming. She's hunting sometimes, gun in hand with beautiful girls who send her letters when they can't get her on the phone, but she's also working at the Roadhouse as much as she can, trying tooth and nail to prove that she can do anything that he could have, and that she can do it better than any business owner who would buy them out or any hunter who he could pass off the name to. She's not giving up the goddamn Roadhouse. No matter what her daddy says.

Meeting Mary's seer girl doesn't exactly factor into all of that, now does it?

It's not that Ellen's not willing to believe that she's a seer! She'll give it up that that girl sees dead people and whatall she says, but Ellen's  not truly sure what that has to do with her. Mary has an entire spiel about community and meeting other women their age, introducing Ellen out like she's a debutante girl in the middle of the seasonal high, and Ellen'll be damned if she can say no to her. When she's all fired up, excited, passionate?

It's hard to imagine a soul that could.

Mary's bringing her girl to the Roadhouse, so at the very least, it's in Ellen's house. She's not working tonight so that she can do this. The idea of idleness itches beneath her skin. She's just stood up to wipe a table down when Mary walks in, grinning and beautiful, holding the arm of one of the prettiest women that Ellen's ever seen.

Lord almighty, they just keep making girls prettier all the time.

"Ellen!" Mary effuses as soon as she rests her eyes upon her, her grin only brightening, her arm clasped around her friend pulling them both closer. "Ellen, this is Missouri Moseley," she introduces, and then turns her head as if Missouri hasn't heard Mary say Ellen's name twice now, and says, "Missouri, this is Ellen Harvelle. I think you two will get along." This is said most decisively and with a single nod of Mary's head, as if it will be true simply because she declared it so, and Ellen breaks into a grin.

"I know she said so, but, well, Ellen Harvelle," she says, offering Missouri her hand to shake. Good lord, when was the last time you shook someone's hand, Ellen Joleen? She's pulled from her embarrassment by a giggle. Her eyes snap up to Missouri's, but the other girl just grins, shakes her head at her.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ellen Harvelle. Missouri Moseley, at your service," she replies, taking Ellen's hand in both of her own. She's pretty sure her Daddy could have gotten the shotgun out from underneath the bar and she wouldn't have noticed. She does notice when Mary, beautiful Mary who has a grin on her face like she knows exactly what's going on inside of Ellen's head (just like she always does, menacing girl), clears her throat before she speaks. As if that's ever been subtle.

"Before I forget, El, are we hanging out in the bar or in your room? I just wanna know when I should bring me and Miz's stuff in." It hadn't even occurred to Ellen that they could just hang out in her bedroom. Where her bed is. She and two girls her age. In her bedroom. Where her bed is. For hours. For the entire night, maybe, if they stay long enough that they don't feel like heading along quite yet in the middle of the night.

She thinks her face might be going numb. Girls in her room. Her bedroom. Where she keeps. Her bed.

"Yeah, no, we'll be hanging out in my room, so we can go ahead and grab y'all's stuff if you want," she says, her tone aloud much more casual than her inner monologue, and looks over to see Missouri looking at her with a curious look, tinged with something like fondness. Ellen doesn't know how she could have earned that, so she just turns to follow Mary, her brow furrowed.

A half hour later, the three of them are settled, passing around a bottle of White Horse that tastes like dick. Not that Ellen would know. Not that she ever wants to know. She'd prefer a spliff (just like she'd prefer something else to dick), but can't really be a chooser living out the back of a bar, can you?

God above, that's fucking scary to even think about. She drains about a shot and a half out of the bottle on her next pass of it. When it's in Mary's hand, she puts it down on the bedside table, gaining her the attention of her two compatriots. Mary smiles.

"I'm really happy the three of us got together. I'm really happy the two of you are meeting. You guys are my favorite people in the world. It's nice to... finally get you both. Does that make any sense?" she asks, knees brought up to her chest and her arms pulled around them. Ellen leans back against her pillows, smothering down the urge to reach out and grab Mary's hand. Missouri doesn't seem to feel the same need, grabbing Mary's hand in her own.

"I know what you mean, Mar. I never thought- no one has ever believed me before. Not off hand. Certainly not before even meeting me," she says, cutting her eyes over at Ellen, though she smiles as she's doing it, so it feels more like a good thing than bad. She's never been good at body language; it's one of the things that makes her worse on a hunt, that she can't read another hunter from the body alone too well. It's just that sometimes her body does stuff she isn't thinking about, and she can't always be sure- but this reading Missouri, it's not so hard. She communicates quietly, but in a way that Ellen thinks she might for once understand.

"What reason do I have not to believe you?" she asks openly, shrugging one of her shoulders. "You haven't done anything yet to earn my mistrust, and Mary says you're good for it. So, I'll believe you. Never can have enough friends in these parts anyway," she says, her smiling widening into a grin for a second. Her eyes snap to her lap before she can stop herself from looking down, unable to keep just looking at Missouri and Mary. Both of them are so pretty. Ellen wonders not for the first time what the hell they're doing hanging out with her.

"You know, Ellen Joleen, most people think you should earn their trust, not their mistrust," Missouri tells her, first two fingers placed delicately on Ellen's forearm. Ellen looks up at her with a curious expression, head tilted, yet still unsuspicious.

"How did you know my middle name?" she asks, completely unaware of her own wide brown eyes and the way she almost smiled when she wanted to know something, and she wondered why girls that looked like Missouri and Mary would want to hang out with her. God bless the girl.

"You thought it to yourself when you shook my hand. Good lord, when was the last time you shook someone's hand, Ellen Joleen? real loud right in front of me, the loudest thought I'd ever heard. Clear as a bell. Beautiful," the last word is said to herself, but Ellen hears it all the same, and from the look of it, Mary does too.

"You could hear me? How often can you hear me? The whole time, or intermittently, or only the once?" Ellen asks, not angry in the slightest (in fact, she thinks it's quite cool, because she had thought that Missouri was only a seeing the future kind of psychic- which is also wicked, don't get her wrong!- but this is. Nothing short of truly awesome), but still more and more curious. Missouri's nose wrinkles just a bit, as if she's not sure they're going to like what she's about to say.

"Well, I don't have a very good control of myself yet, and well," Missouri begins, but Mary holds up a hand.

"Miz, I think I can speak for both myself and El when I say that I don't really care what you skim off the surface of my head. You're still learning, babe. As much as I wish that your sight came with instructions, we're still functioning in the world where it didn't," Mary says, hardened in that Mary way, but still slow-paced and easy enough that it's obvious she's not trying to pick a fight. Ellen doesn't know how long Mary and Missouri have known each other (they're both a couple of years older than her, and she's not too good at asking background questions yet), but the comfort between them is comforting to watch. Ellen wants to fit within it somehow. Ellen wants to fit them within her somehow.

"My mind is yours to peruse, Missouri. For the price of one thing, I think," she says, and leans toward Missouri just a bit. Missouri sucks in a breath.

"What'll that be?" she asks, though she looks at Ellen like she doesn't much care what it might be at all, so long as Ellen would allow her to give it. Ellen smiles.

"What's your middle name?" she asks, and Missouri's tension gives way to a chuckle, and Mary laughs as well, putting her feet in Missouri's lap. The circle they're sitting in on Ellen's bed is entirely too close, now with Mary's legs in Missouri's lap in addition to Missouri's legs to the side of Ellen's, Ellen's own legs tucked into the center of their little circle, warm and unthinking of all of their touching skin. God above, she loves girls.

"Rose. I'm Missouri Rose Moseley, Ellen Joleen Harvelle," Missouri answers, her gaze far too heavy on Ellen before she moves it over to Mary, who raises her hand.

"Mary Jane Campbell," she says, her mouth only quirking up to give them a half smile. Ellen's jaw drops.

"You are absolutely joking," she says, unable to stop herself. There's no way. Mary cracks, bursting into laughter.

"Not even a little bit, baby. I don't think my parents have any idea. My brother's all jealous because I have the good name and initials," Mary says, leaning into Ellen in her laughter, and Ellen might stop breathing for a moment, but her ability to recover is admirable, she thinks. She hums don't at Mary.

"What's your brother's name?" she asks, because it occurs to her that she never has before. Mary snickers, pushing her face into Ellen's shoulder.

"Brian Joseph," she says, muffled, but loud enough to be heard. Ellen can't help it as she bursts into giggles.

"Your name is weed and your brother's name is head," she says, falling backwards into her pillows.

"Oh my lord," Missouri says, but her giggles are nearly as loud as Ellen's, and Mary's legs have been pushed out of her lap as she climbs onto the pillows with Ellen. When it's all settled, Ellen ends up on her back with Missouri on her left side and Mary laying on her side on Ellen's right, feeling the most like a girl that she ever has. She's tipsy and Mary's fingers are holding hers splayed out to the ceiling, inspecting the lines of her hands as if they hold the secrets of the universe. Ellen wants to kiss her on the mouth.

"I've never done anything like this before," she says instead, not taking her hand away from Mary and in fact lacing her other hand with Missouri's instead. She doesn't spend a whole hell of a lot of time with people her own age, and certainly not with people like Mary and Missouri. Missouri's fingers squeeze her own gently.

"Me either," both Mary and Missouri say at once, and then they share a smile and a glance over Ellen's body. She doesn't know what else happens that night, doesn't know if Mary and Missouri talk more or if they fall asleep right after she does, but she's pretty sure of one thing: neither of them let go of her hand until Missouri is squeezing her hand and gently shaking her awake.

"Hey, Mar and I have to head out soon. You want to come and grab breakfast with us first?" she asks, and Ellen blinks the sleep out of her eyes and tries desperately not to look as if she's going to be disappointed by them leaving exactly as lately as they said they could stay. She puts a smile on her face.

"Yeah, I'll- uh- I'll be out in a second," she says, and she goes to take her hand away from Missouri's, but the other girl gives her hand one last squeeze before letting her go.

"I left my phone number on the dresser. Just, well. Just in case you'd like to talk to a girl your age again," she says, looking down at Ellen like she might do something, and then she leaves Ellen alone in her room for the first time in at least twelve hours, and it takes all of the control Ellen has in her body to wait til Missouri's at least down the hall to grab her pillow and start screaming. Then, she gets up and she takes Miz and Mary out to breakfast just like she planned to do from the start, and she lets her restlessness settle beneath her breastbone.

Damn Mary for being right.

[magdaclaire]

a phone call away

an ellenmissouri scene that ate my frontal lobe

Dishes. Simple. Run the rag round and round the plates, the pots, the cups, circular motions to soothe the restlessness in her chest. Check in on Joanna Beth. Make sure she's keeping neat while looking through her mama's jewelry, though she doesn't even mind if Jo wants to wear any of it. It's not like she wears much of it these days anyway. Go back to the dishes. Finish them. Lean against the wall and wonder if things are ever going to feel easier, if things are ever going to get. Well. Better.

The phone rings, breaking the quiet that's been settled so evenly over the house for the past few days, it feels like, ever since Bill left on this last trip. Ellen pulls herself together. There's no sense in this.

"Hey Miz," she says, answering the phone on a hunch and getting it confirmed by a hum in a sweet voice, higher than hers, a hum that she could hear Missouri's pursed lips through.

"And how, Ellen Joleen, did you know it was me?"

"It's always you when I feel like this, Miz," she sighs, referring to the sinking feeling in her stomach that nearly always precedes a conversation with Missouri, and always because the other woman calls her first.

"I'm telling you, darling, I think you've got a bit of the sight in you." Ellen frowns, just as she has every other time that Missouri has brought the concept up.

"I think it's just a healthy sense of foreboding. Can't exactly pretend that it's a normal life we lead, as much as we try to make it. Now, did you call just to chat, or did you see somethin'? Because we can talk all day, but if we know somethin' important, I'd rather know sooner than later."

"El, sometimes these things aren't as clear as we want them to be," Missouri says, hemming, hawing and hedging more than she ever has with Ellen, or at least more than she has in the many years that they've been friends. Ellen wraps the phone chord around her fingertips, picking at the tip of her finger with the nail of her thumb.

"Missouri, what did you see?" she asks, and she doesn't know how many years its been since she's called Miz by her given name, but it's enough that she can hear it when Missouri sucks in a breath.

"I think something's happenin' to Bill, Ellen," Missouri says, her voice so near to a whisper it's hard to hear, but it comes through all the same. Ellen just barely keeps her knees from falling out beneath her. Missouri never really thinks something happens. It only ever does.

"How bad is it, Miz?" Her voice is quiet, coaxing, gentle. Missouri is the one going through something right now. The weight of what's happening will come later.

"I think- I think he dies, El," Missouri says, and Missouri never thinks, she only knows, and Ellen's heart drops into her knees. She barely catches a sob before it crashes out of her mouth, muffles the noise with her hand before it can reach the ears of their child down the hall. God, how is she going to tell Jo? That girl worships the ground Bill walks on. Wears his boots around when he steps out of them. Uses his jacket as a blanket. There's no good way to tell a four year old that her dad is dead. No manner of gentling that will make her miss him any less. There's nothing she can do to lessen this for her daughter.

"How do I tell her?" she asks Missouri aloud, knowing that not even Missouri will have an answer for this, but having no one else to say it to anymore.

"You hold that girl and you tell her that you've got her still, even now that her Daddy's gone. You remind yourself you're not alone either. I'm only a phone call away, Ellen Joleen. I may have a family of my own now, but that does not mean I will not get myself a flight out there." Ellen laughs, but it's a harsh laugh, one that quickly turns into another sob she holds back harshly.

"Oh, honey," Missouri says, her voice honey sweet and sympathetic, something Ellen would hate from anyone else, but Miz never says anything she doesn't mean, never means anything she doesn't say. "I'm gonna come out for a visit. Just for the next two weeks. Maybe two more after that if need be. We'll see. That sound okay?"

Ellen can't find it within herself to decline. She's found it within herself to decline most everything, but even she can't deny herself of this.

"It's not too much trouble?" she asks, an out, a chance for Missouri to decline herself, something.

"For you? Never."

Missouri says this as if this won't be the third time they've met in person, the first time they've spent more than a week together. Lightheaded, Ellen moves so she can lean her head against the wall, forehead against the cool wooden slats of the kitchen wall. She twirls the phone chord around her fingers once again.

"Thank you for calling to tell me," she says. She'd hate to hear that for the first time in front of John Winchester. However, she knows how much it must have hurt Missouri to have to be the one to tell her in the first place.

"I couldn't let you get blindsided. Not when I knew."

"I'm sorry you had to know." And she is, truly. She wishes that Missouri could have her gift without burdens, that she could see things that didn't haunt her for days after the occurrence of the vision, sometimes months, midnight phone calls Ellen picked up every time,  the times she's had to remind her over and over again that people believe her now. Missouri hums again.

"If there was anyone I would choose to you my gift for, it would be you, my dear," she says. God above, her voice is so sad and sweet, it's like a song. It's like a poem only Ellen is invited to read in the late hours of the night, phone calls across thousands of miles and long distance minutes that neither of their husbands ever paid any mind to, Ellen's fingers twirled in the phone chord. Ellen thinks of her dead, dying, dead-man-walking husband, and her throat burns.

"Are you really going to come?" she asks, her voice smaller than she's let it be in years, but God, it can't be helped.

"Of course, baby. I'll be there in two days or less, I promise. You won't do any of it alone," Missouri says, either though they both know that there won't be any of it to be had. Bill'll have a hunter's funeral that his daughter is barely able to understand the attendance of (and God bless that she can't, the practice of bringing children to the ritualistic burning of a corpse skeeves her out just a little bit), and then the entire community will move it right along to the next hunter who dies even younger and leaves behind an even more desperate widow and perhaps even more children. Gotta rely on your own network in the hunting community. The general population just doesn't cut it.

"Will Adrian mind?" She has to ask. She has to ask all of it. She can't leave any stone unturned. She can't believe Bill is dead. Fuck.

"Oh no, Adrian will take it as an opportunity to take that boy of his on one of their little trips. I'm sure they'll be fishing and gawking at museums for my entire sabbatical," Missouri assures her, the even tone of her voice calming like a caress, like a hand in your hair. Ellen thinks she might could listen to Missouri talk every single day for the rest of their lives. Then again, she's thought that about since she was twenty-three years old.

"Okay. Just. Be safe on your way here, alright? Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she requests, knowing immediately that it will make Missouri laugh. She's treated to the experience not a second behind.

"Honey, I'm flying on my way there. We are beginning at a deficit for not doin' things you wouldn't do." Ellen snorts.

"Alright, so just don't do anything stupid. And I know, Missouri Moseley does not do anything stupid, however, my friend Miz has told me many a story of her more adventurous hours, so please, Miz. For me," she says, not sure what tone she's invoking, but noticing a bit late that it definitely is a bit of one. Definitely a tone. She swallows in the silent second between her speaking and Missouri answering her. It's only ever a second. Sometimes, it feels like there's an ocean between them instead of miles of mountains and roads. Whatever that means.

"For you, I will be extraordinarily sure to mind my P's and Q's on my way from mine to yours. Does that satisfy, dear?" Missouri asks her. She's gentling her once again, doing that thing with her voice where it sounds like she's doing her best to verbally rub your shoulders, sooth your sore spots. It's fucking inconvenient when Ellen is trying to get a point across is what it is, because it's damn hard to keep up in being hard toned with Missouri when she's all nice to her like that. Much of their friendship has to do with the piss and vinegar of the world. She shouldn't be surprised that Missouri is catching more of her flies with honey.

"You're not being fair, Missouri," she says outright, her voice soft, her forehead still against the wall. Missouri chuckles.

"Life ain't being fair to you right now, baby. I just wanna even up the score a little."

Ellen can feel her tears in her nose, and she sniffles even though she knows that Missouri will hear it. She wishes Miz was here already. She wishes Bill was here. She wishes Mary-

"My husband's gonna die," she says, reminds herself, reminds the kitchen, the hallway, everyone but Joanna Beth, who will not hear this until tomorrow at least. Let her have one more night where her Daddy's coming home alive.

"He is, El. I'm sorry," Missouri says one last time, and Ellen thinks that it's one last time because she can't stand to hear it again.

"No more sorry's. Not from you. It's not your fault, and I won't have you walking around acting like it is. Now, you come here, and you hang out with me until you feel better about it, and I'll. I'll figure it out. We always knew this was a possibility. It's not safe work. We always knew what Bill was into," she says, building herself back together brick by brick. Even she knows that the bricks will fall, that they'll have to do this again. She finds herself willing. Just so long as she can make it through one thing at a time.

"I'll call you about my flight details, okay?" Missouri checks, and that's it, really. They say their goodbyes, and Ellen feels the tenuous grasp that she has on this small slice of normalcy slip from between her fingers as she remembers that she still has to be a mother after this. Joanna Beth. Ellen untangles her hand from the telephone chord carefully.

[magdaclaire]

the other end of the line

parts one, two, and three. and once again. heavy discussion of character death.

"Don't go."

She had hardly picked up the phone before the sound of Missouri's voice cracks her right in half, Missouri Moseley closer to begging than Ellen's ever heard her and she doesn't even know what for yet. They're at a hotel right now. She has no idea where Missouri got this number, but she's willing to bet she plucked it straight from the universe itself.

"Baby, I don't-" she starts, confused, but finds herself interrupted.

"Those Winchester boys, Ellen. I know those boys are convincing, but you can't go with them, Ellen Joleen. You and Joanna Beth stay at home and I'll come visit next week, okay?" It's the repetition that gets her more than anything else, hearing her name crack across the speaker more than once making her feel off kilter. Something's wrong. She'd had the dread-cold feeling she usually gets before Missouri calls for days now, so she had assumed by this point that it was just good old fashioned anxiety. Now, she's thinking it might be something bigger.

"Miz, what's this about?" she asks, sitting down on the floor by the landline, curling up with the telephone cradled in her lap. The line of her shoulders is so tense it's rigid against the the frame of the bed she's leaning against,

"Can't you just listen to me, El? Just this once?"

"Not a damn chance, you know I need more than that,"

"I saw something again. I can't- I can't do this, Ellen." Ellen frowns, fingers tapping against the hard casing of the telephone. She took apart one of these when she was in her twenties, curious of what a phone would look like if you cracked it right open. Wires, mostly. If you were wondering. Metal. Shiny bits. She's not so good with machines. Jo gets that all from her Daddy. Ellen taps her fingers on the casing of the telephone.

"Can't do what, Miz? We're just talking. Tell me what's going on in that head of yours. Tell me what you saw," she wants to give Missouri a little nudge, would if they were sitting beside each other, and it's like the ache to touch her never has anywhere to go. It just lives inside of her like the original Alien movie, dangerous and waiting to claw its way out. That's how she felt when she was a kid, really. Now, she's getting to old to be shaking everybody up with what she wants or likes, and she's settled into who she is, really. Except that feeling.

"You and Jo can't go, Ellen. It's not safe," Missouri says, and Ellen snaps back into the conversation like she's been slapped. It's all she can take not to make her next words to Missouri sharp, so she consciously softens her tone.

"It's the end of the world, Missouri Rose," she says, smiling despite herself, "pretty sure nothing's safe out here anymore."

"Ellen," Missouri says her name again and this time it's out as a sob and Ellen wants nothing more than to comfort her, to hold her hands and wrap an arm around her, than to hold her like she's always wanted to. She wraps her fingers around the phone chord and tries to kill the yearning in her to find something to say to her oldest friend, anything for comfort. She's never been much good for it when it comes to comforting Missouri about things Ellen just isn't willing to change.

Bill always told her that her stubbornness would bite her in the ass. He was talking about their daughter, but he'd be glad to know he's right about this too.

"Baby, how am I supposed to leave those boys alone? Let them run into Hell's half acre without any backup? Mary's boys?"

"Goddamn it! We already lost Mary. We already lost Bill. Why do I have to-" Missouri cuts herself off with a heaved sob, pulled away from the receiver where Ellen can hear it, but only barely. Ellen puts away her own emotions on the matter and focuses on Missouri. It's what she's always been best at, focusing on other people.

"I know, Miz. I'm sorry. How bad is it this time?" she asks, that coaxing voice coming back to her right naturally,

"Oh, Elly, it's bad," Missouri says, thick like she can't swallow around the weight of the future on her tongue, and Ellen would kiss her to take that weight out of her mouth. She'd kiss her for just about any reason. She always thought she and Missouri would always have more time, that they would never run out. The sand is looking thin in its stream through the hourglass.

"What can I do?" she asks, action oriented. Lingering on what never happened has never fixed things for anyone. She can only handle now what will. Missouri gives her an unhinged sort of laugh, laughter like she doesn't mean to be laughing at all. Laughter like mourning.

"Short of staying away from those boys all together? I don't know, Ellen. I don't know, and I'm scared." She doesn't know that Missouri has ever told her that straight out, bled her fear over the line so openly that the word was willing to be defined. Ellen's heart wrenches.

"Oh, baby. You gonna have somebody with you when we get off the phone? I don't want you to be alone," she admits, her voice so gentle she feels like it almost does that task of wrapping Missouri in a blanket like she wants to, but Missouri makes a disapproving noise on the other side of the line.

"Ellen Joleen, I know you are not trying to console me through your own death right now,"

"Well, if there's any way I can be prepared, it might as well be this," she says, the joke falling flat as she thinks about every way that she can't be. She and Jo left the Roadhouse months ago. None of the hunters they left keys with are guaranteed to have survived this long.

"She won't be safe either, El," Missouri says, and Ellen knows she's talking about Jo. Her baby. Ellen lets a hot breath out through her teeth.

"I can ask her to stay away, hell, I can even tell her that she might die. But you know how she is. It's like danger itself leads her around by her nose, just like her Daddy, my girl," she says, missing Jo before either of them are even gone, and her baby is only gone to get some takeout. Jo's so much like Bill it hurts to look at her sometimes. Even if she never loved Bill like anybody told her she was supposed to, she still loved him right, she thinks. She loved him as well as either of them ever could have managed. He was her best friend.

"I don't know how you even could make it out. I'm sorry, Ellen,"

"It's okay, Miz. You called and told me. That's all you had to do,"

"I want to do more. I want to help. I feel so- so goddamn helpless! In this house with my visions and you dying bloody on the other side of the country, Ellen, I can't do this without you. How am I supposed to do this?"

"You do not get to stop after I go, you understand me, Missouri Rose? I go and you keep on. Just like I did when Bill passed, just like we did when Mary went. I know this is the most it's ever been. But we always knew this would happen, didn't we? Talked about it when Bill died, didn't we?" she asks, rhetorical and borderline unkind, knowing damn well that Missouri is losing something different by losing her than she did when she lost Bill. Ellen had lost her co-parent, her best friend, the only man she had ever invited into her bed. Missouri will be losing her confidante, the person she calls when the fog in her mind grows too thick, the person at the other end of the line. Ellen doesn't know what she would do if she lost Missouri either.

"This is so much worse than never having known you," Missouri says, a sob breaking through the last of her words. Ellen holds back a sob of her own. Whether she dies today, tomorrow, next week, this is goodbye, isn't it?

"Is it really, baby?" she asks, her barest hint of flirtation always just so easy with Missouri, even when she's holding back tears of her own, forehead against the bed frame. Missouri gives that strangled laugh again.

"No! It isn't. And that's what's so godawful about it, isn't it? Because losing you is about to be the worst thing that's ever happened to me, I think. Ellen, I don't know how to say goodbye to you," Missouri says. Ellen hates that cracked sound to her voice, that quality she takes on when she's so hurt and unsure.

"Then don't say goodbye. How about, I'll see you one day? Eventually, because you better not be following me too soon or we'll have something to talk about before we get to more pleasant conversation."

"El, as much death as I've seen, I don't know that I've ever seen an afterlife," Missouri says, unsure, so damn unsure.

"Believe anyway," she requests, quiet and strange, but sure of herself. Sure enough for both of them.

"What?" Missouri asks. Ellen gets it. It's not like she's ever been much of a woman of faith. For once, just for once, she just wants to believe in something. For herself. For Jo. For Missouri.

"For me," she says, "for whenever you come after me. Believe in an after. Okay? We all know Dean Winchester went to hell. What's there to say there isn't a Heaven for you and me too?" she asks, her eyes closed as she imagines it. She thinks Heaven is a bedroom with Mary and Missouri in it, when she's so young she doesn't know what she's feeling yet but she doesn't think it's wrong either, she thinks Heaven could just be Missouri Moseley. Missouri snorts.

"For you and me, Ellen Joleen? If I didn't know any better, I might think you were sweet on me," Missouri says, almost back to her typical routine of flirting with Ellen until she moves away from anything that might make Missouri actually feel something. Ellen digs her heels in instead of taking the out.

"I wasted enough time in this life pretending I wasn't. I don't wanna pretend in the next one too." Of course now is when she finally feels brave. Halfway beneath her tombstone and you'll find her with a rifle in hand, ready load up against God.

"Ellen-" Missouri starts, but there's a card slid into the door scanner, and an entrance made before Ellen can hear anything else.

"Mom?" Joanna Beth asks, opening the hotel room door with a bag of burgers. Ellen waves from her place between the beds.

"Jo's back, Miz. Come find me, okay? I'll see you one day," she says, her emotions curled back inside of herself now that her and Bill's daughter is in the room. There's nothing here she needs to see. Missouri sniffles on the other end of the line.

"I'll see you one day."

[magdaclaire]

and if i wrote my two thousand word ellenmissouri scene? what then? and what if i wrote that? what if i did it? what if that’s something i did? what if a person did that? what if that was done?

[magdaclaire]

the thing about mary is that i do think she's feminine. i think she could flourish with the girlfriends she was never allowed to have, with women who make her feel more comfortable in her skin, less belittled by girlhood. i think ellen and missouri make her feel more like a girl than she ever has, and she always thought she would feel like the odd man out if she ever hung out with girls. but it's the most at home she's ever felt, when being a girl doesn't mean all of the other expectations associated with it

[magdaclaire]

13 and/or 27 for the ask game! <3

Y'all gotta stop hitting me in the Orville Peck bone, this is embarrassing.

13 is C'mon Baby, Cry by Orville Peck, and

27 is Lightning by Mehro.

Horribly codependent and yet emotionally estranged couple. Possibly ellenmissouri? Two people who are very closed off in their every day interactions trying to get each other to emote with the person closest to them, nothing can separate us except maybe this emotional wall you keep putting between us, all that jazz.

[magdaclaire]

the thing about me is that i will make up a ship and then get super passionate about it

examples

- kephegor

- magdaclaire

- ellenmissouri

- katemary

and speaking of ellenmissouri, my friends. i wanna write them so bad. someone give me an ellenmissouri prompt

[magdaclaire]

what should i work on

[magdaclaire]

my katemary fic,,, she is now planned to have 9 chapters,,,,, ya boy is really bad at writing one shots

[magdaclaire]

btw i keep switching back and forth on whether i call them magdaclaire or clairemagda bc i sort my writing files by the pov character of the fic first so that i know which doc it is. i’m just tip tappin away

[magdaclaire]

1, 7, 9, 28, and 29 for AO3 Wrapped ❤️

1. How many words have you written this year?

For these, I’m going with what I’ve published on ao3 this year, so the word count total of what I’ve published this year is 36,065 words.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

I used one lyric from Grease, I used one Green Day lyric, and one quote from Thelma and Louise- I’ll count that too.

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

magdaclaire !!

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

Despite what I just said, my ellenmissouri piece my heart a rotary phone and yours the only number i dial.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I really like the first paragraph from my heart a rotary phone. It communicates exactly the feeling I wanted it to, which is rare for stuff I actually put out.

Dishes. Simple. Run the rag round and round the plates, the pots, the cups, circular motions to soothe the restlessness in her chest. Check in on Joanna Beth. Make sure she's keeping neat while looking through her mama's jewelry, though she doesn't even mind if Jo wants to wear any of it. It's not like she wears much of it these days anyway. Go back to the dishes. Finish them. Lean against the wall and wonder if things are ever going to feel easier, if things are ever going to get. Well. Better.