ship to wreck || kalen + luna
To say Kalen was always hungry was an understatement. He literally dreamt about food 90% of the time - meaning he always woke up hungry. All. The. Time. It was actually kind of exhausting, but also Kalen’s favorite thing. Well, besides Alyssa, Luna, Jer, Ryder, and Keaton. And, well, okay. Everyone else in the house. They’d all grown on him quite quickly; far more quickly than Kalen had ever really expected a group of people to grow on him. He’d never made friends all that easily, so since meeting this group and getting to the point where he could consider them close friends was something of a huge thing for Kalen. Never had he dreamed so many people would come to care about him as much as they did. Keaton he could understand, that was his brother - he had to love him. Everyone else, though, they had no obligations to him. They actually liked him. Genuinely liked him. That was something Kalen was still working on wrapping his head around.
Right now, though - right now Kalen was bloody starving. For a moment, he debated on trying to go back to sleep, especially since his phone had flashed an unholy time at him when he checked it. But his stomach was starting to, quite literally, yell at him. Afraid it’d get loud enough to wake Alyssa, Kalen slipped out of the tent, doing his best not to make too much noise as he did so. Once he slipped out undetected, Kalen took the stairs two by two because food. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, though, he heard banging and rustling coming from the kitchen and who in God’s name would be up this early? Well, unless said someone had never actually gone to bed. Or if said someone broke in and wanted to kill them all. The thought made Kalen’s lips press into a straight line. Well, fuck. He really wasn’t in the mood for dealing with unwanted visitors, especially if it were the kind he’d have to shoot, so Kalen was seriously hoping for the former option.
Slowly, Kalen made his way towards the kitchen entrance, peaking around the corner to find blonde hair and a backpack heading towards the door. There were only two blondes in Kalen’s life and one was definitely still asleep upstairs, so that left one. Luna. Flipping on the light, Kalen leaned against the door frame and smirked at the girl as she turned to face him. “Surprise?” He quirked a brow at her greeting, nodding as he made his way to the fridge. “Plan on being out there a bit?” Opening the fridge door, he motioned to the bookbag. “Or have you finally gotten sick of my face and decided to run far, far away from it? Can’t blame you if that’s the case. But, if that’s your plan, you could at least leave a note for me to cry over when you’re gone. I’ll miss you terribly, you know.” Grabbing some of the cookie dough Jer had made Kalen - the kind without eggs so he wouldn’t get sick - he pulled up a stool to the island and sat. “Want some?” Kalen held up two spoons and the bowl. “It’s chocolate chip.”
Luna scratched the back of her head, then shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. Man, it was a good thing she didn’t get awkward all that often, because that shit sucked. Kalen was looking at her with amusement, she was pretty sure - it was kind of hard to tell when the world was doing uncomfortable spins - and at least that was better than someone like Harris or Justin or Papa K, or even Casey coming to yell at her. “What are you even doing up?” It wasn’t like she’d ever run into Kalen during her late night, let’s-do-anything-but-sleep excursions. Her tongue was starting to feel heavy in her mouth, and the backpack started to feel extra heavy with the weight of the half empty bottle, but she tried to ignore it. It wasn’t like she could just whip out the bottle and start chugging it back with him there. “Uh - yeah.” Somewhat sheepishly, she dropped the bag from her shoulder and placed it gently on a nearby chair so it didn’t rattle too loudly. “I could never get tired of your face, baby. You’re probably one of the only people I could say that about right now.” She tried to smile, but all of a sudden she felt like crying more than anything, as the last couple days all sort of blurred together, running into her with a force that nearly winded her. “Yeah - thanks.” Pulling up a stool, Luna wondered how far away from him she could sit and get away with it, but then just decided to fuck it. He was probably able to smell the alcohol, anyway.
Sitting down, the blonde took one of the spoons, loading it up with cookie dough, though the sight of it reminded her how much of an appetite she didn’t have, and she left the spoon in the bowl, pushing it towards Kalen. “I wasn’t - planning on going to sit outside.” She admitted, after a moment of silence. “I was going to leave.” Leaning forwards onto the counter, she sighed, biting her lip as she tried to find the words to continue. “It’s like - I’m just so fucking sick of it all. We’re honestly going to all kill each other if they keep us cooped up like this. Like, TC doesn’t need to get to us, because we’re either going to kill each other, or self destruct before they find us. What kind of a life even is this? In the past little bit I’ve completely destructed even a friendship with Case, probably beyond repair because I’m a fucking idiot, I slapped your brother across the face, and then called off my friendship with my best friend because he was trying to help me. I mean, he was being a condescending son of a bitch, but, he meant well.” Raking her hands through her hair, Luna barreled on, unable to meet Kalen’s eyes because she wasn’t sure she wanted to see his expression. He was a ray of sunshine, someone who didn’t seem like he was the type to give up on a person, if he decided he was done with her too then that was going to be all she could handle. “And it’s like - I feel like I keep saying this over and over, but I realize what I’m doing, that I’m being self destructive and shit, but like, the tough part? I can’t seem to stop.” Picking up the spoon, she shoved the cookie dough into her mouth, more for something to do than anything else. She chewed, barely tasting it, “And the worst part is, I used to be like, the chillest person on the planet. I used to be a nice person, a kind person. I don’t know what happened, I feel like a part of me like, died back in that cargo container.”
Chewing on her nail, Luna was about to tell Kalen to stop drumming on the counter when she realized that she was the one drumming her fingernails against the granite, and she balled her hand into a fist in frustration. There was a long pause, and then she finally admitted, “I found alcohol.” Well, if she was coming clean, may as well come clean about everything. “Under the couch. I don’t know how Maxwell missed it because he seemed to do a pretty big sweep of everything else, but - yeah. It - Harris, Coral and I got into some and then the next day Harris told me I couldn’t have any more and so I flipped the fuck out. And then found some of my own.” Before he could ask, she added hastily, “I drank it all.” She might have been ready to come clean about it, but she wasn’t about to hand over the last bit of alcohol she could see for a while. “It was almost worse, though, you know? Like going off everything cold turkey was hard enough, but then to have a glimpse of like, not being sober again and then to have that ripped away from me I just - I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It’s like, I don’t just want it, I need it. I feel like I’m going absolutely fucking insane without drugs and - whatever, and I know that’s no way to live but how do I - stop needing it? With time? Because every second I spend in this house, I go more and more insane, and I just can’t do it anymore. So I was going to leave, and take my chances. It’d be better than spending another moment in this fucking house.” Reaching both hands up, she wiped away the tears that were pooling in the corners of her eyes - tears of sadness, anger, she wasn’t even sure anymore. And to be fair, she realized that everyone else was feeling pretty much the same way that she was, but she’d never been one to sit idle. Coral and Jer found comfort in the pillow fort, Harris had Justin and Papa K, Kalen and Ryder had Keaton and Alyssa, Nate had all his research ... Luna knew that by no means was she alone, but it was dawning on her that, well, that’s exactly how she felt. Hopeless and alone.
