YOURE BACK AND WITH A BANGER!! if you ever find the inspiration please, make a part two. it was so cute and amazing. i missed your writing, you’re so talented!
thank you! that's so nice of you to say. I've missed writing too I just had a bunch of stuff going on lately in typical fanfic writer fashion but I'm trying to get back into things again.
I can't promise a sequel since I really don't know where I could go with it. miscommunication trope only goes so far even with Shauna lmaoo but I appreciate the interest.
pairing: Shauna Shipman x f!r
summary: If you had to pick just one moment where everything started getting complicated, it would have been that first day of class last spring. The day you met Jackie Taylor and her maybe-sometimes girlfriend Shauna Shipman. Jackie really didn't seem to be a great girlfriend, but that was up to Shauna. You just really wished they would break up.
note: first fic in a while, so be gentle, please. thank you.
Usually, the first day of classes wasn't even worth attending. Not when you still had all that unpacking to get around to. But you had thrown all your stuff in boxes more hastily than you're used to, so even syllabus week seems more inviting than sorting through that mess.
The location of the class should've tipped you off, but you hadn't realized how fucked you really were until you stepped foot inside the room. Far too small for the number of people on the roster you'd barely glanced at this morning.
It was one of those room choices designed around half the class dropping out eventually. Suddenly you wished that you had spent more time in the fall going through your professors' reviews.
You're left with your choice of seats in the very front row, all less appealing than the last. Your most promising option has you taking a seat beside a woman far too happy to be awake this early, but when compared to everyone else in the front row, she was the least of your worries.
She barely glances up as you slide in beside her, far too focused on her computer to pay you any mind yet. That was fine. You really didn't want to have to hold a conversation this early anyway.
Her notebook is propped open beneath her laptop, colorful pens sitting carefully by its side. The perfect example of studiousness, if not for the boutique website left carelessly in her browser as she switches between it and the syllabus when she catches you looking.
It's not like you meant to snoop on her, still trying to get your own stuff together from the mess that was your backpack the first day of the semester, but all the color on the page had caught your eye for just long enough to be noticeable.
She smiles playfully as she raises a finger to her lips, silently asking you to keep it to yourself. You aren't sure what she thought would happen if you went and told, especially since class hasn't even started yet, but you just shrug in response.
Something that she seems to take as an invitation to start a conversation.
“I'm Jackie,” she says, leaning over to offer her hand to shake like it was some sort of business deal.
You watch her bemusedly, noting the way her smile slowly starts to become strained around the edges the longer you wait before finally taking her hand to shake it. There was something so painfully eager about her that it meant you couldn't just not shake her hand.
Her hand was soft and smelled faintly of the lotion she must have applied that morning, holding onto yours a moment too long before letting go. It was far from the worst handshake you'd ever had to give, but still something you would rather have avoided.
If the woman had given you a choice, that was.
You give your own name back, and Jackie immediately starts in on the questions.
Maybe you should have just made the guy taking up two seats move his bag instead.
…
You sneak another look at the girl in the library three tables down, trying to remain inconspicuous when you really want to just stare. It's hard not to when she looks like that. It's ridiculous that this girl can exist in the same library as you, and you're expected to just study. It would take an act of Congress to get you to fully pay attention when she's so close.
That constant air of angst combined with a blatant disregard for human life, as shown by her muffled laughter when some overzealous boy sent himself tumbling down the bottom two stairs in his rush to class, has you entranced. You can honestly say that you’ve never met a girl quite like her before.
In your more poetic moments you wonder if a girl like her has ever existed before. It’s utter nonsense that you would mock anyone else, but you think it regardless. That’s why you keep it to yourself.
So many times you think about walking up to her, but you can't seem to come up with anything worth saying to her. Something tells you that “the worst she could say is no” does not apply to her. You've spent enough time daydreaming in her direction to know that much.
Especially after the glare of utter hate and destruction she had given the last guy that tried to chat her up while she was studying. You fear for your life. Isn't that just the hottest thing ever?
The only things you know for certain about her are that she's left-handed, likes to read, and rarely leaves her dorm without a flannel on. All in all, you consider it to be promising so far. Especially that last part, though you can never be too sure anymore.
She bites down on the end of her pen between short bursts of writing, gnawing thoughtfully on it as she stares down at the notes in front of her. You like to watch the way her face lights up when she hits a breakthrough on whatever she’s doing. So responsive when she thinks no one is watching.
The benefit of not really knowing someone is getting to fill in all the blanks of her personality. Sometimes you imagine her cruel and sharp; other times she might be quiet and a little shy—occasionally flirty and playful. Everything and nothing all at once, rearranged into whatever shape feels the most appealing that day.
The details are different, but the ending is always the same.
It's through no fault of your own that you finally get caught. She's looking right at you, just as shocked as you are to see someone staring back. You think about waving at her for the half second it takes to recognize that it would be the lamest thing ever. Your arm twitches beneath the table in an aborted motion, thankfully hidden from view so that you don't make a total fool of yourself.
You don’t always need the help in front of pretty girls. Things like that tended just to happen naturally.
You look away first. Instinct, maybe. Or embarrassment. Some mix of both that exists only for you to make a fool of yourself. When you risk another glance, she’s still looking right at you. Expectant and a little amused at your expense. She could laugh at you all she likes as long as she keeps staring at you like that.
You’re not going to get a better chance than this to make a good first impression, and the fact that it’s magically fallen into your lap doesn’t bother you at all. You deserve a nice thing after all of this pining you’ve done.
Normally, this part comes easily to you. You smile, maybe tilt your head a little as you feign embarrassment at being caught. Half the time the other person smiles back; the other half they look away and pretend like it never happened. She doesn’t do either of those things. Just steadily watching you like a predator stalking prey.
Are you sweating? You feel like you might be.
Something about that girl makes it feel impossibly difficult to approach her, like every step toward her would drag through tar. You imagine the sound of your footsteps echoing through the library, sounding out to everyone that some loser is approaching a girl totally out of their league. Then there’s the concept of speaking, which leaves far too many variables. You could forget every word you know if she glared at you the way she glared at that boy.
You decide to risk it anyway, halfway out of your seat when your view of her is blocked by someone else. You huff as you sit back down, annoyed at someone else having the same idea as you. Right until you notice how familiar that new girl looks as she turns to look back at you.
Jackie waves with her fingertips, smiling so sincerely that you can see it in her eyes. She has such kind eyes, which makes it even worse when she leans down to whisper something in the brunette's ear before taking her by the hand.
As Jackie drags the woman of your dreams along with her to your table, you come to a devastating realization.
Of course she has a girlfriend.
Shauna.
You learn her name at the same time you learn how utterly outmatched you are by Jackie. Shauna being unobtainable wouldn’t stop you from imagining she wasn’t even if you couldn't do anything about it. It’s gotten you this far.
…
You definitely should have chosen a different seat.
It's not that Jackie was all that terrible to deal with. She's actually really grown on you after a while. It was her girlfriend that was the problem. Rather, the fact that Shauna was dating anyone that wasn't you.
You thought it might make you a bad person to pine over your friend's girlfriend like that—to pine to a pathetic extent when you felt particularly self-loathing—but Jackie wasn't all that great of a girlfriend in your opinion, anyway.
She talked about other girls in front of Shauna far too often, almost like she was testing her reaction. You're not sure you would've been brave enough to do it in her shoes. Then there were the constant party invitations from people Jackie doesn’t seem to like that well but feels compelled to accept anyway. Always dragging along a miserable-looking Shauna just behind her until she inevitably ditched her for someone else.
Shauna Shipman was the prickly sort. She never seems to associate with anyone but Jackie and the occasional other, and anyone else that got close enough got met with a wall of nothing. Maybe she didn’t make the best company at a party, especially when she got a few drinks in her, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a lame thing for Jackie to do.
If Shauna was your girlfriend…
Well, there was no point in dwelling on that if you had any hope of having a good night.
If you hadn't spent so much time with her through Jackie, you might think she is the quiet, bookish type. It wouldn't be incorrect to think that, but you end up losing one of your favorite parts about her. How snarky she is. Always under her breath or after the person has already left, unless she's gotten drunk enough to lose that scrap of restraint that usually holds her together enough to be a semi-functioning member of society.
Sometimes you dream about what would happen if she finally lost that scrap. That civility that keeps her Jackie’s.
…
“Shut up.” Shauna groans, burying her face into her hands as if it could hide her.
Her being embarrassed at your expense is a small price to pay to have a conversation this long with her. It has to be the longest you’ve ever spoken without Jackie joining in one way or another. It was nice to be here with her like this, even if it stings to know it's not in the way you really want it to be.
Jackie's necklace hanging around her neck is a reminder enough of that, even as you do your best to ignore it. You've gotten depressingly good at that lately. Maybe one day soon you'll start to actually believe it. What a relief that would be.
You grin, nodding your head insistently. “No, I'm serious.”
The two of you have been swapping stories for the better part of an hour, and the one you just told was a pretty dumb situation on your part. That undeniable urge to make a fool of yourself in front of her has never quite faded. In your defense, judging by her choice of girlfriend, she's into that.
You're not sure if you could ever get tired of listening to Shauna talk. She's so hard to get going, but once she starts talking, you can manipulate her into continuing. Like a cat that you have to coax out from behind the couch. Slow and steady.
Shauna seems to enjoy your attention. You have the feeling that she doesn't get a lot of it. Not nearly as much as she deserves, but that's the problem with staying so close to Jackie. You're more than happy to be the one giving it to her, even if that should be Jackie's job. In your more jealous moments, that's something you fixate on.
“Seriously stupid,” she mutters into her palms. Shauna pulls her hands away from her face, giving you a long, searching look. “I know you're serious. That's the worst part.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” you ask.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
Shauna's mocking voice shouldn't sound nearly as enticing as it does, but the way condescension looks on her should be a criminal offense. Even the way she immediately softens it with a laugh as she takes another sip from her drink does little to negate the impact.
“Guess who,” calls out a sing-song voice from behind you as two soft hands slip over your eyes.
It doesn't take long to guess who that is. No one else would have the audacity to come up behind you like that at a party when you're so clearly trying to have a conversation. Especially a conversation with a girl who looks like that. No one, that is, but her girlfriend.
“Jackie,” you say, batting away her hands as you turn to greet her.
Jackie beams at you as she leans close, one arm wrapping around your shoulder in a half hug before pulling back. She rests both palms on your shoulders as she looks at you, eyes flicking up and down as she judges your outfit.
She squeezes before letting go and pushing past you. You're choosing to take it as approval unless told otherwise. It was generally the best way of dealing with Jackie.
That rare glance of an easygoing Shauna is gone again when you turn around. Replaced by a terse smile and a closed-off posture that makes you want to weep in frustration. You were so close to getting somewhere before Jackie came in to remind you that it wasn't possible.
That guilty feeling wells up again as you look at how happy Jackie is to be near the two of you, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she stuffs her hands in the pockets of her jacket.
Your jacket, technically. You let her borrow it earlier in the night. Her usual refusal to wear a jacket over her dress is biting her in the ass yet again. Always insisting that she didn't need one even though she would start rubbing her arms after five minutes outside. It might just be a devious plan on her part to collect more jackets because someone always gave one up for her.
You could count on it.
Shauna can hardly pull her eyes away from it. You wonder what that's about as she mutters something unintelligible beneath her breath and stomps off.
“Wow,” Jackie says. “Brood much, Shipman?”
It takes everything in you not to respond negatively to that. She was here all of five minutes, and she's already sent Shauna off running. All of your work down the drain. Jackie's just making it so difficult to chat up her girlfriend tonight.
“Really?” you ask dryly.
“What?” Jackie gives you a bemused look as you walk off in the other direction.
“Was it something I said?”
…
Shauna was fond of this one particular tree outside of her dorm, and though you didn't see the appeal of it, you knew it was always a good place to pretend to run into her.
It was always the same exact tree, despite the abundance of them in the area. Just far enough away from the others that you didn't risk having a friend group sit too close to you. That was probably the appeal for her. You've never seen anyone else but Shauna sit at this particular tree, probably for their own health.
Whether Shauna would be ballsy enough to try to run them off, you're not sure. Sometimes it felt like she burned with the fire of a thousand suns, and then other times you couldn't get her to ask for her drink to be made correctly.
“What exactly does 'wuthering' even mean?” you ask, scooting closer on the grass to peer over Shauna's shoulder as she reads.
Shauna snaps her book closed like she got caught doing something she shouldn't have. The glare on her face was pre-loaded as she turned her head slowly toward you.
It's not your fault she was so easy to jump-scare. Your muffled laugh does you no favors, but Shauna has decided to be the bigger person for once and let it go. A difficult decision for her.
“You had to interrupt me to ask that?” Shauna asks.
She's avoiding looking directly at you. Suspicious.
“You don't know, do you?”
“Shut up and die," Shauna groans irritably but doesn't even bother to deny it.
“Isn't that supposed to be, like, your thing?”
“Because I'm an English major, I should know every word ever?”
“Exactly,” you agree, shooting Shauna a charming smile just to rub it in more.
If she didn't want to be rage-baited, she shouldn't fall for it so easily. Really, you were just doing your civic duty when you really think about it. She needs thicker skin if she's going to have such a short temper.
The fact that she looks so hot when she's pissed at you plays a part in your enjoyment. The way her eyebrows furrow together, shading her furious brown eyes and the heat that now lies in them. Her jaw tightening just enough to sharpen it, turning the normally soft lines of her face into something you might cut yourself on. She was so intense like this that you could drown in it and be happy.
“I hate you,” Shauna mutters, leaning closer toward you.
At first you think it's meant to be intimidating. It's Shauna, after all. Strange methods of freaking you out are to be expected from her. Jackie's the only person that seems to know what Shauna's thinking even half of the time, and even she falls flat sometimes. You can't possibly be expected to understand why she does these things.
It’s only when you realize she's looking at your lips that you start to get concerned. You wonder if you've gotten something stuck in your teeth, barely resisting the urge to run your tongue over your teeth to check in favor of trying to pull away.
"Trying" being the key word, because the moment you start to move, Shauna's grabbing a fistful of your shirt to keep you in place. The noise that escapes your lips is embarrassingly close to a squeak, but you think anyone in your position would act similarly.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” You can't help but ask.
You're not expecting a real answer. That would require a level of self-reflection you're not sure she's capable of. It's just something to break the tension of having her pressed so close to you without doing something regrettable.
Shauna looks terribly pleased at the words, which does something to you. She rarely looks so happy about anything. It's a fairly new experience for you, and you're enjoying every last second of it even as you're trying not to freak out.
You're not sure if you can really feel her breath against your face or if it's just wishful thinking.
“You know what your problem is?”
Oh, that's something you know the answer to: lots of things. Beginning with literally everything else and ending with your sudden and intense urge to taste Shauna's chapstick. You would very likely taste Shauna's fist next, but it would be a small price to pay for salvation.
Luckily for you, it seems to be a rhetorical question. With the way you're struggling to think anything but “please, please, please,” it's for the best.
“Your problem,” Shauna continues, leaning in close. Now you really can feel each and every syllable against your lips. “Is–”
“Jackie,” you interrupt suddenly, pulling away from her like you've been burned.
The very mention of her name douses every bit of heat inside you. It was a reminder and a warning all at once, something you desperately needed to hear. Look but don't touch. Remember? She was a painting in a museum you could only observe from afar, and here you are getting your fingerprints all over her.
You're losing track of your metaphors as well as your mind.
“What?” Shauna asks, spitting the word out like it was filth on her tongue as she rears back in surprise.
You don't answer. You're too busy scrambling to your feet and running away to justify yourself.
“Just remembered something. With someone. I have to go to it.”
You wince. Something with someone?
“Bye, Shauna,” you add.
You've got to stop reading into things like that. The only one that keeps getting hurt here is you.
It's got to stop.
…
Your head swivels back and forth between them as they talk, struggling to follow the conversation on account of how much of it seems to be references to things that happened years ago or inside jokes you aren't privy to. It's one of the most frustrating experiences of your life, and it's starting to become a biweekly occurrence.
After all this time spent dragged along from one place to the other, you would think you would start to get some understanding of it, but you might actually be more lost than the first time you met them.
Inevitably your attention falls to Shauna. Namely, the way her crop top exposes her stomach just above where the band of her jeans digs into her skin. You can see that red line of irritation there where her jeans rubbed against soft skin, and there's a part of you that aches to soothe it with your tongue.
But then Jackie shifts just enough in her excited rant that it exposes the two of them holding hands just below the table, and all thoughts of licking Shauna are put on hold. Not forgotten.
The sight of it makes you wilt, ruining those brief moments of daydreaming between being faced with the crushing knowledge that Shauna wasn't up for grabs. You've never seen a couple more attached at the hip than the two of them are. It's not even worth entertaining, but you can't stop the traitorous thoughts regardless.
“What do you think?” Jackie asks, finally looking away from Shauna to meet your eyes.
Your heart speeds up at being faced with their sudden combined attention, made worse by the fact that you have no idea what they're even talking about. There's no one to blame for that but you, but you'll find a way to make it Shauna's fault given time.
Jackie sets a good example.
“Sorry, what?” You ask sheepishly, ignoring the way Jackie's lips twist into a pout in favor of the amused twitch of Shauna's lips.
She takes a sip of their drink in a way that shouldn't feel nearly as obscene as it does. Enough that you have to force yourself to look elsewhere lest you get caught staring directly at Shauna's lips.
Completely missing the thoughtful look that crosses Shauna's face.
“You're not even listening,” Jackie complains.
“What an asshole,” Shauna adds.
“Yeah. Jerk.”
In the time it takes you to decide if they're actually upset at you, an increasingly likely possibility given how impossibly short Shauna's temper could be, Jackie's already begun to giggle. Answer enough for you to roll your eyes and toss a packet of salt at her.
It nails Jackie right between the eyes, cutting off her giggling with a sudden silence. Pure disbelief as it settles onto the table in front of her. It earns a rare laugh from Shauna, obvious despite how quick she is to try to cover it up with a cough.
Jackie doesn't buy it either, picking the packet off the table to toss it at Shauna, who easily bats it out of the air.
They dissolve into another round of bickering that you're more than happy to take advantage of, slipping away to join the end of the line in front of the counter.
You can only faintly hear the sound of them arguing, so it's not a big surprise when you don't notice the sound of it ending. What you do notice is the sudden presence by your side and the brushing of fluttering fabric against your legs. Shauna's oversized flannel tended to announce her presence just as surely as a hello could.
“Jackie won the argument?” You ask expectantly.
“No,” Shauna says unconvincingly. “I was just tired of sitting.”
Jackie looks far too smug at the table behind you for that to be anywhere near true. That girl could pout for hours on end and certainly wouldn't be over it that quickly, especially not when Shauna was involved. You can't blame her for that one: Shauna could get insufferable when she won an argument.
Right. No reason to rub salt into her wounds.
“You want another coffee, then? I’ll buy.”
“No.”
Oh, well–
“I’m buying.” Then, after a moment. “Yours too.”
You kick at Shauna’s shoe with the tip of your foot, scuffing the top of it. Shauna doesn’t even spare it a thought, but you know it’ll annoy Jackie later when she catches sight of it. Always running after her to fix her outfit like she was a toddler with something on her face—brushing lint off her sleeves, straightening her collar, and fixing her ponytail.
You figure it’s probably good practice for an education major.
“Weirdo,” you mutter. “Who says it like that?”
“What?” She sputters, pushing at your shoulder just a little too hard.
It sends you stumbling a step back before you can correct your momentum, your arms fumbling cartoonishly to right yourself again as Shauna watches on with thinly veiled amusement. The heel of your shoe squeaks against the floor as you try to regain traction.
She probably shoved you that hard on purpose, wanting to watch you struggle. That shouldn’t be as hot as it is.
"Menace."
Shauna seems to take it as a compliment. That doesn’t really surprise you. Deep down, beneath the embarrassment of fighting for your life in this coffee shop, you probably meant it to be one. There’s something about talking to Shauna, being with Shauna, that comes so simply to you. It’s like breathing, some impossibly easy thing that you don’t appreciate like you should.
If things were different, you could see it meaning something. You think about that a lot. What it would be like if you could actually have Shauna. To hold her hand as you drag her away from her journal and out of her room to see daylight for the first time in hours. Getting to brush away the strand of hair that always falls out of her ponytail, your fingers getting to brush against her face instead of just wondering what it's like.
But if there was no Jackie, would there even be a Shauna? At least, would it be a Shauna you could recognize? You aren’t so sure. Half the time you talked to either of them, you could practically see the big red label—this is a set; do not separate them. So intrinsic to each other that separating them would defy the purpose of wanting Shauna in the first place.
But things aren’t different.
Not for you.
“Listen,” Shauna says after you’ve regained your footing. “There’s this party this weekend. Are you going?”
“There’s a party every weekend,” you say. “What makes this one so special?”
“It’s not.” She shrugs, shoulders hunching lightly. From what you aren’t sure. You didn’t think anything could make Shauna nervous. “It’s just…I’m going to this one.”
That gets your attention. Everything she does gets your attention, but this feels less pathetic to admit. For Shauna to get dragged along to a party was one thing, a common thing, but for her to announce it was strange. For her to act like it’s a normal Shauna activity is even weirder. You hope the stress isn’t getting to her—no one would walk away from that fallout.
“It, uh, doesn't really sound like your thing,” you admit, lip twitching as you try not to laugh.
Shauna rolls her eyes, running a hand through her hair before kicking you lightly in the shin. Well, at least what a former soccer player considers lightly. You struggle to keep from wincing visibly. You do not succeed. She was determined to put you on bed rest today. A part of you hopes it bruises. A rather large part.
“It could be,” Shauna says, more out of sheer stubbornness than out of any real desire to convince you.
She seems to find the whole idea just as ridiculous as you. She exhales sharply, irritation flickering across her face like you were some problem she couldn’t quite figure out.
“Sure. You might just become a math major too.”
Shauna's worst subject by far, one that has led to many a rant on the ways pre-calculus will never be used in civilized society. It's always easier just to let her tire herself out before asking a question about whatever incredibly esoteric subject she's writing an essay on now, likely the subtext of apples in Gothic literature or something equally inane.
She scowls at the very mention of the word, an argument already poised on the tip of her tongue before she thinks better of it, struggling to find something more neutral.
“Maybe we could go,” Shauna offers, fingers playing with the ends of her sleeves.
“You and I?" you ask.
Shauna's face falls, a frown taking the place of that pretty little smile. She hesitates as she mulls it over.
“And Jackie,” she says, hesitating long enough that the mood starts to sour.
There it is. Your disappointment feels like a physical thing with how quickly it comes on, settling low in your stomach like a weight. Not a date, no matter how delusional you try to be. Something always comes along to pop that bubble sooner or later.
“No, sorry. I have a group project I need to finish next weekend.”
A lie. One that Shauna likely recognizes but doesn’t call you on. She reads you freakishly well sometimes. A little superpower for someone who couldn’t lie her way out of a wet paper bag.
“That's too bad, then,” Shauna says stiffly.
Her guard is up again like it was never lifted. You regret turning her down even if you know it’s the right thing to do for your own sake. There are only so many weekends you can watch the two of them hang on each other before it starts to become stupidly pathetic and you prefer to average out around a normal amount of patheticness.
God, this year was not going the way you planned it at all.
“Yeah,” you say.
Shauna seems like she's thinking about saying something else before deciding better of it, muttering something about her feet hurting before walking back to Jackie.
You push it from your mind as you finally get to order, wondering bitterly if the two of them are whispering so furiously about you or something else entirely.
…
You thought the two of you had some sort of understanding up until now. You've considered her as a friend for most of the time you've known her—pointedly reminded yourself that was all she was when you felt pathetic enough—but Shauna has really been pushing it lately.
Like right now, as she makes another snarky comment on your annotations.
“You know you don't have to highlight everything, right?”
It's just disingenuous enough that it might have gone over your head completely if it weren't for the attention you pay her. That slight edge to her voice is such a Jackie move for someone who usually spoke so carelessly.
Apparently Jackie was rubbing off on her in more ways than one. You suppress the urge to scoff at the very thought of it. No matter how promising the images may seem in the safety of your mind. Thinking about that too hard was the last thing you needed to be doing for your own mental health. Someone has to draw the line somewhere.
“I'm sorry,” you say dryly, setting your highlighter down as you sit back in your chair. Even her sudden urge to pick a fight with you sounded better than continuing with your reading. “I didn't realize you were paying for them.”
“You highlighted the whole fucking page. You might as well have highlighted nothing at all.”
You spare a brief glance at the page just to confirm that, yep, just that single line of highlighted text. Shauna could get annoyed at the sound of someone's scratchy pen three tables down, but you've never seen her actually comment on it before. Just that furrow of her brows as she gripped her pen tighter and grumbled under her breath.
There’s nothing you could have possibly done in the last hour to earn her ire besides being here when Jackie wasn't. The thought was more depressing than it probably should be. You have got to stop letting Shauna get to you so much. Putting yourself at the whims of Shauna’s mood swings is just asking for trouble, but you end up doing it again and again.
“Are you serious?” The words come out sounding a touch more incredulous than you mean them to, but no less true because of it.
“Are you serious?” Shauna mocks. “If you don't want to be here, just go.”
If you didn't know better, you might think that she was pouting as she spoke. The feeling of hope that rose up in your chest was silly. Just because Shauna was upset at the idea of you not wanting to be here with her, which she created entirely in her head, didn't mean that she liked you in any special way.
Shauna was protective of her time and her space, and you know she would much rather be in her room hiding with her journal than out here in the library. She's probably just looking for an excuse to leave.
“You don't have to sit here and draw all over the paper,” Shauna continues, either unaware or uncaring of your lapse in concentration. You’d put money on both at once.
“I’m not—" You trail off, frustrated.
You run through every possible thing you could say in response, and nothing fits.
There was just no arguing with her when she gets like this. She was worse than Jackie in that way, since she wasn’t as easily placated with compliments and words of affirmation. Was there anything you could say that she wouldn’t take as an excuse to get more upset? You didn’t think so.
“Do you know why Jackie couldn’t make it?” You interrupt, hoping to quell the irrational anger you’ve suddenly become the victim of. The two of them love talking about one another. It was usually the safest possible topic to change to.
“Why don't you fucking ask her since you're so friendly now?" Shauna spits.
It was the wrong thing to say. You realize that immediately. There might actually be smoke coming out of Shauna's ears, but it could also be fear-based hallucinations. This is the point in the movies where you start getting flashbacks of your life. You half expect to actually see some, but all you get is the sound of Shauna’s chair crashing to the ground as she stands up.
She shoves all of her things in her bag and storms off, leaving you sitting alone in the library as everyone around you stares. It only takes a second to lose their attention again as they turn back to whatever assignment is currently ruining their lives, but it might just be the longest second of your life.
You watch Shauna the whole way out, conflicted in more ways than one. Sure, you didn’t understand what you did to piss her off so badly and saw yourself as the innocent victim in the whole exchange. On the other hand, Shauna somehow got impossibly hotter when she was angry.
Was it really a loss?
If you don’t wake up to her holding a knife to your throat tonight, you’re going to consider yourself the winner of this exchange. Hell, you might still be even if she does.
You breathe out slowly as you begin to pack your things up, wondering how on earth you’ve fallen for someone so clearly unwell. You and Jackie both. At least you’re in good company.
…
You do your best to ignore the increasingly grating sound of your roommate talking with her boyfriend on the phone, a feat that's lasted at least three hours, in favor of scrolling aimlessly through your phone.
"Aimless" is what you tell yourself, at least. In reality, you threw yourself into your bed the moment you got back from class to scroll through Jackie's page and pretend like you weren't only looking at the pictures of Shauna. It was becoming a weekly routine at this point, but Jackie posted so many things with Shauna in them that you always had something to look at.
Shauna hasn't answered any of your texts since the day in the library, and you're starting to get desperate. Desperate enough to even text Jackie about it despite your fear of her reading into it. The string of emoji hieroglyphics you received in response was enough to have you give up instead of trying to decode them.
All you can do is hope she comes to you when she's ready. Unfortunately for you, Shauna can hold onto imaginary grudges until the sun burns out. There's really no point in holding your breath.
You tense as you get a post notification from Jackie, wondering if it would be too pathetic to open it immediately. Reflexively, you tap to open it before you can think much on it. There's no point in delaying the inevitable. If there was even a small chance of catching a new picture of Shauna, you would be there.
That's where the problem starts: how excited you are to open it. You miss the first time, accidentally tapping too far down the screen. Just low enough to like the picture you're looking at. The picture of Shauna and Jackie from move-in day two years ago.
You unlike it as quickly as you can, but you know it's already too late. Jackie ran her Instagram like the navy, so it's impossible that she would even miss it happening. All you can do is hope she isn't mad about it. Or, even worse, would be her telling Shauna. Your only hope is Jackie not telling the girl she tells everything to.
You think you might be sick.
The worst possible outcome, which is becoming increasingly plausible the longer you stare at your phone in muted horror, is Shauna coming to the conclusion that you liked it for Jackie. A reasonable conclusion to come to given that you're seemingly scrolling years back on Jackie's account. It's not your fault that Shauna uploads once every decade, but it's about to become your problem.
Shauna was entirely too possessive over Jackie. You've seen her go off on people just for standing too close to her or bumping into her in a crowd. The thought of what she might do to you if she thought you were seriously interested in Jackie is so terrifying you can't even find it in yourself to make it hot.
She might actually kill you.
The least you can do with your few remaining days of life is to enjoy the picture that might have killed you.
You close the app immediately after opening, slamming your phone down on your bed and burying your face in your pillows to muffle your groan of despair.
It’s the last thing you might see as a free woman, and the two of them just have to be all over each other in it. Jackie was practically climbing her like a tree as she hung onto Shauna's arm. Their inch of height difference has never been so obvious.
It just wasn't fair.
…
The first time you hear someone call out your name, you think you might be imagining it. You can just barely hear it over your headphones, and it's hardly the first time you've turned around at the sound of your name only for it to be for someone else entirely. No point in wasting time when you already have so much you need to finish today. The closer it gets to finals, the more your social life inevitably starts to slip away from you for a time.
Besides, the only person you really want to see right now has decided she isn't talking to you for some unknown reason you can't make sense of. Then again, you aren't entirely sure women were meant to be understood in the first place. Especially one like Shauna. Mildly feared but never understood.
When you hear your name a second time, louder and angrier, you finally swivel your head around to look. It's Shauna. Pissed off and rapidly gaining ground on you.
You immediately start to speed up despite knowing how pointless it is. Shauna talking to you is what you've wanted all week long, but you definitely didn't want it like this. She looks liable to cut your head off, and you quite like having your head attached.
Protests of that nature wouldn't matter when she caught up to you. A feat she was approaching far quicker than she should. Every time you glance back, she's somehow closer than before despite only walking after you. Maybe those movies aren't as unrealistic as you thought.
A hand grabs a handful of the back of your shirt before you know it, a sure grip that might cause butterflies in your stomach if not for how roughly she jerked you back toward her dorm building. You're being led to the executioner's block by the most likely suspect.
You say something vaguely protesting, if only to feel like you haven't let her drag you around like a misbehaving child, but Shauna gives you a look so annoyed that it cuts off in your throat halfway through.
Some blonde girl in a hat you've never seen before gives you a wide-eyed pitying look as you pass by her in the hallway. You can't help but wonder how badly Shauna's been terrifying her hall for that to be the only reaction to your plight.
It's only when Shauna pushes you inside her dorm room that it dawns on you that you've just allowed someone that short to manhandle you across campus.
Fight back, damn it.
You open your mouth to say something witty only to quickly close it again as Shauna's eyes narrow.
You clear your throat. Not because you're nervous, no. It's just stuffy in here. That was it.
Their room looks exactly like you would expect it to. Some attempt at a theme on Jackie's side that had clearly lasted no longer than a semester on Shauna's. Vague remnants of matching decorations were replaced by band posters and Polaroids.
Looking around only puts off the inevitable, and it's obvious Shauna's come to the same conclusion as she sits down at her desk chair and crosses her arms over her chest.
You delicately take a seat on the edge of her bed, hands folded in your lap as you try to think of something to say other than “please don't kill me.” A great thought in theory, but you don't want to give her any ideas if she hasn't already thought of it.
“Why her?” Shauna asks.
You startle at the suddenness of the question. In truth, you'd half expected her to try to death-glare you into breaking the silence. It probably would have worked, too, had she given it another few minutes.
“What do you mean?”
Shauna scoffs.
“It's always her. Always. Fucking. Jackie. Why?” Shauna doesn't even give you a chance to answer. She just barrels right ahead like you aren't even there. ”Is it because you met her first?”
Shauna buries her head in her hands, elbows digging into her thighs through her jeans as she hunches over in her chair. She looks like she might actually start to cry, all that anger and frustration melting into something far softer than you've ever seen her before.
She's soft enough that you dare to scoot closer to her on the edge of the bed, centimeters at first turning into inches the longer she stays motionless. The entire time you keep waiting for her to snap out of it and yell again. Just playing dead until you're in biting distance.
“Shauna…”
You nudge her leg with the tip of your shoe, then again harder when she doesn't react the first time. You're primed for a third attempt, but she kicks your shin before you have the chance to take it. It's not nearly as hard as she could have hit you.
The sting of it is enough for you to decide never to try that again, but it's gotten you exactly what you wanted: Shauna's undivided attention. You're not sure how much you want it now that you have it. Those watery brown eyes seem to throw accusations at you that you struggle not to collapse under the weight of.
“What about Jackie?” you ask.
Playing dumb could work if you play your cards right. Shauna was very susceptible to thinking everyone else was stupid, something that you were already banking on. It might have hurt your feelings if it weren't so convenient at times like these.
Though you aren't exactly sure why liking Jackie's photo landed you with a teary-eyed Shauna. You were expecting an angry Shauna. If they were enraged tears, you might have understood it more; as it was, you were at a loss.
It's not like you haven't seen her cry before, but she was usually significantly more drunk before even approaching the point of tearing up.
Not that she was crying, of course. A part of you is afraid she might realize you've noticed.
“It's always her,” Shauna repeats insistently. There's that familiar edge of frustration lining her voice saved for Jackie alone. She never talks about anyone the way she talks about her. It's enough to make you hopeless. “She doesn't even like you, and it's still her.”
You frown self-consciously as she speaks. Jackie's your friend, after all—she must like you in some capacity. Not nearly brave enough to point that out, you keep your mouth shut on that point. No need to invite violence.
“I don't like Jackie.”
For a moment it's quiet enough you could almost hear a pin drop before you rush to add the most important part. “Like that, I mean.”
“Yeah,” she says, scoffing in disbelief, “because you've really been acting like it lately.”
“Was this about last night? It was an accident, really. I was… scrolling to see when her birthday was.”
That sounds reasonable.
“Bullshit. At 2 AM?”
Maybe not.
You shift your arms across your chest defensively, feeling caught and wanting to put some distance between you. Not that something that simple could ever stop Shauna, who likely saw it as an invitation more than anything else. Right now it feels like the only thing holding you together.
“I was already up.”
“Doing what?” she presses, quick and sharp enough to cut.
You hesitate just long enough for her to notice. She notices everything. How could she not when you're the sole object of her attention for once?
“Right,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. She sits back hard enough to make the chair rock back.
“That doesn't mean anything,” you snap, defensive enough to make the whole thing sound suspicious. “I can look at someone's profile without it being whatever you think it is.”
“Pathetic?”
“Right.” You roll your eyes.
“Obsessive?”
“Alright.”
“Creepy,” she adds.
The word lands harsher than all the others somehow. You can feel it in your stomach and in the way your jaw tightens. That's what finally sends you over the edge.
“Enough, Shauna,” you snap, standing up despite the way it immediately sets her on edge. “I got it. You don't have to–”
“Sit down.”
The words have barely left her lips before you've done just that. “Sorry.”
“You liked that picture of Jackie,” Shauna says coolly.
“I didn't.”
“I fucking saw it. Jackie showed me the notification. A picture from two years ago? You didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night but stalk her?”
Shauna looks like she's this close to violence.
“Look, I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry? You're fucking sorry? Great.”
“I know she's your girlfriend,” you say, running a hand through your hair and leaning back to create some distance. You barreled past the flicker of confusion in the crease of her eyebrows.
“It wasn't about her, okay? She wasn't the only one in the picture.”
“What?” Shauna asks. Her gaze is intense enough to pin you in place on that bed. You feel like something she's about to dissect.
You squirm in discomfort. Of course she would make you spell it out to her. “I was looking at you, okay? You don't post anything with you in it, and she does. She's all yours.”
“Jackie's not… not mine.” Shauna's confusion at the idea is distracting enough that you almost miss the rest of it. “You were looking at me?”
“Everyone knows Jackie is your girlfriend, Shauna. You hang off each other like you'll die if you're separated.” You're a little disappointed Shauna would even try something like that.
“What?” Shauna repeats, sharper this time, as if she says the same thing enough times, it will change your answer into something else.
“What?” you echo weakly, unsure of what angle Shauna's trying to take on you.
“You think I'm with Jackie? Our Jackie? Jackie Taylor?” Shauna lets out a humorless laugh. She stands, pacing the length of her twin bed as she looks at you. It would be ridiculous if she didn't look so good when irritated. “You think that I'm the one dating Jackie?”
“That's–yeah,” you say, faltering beneath the weight of her stare. You nod needlessly. “That's what it looks like. To literally everyone. Everyone with eyes.”
Shauna shakes her head, slow and incredulous. “No. No. We're not… That's not–no. Never ever.”
“Never… ever?” you ask slowly. Your stomach drops as your idea of the world around you shifts on its axis.
Shauna nods dismissively.
“She told me you were into her,” she accuses. “That you liked her posts. I've seen it. You've been flirting with her, trying to get her attention.”
“I haven't,” you say, stunned. It was the last place you saw this conversation going. “I was trying to get your attention.”
“My attention?”
The words are said with such a childlike wonder that it makes you a little sad for her. Then she comes to a stop right in front of you, and your thoughts shift to something else entirely.
“You could've just said something. Said anything,” Shauna says, jaw tightening as she grabs you by the shoulders.
“You're always with her,” you shoot back, glad to finally have somewhere to direct months worth of frustration and heartache toward. “How was I supposed to do that when you're attached at the fucking hip? I've never even seen the two of you cross the street on your own.”
Shauna shakes you by the shoulders. Not hard enough to really hurt but enough to stop the avalanche of accusations leaving your mouth long enough for her to grab the back of your neck.
“Do you ever shut up?”
You barely have a chance to get offended before she shuts you up herself. Out of every way she could have done it, her lips against yours was the best possible choice. Somehow it’s nothing like what you imagined and everything like it all at the same time. That was Shauna for you.
Even with everything you’ve wanted, you still selfishly want more. Need more. Shauna, for once, is on exactly the same page. She doesn’t even break for air as she climbs onto your lap, thighs bracketing yours and forcing more contact. Her bed creaks in protest beneath her knees, but that’s the only protest voiced in the room.
You finally break apart only long enough for Shauna’s lips to make their way to your neck. The better word might be "teeth" because that’s all you can feel as she bites down.
“Fuck,” you hiss, head thumping back against the wall behind you to give her more room. You want to give her anything she’s ever wanted. Anything you can give. This is just a benefit.
She laughs breathlessly when she lets up. There’s something so different about her like this. Happy. It’s a smile that you’ve never seen from her before, but you quickly find yourself addicted to it. Without her usual glower, she looks so much younger. All you can do is stare at her and try not to look too in awe.
“Hey,” she says shyly, clearly uncomfortable with the attention even as much as she enjoys it.
“Now you want to be shy?”
“Shut up.” She pinches your arm through your shirt in punishment before smoothing out the fabric. Shauna squeezes your arm like she can’t bear to let go.
It’s your turn to laugh. That was more familiar. It was enough to put you on more firm footing.
“We should probably talk, huh?”
Shauna nods thoughtfully before running her hand down your arm, grabbing your hand and leading it to the hem of her shirt.
“We could do that, or…”
You grin, running your hands up her sides and taking her shirt along with it.
Hi! I’m not sure if your requests are open right now, but if they are, could I request a miscommunication trope with Shauna?
Like, we all know she totally sucks at expressing her feelings and she has a crush on r, but assumes r likes Jackie. Meanwhile, r also has a crush on Shauna but thinks she and Jackie are a thing. Just a whole mess of miscommunication and feelings 👀
yes actually! this was the first like thing that made me want to write in a while, though I've been sitting on it. gonna post it later tn if I remember but figured I'd answer
note: not milfman actually writing something. trust that i'm just as shocked as you.
Thinking about pre-crash Melissa having the biggest unobtainable (in her mind) crush on you. Running in a slightly different crowd than she did, so she never had the chance to talk to you outside of practice.
She liked to watch you at practice or at parties when you weren't looking. Something about how you acted when you weren't putting on a show for anyone else was just so enticing to her.
She caught herself staring for a moment too long once, and you finally noticed. Melissa wanted to die on the spot when the only thing she thought to do was wave awkwardly back at you. Gen made fun of her for weeks afterward, but you never brought it up to her.
Melissa had grown used to watching you without being seen, and she wasn't expecting the wilderness to be any different. It was a lot harder to watch you discreetly without being noticed out here, which quickly drew your attention.
It was a little creepy the first few times you saw her lurking just outside your vision, hovering near a tree she clearly believes is hiding her from view. It was so cartoonishly stupid it took almost everything in you not to laugh at her for it.
You took an embarrassingly long time to put together why exactly she was staring at you all the time, but once you realized, you couldn't un-know it. In your defense, stalking isn't exactly recognized as an expression of affection.
Melissa doesn't need much encouragement to approach you for the first time. All it takes is a few smiles when you catch her eye and a laugh at one of her dumb jokes and she's all in.
She walks up on you when you're all alone, off in the woods foraging for one thing or another. You think Melissa must not realize quite how creepy that looks, but she's so visibly nervous as she fiddles with her hat that you can't hold it against her. She fumbles over her words so bad it's not even funny, but she got the kiss she was hoping for, so it hardly keeps her up at night.
Queen of U-hauling. If you had asked her to move into your hut following that first kiss, she would have. It's that serious. She's walking back to camp after trying to figure out whose last name sounds better in her head. Nearly trips over a branch.
Insists that she has to be the one to plan your first date because she asked you out. There was never any actual mention of a date, but you don't have the heart to burst her bubble like that. Most of what she comes up with is just doing your normal chores together and holding hands. It's not like she has a lot of options.
The most awkward, maybe sort of girlfriend ever. She's so new to actually having her affection returned that the boundaries of it all are beyond her.
She's not great with words most of the time. It's so much easier for her to show affection through actions. Sneaking you the biggest piece of meat when Shauna isn't looking. Making you something useful. Always sticking up for you in an argument even if you're the clear problem. Immediately your ride or die.
She tries whatever the 90’s version of “Would you still love me if I was a worm?” is once when you're half asleep and blushes to the tips of her ears when you sleepily ask her to repeat herself. Won't repeat it no matter how many times you ask her what she said. That's the last time she listens to something Mari says.
So jealous whenever she catches you getting closer to one of the other girls. Sticks so close to your side that she might as well be glued to it as she skips after you on your way to do chores.
Absolutely delighted any time you show the slightest amount of jealousy about her. She can hardly believe it the first time it happens, but it makes her fucking month. Melissa's never been the type to get a ton of attention from anyone besides Gen, so she's over the moon whenever she catches you watching her closely when she interacts with one of the other girls.
Melissa joking about how her lease is coming up soon and how you should probably share your hut to save on rent (she's completely serious).
Lives to share clothes with you. Your clothes are so spread out between the other girls that it doesn't really matter this far in, but Melissa makes a point to steal the ones she remembers being yours whenever she's on laundry duty.
Melissa tries to do any of the hard or annoying chores whenever you get assigned them, no matter how much you argue about it. She just wants to do things for you all the time.
Almost exclusively refers to you as her girlfriend. She loves that word: girlfriend. What a perfect word. Shauna threatens to cut her if she mentions that she's dating you for the fourth time in one conversation, but Melissa hardly notices.
All of her friends are sick to death of hearing about you. If she's not with you, she's talking about you. It's starting to become a problem for them.
Melissa dressing up in her nicest green shorts paired with a sweater vest and her pink hat to take you out (eating berries by the lake).
I've been busy with other things tbh and have been pretty obsessed with that kpop demon hunters movie lmaoo so nothing much to post about ig.
devastated about only having four seasons of yjs but I'd rather they finish it then it gets canceled before a season 5 yknow? might fr kms if it got canceled so it's prob for the best
pairing: Jackie Taylor x f!r x Shauna Shipman
summary: The final showdown, and all masks are off.
note: graphic descriptions of violence etc
Masterlist
There's more than a little pushing and shoving going on as you and Jackie fight to stand in front of the other in some useless attempt at being a meat shield for the other. Jackie has some misplaced need to protect you, given the head wound you're doing your best to ignore the throbbing pain of, but you're too stubborn to let her. She was the actual target of this whole operation, if she would bother to think clearly enough to remember.
You're not even positive that the two of them wouldn't kill you as collateral damage at this point, not even with how obsessed they clearly are with you. You suspect it has more to do with taking away Jackie's toys than actually wanting you or Shauna, but you're willing to hedge the bet that they're less likely to stab you no questions asked than Jackie.
Jackie pushes you behind her firmly enough that you give up on fighting her, if only to preserve some energy for the real fight ahead of you. She's too smart not to be using that knowledge against you. The little half-smirk she gives you before focusing on Gen is proof enough of that. You hope she has something up her sleeves that you don’t know about before you have to try to beat someone up.
You’ve done a lot of grappling in your time when one of your victims got a little too scrappy, but you’ve never had to actually fight someone in the process. That was the point of waving the pointy end of the knife in their direction. Most people didn’t want to get close to the woman with the knife. Only, you had no knife. That was the problem with letting yourself go into police custody: not being able to bring the large knives you’re so accustomed to.
Gen just watches from a few feet away, knife held loosely enough in her hand that you're not positive she knows how to use it. Not positive enough to rush her for it, but enough for you to feel a little more confident about your odds. Until Melissa clears her throat and reminds the both of you that she's there.
You’re struck by the immediate and senseless urge to slap her. There’s something about her sitting there across from you and making you help her on her essay while she was secretly plotting to set up your girlfriend that really rubs you the wrong way. To the surprise of no one but Melissa and Gen, that kind of thing was frowned upon by most people.
“No Shauna?” Melissa asks, making you tense as she waves her gun around. You're half tempted to step more firmly behind Jackie but manage to resist the urge. Despite her choosing to stand in front of you, you know that you would never hear the end of it if you did.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jackie quips, turning her back on Gen to face Melissa.
It was the better choice between the two of them, given that Gen apparently brought a knife to a gunfight. You’re not sure you want to know where Melissa even got a gun in the first place, but you hope that she doesn’t know how to use it. You can’t imagine her having the opportunity to practice with it all that much, but an hour ago you couldn’t imagine her killing cops either, so you’ll just have to hope she was too busy practicing her evil laugh.
You’re not positive that Shauna knows how to use hers either, but you trust in her resilience over anything else. If it took every bullet in the magazine, she would land at least one of them out of sheer stubbornness alone. That was a comfort, no matter how ridiculous the idea is.
“She’ll show up.” Melissa scans the room again, searching for Shauna like she was hiding just behind a pillar or beneath one of the seats. “I know she will. She wouldn’t leave you alone for long.”
You hate how breathy her voice is. Almost like she’s excited by the thought. No one should ever be excited to see Shauna but you and Jackie. It was against the laws of nature or something. Melissa gave you a smile that made you want to shrink in place. There was a chilling similarity to the kind of smile someone ranting at themselves gives you on the bus. You wonder if that’s what she always looked like behind the mask, and if so, you were quite grateful that she stole it off you.
“It’s okay,” Melissa says, taking a step forward. Instinctively you take a step back, feeling oddly like prey. It’s been a while since you felt that so strongly. Maybe since that first night in the woods. Even as Melissa advances, you take refuge in the knowledge that you’re not nearly as frightened as you were that night, chased through the woods by an assailant you weren’t aware was Shauna. Melissa holds her palms out, but the effect is rather ruined by the grip she still has on that gun. “I won’t hurt you. You’ll see.”
If only it went both ways.
“Melissa, why do you have that?” You ask, letting some of that anxiety you feel seep into your voice. It comes out shakier than you intend, but the effect it has on both Jackie and Melissa is instantaneous. They’re both sizing each other up like they’re about to enter a cage match, and the whole thing feels rather ridiculous. How the hell has this become your life?
It’s answered some important questions, like has Melissa figured out that the rest of you are in on it, for one. That answer was a solid no, judging by the way she still acted like you were something she needed to protect. Jackie’s at least excused by what you like to think of as serial killer girlfriend instinct, the kind of thing that often leads Shauna to start bar fights that you’re left to drag her away from before she finishes.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a bottle here for Jackie to smash over Melissa’s head. Even if there was, you aren’t exactly betting on Jackie against a gun. The whole thing was pretty lame on Melissa’s part; if she was going to copy your whole thing, she might as well stick within the limits of it. Guns were boring.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Melissa demanded, crossing the stage to stand next to Gen. Honestly, you had forgotten she was even there to begin with. She always had that kind of effect on you. Now that you think about it, it’s probably what makes her such a good choice for a partner. Can’t complete your on-campus murder spree without one, apparently.
You’re almost a little embarrassed you didn’t put it together that there was more than one of them. It was the oldest trick in the book, if you considered Jackie and Shauna doing it to you a few years ago old. Whatever it counted as, the two of them still did it first. They don’t know it, but they can’t even come up with their own reveal with a bit of originality.
Maybe that plagiarism accusation Melissa assured you was unwarranted last semester wasn’t quite as unfounded as she led you to believe.
“You don’t know what she’s done.” Gen smiles supportively every time Melissa glances her way in some strange cycle of validation that makes you want to tell them to get a room. This was the girl that was supposedly in love with you enough to steal you from your girlfriend?
“What who’s done?” You ask. If there was such a thing as an asking stupid questions competition, you’re sure to be a shoo-in, but the best thing to do when someone was pointing a gun at you was to go along with it. Melissa thought that you were stupid and naive enough not to know one of your girlfriends was running around killing ten people by herself? You would be that person.
Melissa just eats that up. You ignore how Jackie’s disgust is radiating off of her. If looks could kill, you would be six feet under right now. If the fact that your head's still attached to your body tells you anything, then Jackie has some understanding of the angle you’re trying to play here even if she clearly hates it. You can’t blame her for it. If the situation were reversed you would feel much the same way.
Luckily for all of you, Jackie reacts much more calmly than you might have if you had to sit here and watch her play dumb for Melissa.
“You don’t know?” She asks. Far too smug, like some kind of cartoon cat. “Do you want to tell her, Jackie, or should I?”
Where was she hiding this attitude the whole time? She’s always been rather boring. It was the kind of predictability that drew you toward her in the first place, a far cry from a relationship that often has you coming home to the announcement of another dead body. You’re starting to think that you’re just a magnet for lunatics.
There’s a right and wrong answer here, or at least one answer that’s more correct than the other from Melissa’s perspective. She’s nearly vibrating in place at the mere thought of getting to tell you every little dirty detail of Jackie’s sins, so of course Jackie comes in to rain on her parade.
“Tell her what?” Jackie asks, taking a generous step away from you as she stalks toward Melissa. Gen holds her knife firmly in front of her, doing little but betraying how inexperienced she is with it. Something to remember. You can already see about ten different ways that this is going to go wrong, but Jackie trusts you, so you’ll just have to return it.
“Tell her that you’re 19 and still can’t get a girlfriend without trying to steal someone else’s? Tell her how you begged for your life?”
Jackie lunges forward at Melissa at about the same time as you realize how horrible of an idea this is. You can see it before the sound fully registers: her body hitting the ground and rolling off the stage. Then, the sound of a gunshot.
“Jackie!” You scream, rushing toward her only to be shoved back by Melissa. You hit the ground with enough force to slam the back of your head against the ground, seemingly completing the matching front and back head wound set. Melissa’s face is all twisted up as she looks down at you, running through emotions so fast you’re not even sure what she’s going to settle on.
You don’t care, either. Not when Jackie might be lying dead on the ground in front of you, shot by some fucking loser who didn’t deserve to be the one to kill her. If Jackie has to die at all, she at least deserves to go out the right way. Being killed by Melissa is so embarrassing that you might have to lie to Shauna.
No. She can’t be dead. You refuse to believe it: Jackie was just too damn stubborn to die. It’s not like you even saw where the bullet hit, if it even did. She was probably down there laughing at you.
Right now it was your job to make sure that Jackie's fall wasn't in vain. It's a lot harder than you might expect, given the way Melissa's full attention was turned on you now. She’s never looked at you in quite the same way before, like you’re some kind of prey animal she’s trying not to spook.
Melissa doesn’t know you nearly as well as she thinks she does if that’s the conclusion she’s drawn about you. Even Shauna and Jackie assumed you could handle what they were. It was disrespectful. Just about as disrespectful as committing attempted murder on your girlfriend right in front of you and then trying to give you that look right afterward.
Gen at least has the decency to be watching Melissa instead. She's not here for you. The one who is here for you is finally making an appearance, betrayed by the slight sway of the curtain as Shauna draws nearer. You can just barely make out her outline crouched behind the curtain just off to the right, but you can’t risk looking at her long enough to tell for sure if she has her gun drawn or not.
Shauna was usually so trigger-happy that you can’t imagine she hasn’t now that she has an actual trigger to pull, but then why would she wait? Did Shauna know something you didn’t? Like the gun was secretly empty the whole time, the whole clip emptied in an attempt to land a shot. But then it never left his holster, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe she just wasn’t willing to risk you getting caught in the crossfire, which was much more likely.
It’s difficult to think straight knowing that Jackie might be hurt or worse, but it’s something that you have to push aside if you’re going to get out of here alive to help her. Something that becomes less and less likely with Shauna’s involvement, as much as you wanted her here before. You’re one Shauna temper tantrum away from being shot or stabbed.
“Tell me what?” You ask, hoping that Melissa hasn't noticed the same thing you have. Luckily, she seems clueless, a natural state for her in the time that you’ve known her. There has to be more there beneath the surface. No one can pull off the things she’s done lately without a lot of planning. Maybe years of it. Something that could have been avoided if Jackie had done the right thing in the first place and just killed her in her backyard, but it’s a little too late to wish for that.
Getting shot was probably enough of a punishment that you won’t rub it in too much. You can’t say the same for Shauna, who likely won’t let Jackie get over it even on her deathbed, hopefully many, many years down the road.
“Jackie’s not who you think she is. I know her whole good girl schtick makes her look all innocent, but she’s not. She killed all those people, you know? They said it was Jeff and Travis, but it wasn’t.”
“That sounds crazy, Melissa.” The words slip out before you can stop them, and you’re half expecting to be shot before you even have a chance to regret saying them.
Your worry is apparently unfounded, given how unsurprised Melissa remains. She has to have expected some level of disbelief on your part, some evidence toward the idea that she wasn’t fully gone in her pursuit of revenge on Jackie.
“I know. I do. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it. That’s why I had to shoot her. I—”
“You did what?” Shauna calls out, enough anger in her voice that even you flinch before appearing from the side of the curtain a moment later. There’s no gun in her hand, so all you can do is hope it’s still hidden somewhere. You’re not sure this is the best move to make right now, but there’s nothing you can do about it now that the two of them have already seen her.
The sight of Melissa giving Shauna heart eyes is sickening, but the way Gen starts to shift from foot to foot is far more worrying. People with weapons shouldn’t get nervous, and the fact that she is isn’t a good sign.
“Melissa,” Gen starts, but Melissa just waves her off. It’s strange to say when Melissa’s the one with the gun, but you find yourself far more worried about Gen. Even stranger considering you’ve never once even thought about Gen beyond a passing glance in the hallway.
“Don’t you see how important this is? It’s what I—what we’ve been working towards this whole time,” Melissa says imploringly. Her attention is focused on Gen enough that you feel safe taking a few steps backward, making your way toward the opposite side of the stage.
“Sorry, did you guys want to make out first, or should we wait?” Shauna asks impatiently. Once again, here comes Shauna to save the day by saying what everyone else is thinking.
Her eyes keep darting around, but she doesn’t seem to find what she’s looking for. It only makes her more frustrated. Jackie. She’s looking for Jackie. You can’t tell her where she is, not while the two of them are watching you so closely. Mostly because you don’t want to remind them of the possibility that Jackie’s still alive.
“God, you’re so funny, Shauna.” Melissa has the audacity to smile at her. Neither of them seems to notice you aren’t in the same place as you were before. “I’ve always thought that, even when Mari used to talk about how mean you were and called you… Uh, anyway.”
“Great. Glad we’ve got that down.” Sharp and to the point. You love her efficiency. “What do you think is going to happen here?”
Melissa frowns at the question. Shauna’s not reacting the way she should. None of the fear and uncertainty you’ve tried so hard to cultivate. Jesus Christ, how long does it take for the police to respond anyway? You know Shauna called them. Was there no urgency?
You’re not sure how long you can keep them here before the situation forces someone’s hand. Likely Shauna’s, whose hands need significantly less forcing than some others.
“She killed those people,” Melissa says again, stressing the word like it meant anything different a second time around. “She tried to kill me. I’m protecting you. I know it’s hard to see right now—”
“See what? How stupid can one person possibly be? Wait, don’t answer that.” Shauna pulls the gun out for real now, and a flicker of surprise crosses Melissa’s face. You know she must have seen you pull the gun, right? Where did she think it went?
The question answers itself for you as her eyes flick over to the edge of the stage. Jackie. Melissa looks unsure now, a hesitancy she hasn’t carried with her throughout the entire confrontation. Shauna with a gun has to set off some alarm bells in her head. It might finally start to flip over those preconceived notions of hers onto their head.
“No,” Melissa says, shaking her head slowly. The panic spreads across her face as she comes to an uncomfortable realization. “Not you too. But…”
You take another few steps backward before she realizes you’re in on it too, but this time Gen keys in on the motion. She darts forward, and you take off running behind the stage. The heavy footfalls of her boots behind you let you know she’s gaining ground faster than you can create it.
Not entirely hard when the person you're chasing is already more than a little woozy from the blood loss. What was it with head wounds and making you bleed like a stuck pig anyway? Shauna would probably know that. Or Misty, maybe. It sounds like the kind of thing she would know in case someone tripped on the sidewalk and she could step in and nurse them back to health.
Right now you wish she would step in so you could push her behind you and leave her to the wolves. Or wolf, in this case, as the sound of gunfire echoes from the direction of the stage. You just hope Shauna gets Melissa first, and hopefully somewhere that hurts. You still aren’t sure if Jackie’s okay.
Those damn boots of hers give every step away but have the unfortunate aspect of being quite the weapon of intimidation. Whichever of them you threw a shoe at in the hallway must have really taken that humiliation to heart. It’s only fair: you certainly did. It does help you when you duck behind a prop cart in the dim light, waiting for the sound of her approach to suddenly shove it in her way.
She goes down hard, catching it around the waist and nearly flipping over the thing as she hits the ground on her side. Normally this is when you would kick the shit out of her now that she’s down, but you’re not sure you can manage it as weak as you feel. You would likely just end up getting pulled to the ground, and that’s not about to help anybody. You need a weapon, or distance, or anything that doesn’t put you in close contact with somebody with a knife as long as hers.
It helps you gain enough distance that you risk taking a look over your shoulder as you round another corner of the hallway. An immediate mistake as you realize Gen isn’t in the same place where you left her. Nor is she chasing after you. You curse under your breath, grabbing onto an axe you quickly realize is a wooden prop.
Whatever. It will still hurt if you hit her in the head hard enough, and you think you owe her at least that much after all the shit she and Melissa have put you through recently. You still aren’t sure what Gen’s motivation even is in all that. She didn’t have time to make her grand speech like Melissa did and doesn’t seem like she cares all that much to tell you.
What she does have is a burning hatred in her eyes when she looks at you and the look of utter glee when Shauna revealed exactly how much the two of you know about Jackie. Melissa’s obsessed with the three of you, and she hates you for it. That was a motivation as old as time, and just as boring as Melissa’s when you thought about it. Not that you could do much of that as you catch sight of a glint of light reflecting off the metal of her blade as she lunges toward you.
You manage to deflect most of it with the handle of the axe, but you can’t stop it from cutting a slash down your arm near the tail end of the swing. It hurts like hell, a feeling you haven't been accustomed to in quite a while. She’s fast, though, a hell of a lot faster than you were expecting her to be. Which is why she manages to catch you in your side with the knife hard enough that you feel like your breath has been knocked out of your chest.
It couldn’t have been too deep, not with how little blood seems to actually be on the blade, but it’s enough to have you stumbling backward in something you hate to admit is fear. You’ve been cut up too many times to count, but being stabbed was an entirely different thing. It felt more like being punched than anything else, right up until you felt the blade drag itself out as quickly as it entered.
It’s almost funny how anticlimactic the whole thing was, right up until the feeling caught up to you. That burning feeling like your insides are being twisted up and turned inside out, a pain so intense that you want to throw up. You’ve felt lightheaded all night, but that has nothing on how you’re feeling right now. Like it takes everything in you just to keep your feet under you, and one good burst of wind could take you down and out for the count.
You can’t focus on it now, pushing through the shock and that primal animal fear as you swing in turn, catching Gen’s hands hard with the end of the axe as hard as you can. Which, given the general disarray of you, isn’t all that hard. The sound of it landing is disgusting, something that sounds suspiciously like a crack before the knife clatters to the ground.
Gen’s scream is nothing short of agonized, but it doesn’t stop either of you from diving for the knife on the ground. Had you been thinking clearer, you might have just hit her a few more times with the axe, but the head was already starting to wobble on the handle from one blow, so it was best that you abandoned it.
Your fingers close around the handle just moments before Gen reaches it, but a knee to the side has you letting go of it with a scream you can’t believe left your lips. That blinding pain is back again with a vengeance as you just barely manage to catch Gen’s wrist before she can fully bring the knife down upon you again.
Your side burns and all of your muscles ache as you use every ounce of strength left in your body to hold her off, but your hands are shaking so badly already that you know it’s a futile gesture. Is this really where you’re going to die? Backstage in a theater you’ve never been to by some girl you’ve never even noticed with no idea if your girlfriends are okay? As far as ways to die go, this has to be one of the worst.
Especially as it becomes harder and harder to fight back, her knee presses cruelly into your side as you struggle to focus on anything other than the pain of it. Harder still to maintain your grip on her wrists as your arm starts to slide on something wet where it’s braced against the ground.
Blood, an unhelpful part of your mind fills in. It becomes less of an "if you lose this test" and more of a "when you lose this test" as your strength starts to flow from your body alongside your blood. If she hadn’t managed to catch you in the side, this whole thing would have been over already. Gen, with her one broken hand—judging by the swelling—against you at near full strength would have been nothing. Until you let her stab you.
It’s dumb of you, but you aren’t used to having to watch your own back. There was Jeff, stupid Jeff that you killed alone, but he wasn’t a real challenge. Not when he wasn’t expecting it to come. This you should have been more careful on, but this time the three of you were the ones caught unaware.
Then, like an angel, Misty Quigley appears from the shadows, syringe in hand.
It marks the first time in memory that you’ve been excited to see her. Something on your face must give it away, as Gen turns her head just in time to watch the needle be jabbed into her neck. Gen stumbles off you, swinging the knife in Misty’s direction. Misty, who has already jumped back a good five steps in preparation, is unfazed by the action. She watches curiously as the fight starts to leave Gen’s body.
Not willing to leave it up to chance, you drag yourself a good foot across the floor to get to Gen, grab the knife off the floor, and plant it in her chest in one smooth motion. This is of far more importance to Misty, whose attention quickly turns from clinical to interested. If only you cared about impressing Misty, because you think you might have actually managed it for once.
You slump back on the ground, half willing to just stay here until Shauna comes and finds you. Something that you’re increasingly willing to believe you’re entitled to after the day you’ve had. Shauna was a big girl; you’re sure she can take care of herself against Melissa. Besides, you doubt she would appreciate you bringing a knife and a knife wound to a gunfight.
Misty clears her throat, a soft hem hem that seems to reverberate through your skull. You grit your teeth, something that makes it all the more difficult to play dead. You’re still going to try. Misty steps over Gen’s body like it’s nothing only to nudge you in the side with the pristine toe of her white shoe. Probably not pristine for all that much longer as she steps in a puddle of your blood.
As if just noticing it, Misty gasps, kneeling by your side with a quickness that makes your head spin. “Why didn’t you say anything? Here, I can help. I took a—”
“Red Cross Babysitting Training Course,” you mutter, sitting up as quickly as you can manage while you slap her hands away weakly. “Twice.”
Misty offers you her arm, and you take it wearily, secretly embarrassed at how grateful you are for her help. You’re taking this to your grave, no matter how long it takes for you to find yourself in it. It’s looking sooner and sooner lately.
“Misty?”
She pauses, your arm braced over her shoulder as she struggles to support you back to the stage.
“Yes?”
“Thanks.” Misty beams, but you keep talking before she can say anything suitably freaky and ruin the moment. “Did you see Shauna?”
“No,” she admits. “I came in through the back.”
“Why are you here anyway?”
She pushes her glasses further up her nose, avoiding eye contact as she blushes to the tips of her ears. Of course she was following Jackie. Obviously.
“Right.” You answer your own question.
You let go of Misty just in time to reach the front of the stage again, not wanting Shauna to see you hanging off of Misty for two reasons. The obvious humiliation of it all being the first, and how ungrateful it would be for Misty to immediately be shot by your jealous girlfriend after saving your life being the second.
Even you wouldn’t be able to talk her into reacting reasonably tonight, if you ever could. Only, as you step fully onto the stage, you realize that you have bigger problems on your hands than that. Namely the fact that Shauna’s still wailing on Melissa, whose face has turned a rather curious shade of purple.
Fuck.
You have no idea how you’re going to explain that one to the cops. Misty starts to rush forward, but you stop her with a hand to her wrist. Shauna winds up to hit her again only to suddenly stop, one arm still poised in the air, as you enter her field of vision.
She’s up on her feet like nothing ever happened, crossing the stage and tugging your shirt up as she examines the edges of your wound. When she starts to try to touch it, you have to draw a line, instead asking her where Jackie was in the hope of distracting her. Shauna’s eyes go wide, first in shock and then in guilt.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t even think…”
Shauna takes a step away before hesitating, her eyes flicking up and down your body before deciding you aren’t about to die on her before she leaves you to go get Jackie. It’s agonizing just to keep standing, hand clutched against your wound like it was the only thing keeping your insides from becoming outsides, but the sight of a dazed Jackie dragging herself up to sit on the steps with Shauna’s help is enough to make the journey worth it.
“We match,” Jackie says, reaching up to touch the wound on her forehead and whining pitifully when Shauna slaps her hand away. It looked more like a scratch than anything else, but you keep that to yourself. Her sleeve is stained in blood as it slowly drips its way down to her wrist. Out of all the places she could have been shot, the arm was one of the best.
There are far worse places to be shot. Like in the side. Your wound throbs in remembrance, as if you could begin to forget.
“Don’t touch it,” Shauna snaps, looking to you for support and sighing at the placement of your hand. “Either of you.”
“I’m applying pressure,” you defend.
Shauna grumbles something under her breath but seems to accept it. “Sit.”
You really don’t want to, unsure if you could get yourself back up again, but Shauna doesn’t phrase it like a question. Neither does Jackie, who looks more and more concerned as her head starts to clear from the fall. You take a seat next to Jackie that feels more like collapsing. Yeah, you definitely aren’t getting back up without assistance.
Shauna seems to notice Misty for the first time, watching her skeptically as her finger slides back to rest against the trigger. You grab at her elbow and shake your head. She’s so exhausted she doesn’t even question it, just slumping back into your side and breathing heavily.
Misty, for her part, doesn’t once look concerned. She rocks back and forth on her feet, looking aimlessly around the theater like she’s not standing right smack dab in the middle of a crime scene staring at a corpse and three bloodied women. You try for a moment to imagine what the state of Melissa’s body and Shauna’s knuckles must imply to a person and quickly decide that Misty really was crazy to look so calm.
“You’re welcome,” Misty says helpfully. Shauna looks half ready to shoot her anyway, but Jackie just smiles weakly at her.
“Thank you, Misty.”
“She’s losing it,” you mutter under your breath. Jackie tries to flick your shoulder but picks the wrong arm to do it, whimpering in pain as she pulls at her wound.
Suddenly Misty screams, a sound so unlike her that you don’t realize it’s even coming from her at first. The thought of her being afraid of anything is weird. She always seemed above that kind of thing. It jerks your attention away from Jackie just in time to see Gen running full speed at Misty, bloody knife in hand.
Gens rose from the dead, or something pretty close to it. She was deader than dead. A vein full of whatever was in that syringe of Misty’s, something you’re positive was appropriately deadly, and a chest full of her own knife. A knife that she was now wielding as if it wasn’t soaked in her own blood. Pretty metal of her, honestly. If she hadn’t been trying to kill you, you would be impressed.
Shauna’s up on her feet before you can even attempt to go help Misty, a relief as you sink back onto the step and lean your head on Jackie’s good shoulder. Despite her clear exhaustion, Jackie smiles as she rests her head against yours, eyes fixed on Shauna, whose first shot catches Gen’s shoulder and second shot catches Gen’s head.
Just in time for her body to fall, catching Misty on the way down. Misty yelps, pushing at Gen’s shoulder as she frantically crawls out from under her. It takes her a while with all that dead weight on top of her, but she manages without help. Good, because Shauna definitely wasn’t going to provide it. Misty was lucky Shauna didn’t laugh, and you and Jackie aren’t exactly in the position to help someone else up.
Unthinkingly, you look toward Melissa. You swear that you can see her fingers twitch by her sides. Irrational, perhaps. It would make her one of the most dead-looking alive people you’ve ever seen, but you’re not willing to discount it after what you just saw with Gen. Shauna stalks across the stage, pointing the barrel of her gun at the center of Melissa’s forehead. Melissa lurches up just in time to get caught by a bullet, ending whatever stupid plot she had in mind.
Just in case.
Jesus, they didn’t die easy, did they?
Shauna looks back sheepishly, rubbing her arm and looking embarrassed. “It’s harder to hit someone running,” she says, defending herself against imaginary insults. That’s your Shauna right there. You think you might be seeing two of Gen anyway at this point, both lying on their backs and staring up unseeingly at the roof. The blood loss was really starting to get to you.
“My hero,” Jackie says, sounding far too serious. Shauna’s chest puffs up in pride. She really was that easy, wasn’t she. You’ll be lucky to get Shauna’s ego to fit through the doorway after this, but you’re still glad to have her here.
“We should probably…” Shauna trails off at the sound of sirens approaching, louder and louder until they pull into what was obviously the parking lot. She shrugs, setting the gun down on the stage and kicking it away. “Well, that solves that.”
“God, did they tell you they were going to take that long when you called them?” You ask Shauna.
“What?” Shauna asks. “I didn’t call them. The phone wasn’t working. What the hell do you think was taking me so long?”
“I did,” Misty says happily, pulling out a rather large phone from her bag on the ground and waving it. She must have doubled back for wherever she left it at some point. You can’t say that you were honestly paying her that much attention. “I called the police and told them the murderer was here after I heard the gunshots.”
“Murderers,” you correct.
“Well, I didn’t know that.”
“I did.” Your ensuing grin gets even more smug after Jackie presses a kiss to your cheek.
“You had insider information.” Misty sounds so frustrated that it almost makes getting stabbed worth it.
Almost.
“If insider information is being better than you in every way, then yeah.” You grin weakly in Misty’s direction, who's so mad she seems on the verge of stomping her foot and turning around. Arguing with her is taking more out of you than you really have to give, but you can't resist the urge with her being so short-tempered at being wrong.
Shauna snickers, leaning down to kiss you. Out of all the ways to be shut up, that was easily your favorite.
When Shauna pulls away, leaving you quiet and a little dazed as the police nearly break down the door of the theater, Misty's just staring open-mouthed at the two of you. She points a finger in your direction as she looks at Jackie, who just shrugs and pecks your cheek.
Misty looks like she just found out that Santa wasn't real as she looks back and forth and back and forth. “What? But… no.”
She's muttering under her breath as the four of you are escorted out of the building and toward the awaiting ambulances. You're vaguely aware of being questioned, but the effort of standing even with help is too much for you to pay them all that much attention.
It suddenly becomes a rush as someone becomes aware of the severity of your injury, nearly ripping you away from the three of them in their haste to get you onto a stretcher. Jackie tries to hold on to you as they drag you away, but she's too busy getting dragged in a different direction herself.
Shauna looks torn, glancing back and forth between the two of you before you finally just wave her off. Even if she did ride to the hospital with you instead, she'd probably be sitting there worried sick about Jackie the whole time. The look on her face is nothing short of grateful—for Shauna, at least—as she jogs after them.
Plus, if Shauna came with you, it would open the seat up with Jackie for Misty. The greater of two evils.
All you can think about as the ambulance doors slam behind you is how much you miss your bed and how Jackie and Shauna are never going to let you make another friend again.
…
Shauna glares down at the stitched-up wound on your side, sizing it up with her fingers and then comparing it to the initials she carved into your shoulder.
“It’s bigger, isn’t it?” Jackie asks.
Shauna nods defeatedly, slumping back into the chair by your bedside.
pairing: Jackie Taylor x f!r x Shauna Shipman
Summary: The aftermath of your actions comes sooner than you might expect. And a long-awaited confrontation.
warnings: minors dni. graphic descriptions of violence
Masterlist
The distance Jackie’s placed between the three of you isn’t as subtle as she may like to think it is. It’s careful, like most things Jackie does, in that way of hers that isn’t immediately obvious. She could have chosen the seat across from you on accident, and you’re sure no one else in this room thought anything of it. That’s the beauty of Jackie Taylor.
Shauna certainly hasn’t, sitting next to you with her hands stuffed in the pockets of her denim jacket as she idly scuffs her shoe against the floor. It might have been more annoying had she been able to fully reach the ground from the chair. As it was, her feet barely brushed the floor anyway. You can tell it’s making her more than a little frustrated, but you can’t find it in yourself to pay it that much attention when compared to your current location.
The police station. Again. This time Jackie wasn’t hauled in as a suspect but rather as a potential victim. Apparently, with another murder falling so close to home while Jackie had an undeniable alibi, they’ve finally come to the conclusion that she was being targeted. Great, it only took a murder that the new Ghostface hadn’t committed for them to come to that conclusion.
More excellent police work.
You're relieved that the police have at least come to the conclusion that Mari was killed by the same one who killed the others. That was probably more on the knife than anything else. That freak was so obsessed with the original murders that she's even using the same kind of knife that Shauna prefers.
You just wish Jackie would come to the same conclusion.
She was a little too knowing to fall for that. Maybe it was the lack of threatening letters afterward or just how disconnected Mari has been from her since high school. Either way, she knows something is up. You're not sure how much she suspects, but anything is too much for you right now.
Jackie's always had a way of sniffing out a secret no matter how small, so you should've known that something as big as hiding a murder wouldn't stay secret for long. You doubt she knows about Mari, probably far more concerned that you and Shauna are both keeping secrets from her. A capital crime in Jackie's mind, and you aren't usually one to disagree with her.
It's safer that way.
If pressed, you couldn't say why you haven't told Jackie. It's not like this would be the thing that finally sent her over the edge if everything else hasn't. In reality, it’s only been a day since you killed Mari in the first place, which was really just 12 hours if you consider the time Jackie was either sleeping or not home, but not telling her is really starting to get to you.
Maybe it was just the delight of having a secret with one of them that the other didn't also know. There's never been something that you've kept from one and not the other before. They're so much of a pair it almost feels unnatural, but Shauna doesn’t seem like she’s even thought about the consequence of it. This was normally where you might wonder if Shauna was setting you up somehow by keeping your secret, but she was so genuine last night that you can’t believe she’s making a play for favorite by not telling Jackie.
There isn’t time to tell her now. Not when you’re sitting in the police station waiting for Jackie’s new police escort to follow you around. Neither you nor Shauna thought it was a good idea to invite a police officer so close, but Jackie’s in the middle of pointedly ignoring anything the two of you say unless she can make a passive-aggressive comment on it. Not the most helpful of attitudes when you’re at the risk of either being murdered or being arrested for murder, but Jackie’s too busy staring suspiciously at you to be rational.
All in all, it’s a fairly normal day considering how your life has been going recently. It takes an elbow to Shauna’s side to snap her attention away from her shoes, a look of annoyance fading into confusion as she meets your eyes and you jerk your head in Jackie’s direction. Either Shauna still doesn’t notice or still doesn’t care, because all she does is slink back against the wall behind her and check the time on the clock.
She’s still glaring when you risk a glance in Jackie’s direction, but you’ve grown tired of the whole silent treatment thing she’s got going on. You meet her eyes as you rest your head on Shauna’s shoulder. Jackie’s jaw clenches as Shauna rests her head on top of yours, her fingers wrapping around your arm and squeezing comfortingly. You can feel just a hint of a smirk against the side of your head, telling you that at least Shauna is aware of this. She would catch on just in time to be petty.
Jackie’s foot starts tapping against the ground, barely audible in the hustle and bustle of the police station but loud enough to draw your attention. She lasts another ten seconds before she gets up with a forced sigh and almost collapses in the seat next to you. You try not to react too visibly to it—you’re already in trouble as it is—but her rolling eyes tell you that you’re not as successful as you might’ve hoped.
“You did that on purpose,” Jackie accuses, keeping her voice low as she glances around. She shimmies awkwardly in her chair to bring it closer, and it takes you a minute to find your voice without laughing. They really were just a bit too high off the ground to sit comfortably in.
“Did what?” You ask innocently, but the smile on your face betrays you. If not for that, the smugness radiating from Shauna would’ve given it away anyhow, so you don’t feel that defeated about it.
“That.” She gestures at the entirety of the two of you. “All cuddled up while you left me to sit by myself.”
“You sat by yourself,” Shauna points out, but neither of you are really listening to her. She grumbles under her breath when she puts that together.
“I know you think—”
“I don’t think,” Jackie interrupts. “I know. I know things. Just like I know you’re keeping something from me, and I don’t like it. You’re not even a good liar, so I’m not sure why you’re even trying.”
“Who said anything about lying?”
“I did. Jackie Taylor. Or have you already forgotten my name in favor of hers?”
“Her?” You ask in disbelief. Shauna pops her head up as she suddenly tunes back into the conversation. “Who’s her?”
There’s no one else. Not like that, anyway. No one even comes close. Even if you thought about cheating on them, which you never have, you wouldn’t even have the hours in the day to do so. You might point that out if you thought it would help your case any. She would probably just accuse you of hooking up with some girl in the showers or on the walk to class.
“I don’t know,” Jackie spits. “Why don’t you tell me? What’s her name? What position were you in?”
“There’s no her, Jackie. Jesus. We can’t—” you glance around anxiously. “We can’t talk about it here, okay? It’s not what you think. It’s a mess, but it’s not that. never that.”
Jackie’s breathing is heavy as a result of her fury, each breath making you anxious as you sit tensed in the seat next to her. It’s not like there was a lot she could do to interrogate you here, not with all these cops as witnesses, but you figure she must be thinking about it. So are you. You hope there might be a knife involved if she has a chance. Those nights always ended with a bang.
“Does Shauna know?” Jackie asks.
You nod slowly, and Jackie’s jaw relaxes as she sits back in her chair. She crosses her arms over her chest, saying nothing. You’re not nearly stupid enough to think that this is over. Jackie’s cold war is just going to have to wait until you’ve lost your new friends.
You’ve assured her that you’re not cheating, at least, but that still leaves a world of possibilities. Shauna isn’t exactly regarded for her strict moral compass, and Jackie knows that better than anyone. Secretly you think that Jackie’s probably looking for a reason to be upset with you more than anything else, but you keep that to yourself. Just like Mari.
You’re sure Jackie’s going to press you again, but she doesn’t get the chance as two officers walk over. Neither of them are particularly big men, which isn’t all that reassuring. You share a glance with Shauna, who’s seemingly come to the same conclusion. She rolls her eyes, and you don’t blame her. Jackie just looks miffed to be interrupted.
“I’m Officer Riley,” the shorter one introduces himself and gestures to the man next to him. “This is Officer Weary.”
Weary seems like a correct description. He looks like he would rather be literally anywhere else, and the feeling is more than mutual. It’s very hard to turn down a protective detail without looking suspicious as hell. Jackie tried but quickly gave up as the detectives started exchanging looks. It was better to deal with dumb and dumber than end up back in a jail cell.
Jackie was too pretty for prison. Shauna would probably run the place in a week. Either option wasn’t looking great for you. No, far better to keep them at home where they belong. If letting two grown men follow you around for a week is the price of that, you’re more than willing to pay it. Maybe you’ll luck out and they’ll catch her for you, but even that was a risk.
You’re not sure what evidence she has to make her so certain that Jackie was behind the original murders in the first place. She has to have something to be so sure about it, but obviously she doesn’t have enough of it to think that Jackie did it all by herself. Your part in the whole affair was admittedly very limited, but you’re still a little offended at being erased from the narrative that way.
The point was that it’s in your best interest that this copycat doesn’t get taken alive, and the officers make that a very difficult position to be in.
You follow them as they gesture to get up, listening to them talk at you rather than to you. They never even bother to ask you for your names, and you wonder if they even care to know them in the first place. Officer Riley is talkative, which isn’t a quality you appreciate in a bodyguard that’s been forced upon you
They’ll be taking you to a secondary location to sleep in. Something about your dorm room being hard to secure. You just hope they aren’t expecting you to sleep in separate rooms. Jackie could probably convince them that it was strategically sound for the three of you to sleep in the same room if she really put her mind to it. It would be fewer entrances to guard. Yeah, that’s it.
You’re not sure how you ended up in the middle seat in the squad car, but you silently curse the both of them as their knees dig into either side of you. Shauna, you think, is spreading her legs wider on purpose just to fuck with you. It’s really not something you would put past her for even a second. Jackie, despite still being pissed with you, looks like she’s halfway through deciding whether she wants to play footsie or not.
The answer quickly becomes no as one of the officers up front mentions something about Mari’s death again. Jackie fumes, slumping down in her seat and staring out the window. She doesn’t try to shrug your hand away when you set it down on her thigh, which you decide to take as a win.
Shauna decides to take it as an insult, actively kicking your ankle to regain your attention. Jackie smiles as she watches in the reflection of the window, and that’s all the motivation you need to nudge Shauna back.
You’re so caught up in keeping the little game between the three of you that it catches you by surprise when Officer Weary suddenly scoffs. Shauna’s jaw clenches, and you start to flush in embarrassment only to realize that he wasn’t looking back at the three of you at all. He’s looking at someone in a hoodie standing on the side of the road, a cardboard sign held loosely in hand near the stop sign.
Officer Riley stops at the sign, just like he’s stopped at every single stop sign the entire drive despite the roads being completely empty at this time of night. Which was the point of making you wait so long in the station if you listened to him. You still think they’re just being lazy.
It’s coming to a stop that finally made them hold up the sign fully. You’re expecting some variation of asking for money, the kind of sign that your eyes skip over in favor of checking oncoming traffic, but it’s not that kind of sign at all.
You’re going to die, reads the sign. You look up at their face only to see a familiar mask staring back at you underneath the hood of their jacket.
“Oh, fuck,” Officer Weary cries out, reaching for his service weapon just in time to take a bullet to the chest. Officer Riley hits the gas, his attention focused on his partner just long enough to hit something in the road that makes him lose control of the car entirely.
You’re holding on to the two of them for dear life as the car spins. Someone’s screaming, and you’re pretty sure it’s you. There’s barely any time to think about anything besides how fucking terrified you are before the car slams into a wall and your head slams into the grating separating the front of the squad car.
It all gets a little hazy after that.
There’s screaming again, but this time you think it must be Jackie. You wince as the hands on your body shake and shake and shake, feeling like your head is rattling on your shoulders. It’s enough to have to blink your eyes back open, raising a hand to wipe the trails of blood away on your forehead from where they fall into your eyes.
Jackie’s staring back at you with the most relieved look you think you’ve ever seen her make, her arms wrapping around your shoulders as she pulls you into her. You’re vaguely aware of Shauna tearing at the grating, but everything is a little too much for you to manage to keep your eyes open fully.
Officer Riley is gone, his door wide open. Whether he climbed out or was pulled out, you’re not sure, but he did manage to take one of them down with him. Jackie passes you off to Shauna, who drags you out the front, helping you back up to your feet as you hit the ground on your knees.
There’s a body beneath him, and you can only hope he got her.
If you were in any other situation—not bleeding from the head and relying on your girlfriend to stay on your feet—you would’ve thought to check. As it was, you just had to believe that she would at least stay down long enough for you to get away. Shauna’s clearly thinking about it, but the worried look she shoots in your direction as she helps Jackie climb out of the front of the car and over Officer Weary.
“We need to call the police,” you say suddenly, glancing between the two downed officers.
Shauna gestures at the body. “Well, there they are.”
“Response time keeps getting quicker,” Jackie agrees. You glare weakly in Jackie’s direction, too busy hanging off of Shauna to risk letting her drop you over it.
“I mean it,” you say, sharper this time, even though the effort of it makes your vision tilt. “We need to get to a phone. An ambulance, or something.”
“What’s calling the police going to solve? They weren’t much help here,” Shauna says.
“Uh, not going to jail, maybe?” Jackie’s reaching for you, brushing the sleeve of her jacket across your head to wipe away streaks of blood. She hums soothingly. “Not as bad as it looks.”
Shauna hesitates as she thinks about it. The street is eerily quiet now that everything’s gone down, even if you couldn’t imagine it being that calm just moments ago. It’s made even quieter by their shared silence. At least it gives you a moment to get your thoughts together enough to help stop your head from pounding.
Reluctantly, she admits defeat as she starts dragging you down the street. “There’s a phone booth right by the theater.”
“When were you at the theater?” You can’t imagine Shauna ever willingly setting foot in there. She wasn’t very artsy unless someone wrote it down three hundred years ago and she could be pretentious about liking it.
She mumbles something under her breath that you can’t make out, lost to the wind.
“What was that?” Jackie prompts smugly, immediately jumping on it.
“Van had some student film playing there, and Tai made me come.”
“Aw, aren’t you just the nicest?” Jackie reaches past your head to pinch Shauna’s cheeks. Shauna jerks out of the way, leaving you to fend for yourself as you stumble down the street. Part of you wants to point out that you’re not nearly far enough away from the corpses to be bickering like this, but then they might turn their attention onto you.
“Van needs all the help she can get to fill the seats, okay?”
“Wait,” you interrupt, stopping in the street as a thought occurs to you.
You double back, keeping your eyes on the woman on the ground as you pull the pistol out of Officer Weary’s holster. Shauna watches impatiently, but you can see the approval in the way she doesn’t storm over and drag you away. You turn your attention back to the two of them as you walk back from the car.
“Oh shit!” You yell, catching sight of Jackie. “Behind you!”
Jackie turns just in time to see a knife coming down at her, giving her just enough time to throw herself out of the way. You fire a shot in the killer’s direction, but you’re too far away to hit her with any degree of accuracy. There was a reason the three of you used knives, okay? Beyond just the idea of Shauna with a gun being the most terrifying thing that you’ve ever heard of.
The killer manages to duck behind a building long enough for you to spare a glance back to Officer Riley on the ground. You knew she had to have gotten out from underneath him, as the picture before you indicates, but you have no idea how she could have gotten so far so fast without any of you seeing her.
You run toward the two of them, gun in hand just in case. Shauna holds her hand out expectantly for it, and you don’t give not handing it over to her even a moment’s consideration. Shauna with a gun is a terrifying concept, but right now she’ll have to be your terrifying concept. As long as she’s standing between you and a crazy woman, she can have all the guns she wants. She’s your crazy woman.
Jackie doesn’t look nearly as sure as you do, but she says nothing as Shauna tucks it into the back of her jeans. The sudden glee on Jackie’s face spells out something terrible for you.
“So, what have you been lying about, liar?” Jackie prompts.
Out of all the things she could remember right now as you practically bled out in the street from your mild head wound, she would choose to remember that.
“Why do you assume I'm the liar? What if it was Shauna?” You protest.
“No, Shauna's definitely in on it. She's a worse liar. That's what gave you away. Never tell a secret to Shauna you want to keep from me.”
Jackie waves off Shauna's offended “Hey!” in favor of staring at you expectantly. Exaggerating your limp from the crash doesn't even help you get out of it. Jackie just narrows her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. She's even walking backward now.
You spill everything just to get her to stop that. She was prone to accidents just walking the correct way. The journey her face goes on as you tell the story—leaving out a few key details on how you freaked the hell out afterwards—is nothing short of remarkable. It’s not even that scandalous of a story, all things considered, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that looking at her.
Shauna’s still quiet as you talk, which you choose to take as a silent agreement to keep the rest of it between the two of you. It’s not that you couldn’t tell Jackie. Falling apart like that is something she can understand better than most people. She’s always been so good at dealing with other people’s emotions. There’s a reason that she ended up as captain. But that was something best kept between you and Shauna for the time being.
“You killed Mari?” Jackie asks in disbelief. “How could you kill Mari? I liked Mari.”
“It’s not like I meant to, Jackie. And, actually, while we’re on the subject. Let’s talk about how many of my friends you murdered.” That wasn’t something you brought up all that often for a reason, but it feels appropriate now if only for the way Jackie’s eyes immediately fall toward something else.
“Left here,” Shauna says at the same time as Jackie says, “Let’s not.”
“Funny how that works.”
“Don’t turn this on me—on us. You killed Mari for no reason. I had a reason.”
“Yeah, being a freak,” you say under your breath. You get twin suspicious glares for it, but neither of them manages to make it out.
“You didn’t even like Mari,” Shauna accuses. “You just liked that she kissed your ass and was just the right amount of afraid of you.”
“You used to be like that.” Jackie sighs dreamily, nudging you in the side as she falls into step next to you.
“I wasn’t afraid of you. I was afraid because someone was murdering all of my friends.” You can’t help but point that out. Everything going around lately has really pushed that to the forefront of your mind.
Jackie pouts, her arms wrapping around one of your own as she hugs it to her chest.
“Why did you have a knife on you anyway?” Jackie asks, a not-too-subtle way of changing the subject.
“It’s kind of silly,” you admit. Shauna perks up at the question. You can tell by the immediate look of intrigue that she hadn’t given it that much thought when you came crying the night before.
“I’m ready to laugh,” Shauna says dryly.
“I just… I thought it was Melissa?”
“What?” Jackie laughs hard enough that her eyes start to water, coming to a stop in the middle of the street. “Melissa?”
“It’s not that stupid.” There’s Shauna picking a fight for the sheer sake of picking it. You appreciate the support no matter how roundabout it is. That’s how most of Shauna’s support comes about if someone’s not actively bleeding or dying. You only qualify for the first one at the moment.
“I mean, it is.” Jackie wipes her eyes as her laughter trails off into more manageable spurts. “You should’ve seen her when—” She cuts off suddenly, a guilty look on her face.
“When?” You and Shauna prompt.
“Let’s get back to Mari.”
“Let’s not,” you parrot her earlier words. “When?”
“Do you remember when we were hiding in Jeff’s closet, and I kind of left?”
“Yes?”
“Well…”
*
Jackie quietly shut the door behind her, rolling her eyes as she got one last look at Jeff through the window by the door. Maybe she should have felt bad about effectively throwing you into deep water without knowing how to swim, but that was how people learned, right? Besides, she was more than confident in your ability to take out Jeff of all people.
She thought it was one of the better plans she had come up with, if she did say so herself. And she did, often. Shauna wasn’t nearly as supportive as she could have been, but that was something she’d long grown used to. It came with the purchase, so to say. She could’ve told you, but it was funny watching you squirm around on a hook.
It was pretty lucky that Travis’s place was in walking distance from Jeff’s. Otherwise Jackie would’ve struggled to get there without a car, considering Shauna was clear across town. Driving herself would’ve removed the whole element of surprise given that nothing said,
“Hey, I’m the murderer,” like parking her car down the street.
Sneaking around in the costume always made her feel a little silly, even as much as Shauna protested otherwise. Something about it being empowering and scary, but Jackie mostly thought it was hot and stifling. Though, she could admit that she liked looking at the two of you in it. It still didn’t mean that she appreciated it herself. It was practical, which Shauna appreciated. That sort of thing usually inspired Jackie to feel the same, but this was a little different. She put it on when she had to, which was what really mattered.
Those were the kind of thoughts that propelled her down the street with nothing but the light of the moon to guide her. She planned the route out beforehand for just that reason, and she was stuck paying the consequences for it now. Smart Jackie never considered future Jackie. She was a real bitch sometimes.
The door was unlocked, just like she knew it would be. Travis always left it unlocked when he snuck out, which he always did when his mother took his brother to get out of the house for a while. Luckily for Jackie, a thing she preferred to consider an act of genius on her part, it happened to coincide with a day Jackie knew Coach Martinez stayed after school to work on “drills.” Jackie suspected he just wanted to get away from home for a while. With as much as he seemed to yell in the time that Jackie spent watching the house, she didn’t think they missed him much.
Hopefully they wouldn’t miss him much now that his head was separated from his body. Thoughts for another time. It was almost embarrassingly easy to climb the stairs to his room with no one home. Any other time she would’ve appreciated the thrill of sneaking past all those bodies, but smart Jackie decided it wasn’t worth the risk so close to their endgame.
Which meant that there was no one to hear Jackie riffling through Travis’s things and trying not to grimace at the smell. Yep, a teenage boy definitely lived here. It wasn’t as bad as Jeff’s room, but that was a small comfort. At least it didn’t take that long when she didn’t have to mind how much noise she made.
She was out of the house a lot sooner than she planned to be because of it. There might still be time to catch the tail end of you killing Jeff if she hurried back fast enough or if you moved slow enough. Both of those things could be in the picture, if only it weren’t for the blonde girl she ran over on her way through the neighbor’s yard.
Jackie’s eyes widened beneath the mask as she watched Melissa hit the ground in front of her, grip tightening on the knife as she held it in front of her. She wasn’t sure who was more surprised: her or Melissa. She definitely knew who was more afraid. That honor belonged to the girl on the floor that looked halfway toward passing out in fear already, and Jackie hadn’t even thought to do anything yet.
Melissa was nice enough, quiet mostly, but she always had a bit of a staring problem when it came to Shauna. That was not something Jackie appreciated, no way, no how. She just carefully rode the line of being interested and not being interested enough that Jackie felt the need to intervene. It would have been genius if Jackie thought the girl was capable of doing it purposefully. This was the same girl Jackie had watched trip over air last week at practice, so she was fairly confident in that.
So, Jackie didn’t want to kill her. She didn’t mind killing her, but she didn’t feel like going out of her way to do so. She should kill Melissa, if only for the sake of maintaining the lie. What would sell Travis out more than his neighbor being found dead in her backyard in the midst of taking out the trash or whatever equally benign thing Melissa was doing?
But then Jackie wondered if Travis would, in a manner of speaking, have time to kill his father, Jeff, and then Melissa too in one night. That made the whole plan a little sketchy. Then again, there was nothing stopping Melissa from telling everyone that she saw “Travis” out here in the first place, effectively throwing a wrench into her brilliant plan.
She stared down at Melissa, cocking her head to this side like she had watched Shauna do so many times. Melissa somehow managed to shrink even more inside herself. Huh. So that’s why Shauna did that. Logically, Jackie knew it was freaky, but there was something different about seeing the reaction from this angle.
“Please,” Melissa said, more of a whimper really, but Jackie was feeling generous. “You don’t—don’t have to do this.”
Jackie raised the voice modulator to her lips through the mask, speaking as clearly as she could. “No?”
“No. No. Please.” Melissa shakes her head, dragging herself backward by her palms. Jackie rolled her eyes and took a step forward, easily clearing the distance Melissa created for herself. It was one of the most pathetic things that she had ever witnessed.
Stand up.
“What’s your favorite scary movie?” It sounded dumb as she spoke the words, but she couldn’t think of anything better. Cliché, almost. Like she was some kind of storybook villain. It was the kind of thing that she would have mocked either of you for endlessly if she heard it leave your lips, but she hadn’t prepared anything all that threatening.
“I know what you did last summer.” The words were barely loud enough to be a whisper, but Jackie heard them as clearly as if they had been shouted. She made a face, luckily hidden from view. Out of all movies, she picked that one? Fucking Sarah Michelle Gellar. Part of Jackie wanted to pick an argument with her, but from the way she cowered on the ground, she figured she wouldn’t be a lively participant.
What was this, a survey? Jackie cursed under her breath. Whatever, she’ll run with it.
“If you say anything about this, I’m going to gut you like a fish,” Jackie said, each word clear and enunciated. The last thing she wanted was to be misunderstood by Melissa of all people. That was the movie with the hook, right? With the fish?
It clearly seemed to hit home as Melissa teared up, raising her hands up in defense like it would do anything. Jackie slowly drew the knife across her throat in warning, and Melissa just nodded rapidly.
She ran off, leaving Melissa trembling on the grass.
*
“…and that’s about it,” Jackie finishes.
You and Shauna share a look of disbelief.
“Let me get this straight—” you start.
“Melissa caught you sneaking out of Travis’s house in the mask, and you never mentioned it?” Shauna interrupts, real anger crossing her face. Jackie shrinks into your side, and you feel a little bad for her even as upset as you might be. “Actually, she saw you, and you didn’t kill her? Jesus, Jackie.”
“She just looked so sad and pathetic—”
“Then put her out of her misery!”
“I don’t get why you’re so upset about this!”
“Well, gee, Jackie, let me think about it. One, whoever's been targeting you knows that you have something to do with the murders. Two, whoever's been targeting you knows about the voice modulator that no one who heard it lived to tell about. Three, whoever's been targeting you is trying to take your place. Who do we know that fits all of that and has been sniffing around her all year?”
Shauna gestures toward you. You have to jerk away to avoid getting slapped by the end of her fingertips. It’s a near miss either way, and Shauna doesn’t even seem to notice. The whole thing makes you feel a little dizzy, but as long as Shauna doesn’t remember that she’s got a gun until you find the right person to shoot at, you’re willing to get over it.
“Well, when you put it that way…” Jackie smiles sheepishly. You quickly decide that your choosing not to kill Melissa that night is a thing best kept to yourself for the time being. Maybe forever. Shauna could really hold a grudge, and Jackie was probably already going to be annoying about the whole Mari thing anyway.
“I don’t understand why you just didn’t kill her,” you say. Shauna huffs in agreement.
“I would have felt bad, I mean—fine!” Jackie throws her hands up in defeat. “Okay! You got me. We would’ve been too many people short for nationals, okay? We already killed Allie and Coach Martinez. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to win!”
Melissa, huh? It’s not like it doesn’t make sense given what Jackie just told you, but it’s still weird to think about. Melissa, who can’t write an essay worth a damn. Melissa, who butchered Lottie Matthews in her room and left her there for Jackie to implicate herself in her death. It’s hard for the two concepts to coexist in your mind even though you were the first to suspect her of it.
You let them argue amongst themselves as you approach the theater, thinking about everything you know about Melissa and everything you know about the new Ghostface and trying to make the pieces fit. It gave her the motive to hate Jackie enough to frame her. Hell knows that people can do a lot worse over being embarrassed like that. She has the connection back to the original case to know things that might have been whispered about without making the papers.
If those notes she left really meant something, it also gave her a motive for killing Lottie beyond just hurting Jackie: she did always flirt with you and Shauna to mess with Jackie. It’s the notes you really can’t get past. Maybe you always suspected her of having a little crush on Shauna back in high school, but you thought that had ended back then. Adding you in is crazy, but Melissa would have to be crazy to try pulling something like this off.
Then the cops. Melissa was about the right height for the woman that you saw, but you’re not entirely sure she was the same height as the woman you chased down the hallway. She would have to be, but something doesn’t quite fit about it. The whole thing is a little too suspicious, but you can’t think of anything else that would make sense right now.
It’s sure a hell of a lot better than any other theory Jackie has cooked up so far, and you’re usually somewhat willing to follow her lead on that kind of thing. You hang back as Shauna approaches the building, not sure what you could even add to that phone call. It’s not like you remember most of the crash anyway. She can manage calling the police by herself; she was a big girl.
Shauna leans her palm against the wall as she fiddles with the phone. You huddle closer to Jackie as you watch, rocking back on your heels in search of warmth. It was really much colder out now that you weren’t walking anymore. There’s an uncomfortable stickiness on your face, and you think the blood might be drying by now. It was not one of your better days.
Jackie tugs you by the hand toward the theater, not giving you a choice on the matter. Shauna waves the two of you off, and with that the only hope of your escape goes with it. You’re surprised to find the building unlocked, but you aren’t willing to question it that much. At least it was warmer now that you were inside. It was entirely too far of a walk this late at night, but there wasn’t really much else that you could do. It was the closest phone, and nothing else was bound to be open that late.
You let Jackie pull you up and onto the lit stage, figuring it was probably the safest place in the otherwise dim theater. If you were thinking more clearly, you would’ve realized how suspicious the whole thing was, but that’s a head injury for you. Jackie fussing so much over you is probably why the thought doesn’t hit her till too late either.
“Hey, what are you guys doing here?” Asks an entirely too cheery voice as she walks on from backstage. You give Gen a polite smile as you turn your head. The kind of smile you reserve for running into people in public you would rather forget ever existed. Nothing personal and yet entirely too personal at the same time. “Didn’t know you were much into theater.”
Truthfully, you never realized Gen was all that much into theater anyway. You watch her absently as she walks up to the two of you, not thinking much of the whole thing. It’s the kind of place you imagine running into Misty or Crystal in. People can change since high school, but you distinctly remember her making fun of them with Mari back then.
Mari.
They were quite friendly with her back then, from what you remember. You can’t imagine Gen being this cheery right after her friend died unless she was only pretending not to. But why would she…
The phone call. The phone call in the library, the one that Melissa couldn’t have possibly made. Shit.
“Jackie, it’s her,” you whisper, but Jackie instantly goes on guard. Those calculating eyes looking back at Gen spoil any surprise you could have had.
Gen just looks annoyed as she pulls out a knife from behind her back. Then, the sound of footsteps coming from the left, just out of your view. You curse yourself for walking away from the girlfriend with the gun.
pairing: Jackie Taylor x f!r x Shauna Shipman
Summary: Another surprise visit, another surprise gift. You like this one even less than the last one, but it's not totally unfamiliar to you. There might be a new prime suspect, if you listen to Misty.
note: minors dni. warnings for depictions of violence.
Masterlist
The next morning when you wake up, you find yourself feeling numb. A welcome relief after all the time you’ve spent feeling guilty, but you also find yourself lying alone in your bed. You’re struck by a sudden fear that they know where you went last night. A quick scan of the room as you jolt up in bed reveals that your worry is pointless in that regard.
The two of them are huddled together at Shauna’s desk, hunched over something as they whisper frantically back and forth. It makes you uneasy. Both because of the likelihood it was another gift from your stalker and from being left out of the discussion entirely. Did they not need your input on things anymore? One of them could have woken you up whenever they found it, but they didn’t. So that has to mean something. You’re just not sure what.
“What is it?” You ask, groggy from your lack of sleep. Your own fault, but you can’t help that you’re suffering the consequences of it.
“Hi, baby,” Jackie says sweetly, standing up and smoothing out invisible wrinkles in her shirt. She looks nervous, which doesn’t spell out good things. A nervous Jackie usually means a body count or a fuck-up of biblical proportions. Shauna looks grim, which is still many times better than nervous. A nervous Shauna would’ve meant a busload of bodies and maybe even a car bomb.
“What is it?” You repeat, a little more serious.
“I think you’ll have to come see it.” Jackie’s face falls before she sags on her feet and waves you over. Shauna still hasn’t looked away from whatever it was. You aren’t sure that you even want to find out anymore, but you dutifully rise to your feet and drag yourself over.
Jackie rests a hand on your shoulder as she steps out of the way, letting you get a good look at what’s garnered so much of their attention. You almost can’t believe it as you see it, but the proof is undeniable. Photographs.
“Where was it?” You ask.
“Under the door,” Shauna says, her thumb resting against your cheek in one of the more creepy pictures. She would gravitate toward that one.
Photos. Photos of you. Asleep in your bed, in the same shirt you’re wearing now. She slipped into your dorm room while you were sleeping soundly and took photos of you, and only you. Somehow that’s worse than if it had been all three of you in the photo. The idea of her standing by the side of your bed and snapping photos makes you sick to your stomach.
Why just you? You can’t help but wonder as you stare down at them. She was in your room alone while the three of you were sleeping and was quiet enough that it didn’t wake a single one of you up. That doesn’t track well with how clumsy she was in the hallway, but she must have learned something from the most embarrassing chase you’ve ever been a part of.
And now this: pictures of you and only you. She had all the chances in the world to take pictures of all of you, but she focused just on you. Were there more photos than just the ones on the desk? The idea of her keeping some of them, doing things with them…
You try not to think too hard on the concept.
“What kind of creepy loser sneaks into our room to take pictures of you?” Jackie asks, shaking her head in disbelief.
Shauna coughs, rubbing the back of her neck as she avoids looking at anyone in particular. Jackie winces, patting Shauna on the shoulder as she sneaks a look over at you. "Whoops," she mouths.
Jackie may have forgotten about Shauna stalking you, but you certainly haven’t. You think about it sometimes, no matter how content you are with the two of them. The murders you forgave easily enough, but the memories of how you felt the first time you caught sight of those photos Shauna left lying around for you remained vivid.
It’s not that you still hold it against her, but you can’t force yourself to forget it the way you know the two of them would have preferred. Another item on a long list of ways that you’ve been failing them recently. The best you can do is squeeze Shauna’s shoulder, but she moves out of the touch as secretly as she can. Which means not very, but it's enough for Jackie not to notice. Only because she never thinks to look.
Jackie walks off toward the window, leaving you and Shauna to stare at the pictures. Which soon means just you, as Shauna pulls the chair away from your desk as she takes a seat.
Shauna won’t quite meet your eyes when you find her. She’s staring intently at you, but her eyes are focused just below your chin. You shift uncomfortably, fixing the way your shirt sits on your neck to hide the fading mark her teeth had left. Shauna’s eyes flick away, heading right toward your shoes sitting abandoned by the door.
The shoes that are caked in mud from your late-night adventure. The shoes that were clean when you went to bed last night.
“Hey,” Shauna prompts, head resting back against the wall as she turns to Jackie. “Did it rain last night?”
Jackie hums, one finger holding the blind up as she peers through it. “Looks like it. Sidewalks wet. Why?”
Your heart is pounding in your chest. Is this what dying feels like? Is it what Mrs. Loomis felt like when you sunk that knife inside her? Your very first kill, the moment you officially decided to join the two of them. That’s what cemented your place in this relationship, and that same feeling was what had you sneaking around last night.
Shauna’s caught you in a lie, though you hesitate to call it one. Not saying anything wasn’t exactly the same as lying to her about your whereabouts, no matter what she’s thinking. You could tell them right now, and it would be over with. After everything, they wouldn’t even be that mad at you, only that you went out alone and put yourself at risk.
But that would mean admitting that you have failed at something yet again. A part of you, no matter how deeply hidden, fears that this will be what makes them realize how useless you’ve been lately. If they realize that they can do it without you, if they remember that they once did, you aren’t sure what place that leaves for you.
“Oh, nothing. Just curious, is all.”
It felt like a threat, even as dismissive of the whole thing as she seems. You wonder why she’s not calling you out on it right at this very moment. You’re not naive enough to think that she doesn’t have some kind of plan rolling around in that head of hers; she’s too smart not to have an angle, but you can’t grasp why not now. Earning Shauna’s loyalty over Jackie was rare, simply based on how much on the same page they usually are.
So what gives? It’s a question you’re going to have to learn to live with for now, because Jackie’s turning her full attention back on you.
“She was in our room,” Jackie says.
“While we were asleep,” Shauna grumbles angrily. She stands up, pulling her shoes on and storming right out.
Jackie shoots toward the door, but you stop her with a hand on her chest.
“What are you doing?” She asks, trying to get around you but stopping when you hold onto both of her shoulders. “We can’t just let her go.”
“We do. Rather, you do.” You say it with your chest, knowing your confidence is what Jackie needs right now. She doesn’t need to know that you aren’t actually feeling it. “You go get ready. I know you’re meeting with her later.” Your distaste slips through despite yourself. “I’ll go find Shauna.”
Jackie hesitates, looking like she’s poring over every inch of your words to find a flaw in your reasoning.
“Okay.”
You squeeze her shoulders before following Shauna out the door, already sure of where she’s gone.
**
You rap your knuckles against the door to the study room, slipping in a moment later. The kind of knock a parent always does, more of a warning that you’re about to enter than any real search for permission. You consider yourself welcome in any room one of them was in, and you know they more than feel the same. Jackie hardly looks up when you enter, just a brief smile when you nod at her unspoken question.
Shauna wasn’t hard to find. She never really is, even as often as she tries to run away from your problems. It was almost like clockwork, really. She says something spectacularly mean and then storms off. Luckily for you, she’s skipped the former today, but her follow-through on the latter was predictable. You couldn’t convince her to come meet with Jackie and Misty, but you also didn’t try all that hard.
No reason that you both needed to suffer through the Quigley. That woman could drive you to drinking without any conscious effort. But right now, as you watch her and Jackie fill up that whiteboard with theories on Lottie’s killer, you can appreciate the things that she brings to the table.
Jackie seems content to watch Misty cycle through different theories, each as crackpot as the last. Not that Jackie’s are all that more coherent, but she’s your girlfriend, and you’re legally required to act otherwise. Misty’s are free to criticize to your heart’s content, which you do. Loudly.
“Are we still sure that it wasn’t Y/N?” Misty whispers, loud enough that you can hear it. You aren’t sure if you’re meant to hear it or if she was really just that bad at whispering. Right now you’re willing to bet on either.
“Yes, Misty,” she says firmly. Jackie’s smile is strained as she glances back at you, a silent reprimand for poking holes in all of Misty’s theories like she wasn’t hiding a smile throughout it. You hold out your hands innocently, but Jackie doesn’t buy it for even a second. You duck out of the way, already anticipating the marker she throws at your head.
It goes way wide, but you can never be too careful. Shauna never would’ve missed, but that was the difference between them. It’s comforting to know that she’s still as predictable as she’s always been, even with everything else that’s been going on in the last two weeks. As much as things have changed, Jackie herself hasn’t.
Misty hums in acceptance but can’t stop the suspicious look that she throws back at you. Misty’s already decided your guilt, but luckily for you, no one else seems to buy into it. You’re surprised that she hasn’t started tailing you around yet. You’ve been looking everywhere for that poodle hair trailing behind you. At this rate she might catch that faker Ghostface following you before you do. You might consider it a win if Misty wasn’t so likely to go to the police instead of you.
All three of you would sleep better knowing that she was dead after she went as far as to sneak into your room. The notes are enough to kill her for, but the pictures… Man, the pictures.
You watch absently as Misty puts up nearly a dozen photographs, connecting the lines between them and explaining the evidence found at each crime in detail. Both in Wiskayok and here at the college. It’s a little concerning, in all honesty. She has so much evidence for each individual case you can’t help but worry where on earth she got it all.
With this many details, she must have gotten it from the police somehow, but you can’t imagine how. She’s making connections before your eyes that the police themselves missed. It’s making you nervous, but there’s not much you can do about it now.
Jackie’s really buying into it, even pausing to write a few things down in her notes she’s been keeping on the case. You can tell it’s putting her on edge too, but she’s better at hiding it than you are.
Misty diligently lays out the rest of the connections, connecting all the lines to a central point. She turns around to look directly at you as she slaps a photocopy of your high school yearbook photo smack dab in the middle of it all.
You groan, burying your head in your hands. At least Misty’s just as useful as you’ve been lately. Being outplayed by Misty Quigley might have been one embarrassment too many at the moment.
…
You stare down at your feet with an absentminded focus as you walk. They’re cleaner now that you’ve had a chance to get the grime off from the night before, but you keep thinking about Shauna’s face when she saw they were dirty.
Once again you find yourself walking around after dark, but this time aimlessly around campus. Shauna’s knife is still in your pocket. Not out of any real intention to use it, but just a refusal to change into something else when the jacket was right there. You should be on your way home after finally separating from Misty and Jackie after an entirely too long day, even if you did take the chance to start studying while they plotted together, but there’s something that is keeping you out here.
If you knew what it was, maybe you could have gone home by now. You don’t have another suspect lying around. Tai didn’t pan out, and now Melissa. That left Van, which was even more unlikely. That would involve her wanting Shauna, and that was funny enough that it manages to bring a smile to your face. Lately you’ve been going head-to-head with Shauna in a brood off, so the smile feels meaningful.
Misty is always an option, but you think she’s more likely to try to steal Jackie from you than the other way around. Unless she was playing the long game by trying to trick all of you, but that was convoluted enough that it makes your head hurt. Though she does have ample access to all of Jackie’s things to slip the notes in. And she has been in your room before.
Things to think about.
Right now you’re almost willing to believe that Lottie’s the real mastermind behind it and faked her own death, but it would be hard to slip that sort of thing past Jackie with how many actual dead bodies she’s seen. That leaves you with less than nothing. It seems to be how everything has been going for you lately. You’ll be getting used to it soon at this rate.
It was something worth considering, but not anything worth focusing on. It’s somehow even more outlandish than anything Misty or Jackie have come up with, but it helps to pass the time. Any time not spent worrying about the likelihood of your impending murder was time well spent in your opinion. Shauna would consider it a waste of time, but that’s why she holed up in your dorm writing sad poetry all the time and you didn’t.
The thought of Shauna makes you smile, even if it stresses you out a little as well. She’s alone in your room right now, and you can only guess what she’s up to at the moment. You hope she’s not tearing the dorm up looking for her knife as you walk around campus, but if she did, it’s your fault. A lot of things seem to be. You want to go home to her, but you’re afraid she’s going to confront you about what she saw.
“Hey,” says a nervous voice just over your shoulder. The familiarity of it is the only thing that stops you from drawing the knife. The familiarity of it has you considering drawing it anyway.
“Mari,” you acknowledge, turning on your feet to watch her approach.
The alley was familiar: the same one you let Shauna pull you into back when things felt so much simpler. It’s almost fitting that you would run into Mari here, a blast from the past that you’ve been doing your best to avoid like the plague. It’s not even like Mari herself was so intolerable; the sight of her just brings up things you would rather forget.
It’s the only thing you’ve done that you feel a twinge of guilt for. Setting up Travis back then, all the way at the beginning. Irrational, is what it is. Stupid. You’ve done so many worse things since then, but that’s the one that still manages to stick with you. Bouncing around in your head when you would rather it didn’t.
“Funny running into you here.”
“Why did you say it like that?” You ask bemusedly.
“Wow, you’re so good at this. You got me.” She holds her hands out placatingly. “I saw you leaving the thing for Lottie. The memorial, or whatever.”
You didn’t remember seeing Mari there, but you weren’t exactly looking for her either. Was there not a single other college in New Jersey that your teammates could go to? The whole thing was a blur, but you can’t remember doing more than following Tai and Van around until it was socially appropriate to leave.
“And you’re here for?”
“I just wanted to talk to you, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I know, okay,” Mari says, rolling her eyes. It looks like there’s more she wants to say but manages to choke it down anyway. Whatever she has to say must be important. “I just wanted to say that I was sorry back then. For doubting you, or whatever.”
“Thanks, Mari,” you say. It comes out awkwardly, but you mean it all the same. You’re surprised that she manages to say it at all, let alone with so much naked sincerity. It’s sort of touching, in a roundabout way. It’s not like she was the worst of them back then. You hardly even think about her anymore, and you rarely even did back then.
“I mean, I guess they got the wrong soccer player back then, right?”
You tense at her words, that easygoing feeling disappearing just as quickly as it came to you. Mari seems to pick up on that much, but for all the wrong reasons.
“Since Jackie was taken into the station and all,” she continues. “Even you never had to do that, and they practically found you with a knife in your hand.”
“Jackie didn’t do anything.” You stress the last word, fingers tightening around the knife in your pocket without much thought. You hardly even notice that you’ve done it, too focused on giving your best Shauna-esque glare.
“Uh, what? She so did. Jackie in Lottie’s room with a knife. The end.”
“Stop it,” you warn. The knife slips out of the pocket of your hoodie, held tightly to your side. With how dark it is out here, you aren’t the slightest bit worried of her catching sight of it. Even if there had been a light, she probably still wouldn’t have noticed with how focused she is on your face. Mari was many things, but observant she was not.
“I know she’s your roommate, or whatever, but you have to admit she’s so guilty.”
Despite the way she stresses the word, you’re not sure she’s actually aware of what she’s implying. Like you said, not all that observant. She could relate to Misty in that aspect, but she might actually kill herself if she knew you were thinking that. Honestly, it might solve a few of your problems right about now.
“Mari, Jackie’s not going around murdering people. Can you even hear yourself talk?”
“They found her in the room with the body,” Mari says exasperatedly. You hate when people talk to you like you’re stupid. You got enough of that back in Wiskayok from the cops, and you aren’t about to start letting Mari of all people do that now.
“Lottie was her friend, Mar. Would you want everyone to think you killed Akilah just because you happened to find the body?”
Mari softens just slightly, enough for you to think you’re gaining some ground before she shakes her head. It makes it all the more infuriating when she speaks next.
“I don’t believe it.”
You throw your hands up in anger, forgetting about what you’re holding. It’s a mistake, but it’s one you realize too late to do anything about it. It’s already in motion before you can stop it. Mari gasps when she catches sight of the knife, taking a quick step back that you’re helpless to do anything but follow her.
“Wait—”
But it’s too late.
The sounds she makes as the knife slides into her torso are going to stick with you for a while. That, and the feeling of the knife scraping against her ribs.
“Why can’t you ever leave good enough alone?” You whisper.
You look away as you stab her again. And again. Until she stops moving.
Then you turn and walk home. All you can feel is disbelief. Everything went down so fast that you can hardly even believe that anything happened at all. One second she was alive, and then she was on the ground under your knife, and what was left wasn’t Mari. Would never be Mari again.
**
Shauna’s there to greet you when you creep into the room, your bloody hoodie bunched up in your arms to hide the stain and the knife. You’re more than a little out of it after what you just did, but you’re still put together enough not to make a simple mistake like that. Or you hope you are. The whole walk back was a bit of a blur, but muscle memory has to count for something.
She looks annoyed when you walk in, eyes flickering toward the alarm clock and clearly about to start a fight. All of the fight leaves her when she gets a better look at you, rushing forward to meet you. Shauna runs her hands along your shoulders, squeezing tightly as something anxious crosses her face. Part of her must wish Jackie was here to do the emotional labor for her, but she does a good job of not making it obvious.
The second she looks down, she takes a sharp breath, shaking hands tearing the hoodie out of your hands. The bloody knife clatters to the floor, but Shauna hardly takes notice of it as she tosses the hoodie and slips her hands up your shirt. Warm fingers glide across your torso, the feeling making you shudder as a near-frantic Shauna searches you for wounds.
It’s only when she concludes that the blood isn’t yours that she kneels down to pick the knife up off the floor. You watch as she turns it in her hand, inspecting the details of it. It doesn’t take her long to recognize it for what it is. If she wasn’t so worried about you hiding a wound, she would’ve noticed immediately.
“You took my knife,” she says, but it’s more commentary than an accusation. She sets it down on a desk. “That’s okay. That’s okay.”
“Is it?” You murmur, near tears. It’s a pathetic thing to say, but it’s the only thing you can muster.
You’re so incredibly relieved that she’s not mad at you for this thing too that it takes a concentrated effort not to sink to your knees in relief. You’re not sure how much of that Shauna picks up on, but it’s enough to have her hands cradling your face as she holds you like you’re something precious to her.
“Of course. Don’t you worry about that, okay? I can… I can always get another knife.” The words normally would’ve sounded pained, but she was so genuine that you know you must look really fucked up to garner this much sympathy.
“It’s your favorite knife.” She had straight out refused to get another one, even when Jackie bought her a new one for her birthday last year. Shauna likes the new one too, but it will never be the one she goes for when she wants one. That damn knife was like her baby, and she’s been known to get snappy with either of you for even looking in its direction for too long at a time.
“It’s just a knife,” she repeats, almost bewildered. ”I promise.”
“God, do I really look that bad?”
Shauna’s too serious to laugh in your face, but you imagine that she must be thinking about it. All she does is lean in to press a kiss against your forehead, her soft lips lingering against your skin long enough that you can feel the waxy print her chapstick leaves behind. It was almost like a seal. Maybe brand was more appropriate given who you’re talking to. It almost burns either way.
The strawberry one, most likely. It’s been applied long enough ago that you can’t make out the scent anymore, but Shauna always loves to steal Jackie’s chapstick when she’s been gone too long. Something she used to do long before you ever met her whenever Jackie slipped out of her room to use the bathroom. Old habits die hard.
It’s so soft and gentle and so rare coming from Shauna that you wish you could live in this moment forever, wrapped up in her and free from the doubts that have been plaguing you. You and Shauna have been so wrapped up lately in Jackie that you feel like you haven’t had time with her in forever.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Everything has just gotten so out of hand, and I needed to do something. But not this something. Oh God.”
“You have been doing something,” Shauna says, confusion lacing her voice. She doesn’t ask what you did, and you’re not sure how purposeful that is. Does she not want to know, or is she just waiting for you to tell her? You wish she would just tell you one way or another. Just make the decision so that you don’t have to.
You laugh wetly, but Shauna wipes away a tear with her thumb before you can reach for it. It makes you so fond of her that you can hardly stand it. She can be so sweet when she wants to. You adore her so much.
“Have not,” you argue. “I just keep fucking everything up. You and Jackie are doing everything, and I’ve just been so useless, and I wanted to do something. But I just fucked it up again and—”
“Don’t you ever say that,” Shauna interrupts sternly. She shakes you as gently as she can manage while still getting the point across. You look back at her with wide eyes, but your lips are sealed. “Is this about that stupid chase?”
You don’t answer immediately, which is answer enough. When you start to say something, anything, she presses a finger against your lips to silence you. You’re so shocked by the whole thing that you follow along without question. Or maybe that was just a quality she brought out in you.
Shauna scoffs, hands leaving your face just long enough to lead you back onto the bed. It’s not as rough as you’re expecting; none of the usual shoving that accompanied such a thing. She guides you toward the center of the bed, crawling up onto your lap and settling down firmly.
“Shauna, don’t,” you say, your voice coming out quieter than you meant it to. It’s not that you don’t want her like this with you, but you don’t feel like you deserve it at the moment. It’s stupid, and you know that it is, and yet here you are anyway.
“Shauna, do,” she protests, a playful little smile on her face that melts away every bit of fight left in your body. It’s all Jackie, but you love it regardless. Sometimes they blend together in the most unserious of ways.
“Shauna.” You reach for her hips as she leans down, bracing her weight on either side of your head. Her hair falls around her face, the ends brushing against your skin. It’s longer than she kept it in high school. Just enough to make you squirm with each featherlight touch. Sometimes you wonder if she does it on purpose just to torment you, but that might be giving her a little too much credit.
She matches your tone as she says your name, the bed squeaking in protest beneath you as she shifts her weight. In the next moment she’s kissing you, soft and slow and so persuasive that you nearly forget what you were upset about in the first place. It’s enough to have every thought escaping your head like everything you studied just before a test.
Shauna’s so close that you can lose yourself in her, and you do. There’s just her, her lips, and the feeling of her knees pressed into your sides. It’s not how you expected the night to end, but you can’t think of anything better.
“You’re so infuriating, do you know that?” She murmurs, lips breaking from yours to take a much-needed breath. The words hit far too close to home, and the urge to flee from them is just too strong. But she squeezes you even tighter between her thighs to keep you there, almost as if she sensed it coming.
You absently slide your hands further down her thighs, feeling the way the muscles flex beneath your fingertips. When you dig your thumbs in, the noise she makes is nothing short of sinful, but for once you haven’t succeeded in distracting her away from the topic at hand.
She’s evolving, much to your misfortune.
“You’re always jumping to conclusions,” she continues. You can’t quite believe that she, of all people, has the audacity to say that to you, but she wasn’t exactly known for her talent in self-reflection. It’s so perfectly Shauna that you can’t even be that offended about it. You especially can’t be all that offended when she kisses you every time you try to protest.
“I. Do. Not.” It’s a struggle to get the words out, spoken more into her mouth than anything else, but you know that she understands them.
Shauna sits back on your lap with a groan, not shy in the slightest of making her dissatisfaction known to you. You’re halfway toward coming to the conclusion that the whole thing is over with when she grabs at the hem of her shirt and flips it upward. Almost immediately your eyes flick to watch the skin slowly revealed to you before she tosses her shirt to the floor. It’s a struggle not to touch her, so you do.
“What are you doing?” You ask, running your hands along the outside of her ribs. Shauna arches into the touch with a contented sigh.
“You’re not paying attention to me,” she complains, a light touch trailing along your arms. “So I figured this would get your attention. Is it working?” Shuana leans back down, the angle doing amazing things when it comes to highlighting how her bra hugs her chest.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. Now, you’re going to listen to me when I say this: stop being weird.” She punctuates the demand by guiding your hands to the clasp of her bra. You’ve opened this particular bra so many times that it doesn’t take any brainpower to do so, which is something you’re struggling with as she arches her back.
“Weird?”
Shauna nods condescendingly, and it shouldn’t be as hot as it is. Her breasts in your hands are definitely a contributing factor. “I have enough to deal with right now without you whining, okay? You’re fine.”
It’s so harsh, and yet it makes you feel better anyway. The conundrum that is Shauna Shipman. She’s the only person you’ve ever met that can make you feel better in the process of insulting you. The worst part is you don’t know if she meant the words to be comforting or just to shut you up. The bottom line was that she wouldn’t lie about being upset with you when it came down to your extracurricular activities.
Murder is the only thing she doesn’t keep her feelings bottled up on.
“Look,” she says when you’re quiet for too long. Too long when it comes to Shauna standards, at least. Only slightly longer than Jackie standards. “I love you, okay? Just stop being fucking weird.”
“Shauna—”
“I love you,” she repeats, firmer this time.
“I love you too.”
“Good. I knew you weren’t as stupid as you looked.”
You crack a reluctant smile. Shauna rolls her hips down against your lap pointedly.
Right.
…
She never asks what you did that night, holding you against her chest even as she sleeps. It felt good to turn yourself off for a while. Inexplicably, the whole thing has managed to make you feel better about the situation at hand. Now the only thing you’re worrying about is Mari. Someone’s going to find that body tonight, and you can only hope that you’ve got it cleaned up enough that it can’t be tracked to you.
It would be just your luck lately for Mari to have told her friends she was going over to see you. Those are the kind of things you don’t think about when you stab someone over a disagreement, and you can’t help but ruminate on them.
You’re up long into the night, eyes only slipping shut when you hear Jackie quietly open the door and slip it shut behind her. She climbs into bed without even bothering to change into something resembling pajamas, and you can only hope that she took her shoes off beforehand.
Heyyyy 👋 I recently came across your jackieshauna x reader series and have absolutely devoured them. Every single chapter is fantastic. I love it so much Ive already re read every chapter so far, twice. I love reading murder gf's fics and your characterisation and writing standard is so good that you've easily inserted yourself into my top 5 Tumblr writers. Much love! 💖
new here fr thinking that jackieshauna x reader clarifies what series you're talking about at all lmaoooo i have an obsession.
but yeah the scream au is one of my personal favorites too which is how i ended up writing a whole second series on it. I'm glad you've been enjoying them. it's really nice of you to say.
