hey queenie!! long time no see!! how’ve you been, diva? figured i’d pop this in the old inbox for the next six sentence weekend, whenever that might be:
mattash being bffsies or crashley being cuties 😌
"Brought you something," he heard from just above and to the left, and without having to look, his brain filled the gaps enough to raise his hand just in time for her to slot the thermos into it. "Give it a sec, though, I think I made it too hot...totally scorched my tongue."
When Ashley sat, making a little 'oof!' sound as she joined him on the steps, Matt smiled her way before glancing down at the steam pouring out of the thermos's mouth, thinking to himself that he was pretty lucky, all told. Last he checked, everyone else was still in the dining room, half playing drinking games and half fighting, the altitude and the general lack of sleep wreaking havoc on their (already touchy) tempers.
"Extra marshmallows, I hope?" he teased, bringing the cocoa up to his face so he could better smell it.
"Um, duh," she joked back, feigning insult, "you act like I don't know you or something;" but the end of the word went jagged, spiking into a high-pitched squeal as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close for a hug, the two of them happily watching the sun set over snowy Blackwood Pines.
oh shoot running in HIII QUEENIE! on this lovely december 29 can i request a blygbank midnight kiss on new years 🙏
This wasn’t like her. God, this wasn’t like her at all!
Parties were her raison d’être, her thing, her passion, her…whatever you wanted to call it! There was nothing she loved more than having an excuse to primp, preen, and peacock around like the hostess with the mostest, so why oh why oh whyyy was she so freaking nervous?!
Ugh, but she knew, didn’t she? Sure she did.
It was all the mistletoe’s fault.
Even now, a full month and change removed from the horrid affair, Emma couldn’t help but cringe at the memory. The party had been going so well, the decorations had been perfect, the playlist had been to die for, and don’t even get her started on the cookies—oh those cookies! And there she’d been, her Santa hat jauntily cocked to one side, her sweater-dress thematically appropriate if a liiittle on the shorter side, literal sugar, spice, and everything nice as she’d patiently lingered near the arch where the mistletoe hung…
Only for Abi to look up at it, then down at her, then crinkle her forehead, then keep walking.
“Ugh.”
“Oh. Um. Is…is the punch really that bad?”
Whoops. That’s what she got for zoning out in the middle of a shindig. Gathering herself up as quickly as she could, Emma heaved a dramatic sigh and swirled her cup around before raising it in a one-woman toast. “One way to find out, huh?” she asked, dropping Abi a sly little smirk before knocking it back in one go.
“Impressive.”
“You know—” Ah, but then the taste hit her and the cringing reached new heights. Her tongue reacted first, then her tongue, then the rest of her, shriveling at the unexpected bite of tequila. A lot of tequila. “—you know it, Party Bear.”
“Oh no…” Despite the way she snatched the cup from her hands, quickly throwing it into the trash, there wasn’t any hiding the giggle Abi was trying to bite back. “Dylan got to it already?”
“Try Jacob,” she groaned, shaking herself out as though it would help with the awful taste in her mouth. “When Dylan spikes my artisanal beverages, at least he puts a little thought into what mixes and what doesn’t. Blech.”
The laughter was winning. Abi glanced away at that, the glitter on her cheeks winking in the light, and in the safety of her profile, Emma accidentally found herself thinking about the mistletoe again.
That stupid, traitorous mistletoe.
She thought she had a pretty good handle on herself when Abi turned back, though, Hallmark movie pining or no.
“Here—” Oop, and suddenly there was another cup in her hand. “—ginger ale. Definitely not spiked. Oh! Um, unless you count grenadine as spiking? I don’t, personally, but. I mean. It’s in there. So.”
“Oh God, say less!” Laughing herself now, Emma gratefully took a sip, swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing, smacking her lips in relief. “My hero. Literally, you are my hero, Abigail Blyg, you are my angel!”
“I don’t know about any of that…”
It wasn’t until too late that she noticed the lipstick smear she’d left on the cup; Abi brought it back to her own mouth to take a drink, and if she cared, well, she didn’t say so. It didn’t exactly help the, y’know, mistletoe regret. But it did give her an opening.
One she’d been waiting all night for.
Feigning a fit of pique, Emma slumped herself across Abi’s shoulders, putting juuust enough of her weight on her that she began to list to one side. “Can I be super vulnerable with you for a second? I’m going to whether you say yes or no, but I figured I’d be polite and let you know there’s a big ol’ heatseeking honesty bomb headed your way. Probably not helped by my crazy high blood-alcohol level.”
“I don’t think Jacob put that much alcohol in there, Emma.”
“Oh, but he did! He did!”
Pretending to take a step away, Abi staggered, then laughed, then wrapped her arms around her middle to return the sloppy half-hug they were locked in. “Okay, okay! Yeah, sure, whatever. I’m all ears, just…quit pushing down on me like that, oh my gosh!”
And, nothing if not conscientious of her beloved guests, Emma let up, playing a little less into the helpless maiden routine. Keyword: Little. The sigh she heaved was still pretty melodramatic. “This hasn’t been my best year. Subscribers are down, views have plateaued, I’ve been through five of those cute grow your own bonsai kits and they all just keep dying…”
“Your life is sooo hard.”
“It is!”
“Mhm.”
“I’m glad we’re on the same page, because here’s where you come in. I need my luck to change. Next year has to be better, and, like, I think I came to a conclusion earlier today. New Year’s resolutions? Eh, we do those for, what, a week? Those won’t change anything. New Year, New Me? Looks super cute on an Insta post, but come on. Please. I don’t need a new me, I’m not the problem, my luck is! So that kind of only leaves me one option, right?”
There she looked up at Abi, all wide eyes and fluttered lashes, and yeah, all right, there wasn’t any getting around it—the look of bewilderment on her face was pretty sweet.
“It does?”
“Yeah. The ultimate good-luck ritual.” Emma let go of her then, standing straight and spreading her arms out wide as if gesturing to a movie marquee. “The New Year kiss!”
For a beat, there was silence. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And then Abi…laughed. Snorted, more like. “Oh God…”
Not her ideal response, maybe, but she could work with it.
“What? Are you seriously doubting the life-altering—no, wait, fate-changing—power of the midnight smooch? Abi, puh-lease! People have been writing songs and movies and shitty teen dramas about just that since time immemorial!” Like a dancer preparing for her big debut, she clasped her hands beneath her chin, leaned in close, and popped a foot coquettishly into the air. “I need that New Year’s smackarooni. Literally my whooole life depends on it! Or, like, the rest of tonight, at least.”
“At least,” Abi tittered, rolling her eyes in a familiar show of surrender. She pretended not to be interested for a moment, then heaved a sigh of her own, shaking her head. “All right. Fine. Whatever. Who were you thinking?”
“Well…I mean…” Ugh, and there she went, thinking about the stupid mistletoe again! She was losing her nerve! She was losing her groove! “I’m here…you’re here…maybe we could just, y’know…kiss each otherrr…?”
Oh, she hoped Abi wouldn’t laugh this silence off. The last one she could handle, but not this one. Nope, not even slightly.
Emma realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to inhale.
Beside her, Abi blinked. Then her forehead crinkled (oh God!). Then she—
“Oh. Oh! Oh.” At least she wasn’t walking away this time. “I…wow, I mean, um…o-okay. Sure.”
The punch had been a mistake. Her head was suddenly heavy, her thoughts thick and swimmy. She couldn’t get her mouth to make the right shape to say what she wanted. “Wait, really? Seriously?”
“Yeah, I, um…I mean, yeah?” Beneath the glitter on her cheeks, Abi’s face went as red as the tips of her hair. It seemed hard for her to keep her eyes off her shoes too, but in a good way—a giggly way. After a second, she reached up, self-consciously tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “I was actually kind of…I mean…wow, okay. Um…I would…I would like that, is what I’m trying to say.”
This was all news to her.
Welcome news, fantastic news, but news. Late breaking news.
“You would?!”
Abi looked up again, suggesting she’d maybe been louder than she’d intended. She was still smiling, though, still giggling, so that had to be good, right? Right???
“Oh my God, Emma, are you really going to make me…yeah. Yeah, okay? I’d love to kiss you at midnight. Honestly, like, I’d kiss you now, if you asked me to, so—”
Yeah, too much tequila in the punch. Had to be.
Midnight was still hours and hours away, but she swore she saw confetti fall all the same. In one swoop, she’d taken Abi’s face in her hands, tipping her head up and back, and their lips were touching and her lipstick was smudging and everything—everything—was beautiful. She grinned into the kiss as she felt Abi do the same, and—
Wait just a minute.
She didn’t take a step back, that would’ve been a bridge too far, but Emma broke the kiss and pulled away just enough that she could look Abi square in her eye. “Okay, pause. Quick commercial break. If you were down for smooching this whole time, then what was the deal with the mistletoe?”
In a blink, the giddy look on Abi’s face gave way to confusion again. “Uh…what?”
“The mistletoe! At my Christmas party! Lady, I was waiting to kiss you all night, and when we finally ended up standing under it together, you totally brushed me off! What gives?”
If there was good news, it was that her confusion didn’t turn into shame, or guilt, or any of those other nasty things; there was bad news, though, and that was the fact the confusion didn’t go away at all. Abi just continued to stare at her as though she’d asked her to start listing elements off the periodic table, the space between her eyebrows wrinkled and her nose scrunched up in thought. For a long, long time, she didn’t say anything.
And then she did.
“…Emma, there wasn’t any mistletoe at your Christmas party.”
“Excuse me? I think I would kno—”
“There was holly, but there wasn’t any mistletoe. Did you…oh my God, that was why you gave me that weird look! You thought…oh nooo! Emma…mistletoe has white berries, holly has red. If I had known you thought it was mistletoe, I would’ve—”
Oh, but she didn’t need to hear any more than she already had.
Emma pulled Abi into another kiss, and when she returned it, she knew her luck had already changed.
well, im a liiitle late, but since you asked for hacketteers: if you’re feeling in an AU kind of mood, i would kill for your interpretation of what would have happened if abi WASNT cured when laura killed kaylee. i feel that werewolf abi was the gift the people were robbed of, so…if you feel led…👀
"Oh, will you shut up already?!"
The four of them whipped around as one, the irritation - the anger - in her voice so electric that they had no choice but to stare, agog, made mute and slackjawed by its sheer force: Dylan blinked, Kaitlyn sat a little straighter, even Laura, the stranger who'd met her maybe ten minutes ago, raised her eyebrows, but it was Ryan she was staring at, Ryan she couldn't look away from, so if anyone felt the brunt of that thunderclap, it was him.
She sat against the wall, her arms locked tight around her knees and her chin dipped low, the heat lamp set between her and Nick catching, kindling, sparking in her eyes. "All summer - literally all summer - we have to hear about how cool you are with your ghost stories and your dumb urban legends, but someone comes in here talking about werewolves after you saw me and Nick get attacked in the woods - you saw us! - and suddenly, whoawhoawhoa, none of that can be real?" Abi drew in a breath, long and slow and great enough that every inch of her tiny frame seemed to grow with it, then let it out in something like a growl, "Go fuck yourself."
"Yeah," Nick managed to bite out from between chattering teeth, grinning despite the way his eyes and cheeks had begun to go dark and sunken and bruised, "go fuck yourself."
morning queenie!! for the six sentences prompt, some post-game sam could be cool if you want to. thank you 🙏
The ringing in her ears still hadn't gotten any better - her doctor had warned it might never go away altogether, had quickly and diplomatically added that, if anything, it might get worse - but that wasn't what kept her awake. As strange as it was to say, she almost preferred it that way, the high-pitched squeal of tinnitus-turned-worse had a way of drowning the memories out, muting and muffling the worst of the screams, the gasps, the laughter. Weird the way that happened, huh?
She turned onto her side, staring at her bedroom wall, and thought for the millionth time how strange it was, the way everything had echoed there at the end: They'd all gathered in a group to wait for Hannah, shushing each other and covering their mouths with their hands to quiet their breathing, and in the end, she'd done the same to them. It was hard to feel sorry for any of them, when you thought about it like that; it felt awfully poetic, was the thing.
That she hadn't been able to do anything about it either time, well...maybe it was all the ringing, but she couldn't quite hear the poetry in that part, just the flat, sour notes of would've, could've, should've.
suddenly i materialize out of nowhere asking for an ashley and matt fluff fic (can you tell i like bffs that weren’t shown in canon)?)
To her credit, it wasn't like she was trying to look miserable or anything. Really, she thought she'd been doing a pretty solid job of hiding it (she'd taken a beer just like everyone else despite gagging at every sip, she'd tilted her head and smiled every time someone raised their phone into the air, she hadn't said one single thing about the cold, or the dark, or how seriously spooky the Washingtons' lodge was in the middle of the night, so why hadn't they turned on the lights on, again?), but all that flew out the window when the couch cushions dipped beside her.
"What do you think," Matt joked, hunching over with his elbows on his knees so he could murmur conspiratorially with her, "should we bail? I saw a pretty cool snow-covered tree outside where we could go...oh, a snow-covered picnic table too. I thiiiiiiink there was a snow-covered bench, but I'm probably just making that up. Snow-blindness or something. That's a thing, right?"
She laughed, covering her face with her hands when it came out a snort. Instead of answering, she shook her head, hoping and praying that, when she looked back up, Emily and Jess wouldn't be snickering at her embarrassment...or that Chris and Josh wouldn't be doing their best to replicate the sound at the top of their lungs.
"No? It's not a thing? Dang, I swear I heard something about it on the radio..."
Ashley made a sound caught somewhere between a groan and a sigh as she raised her head (no Emily, no Jess, no pointing, no laughing, no Josh, no Chris, no mimicking, no guffawing), bumping her shoulder against his. "It's a thing."
"Then why were you shaking your head?"
"It's...snow-blindness is a thing, Matt, yeah, but no, believe it or not, I'm not really trying to go running out into the snow tonight." To punctuate the thought, she took a sip of her beer...and grimaced. Again. "Hence why I've planted myself in front of the nice, toasty fireplace." She swirled her bottle around, listening to the liquid slosh. There was too much in there - if the others caught her still nursing her first beer, oooh boy. "But I appreciate it."
In a single slick sleight of hand, the beer disappeared from her hand, replaced by a barely-touched root beer. She blinked, surprised, then had no choice but to smile and laugh when Matt clinked their bottles together, the rest of the party none the wiser.
"So what is this?" she asked, taking a glug of soda and trying not to grin like a doofus. "Charity work?"
Matt furrowed his brow, frowning the way he did in math class. "Huh?"
"The...you. Being here - " she gestured towards the couch, " - instead of there - " the kitchen that time, where the others were laughing and heckling each other, the sounds of some drinking game echoing throughout the rest of the lodge. " - which I'm sure is a way more fun locale."
It was his turn to bump her shoulder and shake his head. "Oh yeah, totally, Ash. Charity. Definitely couldn't be me wanting to chill with my friend."
She pursed her lips tight, still trying to fight that doofy smile. "Definitely not."
"Nope."
"Nah."
"That wouldn't even make sense." He shot her a sidelong smirk of his own before chuckling, then nudged her leg with his so she'd scoot enough for him to get at the coffee table. "I've hardly seen you at all tonight - what's up with that?"
Shrugging, she followed his lead, setting her bottle down beside his (after nabbing a couple coasters, obviously). "Oh, you know..." she said vaguely. "Big parties, big crowds...not really my thing."
"Uh huh, sure. Still said yes to the invite."
"Well, I..." Shrugging again, she reached up to futz with her hair, tucking it this way and that before taking her beanie off altogether and repositioning it on her head. "I mean...Josh asked me in-person, so..."
"Oh, then it totally would've been rude to say no."
"Yeah."
"For sure."
"I - " Ashley turned back to him, suspiciously searching his face. "Are you making fun of me? Oh my God, Matt. Rude!"
He held his hands up, the poster child for innocence, but still smiled as he laughed. "Sorry, sorry, you're right. You're absolutely right. I'm being mean. I know, you didn't want to hurt Josh's feelings. It definitely had nothing to do with Chris being here. At all. For sure."
Her face lit up like the fire crackling away in the hearth and, after checking the others were all suitably distracted, she gave him a light warning whap on the shoulder with her too-long sleeve. "Oh my GOD, will you keep your voice d - what did I ever do to you? You don't see me going around pointing at you and going 'Ooooh Matt, I bet you only came here - '"
"...so Em could ignore me all night?" he finished for her, raising his eyebrows when she scrunched her mouth up again. "You could say it, though. You could. You wouldn't be wrong." Leaning back against the cushions, he heaved a sigh of his own, briefly glancing towards the kitchen. "Be real with me: Do you think it's an us thing, or a them thing?"
"Huh?"
Subtly, he nodded towards the kitchen. "Personally? I think it's a them thing. They're the ones losing out on us."
"Oh please," she laughed - snorted, really, and then covered her face again. If her face got any hotter, she thought she'd probably catch fire, herself.
"I'm being so serious, Ash, they're missing out."
"Uh huh, okay, sure. If you say so." She paused, then, realizing what she'd just implied, and immediately sprang back up, her eyes wide with social-outcast horror. "I so didn't mean - "
But Matt just laughed and patted her thigh and, strangely, held his hand out to her, pinky finger extended. "I know what you meant. But I meant what I said too, so here's how serious I am. Pinky promise pact: If Chris doesn't come to his senses by this time next year...or if Em hasn't...I say we forget about them and their bad taste and we go out instead."
Ashley spent a long, long moment staring at his pinky, thinking. "Don't you mean and?" she asked after a beat.
"What?"
"You said if Chris doesn't or if Emily doesn't. So, like, if both of them ignore us, then..."
When he realized what she meant, he laughed. "Nah. This is an all or nothing."
"So...wait, no, you're such a liar," she laughed right back. "You are such a liar! You're telling me that if Emily asked you out tonight, you'd say no because Chris didn't ask me out?"
"No. I'm saying I'd break up with her this time next year and date you instead. What aren't you getting?"
She rolled her eyes - she had to! But the big, doofy grin finally won out. "You're a terrible hypothetical boyfriend, I hope you know that," she teased, wrapping her pinky around his.
"Or," he joked, squeezing hers tight, "the best hypothetical boyfriend. Depends on who you ask. This time next year, I mean."
"Yeah," she smiled, leaning her shoulder against his as they went back to watching the fire, "this time next year."
ahem. ahem. hello queenie!! happy femslash february! the humble ezra materializes to request some more blygbank, perhaps emma realizing her crush? also i got to play d&d for the first time on thursday. its a very fun game, so respect 👍
There were a million summer romance scenarios she'd been playing on repeat in the back of her mind since signing up to be a counselor: Catching eyes and coyly looking away over a campfire, getting lost in the woods and having to huddle under a tree together to stay out of the rain, sunsets and thunderstorms and scary stories told over marshmallows that would give her an excuse to reach for someone else's hand and lace their fingers tight. Movie scenes, really, moments that lent themselves to a sweeping orchestral score.
This wasn't that - not by a long shot - so it took her an extra minute to recognize it for what it was.
"Whatcha doin'?" she'd asked on the tail-end of a yawn, plunking herself down beside Abi at the picnic table, and though she'd only just only woken up and her eyes were still blurry in the pre-dawn glow, she squinted to make out the shapes spreading across her sketchbook.
Abi didn't look up, didn't look away, didn't look at her at all; her focus was intense, her eyes moving with a purpose she could only guess at, and when she spoke it was half a whisper ("Just trying to get the tree before the light changes"), as though worried the sound of her voice might break the stillness of the clearing and ruin whatever it was she was trying to capture.
Emma's heart skipped, fluttered, warmed, and in the time it took for the sun to rise, she realized maybe those big, dramatic moments were overrated after all.
good morning queenie! saw that post you reblogged about sending a character for headcanons and i had no choice but to materialize! should you be inch-rested, would love to see some of your headcanons for either kaitlyn or abi. thank ya!
well, alas, i'm moving slow, so we're...significantly past morning now, my apologies, but the GIRLIES????? oh i can yap about the girlies, no problem! ;)c
EVERYBODY'S FAV PEANUT BUTTER BUTTERPOP
realistic hc: kaitlyn is one of those people who was on roughly, uh...EVERY varsity team she was allowed to be on in high school. i think she has the world's most obnoxious letterman jacket back at home, and all of her sports don't even FIT. track and field, swimming, volleyball, soccer, you name it, i think she's on the team, and i think she kicks. fucking. ass. (jacob goes to every game, and he is always, without question, the loudest guy in the stands. airhorn and everything.)
funny to me hc: i like to believe that, based on what we see in-game, kaitlyn's particular brand of socialization/making friends involves a lot of her out-weirding people who are being teased/made fun of. i think she's very, verrrrry comfortable with people laughing both with AND at her, and she truly does not care either way, so if she has the sense someone is embarrassed in a social setting, she very quickly steps in and draws everyone's attention to herself by saying/doing something ten times as embarrassing. she doesn't do it for the laughs, that's not what she's after, she just doesn't want anyone (except maybe jacob :P) to feel like they're being picked on or singled out. this has led to some WILD catchphrase choices on her part.
evil and heartbreaking hc: oh. oh the separation anxiety. oooooh the separation. anxiety. i think after the events of hackett's quarry, kaitlyn. doesn't. do well without jacob kind of in her peripherals at all time. i think she kind of becomes a little less independent for a time, and more like a shadow. a hanger-on. they spent the whole night separated, she never had any idea if he was okay or not, she almost saw him get shot, she for sure saw him covered in blood, she went through the whole last 10 minutes in the lodge without knowing ANYTHING about what had happened to him...and i think she just. becomes very clingy once they get home. i think that probably ends up leading to at least one (1) blowout fight while jacob is also trying to come to terms with everything that happened. they probably aren't on the outs for LONG, but it's messy for a second there :T
completely ignoring canon/reality hc: biggest. crush. in the world. on. samantha giddings. i don't care how they meet. i don't care how they end up in the same room, or even IF they do, i think kaitlyn would just have. such. a crush on sam immediately upon meeting her. whether or not it goes anywhere is up to interpretation, but like. idk man!!! she's got hearteyes for giddings, i don't make the rules!!!
PARTY BEAR
realistic hc: abi was 110% sent to hackett's quarry because her parents were worried she didn't have any friends, and they were desperate for her to make some. she probably has a handful of friends at school, but i don't think they interact much outside of class. to ME, she reads very much as someone who is loneLY more than a loneR, and i think she was (gently) encouraged to step out of her comfort zone and do something different to try and meet new people and kind of get a fresh start. the idea of sort of adopting a camp persona like dylan NEVERRR occurred to her, though, so she spent the first week or so just absolutely awkward and petrified of interacting with the others.
funny to me hc: i think every. single. one. of the other hacketteers has caught abi drawing them at some point, and i think every. single. one. of them has assumed that meant she had a crush on them. i think EVERY ONE OF THE HACKETTEERS spent the summer thinking abi was interested in THEM, and one night, after lights out, someone lets that slip, and she just. blue screens. asldjfalskdjfkasjdf it leads to a world-endingly humiliating "but you have a crush on ONE of us, right???" convo that she CANNOT wriggle out of, and oh my god, she hides in her cabin for like three days after that askjfdlkasjdf
evil and heartbreaking hc: i just wish there was a world where we got to see infected abi and infected emma in the storm shelter together, because in MY heart, and in MY head, i think the two of them have a really, really nasty knock-em-down blowout fight down there. not in EVERY worldstate, obviously, but i think the little explosion we get to see when abi calls her out for not taking things seriously would just be...so much more compelling if they were BOTH infected and BOTH dealing with their uglier emotions. i think, friends or not, there's a lot of resentment there on both their parts that they wouldn't really let out into the open unless they didn't have a choice - especially by THAT point in the night - and i know this is more of a 'what if' than an actual hc, but man. i just. wish. we had gotten to see infected abi aldskjflkasjdlfkjsdf. i would've loved to see the worst in her come out, because i can imagine how furious she'd be!!!!!!!
completely ignoring canon/reality hc: she and ashley used to be friends on deviantart. uh huh. mhm. they were. it's true, ask anyone. abi drew fanart for one of ash's fics one day, and ashley was so bowled over that she started writing stuff based on her drawings, and there was a hot minute there where they were internet besties. it's real, i asked supermassive myself.
hello queenie! hope this ask finds you well 🙌some sam + ash bffism would be excellent
There were only footprints in the snow by then, an already thin reminder of what had just happened growing thinner and thinner every second the snow continued to fall, but...but Sam couldn't stop watching the world outside the window, couldn't stop the endless rewind and playback of that final image of Chris and Mike dragging Josh through the snow, simply couldn't.
Until something else took its place.
"Hey, um, so...I think you...lost this," Ashley said slowly, cautiously, dangling the bracelet from a finger for Sam to take. "I found it down in the...well, downstairs, I guess, and I just...I know...I know the twins had matching ones, and that you, like, never take yours off, so I..."
After everything they'd just been through, she didn't fault her the trailing off or the long pauses, didn't try to rush her to her point; instead, she took the bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist where it belonged, flexing her fingers as the weight of it all - the betrayal, the loss, the exhaustion, the beads themselves - sank deep into her bones. Without another word, she turned and hugged Ashley tight, and the moment, the instant, she felt her hug back, the tears finally broke through.
