For each “⭐️” I get, I’ll write a headcanon about our muses.
Ashley is the one member of the Hearts who has seen Sam cry. It was at four in the morning in the hospital after he’d been shot. Sam often volunteered to take the night shift, so Carmen or Rosalie or any other member of the Hearts could go home and sleep. She liked coming at night, despite the silence of the halls that made her want to crawl out of her skin. The night time offered a privacy that the day didn’t. People always asked if she wanted to go in the room during the day, and when she shifted uncomfortably and waved them on ahead she could only imagine what they must have thought. At night she didn’t take up space or time that belonged to someone else. And Sam could just sit loyally with her back on the doorway, and watch the as the nurses came in and out. She didn’t feel obliged to talk to anyone, and didn’t feel horrible for not knowing what to say.
I’ve had anyone die before, she thought. I’ve never had anyone really last long enough in my life to die before. Sam always thought she could write the book on loss, that it was the ribbon that tied all her memories together. And before this moment she had always thought loss and grief where synonyms. But the closest she’d got to death was burying her foster sibling’s pet turtle. And that loss wasn’t hers, it was thirteen letters of arm's length between her and it. But there would only be one space between the reality of, my friend died.
Sam had been the one to find the turtle, she’d gotten up for a drink and saw it on it’s back and figured it was sleeping weird before going back to sleep. Maybe that’s why she sat with her back pressed against the door frame. Maybe the thought of seeing Ashley in an unnatural position made her feel a panic she didn’t know how to name.
And she didn’t know if it was the unfairness of her first death being a friend and not something as simple as a turtle or the sleep deprivation or the anxiety brought on by the quiet or the mental image of Ashley hooked up to machines but she was crying. The type of blubbering that made your bottom lip curl out and your voice jump an octave.
Most people got to lose a turtle or a hamster or a goldfish as their first, and this was so unfair and-
❝ Are you crying?❞ He said standing over her shoulder with an I.V. pole in hand. What the hell was he even doing up from bed? And before she could even think about it she let out a pathetically unconvincing yet very loud for this time of night rebuttal of: ❛ No!❜ That had them both trying not to laugh a few moments later.
