392hello! here is the second chapter of 'shelter', the sequel to 'haven'. after this chapter, 'shelter' will be posted exclusively on the fic titled 'shelter' so be sure to follow that one if you'd like to keep reading! as I am still in school full-time the upd8s will not be super frequent, but I am making some plans about stuff that'll happen later in this fic. i want to thank everyone for giving such kind feedback, i read all the comments and they honestly make my day 3 happy new year, enjoy!
years in the past, but not many
Kanaya linked her fingers around the chain-link and pressed her foread to the fence. She stared forward, at the long strip of road and the almost-invisible puff of dust coming from the car. Her stomach felt shriveled and hollow. She gripped the fence until she could feel her pulse in between each finger. It was the right decision, she knew that well. It was no decision at all. There had only been a moment – one brief fraction of a second, where she looked into the eyes of the tall blond boy whose name she had already forgotten, and imagined herself scaling the walls and leaving forever, and returning back to a town that was full of people in hues of tan and pink and brown and then as soon as she pictured stepping in the green-painted front door of her own childhood home she found herself shaking her head, rejecting his offer, and forcing herself to send the last two remaining children in Haven to safety.
The captain goes down with the ship.
She let go of the fence, softly stepping backwards and sinking to her knees. Already John and Jade were fading from her mind, turning from Present, Real into Past, Imagined. The last glimpse of each of them had been from her position crouched ungracefully behind the skeleton of a car, peering through the dirty glass as the girl had led Jade into the street, and Jade had looked up and around at everything for one last moment. John and the boy had come next, and Kanaya saw the tear tracts cutting grey lines down the dirt on John's face. She saw them hold hands. She saw them scale the fence and step into the small brown car.
She felt, for a moment, a strange sense of déjà vu, as she had once caught John in this very position, waching another pass through the gate, and she had warned him, if not with words, but with her eyes, what the cost of those dreams were. She hadn't meant to stay back and watch. She had her exit, her last words, what she hoped were enough of a scare and a comfort to the two untouched children that it would make them guard John and Jade as preciously as she had. But the thought of seeing them a last time, to watch the very end of their life in Haven, it pulled her back. The same way that she knew that Terezi's body was hers to cut down. The way that she had pulled Vriska's head into her lap, even after she knew the knife had sunk in too far. The way that she had listened to Karkat's last, gurling exhale and begged every ounce of her body to stay in the moment, to not forget a second of it. Kanaya was there to watch the endings of all of those she loved, and as she sat, watching the faint red pinpricks finally fade into the darkness of the desert, she wondered, not for the first time, who would to bear witness to hers.
Roxy's apartment was loud. It wasn't just the music, thought John as he stepped through the crowded living room, it was everything: the neon pink and orange hues splashing the walls, the myraid of chattering partygoers, most sporting lurid colors of eyeshadow and glittered clothing, the three lava lamps that John could see through the throngs of people and the fact that everyone seemed so incredibly excited. John looked down at his hand and then back up again, after seeing that the makeup he re-applied was not smudged. On his left, Jade clutched nervously to his arm, her left hand clutched around her dog-sticker patterned cane. Behind her Dave had drifted over to investigate the source of the pop-y synth beats, a bored-looking blond guy scrolling through his phone, and attempt to get a few of his own Soundcloud tracks thrown in the mix. Rose had stayed on their balcony to finish her cigarette, though had all but threatened John and Jade if they stayed behind with her.
The apartment, though the exact same layout as their own, felt a tenth of the size with the crowds of people, and John was beginning to get nervous, some walled-off part of his brain thinking for half a moment that crowds of this size could only mean a drop, and that it wasn't too long before someone was gonna pull out a knife.
"Hey, neighbor!"
John started and looked up from a couple twisted together on the couch in front of him to see Roxy's face right above his own.
"Hi," he said, raising an arm in a half-wave and then immediatley lowering it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken to a near stranger without some sort of partition between them, and it was usually the graciously wide 7-11 counter.
"I'm so glad you came, we're just starting up! Come on, I'll introduce you to a couple people."
She took John's other arm and pulled him forward as John pulled Jade in turn, and the three of them squeezed between a man and a woman arguing viciously about what John was pretty sure was some kind of chess move, to step out onto the balcony.
It was only slightly quieter, but immediatley after stepping out of the crowded interior of the apartment John felt his chest loosen slightly. There was a large blue cooler, and two people sitting out on slightly sad-looking metal chairs; a girl with short curly hair and round glasses, and a boy in extremely short yellow shorts and slightly mussed hair. The boy looked up as they approached and gave a small salute to Roxy with two fingers.
"Hey guys, it's my neighbors!" Roxy said, pulling John forward.
"This is John," she said, "and John's – sister, right?" She asked, looking back at Jade. John opened his mouth to correct her but Jade just grinned and said,
"Yup, I'm Jade. We're from across the balcony."
"Ah, the far off lands of yore," the boy said.
John couldn't tell if he was British or just putting on a bit of an accent.
"This is Jake and Janey," Roxy said.
"Just Jane," the girl said, smiling.
"Oh wow, y'all all have one syllable J names, this is gonna get confusing," Roxy said, leaning against the balcony across from Jane and Jake.
"There's nothing wrong with a good tongue twister," Jake said, stretching his arms above his head and standing up.
"Like your tongue needs to do anymore twisting, eyo!" Roxy said, leaning back against the balcony. Jake shook his head slightly and laughed, pushing the balcony door open and heading back into the party.
"That didn't even make sense," Jane said. Roxy gave her an over exaggerated wink.
"So what year are you guys?" Roxy asked, turning back to John, "You do go to UM, right?"
"Yeah," John said. "I guess I'm technically a sophomore? I'm twenty-one, though, cause I'm doing it super part time."
"Yeah, me too." Jade said.
"Ah yeah, I get that. Those loans fuckin' suck, I honestly should've been working more as I go. But we're seniors now so almost done! I'm a Compsci major, by the way."
"I'm in Bio," John said.
"Engineering," said Jade.
"Oh that's super cool! There's like, a computational biology class that I was in for, like a week before I switched out but the department seems really cool. What's your specialty?"
"I haven't decided yet," John said, as Jade curled up cross-legged in the chair.
"Aren't you thinking about pre-med?" She asked.
"Yeah, maybe, it's a lot of school, though."
"True," Roxy said, "you'd probably be hella rich after, though."
"I think you should," Jade said.
John made eye contact with her across Jane, who had removed something small from the pocket of her coat and was twisting it in her lap. John felt slightly strange, as he always did when he looked too far into the future. He and Jade didn't really talk about it, and it was true he had considered doing premed back when he was eighteen and Jade's more obvious symptoms hadn't started yet. Eight years was a long time to give, even to someone with a normal lifespan.
"I wouldn't be a normal doctor, though," John said, more to Jade than anyone else. "I'd just want to work in a lab or something."
"Discover the cure for whatever next big disease is hitting us after this?" Jane asked, then sat up. "Sorry, that sounded cold. I feel like all this celebration might be too good to be true, though."
She gestured forward off the edge of the balcony. Below on the street there was another pop and the sound of a glass breaking. John glanced back down at his hand, and then took a slightly too large gulp of his beer.
"Damn, Janey, way to bring down the mood." Roxy crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side. Jane sat up straight, and John looked to her lap to see a small plastic bag contianing two pink, grainy pills.
"Sorry, sorry, I'll be better in a bit." She gave the bag a small shake. "You want any tonight?"
"Nah, I've been drinking too much," Roxy said.
"Fair enough," Jane answered, and then opened the bag and popped one of the pills in her mouth, grabbing a can of Tab from under her chair to swallow it. Jane raised the bag.
"Either of you two want it, then?"
"What is it?" Jade asked.
"Molly," Jane answered.
"Don't worry though, we've tested it, and my roommate Callie is the one that pressed the pills, she's legit," Roxy said, "but no pressure, of course."
"She calls this one 'Special Stardust'," Jane said, looking between John and Jade, "though that makes it less appealing to me."
"I'm good," Jade said.
"Yeah, me too," John said.
"Okay, I'll go see if Jake wants some," Jane said, pushing herself to her feet. "It was nice to meet both of you, I'm sure we'll see each other again, I'm always over here. See you later, Rox."
"Party responsibly," Roxy said, and then spun around to take Jane's empty chair as the balcony door slid open and shut.
"Actually, I'm gonna go inside too," Jade said, "I'm getting cold, and I should make sure that Dave isn't threatening the DJ."
She picked her cane up from the ground and pushed herself to her feet, following Jade into the party and closing the door shut behind her. John took another large gulp of his beer, and found himself at the bottom of the bottle. He crossed the balcony, pulling another bottle out of the mostly water-filled cooler and twisted the cap off in his shirt. He took another long sip and then turned back to see Roxy sitting with her legs up on the railing of the balcony, pink tights under a short, black skirt, and she was smiling at patted the empty chair next to her, and John came and sat, sparing one look inside at the party. No one seemed to notice them. In the corner of the room he spotted Rose talking to a short girl with bright green hair, and next to them Dave and Jade laughing about something on Dave's phone, the screen bright white in Jade's glasses.
"Are you guys twins?" Roxy asked.
"Huh?"
"You both said you were twenty-one."
"Oh, Jade, yeah."
"I guess that explains why you're both short!" Roxy said, giggled and then exhaled quickly. "Sorry, that was mean, I think it's cute that you're short." Roxy giggled again and then pushed her face forward into her hands. "God I'm really going in the deep end here."
"No, you're good. We've gotta be short cause we stack together into a full-size person."
This made Roxy laugh again, and John smiled too, and his head was starting to feel nicely fuzzy now, enough that under the pretense of adjusting in the seat he scooted his chair a half-inch toward Roxy's.
"I like that image," she said, "I always wanted a twin, but like, identical or some shit. Do you guys get along?"
"Yeah, most of the time. Do you have siblings?"
"Nah. I mean, maybe. I like – I grew up in foster care pretty much my whole life, so I guess I could have like, half-siblings out there somewhere but I doubt it."
"Oh," John said, "I'm sorry."
Roxy waved her hand in the general direction of John's head.
"It it what it is y'know? Mom dies, dad is MIA, but then once I turned eighteen, bam!"
"Bam?"
Roxy tipped her chair back, taking another long sip of her beer.
"My mom wrote Complacency of the Learned. Did you ever read those?"
John blinked a few times. He remembered the books suddenly, some long-distant memory sprining forward of three huge green and grey books spilling out of Rose's locker during passing period.
"No, but one of my friends really likes them."
"Yeah, they're great. Dense as hell, though. I can't even remember how many times I thumbed through them, when I was way too little to even know half the words. And then for a while I hated them, and hated that the only thing I had was just these books stuck full of stupid allegories, when she – "
There was a very long pause, in which John looked down to his hands and back three times.
"Sorry," Roxy said, "spaced out for a sec. The tldr is I turend eighteen the royalties got transferred to me. So now I'm like, rich. Which is crazy."
"Yeah."
Roxy looked over to John.
"Well, sorry for unloading my whole life story on you like an hour after we've met."
"No, it's fine," John said, "I really don't mind."
She smiled, eyeliner smudged in the corner of her eye.
"You're sweet. But you've heard too much about me, what about you?"
"What about me?"
"You know, who's John? What's your deal, why are you here?"
John shuffled the beer glass around in his hands. Roxy exhaled, wrapping an arm around John's elbow, and leaning her head down against his shoulder.
"Is this okay?" She asked in a small voice.
John felt a shiver run up his spine, and then relaxed, melting down into the cold metal of the chair, feeling the warmth bubbling up from his stomach and across his arm and shoulder.
"Yeah," he said.
A roman candle spit suddenly into the air, bursting bright green in front of the balcony.
"You don't have to talk," Roxy said, "I know that's not always people's jam."
"Thanks," John said, for slight want of a better word. He tilted his head to rest it on top of Roxy's as another firework, red this time, burst in front of them.
John breathed slowly, inhaling and exhaling, Roxy's head smelling like an odd but not entirely unpleasant combination of fruity shampoo and beer. At some point Roxy's hand slipped lower on his arm, and he felt her cold fingers creeping across his wrist, and so he twisted his hand and she slipped her fingers between his, giving John a squeeze that he quickly returned.
John's head was spinning at this point, and his heart was beating fast, and somehow on this cold, metal chair on a cramped, shitty apartment balcony John felt so comfortable that he closed his eyes, and let himself breathe deeper, and then after what could have been seconds or hours the balcony door slammed open.
"John, you here?"
John's eyes snapped open, and he turned around, feeling suddenly freezing to see Dave standing in the doorway. Behind him, the party seemed slightly mellower and had cleared out a bit. Beside him, John felt Roxy start to stir, and feeling incredibly guilty he gently nudged her head off his shoulder.
"Is everything okay?" John asked, though his stomach seemed to already know the answer.
"Jade's not feeling great," Dave said, with the leveled voice that he usually reserved for slight lies, "she wants you to come home."
John's heart began to beat slightly faster.
"Okay," he said, and untwined his fingers from Roxy's, placing his beer bottle on the ground and standing up.
"Everyting good?" Roxy asked, slightly blearily. The curls of her hair were slightly mussed to one side.
"Yeah, we should just get going. Thanks for the invite," Dave said, reaching forward to grab John's arm.
"Bye, Roxy. Thank you," was all John could say, his head was spinning, his stomach was knotted up and Dave was already pulling him quickly back through the living room and out the door towards their apartment.
