Chapter Text
Your arms stick to the bar top. You’re catching your breath, grinning and waving down the bartender for a glass of water. Your sweaty thighs cling to the ripped pleather bar stool, daring you to take it with you if and when you topple over. It’s worth it though. Iggie says your ass looks great in your old pair of daisy dukes.
She’s just yanking your chain. Anything to keep you here tonight, on your first and last hurrah with those sweet, serpentine girls who helped make Dead End Flats feel like home.
And this place really has started to feel like home. You’ve memorized the cracked sidewalks. Watched the dandelions that blossom up through the seams from the more humid July days and crawl west. You’ve gotten used to the plastic taste from the coffee maker in the laundry room. You don’t even mind the burn of the New Mexico sun on your skin anymore. In the same way that you molded into the white leather passenger seat of dear old Debby, you’ve made a place for yourself here too.
You will be sad to leave it behind.
It’s warm in here, just like your girls like. Almost too warm to dance, but you did it anyway, hand in scaly hand, listening to their claws tap the wooden floor in time with the fast-paced fiddling playing through the modest little jukebox in the place. Now, you huff and puff and rest, ignoring their playfully disgusted faces as they shake off the feeling of your sweaty palms. Except, you know your cold-blooded girl-friends are only teasing because they like you.
Isn’t that nice? They like you.
How things have changed.
You’re not drinking well water and tolerating dirtbag bartenders just for a place to waste time anymore. Your face isn’t smeared with days-old makeup. You’re not scooping your chest up to catch the eyes of easy prey. You’ve got friends. You’ve got prospects. You’ve got Stan.
Kind of.
You’re not really sure where you two stand anymore. Were you ever? You don’t even know where he is right now. And he probably couldn’t care less, too pissed with you to see straight. You’re… leaving. Right? What other choice did you have? You are leaving. It’s not a question. Not a choice. And whether he likes it or not, it’s for everyone’s good. His, theirs and yours.
But what about you?
Is this what you want? It is, isn’t it? You wanted to be self-sufficient. You wanted to be independent. You wanted to quit being a burden.
Well? How does it feel? Flying so high you’re leaving everyone behind? Don’t look down, Icarus.
You rest your elbows on the sticky bar top and hide your face in your arms, your groan filling up your little excuse of a hideaway. You’re getting vertigo just thinking about it.
Iggie kicks the leg of your barstool and you cover your mouth to hide your gagging.
“You gonna hurl or somethin’?” She asks. If only everything that was wrong with you could be spit out, so you could go back to enjoying yourself.
“I’ll live.” You breathe and turn to stare at her with your head still resting and on your arms, as comfortable and eager to stay where you are as a kid tucked in for a bedtime story. “How are you feelin’, Gorgeous? Lookin’ at you makes me feel better already.”
Iggie takes the seat next to you and smirks, tilting her shoulder up in a flirty way and smoothing hot rod red painted claws along the ruffled hem of her denim skirt.
“Feelin’ pretty good. Better’n you, clearly.”
She dressed up for tonight. All the girls did. Or maybe this was how they always looked out of the drab, faded powder blue uniforms you all were stuck in back at the laundry room. You try not to let it feel so much like a send off.
Chuckie’s down by the jukebox, being her charming, bubbly self and hee-hawing loud enough to hear her from across the dance floor. Not two hours ago, she was sobbing into your arms about you leaving. Said she was so proud you were steppin’ up instead of fallin’ down the same hole what caught the rest of ‘em, and didn’t you know a girl like her can fit in a decent suitcase?
It’s amazing what just two lemon-sours can do.
Iggie flags down the bartender for another tequila sunrise. You watch her, elegantly passing the bartender a bill between two slender fingers.
“At least find a bucket,” She tells you. “We’re off the clock.”
Iggie didn’t seem at all surprised when you told her the news. First thing she said was Don’t hit your ass with the door on your way out, but then she squeezed your arm and smiled through her own tears. Poor girl doesn’t mean a word she says. You always felt like she understood you the best.
Difference is, you still haven’t cried. Should you have? You should, right?
You’ve been… numb, ever since you got out of Stanley’s car last night. What was there to say? It’s not like he even asked you what you were gonna do, just flipped out like you were rubbing it in his face. He made his mind up about what you thought, what you wanted, how you felt. You think those saucers behind his sideburns must have stopped working for all the ways your words went in through one big ear and out the other.
It’s almost funny. Like it never even crossed his mind to just ask you to stay.
You try and shake the thoughts of Stanley out of your head. Tonight isn’t about him.
“I will when you find a shirt.” You say as you pop one of the buttons on Iggie’s tied up flannel top. “One wrong move and you’re gonna take one of my eyes out.” The girls are on display tonight. Chuckie’s old truck lot stories are suddenly all more vivid.
She grins and swats your hand. “You’re just jealous. I got all the freedom in the world to be my beautiful self and you gotta go home and bounce on the same old dick.” Iggie pouts her lizard lips mockingly and squeezes your cheek. “Poor thing.”
“Yeah…” If only.
You try to keep your little smirk up, but your cheeks already feel weak. You try to hide it by sipping your water.
You feel like a stupid teenager again, clinging to the memory of a bad boyfriend-who’s-not-your-boyfriend holding you back from a scholarship out of Jersey. You didn’t really need any reasons to wanna ditch that clown, it was just an easy excuse. So why are you holding on to Stan so tightly? You shouldn’t. Let go, already.
“Not for long.” You say bitterly, but the words tangle on their way out from your hoarse throat.
“What?”
Iggie snaps so loud half the bar turns to look at you like you said her mom would make a better handbag. She leans into you, and kindly whispers this time.
“Now what the hell do you mean by that? Don’t tell me you’re breaking it off with Man Meat?”
Man meat. Oh, you wish he was just meat to you, that it didn’t hurt to see the sight of him weighing down his side of the bed, back to you, knowing you’re leaving. Not to mention, you gotta have something to break to actually break up.
You scoff in reply. “It’s not like we were ever really together.”
“What the hell’s that s’posed ta mean?” Chuckie’s attention has been caught and hogtied, much to the dismay of her little fan club back at the jukebox. She rushes to your side and leans in so close you can see one of her fake eyelashes falling free from its glue.
“You ‘n Stanley? Seriously? Don’t tell me you’re callin’ it quits! And for what? He jealous or somethin’?”
“I doubt it.” You shake your head and snag a lime from the behind the bar to suck on. “Rico just said I couldn’t take him with me, and just bringing it up to ‘im he totally flipped out! Swerved all over the road and yelled and pouted about me not needing him anymore.” You laugh under your breath, even though the funniest thing about this all is how screwed you are.
You mumble under your breath. “He’s probably just mad I’m leavin’ first—“
The hard smack you get on the back of your neck knocks your lime clear behind the bar top. Hopefully the bartender watches where he’s going.
“Iggie!” Chuckie hollers.
You hold your palm to the stinging skin and look to Iggie with bewilderment. “Fuck was that for?”
“Are yew fuckin’ stupid or you just like talkin’ like you are?” She leans in, narrowing her eyes. You haven’t thought about how sharp her teeth must be in a long time but you can see them, peeking out from behind her snarled lip. “You walk around with your head so far up your own ass, you don’t see anything outside ‘a you!”
You’ve never heard Iggie raise her voice like this before. And never against you or any of the other girls.
“What’s your fucking problem?” You huff. You’d never consider raising your fist against any of them, but those two bright orange dinner-plates-for-eyes Iggie’s got are looking ripe for your fingers.
“What’s yours?” She points her hot-rod red claw into your chest and stands over you. “You got people who give a shit about you,— Me, Chuckie, the whole lot of us,—not everyone can say that, y’know! But we care! And all we wanna do is see you safe! Make sure you don’t run yourself to an early grave tryin’ to keep some bum motherfucker like Rico happy— and you treat us like a joke!”
“What the fuck are you talking about—“ You crack a bitter smile. “I do not treat y’all like a joke!”
You almost laugh. All your vicious efforts trying to hold yourself together, take your weight off their shoulders and they want to wrestle it back? Hell, you’re only doing this for them! Would they change their tune if they knew?
“You think we’re too stupid to notice when you lie in our faces? Or are you—“ Iggie pushes her palm flat against your chest. “—Stupid enough to believe it yourself?”
You have to hold onto the bar to keep yourself from toppling sidelong off the stool. It feels like you’re stuck in the cheesiest day-time soap opera you’ve ever seen, except if you smack the nearest beer bottle over her head, it won’t be sugar glass. You don’t have a way out of this.
And you’re caught on all sides.
Chuckie wraps a much kinder claw around your shoulder, shifting you back in place on your stool. Great. Now you can feel twice as shitty.
“Sweetheart… “ She starts in that twangy, honey-sweet tone. “It’s hard enough losin’ you as it is, but we thought it’d be alright ‘cause Stanley was goin’ with ‘n he just cares about ya so much. But alone…” Chuckie sucks in air and shakes her head, darting her eyes all over the surface of the bar. “It just ain’t safe.”
You scoff, like your eyes aren’t starting to water. You know Stanley cares, you do. Like a lion tamer cares about locking the cage at night. But you care too. That’s why you’re sneaking off with the keys, so when it all falls apart it’s on your shoulders.
“What? Now I need your permission?” You narrow your eyes. You’re louder than you mean to be, but vocal control isn’t your forte right now. “I can go alone. I’m not some stupid kid!”
“You don’t gotta be a kid to act like such a jackass! Exhibit fuckin’ A!” Iggie horns in again. “It ain’t about permission, it’s about taking care of you—“
“I don’t need you to take care of me!” You cry.
The bar goes quiet. Just the croon of the speakers as suffocating heat crawls up your neck. You can look around to see if everyone can tell it was you flipping out at the bar, but they can. You can feel their eyes.
“We know.” Chuckie says, humiliatingly calm in the face of your storm. “Don’t need anyone, right?”
You don’t move when Chuckie lets that venom seep into her voice. It’s like it paralyzes you.
“You’ve made it real gosh darn clear what you think about us and our help. We get it. You can take care of yerself. Bully fer you.” She seethes. “But’cha ain’t bulletproof, sweetheart. And when yer drownin’ on your own, you ain’t any better than us just ‘cause you think yer too good to ask for a lifeline.”
It does paralyze you, but you still feel the tears falling hot and thick down your cheeks.
To think you could ever stop kicking. Fighting against the cold pull of the water to drag you below. As if anyone else would be able to keep you afloat when your chest feels so heavy. Did Icarus cry out for help before he fell?
“I—I know that.” You stammer. “I’m not stupid.”
Aren’t you?
The more you say that, the less you believe it. Look at you, breaking down at a bar, like a child. You swipe under your eyes, more angry at your own tears than her words. Look what you’ve done now, made them worry about you.
You are stupid. And burdensome. And selfish. What’s that they said, that you think you’re above asking for help?
In your head, if you didn’t really need it, you didn’t deserve it. If you can shoulder through by yourself, why shouldn’t you? You didn’t see yourself as above them. Never consciously, at least.
“I just wanted to take care of you.” You murmur. The irony isn’t lost on you.
“We know.” Chuckie repeats softly. She steps closer and brushes your tears away with a knuckle of her claw. “Yer smarter than that. Smarter’n all of us. And yer too smart to take that man fer his word ‘n go off alone with ‘im.”
“He makes a lotta promises,-“ She lowers her voice so the rest of the bar doesn’t hear and keeps her eyes locked on yours. “-And ain’t none of ‘em come through in earnest.”
“You think he didn’t promise us things?” Iggie murmurs from behind you. “Say we’d have a whole goddamn town to ourselves? That we’d be safe from the fuckers who think they can toss us around to get off?”
She scoffs, but her ridged eyebrows curl low over her eyes, and she’s lost in thought staring into the stained wood of the bar.
“Aint’cha ever wonder why Torie’s the last one of us ‘still got a tail?”
It’s not that you ever wanted to take Rico at his word. You don’t really take anyone at their word. But if you were going to listen to anything he said, it was his threats, explicit or not.
You sigh and run your fingers against your scalp, like you can comb your thoughts back into place.
“He said he’d hurt you.” You whisper. “All of you. And Stanley.”
“Wouldn’t he anyways?” Iggie furrows her lip. “If not now, some other time. If not us, somebody else. He’s a bad man, honey. Don’t let him blame you for what he does.”
Chuckie curls her arms around Iggie’s shoulders, consoling her, and you notice the scarred stub peeking out from under her own pink lacy camisole. In those drab, shapeless uniforms, you’d never noticed.
“If he’d never said that, about hurtin’ us, would you still go?” She asks. “Would you wanna work for him? Leave us ‘n Stanley behind?”
“No.”
There’s no question about it. This is as close of a home as you’ve ever had, since way back before, when that white picket fence felt like a cage you had to free yourself from, before the whole damn thing could collapse on you. This is family.
“Then don’t.”
Chuckie says that like it’s simple, as if you aren’t ripping out the only load bearing beam to uphold everything you’ve built. You know exactly what it would look like to say no now, the sight of those other discarded red heels from under the first bloodstained bed you cleaned at Che Flats still haunts your dreams.
But it could always be. Rico could always hold something new over your head, some grand impossible task. There’s no need for a carrot when he’s got that whip snapping in your ear.
All you really can do is run.
Run straight to Stanley.
Stanley?
Either that’s him strolling up to bartender right now or your last drink is giving you the meanest beer goggles you’ve ever seen.