Chapter Text
If Kristen had garnered anything from her junior year of high school, it was that she said more than she meant to. And even though she tended to forget what she said, others did not share that same skill.
At least her parents sure didn’t.
Somehow in her time away from them she had forgotten about the fact that they had never let anything go, ever, and they certainly weren’t going to start when she made the insane choice of telling them she wanted to go back to church with them. Standing in front of her abysmally small closet in the small hours of the morning she wished she could go back and tell herself to shut up. Maybe Aguefort was right about chronomancy.
It had been two and half years since she had been to her old church. Looking back, it almost seemed like she had spent her entire young life sitting in the pews, studying in Pastor Amelia’s office, working in the nursery and having her head pat by the older members of the congregation. Fourteen years she spent in that church. Her church. And this would be her first time back in two and a half years.
What the fuck was she supposed to wear?
Back before, well… before, she used to wear dresses to church. Soft yellow things her mom picked out for her, always a little too tight in the chest and shoulders, just a hair too short for her mother’s liking since Kristen’s long legs were a thing of offense to her with all of her scars and bruises. The dresses were never just right, her mom made sure to let her know that, but they were what she wore.
She didn’t even own a dress now.
There were a few skirts in her closet, but most of them had wound up there from Fig’s and would hardly constitute as church appropriate. Half the clothes in there were nicked or donated from the other Bad Kids, a mishmash of stolen or forgotten pieces that had infiltrated her closet till it was more of her friend's clothes than her own.
It wasn’t intentional, more a product of her having so few clothes when she had first moved out of her parents house, only really grabbing what she could carry. She had raided Fig’s closet first, something easy as they lived together, then Tracker’s shirts started to make their way into the mix. At some point it had gotten colder and Gorgug’s hoodies slowly seemed to spend more time on her than they did on him, and though he wouldn’t admit it, she knew the sherpa lined leather jacket that somehow found it’s way into the back of her closet was from Fabian. The collection had grown over the years, till her old clothes, the ones she had brought with her that night she had left were only still around in the form of an odd sleepshirt and the quilt that sat on the end of her bed made up of the scraps of her old Helioc t-shirts.
All this to say, she had absolutely nothing to wear to church.
She was eyeballing one of Gorgug’s longer skirts that he had left the last time he had slept over, but she didn’t have a nice enough shirt to go with it. The only dressy shirts she owned were her button ups from the Red Waste, and if she wore that someone, most likely her mother, would make comments about her looking butch, and while that was definitely the goal when she bought the shirts, that would only add fuel to the fire of a morning that was already in flames.
Adaine probably had some nice tops she could filch from her room if she really needed to but they hadn’t worn the same size since freshman year. The skirt was a no go.
Making up her mind, she realized she wasn’t going to be able to pull something together no matter how long she stared at her closet. Fishing her phone out from where it had gotten buried in her sheets, she bounced on her heels for a moment before pressing call, shoving it to her ear before she could second guess herself.
It rung once, twice, three times before the line picked up.
“Hullo?” Bucky’s rough morning voice made its way through the tinny speakers of her phone.
“Hey, B,” she greeted softly, realizing how early it was and shaking her head. This was so dumb, she shouldn’t have even called him. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“No, ‘s all good I was already awake,” he lied, Kristen listening as he stifled a yawn, the phone rustling against what she could guess were pillows as it sounded like he was sitting up. “Wassup?”
“I don’t have anything to wear to church, do you think you could grab one of my old dresses from my room for me?”
She listened as he yawned, taking a moment to actually understand what she had said before the tell tale sound of feet against the shitty, squeaky carpet of the Applebees household came through the speaker. “Uh, sure which one?” he asked, Kristen trying not to focus on the rustling coming through her end as she saw him moving around his room in her mind's eye. God, she missed him. Even if the day absolutely sucked it would be worth it just to see him for a little bit.
Realizing she had been asked a question, she racked her brain, trying to remember if she actually had any dresses that would work. “The orang-y one? It’s got a weird swirly pattern, it should still be in the back of my closet.”
The dress she was referring to had been too big for her in middle school, a flowy thing her mother insisted on getting her to grow into. She tried hard not to think about the fact that it probably would just barely fit now, the fact that she grew out of it before she ever got to grow into.
“Still with me, B?” she asked, trying to focus on something else, the back of her eyes burning as she shook her head.
“Uh, yeah, I found the dress,” he said quickly, something about his voice sounding off, though Kristen couldn’t quite place it. “The paisley one, right?”
“Yeah. Wow, that was quick.” Maybe it was a little naive to think that it was going to take longer to find the dress, but she wasn’t dumb enough to think that Bucky hadn’t snooped in her room before, let alone now that she was gone. At least someone was getting use out of her room while she wasn’t using it. “Ok, should I come over and grab it from you or–”
“I’ll ride it over to you, ok? Don’t even worry about it.”
“B, are you sure? I don’t want you getting in shit with Mom and Dad for sneaking off. At least be careful, ok?” she asked, hoping that he was actually listening instead of just thinking of a way to get out of the house without being noticed.
“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine I’ll be there in 20, ok?”
She huffed. “Ok, I love you. Be safe.”
“Love you, too,” he told her before the line went dead, leaving her praying he would listen for once so she wouldn’t have to scrape him off the pavement for riding his bike too fast.
Somehow she found herself in the kitchen, phone still in hand as she mindlessly went through the motions of setting up the coffee machine. There was little hope for her stomaching much else, but she didn’t think she would be able to make it through the morning without at least some caffeine in her system.
She was shivering in the drafty kitchen, rubbing her arms as she waited for the water to heat up. It had seemed stupid to put on real clothes just to take them back off, so she was still in her boxers and old Camp Holy Oat sleep shirt, wishing she had at least thought to grab her flannel as the cold air raised gooseflesh across her skin.
Bucky would be around soon. Really she should be waiting down at the bottom of the drive just so he didn’t have to bike all the way up the hill, but something kept her rooted in place, watching as the water trickled into the pot.
What if he didn’t come? What if he couldn’t and she was just left, standing at the end of the driveway waiting and looking like an idiot because she didn’t think to grab her flannel and despite it being summer the mornings were still too cold to be outside without one. What if she got him in trouble all because she didn’t have shit to wear? What kind of sister was she?
The air in the kitchen turned all at once humid, not quite cold but cool, the draft tilting into a breeze as the soft smell of pine and sod filled her nose. Doubt without action becomes fear. Breath, my saint.
Her chest shuddered as she followed Cassandra’s command, the burn in her lungs hitting her all at once as she came back to herself, hands shaky and numb as she crossed them over her chest. The coffee was ready, Kristen feeling unsure of just how long she had been standing there. Bucky was coming. It was fine. She just had to go out and meet him.
Grabbing one of Jawbone’s sweaters off of the coat rack in the foyer-turned-mudroom, Kristen was stealing herself for the cool morning air when the front door opened from the other side and the screen door slammed, spooking her enough to send her backwards.
One foot went back. Then the other, her socked foot landing on a stray boot, ankle turning at an odd angle as it attempted to find solid ground. Her feet shot out from under her, her body following in quick succession. As Sandra Lynn opened the door, Kristen found herself a familiar position as she peered up at her from the floor.
“How?”
“Tripped,” Kristen answered easily, wheezing a little as she recaught her breath, the wind having been knocked out of her.
Sandra Lynn just shook her head, offering her a hand up which Kristen gladly took. “Sorry ‘bout the sweat,” she apologized after the fact, rubbing her hand off on her leggings, clearly having just come from her usual morning run. “Oh, and uh, your little brother left this for you, he was out on the road so I said I could bring it up.”
She handed her a plastic bag, Kristen accepting it numbly as she realized that she had missed him. It was a Hickory’s bag, Kristen recognizing the stupid acorn mascot on the front as she turned it over in her hand, the pale white of the bag showing the orange of the dress underneath.
Sandra Lynn was looking between her and the bag, clearly curious about its contents though she wasn’t saying anything, just watching.
“It’s for church,” she explained lamely, pulling the dress out from the bag, rubbing her fingers over the cotton.
“Cassandra get a dress code?”
“No,” Kristen snorted, amused at the idea of a goddess who spent the first year of their godhood in cosmic jorts having a say on what their parishioners wore. “It’s uh, it’s for church with my parents. Don’t think the congregation would dig my assless chaps so had to ask Bucky to bring me one of my old dresses.”
“Oh.”
“Yep,” she said, popping the p as she shoved the dress back in the bag, realizing the coffee was probably ready. “Could you give me a ride?” she asked before she could stop herself, all of a sudden aware that she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to actually think about how she was getting to church.
“Course,” she agreed easily, taking her hair down before retying it into a small braid. “You go get changed and we can go in 15?”
Kristen nodded, thankful for the direction as she went easily, gripping the bag in her hand and trying not to think too hard about the fact that she had missed Bucky. It wasn’t like she wasn’t going to see him in less than an hour, but the fact that she didn’t get to see him when their parents weren’t around pulled something in her chest. She would see him. It was fine. She just had to get dressed.
Get dressed. Go to church. How hard could it be?