skinny || h.s. au [Rewrite Now Up!]

fifty

This girl on the other end of the line is nothing special. She's just a girl. But then he remembers that he has no money. No way to get more drugs. His hands are already shaking with the distant ghost of need. And he knows he can't survive withdrawal on his own.

But that's not the only thing that made him decide to call her tonight.

A greasy old homeless guy dropped his newspaper in the middle of the park yesterday--or maybe it was two days ago or maybe it was this morning. Who even knows anymore? Jax has lost all sense of time, these days.

But a page flew out of the newspaper with the wind. And it slid toward Jax's feet.

It was the obituaries. And his mother's face hauntingly stared up at him from the left hand corner. Third row. Right after some grey, withered woman by the name Birgus Ovennik.

What an ugly name for an ugly day and an ugly obituary.

And Jax knew that he had a reason to get clean, now. More than one, really. He missed his own mother's funeral. He hadn't even known she was dead. And of course there's also his little sister and now that he knows she's all alone, he can't help but feel a little guilty.

"Yeah." He comes back to the present. Says into the receiver, "I want to get clean."

____________

Marley feels different. But she isn't sure if it's a good different or not.

Her living room is cold. She can feel it on her skin not covered by the blanket over her. But she doesn't feel it as deep anymore.

Like she was frozen and now she's starting to thaw.

The warm arms around her help. As well as the heat radiating from the bare chest pressed against her back.

Then there's the soft snoring that doesn't really blow any sort of temperature on her skin. But it still seems to correlate directly to the small part in her chest that grows warmer with each breath.

She closes her eyes. And feels his chest rise and fall against her back. It's soothing and peaceful.

But nothing gold can stay. Right?

There's a knock on the front door. And Marley doesn't have any clue who it could be. For a short second she's afraid it's her dead mother coming back to haunt her. Then she thinks it might be Jax.

Oh my God.

What if it's Jax?

She sits up carefully. Doesn't want to wake Harry. And as soon as she's free from his arms, Marley looks around to try and find her pants. She's still wearing her tshirt, but pulls on Harry's hoodie from the coffee table because it's cold without his arms around her.

Once she's fully dressed again, she heads to the door.

What if it's Jax?

It's not. When Marley opens the door, there's a clean-cut looking woman in a pant suit. Her hand is raised as if she were about to knock again.

"Hi, are you Marley?" She says.

Marley doesn't know what to think. She looks almost like a politician. And she's holding a clipboard.