𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒

𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙨

the fact i wrote "bsi" for the charles oneshot when it was probably supposed to be cyberfun tech will be forever etched in my mind as the day i failed humanity- the crash oneshot too where jack was supposed to go missing in two months but i fucked up the lore and made him go missing in a day. i refuse to fix it.
rosemary angst 😱😱😱😱 (tw: blood, slight gore? idk tell me what other tws i should add)
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Rosemary wasn't there.

Everyday since he left, she wasn't really there.

Well, not left. No one was really sure where he went. Where he was taken. Perhaps he went willingly, or unwillingly. All everyone knew was there wasn't a single trace of him anywhere.

Rosemary was never quite there when he went missing. It was like he'd taken a piece of her with him, and more so with Edd and Molly. All things chipping away at her like pelts of rain.

Rosemary's eyes were bloodshot as she drove towards the high school, and every time she moved her line of sight they would pulse with pain. Sophie was quiet in the back seat, fiddling with some rubix cube she had grabbed from her backpack.

"Sophie," she muttered softly, her voice eroded with tears. "Sophie."

Her daughter's head shot up at the second call and the girl lifted herself out of the backseat, walking around the car and bending down to the small boxy window. Rosemary let go of the steering wheel and cupped Sophie's cheeks in her cold palms, sliding a quick kiss along her temple.

"Love you, Mom." Sophie's words came out as an exhausted sigh, and she soon pulled herself back up to her full height with a sly look at the school entrance. It was noon, so she was extremely late, but she still had a fighting chance if she asked for Jenny's notes.

"Love you too, sweetie." Rosemary shifted gears and blew her daughter a tired kiss. It wasn't the fact she was actually tired– no, she slept early nowadays. You'd be surprised how much crying wears you down. She was just tired mentally. You really couldn't tell the difference at this point with the bags pooling underneath her eyelids on the few days she couldn't get any sleep and her languid movements whenever she did something.

She was wearing the turtleneck he bought her.

There wasn't a singular day she wasn't, really. She didn't like to think about the day it would stop smelling like him, stop smelling like old tobacco and cold evenings.

The breeze of a warm July day ghosted her hair, and she rolled the window back up while still pressing one hand on the steering wheel. Before she could even think about it, she had turned down the road and towards a familiar restaurant.

Yellow neon lights blinked down it her, almost teasing. They looked alive. She didn't feel alive. She parked her car in a space and turned it off, letting her head fall against the steering wheel.

Her chipped nails ran through her hair, digging into her scalp. She shouldn't be here. Sophie had told her to stop, saying she needed a break from being constantly reminded of him. It pained her whenever she would mention Jack and Sophie would have to take a minute, staring deep into whatever was closest to her and finally saying "Uh, I guess I kind of remember that?"

A missing poster that accompanied her husband's fluttered in the air, the name "Susan Woodings" printed across. Her heart shot against her rib cage as she stepped out of the car and plucked it off the pole like someone would pluck a petal off a rose.

Why hadn't she seen this before?

"Last seen: June 30th 1974, If seen, please contact: ###-###-####" was written along the bottom of her picture, and Rosemary felt so unsteady she leaned against the hood of her car. The paper trembled in her slender hand like a leaf in the wind.