golden wings melt like blue slushies // JJ Maybank

-I'm pulsing, my blood is red and unafraid of living-

Kie pulled her hair out of it's too dry ponytail and started to redo it as they stood in front of the lowest part of the school roof, where she'd occasionally seen people trying to do those human pyramids and also try to fly with giant paper mache wings.

She didn't know how much begging it was going to take, considering the things she'd said to JJ. It wasn't cool. She wasn't cool. She was permanently stoned and she lied to her parents and left the girl she liked on read nearly all the time and cried herself to sleep and littered and didn't go to work and punched walls.

She wasn't cool.

But that wasn't an excuse to say something so absolutely horrid, to her best friend. Who does that?

In her new moments of clarity, that came once she'd sobered up and finished that bottle of water Pope had handed around, she figured she was going to have to pull herself together.

John B and Sarah were alive.

And they needed to come home. And for that to happen, Ward and Rafe Cameron had to be in jail. So Kie just had to quit doing heavy drugs every few hours and figure out how to find evidence of murder while not saying mean things about how JJ's love life had gone to shit after Iggy had literally drowned. God. She was the worst best friend ever.

"Yup," Pope muttered, and squinted through the watery sun to the figures they could see sitting on the roof.

Kie frowned. Did she say that out loud?

"Yup," Pope said again. He was wearing one of John B's old flannel shirts, the brown and black one with a hole in the sleeve. She followed his gaze, and the light bounced off one of the figures green hair, up there. The other was JJ, she figured, judging by the red cap.

Pope sighed, then cupped his mouth with his hands. "Hey! Uh.. how do we get up?"

They watched Mitchy peer over and raise an eyebrow. "You've seriously never gotten onto the school roof to ditch the end of year exams?"

Pope frowned. He looked to Kie. "I think that's illegal."

She patted his shoulder comfortingly and reached into her tote bag for anything she could use to bribe Mitchy into telling them how the fuck he and JJ managed to find their way up there. She pulled out some sour patch kids. "You can have these!"

Mitchy exchanged a look with JJ, and then peeked back down at them. "You gotta climb through the back of the old janitor's cupboard and take the ladder behind the mop that looks like our english teacher."

Kie brushed cobwebs out of her hair and frowned at the dirt that had smudged itself all down the front of her green jeans. That was going to take some good old hand washing to get out without ruining the fabric.

Which meant she would leave them on her floor for about seven years. 

She tossed the bag of sour patch kids in Mitchy's direction and climbed over the giant metal boxes on the roof. Some part of the air conditioning system, probably. She still didn't know what those little spinny things were for. "Here you go, now spill."

"Depends if they're the coke ones," Mitchy muttered, ripping open the packet in literally the worst way ever. Sour patch kids spilled out everywhere. Even JJ cringed.

Kie chewed on her lip and sat down on the patch of flat roofing next to him. There was a low stone wall up around them that only provided a sliver of shade. She glanced to the side when he didn't push her off the roof. "I'm sorry. For... saying that. It wasn't cool."