fair/unfair

12.

please keep in mind the following chapter was written for nanowrimo, which prides quantity over quality. there will be mistakes (probably a lot of unneccessary commas lmao) until i go back through and edit it, so do with that what you will.

       Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Reid found himself knocking that same rhythm into Mal's door and, each time, all four of them — Reid, Mal, Bobbie, and Nick — set off to the road hole to get high. Sometimes they would pass a bottle of Hennessey back and forth, but mostly it was just weed.

        Each time, they'd spend hours there just relaxing and Reid quickly learned if he even brought up his dad or that alleged shitty thing that made Mal the kind of guy he was, Mal would get up and leave without saying another word. Each time, it pissed Reid off more and more.

       He wasn't there to fucking bond with them over their mutual fondness of substance abuse. Soon, Elena was going to figure out he was abandoning his post whilst simultaneously breaking probation, and then he was going to be fucked. Mal couldn't throw a pretty white lie at Elena this time and get him off easy. So why was Reid even entertaining this ... this whatever this was?

       He asked himself that same question every time they hiked that half mile up the path. Mal clearly wasn't going to fucking talk, despite whatever half promise he'd made that day at his place, and Reid was getting increasingly tired of it all.

       He'd started not even going to Mal's door, but whenever he did that, the trio came in search of him and waited until he stopped pretending to mop up the little bit of fake blood that was even left. They knew at this point that Reid was just doing busy work, having cleaned up his mess from the prank about the week before.

       He truly underestimated the weight of Mal's assessing gaze at his back, never knew how truly disconcerting it was until he had it staring at him for ten, fifteen, to twenty minutes — however long Reid resisted their .. their fucking cult — until he eventually gave up whatever pretense he had of not wanting to deal with them anymore and followed after them. 

       Ramona has taken to calling him their pet dog the brief minutes he had to deal with her bullshit before the four of them left for the Road Hole.

       At this point, he wasn't sure what to do except get high with them. It's not that he didn't enjoy it. Free ganja? No way he was fucking complaining. It's just that he'd never willingly hang out with a Fox and he'd only started doing so in order to get those elusive answers — answers he wasn't getting, and it all came back down to that one little problem.

        Mal wasn't talking.

       Which is why the next time they were back at the Road Hole, Reid waited until Nick and Bobbie stumbled off some path in pursuit of a blue-tailed lizard they'd spotted before he turned to Mal. He was lying back against the log again, which seemed to be his new favorite position now. It was late afternoon already, and as the sun was setting, a golden light washed through the trees and warmed Mal's face. His eyes were closed but tilted toward the sun, almost like a cat basking in the heat.

       Reid watched him for a second before saying, "You gotta talk to me eventually."

       The silence was another long and empty stretch, but Reid knew that Mal wielded silence as if it was some sort of a defense mechanism. True to his character, Mal didn't even budge, but neither did Reid. He just sat there, arms hooked across his knees, and continued to stare at Mal. Not backing down.

       "Stop staring at me," Mal finally said, a good three or four minutes later. Record time. He was getting restless.

       Reid ignored his command. "Not until you talk to me."