LIGHTNOVELONLINE Interlude: Crystal
Leg tapping on the floor despite the dull throb that emanated from her earlier mishap, Crystal bit her lip as Ashe puffed the joint. Her friend was laughing at something inane Keiko was showing her. She could admit to being worried for her friend, she was so desperate to prove herself and fit in with them that she was rushing to do things that she couldn’t be comfortable with.
Crystal was no stranger to murder, she’d killed several people, even before she officially joined the Viuda and Robbie’s crew. She remembered each and every one of them too. Her first was at a damn outdoor club at Cedar Key. She hadn’t meant to kill him, but the bastard grabbed her ass and the rest was reflex. He went over the railing and vanished into the surf. The story spread and the name Riptide was cemented as hers.
So many lives taken, most of them outright murder, then there was the one that brought Ashe into her life. Now she was watching Ashe push herself far too hard, too fast. She’d killed someone in a horrific way and now was using drugs as a crutch. Crystal wasn’t one to judge for vices, one of her best friends was a coke head, and Keiko loved to drop acid.
At least the tea was a good call, chamomile with a touch of honey wouldn’t keep them up either. Ashe had drunk it fairly quickly, as well as eaten most of the finger foods that Robbie had set out. She’d need to remember to go shopping, because he cleaned out a fair bit of her snack stash with that move, not that she couldn’t afford it.
There was a very real fear growing inside her, that Ashe might turn herself into a monster in her quest for justice. She might just become a greater evil than the one she sought to bring to heel. Crystal just didn’t know how to broach the topic with her without meeting heavy push back, it was too soon, her friend was fragile and needed a rock to cling to. Worse, Keiko was putting herself forward in an attempt to… Well, Crystal wasn’t quite sure.
At least Ashe wasn’t spiraling anymore, so that was a plus. Eventually Keiko and Robbie would get tired and head home, but both were devout night owls, so it would take some time. One upside was that Crystal had the foresight to sit next to Ashe and the girl was starting to cuddle now that she was getting high.
Crystal knew her attraction to the younger girl wasn’t necessarily problematic, there was just a hair over three years between them, which wasn’t that big of a deal in the long run. It was still enough of a reason to rein herself in for a few months, taking things a bit slower than she usually did. After Keiko, Crystal really hadn’t dated anyone, just a few hookups with some of the Viuda here and there. Yet, the more time she spent with Ashe, the stronger the pull for something deeper became.
Ashe put on a solid front, the weight of her life giving her an element of maturity beyond her years. Watching Ashe as she had a full on breakdown? It reminded her of how young and inexperienced she actually was. Crystal regretted bringing her along for that break in, it gave her a taste of how crime could pay, but that paled to the taste of justice.
Crystal ended up running away after a particularly bad argument with her father during his senate run. Thankfully she already knew Keiko from the time she tried to sneak into the Tangled Web without an invite. Her father hadn’t taken that well, but his attempt to ship her off to a conversion camp was well and truly foiled.
Watching Ashe, she realized the same thing was happening now, she was dragging Ashe down with her, just as Keiko had done to her in a way. It stung, but she couldn’t deny it. The guilt had been weighing on her all night, she wanted nothing more than to tell Ashe to go home and forget all of it.
Yet, she couldn’t do that to her friend.
Justice was failing, as it always did. Her father was proof that the law was a complete farce. The man had hundreds of bodies to his name, yet not one was linked to him. He ran the largest gang in the south and yet was not only a sitting Senator, he was the party front runner for the Presidential nomination.
It was why she tried to escape his grasp, only to have her brother used as a pawn in keeping her leashed. Jason was such a sweet kid, he’d never bought into her father’s rhetoric, and yet their father kept using them in his political plays. He needed to appear to be the perfect family, even after their mother died.
Yet another farce of justice. Her mother threatened to divorce him when she was barely ten. Her father remained calm about it, asking for the opportunity to discuss things civilly and with a proper mediator. She never saw her mother again, and it was announced that she had passed from a sudden brain aneurysm that same night.
Crystal never felt safe in her home again.
Women were expendable to the man, and with her being gay, he couldn’t even use her to marry off to one of his political partner’s children, and she didn’t feel like finding a gay one to act as her beard. She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to stage something for her as well. She couldn’t leave her little brother alone to face that man, no way in hell. Jason was his legacy, and the kid was smart enough to stay closeted, a lesson he learned from her own disaster.
She shook her head, attempting to shake the bad memories away. Crystal considered taking a hit from the blunt as it was passed around, but didn’t want her judgment more impaired than it already was from her earlier drinking. Sure, she had barely gotten tipsy before being asked to drive, and she was good as sober after the last several hours, but Ashe needed an anchor at the moment.
Ashe would eventually come down, and everything would hit her so much harder as a result. The girl had an absurdly driven sense of justice, and was able to convince herself of some clearly absurd leaps of logic to justify her actions. Crystal needed to have a long talk with her before she self-justified too many things.
Like working with Alejandro…
In the morning then, after she had a chance to sleep on things. Crystal needed to find out what Ashe truly wanted from all of this, and then she would help her achieve it all. She owed Ashe that much for giving her that first push out the door.
“…then I opened the door and there was Robbie, face covered in white powder as he screamed ‘it’s fucking baking soda!’ and threw his arm across the table, sending up a cloud of white powder.”
Ashe doubled over laughing as Robbie rolled his eyes. Keiko was giggling over the birthday prank they had played on him a year ago, which was honestly hilarious. A Scarface sized mountain of coke on a large desk, only it wasn’t coke, it was harmless baking soda. He’d been furious until Crystal dropped his actual gift onto the table, a brick of coke that washed ashore down in the keys.
It was almost funny how quickly he forgave them for it all, but the guy was a coke fiend, he loved the shit.
Keiko was doing a good job of keeping Ashe distracted at least, better than she would have been able to do. Maybe she could have talked about guns, or brought up some of the funnier stories of the Viuda… Actually, that was a good idea, and might even scare her a bit given it did get a touch brutal.
“Oh, I’ve got one,” Crystal said, pulling away just a bit so Ashe could see her better. She tried to ignore how her eyes wandered a bit. “So, Mercedes and I were playing protection detail for some of the new girls when an asshole got handy with the merchandise.”
“Oh, the dumbass that copped a feel,” Keiko said with a grin.
“Yeah,” Crystal said, a bit miffed that she had to take some of her thunder. “Anyway, we see this happen and before I can even ask Merc what she wanted to do, she just walks right up to the car, breaks the windshield and drags the bastard out and starts beating his ass senseless.”
“I wish I’d been there to see it,” Keiko whined. “Heard she kicked him in the dick twice when she saw his Patriot tattoos.”
“That she did,” Crystal agreed. “But the second kick was me.”
Ashe let out a high pitched squeal that turned into laughter as she kicked her legs in delight. It was frankly adorable and made Crystal’s chest flutter. She’d promised herself to wait, to take things slow, but that voice of reason was losing steam with each passing day. She refused to start anything while Ashe was inebriated, but that wouldn’t stop her from admiring the cutie.
Keiko got up a moment later without saying anything and made her way towards the restroom when she stopped and leaned down, whispering in Crystal’s ear as she did.
“Better make a move soon, or I will.”
Crystal blinked as she watched Keiko saunter off, hips wiggling as she did. She turned back to Ashe and breathed a sigh of relief when the girl was paying no attention whatsoever to Keiko’s antics in favor of some video of Robbie’s Chihuahua. It did however serve to make her blood boil. Keiko was twenty-four, and shouldn’t even be making a joke about going after Ashe.
Bait. She was baiting her into getting upset.
She hoped, at least.
“You okay?”
Crystal turned, Ashe was eyeing her, but her brown orbs were unfocused and a bit distant. She had to have looked damn near constipated if Ashe had noticed through the haze of her weed addled state. Keiko grew the good stuff, and she didn’t share it often. During the short period they had dated, she did share her stash, which was probably part of the game Keiko was playing.
Crystal smiled, though it was hollow, she just hoped Ashe didn’t see through her. “Yeah, I’m fine. You should probably think about going to bed soon though.”
Ashe giggled. “You don’t have a guest room.”
“I can sleep on the couch,” Crystal said with a shrug.
“Oh no,” Keiko said, bringing a water bottle with her from the kitchen with a grin. “You are not letting Ashe wake up alone after a nightmare.”
“Yeah, that!” Ashe said excitedly before Keiko handed her the bottle and started a hushed conversation with the girl.
Crystal glared at Robbie who was silently chuckling to himself. Definitely a game being played, or Keiko was trying to pressure her into making a move sooner. Ashe’s parents had even told her they were fine with them dating so long as clear boundaries were kept to before Ashe’s eighteenth. That conversation had been embarrassing as all hell, especially when they brought up condoms since Ashe was trans.
She didn’t even know if Ashe was comfortable with that part of her body, and wasn’t about to ask until it became relevant, which would be months in the future if she had a say in things. Crystal shook those thoughts away and focused on what was being suggested. Could she trust herself to let Ashe sleep her little bender off in bed with her?
Yes, she could trust herself but the question was could Ashe be trusted while she was impaired? She wasn’t sure of the answer to that, Ashe hadn’t been truly drunk or high before, painkillers following the attack aside.
“Alright, that’s settled then,” Keiko said, dusting her hands. “Ashe will share your bed and you will remain strictly hands off.”
Crystal rolled her eyes at that, the anger she felt over Keiko’s earlier statements shifting to something else. The brat had done all that just to get her thinking about things, and now she definitely wanted the both of them to be thinking about taking things further, not that she would. She promised Linda and Catherine that she wouldn’t lay a hand on her, and if that was going to change, the pair would be alerted to the change in relationship status, just a simple message about buying condoms and that would be that.
She was really hoping that it didn’t come to that. Crystal was able to kill in cold blood, but the thought of telling her crush’s parents that they were going to start fucking was just a bit much.
“You really aren’t helping as much as you think,” Crystal said.
“Better than the looks you two keep throwing at one another when you think nobody is looking,” Keiko said. “Even Robbie has noticed.”
Crystal looked his way and he had the decency to act sheepish before giving confirmation. Crystal groaned, because she really had tried to not be obvious about things. Then again, Keiko had once teased her that she had the subtlety of a gator at a dog show. That the metaphor wasn’t just that only made it worse.
Seriously, putting a leash on a gator didn’t suddenly qualify it for a dog show… That poor Shiatsu…
Shaking her head, Crystal looked back at Ashe, who was looking at her with the dopiest puppy eyes she had seen. She was going to be so mortified come morning once she realized what happened. Maybe they could even plot their revenge against Keiko over breakfast, after they have a long talk about what she is hoping to do long term and why it might not be the best idea.
“Okay, fine,” Crystal said, relenting. “I’ll go find you something you can sleep in. Keiko, since this is your mess, you can clean up then ship your sorry ass out.”
“What about me?” Robbie asked with a grin.
“Just take the harlot with you,” she said, pointing at Keiko.
“Eh, four out of ten,” Keiko said. “Still lacking in the comebacks.”
“It’s a reference,” Ashe said, giggling once more. “Don’t worry Crystal, I got it.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled fondly. High Ashe was certainly an experience and if Ashe’s parents weren’t terrifyingly competent cops, she might have even recorded some of it to serve as blackmail, but she wasn’t about to risk that footage getting back to them. Maybe she should still record some and show it to them in a few years, once it was an embarrassing memory of teenage mistakes and not last Saturday when they trusted her with their daughter…
Rather than engage in the continued byplay, Crystal got up and went upstairs to her bedroom, checking the drawers for an appropriate shirt and a pair of shorts. She knew that much of Ashe’s sleepwear after they had exchanged some selfies while she was grumpy over homework. They wouldn’t be a perfect fit, but it would do for a single evening.
That was when she paused and remembered that Ashe knew she was staying over and likely packed something of her own. Smacking herself, she left the clothes out just to be safe and went back downstairs, finding the bag Ashe had brought with her and bringing it upstairs, ignoring Keiko’s laughter and Ashe’s giggling.
She wasn’t going to get jealous, because that was exactly what Keiko wanted.
Was it weird that her ex was effectively playing wingman for her?
She set it beside the clothes and came back downstairs, and this time it was Ashe showing Keiko and Robbie a video on her phone of a cartoon of some kind, but she could have swore that the red suit and hat person was a girl when she watched a different version of it, she didn’t remember there being guns either.
“Shit, we need to watch this as a group,” Robbie said, rubbing his chin. “Nazi vampires are certainly a group that would be fun to kill.”
“No moral quandaries either, despite the propaganda,” Keiko agreed. “Seriously, when did it stop being patriotic to punch Nazis again?”
“Around the time my father decided to run for Governor,” Crystal said, stepping back into the living room. “I put your bag up in my room along with a change of clothes if you forgot to pack sleepwear.”
Ashe squealed, hopping up and hurrying upstairs in an adorable run, arms almost flapping excitedly as she went. Crystal watched her go with a soft smile and took a steadying breath before she turned a heated gaze upon Keiko.
“Okay, what else was in that weed?”
Keiko raised a single eyebrow and crossed her arms. “What makes you think I laced it? She might just be a happy go lucky pot head.”
“She strikes me more as a paranoia type,” Robbie said casually as he gathered his trash. “She probably slipped some molly in her tea and kept her distracted all night.”
Crystal’s eyes bulged as a snarl came to her lips. “You seriously gave her fucking extasy and tried to get her in bed with me!?”
Keiko took a step back, hands up as she did. “Hey, you two have been eye fucking since—”
“Out. Now!”
Keiko jumped, the vehemence in Crystal’s voice brokering no argument, and grabbed her bag before she took off at a near sprint. Robbie was much more sedate in finishing up, but it was clear he wouldn’t be sticking around for long. Content that the man could see himself out and remember to lock up, Crystal turned her attention back upstairs.
If Keiko had dosed her, then the crash wasn’t going to be far off and it was going to be an absolute disaster. Stopping at the base of the stairs, she turned her attention back to the kitchen and made an executive decision. She hurried in, grabbing some sleeping aides and two more bottles of water.
When Crystal got upstairs, she half expected Ashe to be rubbing her face on the soft blanket she kept on the foot of the bed for the rare cold night. She did indeed find Ashe, thankfully changed out of her clothes and into the sleepwear, wrapped up in the blanket. She just didn’t expect her to already be fast asleep.
Sighing softly, she put the bottles on her nightstand and grabbed her own night clothes and slipped off to the bathroom to change and take care of her nightly rituals. Once that was taken care of she eyed the girl sprawled across her bed with a fuzzy blanket wrapped around her. This time she did take her phone out and snap a picture, as it wasn’t nearly as obvious that drugs were involved.
Once she was happy with her blackmail, she now had the unenviable task of getting Ashe to bed properly, with enough room for her to sleep as well. Thankfully Crystal was in good shape from all the time she spent at the gym and didn’t have too many troubles maneuvering Ashe into the proper orientation and getting her under the covers. She never did release the blanket from her grasp, which was an effort to work around, and another great photo opportunity.
Crystal had to wipe sweat off her face after that, but Ashe was finally settled and it was time to get into bed with her.
Hesitantly, Crystal pulled the covers back and crawled in, the mattress feeling slightly off due to Ashe’s weight on the other side. She was thankful that she opted for a king size bed just because it was her damn house and she could.
Crystal laid there, staring up at the ceiling as she listened to the sound of gentle snoring coming from Ashe beside her. It was oddly soothing to listen to. She wasn’t used to having someone else in her bed, even if it was just for sleeping.
Even when she was dating Keiko, the pair rarely shared a bed overnight. They usually had their bit of fun, showered, and went their own ways. It was part of why they crashed and burned so quickly, and Crystal did not want a repeat of that with Ashe.
Looking beside her, she couldn’t help but smile at the serene expression Ashe wore, well, what she could see of it from under her fuzzy blanket. Snuggling tight, Crystal could only hope that the coming conversations went well. She was coming to truly care for Ashe and didn’t want things to turn sour.
She wanted it to work, and she was willing to bide her time, because Ashe was someone who was worth it. She just needed to help Ashe see that, to get it through to the girl that she doesn’t have to mold herself into a killing machine to fit in. They would talk, because that was the healthy thing to do, and hopefully everything would be alright.
