A shadow just behind me - Del/Jinx

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Marco had dropped Del, Ry, and Lexie back at the house and Delilah had moved inside more slowly than the others, dawdling slightly with her backpack. Download had been excellent- of course- but it had been a lot of time around Pierre. Or, more correctly, a lot of time trying not to be around Pierre. She didn’t even know how to react to him. It was all too much to think about and it weighed down in her mind. Christopher weighed on her mind an unnatural amount recently too. At Download she swore she’d seen him a few times. So much so that one of the times Scarlett’s brother James had almost had to spin her around to get her attention. Christopher was like a ghost following her along and Pierre was his shadow.

So when she stepped into the house and saw Jinx oh-so-casually leaning in the doorway she thought she’d just been thinking far too much about her old life again. It took a few moments- and his languid, “Hey there, Devil”- for Delilah to realise he was actually there.

“What are you doing here?” she asked slowly, unable to do anything but stare up at him, moving closer slowly. What was Jinx doing in her house.

“Well,” he said, moving away from the wall and walking over to her, “I got a call from this chick I know and it sounded like she was about to do something stupid.” He cocked his head. “Sound like anyone you know?”

“What?” she said, feeling strangely dazed.

“You called,” he said clearly. “You called me and ranted and angsted and threatened to top yourself.” He raised an eyebrow. “Again.”

She had. She remembered the call...sort of. After getting home from clubbing that night and after... that guy. She’d called Jinx. Why the hell had she called Jinx?? Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was the memory of the last time she’d tried to finish it all. After Christopher had died and she’d slit her wrists open in the bathtub. It’d been Jinx who’d knocked his way through the door and dragged her out of the water. Jinx who’d taken the water-logged and bloody figure of her to the hospital, her lips the colour of death. Jinx who’d saved her, even though she’d hated him for it for a long time afterward. Jinx- now standing in her living room- had come to save her again.

But Del didn't want to be saved. (She realised- only as she thought it- that it was didn't want to be and not couldn't be. She needed to be lost and gone to make it all hurt less.)

Lee came into the room and with a smile but it went away when he saw the expression on Del’s face. “You let him in the house?” she asked him, anger brimming slightly at the edge of her voice.

“He said he was a friend of yours,” Lee explained quickly.

Del looked at Jinx, unsure what she was feeling, and then back at Lee to repeat the question. “You let him in the house?”

“Hey,” Jinx said, waving a hand. “I’m standing right here, Devil. Talk at me. And cut Lee some slack. I did tell him I was a friend of yours. Didn’t realise it was going to be such a twisting of the facts.” The last sentence came out with a sound of bitterness and a twisting of his lips.

Del closed her eyes. He was her friend. Was he still? Were she and Jinx friends now that she was here? It was a stupid question. She only had to remember who the first person she'd dialed that night was to find the answer. She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she told him sincerely and nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s go up to my room and talk.”

He followed Delilah up the stairs and raised an eyebrow. “You talk now?” He asked, amused and surprised. “My my, hasn’t the little Devil been changed by the London lights.”

She pushed her bedroom door open. “No,” she promised him and ushered him inside. “I don’t 'talk' any more here than I did at home.”

He looked around the room and everything felt like it could almost be a year ago again. Her room looked so familiar. So very Delilah. It just lacked...him “You did at one point,” he said, looking over his shoulder at her, wondering if it was too much too soon.

The look she gave him was a clear warning and she shook her head slowly just a fraction: Don’t go there.

Jinx sat down on her bed, giving it a quick bounce to see how it felt, and then looked at her clasping his hands behind his head. “So,” he asked false-brightly. “Who’s Pierre?” From the way he asked it, Del knew she’d said far too much in that phone call to him. She couldn’t quite remember what the fuck she’d said, but evidently some subjects that should have been left to die hadn’t.

“Pierre?” Delilah asked and then poked at her CD player as she thought about what she’d say.

“Yeah, Pierre.” A pause. “What kind of name is Pierre for anyone who isn’t French anyway?”

“He is French,” Delilah told him, pressing play without checking what was in there. She turned and looked at Jinx as the music started up.

(There's a shadow just behind me,
shrouding every step I take.)

“So who is he?” Jinx asked. “You seemed pretty intense about him on the phone.”

(making every promise empty,
pointing every finger at me.)

“He’s no one,” it was a lie even as she said it and even Jinx knew it. If not from what she’d said on the phone then from the way that she couldn’t look at him now. She kept her eyes on the CD player as she spoke and then moved across the do something at her desk, never letting her gaze fall to him.

(I am just a worthless liar.)

“Devil?”

(I am just an imbecile.)

She didn’t look at him.

(I will only complicate you.)

“Delilah?”

(Trust in me and fall as well.)

She looked at him. “Why do you even care?” she snapped without further warning.

(I will find a centre in you.)

Jinx looked at her carefully. “Do you know what you said on the phone?”

(I will chew it up and leave)

It was the way he said it. The thoughtful tone he used and the way he looked at her now with interest and almost confusion.

(I will work to elevate you)

Delilah didn’t have to reply. She watched him. She waited for what he’d say with her heart pounding and then he said it:

(just enough to bring you down.)

“‘There’s Pierre,’” he repeated gently. “‘But I love Pierre.’”