All your wonders at my demand (Teagan, Kenzie, Joss, Cameron, Micah) [backdated August 2013]

[theholyduality.insanejournal.com]

A few days after Stonehenge, Kenzie had taken the driving seat in Teagan’s mind and was speaking to Joss. Teagan let her, practising the talent of keeping her mind quiet, her body relaxed, so that Kenzie could, for want of a better word, drive. It was a windy day in Bristol where they’d decided to stop for a while and check out the city. Today Joss had found a pirate tour of Blackbeard’s (supposed) early life, and they were following the piratically dressed guide around the town, holding hands at the back of the tour, and giggling to each other.

Teagan found it impossible to quiet her mind completely, though. She felt every move Kenzie made with her body, felt her feet hit the ground, felt the movement in her hips and her shoulders and the tension in her back and her stomach and felt the turn of her neck and heard the sounds of her own voice coming out – and every time Kenzie spoke Teagan felt the urge to close her mouth, not because of the things she was saying, but simply because she wasn’t used to her own voice coming out of her own mouth without her knowledge.

It was just as hard to ignore Joss’s hand around her own (Kenzie’s?) hand, and his dark eyes as they watched her (Kenzie) speak.

She was listening to Kenzie make a really terrible joke about pirate grammar, watching Joss’s mouth, when she saw the poster out of the corner of her eye and almost missed it entirely. Probably would have missed it entirely if she hadn’t seen her own name Llewellyn written down. “Hey,” she said, taking over her own mouth again to speak, and pulling Joss across the footpath so she could read the poster properly. “This is my uncle’s band,” she said, pointing for a moment before Kenzie pulled her hand away. “So?” Kenzie asked, and Teagan knew it was going to be one of those conversations the pair of them had out loud, with one voice. “So I don’t know. I forgot they were on tour. So? It might be okay to go and see them, maybe? Yeah, maybe, and maybe Cam’ll dob us in to Grace and poof! I’m dead again! No, no he wouldn’t do that. He was really messed up about Grace exorcising Hannah, he’s not going to do it to you as well. It’s not worth the risk! But I want to go and see them. But he’ll know, he’ll tell. He might not! Not if you keep quiet. Not if you don’t come,” Teagan finished, bravely.

“Jesus,” Joss said. “Watching you talk is something else.” He'd watched them have a dozen conversations like this, more and more as Kenzie spent more time in Teagan's head, but every time it was still... something else.

“It might get my parents off our backs,” Teagan added, feeling Kenzie’s displeasure soaking into her. She was frowning, but couldn’t tell if that was Kenzie’s frown or her own. “If he can tell them I’m okay.”

Teagan’s parents had started to call more insistently, since it had been nearly two weeks now, and Teagan was dodging any and all questions about coming home, when she answered the phone at all. She didn’t want to think about going home, and Kenzie definitely couldn’t.

“I’d like to go,” Joss said, and both girls turned their attention toward him. Teagan felt a surge of warmth and gratitude, and smiled properly at him before Kenzie could use her face for something else.

Joss smiled back, and Kenzie exhaled harshly out her (their) nose. “Alright,” she said. “But if this goes badly… It won’t go badly. It fucking might. And if it does and Grace is there we are… we are leaving England. We are going to Europe. We are moving to Spain.” A sigh. “Grace isn’t going to be there. Why would Grace be there? I’m just saying. If Grace is there. Spain. Okay Joss? Spain?”

“It’s not going to go badly,” Joss said, squeezing their hand. “But sure, if it does, Spain. Why the hell not?”

~

They’d missed Cam’s Bristol show by a couple of days, but the band was playing in Manchester tomorrow night. Teagan felt excited, as they left Bristol and travelled north. Sure it was more hours sitting in a van, but now they had a destination, a fixed point to head toward. Now they weren’t just running away. Now she could relieve some of the guilt she felt toward her parents.

And Teagan felt homesick, not for any particular home but for her family. She missed her cousins and she missed her little sister Shiloh and she missed her parents. Even though it was only Uncle Cameron she’d be seeing, he was better than nothing.

Not that Kenzie was nothing. No, no, that wasn’t what she was saying at all.

Teagan wanted a hug, without the complications that were inherent in Joss’s arms.

~

Cameron’s band was not a new sound. They didn’t break ground that hadn’t already been broken, but occasionally they tilled the earth to new depths, or rearranged the soil a little different than before. It was good, solid rock music, full of classic pub sing-alongs with a few scattered originals. Cameron’s voice was strong where it needed to be strong, or rough, or slow and warm as honey.

Teagan let herself have a pint of craft beer while they set up, and another through the first few songs till the band had properly engaged with the crowd. It wasn’t a big crowd, but the venue wasn’t large either and the people within it were loud enough and happy enough it was Saturday to sound big. Teagan and Joss were the youngest couple there. The band came on late in the evening, but that had given the bar time to fill all its patrons up with beer, and by a few songs in, there was a good raucous singalong going.

Teagan ached in a way she couldn’t, at first, understand. As if her heartstrings had tangled into a net, cast themselves around her cerebral cortex and the deepest part of her gut and were trying with all their unused strength to blend the three vital parts of her into one. She ached. She wanted.

For the first time in weeks she really wanted.

She should be singing. She should be making these warm and sweaty bar patrons sweat and sway and chant along to the chorus of her song; she should be writing hooks that sank into the soft fleshy bits of likeminded people and pulled them along from song to song, album to album, city to city.

This -music- had one of her reasons for coming to London. Oh, technically she didn’t have a choice, because Victoria and Aaron has made the decision to move back to London after Kenzie’s death, but under her grief Teagan had been pleased. The part of her that didn’t revolve around her family was pleased. The part of her that wrote song after song in the backyard of their suburban Sydney home and played them to their cat.

Since coming to London, she’d played at Kenzie’s funeral, and she’d busked outside Apocalypse Records, but London had been so big and so busy and her family were so overwhelming and loud that Teagan hadn’t made any further progress. There was no quiet part of the house to write songs or to practise, and when she did start up in her room there was always someone wanting to turn it into a jam and then Teagan would have to play songs they both knew and she didn’t have the confidence to start teaching them her own music. Either that or they'd tell her to be quiet because the footy was on.

And maybe the biggest problem of all was that she had run out of inspiration, and motivation. She had no sense that she was big enough to take an iconic place in the too-big world. Not surrounded by her cousins, bright bold defiant April and May; internal, secret genius Micah; and Kenzie the deathless.

Teagan had started to think that maybe she wasn’t destined to see her name anywhere she hadn’t written it herself. She thought maybe the place for her was as a backup character for her leading lady cousins. The wildest she had hoped for, back in London, was aspiring toward an affair with her equally out-of-place boss Leo.

But then came whirlwind Kenzie and the night with Joss, who looked at her sometimes with such vivid astonishment she forgot to remind herself he might not be looking at her, and the weeks that followed, which had been full of vivid astonishment of their own, and somehow this – was she going to call it an adventure? – somehow whatever this was, it had washed away all sense of the ordinary.

Now, stepping out in front of an audience and singing her own song didn’t seem quite as outrageous as it once had.

As Cam started to cover The Gambler Teagan finished her drink and slid off the bar stool, offering her hand to Joss. “Do you want to dance?” she asked, and he drained his own drink and acquiesced with a flourish, taking her hand and letting her lead him to the middle of the dance floor.

Teagan didn’t hold his hand for long, as she had to join in with the rest of the pub as they clapped along with the music. She and Joss sang along with every word, meeting eyes occasionally. By the end of the song Teagan had her hands high in the air, and was shouting along at the top of her voice, laughing at Joss at his own passionate re-enactment of the lyrics.

As the song ended with a roar of drunken applause, Teagan felt alive and brave and bold in a way she had not felt for a very long time. Without thinking about it she wrapped her hand around the back of Joss’s neck and kissed him on the mouth.

He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her back for a long moment, before remembering himself, and pulling back. He looked deep into her face, and she could tell he was trying to see who it was that had kissed him. Kenzie had decided to stay away, too afraid to risk being spotted. “It’s me,” Teagan told him. “I mean, it’s Teagan. Teagan is me.”

“Hi Teagan,” Joss said, his face close to hers, his arms still around her waist. “You kissed me.” She could hear the question hanging in the air between them.

“I did do that,” Teagan agreed, feeling giddy with music and a little drunk and full of freedom and the power to make her own choices. “Now I am deciding what to do next. I might sing along to the next song!” Cameron had just started the first line of Where the Streets Have No Name and Teagan felt another surge of musical familiarity.

She kissed him again first though, real quick, because she thought that’s what she wanted. And then the intro of the song was really starting to build, so she started bouncing up and down on her toes along with the beat.

She kept Joss’s hand in hers though, and the pair of them danced together. If it felt like anything, it felt like the tangled dreams of Joss she had every single night these days, brought into a new light in the poor lighting of the pub. And she didn’t know if emotions were contagious, and so she also didn’t know if the rush she was feeling was hers, or a lie, or if it was part of what she and Kenzie were becoming together, but tonight, she didn’t fight it.

Tonight she felt like what Kenzie kept telling her she was; a miracle.

~

Cameron spotted them after the gig was over, and after he was three or four shots of Johnny Walker into the rest of his night. He launched himself away from his booth with the roar of the adrenaline-rushed and threw himself upon her. “Teagan!” he exclaimed, grasping her by the shoulders. “You look like you’re having a great time!”

Teagan grinned, as she had been grinning tonight, so hard her cheeks were starting to hurt. “I am, I’m so glad I came tonight.”

“Same here, girl. I’d heard from Vicky you’d just run off one day, but here you are.” He looked her up and down, doing his uncle duty to make sure she was all in one piece. “You having fun?”

“I am,” she answered again. “We’re road tripping.”

“Ah, to be young!” Cameron tipped his head back and yelled it at the roof of the pub. Never mind that he was, technically, on a road trip. That he’d left his job and started his old band up again and was pretty much acting as young as Teagan.

“This is Joss,” Teagan said, turning to bring Joss into the conversation too. Cameron looked at Joss like he knew he should recognise him, but couldn’t place the boy. Knew the name, knew the face…

“Let’s get some more drinks into you kids!” Cameron said, waving his hand toward the booth he’d been sitting at. “You go sit with Micah, I’ll get a round in. Guinness?”

“Sure mate,” Joss said with a smile, as Teagan’s face faultered. Micah? She jogged over to the booth Cameron had come from, where her youngest cousin was sitting with a couple of Cameron’s bandmates.

“Micah!” Teagan slid in next to her, as Joss took the other side of the table and immediately started talking music with the guys in the band. “What are you doing here?”

Micah shrugged, because very few things were a big deal to Micah. “I’m on tour,” she said, adding a silent obviously in with a look. “More’s the question, what are you doing here, with him?” She nodded toward Joss, who raised his head and chucked Micah a smile.

“We’re just…” said Teagan, shaking her head. She was distracted from thinking up an answer as Micah craned her neck past her, sweeping her eyes over the crowd in the bar. “What?”

Micah hit her with a sharp look. “Where’s Kenzie?”

Teagan opened her mouth, her head still shaking a little. “Oh come on,” said Micah. “I haven’t seen her in London since you left. And he’s here. So she’s got to be.”

“She is,” Teagan said, unwilling to lie to Micah. “Just not here-here. We had to leave London, there was a medium who wanted to get rid of her. I couldn’t let it happen.”

“Hm,” said Micah, with a nod. She sunk down into the seat a little more, her hair hiding her face from Teagan. She would have left town with her mother to save her from exorcism; in fact she wished she had. She, Cameron and Hannah could have left after the fire and started somewhere new, as a family. A patchwork, half alive family. Instead Hannah was gone, and Micah’s house was gone, and every single remnant of her childhood was gone, and it was just her and Cameron packed into the Llewellyn house with too many other people, and no quiet, and no privacy, and no mother. And since a couple of weeks ago, no Kenzie to talk to, either. She'd jumped at the chance to escape the Llewellyn house when Cameron left for tour, although Grace was furious that Cameron had taken his barely fifteen year old on tour with a bunch of forty year old guys.

Micah had also jumped at the chance to make Grace furious. She still hadn’t forgiven her for exorcizing her mother.

Cameron sat down beside Teagan, sliding the tray of beers and a coke for Micah onto the table. “So kids,” he said, touching glasses with Joss. “Whatcha been up to?”

~

As much as Micah would have liked to pretend she was an adult, by the time midnight rolled in and breezed past, she was starting to wilt, and no more cokes or energy drinks could sustain her. Cameron showed no sign of heading back to their room two floors above the pub, and if she didn't get to sleep soon she was going to embarrass herself by nodding off on the table.

So in the next lull in conversation (which was a long time coming) Micah pushed her empty glass away and said "I'm gonna bed."

"Fair nuff," Cameron said, looping his arm around her shoulders and kissing her on the forehead. "You want I should walk you up?"

"I need to pee," Teagan said. "So I'm getting up anyway. I can walk you up."

"I'll be fine," said Micah.

"Nuh," Cameron said. "Not by yourself. Good on ya, Tegs." He slapped his niece on the back, probably harder than he meant to, and Teagan slapped him back and slithered out of the booth after Micah.

Micah led the way up the stairs, which were dark and covered in the thinnest excuse for carpet Teagan had ever seen. As they walked, Teagan found herself telling Micah everything - well almost everything. She left out the sex, and she left out the dreams, and she left out the tangled confusion of feelings.

"So you're... what? Going to be like Grace and Joy for the rest of your life?" Micah asked, unlocking the door with the key that was hanging around her neck.

"I haven't thought that far ahead," Teagan shook her head, following Micah into the small bedroom. There were two beds, and Cameron had given the biggest one to Micah.

"Then what are you thinking?" Micah asked, crawling under the blankets without changing into pyjamas or brushing her teeth.

"I'm thinking..." Teagan lay herself down at right angles to Micah, her feet still on the ground. She took her time, mulling over the words for a minute or so before speaking.

"I'm thinking... Do you know how many people in the history of the world have sacrificed themselves for someone they love? How many parents lose their life to save a child? Or lovers, or siblings, or friends? Or even total, absolute, strangers? Countless people. And all of them heroes. I'm... I'm saving Kenzie from death, and I don't even have to face death myself."

Micah didn't answer, but Teagan thought she could feel her judging. "I am... why do I have this ability to see the dead if I do not use it? I am... a conduit. I am... Kenzie says I am a sacred vessel. Their love is possible because of me. And me and Joss we have... we have a relationship of our own, I think. He is... he is nice to me."

Again, silence from Micah. "I am important," whispered Teagan, and finally turned her head to look at Micah, who was fast asleep, her arm flung over the pillow.

Teagan heaved herself upright, heavy with the beer and the late hour. She tucked Micah in, blew a kiss toward her, and tiptoed quietly out of the room and downstairs to rejoin the others.

~

Kenzie was waiting in the van when Teagan and Joss arrived back at the camping ground, halfway between midnight and dawn. To Teagan she appeared wild and fearful, and the van was in a state of disarray that they definitely hadn’t left it in. Nothing looked broken, but things had definitely moved. “Everything’s okay,” Teagan sang out, as Kenzie rushed forward to meet them. “There’s no Grace, there’s no problems.”

Kenzie flickered a little, reverting to her murdered state, skin ragged and bloody and hair flat and bloody and face scared and, yes, bloody. “No Grace?” she asked, and Teagan nodded a big, confident, drunken nod. “Absolutely none,” she said. “But we ran into Micah, and she, well she says hi.” She hadn’t sent her love, as Teagan was about to say. She hadn’t said hi, either, but it felt the thing to say.

“You’ve got some really cool family, Kenz,” Joss said, collapsing on his back onto the mattress. He pumped one fist in the air. “Musicians, yes!”

“We’re going to start busking,” Teagan told Kenzie, who was starting to look more like herself, the spectral blood starting to disappear. “Maybe make a little money, see what we can do together.”

“Yesss,” Joss said, turning his air fist into metal horns.

“Joss is drunk,” Teagan explained, unnecessarily. “Actually,” she added. “I am a bit, too.”

Kenzie burst into tears. “Oh hey,” Teagan said, reaching forward. “Oh no, it’s okay.”

Joss dropped his metal fist, rolling onto his side to work out what was going on.

“You’re just,” sobbed Kenzie, the wounds down her arms appearing once more. “So alive. So fucking… you’re drunk! And you’re happy! And you’ve been dancing! And I – I can never – I can’t ever sing again! No one but you will ever hear me, and I can’t – I can’t –“ she descended into sobs.

“Come here,” said Teagan, her voice soft and worried and desperate to help. “Come here, come here, come into me. It’s okay, it’s okay.” It wasn’t, of course.

Kenzie was dead.

She’d never be okay again.

But Teagan could at least reach out her hand and do something.

She felt Kenzie settle into her head, and felt her own self shift to accommodate the distraught spirit of her cousin. Her face fell as she felt it, the deep, dark longing to be alive again.

“Teagan?” Joss said, sitting on his heels before her. “Kenzie?” He reached out his hand and took hers, and Teagan dropped to her knees on the mattress in front of him. Kenzie grabbed his shirt at his shoulder and pulled herself close, and he closed his arms around her and held her tight. Teagan felt caught between the grief of Kenzie and the comfort of Joss, felt tears in her owns eyes and had no idea whether they were hers or Kenzie’s.

She couldn’t tell if it was her crying or Kenzie, and she couldn’t tell if it was her clenching her fist into the back of Joss’s shirt, and when she felt herself draw back from Joss’s neck and kiss his mouth instead, she still could not tell.

Joss kissed her deeply, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “Is this alright?” he murmured, low.

“Yes,” whispered Teagan, probably, and kissed him again.