Cairn leaned the chair back onto two legs, their own stretched out far in front of them. Well. Not far. That made them sound tall, and they definitely weren't. Not that Cairn was short, either - at least, not that they'd admit. Almost immediately there was a familiar voice biting in their ear, and a pair of hands seizing the chair, pushing it forward quickly enough that Cairn almost spilled out onto the ground.
"Cripes, June - "
"You're going to break your neck." Juniper's fingers worked their way through Cairn's hair, rustling the black length on top and then rubbing the sides that were, to Cairn's chagrin, growing back out. "Do you need me to trim this again?"
"I can do it," Cairn snapped, knocking their hand away and folding in on themself, turtling down into the neck of the sweater Juniper had yanked over their head a few hours prior.
They didn't need to see Juniper's expression to know what it was - just hear their voice. "Yeah, okay, because that went very well last time. I don't think so, honey."
As they reached up again to slap Juniper's hand away, the latter turned out to be faster, snagged Cairn by the wrist, twisting their arm and ignoring the string of curses off Cairn's black painted lips. It wasn't fair. Juniper was so much bigger than Cairn, in more ways than one - the sweater Cairn wore absolutely swamped them, and Juniper could easily wrap two fingers around their bony wrist. Eat more, Juniper fussed, again and again.
Spiteful as always, Cairn pushed a bag of crisps away with one bare foot, the anklets clinking together.
"At least let me redo your nails," Juniper mumbled, inspecting the chipped red paint across Cairn's too long talons.
".... fine." Cairn allowed themself to be pulled forward, their arm straightened out, June scraping off the old paint and applying the new. Glancing up, now and then, at Cairn's pouting expression.
"Your eyeliner is smudged."
"Okay, will you just f-"
Across the room, something giggled.
dwelling
A half dozen empty bottles fell over and clinked against the glass of the table top, some rolling off. Juniper lunged forward to catch one before it shattered on the hardwood floor, shooting Cairn a look. A frown, a rare expression for them. But Cairn found it hard to care. Something was giggling, something that didn't have permission to be in the house, something something -
Cairn sprang over a tilted pile of cushions out on the floor to get to the closet, yanking aside the clothes there. The closet itself would be empty if it weren't for Juniper's interference, and right now Cairn wished it was because it would be so much easier to find ... whatever it was.
"What are you doing?"
"I don't know." They felt stupid. Because clearly June hadn't heard anything at all, or they'd be up too, and instead they were sitting on one of the recliners, legs tucked beneath them, trying not to drop nail polish onto the already warped floor, the frayed rug braided out of cord.
There was a lot of cord in Cairn's room. Carrying little plants that had died long ago, glass orbs full of muddy water.
Juniper watched expectantly as Cairn sank back down onto the opposite chair, backwards, their legs hugging the chair's. Staring, broodingly, out into space. To the window. It looked out to the tree line, where the pines cut a jagged frame against the sky.
"... are you done doing whatever you're doing?"
Cairn's eyes shifted over - first to Juniper's face, where it was like looking in a mirror. Two pairs of alarming blank, white eyes, one for each of them.
They lunged. There was a crack, and a spatter, and Juniper looked down to the red sprayed across the floor, across their pants, the seat of the chair. Again, that uncommon frown stole across June's features.
"Hey Cairn."
"Yeah, babe."
"Why the fuck."
best friend
"You shouldn't swear," Cairn mumbled, looking down with little regret at the nail polish drying rapidly against the wood.
Juniper's nails, polished blue and dotted with flecks of white like snow on the skyline, tousled through Cairn's hair again. And it was nice. When they weren't being difficult on purpose, Cairn could agree. It was nice. Soothing. Sometimes, they almost dropped off like that, leaned forward on the back of a chair, chin resting, eyes closed.
"You got it on my pants," Juniper mumbled, pulling the chair closer with a foot. More evidence that Cairn didn't weigh anything at all.
"It's cheap. It'll come out, or ... fleck off, probably." Guilt flashed across their face. "I'm sorry."
"Just don't do it again." They were always careful not to just say It's okay. As a reminder. Because, Juniper had remarked time and time again, it wasn't okay.
But sometimes Cairn grew bored and at least Juniper understood that too. They leaned the chair forward, their feet set down on the ground to keep balance. Juniper's hands dropped down to hold the back frame of the chair, and for a moment they were scowling down at Cairn, expecting.
Something.
But then they giggled and leaned, pressing their forehead to Cairn's, resting like that. Listening. Across the room, past Juniper's stack of trashy romance novels, something moved.
"Okay." Juniper's eyes slid sideways. Hard to tell without pupils, but Cairn had figured it out, by the twitch of their muscles, the tilt of their head. Their friend looked hard to the other end, picking between the overflowing trash bin and the empty laundry basket. "That I heard."
"I told you I wasn't crazy," Cairn mumbled, sliding off of the chair.
a touch of thievery
Juniper was up, faster despite their size, pushing their hair up and our of their face as they moved. It was a few careful steps, avoiding the nail polish disaster, to reach the desk on the other end of the room. The source, Juniper had decided, of the noise. Even though the giggling had been on the other end of the room.
Maybe there was more than one.
Blank eyes swept over the desk top, pausing on a ceramic cup of pencils, a few crumpled pieces of paper with nothing on them. Stopping entirely on an unfamiliar sight - a bound journal, with papers edged by gold leaf, the binding striped with some kind of twine or sinew. Faux? Who knew.
Juniper snatched it up and rounded on Cairn, raising it as if to whack the other over the head with it. "What did you take?"
Reflexively, Cairn ducked behind the recliner. "I didn't!"
"You lie." Exasperatedly, Juniper glanced down at the book in their hands. It looked, and felt, expensive. There was no way it wasn't stolen, Cairn couldn't save up the money for this sort of thing if their life depended on it. The second Cairn's wallet had any sort of weight to it, they spent it.
And never on anything like this.
Delicately, Juniper examined the cover, looking for a title. Nothing. Just a blank leather spread. "I'm returning this as soon as I figure out where you got it," Juniper scolded, glaring at the chair. Through it, perhaps. Taking utter care not to chip the gold leaf, they made to open the book - and shrieked as it clamped down on their finger tips. "Cairn!"
"You shouldn't touch things that aren't yours," Cairn mumbled from behind the chair, the tip of their mohawk just visible over the top.
The book smacked loudly onto the floor and, with a similar cackle to the one Cairn had heard earlier, began to scuttle off to hide behind a shelf. Well. That explained that.
