FriendlyPastoralist

Man, like I was this close to getting this out exactly three weeks on from the last, but I guess "roughly every three weeks" is better update schedule then nothing.

Hauling a guy in full kit and a bullet wound into the back seat of a truck sucks.

Realizing just how much weaker you’ve gotten since Narragansett Gender Inversion Syndrome ran a course through you is worse.

However, having the guy you’re moving wake up mid drunk sling and start crying out incoherent gibberish was seriously up there with Darla’s top 5 worst moments of her life, along with a leader in her congregation (ex-congregation!) trying to run her over, and getting sucker punched and then kidnapped by her drinking buddy. This of course meant that 3 out of 5 of her worst moments had happened in the last 24 hours. Ha ha, woof.

She held on to Mike for dear life while Lavender gunned it down the country roads at night. Mike passed between states of adrenaline high nonsense, blood loss black out, and incoherent screaming from what she was hoping wasn't a ruptured nerve. His bandage had stopped leaking blood. Darla hoped that it meant he was going to be okay. People dying of blood loss don't wake up, right?

It was after he had passed out from screaming the second time that Lavender finally spoke. Darla was at this point, dissociating. It wasn’t that she hadn’t done things similar after bar or party fights, it was that the woman who she was fairly certain she had been falling in love with just shot her drinking buddy. A simple "You doing okay back there?" was enough to force she soul back into her body and a deep frown onto her face.

"No." Darla blurted as soon as she regained control of her vocal chords. The engine hum and bump of the country road swelled up over everything as the word hung in the air between them. Lavender wet her lips, tapped the wheel, sniffed. Darla muttered "You should apologize."

Lavender flinched. "I w-" She started, stopping herself to breathe in, out, and center herself. She glanced back and furrowed her brow in the rear-view mirror. "D-did I fuck up?"

There are a couple hundred ways to say the sentence 'Did I fuck up?' From flirting, to aggression, to smugness, every way it can be said has a slight different meaning until it covers a whole spectrum of human emotion. However, the 'Did I fuck up?' spoken in a monotone of abject horror, from the lips of the factory manager who has just triggered an industrial disaster, will always send a chill up the spine.

Darla shivered, processing that Lavender was only now processing this. "Yes." was all that she could choke out.

"Oh." Lavender murmured.

"Yes, yes you did." Darla repeated, finding her voice and wondering just how much she would have to treat this girl like a child.

Lavender bit her lip, taking a sharp turn towards the Ecovillage. "But, we won right?" She said hopefully. "That's got to count for something?"

Darla sighed and stopped bracing Mike's head. It was time to put on fucking the kiddie gloves. "We didn't win. No one won." Mike shifted and began muttering a slurred 'motherfucker' over and over. She stroked his head trying to calm him down a bit. "Winning is when you achieve your goals, not when you get revenge."

Lavender looked mildly frustrated. "But my goal was to get you back." She blew out some air "Darla, I know this stuff okay?"

"No!" Darla hissed. "Your goal is to get the community on your side!" She shook with pure frustration at this woman not getting it. She remembered Mikes drunken monologue, the real suffering that he just wanted people like this to understand. "Sneaking up behind a guy and shooting him in the arm without even trying to deescalate is just a way to lose!" Mike moaned as if on cue, and Lavender shifted uncomfortably. She decided to relent a bit. "I know we aren't exactly able to be Marian Luther King, but Malcolm X didn't go around shooting first and asking questions later."

Lavender frowned "I mean..." She stopped herself again. Locking her eyes with Darla's she rubbed her chin.

For the first time since they had that talk at the truck Lavender looked like she was actually listening to her. This day had been too damn long, though. Darla had too many opinions trampled underfoot for her to care about finally getting this stage. Lavender sighed and took a hand off the wheel reaching back as if to grab Darla's hand. Who, for her part, eyed it wearily without accepting.

She murmured just above the engine's hum "Listen, I've come to care about you a great deal over these past two days." She let her hand fall to the console as Darla failed to take it. "Can't say I react rationally when a thing I care about is threatened." As her hand slid back towards her lap Darla felt a twinge of remorse. This was so attractive about Lavender- her dogged willingness to defend what she loved. "You didn't watch your date get cold cocked and had guns pointed in your face." Lavender looked out of the windshield ruefully. Darla's hands twitched, she couldn't help herself. How was she letting herself forgive?

Mike gurgled mournfully, and Darla was back. "I understand, what that must have felt like." Darla sighed brushing mikes sandy hair, never taking her eyes off Lavender's peace offering. "When he looked me dead in the eyes with total incomprehension..." She shivered again. "Still I was eventually able to get him to come around, and you ruined it."

Both of them we're silent as the truck bounced through a particularly large pothole jarring everything and making Mike cry out. Darla winced and tried her best to sooth him. "I don't know how I feel about all this, you know?" She said with a hard edge to it, her mind flashing between the punch and the shot over and over and over. She forced herself to focus on the sin in front of her. "There's so many other things you could've done, but honestly?" Drunk on adrenaline the thought slipped innocuously through her filter "If it had been Darrow I would've just fucked you there in his blood." She bit her lip.

Lavender whistled. "Damn, that is way too hot for a first date." Darla cringed blushing at how horny her comment had been. "You sure you don't wanna pull over for a quickie?" She raised her eyebrows into the rear-view mirror.

"No!" Darla blurted, retreating into herself even further as the full implications of what she had mused out loud. Flashes of Evelyn, mixed with images of Lavender standing triumphant while Mike bled out. "No no no no no no no no!" She shook her head violently trying desperately to dislodge the painful memories and focus on the here and now. "Jesus, you're f-fucking crazy!"

Lavender laughed "You were the one who was talking about fucking in that assholes blood."

Darla balked. She was. "Ok? I'm fucking crazy too!" She yelled, feeling the pain of that admission seer into her mind. "I still find you insanely attractive." She didn't even realize she was crying again until the tear dripped off her chin. "That makes me certifiable, for all I give a shit." She took a deep breath, while Lavender stared at her through the rear-view unblinking. "Like, 90 fucking laws were broken tonight, and you shot my honest to god best drinking buddy. I have half a mind to just dump this in the sheriff's lap and forget you existed!"

Lavender looked pensive "Will you?"

Darla broke "No." She trembled a little bit and let it go. "I want Triangle to exist. I want Joan to be able to settle down here with her poly-whatever. I want what we had today." She could barely speak through the choking of her voice. "I want you to apologize and understand why. I want to be able to forgive you. I want you and Mike to end up friends. I want us to be less fucked people. I want to feel what its like to be fucked-" Dammit. Why was she like this. Stupid, stupid, lustful girl! She gulped in air bringing herself back from her perversion. "I want things to be better." She made another we gasp and dropped into a murmur, as she curled in on herself "I just want things to be better."

Lavender choked. She began breathing heavily but refusing to say anything until she pulled over on a small shoulder. She cleared her throat, clutching the steering wheel for stability that she couldn't achieve. Every one of her panicked breaths was a hammer blow to Darla's heart. Gasping for air Lavender stared out wide eyed. "I..." She made a wet noise "I didn't save the day." She choked again. "I made things worse."

Darla let herself unfurl. She wanted to take it all back now. Lavender could be as stupid and unthinking and violent as she needed to be. How could Darla deign to break such a strong woman? She felt like she had shot a lion and was watching the majestic creature bleed out in the most pathetic way possible. She reached forward.

On shaking hands Lavender unbuckled herself turning in her chair to face the back seats. Her eyes seemed to focus on Mike as the rest of her body twitched in terror. "It's hard to see him as anything other then another Davis. He fits the type." Ignoring Darla's hand, she reached out to touch him. Only for her to pull back, as if touching him would make her mistake real. She muttered "He still did all that shit, too." The trembling slid off her, and suddenly she had recomposed herself grabbing Darla's hand.

Darla sighed "I'll try to make him apologize for the dyke thing and the misunderstanding, but..." She looked down at him sleeping fitfully on her lap. "You need to apologize first, because you shot him." Lavender's face, which had been rallying from slack jawed horror to her normal smirk dropped. Darla rubbed her face with her free hand. "What are we even going to do if he decides to press charges?"

Lavender started to breathe heavily again. "I just..." Sh stopped. "Shit." She took a centering breath. "Next time I gotta skip town it's Mexico. Damn." She switched to inhaling through her nose and muttering damn with every exhale.

Lavender's rough hands churned against Darla's. She felt like her fingers were going through a trash compactor. "Hey, we'll get through this." She spoke in what felt like unhelpful platitudes. "I'm sorry." She wasn't cut out for this. Lavender gritted her teeth. Some stupid bullshit Pops had told her about taking responsibility popped into her head. "Sorry, this is all my fault." Darla whispered. If she hadn't ran at Mike, if she hadn't taken them out on the town...

"What? No." Lavender shook her head. She swallowed her grimace and put her free hand on Darla's cheek. Lavender's skin was coarse but her touch was gentle. Darla felt herself leaning into the gesture. "I made this bed, don't you dare blame yourself."

Well if she admitted it. Darla almost let herself smile until she felt Lavender's hand shake lightly against her face. She was merely holding back collapse. Lavender was being strong for her in the moment Darla should be excoriating her. How dare she.

Darla searched for the words. She trapped Lavender's hand as it threatened to slid off her face. She felt the wet of Mike drooling on her shorts. She listened to the ever present chirping of crickets in the dead silence of the stopped truck. And there it was, the license to speak, ever elusive, but caught for now.

"You should let yourself mourn." She let their palms fall from her cheek and reassemble themselves into hand in hand and hand in hand. "Mourn the version of yourself who could think yourself without sin." She was preaching now, of course she was, Gods little solider even past her renunciation.

"In the act of throwing the first stone, you have sinned." She sighed. "Not against God, but against this man." Lavender looked as miserable as a wet cat. Darla once more felt the tug of letting her off. Who was she to judge after all. Then her second thoughts kicked in- she couldn't let this stand! It wasn't right, for whatever right even meant to her. "It was a permanent act of violation that can never truly be undone."

Darla shifted awkwardly realizing just how hard it would be to comfort a crying Lavender with Mike in her lap. Too late now. "The best you can do now is beg forgiveness and hope for grace." She was just restating what she had said before in her preaching voice, but it worked.

Lavender fell on her, letting herself cry. It was the first time Darla had seen it, and it was a beautiful ugly thing. They stayed there awhile. She awkwardly adjusted herself tying to cradle Mike and Lavender at the same time. Whispering sweet nothings into Lavenders ear, and running a hand through Mikes hair, she unclenched. Somehow, treacherously, the feeling that it was going to be okay creeped back into her mind. Foolish.

FriendlyPastoralist

Foolish? Damn, what does the narrator mean by that?

Anyway make sure to leave questions, observations, and corrections in the comments, it helps with al-gore-rythm stuff, but more importantly it feeds the raw ambition that powers this project!