CHARMED, steve harrington

CHAPTER SEVEN

"I saw Will disappear days before it happened."

No matter what Blair did, no matter how much she moved or sat or simply just breathed, her hands wouldn't stop shaking, bones trembling and skin practically vibrating as she sat against the kitchen table and simply shook. And for the fifth time in the space of a minute, she found her aching eyes flickering over to the clock upon the wall, watching as time ticked past ever so slowly and praying to whatever greater force there was in the universe that Jonathan would hurry the fuck up and get here.

There was a tension wound deep inside her that threatened to explode with every simple creak from the old home, every flutter of wings from the birds outside, every stomach rumble, every single noise that echoed through her brain like a void canyon of all of her sins had her flinching in her seat, body curling in on itself as she remembered flowering teeth and clawed fingers stained with blood, blood, blood.

Her eyes clenched shut quickly, hands balling into fists once more as her short nails dug into her boiling hot palm, catching the scabs against it and not caring, focusing on the pain as she buried her nails in deeper, brows furrowing and nose scruchuing up against the panes of her face, the pain grounding and familar and yes, incredibly unhealthy but between her hideous anger, her overwhelming terror or the blissful numbness, she had really no other option but to hurt.

And then the most blissful sound of someone knocking on the door and then opening it reached her ears and her eyes snapped open, hearing Jonathan hesitatingly call out her name and she didn't waste a moment before rising to her feet and practically spitting towards the hallway, skidding across the floor as she tried to grapple with her footing, legs having gone slightly dead from lack of use only to freeze in her tracks when she noticed they had company.

Nancy Wheeler painted a rather strange picture in her untidy home, the girl was always looking so prim and proper with the perfect family life, perfect grades, perfect reputation, perfect personality, perfect everything...the complete opposite of who Blair was. The mousy brunette looked all sorts of nervous but somehow also determined as she stood in the doorway, openly meeting her gaze calmly and raising her thin chin in some sort of wobbly defiance that had Blair's eyes narrowing in distaste.

"What the fuck is she doing here?"

Jonathan and Nancy shared a flinch at the venomous sound of her voice, rough and low and brimming with a certain kind of threat that screamed 'danger - do not engage' as the Byers boy shut the door behind them, already begining to shrug his jacket off like he had done many times in the warm home that felt more like a sauna then anything else, a thin layer of sweat already gathering along his hairline but he couldn't tell if that was because if the heat or the anxiety formed in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm here because I think we saw the same thing."

"You think?! Did it have a face?" Blair snapped, looking at her indignantly with eyes flashing like a churning fire of something explosive and she crossed her arms, using the unblemished skin to start digging her nails into the soft part of her arm, practically shaking like a dog getting ready to piss itself as she took deep, calming breaths as her fear, her anxiety, her pure and unfiltered terror just made her angry...like everything else if her life did because she was beyond fucked in the head.

"No."

"Then we saw the same thing, genius." She smiled mockingly, running her trembling and rapidly paling arm through her messy hair to push her bangs away as they continued to fall over her eyes, the look more of a threat of flashing teeth than welcoming grin, already setting off to storm back into the kitchen just so she could do something with her body other than stand and stew like a woman who'd just found out her husband had cheated for the sixth time that month.