youngblood // p. hockstetter // 0.1

//thirty-six

•••

Rosemary lay in silence beside Jude, his arm loosely draped over her stomach as she stared blankly at the table beside her with a gaze deader then that of a corpse.

She felt nothing less than horrid.

The layer of heat covering her body dug deeply into her skin which craved for the exhilaration she'd felt mere hours ago. As though choking she found herself wheezing voluntarily, a desperate attempt to push the raw feelings burrowed inside herself to the surface. She hadn't slept at all.

Rosemary stared longingly at the table where the needles had been before Jude stashed them from her. The single injected arm lay over her.

"You awake?" Jude mumbled obscurely, his head buried into her shoulder blades and his legs tangled around her own. Rosemary didn't respond, only continued to stare blankly at the wall as she tried to decipher the painful stinging coming from the pit of her abdomen. His long fingers smoothing over her damp skin, Jude's hand rose to gently stroke up her ribcage. "Ro?" She gave a small grunt of displeasure and pulled away slightly, her stomach flipping and growling from the smallest of movements. "Pout all you want-" He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, "-you aren't getting anymore"

"Fuck you" She grumbled angrily, hot tears of frustration soaking into the pillow beneath her as she curled away from Jude. Glancing at the clock, she red 6:28 in bright green pixels.

"You aren't going to school on ecstasy"

"Why not?" She growled, clenching one of the pillows against her body tightly. She honestly failed to see the issue when she had classmates and teachers who did much worse behind classroom doors. Jude sat up and was seconds from retaliating before he was interrupted by a harsh knock on the door.

"Jude?"

"Wait a second!" He scrambled upwards, very nearly knocking Rosemary over in the process as he tugged his discarded sweatpants on over his underwear and his shirt over his head, hastily shoving the blanket over Rosemary's shoulders to hide her nudity and tossing a pillow at the foot of his bed beside her covered feet. The indent in the bed was enough for any unquestioning mind to assume that Jude had slept at Rosemary's feet rather then against her.

Pressing her face unceremoniously into the pillow, Rosemary heard him open the door. "Hey Jake" He greeted, slightly breathless, "What's up?" Rosemary watched in silence as the boy Jake stepped past Jude to enter his room.

"Can't find my work shirt, I think I threw it in with your load" He begun to dig through Jude's dresser, tossing several shirts onto the floor.

"Is it that blue one with the fish logo?"

"Yeah" Turning around, he glanced down at Rosemary and frowned slightly, turning back to Jude and nodding his head towards her. "Who's the brood?" Rosemary didn't bother listening, only buried herself further into the quilts until they concealed her mouth and bunched around her neck uncomfortably.

She wanted another line, if anything just to wake her up. She thought of Robby, contemplating her chances of getting a hit off him. A groan inexplicably left her mouth as she tried to loosen her entire body, including her throat. "Rose, you ain't having any more lines"

"Fuck off" Rosemary coughed slightly, the heavy pressure of inexplicable sadness crushing her windpipe and ribcage. "You got a cig?" She asked, pulling the quilt away from her face to glance at them questionably.

"Not on me" Jude rolled his eyes, turning away from her to look in a box she hadn't noticed beside the door.

" 'Ere doll" Jake stepped forward with a teasing smile on his face, pulling a cigarette carton from his pocket and tapping the top against his wrist. "You look like you need it"