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Deena loves her friends. Really, she does, more than she ever thought possible. Though they are few in numbers, they more than make up for it in their spirit, their loyalty, their unwavering acceptance of her. Their love, she knows, is something she is impossibly lucky to receive, day in, day out.
There’s Simon, with his goofy jokes and unfailingly positive outlook on life, despite his less-than-ideal home life, along with the harrowing ordeal they all underwent not all that long ago. Kate, whom Deena has known since grade school, with her sharp wit and ridiculously sound work ethic. There’s also Josh, who- yes, is technically Deena’s brother, but she counts him as her friend, nonetheless. What else could he be but her friend when she would (and has) put her life in his hands, hands she would also slap out of the way to get to the last pizza slice?
One would think that going through what they’ve been through would highlight the cracks in the connections they’ve built, but Deena, in perhaps the most gruesome, terrifying way imaginable, has found that notion to be absolutely false. Hunted down by undead serial killers, chased through their hometown by the consequences of a deal made with the actual devil, a deal that had been pinned on an innocent girl for over 300 years whilst the true perpetrators had been under everyone’s noses all along, they’d been through hell and back. There’d been close calls, near misses and a whole host of horrors none of them should ever have had to bear witness to, but they’d survived. Against all the odds, they’d lived, and only because of just how deep the trust between them all ran.
So, yeah, Deena loves her friends. She’d do anything for them, truly.
But if they interrupt her and Sam one more goddamn time, she’s gonna lose it.
-----
Despite the curse being lifted, ended the moment Nick Goode’s wicked heart had stopped beating, the rivalry between Sunnyvale and Shadyside had remained, particularly between the high school kids. The Sunnyvalers, stung by the realisation that their town was no longer as perfect as it had once claimed to be, had become bitter, and their hatred for Shadysiders, no longer as downtrodden and misfortunate as they once truly had been, had grown exponentially.
The rivalry is what fuels the chants that ring through the school bus the evening of the big game. The Sunnyvale Devils (a surprisingly apt name, Deena thinks, given all that’s come to pass) versus the Shadyside Witches. The only football game that matters in the minds of the kids who roar and yell and fill the bus with taunting words and shouted encouragements.
Deena allows herself a smile as Simon leads their peers into another round of ‘when I say Shady, you say Side!’, his painted green face animated with child-like glee. She won’t join in the chanting, she’ll leave the ringleading to Kate and Simon, so she simply grins as the kids around her get more and more excited, twirls her drumsticks around her fingers and watches the houses fly past the bus window as they approach the Sunnyvale stadium.
Not two months ago, Deena would have scoffed at the mere idea of attending the game, would have felt a pit of dread in her stomach at the thought of stepping foot in Sunnyvale. She would’ve lost herself in bitter memories, drowned in her, as Kate had so affectionately termed it, ‘ex drama’. She would’ve thought about Sam, would’ve spent the evening listening to that damn mixtape and crying her eyes out.
Now, she still thinks of Sam, but this time it isn’t painful. In fact, it’s pretty damn close to a dream.
Brought back together by their quest to uncover the truth about Sarah Fier, they’d reconnected, overcome the issues that had torn them apart in the first place, issues that now seemed so fucking inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and figured their shit out. They’d begun the journey full of resentment and bitterness and pain, and had ended it together, full of love and the knowledge that if all they had was each other, everything would work out fine in the end. And it had, by and large. Sam was still living with her asshole mom in Sunnyvale, and Deena was still in Shadyside, but the ocean Deena had previously believed lay between them had evaporated. Half an hour and one shitty parent could no longer be enough to break them, not after everything they’d endured.
As the bus begins to slow, the stadium coming in to sight, Deena thinks of her girlfriend and grins once again. She always did like the sight of Sam in her cheerleading uniform, no matter the colour or the words emblazoned its front.
The walk from the bus to the field is a rowdy one, to say the least. The cheerleaders are tittering amongst themselves, the band members are already beginning warm up their instruments, and the football players, the most boisterous of the bunch, are jostling each other, smacking each other’s chests and putting on a show of testosterone so fierce, Deena has to cover her wry smile, her noncommittal head shake.
There’s something in the air, Deena thinks as they file out onto the pitch, something almost tangible. Something carefree and loose and almost wild in its innocence. Something that hadn’t been there before. It’s what’s got the football players so pumped, what’s got the band tuning their instruments to perfection, what’s got the cheerleaders practically bursting with pep.
It’s what being a kid feels like, she realises, as the Sunnyvalers move to greet them; what being a kid should have always felt like.
In the absence of the curse, thanks to her and her friends, Shadyside is finally free from under the heeled boot of the Goode’s. No longer is their town ‘Killer Capital, USA’, no longer a hotbed for psycho’s. Not much has changed physically- the town is still a little rundown, the streets are still full of potholes and the houses are still a third of the size of the one’s in Sunnyvale- but some switch had flipped the moment that knife pierced through Sheriff Goode’s eye. Suddenly, Shadyside wasn’t just the place that they lived, wasn’t a gravity well of death and despair. It was their home, and they were damn proud of it.
The change is most noticeable in the kids, and particularly remarkable in this moment, as the football team begin to warm up and the cheerleaders start stretching. They all seem to care, in a way they hadn’t previously. Before, there had been a desire to win, but only to prove to those Sunnyvale assholes that they weren’t just the dirt under their feet. There had been no sense of pride in it, only a vicious hatred for their opposition, a hatred only matched by that which they felt for their own lives.
Now, as Deena scans the pitch, searching for the Sunnyvale cheerleaders (one in particular), there is no bitterness. Now, there is the age-old want to win, the unfamiliar taste of healthy rivalry and hometown pride in the air. The players, on their side at least, want to not only win but play, and enjoy themselves while they’re at it. It feels good, Deena realises, to not have the weight of one family’s greed dragging their town down. It feels a hell of a lot like freedom.
She’s still hopped up on that exhilarating feeling when her eyes finally find the face she’s been looking for in the crowd of red-clad Sunnyvalers, and her mouth drops into a lopsided smirk as she meets her eyes.
Sam looks nothing short of breath-taking in her cheerleading uniform, with her hair in that half-up, half-down style that frames her face and makes it unbelievably hard for Deena not to march over there and kiss her until her lips go numb. Her cheeks are tinged slightly pink- whether that’s from makeup or her warm-ups, Deena doesn’t know or particularly care- and her eyes are so fucking blue underneath the floodlights, so fucking blue, and Deena knows that if she doesn’t get her hands on her girlfriend in the next hour, she’s going to combust.
Those eyes meet her own, gleaming with that specific brand of mischief that Deena has come to associate with her girlfriend, and a smile tugs at the corners of Sam’s mouth. She’s surrounded by her fellow cheerleaders, Deena by her fellow bandmates, and there’s half a football field between them, but it absolutely does not feel like it when Sam grins toothily across the distance at her. It’s wide and genuine and it stays on her face for a long moment, long enough for Deena to lose herself in it, long enough for the other cheerleaders to notice her distraction and turn to look at the source of her happiness. And instead of hiding her smile or playing it off as something else, Sam merely smiles brighter and gives a little wave. Deena thinks she could die.
It never used to be like this between them, even when they were together the first time, before they broke up. Their smiles had always been exchanged in secret; their little moments hidden away. Sam had always been too scared to tell anyone about them, too afraid of the consequences of being an out and proud lesbian in 90’s America. And Deena knows now how valid that was, how perfectly justified, and she kicks herself for ever giving Sam shit for it. But things have changed, big things, and now, Sam waves at her across a football field, grinning at her for all to see. I guess getting possessed by the actual devil makes you re-evaluate things, Deena muses.
Deena loves Sam, this she knows with her entire being, but other than that, the most prominent emotion she feels as Sam draws her bottom lip between her teeth is pride. She’s proud of Sam. She is beyond proud of Sam, of how far she’s come, how far they’ve come. And not even necessarily for coming out, though that sure does make a lot of their relationship easier, because Deena knows now, after staring death in the face, that there are more important things to life than being able to hold your girlfriend’s hand in the hallway. Sure, it’s a nice bonus, but getting to be with Sam at all is what matters. She knows now that she’d drive to the ends of the earth for her, that she’d kiss her away from prying eyes if it made her feel safe, that she’d fight the actual devil to hear her say in that quiet voice ‘I love you’.
But Deena can’t lie, it is nice to be able to openly exchange grins with her girlfriend. Even nicer, she thinks, to be able to drop one eye closed in a wink that has colour rushing to Sam’s cheeks, that mischievous glint in those blue, blue eyes burning even fiercer. Very nice indeed.
Before she can begin to dwell on what the consequences of that wink might be, the referee is calling the players onto the field and the cheerleaders are being whisked away into simple routines designed to get the crowd going.
Huh. The crowd. Deena hadn’t even noticed there was one, too caught up in delicious daydreams of her girlfriend. But a crowd there was; Shadysiders who’d followed the school bus to the stadium in one set of stands, Sunnyvalers in another. It’s pretty packed, actually, and Deena shakes her head and huffs out a chuckle at her own expense- guess the rest of the world really does fade away when you’re in love.
As a part of the band, Deena isn’t really required now to do much of anything until the game ends, so she wanders up to the first row of the stands and finds herself a seat. She’s alone, but that doesn’t bother her. Simon is doing his witchy mascot routine (something that feels a little insensitive now she knows the truth about Sarah Fier, but how the hell would she explain to the school that they need to change their mascot because she went back 300 years into the past and saw the truth?) and Kate is down by the side of the pitch, leading her cheerleaders into more pom-pom shaking and cheering. She watches on with a smile as Simon sprints by the stands, doing cartwheels and drawing the crowd into chants and songs.
The 24 minutes it takes to get to half-time pass in a kind of blur. The game is intense, aggressive on both sides, but, by some miracle (Deena knows exactly which one), Shadyside are winning. Or, at least, she thinks they are. In all honesty, she’s spent the first half of the game staring dazedly over at the Sunnyvale cheerleaders, watching Sam perform routine after routine and feeling her mouth grow dryer with every passing second. Fuck.
The whistle blowing to signal half-time is a blessing. As the football players trudge over to the benches for oranges, water and probably the nicest half-time talk of their lives, Deena squirms her way past her classmates and exits the stands. Her cheeks are burning, and she feels antsy, and she needs to get some air before she marches over to the Sunnyvale stands and makes damn sure everybody knows how hot she is for her girlfriend. Sam’s out now, sure, but Deena thinks she probably wouldn’t appreciate a messy make-out in front of her entire school. Later, she tells herself as she spots the changing rooms, rounds the corner and leans back against the cool bricks. Find her later.
There’s a strange sort of peace, Deena finds, in that spot behind the changing rooms. It’s quiet but not silent, the distant chatter of those still on the field reaching her ears, though it’s more of a low buzz than anything. It’s removed but not isolated; if she peers round the corner, she’ll see the field illuminated by the floodlights, the kids milling around, the coaches speaking to their respective teams. At any moment, she could choose to rejoin them, and yet she stays. Quiet moments are hard to find in Shadyside. She’ll enjoy the peace for just a moment.
The moment does not last very long.
Her short-lived peace is broken by the sound of approaching footsteps, and Deena turns her head to find the source. She grins. Of course.
“Thought I might find you back here.” Sam’s eyes are alight with something that sparks electricity beneath Deena’s skin, something that stokes the warm feeling in her stomach that’s been there since she’d locked eyes with Sam across the field and feeds it until the embers become a crackling flame. Sam is moving slowly, taking little teasing steps, her lower lip pulled between her teeth. Deena can’t help the smirk that spreads across her face as she matches her movements, stepping forward in increments, eyes on her girlfriend the whole time.
“Yeah?” And her voice is raspy, low in the way she knows drives Sam crazy. They’re a couple of feet apart now, and she stops, lets Sam come to her.
“Yeah. Saw you hurry off. Seemed pretty anxious to get out of there, actually.” Another step and Sam’s in her space, a mere few inches separating them. Deena’s eyes dart down to her lips, bitten-red and beautiful. “Everything ok?” Sam’s teasing, and they both know it. There’s no hint of concern in her voice, just a knowing lilt that has Deena reaching for her before she can think of a reason not to, crashing their lips together and effectively shutting her up before either of them can blink.
Sam’s hands come to cradle her face, holding her carefully whilst laying bruising kisses on her lips. Deena’s rest dangerously low on her back. Sam sighs, and the sound is soft, but the way she pushes Deena back against the wall is anything but. The dichotomy of it all is heady, and Deena never understood addiction before she met Sam, never understood why her dad couldn’t quit drinking, why Simon’s brother could never stop sticking needles in his arm, but now, now. Sam’s tongue is in her mouth and her hands are holding her like she’s the most solid, concrete thing in her world, and Deena doesn’t know how she ever went so long without this. With her back against the wall, Sam pressed against her so close it’s hard to tell where she ends and Deena begins, Deena thinks she can very easily see how people lose themselves to drugs and alcohol. If it makes them feel this fucking good, how can she blame them for never letting it go? How can she fault them, when here she is, thinking she’d happily die if the last thing she tasted was Sam’s lips upon hers?
“Do you have any idea how great you look in this uniform?” She practically growls as she flips their positions, pinning Sam to the bricks and grinning against her mouth when she hears her let out a soft moan at the impact. Her hands are stroking up Sam’s back now, and she feels fucking feral when the girl pressed against her winds a hand into her hair and tugs her back to her lips, kissing her silent.
Sam’s rocking against her now, ever so slightly, and a whine escapes her when Deena moves to rain kisses down her neck, hot and open-mouthed. She gasps when Deena nips at her pulse point, arches a little when she runs her tongue over it. She’s trying to be quiet, Deena can tell, so she slides her hands down to squeeze at Sam’s ass, and that seems to do it. A surprised whimper followed by a murmured ‘shit, Deena’ has her smiling smugly and she does it again, just to hear her swear.
It’s hot and it’s messy, and it’s so entirely them that Deena feels she’s found a different kind of peace, another moment in this spot behind the changing rooms to lose herself in. Not as quiet, and not as still, but peace she has found nonetheless, hidden in the curl of a tongue, the grip of a hand and a quickening of breath. She finds she altogether prefers it.
But, because apparently today is not the day for peace, the moment is broken once again, this time by the clearing of a throat.
“Why am I not surprised you two snuck off to make out, I told Simon that’s what you’d be doing.”
Deena pulls back hastily, putting a few inches between her and Sam, who is trying in vain to make it look they didn’t just get caught in a less than desirable position. Kate stands by the corner of the building, looking fondly exasperated, like she just caught a kid with their hand in the cookie jar. Deena feels herself flush.
“Kate, we were just-“
“Sucking face? Yeah, I saw.” She arches an eyebrow, pom-poms rustling as she rests her hands upon her hips. This must be what she looks like when she babysits, Deena thinks and allows herself a sheepish grin towards her friend. “God, you two are insatiable.”
Deena’s heart is still racing, and her lips still tingle with the memory of Sam- who is still so close that Deena can feel her breathing against the side of her face- but she forces herself to straighten up, smooth down her dumb band uniform and tip Kate a winning smile before she delivers her teasing response.
“At least we had the decency to go somewhere private. Or do you not remember last week when we all walked in on you and Josh ‘sucking face’ in the basement?”
Kate has the modesty to blush and look slightly bashful as Sam swats her arm lightly.
“Leave her alone.” She murmurs, but Deena doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s smirking too. Kate takes a moment to regain her cool, huffing out a breath and restoring her own smile.
“Whatever, the game’s about to start again. You two lovebirds better get back out there.” Sam scurries off after pressing a gentle a kiss to Deena’s cheek, unable to look their friend in the eyes, a pretty blush glowing on her cheeks.
“Don’t.” Deena warns as soon Sam disappears round the corner of the building, Kate turning to her with a conniving smile. The cheerleader raises her hands in mock-innocence, and although Deena’s a little annoyed she interrupted her and Sam, she loves her friend so much in that moment that she can’t help but grin.
“I wasn’t gonna say anything, lady-killer.” Kate responds as they begin to walk back to the field.
“Good.” Silence for a moment as they near the floodlit pitch. It’s nice, until-
“You two really can’t keep your hands off each other, can you?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Kate’s laughter rings out into the night and Deena grins, laughs right along with her; still warm from her encounter with Sam, still hopped up on the energy of the night, she laughs and laughs and loves her life more than she’d ever thought possible.
-----
The carnival comes to Shadyside once every couple of years. Well, it comes to the little strip of land that separates Sunnyvale from Shadyside but given the majority of its turnout being from the less prestigious town, the carnival is classed as a Shadyside event. A chance to get drunk in public, play stupid games and spend a night away from the worries of real life, whenever it rolls into town, that little strip of land is practically full to bursting with adults, kids and teenagers alike.
The last time Deena had attended, she’d been 8 years old, with an annoying kid brother and both parents still around. It’s one of her fonder memories, the night the Johnson family went to the carnival. Her dad had taken them on all the rides and her mom, not yet in the icy grips of her illness, had bought her cotton candy and put her on her shoulders so she could see all the pretty lights. In fact, it’s one of the last good ones of her parents she has. After that night, her mom had started to deteriorate, fast, and she’d died not two years later. Her dad’s drinking started after that, and well, it had pretty much all gone to shit from there.
Until that fateful night a few months ago. Until her and Sam had emerged from Sheriff Goode’s house, dirty and bloody and traumatised, but alive. Until the curse on Shadyside had been lifted, and suddenly, Deena’s dad had started showing up again. Until it had all turned out ok in the end.
So Deena feels no bitterness as she walks through the entrance to Shadyside’s carnival, gazing around at the lights she’d once been mesmerised by, surrounded by family once again. Not connected by blood, this time, except for Josh, but by something far deeper. A family she’s built. A family she chose.
Simon immediately bounds away, his eyes fixed on the bumper cars, whilst Kate and Josh make for the Whack-A-Mole stand, leaving Deena and Sam, hand-in-hand by the entrance.
“You wanna go grab some hotdogs?” Sam ventures, and is met with a willing nod, so they head over to the food stand.
They eat at a picnic table opposite the Ferris Wheel, sending adoring glances over the table at each other, nudging one another’s feet in a back-and-forth game beneath it. When they’re finished, they wander, with nowhere to be, nobody to please; just them and a summer evening, them in amongst the throng of Shadysiders, walking around without a care in the goddamn world.
An hour or so passes that way; an hour of wandering, an hour of silly flirting, like they used to during the first few weeks of their relationship (like they didn’t know, in the depths of their hearts, that this was what they wanted for always), an hour of Deena loving Sam under the setting the sun and being loved just as much in return.
The sky is dark by the time they decide to try out some of the games on offer, their evening now lit by the artificial lights of the carnival, and the brightness of each other’s smiles. Sam beats Deena at the Ring Toss, much to her smug satisfaction. “Thought you’d have better aim than that, Johnson,” she’d teased and got a playful swat in return. Deena gets her back at the Skee-Ball stand, though, turning to Sam with a wide grin and a murmur of ‘how’s that for aim, Fraser?’, before she’s thoroughly distracted by a kiss that leaves her aching.
(Maybe Sam had won, after all.)
After a victory of her own safely under her belt, Deena drags a still-grinning Sam over to a stand which offers a grand prize if one can shoot down five milk bottles. It’s silly and overpriced and probably rigged, but she really can’t help it that she thinks her girlfriend would look hot with a shotgun in her capable hands.
“This is the game you wanna play?” Sam asks her with raised eyebrows as they near the stall, fingers interlaced with Deena’s, looking on with amusement dancing in her sapphire eyes. Deena shakes her head and her nose scrunches in confusion. It’s more adorable than Deena thinks she can handle at the moment, so she swallows hard and turns to scan the game.
“This is the game I want you to play.” Her words are accompanied by her crooked grin, the one she knows makes Sam melt, and looks back to her with excitement brimming in her eyes, and immediately has the air knocked from her lungs.
Sam’s staring at her- not an uncommon occurrence, but there’s something…more to it now. There is love and there is lust and in between the two there is this: this toeing of the line between adoration and want, between warmth and heat, between making Deena want to cry with overwhelming emotion and driving her fucking crazy. In Sam’s eyes, there’s a dizzying combination of gentle divinity and carnal sin. In Sam’s eyes, there is safety and recklessness. There is a quiet ocean and a roaring inferno. In Sam’s eyes, there is home, and it’s all Deena can do not to fall to her knees and ask her to stay forever.
“You want…me to play? Deena, I don’t even know how to hold a gun the right way.” Ignoring the irregular thumping of her heart, Deena simply smiles again, smiles so hard her jaw starts to ache, and pulls Sam over to stand in front of the shotgun laying on the counter.
“That’s ok, baby. I’ll teach you.” Sam grins at the term of endearment and nods. That’s my girl.
Deena pays the guy running the stall and he sets the bottles up, hands the gun to Sam, who stands there looking adorably hesitant as he explains the rules.
“…so that’s 7 shots to knock down as many bottles as possible. Got it?” He drawls, clearly bored, and Sam nods, albeit a little confusedly. “Alright. Go for it.” He nods to her and then steps out of the way, leaning against the wall of the stand and pulling a Rubik’s Cube from his pocket, fiddling with it and paying the two girls no mind. It’s probably not standard procedure when running a game that uses an actual weapon (even though it only fires blanks), but Deena doesn’t much care. It works for her plan, so she lets the kid mess with the little cube and puts her scheme into place.
As Sam hoists the gun up to rest against her shoulder, Deena steps up beside her, so close that she can hear Sam’s measured breaths, close enough that she can wrap one hand around Sam’s on the barrel of the gun, gently gripping her hip with the other.
The reaction is immediate, but subtle. Sam’s breath hitches and her whole body seems to tense up and then relax back into her. Her hands tighten ever so slightly on the metal weapon, knuckles whitening, fingers sliding. She audibly swallows and takes a shaky breath, and Deena can’t help but nuzzle her nose against the underside of Sam’s jaw and smirk proudly at the response her proximity has elicited.
“What are you doing?” Sam murmurs.
“Teaching you.” She gets a half-hearted scoff in response, and Deena knows she’s won this one. “You’re gonna want to move this hand,” she takes hold of the one Sam has on the barrel, “down to here.” She slides it into a better position, taking joy from the feeling of Sam trembling against her. “And this,” her hand lightly traces across Sam’s sternum as she reaches to adjust the stock against her shoulder, “needs to be here.”
“You’re…” Sam trails off, squeezing her eyes shut when Deena traces the skin of her hip under her shirt. Her voice is shaky and almost incomprehensible, and Deena’s on cloud fucking nine.
“I’m what?” She rasps, fully aware of what that does to her girlfriend.
“Distracting.” Is what Sam goes for after a long, silent moment, and Deena chuckles gruffly.
As it turns out, Deena is so distracting that Sam only manages to hit two of the bottles, but the blonde girl doesn’t really seem to mind that much. She fires off her last three shots in rapid succession, hitting nothing, and places the gun back onto the counter with delicate care before grabbing Deena’s hand and tugging her away.
Deena allows herself to be led through the crowds, grinning happily at how obviously riled up her girlfriend is, and doesn’t question Sam until she drags them off the path, past the carousel and into the woods beyond. It’s not until the other girl stops, a good few metres away from the nearest stall, and pulls Deena behind a tree that she pipes up.
“Sam, what are we-“ is all she gets out before Sam is pushing her back against the tree, hands fisting in the collar of her jacket, jagged breaths puffing out against her lips.
“Oh my god, shut up.” Her girlfriend mutters, and then Sam is everywhere. Her lips are pressed to Deena’s, kissing her with such ferocity that it’s hard to breathe in the best of ways. She’s so close, pressed flush against Deena, that Deena thinks if they died like this, in this exact position, it’d be impossible for scientists a hundred years in the future to distinguish whether they were one body or two. Her hands are gripping her jacket, and one of Sam’s legs has slid between her own, providing delicious pressure, and all she can think is Sam Sam Sam. Her tongue is scraping over the backs of her teeth and her little sighs fill the air around them and, if Deena were to open her eyes, all she would see is her girlfriend. It’s overwhelming. It’s fucking incredible.
So incredible, in fact, that when Deena hears twigs snapping somewhere behind them, she doesn’t even think to pull back from their embrace. She can’t; not with Sam’s hand moving steadily downwards, her lips moving to press wet kisses to her jaw, her own knees slowly weakening and breaths quickening and head spinning from the fucking risk of it all.
Anybody could catch them right now. She’s perfectly aware of that, knows Sam is aware of it too, and it doesn’t scare either of them the way it used to. Anyone could stray off the path by just a little and find them here, making out like horny teenagers (which, Deena supposes, is exactly what they are) up against a tree in the dark, but that thought no longer sends a shock of dread through them. No, now, it’s exciting. It’s exciting and thrilling and fun.
They could be caught by anybody, this Deena knows. She just didn’t think it would end up being by fucking Simon.
“God, can’t a guy take a piss in peace?”
Sam pulls back so fast she almost trips on a tree root and Deena has to grab her by the waist to stop her falling. Both of them snap their heads around to see who their interrupter is, breathing hard and still holding each other closer than strictly necessary, and find their friend stood a couple of feet away, shaking his head at them like a disappointed dad.
“Simon, what…” Sam starts, her voice hoarse and trapped. Deena can feel her pulse thumping a mile a minute as she trails off, clearing her throat before trying again. “What are you doing out here?”
“Well, I was trying to empty my bladder somewhere the lines aren’t out the fucking door before I was so rudely interrupted.” Deena scoffs. Her mind is still foggy from her girlfriend’s earlier ministrations, and her voice is just as shaky as Sam’s, but she has enough in her to feel slightly affronted at Simon’s statement.
“Dude, you interrupted us. Not for the first time, might I add.” Simon has the decency to look embarrassed at that, clearly recollecting the time months ago, before all the Sarah Fier stuff, before the break-up, when he’d gone looking for them after school in the girls changing rooms. He’d found them in a…shall we say, compromising position, and hadn’t looked either of them in the eye for days. I guess making eye contact with your friend whilst her girlfriend has her head between her legs makes things a little awkward.
Simon clears his throat loudly and Sam finally steps away from Deena’s panting figure. The three of them stare at each other- Simon and Deena with challenge in their eyes, Sam with mortification and a hint of annoyance in hers- for a long moment. Deena arches an eyebrow and finally, Simon breaks. He huffs out a sigh and runs a ring-covered hand through his hair, shaking his head.
“Fine. Sorry for disturbing your in-the-dark-forest-sex.”
“We weren’t having-“ Sam exclaims embarrassedly, but Simon ploughs on.
“Won’t happen again, my friends. You’ll have to finish up later though, ‘cause Josh and Kate wanna go on the Ferris Wheel, and I am not third-wheeling their shit. Come on.”
Simon beckons them with black-painted nails, and they have no choice but to follow him. As they walk, Sam nudges her shoulder against Deena’s and leans in to whisper.
“One ride on the Ferris Wheel and then we’re going back to your place.” There’s confidence and seduction dripping from her tone, and also an undercurrent of need and desperation, a heady combination that makes Deena’s eyes flutter shut for a second.
“Oh yeah?”
“Mhm.”
Deena grins so wide her cheeks hurt.
-----
“Do you ever think about her?”
The question, soft and unassuming, barely audible over the sound of the radio in the corner of Deena’s bedroom, takes her a little by surprise, only due to its sort of out-of-the-blue nature. Minutes before, they’d been laying together in cosy silence, listening to the melodies drifting to their ears from the dresser. Deena had had her head on Sam’s chest, stroking a hand lightly over her stomach, whilst her girlfriend had run tender fingers through her hair, leaning down every so often to press gentle kisses to her forehead.
Deena shuffles back a little, keeping her hand on Sam’s stomach, but moving her head up onto the pillow so she can meet her eyes.
“Who?” Sam turns onto her side so they’re face to face, and Deena’s heart does a pathetic little flip in her chest at the closeness it affords them.
“Sarah Fier.” She murmurs, and Deena is struck by a wave of differing emotions.
A year ago, that name would have held no meaning to her. It would’ve been to her a myth; a bedtime story parents told their kids to make them behave. She would’ve scoffed at the mention of it and moved on with her day. 8 months ago, she would’ve felt real terror creep into her bones, and a deep, vicious hatred for an unknown force that was cursing Shadyside, possessing innocent people and sending its minions to maim and murder- evils she would tie to the name Sarah Fier and label her a witch, just like everyone else in their town. 6 months ago, and the mention of her name would send her into an unbelievably dark place. A place full of agonising injustice and trauma and flashbacks so vivid it was hard to tell if they were dreams or memories.
Because Sarah Fier had been many things to Deena: an urban legend, then an evil, vengeance-seeking witch. A threat, then a misunderstanding. A girl. A truth. Deena had lived through her eyes, had seen first-hand what had really happened in 1666, found out about the Goode family’s dark secret, and along the way, she’d come to know Sarah Fier. She had been brave, and kind. Loyal and defiant. Strong, so strong that her power had stretched across centuries, until she’d found someone to uncover her realities. She’d loved Hannah Miller with every part of her, loved her so fiercely that she’d confessed to a crime she never committed, loved her so fucking hard that she’d died for her.
When Deena had come back from her trip into the past, she hadn’t had much time to process it. She’d been flung back into the present, where undead killers were still after her and her girlfriend was possessed by the devil. It wasn’t until after, when she’d got back home and climbed into the shower, covered in dirt and blood and still fully-clothed, that she’d had the chance to fully feel the effects of what had happened. And she’d cried.
Fuck, had she cried. She’d cried in relief that it was over, cried in exhaustion, but most of all, she’d cried for Sarah Fier. God only knows how long she stood in that shower, sobbing for a girl who’d deserved nothing of what she got; for two girls who never got to kiss in the broad daylight, never got to have their happy ending. She’d cried until her throat was raw and the water had long since turned icy, grieving for Sarah Fier and feeling every inch of her sacrifice deep within her bones.
In the weeks that followed the events under Shadyside Mall, Deena had felt both whole and hollow at the same time. They’d done it, her and her friends, they’d saved Shadyside. Nick Goode was dead and the curse was lifted and her and Sam were back together, for good this time, and Deena had never been happier. But, underneath it all, there was still that jagged wound in her heart that bled and screamed for a justice that would never come about. There was still that bitter ache in her chest, that razor blade of grief and agony lodged in her ribcage that made everything seem dimmer, somehow.
But half a year has passed since then, and though Deena still feels the loss of her deep in her soul, she is happier now, knowing that she’s living proof of Sarah’s legacy. That she’d killed Nick Goode, had avenged her in a roundabout way, that she’d done all she could to honour her memory. That her and Sam are living out a life together, separated from Sarah and Hannah by over 300 years, and yet living for them as well. Loving each other in the wake of it all, choosing each other after everything. Deena still grieves for Sarah Fier, but with Sam’s hand safely tucked in her own, she feels as though she, and they, are making her proud, wherever her and Hannah are now.
“Yeah. All the time.” Deena says and Sam’s brow furrows worriedly. She’d told Sam everything a week after it had all gone down, and they’d held each other in Deena’s bed as they cried. Sam knew how deeply affected she’d been by Sarah’s story, knew how she’d woken in the middle of the night for weeks afterwards with nightmares, touching trembling hands to her neck and expecting to find a rope draped around it. She’d helped Deena through it, and although she hasn’t had a nightmare in months, Deena knows Sam isn’t convinced that she’s over it.
“She’s…a part of me now.” Deena begins and takes a deep breath. “Me and her, we’re…connected. Bonded, I guess. I lived her life, saw it all happen with my own eyes when my blood touched her bones. I was her, at least for a little while.”
Sam’s eyes glitter like diamonds as she stares at Deena, listening to her intently, not moving a muscle. Those blue, blue eyes are what keeps her going, what makes her keep talking.
“I felt her pain, her…fear, her anger. I felt her love, for her friends and her brother. For Hannah. And it wasn’t enough to save her. All that love, and she…” she trails off for a moment, breath hitching, and Sam reaches out to grab her hand, soothing her. She breathes. “All that love couldn’t compare to their hatred, and she died for it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being angry about that.”
She pauses again, collecting herself, and shuffles a little closer to Sam. Sam, who is stroking her knuckles so softly she could cry. Sam, who is staring at her like she put the stars in the sky. Sam, who she loves so much, she thinks she’d hang for her, too.
“But you and I, we’re doing right by her.” Sam’s brow furrows again, in confusion this time. “Sarah and Hannah, they…they couldn’t be together. Not the way they wanted to. But, Sam…” Deena brings a hand up to cup her cheek, eyes tracing her face with holy reverence. “We honour her. Every day, we live our lives the way they should have been able to. The way they were meant to. They didn’t get their happy ending, but we do, Sam, and I think that’s enough. I think…I think they’re living through us, in a way, and every time we dance, or kiss in the broad daylight, it’s like they’re here, living out their days together.” They’re both smiling now, even if Sam has tears in her eyes. “I told you once that we were the way out, remember that?” Her girlfriend nods with a wet laugh. “And we are, baby. We’re their way out.”
A single tear rolls down Sam’s cheek as she finishes speaking, which Deena wipes away with the pad of her thumb. She doesn’t blame her for crying- God knows she’s done her fair share of it, so she simply brings her into a hug and holds her until her eyes are dry and the mood has returned to what it was before Sam’s question.
“I love you, you know.” The words are muffled, spoken into the soft material of Deena’s jumper, and they make her chuckle a little, pulling away enough to see Sam’s face.
“I know, baby. I love you too.”
It’s natural, how they come together after the confession is uttered, instinctual, almost. Both of them lean in, slow and easy and with adoration shining in their eyes, and when their lips meet, it’s like the crackling of a campfire, warm and familiar and safe. The embers settle low in Deena’s stomach as they break apart and collide again, lips pressing together a little harder this time, both of them shifting closer, closer.
They kiss languidly, lovingly, for what might be minutes or might be hours, trading unspoken words of affection with the tender touch of their tongues, the soft caress of their lips, speaking volumes to their love without uttering a single word. Deena thinks she could easily spend the rest of her days just doing this. She’d let the world burn down around them if only to keep kissing Sam, keep feeling her eyelashes flutter against her own cheek, keep hearing the little breathy sounds she starts to make as their kisses get more heated.
Sam’s hands have found their way to the small of Deena’s back, tucking under her shirt and lightly stroking over her bare skin, whilst simultaneously guiding her up and across so she’s hovering over Sam, supporting herself on her elbows as she lets her hair fall around them like a darkened curtain. She breaks away from her intoxicating lips to gaze down at her, this girl she’s fought the devil for, who fought the devil for her in return, and feels her heart pound in her chest. The thrum of lust combined with the throb of blinding love makes for a dizzying combination, and Deena has to return to her lips, incapable of keeping herself away.
She thinks she hears something as Sam guides her head down towards her neck, burying her hands in her hair and pushing her to lay a trail of reverent kisses down the column of her throat, but she pays it no mind. It’s probably Josh messing about downstairs, even after she told him to order pizza for the three of them, so she pushes the thought away and returns her attention to sucking a mark into the pale skin at the hollow of Sam’s throat. It’s a much better use of her time than wondering what the hell her brother is doing, she thinks to herself.
Sam’s hands are insistent now, reaching for the hem of her sweater and tugging with intent until Deena gets the message and leans back to pull it over her head. She throws it behind her, carelessly crumpled, into the depths of her room and wastes no time in reaching for Sam’s shirt, helping her out of it and chucking it to join hers on the floor.
The fire in Deena’s stomach is roaring now, and her world has narrowed drastically. Nothing else matters at the moment except for Sam in front of her; Sam, who is a vision in her bra and the sweatpants she’d stolen from Deena weeks ago. Sam, who is reaching for her, bringing her head down to nip along her collarbone, gasping quietly when Deena bites down and soothes the mark she’s left behind with a swipe of her tongue. Sam, who whines as Deena brings a hand up to cup her breast through the thin material that covers them, squeezing delicately, teasingly, until she repeats the noise.
“Fuck, Deena, please.” Sam’s voice is breathless and needy as she grabs for Deena’s other hand and pulls it to the waistband of her pants. Deena thinks she’s about to die, the pitchy tone of her girlfriend’s voice combined with her desperate plea nearly enough to tip her over that elusive edge herself.
She’s so lost in it that when she hears another sound from downstairs, she barely registers it. It’s not a factor right now, as her thumb traces over Sam’s nipple through her bra, as her other hand is sliding past the elastic hem of her sweatpants, a journey she’s made countless times before, past the barrier of Sam’s underwear and meeting wet heat. It’s not even in the periphery of her mind as Sam whimpers at the contact, tugging her head up to meet her lips in a frantic kiss, moaning into Deena’s mouth as she rubs slow circles around her bundle of nerves, just enough to give her some relief, but not enough to send her plummeting over the cliff’s edge that they’re racing towards.
And is it really her fault if she can’t hear someone yelling her name when Sam moans again as she slides her fingers down and in, two straight from the off because Sam’s so fucking wet that she doesn’t need any warming up, rubbing over the spot on her front wall that makes her eyes roll back into her head and whimper out a ‘oh my fucking god, Deena, right there’ in that same breathy voice that has Deena practically vibrating with want? Deena doesn’t think it is.
So Sam is moaning, letting out a steady stream of curses and pleas and calls of Deena’s name, and Deena is kissing her sternum and sliding her fingers in and out, rubbing her thumb over Sam’s clit and thanking whatever god it was that let her have this. She can feel Sam getting close already; her breaths are getting sharper and her eyes are squeezing shut and her heels are starting to dig into the mattress, little tell-tale signs that let Deena know she’s almost there. She feels like she’s on fire as Sam starts to get even more vocal, another indicator that her high is approaching, feels like she’s burning with want and need and so much love she could burst when Sam moans her name and clutches at her shoulders.
And, in perhaps the worst display of coincidental timing in the entire goddamn world, as Sam begins to peak, walls clenching around Deena’s fingers, her bedroom door fucking flies open, and in stumbles none other than her fucking brother.
“Guys, I’ve been calling you for like- oh my god!”
Deena rolls off of Sam just as Josh slaps a hand over his eyes and staggers headfirst into the doorframe. He hits it with a dull thud as Sam grabs the pillow to hide her torso, looking absolutely fucking mortified and more than a little frustrated that her girlfriend’s brother just interrupted her orgasm. Josh manages to find the exit just as Deena’s face turns tomato-red from a combination of embarrassment and anger.
“Josh, what the fuck!” She yells as he slams the door behind him, eyes wide and panting, jaw clenched so tight it’s a miracle she doesn’t break her teeth.
“I’m sorry! I’d just been calling you guys for like ten minutes to let you know the pizza was here and you didn’t answer! I didn’t know you were doing…that!”
Sam is sitting ram-rod straight, staring at Deena with panic in her still-dilated eyes, still clutching the pillow in a death grip to her chest as Deena stares right back, feeling a well of embarrassment but also irritation scratch at the back of her throat.
“The door was closed for a fucking reason, asshole!” She shouts, scrubbing a hand over her face in dismay. Sam still looks like she’s seen a ghost and the entire mood is fucked, all because Josh couldn’t mind his own goddamn business. Getting interrupted by Simon or Kate is one thing but getting interrupted by her brother whilst she’d had her hand down Sam’s pants is another level of uncomfortable.
“Oh my god, whatever! The pizza’s here so put some clothes on and let’s agree never to ever speak of this again, ok?”
Later, after they’ve eaten their slightly cold pizza in total silence, after they’ve disappeared back to Deena’s room with a reminder to Josh that if the door is closed, it stays closed, they’ll laugh gingerly about the whole thing. Sam will chuckle at how Josh had smacked his head against the wall and Deena will laugh in relief that the encounter hasn’t thrown them off-kilter for the rest of the night. In fact, when they finish laughing and Sam’s eyes turn mischievous once again, she’ll turn to Deena with a wicked grin and say, ‘you still owe me an orgasm, you know’.
Who the hell is Deena to deny her that?
-----
For all her friends’ interruptions, for all their poor timing and unfortunate intrusions, Deena still loves them to the moon and back. She loves Simon, with his optimism and impeccable humour. She loves Kate, with her snark and her sass. She loves Josh, with his unfailing bravery and infinite loyalty. She loves them so much it hurts, loves them so much she thinks she’ll explode, and knows that, whether she likes it or not, these weirdos are going to be around for the rest of her life.
So the next time her and Sam show up to a group hangout at Kate’s house, covered in hickies and looking very much like the cats that got the canary, they endure the teasing, the wolf-whistling, the innuendos. They laugh along with their friends and waste the night getting drunk on Kate’s parents’ expensive alcohol and hold each other’s hands because they know it all turned out ok in the end. They have friends who adore them, who’d fight witches and curses and cops for them, and tease them relentlessly because there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that this, their group, is a forever kind of thing.
So when Simon asks them if they’d actually gone to poundtown in the back of Deena’s truck, and Kate keeps tugging at their collars to expose the marks they’ve left on each other and whooping raucously, and Josh won’t look either of them in the eyes, they smile. They smile because they love these dumbasses so hard it beat the devil, love each other so much it healed a broken town, and if that doesn’t make it all worth it in the end, well, they don’t know what does.