For Ang Griffen.
"It's dark." Chris scowled at the sky outside his window. It was only 2 p.m., but the sun was blocked by roiling tiers of storm-grey clouds.
"Looks like rain," Doug agreed. "We shoulda covered our dirt bikes."
"They'll be fine." Deborah closed her eyes and enjoyed the howl of the wind as she took a swig of the beer the twins had swiped from their dad's secret stash. Alcohol aside, a small part of her was wishing she'd spent the afternoon with Faye and Suzan. Sure, they were obsessed with boys, but they were 15 and most of the girls at school were equally fixated, so Deborah had learned to ignore the blather. But at least if the weather interrupted their plans, they found something else to do; Chris and Doug were acting as if the entire day was lost simply because they couldn't go stunting on the cliffs. "Wanna watch a movie or something?"
Doug was flat on the floor, trying to balance his beer bottle on his forehead. When it toppled, spilling beer to the floor, he simply kicked it under his bed and grabbed another from the cooler. "We could have sex."
Chris's entire body went quiet, waiting for Deborah to kick his brother in the balls or break her bottle over his skull. It was Deborah, after all. Faye wouldn't have been offended--she wouldn't have given the idea a second's thought, but she wouldn't have been offended--and Suzan would have laughed. Diana, Melanie, or Laurel would have just rolled their eyes and made a comment on how stupid boys were. But Deborah? Was Doug looking to be beaten within an inch of his life?
Deborah's face was as blank as ever as she finished her beer with one last, long swig. She tossed the bottle at the garbage can and missed, hitting the twins' laundry pile instead. Her dark eyes flitted between the two brothers for so long that both of them started to squirm--until she shrugged, snorting softly. "Sure. It'll keep us warm, at least."
*********
They knew it was true, but they still couldn't believe it. The sheets on their beds were rumpled and each of their backs bore scratches from her ragged nails, but it was still surreal. Chris had put some lotion on his scratches, but Doug left his alone, occasionally twisting his shoulders in odd ways just to feel the pull of the wounds. "You know what this means, don't you?" Doug grinned.
"You aren't gonna blab, are you? Deb'll kill us," Chris said warily.
"Hell no. I'm not stupid."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"We had sex before Adam did. We finally beat Conant at something."
*********
Faye, Deborah, and Suzan were sitting on a red satin sheet in Faye's bedroom, surrounded by candles and stones. "Let's see. Who should I pick next?" Faye asked lazily. "Edwin Smith or Robert Ghazal?"
"Robert," Suzan suggested. "He's foreign. Maybe he'll be a better kisser."
Faye smiled at Deborah. "Are you sure you don't want one? They're fun, Deborah. You can make them do whatever you want."
"No thanks." At Deborah's refusal, Faye launched into an explicit description of the sexual favours she'd elicited from her conquests; Suzan chimed in on occasion to add her own experiences. And Deborah smiled softly to herself, because she knew. She knew they thought she was a virgin, and probably a lesbian. She knew they were taking their stories from romance novels they skimmed in the library. She also knew that half the stuff they were describing wasn't anatomically possible, but she didn't say anything. She just shrugged and rolled her eyes, trying to sneak a glance at her watch. She was supposed to be at the Hendersons' house in half an hour, because their parents were going out of town. She made a note to tell them some of Faye's stories. Even if they were impossible, they could be fun to try.
*********
Chris would sometimes watch when Doug and Deb were having sex, and Doug almost always watched when Chris and Deb were going it at. But when they'd tried having a threeway, the twins' hands kept inadvertently meeting on Deborah's body and then their mom came home, and they hadn't tried it since. Chris had been spooked, but it was all Doug could think about. "We could pick parts," Doug had suggested once. "I'd keep my hands above the waist, and you'd keep yours below, and then we could switch."
"That's so... mechanical. She's not a bike or something, Doug."
"Hey, man. Just trying to help."
They were saved further debate by Deborah's arrival. A crinkled brown paper bag swung from her left hand; in her right was a sealed vodka bottle. "Nick fixed some guy's Mustang in record time, so the dude left him these as a tip." She emptied the bag out onto their large shared desk, revealing enough pot to take away the worries of everyone on Crowhaven Road. "Nick wasn't interested, so he told me to help myself," she grinned.
By the time they'd worked their way through the vodka and half the pot, Chris was more amenable. When his brother's hands brushed his, meeting over Deborah's breast or hip, all he registered was warmth and touch, and that was all any of them really wanted from the other two.
*********
"So, did you enjoy the pot?" Nick's voice echoed from beneath the car he was working on, only his feet visible.
"Yeah. It was good."
Nick uncharacteristically rolled out from under the car and gave his cousin a serious look. "Deb, nothing's going on, right?"
"What do you mean?" She'd had enough experience looking blank that her composure didn't slip, but Nick was family: he knew her better than anyone. It wasn't that she was ashamed of fucking Chris and Doug. They'd been a threesome for over a year now. She just didn't feel the need to broadcast her sex life like Faye and Suzan did.
"The drugs and the booze. I mean--"
Deborah nearly laughed with relief. "I'm fine, Nick. It's recreation and that's all. I swear." It wasn't a lie; they were just talking about two entirely different things. What she had with Chris and Doug wasn't love and they all knew it; she did, at least, and she hoped they did, or else they were in for a rude awakening. She knew Doug's offer had been a joke and she still wasn't sure why she called his bluff, but she was glad she had. It wasn't love, but it was... something.
Nick nodded and disappeared back underneath the car. "Hand me the oil, will ya?"
"No problem."
*********
As casual sex went, they were lucky. Deborah hadn't had any pregnancy scares, and aside from the one near miss with the twins' mom, they'd never been caught. Sometimes Deborah and Chris wouldn't have sex for weeks; Doug, however, didn't have that sort of resolve. The separate pair-offs never caused bad feelings between the brothers. After two years, though, they realized they weren't really looking elsewhere. The rest of the Crowhaven gang assumed Deborah was asexual; the twins were just thought to be unlucky with the local girls because of their morbid sense of humour. In truth, it just hadn't occurred to them to pursue anyone else. The three of them didn't have a normal lovey-dovey bond, but none of them wanted one. They had each had their freedom and a willing partner (or, in Deborah's case, two) when one was wanted, with the added benefit of familiarity: they didn't have to worry about exposing Crowhaven's secrets.
Sometimes, when he was bored, Chris checked out the bloodlines. The Hendersons were far enough away from the Armstrongs; if Deborah happened to get pregnant, it should be okay. After their eighteenth birthday, after three years together as a unit, Chris realized that they still had no direction, so after they'd come down from their last orgasm of the night, he took a deep swig of whiskey and asked, "So. What are we? I mean, what are we doing? The three of us."
Doug reached across Deborah and Chris to help himself to a beer, trailing the cold bottle over her hips as he sat back. "Having sex. Where have you been, man? The pot wasn't that good."
"Not that. I mean... you know, the future."
"Well, Nick's opening up his own shop, right?" Doug said. "I figured we could maybe work with him. Deb's good with bikes, and--"
"I'm going to York," Deborah said casually, stretching out her back.
The twins shared a stunned silence. "What?" Chris finally said weakly. "How?"
"By plane, dumbass," she smirked. With a sigh, she softened her tone. "I did some upgrading through correspondence." Deborah knew she wasn't renowned for being the genius of Crowhaven Road by any stretch of the imagination, but she wasn't an idiot; as with her sex life, she simply didn't see the need to advertise her intelligence. "I got my acceptance letter yesterday."
"Well," Doug reasoned, feeling vaguely nauseous, "New York's not too far away." He couldn't fathom her leaving. No one left Crowhaven Road. Not permanently. Even Cassie's mom came back. It was as much a part of them as their eye colour or temperament. Deborah couldn't leave. For the past three years, he'd transcended being Doug: he'd become a part of something, DebDougChris, that rose above teenage angst and magic and maturing and had made them unique. On Crowhaven Road, that meant something, to be unique.
"Not New York," Deborah corrected softly. "York. As in England."
"But--but you can't," Chris insisted.
"What about--?" Doug chimed in.
None of them finished the thought out loud; they each gave what they shared a name of their own choosing and kept that word deep in their minds, letting it echo as their bodies sought each other out unconsciously, fitting together with practice and memory.
*********
It was bad enough that, to Chris, having Deborah leave felt as unnatural and irreparable as losing an arm. But then she had to smile--and it wasn't even her private smile, the one only he and Doug knew. In the bustle of the airport, surrounded by luggage and the Coven, Deborah only flashed her normal feral grin. Even when the twins managed to sneak her away for a few stolen moments, she didn't drop her shields. "I should be back at the winter solstice. If not, I'll definitely be back in spring." And that was it.
He wasn't expected undying declarations of love, but it would have been nice to get something more than the same parting hug Sean did. Watching her plane leave the runway, Chris kept his voice low so the others wouldn't hear. "Maybe we could, you know, go visit her...."
Doug gave his brother's shoulder a shake. "If she wanted us there," he said, "she would've asked." The Crowhaven group slowly dispersed back to their cars, the twins arriving last. "Besides, if we took our pipe bombs," Doug quipped, trying to cheer up his twin, "they'd probably think we were terrorists."
*********
Deborah never did go back. She called once a week for a while, but finally said she couldn't afford the long distance fees. Then she switched to letters, but the frequency of those dropped swiftly after Samhain. After Yule, she changed to e-mail, saying it was easier since she had to spend so much time on the computer anyway. Then the e-mails gradually slowed to a stop as well. The Coven tried contacting her through the university, but it claimed to have no records of a Deborah Armstrong.
Deborah had drowned the girl she was deep inside herself the instant she stepped on English soil. The white cliffs of Dover stole her heart in a weekend, and she knew they'd never tease her with dreams of flight. She had registered at York under a different last name, one the Coven would never associate with her, and let herself be reinvented, thankful she was no longer just a role to play in an ensemble. She kept the parts of herself that she liked and let go of the rest, taking advantage of her newness, flourishing away from the familiar.
There were days when she missed Crowhaven Road and on the day she almost caved and bought a one-way ticket back to the US, she was stopped by a friendly smile, warm eyes, a gentle touch. After that, it was a blur; she couldn't quite remember which came first, sex or love, but she knew it all pivoted on a kiss, a promise to stay with her--a person, not just a neighbour or a Power--at the edge of the world.
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