WP #408

 

"Stop saying I'm fine when you're clearly not." Mason Gripped her shoulders.

"It's fine to say I'm fine when I'm not fine, but when someone says they're not fine, shit goes more sideways." Cc shrugged his hands off her shoulders as she slipped under his arm. "Thus, I'm fine."

"But you're not fine, Ceec. No matter how many times you say it." Mason turned and reached for her hand in time for her to catch his wrist and looked back at him, her eyes pleading. "I know you better than that."

"Please, let me suffer in silence. I'm giving you an out."

"I don't need an out when you show an ounce of emotions. I'm here, I've always been here, and you haven't scared me away yet. Let me be here for you." Mason circled his hand around hers and wound his fingers with hers.

"You're not my boyfriend, Mason; this isn't your territory." Cc raised her voice, pink tinging her cheeks.

"I could be, and you damn well know it, but your pride is-"

"My pride!"

"-holding you back from having a decent relationship." Mason shook his head and watched as she fumed quietly. "You know we would be fire together, you know it deep down, and it scares the hell out of you."

Cc mentally agreed, but at the same time, her reservations balked at the thought of trying the relationship thing with anyone. 

Especially Mason.

"It does scare the hell out of me; it should also make you shake in your boots as well. What if we failed? Do we lose our friendship too? Everything we built in five-plus years, just throw it away?" Cc turned away, walked into her kitchen, and slammed a cabinet door shut that had been standing open.

Mason watched her before he took a slow deep breath and exhaled with unhurried precision, counting to ten before he carried on.

"We wouldn't make it; you're right." He knew she wanted to hear those exact words; when she got into stubborn mode, you couldn't budge her. So if she was going to play dirty, then so was he. "Because you have singlehandedly ended it without even a thought that maybe, just maybe, we could make it. You are stopping us from existing, and that's why I constantly bring it up. I want to try from the bottom of my heart, but I refuse to do it alone."

He tapped his keys in his pocket as he watched her face fall from stubborn irritation to completely broken in the span of seconds, her hands hanging limp at her sides, and just in that instant, he looked away. With a turn of the heel, he walked to the front door and let himself out, letting the door latch behind him without looking back. 

Cc stood watching the door several minutes after leaving, which made her jump out of her skin when Madge spoke close behind her.

"Even in death, I'm still disturbed by why you two don't just have a fuck already."

"God Damnit Madge." Cc wailed.

"My thoughts exactly as I listened to the bullshit that you spewed. Mason already knows you're weird; if you just hit it home, he might understand you more." Madge's spirit form was draped across the countertop, much like her human self, spirit Madge made to lounge seductively across anything or anyone she came across.

"Even in death, you're still a pain in my ass."

"You're being stupid about this." Madge carried on, winding a whisp of ghost-like hair around her fingers. "I agree with my brother." 

"He did not call me stupid."

"More or less, you should give him a chance."

"And what? Tell him that I talk to his dead sister, amongst other dead people, and wait for him to realize I'm fucking insane?" Cc threw her hands up in exasperation. "I've spent a lifetime trying to avoid admitting to other humans that I talk to dead people."

"It could be worse." Her ghostly friend sat up and looked at her deadpanned. "You could be a pedophile."

Cc glowered at her friend and flipped her off as she turned and walked out. Madge grinned and floated down from the counter and floated after her.

"Hey, if Sunny in Philidelphia can joke about pedophiles, so can I on a friend-to-friend basis."

"I won't shame you, but I'll still flip you off for making too much sense." 

They came into her bedroom, and Cc turned and looked her friend up and down a moment before sighing.

"I miss you being alive."

"I don't; I get to scare the shit out of you and makes being dead worthwhile." Madge held her arms up, wiggling her fingers at her.

"Boo."