Goth Red - Tumblr Posts

I miiiighhtttt (?????) do the other siblings but I ain't sure rn

@annarendellsa your first prompt! Second one coming soon! 

Really, it’s a miracle more of them didn’t get sick. The six of them don’t have much room to hide from one another in their matchbox of an apartment. But maybe the others are more resilient than Ruby and Rose. Or Scarlet baptized them in hand sanitizer and Ruby and Rose just missed the memo.

In any case, the others are out, and Ruby and Rose are home with head colds, their heads full of snot and their throats coated in acrid phlegm. Nevertheless, Rose is somehow forcing herself out of bed to tend to Ruby like a sniffling, half-dead nurse.

Ruby stares at her sister in bewilderment as she hands her a tray of microwaved chicken soup and a fresh box of tissues, all while looking like she might crumble to dust at any second.

“Rose, c’mon, lie down,” Ruby croaks. “You’re gonna collapse.”

“I’m okay, really,” Rose lies. “I’ll sit down and have some soup later.”

“Have you eaten anything today?”

“Well…no,” Rose says with a frown. “I haven’t had much of an appetite today.”

With tremendous effort, Ruby forces herself out of bed like a revenant clawing its way out of a grave.

“I swear, you’re like some, like, fragile Victorian waif. Come with me, you gotta eat. Scarlet will kill me if you die on my watch.”

She drags her sister through the apartment until she’s forced Rose into a chair and practically shoved soup into her face.

“Er, Ruby?”

“Eat. Lunch. Now.”

Thankfully, Rose has enough of an appetite to get down some soup and water, and the two of them find themselves under a fortress of blankets on the couch, well-fed and ready to hibernate. Outside, a light snow is falling, muffling the frenetic ambience of the city.

“I love winter,” Rose sighs. “Everything just feels so much more peaceful.”

“I like it too,” Ruby says. “It’s quiet. Everything’s dead. I just wish humans would wither and die too instead of having their stupid New Year’s parties and drinking until they drop.”

“But the world isn’t dead,” Rose says, conveniently ignoring the second part of Ruby’s statement. “It’s just sleeping. Getting ready for a rebirth in spring. I feel like that’s how it is with a lot of things. Cycles of beginnings and endings. Even when things get really hard, or really bleak, you’ll get a chance to bloom again.”

Ruby fights the urge to audibly scoff. Typical Rose. Talking like some wistful old woman. Scarlet calls Rose an old soul. Maybe there’s some truth to that. Maybe Rose really is some Victorian waif, reborn into their chaotic cesspool of a family as punishment for some terrible crime. Ruby’s not really sure what crime Rose would have committed, though. Rose won’t even kill spiders; just shepherds them into a napkin and takes them outside. Maybe she was sent to their family by mistake.

“You believe in all that stuff?” Ruby asks. “Cycle of life and death and karma and all that stuff?”

“In a way,” Rose says. “I think we’re all part of something bigger than us. And I think that the universe has a way of looking out for people. I mean, look at us! We don’t have a lot of money, and you and I, we have to go to the doctor a lot, but we still always have dinner on the table, and a roof over our heads, and a grandmother who loves us. There’s a thousand little blessings for us out there. You just need to know where to look.”

Ruby’s not sure how much saccharine philosophy she can take, so she steers the conversation in a more comfortable direction.

“What do you think happens when we die?” she asks, smirking when Rose blinks at the sudden change of subject. “You know, since we’re talking about life and the universe and all that shi—stuff.”

Rose considers. Her face scrunches up adorably as she thinks.

“I think we come back, in a way,” she says at last. “Not how we were. Different. Our bodies become part of the earth and feed the plants. Our souls find somewhere new to land, someone new to be, and we live new lives, as new beings. But we’re not really ‘us’ anymore, you know? We have new lives, and new dreams and fears. I suppose.” She blushes, and laughs. “I’ve been talking a lot, I’m sorry. How about you?”

Ruby shrugs.

“I don’t know. I kind of feel like you just…die. But who knows.” She looks out the window at the falling snow, and imagines a million tiny souls, human and animal, cast from their bodies and sent adrift, falling to the earth. “Maybe we become ghosts. That’d be fun. I’d haunt Carmen, rearrange her makeup, cut her hair while she’s sleeping.” She turns back to Rose and smirks. “You know, the usual. Except I couldn’t be caught.”

“That’s mean!” Rose says, but laughter creeps into her voice. “What if you could help people, as a ghost? You know, go places others couldn’t and know what they couldn’t know?”

“Tell you what,” Ruby says, as she ruffles her younger sister’s hair. “You and me, when we’re ghosts, let’s do that. Be invisible helpers. Find people’s missing keys and pets and junk. As long as we can write spooky messages in their mirrors.”

Rose giggles.

“Deal.”

The afternoon passes slowly and comfortably. Rose and Ruby sit on the couch in companionable silence. Eventually, Rose leans her head on Ruby’s shoulder and drifts off. Ruby isn’t far behind her, closing her eyes and nodding off into the wild unknown of sleep.