Drowning Angels

"Chelsea Marie, you come back here right now, you little asshat!"

The blonde woman weaved in and out of the crowd of people in the downtown area of Sheffield. It was three weeks before Christmas and everyone was busy trying to get gifts ready for the giving holiday. Chelsea Dowers wasn't very fond of the holiday season, especially this one. This would be her last Christmas and she had enough reminder of it. She didn't need her family pitying her and trying to be forgiven of their past mistakes as her end date grew closer and closer.

Chelsea was almost certain that she had lost her cousin as she broke away from the crowd and found herself in a little bakery on whichever street she ran onto. There were only two other people in the bakery, excluding the girl behind the counter and the chef she could hear in the back kitchen. She fell in the short line, glancing out the front window trying to make sure her cousin did not see her enter the bakery.

"`Cuse me, miss?" Chelsea looked at the girl, who had already helped the two other customers. "Can I help yah with som`thin?"

She looks at what they have put in the front case, before deciding on the cinnamon bread and a to-go mug of the white chocolate cocoa. Chelsea pays with a note and drops the change in a small jar sitting in front of the register and gives her a nod before walking out. The cinnamon bread is wrapped well and kept away from the snowy air in her jacket pocket; she places the cup on one of the tables put just outside the shop and reaches into her other pocket for her pack of cancer sticks and her-

"Fuckin` hell," Chelsea hisses and searches through her many pockets in search for the lighter she had just put in them from her last cigarette. "I'm gonna kill `er," Chelsea threatens, thinking of the ways she would maim her cousin, the nosy little whore, for taking her lighter.

"Need a light?"

Chelsea looks up at the smooth pale, tattooed hand that holds out a simple red lighter for her. The flame toasts across the end of her cig, and the tobacco and nicotine burns, awaiting her body to suck it in like mother's milk. She takes a deep inhale, tasting it burn the back of her throat, but it is a different kind of burn, and her lungs scream from more torment. Chelsea realizes the smoke to the side, her lips a tight circle to have it come out as slow as possible. Her mouth tastes like peppermint. That was the only thing she liked about the holidays - flavored cigs.

"Thanks," she says, grabbing her cup of coca to take a sip. The peppermint from her smoke mingles with it and gives her throat a refreshing cleanse.

"Mind if I bum one?" he asks, keeping his lighter out. Chelsea smiles and puts the butt of her cigarette back in her mouth to reach back for her pack. She hands it over, allowing him to grab a stick and then lights it himself. The pack is put away, and Chelsea takes another deep inhale, the released smoke mingling with other puffs of breaths from the cold air.

Chelsea gives a small frown before drinking from her mug.

"You look familiar," she says, trying to shift through her horrible memory for a name for the face.

He chuckles and nods, taking another drag.

"I would hope so. I had to date that horrid cousin of yours for two years before I realized how much of a bitch she was."

Chelsea's brown eyes light up as she silently gasps.

"Tommy boy?"

The young Sykes smirks and nods. "How's Charlotte?"

"Still a little bitch," Chelsea replies without missing a beat, laughing to herself, and taking another inhale. "God, Tom, I haven` seen you since that horrible Easter dinner, what was it, three or four years ago?"

"Three years," he answers with a grimace, obviously thinking back on the horrid ending to what started out as a nice dinner. He took a drag, Chelsea doing the same. "How is your aunt doing?"

"She's well," Chelsea answered. Tom tilted his head slightly.

"How have you been, Chelsea? You look like you've aged ten years, not three."

Chelsea gives a dry chuckle and holds up the cigarette she has placed between two delicate fingers. "Blame these little bastards. I look thirty and I'm not a day over twenty-four." The dry chuckle dies out, and Chelsea wears the ghost of a sad expression. Tom picks it up.

"Is everything okay?"

"Nothin`s ever been okay with me, Tommy."

Tom wore a sad, sad smile.

"Chelsea! There ya are!"

The blonde groaned, looking for a quick escape, but Charlotte was on her like lice in seconds, tutting and tsking about her smoking. "You should really stop, Chelsea, especially with your condition."

"You're pregnant?" Tom asks surprised before snatching the cigarette from between her lips. Chelsea glared at her cousin, mentally remembering to slap her, before taking the cigarette back from Tom.

"No, I ain't fuckin` pregnant! I have cancer."

Those who were walking by, glanced in Chelsea's direction and gave her unwanted looks of pity. She glared at each one, tossing her blonde hair from her eyes and gave a huff. "Can we talk somewhere less in public? I'm about to start throwing punches if I see another pity-thee look."

"Yeah, uh," Tom looked to Charlotte, feeling bits of remorse, but nodded at her. "My apartment is a few blocks away. We can chat there." He bit his lip and ducked his head to Charlotte. "Good seeing you, Lottie."

"You, too, Tom." She turned up her nose and glared to Chelsea. "I'll call you when I'm done shopping."

Charlotte walked away, clutching her purse to her side as she fought against the winter cold with the rest of the crowd. Tom dropped the butt of his cigarette to the ground and crushed it in with the snow that coated the sidewalk. He looked at Chelsea, his eyes betraying the emotions he was trying to keep boarded up.

Chelsea had known Tom since he was in diapers. Hell, she had been best friends with his brother all through school before she dropped out when her parents died and she was sent off to live with her aunt. When she moved back, Charlotte had come along and the two shared an apartment. They bumped into each other, much like they had this time, and somehow Tom and Charlotte fell into the life of dating. After their horrible break up, which occurred the week after the horrific Easter dinner, Tom and Chelsea fell out. Especially since he started following his brother around and went out of the country more.

"How's that knobhead of a brother of yours, Tommy?"

He shook himself from those fond memories and looks down at the blonde woman.

"He's good. Went to rehab about two years ago. Got out six months later and he hasn't looked back."

Chelsea felt her heart clench. Her breathing got a little harsher and she started to cough. The two stopped walking and stepped out of the crowd, letting Chelsea get over her coughing spell. The cold dry air wasn't helping, making her throat red and sore, whizzing. She drank the last of her cocoa, letting the warm caress the pain away into just a dull throb.

"Are you okay?" he asks, worried. "Do I need to call Charlotte?"

Chelsea shakes her head and holds a hand up, waving off her obvious pain. "No, I'm fine. The cold air isn't helping with my condition, and I just got over the flu too."

Tom frowns and shakes his head at her. "You are the most sickly person I've ever met."

"I've had cancer for four years without knowing it, Tommy," she says, a bit harsher than she meant to. Chelsea swallows the tough knot in her throat and tries to breath through her raw, red nose. "Sorry. Let's get to your apartment."

The next three blocks are walked in silence, other than Chelsea's harsh breathing. Tom flashes concerned looks in her direction but they make no type of interaction. His apartment building is made of dark gray brick and the windows are spaced close together with an off white finish. She likes it. It reminds her of who she remembered Tom being, but was he still that little Oli-mini-me that she knew him as? It had been almost three years since they had last seen each other.

The inside was simple, very man-like, with a loft bedroom above the kitchen. She looks at the apartment, taking in the grays and dark blues. "I've got to go check the post," Tom says, half in the door. "I'll be two minutes. Make yourself at home."

Chelsea smiles and nods. Tom closes the door; the lock makes a click. She stays standing, walking around the open living area. There's a flat screen tv across from an off white couch that has a throw blanket half hanging over the back, and the table two feet in front of the couch is covered in dirty mugs of half drunken tea and a closed laptop that's covered in stickers.

A door opens from behind Chelsea, and it's not the door to Tom's apartment.

"Oi, ya knobhead, why did ya move yer key- oh."

Chelsea blinks, surprised by the sudden appearance of- "Oli?"

He frowns, wiping his hands on his dark jeans and begins to walk toward her. "Yeh, who's askin`."

Chelsea feels slightly insult but then she remembers how much the two of them have changed in the last three years. She grins. "You bastard, I can't believe ya forgot about me! If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have Oskar."

The look that crosses over Oliver's face makes Chelsea feel the happiest she's ever been in years. He shouts happily, shuffling his feet forward to grab her in his arms and one of his closest friends.

"Fuckin` hell, Chel!" he says loudly in her ear, holding her waist tight in his arms and lifting her up to spin her around. Chelsea laughs, wrapping her arms around his shoulders so not to fall, but gives him an equally tight hug.

"Bloody twat, that's my ear!" she shouts back in his, but can barely finish the sentence from all of her laughing and happiness.

Tom came back into his apartment just a few moments after Oliver and Chelsea's reunion. The two brothers argued for a minute or so, Oliver pissed off that he had to search harder for the key and Tom annoyed that his brother didn't at least call him, before the trio found themselves spread across Tom's couch with the television running as background sound while they insulted the people in the shows and commercials.

"Look at that lanky bitch!" Oliver laughed.

"Her shoes do not match her lipstick," Tom commented with a high pitched voice, causing Chelsea to almost fall off the sofa from laughing. She had her head on Tom's thigh, staring up at the beams that held up the ceiling with a wide open smile on her face, while her feet were resting on the arm of the couch, her calves barely touching Oliver's legs. He had his hand on her knee, something he had always done and it was almost first nature even though the two had been apart for so long.

The trio laughed and joked like old times, almost as if Tom and Charlotte never broke up and Chelsea never found out she had cancer and-

It was then, in between all the laughing and fun and good times, that Chelsea realized she had gone without a cigarette for almost an hour, and even when she thought on it the craving for nicotine and tobacco never came. She just smiled, happy for the first in time awhile, and finally reunited with two of her closest friends.

The topic of Chelsea's cancer was forgotten.