S2 Episode 12

Going for the Throat

Welcome to Trainwrecks: Season 2 (2005-2006)! If you haven’t read Season 1, please start there! Trainwrecks is a free-to-read fiction serial that follows a group of six Seattle-adjacent friends from the year 2004 to the year 2015. Join Luna Cruz, Sebastian Velasquez, Dimitri and Victoria Hale, Duke Kingston, and Jasmine Nolan as they stumble their way from adolescence to adulthood, falling in love, making mistakes, overcoming their pasts, and staying together through it all.

For series introduction, character profiles, relationship charts, and general orientation, check out the Table of Contents!

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In the years since Sebastian had become friends with Duke, he’d never known him to be quiet. His happiness and excitement could be as explosive as his anger, and he had a tendency to charge headfirst into things with unbridled enthusiasm. But ever since his catastrophic breakup with Victoria, Duke had gone radio silent, which was worrisome for the boy who texted Sebastian about every music release he thought he might like. And the reports Sebastian had heard from Luna since they’d returned from Puerto Rico weren’t very encouraging, either.

Thus, he volunteered to drive Luna to Duke’s house one Saturday so they could all hang out and try to get back to something like normalcy. Or as normal as things could get when Luna wasn’t speaking to Victoria and every time she’d run into Dimitri that week, they’d ended up fighting. But when Sebastian stepped foot into the Kingston family’s home theater-slash-game-room, he realized that normal would not be possible.

Duke didn’t even look at them, for starters. He slouched in one of the comfortable movie theater chairs, Xbox controller in hand, playing Halo 2 on the big screen. There were dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, and judging by the pile of crumpled chip bags and empty soda cans surrounding him, he hadn’t moved in hours. Luna walked forward as if she were used to this already and sat in the chair beside him. “Seb’s here,” she told him in an upbeat voice.

Duke paused the game and wiped a hand over his face, then finally looked up at Sebastian, or at least Sebastian’s stomach. “Hey.”

Geez, no wonder Luna had frozen the Hale siblings out of her life, Sebastian thought as he walked over to join them. The Duke he knew had retreated to some distant land and left a shell of himself behind. This was Duke Kingston: Zombie Edition, too weak to even lift his head, a far cry from the boy who grew up cliff-diving into the Pacific Ocean with his dad. “How was your Christmas break?” Sebastian asked.

Duke shrugged. “Got a new camera to celebrate my switch into the visual arts track. Watched the ball drop on TV. Mom let me drink some champagne at midnight. Then I stole the bottle when she wasn’t looking and discovered firsthand why champagne hangovers are the worst.” He rubbed his temple as if it still hurt a week later. “Don’t know how that asshole does it.”

No one needed to ask who that asshole was. “I hope it taught you a lesson,” Sebastian said.

Duke’s brow furrowed. “Don’t drink on an empty stomach?”

Luna rolled her eyes. “No, don’t kill your brain cells before they’ve finished developing.” She poked him in the arm. “And don’t break the law.”

He managed a pathetic attempt at a smile, and Sebastian wished that was enough to ease his worries. Not only was Duke quiet and completely devoid of energy, but he’d also gotten drunk, presumably to feel something other than the misery he was feeling now. It was a good thing he’d had such a terrible experience, though. He wouldn’t be in a hurry to do it again. “Did you get any good shots with your new camera?”

Duke set the controller aside and pushed himself to his feet. “Maybe? Where’d I put that thing…” He wandered out of the room, and Luna reached over and shook Sebastian’s arm.

“Nice one, getting him to talk about stuff he likes!”

“Figured it’d be a healthy distraction,” he whispered. “But man, you were right. He is not well.”

Luna pursed her lips. “I’ve been doing what I can, but Victoria really did a number on him. And he still misses her, which just makes him feel worse.” Her expression turned stormy.

“Think there’s any chance of them getting back together?”

“She doesn’t deserve him,” she said with a sudden vehemence that took Sebastian aback. He’d seen Luna angry before, but never like this, and it worried him just as much as Duke’s downcast mood. Luna kept a lot of things to herself. She could hate someone with every fiber of her being and they would never know. It had taken her a lot to forgive the people who’d bullied her in middle school. How much more would it take for her to forgive Victoria and Dimitri for what they’d done to her best friend?

~*~

When they returned home, Dimitri’s Firebird was parked out front. Luna took a deep breath, let it out through her nose, and climbed out of the car. Sebastian hurried after her, his anxiety rising. They hadn’t had a single peaceful interaction in days. He didn’t anticipate this one going any better.

Dimitri sat on top of a ladder, changing the bulb in the lamp that hung over the entryway. Their mother held the ladder steady for him. “Sorry,” she was saying to him, “I only got as far as the middle rung before I chickened out.”

“No problem,” Dimitri said as he handed her the old bulb. “Hey Seb, where’d you go?” He greeted him as if Luna wasn’t even in the room. Since they were incapable of getting along at the moment, he’d taken to outright ignoring her. But of course Luna wouldn’t let herself be ignored.

“We were visiting Duke,” she said before Sebastian could get a word in. “He’s still devastated, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” Dimitri climbed down from the ladder with the ease of someone who’d put up a lot of Christmas decorations in his lifetime. “I’d figured as much from how depressed Victoria is. You remember Victoria, right? Your alternate universe bestie?”

“Guys,” Mrs. Cruz warned. She was as sick of the arguing as Sebastian was.

“Yeah, some bestie she turned out to be,” Luna said.

“She didn’t even do anything to you. Duke’s the one who’s got a problem with her, but you’ve never been able to mind your own business, have you?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the person who broke them up in the first place!”

“Sure, I’m the one who broke them up. I’m the one who wedged myself physically between them and said, ‘You two stop dating right now!’ How could I have forgotten about that? Oh right, because it never happened.”

“Dimitri and Luna, that’s enough!”

“You know what you did!” Luna yelled. “Don’t act all innocent!”

“And another thing, I’m getting real sick of you treating Duke like he’s never done anything wrong in his life. Or does the fact that I have a black eye not bother you?”

“Duke and Victoria are hurt because of you! You never wanted them together, so you turned her against him! You don’t get to play the victim just because your plan backfired and now everyone hates you!”

“Luna Alexis Cruz, go to your room!” Mrs. Cruz shouted.

Sebastian’s eyes widened. Luna hadn’t been sent to her room in years, and the shock on her face mirrored his own. She sent her mother a stricken look before she brushed past them and ran upstairs. A door slammed. The dog, who’d been barking her head off since the yelling started, was dragged out into the backyard by Mrs. Cruz, and the ensuing silence was palpable. Sebastian turned to face Dimitri and found him glaring at the floor. “She didn’t mean that,” he said.

“Yeah she fucking did,” Dimitri spat.

Mrs. Cruz stepped back into the living room and slid the glass door shut behind her. “I’m so sorry, honey. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

He forced a smile. “No problem,” he said, “I’ll just keep my distance for a while. Might make it easier on all of us.” He clapped Sebastian on the back. “Put the ladder away for me, will you?” And then he walked out of the house, sauntering as if it were any other day and he had nothing to be ashamed of. But Sebastian knew better than to fall for his bravado. Luna’s tirade had drawn blood, and Dimitri was retreating to lick his wounds.

He put the ladder away and made his way upstairs. Luna’s bedroom door was closed, but it wasn’t thick enough to keep in the sound of her sobbing. Sebastian tapped it with his index finger. “Moon?”

“Go away,” she said, her voice choked with tears.

He wanted to be annoyed with her for starting shit with Dimitri, but for Luna, the fight had been punishment enough. She was a lover, not a fighter, the kind of person who couldn’t be scolded without crying. If she hadn’t known Dimitri so well, she would have just kept all her anger bottled up until it made her sick. So in a strange way, the fact that she could even give him a piece of her mind was proof of how much she trusted him.

Sebastian went over to the entertainment center and grabbed the binder full of DVDs out of the cabinet. He might as well watch a movie since there was no point getting online. The group chat would be abandoned, the silence of six heavy hearts filling the space where love and laughter should have been.

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Author’s Note: Welcome back to Trainwrecks! Everything is still awful!! :D

I spent my week off playing Final Fantasy III as Dimitri, Sebastian, Duke, and one of Luna’s other brothers, Lucian. Dimitri romanced a princess. Duke got hit with every status affliction known to man. Sebastian spent most of the second half of the game as a bard who hyped the guys up with 2000’s emo standards. Then he got the honor of being the group ninja to make up for his not wanting to be there in the first place. Good times.

My birthday was on Saturday, so if you feel like getting me a gift, share Trainwrecks with your friends!