[THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE] Scattered memories
Titolo: Scattered memories
Fandom: The Haunting of Hill House
Personaggi: Theo Crain/Trish
Genere: introspettivo
Avvertimenti: spoilers per chi non ha visto la serie (CHE VA VISTA ASSOLUTAMENTE, È UNA MERAVIGLIA), missing moment, plot? What plot?, in inglese
Parole: 1265
Note: COW-T9, quinta settimana, M1 con prompt “in fuga”.
Non c’è molto da dire; non mi aspettavo di scrivere qualcosa (qualsiasi cosa) su Hill House, anche perché come storia è autoconclusiva e non trovo molto da esplorare (cioè le storie da esplorare ci sarebbero, ma sono trattate troppo di sfuggita e non c'è molto con cui lavorare), però ho shippato tantissimo queste due quindi ecco, questo sarebbe un momentino cozy e domestico post-finale. :3
She wakes up with harsh breaths pushing out of her lungs in a rush, she sits up all in one move and stares at the feet of her bed like Nell’s curse had come to visit her. But in front of her bed only towers their wardrobe, washed by the night’s blue light, and she swallows in an effort to calm her crazy thumping heart.
Sometimes, she could almost touch her. Sometimes it feels like Nellie is still around, still looking at her with that childish mix of admiration and awe, a little girl still wishing she could be just as cool as Theo was. Or pretended to be. It feels like she was there and Theo could still touch her and feel her feelings echo inside as if they were her own, even when she’s hundreds of miles away from that wretched, horrible house. The house Nellie and mom and dad are guarding, taking care of, maybe even growing fond of. Maybe their roaming in there might light up the other lost dears’ paths. Maybe dad could comfort her, mom, and little Abigail. Maybe dad could still fix that goddamn house, after all.
“Theo, baby?”
She looks at her side, at Trish’s curled up figure, looking so small when she balls herself up.
“Hey,” she says, finding a smile almost immediately.
“What’s up?” Trish asks while smiling back, wrapping her fingers around Theo’s wrist. “Did you dream of them?”
It was not a neat, sweet rupture. Sometimes it comes back, always at night, with tall men or quizzical mean ladies or old grannies appearing for a second in the corner of their room as she falls asleep. Sometimes, it feels like mom is smiling, even though she can’t see her. Like the warmth of her hugs could travel across death and the long distances in between them, like her usual perfume could still fill up the air around her.
She looks at Trish and lays back down, playing with her long, soft hair.
“I’m alright,” she whispers, and her hand moves to intertwine with her slim, gentle fingers. Warmth and calm buzz echoing from inside to under her skin, immediately making all the figures disappear. Her fingers then brush gently along one of Trish’s tattoos, and even though she could sense a curious look on her, she keeps following the black ink until it leads her to the shoulder.
“It was just some memories,” she explains, and finally Trish seems to understand. She moves closer, pulling the sheets back on them, and nods.
This happens a lot.
Theo did not tell her the details of what happened exactly, yet. It was still quite embarrassing, revealing to her about the weird things she could do by touching people, and she definitely would not burden Trish with her… weird memories, that summer she spent such a long time running away from. About her mother, about that night. Because some things can’t just be told like a story. She would have to have lived them to understand, but it is so good that she didn’t. She would never understand, but after all it’s not a bad thing.
However, Trish has been knowing something is there quite from the beginning, since the first time she woke up next to her and was kicked out. There was something to Theodora, thick walls she’d built to hide herself from something. She was running away, and she was beautiful and still so soft, Trish could tell. Anyone could tell, really, but something about her lips. Something about the care in the way she used her fingers and tongue, something about her eyes looking up from between her legs to make sure she was enjoying her.
It all kept her coming back.
She only knows Theo’s mother and father and sister died, tragically too, and then was offered no more details other than she’d spent such a long time escaping her mother’s death that it had taken her a couple of decades to absorb that shock. Trish understood, of course. She understood a lot of things - she could never replace that, but she also knows she was right in waiting for Theo, too. Coming back every time she sensed a call for help, every time Theo called, every time their eyes met. Every time Theo’s wall had a breach. She would be right outside, patiently peeling that wall brick by brick from her, until she met her eyes and they stopped looking with ice stabbing back at her.
“Sorry about waking you up,” Theo finally says, hugging her, and rubs her hand along the curve of Trish’s hips, awaking a few gentle tingles on her skin.
“It’s okay, babe,” she replies, and tangles their legs together, rubbing their feet slowly with a cozy hum. “I don’t mind.”
Theo kisses her neck and sighs, with her eyes falling close.
How much longer will Trish put up with her? She thought the story was closed. She thought, after dad’s trade, that fucking house would have finally left them alone. That it would just keep chipping away at the souls trapped in it. She thought the house would be sated, at some point.
It’s happening to all of them - to Luke, Steve, Shirley… but for them, it’s just homesickness. It’s just mourning. For Theo it’s different, like sometimes it feels like the world is the house, the people she walks by could still be one of those ghosts and she wouldn’t know. Maybe they are, maybe some of them are their own ghosts.
Trish is the one out here that feels real. No matter how often Theo gets the thoughts that she might be starting to lose touch the way Nell did sometimes, Trish can still offer to be touched and take her swirling back. To their bed, to their kitchen, to their jobs, to their neighbors and their dog and their plans and bills and work and dates to the restaurant. She saw none of that trauma, but she knows it’s there. She never really got to know what Theo was running from, but she ran with her just waiting for the running to stop.
But there is still no sane explanation for why Trish stuck around no matter what a huge load of trauma and unresolved issues Theo was. The only sane reason for Trish to keep coming back is, maybe she was a bit crazy too. Despite the truckload of shit Theo dumped on her like she was some sort of punching ball, just to keep her walls standing and to keep on running away from the world outside, the world mom kept fearing would hurt her babies fending for themselves all alone in the night, in the dark.
She could spill the beans now. She could tell Trish the whole story, let her know just how crazy her name is, she could tell Trish all about the house and the red room and mom and Nell and how dad tried to fix it.
But Trish yawns, holding her hand, and mumbles something in the night. Theo looks at the clock on the bedside table. The eerie figures are gone.
Theo looks at her until her eyelids fall closing on their own, relieved that her mind is even letting her do that, even if she’s out here without her walls, even if she stopped running.
She sends one last thought to Nell and mom and dad, to how maybe she’ll call Shirley and tell her about it. She would know what to say.
But for now, she simply falls asleep.