Another fic
Continuation from here:
(as you can see, my brain is going in coherent lines today. Oh yes)
Her head feels big, too big, and the sounds blow up like heavy bubbles in a hollow drum inside that head. It's not like a headache, it's like not being or, at least, not quite being where you think you are. Her eyes open now and again and she tries to make sense of the things she sees around her.
Sometimes, this all feels like a dream from which she can't wake up.
And then there's him.
Sometimes, in her better moments, she's able to pull it together. On those occasions, he's the first thing she sees. He, with his softening eyes, and lop-sided smile. His loose top pulls towards one shoulder more than the other as he holds out a mug of tea for her. He knows she loves tea. More than it is reasonable for a normal person to like tea. At home, she's surrounded by not normal person.
And right around then, she remembers that this isn't home, can never be home, and she hates herself a little for being able forget that even for one moment.
Nights of crying into his arms, of screaming and trying to get free so that her clawed limbs can make an impact here. Sometimes, she thinks that just the shock of bright red blood, the texture of skin given way under her fingernails, would snap her out of this.
Her cries of, "I want to go home, I want to go home!" meld together with his whispered, "I don't know how. I just don't know how" and, from her every word, he seems to flinch as though her fingers have made an impact.
She sleeps a lot here. Dreams about the real life she has Above. All her life, she wished to be somewhere else, someone else. It always seemed as though there was someone else was having more fun, something more than this.
"I dreamed I woke up."
Dancer's looking at her, and it strikes her that he's looking as though he's gone without sleep for as long as she's been in this 'dream'. But, around blood-shot eyes, he manages a smile for her. It reaches his eyes. No fake smiles for him.
Chess is crouched on his couch that dips in the middle. She has her arms wrapped around her legs and her head on her knees. Bright streaks of purple hair fall against her eye but she doesn't shift to move it. It was always something she'd wanted to do--bleach her hair than die it something bright and shocking--but she'd not been sure what it would do to her hair afterwards, and had been sure she'd never keep up with the regrowth. The day she figured out she could just change little bits of her appearance had been a great and devastating day for reality. One of Dancer's spare tops swamps her, covering her hands and upper thighs. It smells like him. She's not sure what that smell is. She'd never smelled it before she met him, and now she can never get enough of it.
"I was surrounded by my friends in my old kitchen / dining room. We were drinking tea, and I was telling them about you. They were saying how jealous they were, how much they wished they could meet you." Chess met his eyes, then closed hers, pushing her face closer to her knees, as she said, "I told them 'Be careful what you wish for'."
More days pass. Chess thinks she hears Dancer speaking with a woman's voice outside of his apartment, but no one but him ever comes in and sees her.
"Why do you do that?" she asks him, one day as he's closing the door to his place behind him.
"Do what?" he asks.
"You never let them in. Are they so hideous? So horrible? Do they look like...?"
Before her mind can completely commit to all the possible ways his friends could look, Dancer stops her. "I'll let them in. If you don't mind?"
Chess shakes her head. "I don't mind."
What she doesn't know, and what he takes great pains not to let her know, is that every morning, Dancer goes out hunting. There must be a way out of here.
"The way out is particular to every person. Just like the way in," Danika says.
"She won't leave the house."
"She won't accept that she's here. Difficult to leave a place you don't believe in," Eddie tells him, and it's the same with everyone he goes to.
As his feet become bloodied and tired, he bandages them, then goes out again on the next morning. Always in the morning, just before dawn. He never wanted her here, not like this. He never thought there would be something inside of her that would so much need to follow him.
(as you can see, my brain is going in coherent lines today. Oh yes)
Her head feels big, too big, and the sounds blow up like heavy bubbles in a hollow drum inside that head. It's not like a headache, it's like not being or, at least, not quite being where you think you are. Her eyes open now and again and she tries to make sense of the things she sees around her.
Sometimes, this all feels like a dream from which she can't wake up.
And then there's him.
Sometimes, in her better moments, she's able to pull it together. On those occasions, he's the first thing she sees. He, with his softening eyes, and lop-sided smile. His loose top pulls towards one shoulder more than the other as he holds out a mug of tea for her. He knows she loves tea. More than it is reasonable for a normal person to like tea. At home, she's surrounded by not normal person.
And right around then, she remembers that this isn't home, can never be home, and she hates herself a little for being able forget that even for one moment.
Nights of crying into his arms, of screaming and trying to get free so that her clawed limbs can make an impact here. Sometimes, she thinks that just the shock of bright red blood, the texture of skin given way under her fingernails, would snap her out of this.
Her cries of, "I want to go home, I want to go home!" meld together with his whispered, "I don't know how. I just don't know how" and, from her every word, he seems to flinch as though her fingers have made an impact.
She sleeps a lot here. Dreams about the real life she has Above. All her life, she wished to be somewhere else, someone else. It always seemed as though there was someone else was having more fun, something more than this.
"I dreamed I woke up."
Dancer's looking at her, and it strikes her that he's looking as though he's gone without sleep for as long as she's been in this 'dream'. But, around blood-shot eyes, he manages a smile for her. It reaches his eyes. No fake smiles for him.
Chess is crouched on his couch that dips in the middle. She has her arms wrapped around her legs and her head on her knees. Bright streaks of purple hair fall against her eye but she doesn't shift to move it. It was always something she'd wanted to do--bleach her hair than die it something bright and shocking--but she'd not been sure what it would do to her hair afterwards, and had been sure she'd never keep up with the regrowth. The day she figured out she could just change little bits of her appearance had been a great and devastating day for reality. One of Dancer's spare tops swamps her, covering her hands and upper thighs. It smells like him. She's not sure what that smell is. She'd never smelled it before she met him, and now she can never get enough of it.
"I was surrounded by my friends in my old kitchen / dining room. We were drinking tea, and I was telling them about you. They were saying how jealous they were, how much they wished they could meet you." Chess met his eyes, then closed hers, pushing her face closer to her knees, as she said, "I told them 'Be careful what you wish for'."
More days pass. Chess thinks she hears Dancer speaking with a woman's voice outside of his apartment, but no one but him ever comes in and sees her.
"Why do you do that?" she asks him, one day as he's closing the door to his place behind him.
"Do what?" he asks.
"You never let them in. Are they so hideous? So horrible? Do they look like...?"
Before her mind can completely commit to all the possible ways his friends could look, Dancer stops her. "I'll let them in. If you don't mind?"
Chess shakes her head. "I don't mind."
What she doesn't know, and what he takes great pains not to let her know, is that every morning, Dancer goes out hunting. There must be a way out of here.
"The way out is particular to every person. Just like the way in," Danika says.
"She won't leave the house."
"She won't accept that she's here. Difficult to leave a place you don't believe in," Eddie tells him, and it's the same with everyone he goes to.
As his feet become bloodied and tired, he bandages them, then goes out again on the next morning. Always in the morning, just before dawn. He never wanted her here, not like this. He never thought there would be something inside of her that would so much need to follow him.