Sour Grape #18, Wintergreen #6
Author: winebabe
Title: Take It as a Sign
Story: The Gemini Occurrence ( Poverty Club 'Verse)
Rating: R (language, violence, general garbage characters)
Flavor(s): Sour Grape #18: not so fast; Wintergreen #6: good as new
Word Count: 1,802
Summary: October 2020. Cara has the procedure, Vic and Casey use their fists to express their feelings, and Mona reaches out to her brother.
Notes: Previous: Too Late for Plan B. Cara McLaughlin, Isaac Eastman, Mona Lively, Casey Calhoun, Victor Eastman, Devyn Lively. (The abortion content warning still stands, and I've never been to a Planned Parenthood or had an abortion so I make no claims of knowing what that is like.)
“Alright, are you ready, sweetheart?” the nurse asks, and Cara nods her head, clutching her purse to her chest. “Would you like someone to come in with you?”
“No,” Cara replies, and she doesn’t have to think about it. Whatever they may be expecting her to feel, she doesn’t feel any of it. It’s not traumatizing, or scary, or saddening. It doesn’t hold the weight that other people seem to think it does, and Cara doesn’t want to have to pretend for Isaac or for Mona.
“Alright,” the nurse says, “come this way.” She pushes open the door beside the receptionist’s desk, and Cara walks through into a blindingly white hallway. “Follow me.” She takes the lead then, walking off down the hall, and Cara can’t help but think how much bigger the place is on the inside.
They go into a room at the end of the hall and Cara climbs into a chair that reminds her more of the dentist than a doctor’s office. The nurse pulls up a stool and takes a seat, flipping through the paperwork on the clipboard. “Now, I have to ask, are you sure you want to do this?”
Cara glares at her from behind her bangs. “Of course I’m sure. Do I look like I’m ready to have children?”
The nurse just laughs. “Sweetheart, I have to ask. It’s my job. I have to make sure your boyfriend isn’t pushing you into it.”
“Isaac couldn’t push me into anything,” Cara grumbles.
She’s still smiling, and though Cara expects to be irritated, instead she finds the woman soothing. “Now, the doctor will be in shortly, but I have to talk to you about some things first, okay?”
I guess I don’t have a choice, Cara wants to say, but just nods.
“After the procedure, you may feel a lot of things. Regret, sadness, emptiness… You may feel relief. You may feel nothing at all. Whatever you feel is okay, and if you find yourself in need of support afterwards, I have resources for you, okay? If you don’t need any support, though, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s different for everyone.”
The speech emboldens her, just enough to tell the nurse, “I just want this thing out of me.”
Her expression doesn’t harden, as much as Cara expects it to, and she reaches out to pat Cara’s hand. “I’ll let the doctor know you’re ready.”
Casey stumbles with the force of the blow, but straightens quickly enough to deal a hit of his own, accidentally getting Vic right in the nose.
That should end it right there, with Vic on his back on the cement, covering his bloody face with both hands, but Casey climbs on top of him and pulls his hands down. "Can you stop?" Casey shouts. He cups Vic's cheek in his hand, smearing the blood with his thumb. "I wouldn't do this with anyone else!"
Vic coughs, struggling to focus on Casey’s face. “Do what?” he asks and makes a gagging noise.
Casey moves back, crouching on his heels, and grabs Vic by the front of his shirt to pull him up into a sitting position. “Everything we’re doing,” he says, watching Vic uselessly try to wipe the blood from his nose. “The sex, the kissing--everything,” and he means for it to be gentle, affectionate when he says it, but Vic just glowers at him.
“Stop saying that. Stop acting like you’re not gay without me.”
“You say the same shit!” Casey yells, getting to his feet so he can gesture with his hands. “Why is it okay when you do it, and not okay when I do?”
“Because,” Vic says and pauses to wipe the blood from his lips, “I’m saying it because I like you. I like you so much I can’t see myself with anybody else. You say it because...like, being gay is awful and you’re only tolerating it for me.”
“You think I want to be gay? I don’t, I--”
Vic scowls and shakes his head. “You don’t get to choose, dude! You either are, or you aren’t--and it kinda seems like you are!”
Casey just stares at him but remains silent.
“My advice to you is, if you don’t want to be gay, you should probably stop leading me on then and go find some chick to bang! Alright?” Vic pulls his pack of cigarettes back out and fumbles with his lighter. The end of the cigarette in his mouth is red where the blood has touched.
Casey takes a deep breath and sighs, before lowering himself to the ground beside Vic. “You know, I feel really bad that I punched my boyfriend in the nose.”
Vic pauses, for just a moment, and then reluctantly offers Casey a cigarette. “Yeah, that’s not going to change anything.”
“That I feel bad? I know that, but I can’t go--”
“No,” Vic cuts him off. “That you called me your boyfriend. It’s an empty gesture.”
“You’re such a little bitch,” Casey grumbles.
“No, you are! You wanna act like you don’t care about me and that’s fine, except it’s not fine! People in a relationship don’t do that!”
“What do you even know about being in a relationship, Vic?”
“Well, apparently nothing, because my boyfriend won’t even admit we’re in one!”
They sit in silence, Vic furiously smoking his cigarette and Casey twirling his unlit one between his fingers. The rocks beneath them dig into Vic’s palm, but he doesn’t care; his attention is elsewhere, his gaze focused on the cars rushing past. Blood is still leaking steadily from his nose, running down and over his parted lips.
Casey picks up a pebble, forms his hand into a tight fist, and then hurls the pebble across the parking lot. It bounces four times before it skitters to a halt on the asphalt, and he sighs. “I’m trying to avoid all the shit that comes with it.”
Vic takes a deep breath around his cigarette and sighs it back out. “Comes with what?”
“Being gay.” When their eyes meet over their shoulders, Casey’s hazel irises are illuminated by the sun overhead, and Vic thinks he looks angelic. More than that, he looks sincere. “I don’t-- Vic, I’m worried.”
“About what?” Vic asks, as if it’s completely unthinkable that he’d be worried about anything. They have so much to worry about, and he knows it, but he doesn’t think their relationship is on the list.
“My father, your father, people,” Casey says. “It’s not worth it. Our dads would kill us if they found out. It’s not worth it.”
“You don’t get to make that choice!” Vic swipes under his nose, smearing the blood even further across his cheek. “This isn’t just up to you anymore. It was only your choice before you kissed me back, Casey. Now it’s ours.”
“I can choose to break up with you right now.”
“Not fair,” Vic says, his voice quiet and strained. He’s looking straight at Casey, his bright blue eyes boring holes into him, but Casey won’t look up.
“Not everything gets to be fair, Vic.”
“Is that what you want?” Vic’s legs feel like jello as he tries to get to his feet, and he hopes to God he’s not shaking. “To break up?”
“Yes,” Casey says, “sometimes.”
“Okay, fine,” Vic replies. He turns and immediately heads back into the clinic, holding one hand over his bloody nose.
Isaac can’t stop moving--bouncing his leg, pacing the waiting room--and all Mona wants is a moment of peace. She’s curled up in the corner, her back against the wall and her feet up on the chair next to her, cradling her phone in two hands. Devyn finally responded to her text a few minutes earlier, with a simple No Lively is a good Lively, and for some reason that pisses her off more than it comforts her.
i don’t like it here, she sends back, and she can see her brother typing almost immediately.
Why not? I thought you said you were making friends.
Mona has always been honest with her brother, and she’s not about to stop now. they’re wrapped up in their own problems, she tells him. not that i want them to be wrapped up in mine, but i’m sitting in the waiting room at a planned parenthood because the younger brother of one of my new ~friends~ knocked up his girlfriend.
So you’re skipping school again? Devyn sends back, and Mona wants to throw her phone across the room.
do you even care? she asks him. mom died, i’ve been uprooted and sent from one hell to another, and you’re worried about my attendance?
The animated ellipsis appears on her screen again, dot-dot-dot as her brother types out his response. She feels nervous and jittery, like when she and her friends used to text the boys they liked and waited anxiously for what they hoped would be a positive reply. Mona just wants to know that Devyn cares about her, that all his schooling and his new job haven’t changed him.
The door swings open with a familiar jingle, and Mona doesn’t look up until she hears Isaac say, “Holy shit, Vic! What happened to your face?”
Vic stands in the doorway, looking around everywhere except their faces, with blood steadily dripping from his nose, a bright red smear across his one cheek. His eyes are unfocused and shiny, watery, Mona thinks.
“Where’s Casey?” Isaac asks, and that seems to snap Vic out of his daze.
“I don’t fucking care,” he replies, and walks up to the stunned receptionist. “You have a bathroom I could use?”
“Um, yes.” She stands up, so quickly that it jostles her chair, and walks around to open the door for him. “Follow me,” she says, and she and Vic disappear down the hallway.
“What the fuck was that?” Isaac asks, and Mona turns to meet his gaze.
“You think I have any idea? I’ve known your brother for three days.”
Vic eventually comes back from the bathroom with less of the blood on his face, but not completely cleaned up. Casey returns shortly after that, taking a seat on the opposite side of the room and staring intently at his phone, never looking up. Mona watches but doesn’t ask any questions; as far as she’s concerned, she doesn’t need to know. It wouldn’t be the first fight she’s witnessed the aftermath of, and she could almost say she’s used to seeing boys show up with unexplained injuries.
The nurse escorts Cara back into the waiting room after what seems like a lifetime, and she gently touches Cara’s arm and whispers something to her. Cara smiles and nods before the nurse disappears into the back once again. “Alright,” she says, smiling, “let’s go.”
Title: Take It as a Sign
Story: The Gemini Occurrence ( Poverty Club 'Verse)
Rating: R (language, violence, general garbage characters)
Flavor(s): Sour Grape #18: not so fast; Wintergreen #6: good as new
Word Count: 1,802
Summary: October 2020. Cara has the procedure, Vic and Casey use their fists to express their feelings, and Mona reaches out to her brother.
Notes: Previous: Too Late for Plan B. Cara McLaughlin, Isaac Eastman, Mona Lively, Casey Calhoun, Victor Eastman, Devyn Lively. (The abortion content warning still stands, and I've never been to a Planned Parenthood or had an abortion so I make no claims of knowing what that is like.)
“Alright, are you ready, sweetheart?” the nurse asks, and Cara nods her head, clutching her purse to her chest. “Would you like someone to come in with you?”
“No,” Cara replies, and she doesn’t have to think about it. Whatever they may be expecting her to feel, she doesn’t feel any of it. It’s not traumatizing, or scary, or saddening. It doesn’t hold the weight that other people seem to think it does, and Cara doesn’t want to have to pretend for Isaac or for Mona.
“Alright,” the nurse says, “come this way.” She pushes open the door beside the receptionist’s desk, and Cara walks through into a blindingly white hallway. “Follow me.” She takes the lead then, walking off down the hall, and Cara can’t help but think how much bigger the place is on the inside.
They go into a room at the end of the hall and Cara climbs into a chair that reminds her more of the dentist than a doctor’s office. The nurse pulls up a stool and takes a seat, flipping through the paperwork on the clipboard. “Now, I have to ask, are you sure you want to do this?”
Cara glares at her from behind her bangs. “Of course I’m sure. Do I look like I’m ready to have children?”
The nurse just laughs. “Sweetheart, I have to ask. It’s my job. I have to make sure your boyfriend isn’t pushing you into it.”
“Isaac couldn’t push me into anything,” Cara grumbles.
She’s still smiling, and though Cara expects to be irritated, instead she finds the woman soothing. “Now, the doctor will be in shortly, but I have to talk to you about some things first, okay?”
I guess I don’t have a choice, Cara wants to say, but just nods.
“After the procedure, you may feel a lot of things. Regret, sadness, emptiness… You may feel relief. You may feel nothing at all. Whatever you feel is okay, and if you find yourself in need of support afterwards, I have resources for you, okay? If you don’t need any support, though, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s different for everyone.”
The speech emboldens her, just enough to tell the nurse, “I just want this thing out of me.”
Her expression doesn’t harden, as much as Cara expects it to, and she reaches out to pat Cara’s hand. “I’ll let the doctor know you’re ready.”
Casey stumbles with the force of the blow, but straightens quickly enough to deal a hit of his own, accidentally getting Vic right in the nose.
That should end it right there, with Vic on his back on the cement, covering his bloody face with both hands, but Casey climbs on top of him and pulls his hands down. "Can you stop?" Casey shouts. He cups Vic's cheek in his hand, smearing the blood with his thumb. "I wouldn't do this with anyone else!"
Vic coughs, struggling to focus on Casey’s face. “Do what?” he asks and makes a gagging noise.
Casey moves back, crouching on his heels, and grabs Vic by the front of his shirt to pull him up into a sitting position. “Everything we’re doing,” he says, watching Vic uselessly try to wipe the blood from his nose. “The sex, the kissing--everything,” and he means for it to be gentle, affectionate when he says it, but Vic just glowers at him.
“Stop saying that. Stop acting like you’re not gay without me.”
“You say the same shit!” Casey yells, getting to his feet so he can gesture with his hands. “Why is it okay when you do it, and not okay when I do?”
“Because,” Vic says and pauses to wipe the blood from his lips, “I’m saying it because I like you. I like you so much I can’t see myself with anybody else. You say it because...like, being gay is awful and you’re only tolerating it for me.”
“You think I want to be gay? I don’t, I--”
Vic scowls and shakes his head. “You don’t get to choose, dude! You either are, or you aren’t--and it kinda seems like you are!”
Casey just stares at him but remains silent.
“My advice to you is, if you don’t want to be gay, you should probably stop leading me on then and go find some chick to bang! Alright?” Vic pulls his pack of cigarettes back out and fumbles with his lighter. The end of the cigarette in his mouth is red where the blood has touched.
Casey takes a deep breath and sighs, before lowering himself to the ground beside Vic. “You know, I feel really bad that I punched my boyfriend in the nose.”
Vic pauses, for just a moment, and then reluctantly offers Casey a cigarette. “Yeah, that’s not going to change anything.”
“That I feel bad? I know that, but I can’t go--”
“No,” Vic cuts him off. “That you called me your boyfriend. It’s an empty gesture.”
“You’re such a little bitch,” Casey grumbles.
“No, you are! You wanna act like you don’t care about me and that’s fine, except it’s not fine! People in a relationship don’t do that!”
“What do you even know about being in a relationship, Vic?”
“Well, apparently nothing, because my boyfriend won’t even admit we’re in one!”
They sit in silence, Vic furiously smoking his cigarette and Casey twirling his unlit one between his fingers. The rocks beneath them dig into Vic’s palm, but he doesn’t care; his attention is elsewhere, his gaze focused on the cars rushing past. Blood is still leaking steadily from his nose, running down and over his parted lips.
Casey picks up a pebble, forms his hand into a tight fist, and then hurls the pebble across the parking lot. It bounces four times before it skitters to a halt on the asphalt, and he sighs. “I’m trying to avoid all the shit that comes with it.”
Vic takes a deep breath around his cigarette and sighs it back out. “Comes with what?”
“Being gay.” When their eyes meet over their shoulders, Casey’s hazel irises are illuminated by the sun overhead, and Vic thinks he looks angelic. More than that, he looks sincere. “I don’t-- Vic, I’m worried.”
“About what?” Vic asks, as if it’s completely unthinkable that he’d be worried about anything. They have so much to worry about, and he knows it, but he doesn’t think their relationship is on the list.
“My father, your father, people,” Casey says. “It’s not worth it. Our dads would kill us if they found out. It’s not worth it.”
“You don’t get to make that choice!” Vic swipes under his nose, smearing the blood even further across his cheek. “This isn’t just up to you anymore. It was only your choice before you kissed me back, Casey. Now it’s ours.”
“I can choose to break up with you right now.”
“Not fair,” Vic says, his voice quiet and strained. He’s looking straight at Casey, his bright blue eyes boring holes into him, but Casey won’t look up.
“Not everything gets to be fair, Vic.”
“Is that what you want?” Vic’s legs feel like jello as he tries to get to his feet, and he hopes to God he’s not shaking. “To break up?”
“Yes,” Casey says, “sometimes.”
“Okay, fine,” Vic replies. He turns and immediately heads back into the clinic, holding one hand over his bloody nose.
Isaac can’t stop moving--bouncing his leg, pacing the waiting room--and all Mona wants is a moment of peace. She’s curled up in the corner, her back against the wall and her feet up on the chair next to her, cradling her phone in two hands. Devyn finally responded to her text a few minutes earlier, with a simple No Lively is a good Lively, and for some reason that pisses her off more than it comforts her.
i don’t like it here, she sends back, and she can see her brother typing almost immediately.
Why not? I thought you said you were making friends.
Mona has always been honest with her brother, and she’s not about to stop now. they’re wrapped up in their own problems, she tells him. not that i want them to be wrapped up in mine, but i’m sitting in the waiting room at a planned parenthood because the younger brother of one of my new ~friends~ knocked up his girlfriend.
So you’re skipping school again? Devyn sends back, and Mona wants to throw her phone across the room.
do you even care? she asks him. mom died, i’ve been uprooted and sent from one hell to another, and you’re worried about my attendance?
The animated ellipsis appears on her screen again, dot-dot-dot as her brother types out his response. She feels nervous and jittery, like when she and her friends used to text the boys they liked and waited anxiously for what they hoped would be a positive reply. Mona just wants to know that Devyn cares about her, that all his schooling and his new job haven’t changed him.
The door swings open with a familiar jingle, and Mona doesn’t look up until she hears Isaac say, “Holy shit, Vic! What happened to your face?”
Vic stands in the doorway, looking around everywhere except their faces, with blood steadily dripping from his nose, a bright red smear across his one cheek. His eyes are unfocused and shiny, watery, Mona thinks.
“Where’s Casey?” Isaac asks, and that seems to snap Vic out of his daze.
“I don’t fucking care,” he replies, and walks up to the stunned receptionist. “You have a bathroom I could use?”
“Um, yes.” She stands up, so quickly that it jostles her chair, and walks around to open the door for him. “Follow me,” she says, and she and Vic disappear down the hallway.
“What the fuck was that?” Isaac asks, and Mona turns to meet his gaze.
“You think I have any idea? I’ve known your brother for three days.”
Vic eventually comes back from the bathroom with less of the blood on his face, but not completely cleaned up. Casey returns shortly after that, taking a seat on the opposite side of the room and staring intently at his phone, never looking up. Mona watches but doesn’t ask any questions; as far as she’s concerned, she doesn’t need to know. It wouldn’t be the first fight she’s witnessed the aftermath of, and she could almost say she’s used to seeing boys show up with unexplained injuries.
The nurse escorts Cara back into the waiting room after what seems like a lifetime, and she gently touches Cara’s arm and whispers something to her. Cara smiles and nods before the nurse disappears into the back once again. “Alright,” she says, smiling, “let’s go.”