fandomtownies | The Beach by Midnight Manor, Saturday Afternoon

Okay, so the stuff Dean had given her had tasted horrible but had worked wonders. She still wasn't up to snuff - she got tired and winded easily and she was still pretty pale and sore, but she was no longer alternating between chills and fever and that feeling of something off, something wrong had gone away, flushed out with the last of the bronze. She'd lost enough weight that it was noticeable and not in a good way, but she'd at least escaped looking gaunt. In short, she looked like someone who'd gone through some kind of dreadful wasting illness, but at least was now on the mend.

Which, you know, made sense. She wasn't exactly sure the difference between a severe poisoning and a severe illness in regards to toll on the body, but she guessed that they weren't too dissimilar?

Either way, she might look like she'd been dragged down a mile and a half of bad road, but that was still an improvement overall from looking like she'd been dragged down six miles of that very same road, and was celebrating by leaving the roof for a little while and heading down to the beach. She didn't get far before she had to stop and take a rest, but progress was still progress, dammit. She'd successfully made it here under her own power and she'd make it back up to her nest the same way.

...She might just be here for awhile resting up for that climb. Maybe she should let some folks know she was here since she was likely not going anywhere for a hot minute.

[Open!]

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"I've been mostly just leaning into trying to soak up as much of it as I can while it lasts," Eleanor offered, and, despite herself, despite everything, she had to smile, thinking about half-meat-lovers pizzas and poetry in Urdu and her slowly building personal art gallery, "and just bracing myself. Like preparing for a storm. So far, it's been working out pretty well. I mean, if it's inevitably going to end, at least I'll have this, here and now."

"That's a good way to think of it," Arden said. "Me, I'm just so tired of hoping that this time it'll come out okay."

She swallowed and said, "Did you know? Kam's family offered to adopt me. Even though I'm over eighteen. And I should be over the moon. I mean, I am! But also, I'm so scared. Because what if they do and it all falls apart? What if there really is something wrong with me? I know they mean it. And I'm almost certain that it won't end bad. But there's that part of me that asks, But what if it does? And I don't know how to make it shut up."

"What if it does," Eleanor echoed, "and it's all your fault and it's even ten times worse than you could have ever imagined, and then they're not only disappointed in you, but they're also hurt, even though you tried so hard, you really did, but they don't understand, there's just something wrong with you and there always has been, and now that something wrong has tainted them too..."

She peeked over at Arden, so see if she was still hitting the mark.

"And it's especially hard, with someone like Kamala, and her parents, who just seem to have so much love to give..."

"...If you're secretly a mindreader you have to tell me now or it's entrapment," Arden joked in a very weak and faint voice. "Because I think you just said my whole internal narrative out loud."

"No," Eleanor smiled faintly back, shaking her head. "Not a mind reader. Not even a fortune teller, like my grandmother. But I am pretty good at reading people, which she always felt was actually all fortune telling really was. That, and it's pretty much my narrative all the time, too."

Was it entrapment still if there were other abilities remaining undisclosed? Maybe, but maybe she should still keep those that way for now. Heartbreaking as it was that this is what they could connect to on such a deep level, this was kind of nice, this camaraderie in understanding of shared misery, and she didn't want to ruin it by revealing to her just yet just how hurt people could be around her.

"Well, consider me read," Arden said with a laugh and a shake of her head. "Is this what Cal feels like when I read him for filth all the time?"

Not that this would stop her.

"Is it weird to say I'm glad we had this conversation?"

"Now who's the mind reader?" Eleanor accused. "I was just thinking the same thing. Not glad about where the conversation is coming from, but definitely glad we had it. It...makes me feel less alone, knowing that someone understands and has been there before. I hope it helps you feel better, too."

"Exactly that," Arden said. "It's rough, feeling alone because you feel this one way and nobody else can even really understand it, never mind relate to it." She gave Eleanor a soft smile. "Like I know everyone's fucked up - except maybe Kamala, she's the most well-adjusted person I know - but being fucked up doesn't mean you understand the ways somebody else is. Having someone be the same flavor as you...yeah like you said. It makes me feel not as alone. Which is one of the big things I've been fighting against my whole life anyway."

She gave Eleanor a squeeze. "We should form the Fucked Up Flavors Club and eat ice cream while we talk about being weirdos."

"It'd have to be ice cream, too," that squeeze and subsequent careful squeeze back seemed to get a faint chuckle out of Eleanor, "because we'll need ice cream after how depressing it all is, too."

"If we can't eat our feelings with big bowls of ice cream, what's even the point of having them?" Did she mean feelings or ice cream? The answer was yes. "Normally, we'd be talking about our romantic woes, but I'm not seeing anybody and you and Kams..." She offered Eleanor a soft, happy smile. "It sounds like you're both really, really happy."

She'd have 'romance is terrible' ice cream with Gray where she could make fun of him for taking advice from the crazy vampire doctor.

The Beach by Midnight Manor, Saturday Afternoon

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!

Re: NFB for this chunk, pls!