Here's a second small offering to the @whumpmasinjuly festivities this year. No guarantees I'll manage another word this month, but here ya go for now. This one's Chasing Ghosts 'verse, stream of consciousness style. Usual warnings apply. Tasha's not the healthiest thing on legs and I'm not much for dancing around the hard stuff.
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Whumpmas in July - Day 6 - Deprivation
Her vision blurs when she stands. The world tilts on its axis, throat tightening at the urge to vomit. Sheās empty and there will be naught but air and pain if she allows her traitorous body to make good on the threat. She wonāt. Canāt. He will know. He cannot know.
Barnes watches her stand, sees the tiny hesitation before she takes the first step out of the classroom. He doesnāt believe that anything happens by chance. Finding her? That was not random. Sheās the one part of his world before war that he has ever regretted leaving behind. Now he has this second chance. Heās not going to blow it. He watches her go, knowing full well sheās struggling to stay upright. He tamps down to desire to follow her, to remind her that she is worth so much more. He didnāt tell her that when they were children. He doesnāt know if he can make her believe it now.
~~~
The shine of cellophane and foil glints from the counter in the tiny apartment. The tang of vodka overpowers the bitterness of the chocolates, the salt of the chips, the cloying sugar of the pastries that once filled a crinkly plastic package. She sweeps the lot into a trash bin. Closes the lid. Sprays the counter with a mix of bleach and water. Wipes it down with a paper towel and tosses that into the bin atop the evidence of her sins.
Her fingers taste of bleach as they slide into the far reaches of her throat. She doesnāt fight now. Breathes deep. Tightens the muscles of her core, allows the pain, welcomes absolution.
~~~
The frat bro grins at her, his drunken smile repulsive just as she resigns herself to the necessity of pretending he is appealing. Maria is there, someplace in the darkness of the house, probably four solo cups deep into the bathtub hooch of everclear and god only knows what else. Natasha has consumed her fair share of the cloying liquid. The everclear burns her ragged throat, but it does the job she asks of it. She can close her eyes and send her mind far from these little rooms and little men, she can do what she must and take their packets of powders and pills with a smile of her own.
She slips barely there hints of fabric back up her legs, straightens the hem of her skirt, and tosses her hair behind her shoulders. Index fingers swipe beneath her eyes, smudging the liner there back into position and removing the evidence of the tears she doesnāt allow to fall. Walks out of the room with the sated man child on the bed, a cellophane packet of oblivion in her bra for her troubles. Finds Maria. Tells her itās time to leave.
She sleeps in the arms of a girl she knows likes her much more for her drugs than her personality. They wake in a tangled web of hangover and the void of missing serotonin in the wake of ecstasy from the night before. Party drugs are Mariaās poison of choice. Natasha is happy to indulge. The packet of China White is hidden well in the back of the dresser. Some things arenāt meant to be shared.
~~~
She tells him sheās not using. He knows sheās lying. He knows not to press.
She tells him sheās being safe. He knows thatās another lie. He watches for the moment sheās willing to tell him so. He can be patient.
She tells him sheās tired. He knows sheās not talking about sleep. He wraps arms of flesh and metal around her body, holds her while she shakes. Wipes the tears. Whispers comfort. Love. Forgiveness. He doesnāt mention the packets in the drawer. He doesnāt tell her he knows whatās taped to the sink basin beneath the cabinet.
They can pretend itās about starvation. They can pretend itās about the purging. They can pretend itās about the drugs.
It isnāt. Never has been. Tasha knows deprivation. Has known it all her life. She indulges herself in a dozen different ways to forget what she knows too well.
She craves oblivion.
She craves satiation.
She craves love.
She knows beyond all else that she cannot have any of them for long.













