five times kissed // only if you want to ofc ~
▌█ ❥▐ ’ & MEME. SEND ME FIVE TIMES KISSED FOR FIVE KISSES.
i am so here for this you don’t even know but now you’ll know because after two years, i’ll finally answer this
i.
eva has been the last female friend sherry has had, and she has not seen the element mage since she has left lamia scale to resurrect ( and kill ) deliora. she is somewhat close to some of the women back at her guild, but — being in zinnia does not feel right, these days, and if another serpent gushes about how amazing sherry’s cousin is, sherry will have to scream. she does not want to scream. she does not want to be hurt or angry or both all the time. she does not want to be bitter and resentful either, but lamia scale has been her guild, her safe place. it is not a place she wants to see invaded by a member of the family who has not wanted her when she has been a child, but sherry strives to be a better person than her aunt and this means that she swallows her anger.
she is suppressing a lot of emotions, these days, but she has buried them alive in a too shallow grave. she is angry about this, too, angry that she cannot bury her emotions the way jura buries his — deep enough so that nothing can reach them.
unsurprisingly, it does not take much for her to unravel. she does not think that jenny means to push her buttons, but she does. after all — there is only so much that sherry can hold in without hurting herself, and she has long exceeded these limits. true to character, the marionette mage does not cry. tears are reserved for genuine tragedies — and piled up frustrations do not qualify. instead, everything she has never said bubbles to the surface and spills from her lips, riddled with curses and anger. happy-go-lucky, candy cotton cheerful sherry blendy is a lie, something jenny becomes acutely aware of.
but sherry feels better, feels like she can finally breathe freely again, like she can live without having to push down her feelings every other minute. there is freedom in letting out all the things that drain one’s happiness, something jura has told her a million times, but he is so good and her frustrations sometimes seem to petty for her to share them with him. she does not have these reservations when it comes to jenny, someone who seems to get how stressful it is to maintain an image.
hours later, sherry leaves behind blue pegasus, but not without offering jenny an open ear because “ you listened to me, i’ll listen to you if you ever need to rant ” and pressing a kiss against the visibly confounded woman’s cheek, gratitude radiating from the serpent’s smile.
ii.
sherry is grateful that once upon a time, she has been mentored by a grouchy older lamia mage who has never had any patience for the nonsense that all female mages were set up to compete against one another, just because most attention was on their male peers. carolina seafield has long retired, but her wise teachings have stayed with sherry — even though she has sometimes felt like she was letting down her mentor when she has struggled to bond with other female serpents. or well, at least with any snake who was not eva.
what irritates her is that people ( read: ren ) expect her to be at odds with jenny. she knows that her stellar fiance used to date the model, but sherry can barely express how little she cares about this. she would not say it out loud, but some days, she likes jenny better than she likes ren. she does not like it when someone tries to influence her judgement — and this is what ren is trying with his not-so-subtle jabs. sooner or later, she will have to have words with him about this, but for now, she is sitting in the gardens of blue pegasus with jenny and tries not to point out that the flowers she is growing in lamia’s garden are far prettier than these ones. that jura has altered the soil with his magic definitely shows, she figures.
once in a while, she questions if she is being nice to jenny because she knows that ren cannot stand it and tries not to think about the way jura has been looking at her the last time ren has come up in conversation. he worries, she knows, and she cannot say anything that would fix it, cannot fix it because he is right: love should never allow for two people to find joy in spiting one another, but this is what this relationship is, far too often.
sherry sighs. no, she does not want to think about this. ren’s lack of punctuality is already frustrating enough to deal with. she has managed to be on time despite having to come all the way from zinnia, but he does not manage to do the same despite living in this city. though — it is not all that bad, really. jenny is pleasant company and sherry likes to spend time with her. they are perhaps not quite friends yet, but the marionette mage hopes that they are getting there, slowly.
ultimately, ren appears — three hours late and visibly unprepared — and sherry rises alongside jenny who throws ren a glare, a glare that is every bit as unhappy as sherry feels. this is probably the kind of solidarity others mean when they discuss the beauty of friendship, but sherry would not know for sure. jenny is good ( probably better than sherry ) at hiding the fact that she is a human being who feels strongly, but it is no secret to sherry that she does not mind messing with ren, once in a while. thus, sherry is not too surprised when the blonde presses a kiss to her cheek before she slips away, barely managing to hide a smirk.
“ what was that about. ” ren’s voice does not sound like a question, sounds like an irritated scoff — and sherry does not care much for being snapped at.
she sighs, again, before she smirks at him. two can play a game and he has been pushing her to play along, even though she does not care for the game. “ nothing that concerns you, ” she responds before she shrugs off the arm he has thrown around her shoulders and slips into the café he has promised to take her to.
iii.
in the end, her relationship with ren does not last, but her friendship with jenny does. sherry nearly laughs about it, but laughing is a generally bad idea when one has bruised ribs and a broken nose. her last solo mission has not gone entirely as planned, but she has had worse injuries in the past. this is mostly inconvenient because she cannot do her own hair properly and she has always been … particular about her hair. most days, kora stops by in the morning to brush and braid the long curls, but she is on a mission and thus not available. today, however, sherry is not endlessly frustrated by the mess on her head because jenny has stopped by, bringing sweets and a stack of the newest gardening magazines. and because the model is a good friend, she has taken pity and put sherry’s hair into a neat bun before retrieving her own magazine from her bag and finding a spot on sherry’s couch.
sherry enjoys quiet familiarity like this. it is what she misses most desperately when she remembers that jura is slipping out of her grasp, little by little, making her wonder when she has last cradled his soul in her hands and felt safe. it is what she misses when she when the thought of eva sneaks into her brain, when she cannot smother it in time.
( funny — all of fiore associates her with love and no one ever wonders how much heartbreak all her love has brought her. )
right now, it is easy not to think about the people who have left, who are leaving. right now, she is thinking about jenny, about someone who is staying. such a strange, foreign thought — nearly everyone is leaving ( lyon has left her, despite confessing ) and yet, someone who does not have to stay is still there, making sherry nearly pray that she will stay, that she will not slip away as well.
there is a limit to the hurt she can take, and nothing good has ever come out of her going beyond her limitations. heartbreak love is the one thing that can bend her out of shape in a way she cannot recover from so easily. and of course, sherry is no stranger to loving someone dearly, to caring so much that it might very well kill her. as she flips a page in the gardening magazine, she lifts her gaze and smiles at how peaceful her friend looks.
half an hour later when she gets up to get tea from the kitchen, she hovers a little too long in the door and jenny turns towards her and reaches for her wrist, the most unreadable expression on her face. the moment stretches on — becomes a minute or an hour or the fracture of an eternity. then, jenny sighs softly and lets go, her face less of an enigma as she stands and leaves a mark of unique lipstick on sherry’s cheek, just below the bandaid covering her nose.
iv.
on good days, sherry looks in the mirror and sees no one looking back, only sees her own face. on bad days, she looks in the mirror and sees her mother’s face with her father’s eyes, sees nothing but a million missed chances. this, she decides as she turns away from the mirror, is a bad day, a very bad day. sherry is her parents’ daughter. a painfully obvious fact, truly, but one that people tend to underestimate because they have never met lily and robert blendy. if they had, they would understand. to be the daughter of two people who are just as great as they are dead is difficult. it means to always chase after something she cannot be, not unless she gives up on magic and dedicates herself to science.
( magic is science, for many people, but sherry knows that for the people who have admired her parents, it does not count. it never has, it never will. )
( it doesn’t really count for her either. )
on bad days, all sherry can think of is how tragic her parents’ death has been, not just for her. but — the greater scheme of things, the greater good, whatever. and … it feels unfair. they should not have died like this, should not have ended as unfinished stories that will never reach a proper conclusion. instead, they were abandoned projects, ideas no higher being has ever bothered to think through to the very end.
this is what she cannot not think about when the resemblance is tearing her heart to shreds. this is why her hands are shaking when they should be steady as ever, why she has to put down her makeup brush and reach for the edge of her sink, ever-so-skilled fingers clinging to the porcelain as if it is her last connection to the real world.
“ you look like you’ve seen a ghost. ” jenny’s voice — blunt, blissfully lacking in any saccharine kindness — shakes her out of the thoughts that are threatening to eat her alive once more.
sherry laughs after a too long moment of silence as she shakes her head even though she should be nodding. “ maybe, ” she says, only dimly aware that her entire body language makes no sense right now, that she has never been this out of it ever before. alright — so maybe it has been even worse than she has been possessed by dark magic, but it does not count. it never does.
next to her, an odd sound escapes jenny’s throat. it sounds — like something is dying in her throat and sherry turns her head, looks away from the ghost in the mirror and towards her friend. the blonde looks — somewhat out of place as she sighs ( an honest, soul-deep sigh ) before she throws one arm around sherry’s shoulders. “ you’ll be alright, ” she says, a welcome mixture of confidence and comfort swinging between her words. this, too, feels genuine and sherry exhales before she angles her head and presses a quiet kiss against jenny’s cheek. gratitude has seldom felt this helpless.
v.
there have always been downsides to fame. great fortune would always inspire envy and jealousy. it was the price anyone who was someone in fiorean society paid for their standing, it was a fact sherry has long accepted. but she cannot deny the anger she feels as she sees jenny. the article has been absolutely vile, has been cruel, and sherry knows in the depths of her soul that it is harder for her to see jenny hurt than it would have been to deal with the same article, written about her.
“ i’ll stay with you, ” sherry says firmly as she closes the door behind her, slipping out of her high heels and dropping off purse and cape on the nearest chair. she nearly slips on the hardwood floor, but then she sits down next to her friend, reaching for jenny’s hands. because at the end of the day, sherry blendy does not always know what to say, but she knows that sometimes, words are not necessary. and right now, there are feelings that are difficult to wrap into words because it is just too much, too strong in her heart.
she could try, the way she usually would. she enjoys being considered eloquent a little too much, really, but — silence was a language of its own. and while it was no language she has ever mastered, she has known enough people who have. her father, all those years ago. jura, for as long as she has known him. but any words she could find would be too weak and thus untrue — and sherry is many things, but she is no liar.
“ i’ll stay as long as you want me to stay, ” she adds, pulling off one of her gloves and brushing back a strand that has successfully escaped jenny’s elaborate hairdo. how this has been possible, sherry does not really know — she can sense the sheer amount of magical hairspray that has been used to fixate this look.
there they are — dressed up to the nines for a party they will not attend, not after this. even if jenny would want to still go, sherry does not trust herself to remain calm right now. her anger has always been dark and potent, has always been venom in her mouth — and after nirvana, it has only gotten worse. if someone would test her patience tonight, she would snap. she knows this in her very soul, just like she knows that her soul is not entirely free from the shadow dark magic has cast.
( and if sherry would snap, if she would lose control, everything would be even worse. )
jenny does not answer but her shoulders lose some of their tension as sherry wraps her arms around her and holds her tightly, her eyes dry and steel and fire. she cannot bear to see despair like this, not in a friend, not in someone she loves. but she cannot do anything to fix this, cannot do anything but be there and hope that it will be enough.
“ i love you, ” the marionette mage says quietly as she presses a helpless kiss against her friend’s forehead. “ you are the best friend i’ve ever had. but i don’t know how to fix this, no matter how much i want to. ”
“ just… ” jenny sighs, her voice nearly cracking. “ just stay. ”
