Firestorm (Wattpad|Ao3)
Inspired in part by @weirdestarrow's Onesho Peshtigo. Wisconsin returning home after the Peshtigo fire.
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Wisconsin wished she were invisible. She knew she did not have to return home anytime soon, nobody would force her. She could stay and hide here, in her state for as long as she wished to, she was endlessly grateful for that.
But it was worse to be alone, to stay here and let her mind fall back into the terror and waking nightmare she'd lived and died through.
Her father, Pennsylvania, and a few others from the northwest had been her only visitors up until now. They'd told her how worried and scared her other siblings had been, when they'd heard the news.
how terrifying it was for them.
not worried enough. A vicious corner of her mind said. Not scared enough to go looking for me. To wonder if I was safe while I was all alone.
She bit down those ideas, knowing it wasn't fair, that they had no way to know. But it still hurt.
None of this is fair.
She had never been someone to care about appearance, never had the wispy, fairylike looks that people complimented. Always laughing it off when she'd been told to act more sensibly, chuckled when idiots criticized how she presented herself. Compared Wisconsin to her sisters.
It never mattered before, that wasn't who she was, or who she'd needed to be.
"If I am who I am, and if lying is a sin-" Wisconsin used to say in a sing-song voice, "And I am my people. Doesn't that mean that trying to not be like myself is more dishonest?"
Now she couldn't help but be jealous of the naivety of it, the type of person who says that. Being plain and frumpy had been so much better than being disfigured.
Holding onto her dad's hand as they crossed over, Wisconsin's stomach churned uncomfortably, from sickness or just plain hysteria she wasn't sure. But it made her wish to sit down again in order to better fight the rising nausea.
America must've picked up on something, as he looked down at her, concerned.
"We can wait if you want," He said ever so gently, "don't force yourself. You're not alone, okay?"
Wisconsin shook her head and swallowed hard, her throat feeling dry. Clinging to her father's hand like a little child, like it could ground her, keep her tethered to the reality she was stuck in.
She needed to do this.
Massachusetts had been the first one over, standing near the entrance, brows knit with worry,
"Is everything alright?" He'd looked over Wisconsin, and she forced herself not to shrink back from her oldest brother as his eyes widened upon seeing her.
"Oh," He breathed, voice straining, "Connie, I'm so sorry."
Wisconsin had wanted to cry again at that, feeling much too small, shrinking under the weight of everything. Forcing that down, she tried to smile, it felt more like a grimace.
"It's okay. Im-" She tried to say, but her voice came out unnaturally rough. Wisconsin's face heated and she looked down, her eyes stinging with shame.
"Im fine."
Her normal hand, still held by her father's, was squeezed ever so gently. Some sign of comfort that seemed too foreign for her to understand.
It just made her feel worse.
Massachusetts had turned to America, talking in a quick, worried tone, but she couldn't follow the conversation. Every word sounded muted and fuzzy, like she was listening through a pane of glass, stuck on the other side of a wall.
Wisconsin's other hand absentmindedly went to touch the side of her face, under her ear. She stiffened from the feel of her skin. Still thin, fresh, and painful. She couldn't see it but she could picture the warped, ugly flesh, curling and twisted, feel it stretching and climbing up her body, stealing and eating and biting and burning-
None of it is real, she bit the inside of her lip and tried to tell herself. You will wake up and you will be you again.
But the air was still tinged with smoke. Her lungs ached as she felt so, so very dirty. So very wrong.
So very broken.
She inhaled sharply, snapping herself out of the trance, pulling her hand away from America's.
"Dad?" the word sounded distant, weak and barely there, impossible to hear. But the country stopped speaking with her brother and they both looked towards her. The two sets of eyes sparking with equal concern and fear.
"Are you alright?" He asked quickly, "Do you need anything?"
"I-" her throat rasped painfully, Massachusett's neck snapped back towards America,
"I can get paper, she could write. She doesnt-"
"No." Wisconsin said, hoping how ragged her voice was might hide how desperate she felt, "I just want- I want to be alone."
They stared at her.
"Please."
"Connie I don't-" someone started speaking, but she turned away, ignoring it. Biting down her frustration at it all.
"She needs time-"
"But its so-"
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Finding a more secluded room, Wisconsin curled up to the best of her ability on a couch, trying not to irritate the scars, trying to forget they were there at all.
What are you supposed to do, she wondered, when you've gone through something life changing alone? How do you pick yourself back up from ash and blood that's only you see?
It was strange being home again. It felt like decades had passed since she'd last been here. Everything from before seemed irreversibly separate from everything that was now.
But nothing had changed.
To everyone other than her, nothing was different, only a few weeks had passed. She had known that, expected that, but it was still jarring to witness.
It felt as if the earth had swallowed her whole, and no one had even seen it happen.
She wished she could go to her own bed, wrap herself in her cool, soft quilts, and lose herself in the comfort. But the idea of going upstairs was too much.
She felt exposed here, like an oddity behind bars. She tried not to look when her siblings stopped by, murmuring words of sympathy and comfort, hands held back as if afraid to damage her more. She tried to ignore the way so many of them wouldn't quite meet her eyes anymore. The stifled gasps and hidden cringing as they saw her again.
The whispers just out of earshot.
Wisconsin closed her eyes and tried not to think at all.
Her skin was burning but the fire was gone.
"It'll get better" Missouri murmured sympathetically, passing over a glass of water, "You've healed well, and you're here now. That's what's important."
The angry part of her wanted to scream at that, protest at how thoroughly unfair it all was, to voice how hollow that sounded.
But they were doing their best, being there, helping when she needed it. She couldn't complain, not when they meant no harm.
She wondered if this is how her damaged siblings felt after that terrible war. Crippled and scarred and burned like she was now. If that was the case Wisconsin felt a thousand times more sympathetic towards them, if this was even a fifth of what they had been through.
Only for her there was no comfort of it having been for a cause, for a reason. There was nothing but the agony of pointless cruelty and charred flesh. Of nature's rage as nothing but random chaos.
Wisconsin just sipped the ashy tasting water, her anger curling into itself like an iron ball in her heart, and tried not to feel ill.
She wished it could be over.