Finn was studying, yeah actually studying, when his dorm’s lights flickered on and off. Then he realized it was ‘cause of him. He was just blinking a lot. He was feeling suddenly sleepy as hell which was weird because he had like three and a half Red Bulls. Not the magical kind which gave you literal wings. He was gonna close ‘em for a hot sec. But he held his eyes closed for too long and when he opened ‘em again, Finn was someplace else.
“Shit, high school.”
He breathed out those damned words. He was in the familiar hallway of William McKinley High School, with those stupid tiny lockers and linoleum floors which always smelled like one of the jock’s sweaty gym socks.
‘The fuck am I here for?’ Finn wondered.
It was damn weird ‘cause the place was empty. ‘Did I come here on a Pro-D Day again?’ Finn checked for his watch and saw the back of his hand. ‘Oh I don’t wear a watch at all. Why’d I think I’d wear one here?’ He smirked at his own absent head and searched for the exit. If memory served Finn right, there should be a way out if he took a right. Finn walked through his empty high school, awed at how nothing changed. Same advertised school lunch. Same old water fountain the kids used to spit on the handle. Same leftover pop cans on the floor rolled to the edges of the walls. Finn turned a corner and stopped when he heard the noise for the first time he arrived to his high school.
The gymnasium’s door was open and Finn could hear cheering beyond the door. He jogged up, reached for the crack, and pulled the doors open.
“Hooooooly shit!” Finn’s own voice was swallowed by the crowd’s loud yelling. This was McKinley’s gymnasium alright, with the paper banner the student council made saying HOMECOMING. The bleachers were packed, and Finn was watching the same spectacle they were. He was totally mesmerized. Music was playing, and Finn saw some guy on stage. He had some fancy ass clothes on ‘im, like he was dressed as some kinda King, but he was too far away for Finn to see his face.
“Finn, what are you doing here?” Said Rachel, who appeared next to him.
“What the fuc-Rachel? How’ya here? You never went to McKinley!” Finn said.
“Finn, what are you talking about! We’re in the same Glee Club!” Rachel laughed and it made the horse on her sweater jiggle. Finn snapped his head up from her shirt’s design.
“Glee Club?? I never did that shit in high school,” Finn argued. His high school did have one of those lame show choir clubs, but Finn had never joined it. He would never, not even if a teacher blackmailed him into it. Finn hated Glee Club. It meant being a social fuckin’ pariah. Big ol’ Bully Me Badge.
“Oh Finn, you’re so silly! Come on, we should warm up for our duet together.” Rachel reached out to touch him and Finn pulled back, scared his empathy would flare up if they made skin contact.
“Rach, no, we can’t! Remember, I’m... not right... ‘m busted. I don’t know how’ta protect ya from me...” Finn’s murmur was lost in the crowd. Rachel looked concerned for a second until she shrugged. She was tossing her hair back. Finn thought it was really hot.
“You’re right Finn, I deserve someone much more better.” Rachel said, voicing Finn’s fears.
“Someone like me? Madam-mo-salle?” Finn heard his voice behind him and he turned around.
“Fuckin’ shit. You’re... me?” Finn was face to face with a mirror version of him ‘cept like the mirror was rich as fuck. Actually, it reminded Finn of what he saw in the House of Mirrors at the CCB Carnival a few years back. Rachel squealed and latched herself onto the mirror image’s side, burying her face into a royal red cape. Finn was jealous seeing Rachel hug the other Finn and the other Finn’s badass cape.
“Hello my royal subject, I’m you but intelligenter and gentlemanlier. I’m an intelligentleman. Finn Khristopher Hudson. The Khristopher starts with a K for Klassiness. I’m extraordinarily, exceedingly, exceptionally, egg-saladly smart and cultured and rich and good-looking and popular.”
The other Finn said. Finn narrowed his eyes in a squint ‘cause he had no fuckin’ clue what the other Finn was saying, even though it did sound really smart ‘cause of the long words.
“Other Finn, like, what, dude?” Finn vocalized and he was immediately embarrassed by how dumb he sounded in comparison. Other Finn and Rachel mockingly laughed at him in a perfect a cappella. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, the in tune laughter hurt more than regular not in tune laughter.
“Don’t you assume to convene me to be other Finn, good fellow sir, how presumingly assumingly rude of you! I’m Best Finn. Or King Finn for short.”
Finn didn’t know if King Finn was the real shorter term for Best Finn, but he didn’t argue it. Number one, Finn had gotten a D in English and number three, That guy looked like him but a million bucks richer. He probably was a million bucks richer! The crowd all cheered, yelling King Finn.
The King Finn bowed all noble-like, and his cool cape whooshed like in comic books. Rachel let go and swooned and King Finn caught her all cool like in comic books.
“Fuck, okay, sorry, dude-- uhhh, King dude?” Finn apologized.
“It’s complimentary, Peasant Finn.” King Finn smirked and clapped his gloved hands. “Loyal royal subjects! Show yourselves!”
At the sound of King Finn’s order, the gym door opened again and Finn saw his fellow NYADA classmates enter in what he remembered as the McKinley sports jerseys and outfits. Matt, Brody, Karofsky, and even Kurt! They were all dressed like Finn’s football team, the McKinley Titans, and they went by King Finn, clapping his shoulder as they flanked behind the regal lookin’ bro.
But it was the cheerleaders who caught Finn’s eyes. All the girls at NYADA, Rachel also included somehow, were dressed in the red outfits Finn remembered so well. Marley, Tina... Finn’s throat caught a breath when he saw Q in that skirt. Then it turned into a full choking on air when he saw Elliott out of all people in that skirt, wearing a full face of makeup!
“Elliott?” Finn said and Elliott batted his eyelashes. Finn completely lost his words when the next person showed up tho, it was Blaine, no makeup, wearing the same swishy skirt, showing his legs.
‘What the fuck is happening?’ Finn had to turn his head away, and sideways glanced back at the King, who was laughing as the cheerleaders all went to give him a hug. Some of the girls even gave the King a kiss on the cheek! It was like some big hugging harem. This had to be the worst fuckin’ nightmare Finn ever had and one time he dreamed the clown from It became his mom. The Red Bull done Finn in.
“Jealous, Peasant?” King Finn grinned. “I know you are. You want everyone to like you like how they adore me. You wanna be me, don’t you?”
“N-nah dude, who wants ‘ta be a fuckin’ prick like you! Why are my friends lookin’ like this? Did you set ‘em up for it? Is this an illusion? ‘Tana? Did you do something?” Finn asked Santana who wasn’t hugging King Finn. She was picking her nose.
Santana laughed and her skirt swayed. “No, I have better things to do than use my magic on someone as worthless and simpleminded as you. If I illusioned you, you would never figure it out, because you’re stupid.”
Finn bit his tongue because he knew what Santana was saying was true. The crowd was laughing along to her words, muttering the words Finn remembered from high school. Finn was nothing but a dumb jock who had nothing after he graduated. Already peaked.
“See, Peasant? You know how they all see you. You know they think you’re stupid, a dumbass, an idiot, an Amiibo. They see you as a dumb fuckboy, and you don’t know how to defend yourself from this accusation. Can’t figure out how to be smart. Can’t figure out how to not be a goddamn chore to your friends ‘cause of your dumb ass. You know that’s how they see ya, it’s right there in the way they talk to ya. Am I hitting it close, my royal subject?”
“S-shut up, dude... that ain’t fair, you don’t know me...”
“But I do, Finn Christopher Hudson with the C for Classless. You’re the Lima Loser who only got a new coat of paint. Right, Kurt, that’s how the saying goes?”
Kurt was checking his nails. “Yep, whatever.”
Finn was jealous by how easily King Finn got Kurt to agree.
“Shut up, King Dude. Shut up.”
“I know you. You say you’re over high school and you’re over being popular but that isn’t the truth at all. Mea culpa. You just didn’t feel like you deserved this crown but if you were as smart, as rich, as cultured as I am, you wouldn’t think twice about being on top. You love being on top, don’t ya, Hudson? Top dog who gets all the girls... and maybe some of the guys, heh.”
“Ok, but who hasn’t had gay thoughts?!?!”
“I know your secret, Peasant Finn. You tried so hard to keep it but you couldn’t help it, my royal subject.”
“No, it can’t be... Don’t say it!”
“You like...”
“No! No!! Fucking shut up, dude! Shut the fuck up!”
“You like Superman more than Batman! You always did! You think Batman is too edgy and honestly just a rich asshole where edgelords just dump their fantasies onto! Even if Superman is boring he’s a better hero than Batman!”
“NO! NO! YOU’RE NOT ME!! Batman is cooler because of the dark angst and shitty revenge plots!”
“Yea I am you! I’m the you that you wanna be!”
Finn was shocked by the grip on his collar. King Finn had grabbed him with both hands, and the crown slipped off his head and landed on the floor. It rolled with a loud metallic ringing noise. Suddenly they were the only two in the gymnasium.
“You want your friends to treat you with basic respect.” King Finn was chuckling, shaking Finn violently.
Finn gritted his teeth. “No! You’re not me! That’s not true!”
“You don’t wanna feel shamed for not knowing things. For not getting it like the rest. For being slow.”
Finn’s own hands struggled to push the royal off of his neck.
“Shut up!”
“You know if you were better like me, you would be treated better. No one treats a poor dumb person nice. Not even yourself. Not even me.”
“Fuck off!” Finn finally shoved King Finn off of him. Finn rebalanced on his feet and headed out for the gym door. King Finn landed on his ass and laughed.
“Yea dude, fuckin’ run off. S’what you do all the time, right? If you get in too deep, then you gotta analyze shit, and you know, you fuckin’ know you don’t got any talent for that. S’why you fuckin’ fail as an empath.”
Finn slammed the gym door behind him, and the loud sound rang in his ears, causing Finn to lean back and fall off his chair.
“Shit!” Finn hissed and opened his sleepy eyes. He was back at his room in NYADA.
‘What the fuck?’ Finn thought and grabbed his sore head and back. ‘What a weird ass dream...’ Finn shook it off just as his phone buzzed a new text. It was from Blaine and he was asking for help. Something was wrong with Kurt.
and those little things define us forever || self-para
Who: Rachel Berry & Shadow!Rachel Corcoran
Where: Rachel’s mind?? But also Tinchel’s room.
When: October 24, 2018
What: Rachel confronts her new and improved shadow self and, as always, literally runs away from her problems.
Warnings: None! Slight anti-New Age sentiment but nothing bad.
Rachel suddenly found herself in the lobby of Asterismos, Inc. It was quiet. She couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic outside. There wasn’t anyone sitting at the reception desk, no one walking around. All Rachel could hear were the tap-tap-tap of her heels on the marble flooring as she walked around. She tried to open the doors that led outside. She didn’t want to be here. There was something heavy, eerie about the atmosphere. But no matter how hard she pushed against the doors, no natter how many fireballs she sent towards them, they wouldn’t budge. Something was pulling her more in towards the building.
She had no idea how she got there. The last she remembered she was at NYADA. However, something was telling her to go forward, to go up to the penthouse of the building. Her grandparents’ office, where she’d first met them the day of the museum tour. She took the elevator up and called out to see if there was anyone. Still no answer. She noticed the door to Caroline’s office was closed, but there was light peeking out through the cracks. That meant someone was in there. Finally, another person who could help explain why Asterismos was so quiet.
Rachel pushed open the door and saw someone sitting in Caroline’s chair, though the back was facing her. Rachel let out a relieved sigh. “Bubbe, thank aether you’re here. Where is everyone? What’s going on here?” she asked.
The chair swivelled around, and Rachel gasped when she saw it wasn’t her grandmother. No. It was herself, dressed in an elaborate, expensive looking dress, a tiara made of stars placed atop her head. It was her, but again, not really her.
“You’re…” Rachel started.
“Your other self, yes,” the other Rachel said with a smirk. “Long time no see, sister. Things have changed quite a bit, haven’t they?” she added, gesturing to the room around her.
Rachel bit her lip. “I-I guess. I don’t understand. Why are you here?” she asked.
“I’ve always been here, Rach. I haven’t gone away. I’ve just changed because, well. You’ve changed,” the other Rachel said.
Rachel took a deep breath to steady her mind. “I-I haven’t changed that much. Sure it feels like it but… I’m not really that different.”
“That isn’t what you’ve been saying to all your friends, though, is it? Ever since the day at the museum, the day you came here for the first time, all you’ve been whining about is how you feel that everything’s changed because you found out this little secret. You know and I know the truth though, right Rach? You like the attention all this put on you. Everyone worrying about you, fawning over you,” the other girl told her.
Rachel shook her head. “No, no. That is not true. This has done nothing but complicate things. Finn barely talks to me. Things between my dads and I are… so tense. Tina got so angry with me at the duel… Nothing is as it should be.”
The other Rachel waved her hand and stood up to pace in front of the desk. “You’re the one who drove the wedge between you and them. It’s not just the situation. And anyways, what do you need the New Ages for? You have your real family now. Hiram and Leroy have done their part.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “How could you say that? They raised me… us. They’ve done so much for us. You can’t just cast them aside like that. Same with Finn and Tina.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing, though, Rachie? You started distancing yourself from them the minute you thought you were a Bloodline. You always talk a great deal about how you don’t want to be a Bloodline that thinks they’re better than everyone else, but you know it’s who you are. And you secretly love it,” she told her.
Rachel shook her head again. The other Rachel may look different, but she was still saying the same hateful things she was saying last year. Rachel didn’t want them to be true, but she had to admit that they were. At least on some level. She didn’t see herself as better than anyone (other than in singing, naturally), and she definitely could never be as dismissive of her dads as this other Rachel was being but… she could see herself getting there. Someday. Not that she wanted that.
“What? Cat got your tongue, Rachie? You know this is what you want,” the other Rachel said, gesturing to herself. “You want to be the Corcoran princess everyone fawns over, the princess of Bloodline society. You want everyone to adore you, you want everyone to do as you want them to, to do your bidding. It’s okay. It’s completely natural. You just have to admit it to yourself and let yourself get there. You’re already friends with Hunter and Sebastian and Blaine. Just follow their lead and you can be like me. Just forget about the Berrys and those other New Ages.”
Rachel glared. “No. The last thing I want to be is cruel like you, to be so dismissive of the people who I love and who love me. I could never be you,” she said, though her voice wavered slightly. She knew, if she wasn’t careful, that she could turn out like this Rachel in front of her. And it was appealing. Some of it. But she didn’t think she could ever set aside her friends and family. Her real family. “I’m leaving. I don’t have to listen to this,” she said, turning to go back to the elevator.
The other Rachel let out a low laugh. “That’s your prerogative. But nothing much has changed since we last saw each other, Rachel. And you can’t ever get rid of me, because despite all of this, you still aren’t strong enough to defeat me. If you were then I’d actually believe you when you say you don’t want to be like me. But until then, you’re just deluding yourself, princess.”
Rachel hesitated, debating fighting back for a second. Actually fighting back. Then she could be rid of her, this voice in her head telling her to be the type of Bloodline she spent years of her life loathing. But she knew she couldn’t. She’d lived with this voice for aether knows how long. Even if she didn’t want to become this Rachel, she still needed her, a fact that Rachel hated.
Instead, she just ignored her and made for the elevator before the other Rachel could say anything else. Luckily this time the previously locked doors yielded with no issue.
Rachel did what she’d been doing with this part of herself for the past year and a half: she shoved her shadow self back in her room and pretended she wasn’t there. Hopefully that would be enough to hold her off forever.
Who: Santana
Location: Santana’s mind, Sciron Square 207
Time: 24 October 2018
Summary: Santana sleeps next to Quinn and something UNEXPECTED happens no one knew this was going to happend guys no one.
Triggers/Notes: Ok GUYS there are so parts in spanish so hover for the translation. Thanks to @gotmattitude for checking it’s proper mexican sounding spanish instead of spain sounding spanish bless u. TW: Violence, blood, dead, animal harm, dead animal
Santana has always been the Mistress of her own dreams. The Goddess of Lucid Dreams. She has her ways of knowing what’s a dream and what’s not. She just checked the time and battery of her phone and it’s not there. She illusions a book and checks the writing shifts around the page, blurry around the corners.
A dream she can’t control, shaped like a dream.
“Queenie, I’m trapped on a trickster deal. I can’t hear you or anything. Make me a favor and try to not let me go out of my room.” She says out loud, looking at a discolored door of an old red car in front of her. She assumed if she tried to open the door of the car, she would just get out of her room and do weird shit in front of people. She looks where the car is headed upon, a huge downhill, like a huge ass slide for cars who finished on a sea of spikes. But above the sea of spikes there was a giant ring of blue fire, and then a huge open door written EXIT HERE above. So you are trying to tell me that for ‘exiting’ I have to get in the car, go super fast for the slide so it jumps through the circle of fire and gets in the door. God damn it that’s so fucking extra. Who designed this bullshit. Like, she loved it as much as she knew it was super over the top, but she wasn’t going to fall for that crap.
She looked around, searching for clues or the style of the illusion, to know who did this. At first glance it looked like a dump full of...things. But it wasn’t garbage. It was just disorganized illusions. An illusion dump. She could recognize most of those things where stuff she illusioned. There was a lot of blue fire around, spears and other weapons. The scene was a mix of her past illusions too, overlapping on each other, sky included, being day or night or completely white in some parts. There was no people, animals or monster around. Geez, I know deals can leave something to the imagination of the creator, but this is too much, too specifically me. I can see shit from before NYADA that anyone who wasn’t my ‘family’ won’t know, and shit from NYADA my ‘family’ couldn’t possibly know with so many detail. Maybe they reached High Level Trickster power. God I bet it’s Darling. Darling, also know as her ‘mom’, just got her fucking Hamlet book. She probably was mendling in her life over that. God, what if the Hamlet book had the keys to do this level on illusion but I didn’t read that part yet because I was reading the other parts? That book had a lot on info on it, but she wanted even more information on it before reading it all. And now, she didn’t have access to it. What if the exit is actually the exit but Darling knew I wouldn’t go for such an obvious exit? what if THAT’S WHAT SHE WANTS ME TO THINK? Oh, maybe it’s a Darling and Zombie collab. Then it should be a solvable puzzle.
“Nah, fuck it. I’m just going to lay in the floor and binge watch illusion Xena while waiting 24 hours until this pass.” She said out loud for Quinn to hear, and lied on the floor, carefully, and illusioned a TV floating in the air, for her to see.
Many episode later, Santana stands up. “What the fuck? Where am I? Why am I watching Xena?” She groans. She saw the clear exit trap and ignored it, trying to search in illusion world, walking far away from the car. “Geez there is so much garbage in here” She says, kicking some huge chainsaw (the part that doesn’t cut, obviously). She keeps on walking until she ends up seeing a wishing well. She doesn’t remember illusioning this particular wishing well, so she runs too look at it. She looks down the well, in search of clues in the bottom of it. There is something that looks like the corpse of a woman. “Ew.” Santana said. “What the fuck. Creepy.” She keep looking, though. There was what looked like if you skinned a human alive and left it there like a fucked up costume. When she tried to look what the other things in there were, the corpse started to move. Crawling through the well. As Santana stepped down searching for a weapon, the corpse was already out the well. Long black hair, a weird decorated knife stuck on a side of her abdomen, full of blood. “¡Hola, Capi Tana!The corpse says, cheerfully, taking the knife out and throwing it away. “Ya tiene mucho tiempo que ni me llamas ni nada.” She says, fake pouting. Santana recognized the woman in front of her. Someone she didn’t see on a long time.
“Fuck. Elise.”
“But also fuck Elise ¿no?” Elise said, playfully winking. “Pero ya sabes, cogiendo. Sin stabity stab.”
Santana sighs. This wasn’t real, so whatever. “Geez, are you trying to teach me a lesson?”
“Why are you talking in english? El español se siente más personal.” Elise said, no blood on her anymore. “Oooh, es precisamente por eso.” Elise realizes. “¿Y cómo que Elise? ¿Qué pasa con tus millones de apodos?”
Santana sits on the well, looking down again. Maybe if she threw more things on it, it would be full. Then her wish comes true, right? Was that how wishing wells worked? She keeps thinking, touching her hair, straight and long. Wait, shouldn’t be an afro? I don’t have my hair like this anymore. “Elise am I looking like I always look to you?”
“Igualita.” It shouldn’t be like this. She should look different to Elise, right? She just took that stupid human potion like last week. Last week? Or months ago? Santana walks away from the well, stepping over guns and big lamps and cars and catapults. Elise follows her.
“I wasn’t planning to kill you.” She said, while walking. Not even looking at Elise’s direction.
“No. Teníamos un plan buenísimo para tu quedarte con uno de mis riñones sin matarme. En plan, me apuñalas, lo tomas, haces tu ritual y ¡boom! Adiós problemas. Ya eres humana. ”
“Alright. It was a shit plan! It would had probably kill you. But I was hoping it didn’t!!” She admits. She didn’t like to even think about this. But it was time. “Like, I was hoping as you trusted me, and I kind-of-trusted you, that in the moment I tried to stab you it’s like, test passed!! A light will appear and I will become human, no actual stabbing necessary you know? A la binding of Isaac.” She didn’t like to think about this because she knew it was fucking ridiculous. “But then I was like...well. You know, I thought you were a slayer, you said some...really weird shit suddenly and…” She steps on a big box that she doesn’t recognize. She opens it to find some nice decorated knives. “Alright, to be honest, deep down, I was hoping me freaking out and blowing the whole thing was the tiny part of me who… didn’t want to hurt you, in case I wasn’t stopped by magic, I rather stop myself and lie to myself too saying it was because I got paranoid.” She looked at the knives in the box, some knives had so many decorations, even in the blade, it would be super hard to cut anything with them. Like they had pins, if knives could have pins. She will have to cut the decorations on it too and it didn’t seem easy. She picked the most decorated ones, one raspberry pink, gentleman-thief like knife,with handcuffs, letters, hearts, and a lot of more shit Santana didn’t stop to look, and another porpoise grey shadow push knife, with handshakes, socks, and more shit. She didn’t usually like grey, but she liked this specific grey.
“But that’s not what really happened.” She left the decorated knives in the box, and picket other, merigold yellow handle, simple. No decorations, just a cat draw in the blade, but as soon as she picks it up, it turns into ashes. What a shame, it was a decent knife. It had to be sharpened more but it looked like it could be used. Gone. Unused. “I didn’t stop myself. Someone else stopped me. Someone called the Cardines. Someone… God. Someone made me...ugh” No. she wasn’t going to say it. She was just looking at knives now. She picks a dark plum purple with a gothic handle, and one light blue and taffy pink that opened like a lipstick, with a heel shoe in the blade. Both broken by the handle. Useless. But there is a simple one, with a little full moon carved on the blade, and a wolf on the end of the handle. Sharpened. Usable. She was going to carry this one. She sees there is a gap for a knife that isn’t there anymore. “Elise, was this your kni- oh FUCK!” She turns around but Elise isn’t there anymore. There is that old bastard man with his sunglasses on. “Ugh. ‘Dad’. Where is Elis-where is the… there was a girl here before.”
“Estamos aquí solos, Niebla, no tienes que hablar en inglés.” Her ‘dad’ says, with his annoying grin like he is planning something, and everything goes as he plans. She know it’s fake.
“Look, dad, I’m almost going to be an adult soon and I’m going to do whatever the fuck I wa- wait, no. I’m an adult.” She wasn’t 17. She was older. But she looks 17. “Fuck. I’m older than 17 and I’m still a fucking animal. I just have 3 years left. No, I have more years.” More years suffering. She stands up, confused at where the fuck she is. There is full of things that feels familiar but she just feels in the middle of nowhere. She runs. Somewhere.
“¿Dónde vas?” Her ‘dad’ asks, and she can hear him walking slowly behind her. She wasn’t going to wait for him.
“I’m fucking going backwards in the middle of nowhere. Fuck!”
“You never did a good thing in your life, and the world would be a better place without you.”
She steps on something and falls, she hears the sound of a recorded voice and tries to find where it comes from. She stands up and walk around, but she just hears more voices instead.
“You think everything is funny, and you answer me with irony just because you don't have anything real to say. I believed in you, I thought you were really trying to change things around.”
“Oh, shut up. Where does this come from?”
“I wouldn't have to fight you. I already know that I've won the most important part of living. And if you don't know what it is, well -- it shows.” Another voice. “You created the situation that caused you to be the victim!” She knew all of these different voices. “Who is doing this? Ugh, it doesn’t matter, I don’t give a single shit of what anyone dares to say about me!”“Do you feel that way too? Do you think you are just some kind of animal?”
But the recorded voices continued. “If you are what you are, and you are a trickster spirit, why do you never present as an animal? You are one, aren’t you. An animal.”
“You’re lucky some even refer to you as people, instead of Lusus.” She was getting annoyed. “But one day you´re going to realize that you´ll need friends by your side to back you up, and it´ll be sad when you turn around and realize there´s no one there.” She hears slow footsteps behind, clashing with the sound of stepping over metal. “I know what your most afraid of is never getting to be a real life girl ain’t it? Spoiler alert: You won’t. Ever.”
His ‘father’ gets closer to her, laughing. “Ugh, you’re the worst!” Santana says, pointing at him with her knife.
“You're seriously the worst trickster ever. Any trickster who scorns their birth is owned by humans. Go away, nothing.”
“I can’t be the worst if you are.” Her ‘dad’ answers.
“Your life is a series of seemingly unconnected episodes of deception for deception’s sake. In the end, your existence will be of no consequence.” Santana keeps searching where the record comes from. “I’m done bothering to try explaining anything to you.”She localizes the place where she hears it best. “It is not my fault that you got caught by the Cardines, Santana. Maybe the fact that you got caught means that you aren't as good as you think you are and do need to be here.” It’s buried behind a lot of illusory crap. Mostly weapons. “I don’t call you by your animal species, do I?” She starts to unbury and search. “Humans are capable of remorse. Do you feel remorse, Santana?” Her dad keeps laughing. “Remorse, you?” Like it was the funniest joke. “Evil for the sake of being evil. That's how I see a real monster to be.” A monster isn’t so bad, then. “You can sit there, and talk a big game about how my relationship is fake and all my friends are gone, and my parents don’t love me, but at the end of the day, Santana, I have my fake girlfriend and my cryptic parents and my fake friends, and you have nothing, and no one. Because you can’t. Ever. Not really. Not like the rest of us.” She keeps caving. “You’re following illogical sense. A fire witch isn’t a chimney. Just like your human form isn’t really a human body.” She sees an old tape recorder. “You are so full of shit. I find it funny that you are trying to be sarcastic with me right now when I'm actually one of the few who actually is trying to understand you around here.” She picks it up. “We wouldn't have been faced with the obligation to kick someone out if you hadn't acted the way you did.” And throws it to the ground. She steps on it, again and again.
“I'm sorry, Santana, but either way, you are still you, that's not gonna chang-” It’s the last thing the tape recorder says before being completely broken. She is satisfied. “I’m not even going to think about this ever again.” She says, while burying the old broken tape recorder back, putting even more things she founds around on top of it. But as she tries to bury something, she is getting things that weren’t on surface before. She isn’t looking what she picks, and sees she has in hand a dead rabbit. She throws it to the ground. It looks like a car hit it. “Ew ew ew ew” She complains, trying to clean her hands on her ‘dad’ shirt. “¡Mira!” Her dad laughs ”El conejo muerto que nos encontramos un día en la carretera y te dije, te dijee... que así estaríamos cuando nos muramos. Un animal muerto más, la gente nos mirará un segundo con cara de pena y luego seguirán con sus vidas sin volver a pensar en nosotros.” He says, like remembering a fond ‘father-daughter’ moment.
“Yeah, one of your depressive days when you don’t stop saying sad bullshit.” Where he complains about everything that also affects them all. She picks some joke t-shirt she founds on and hides the death rabbit with it. She tried to hide it with more things, but she will just find more creepy shit she didn’t want to find. So she just left the place, walking away, not knowing where she is going. She hears the sound of recorded voices.
“-the mighty and proud Santana Lopez.”
“Ugh, again?” She gets close to where the sounds come from, to destroy it too.
“I talk to you about shit because I want to. You’re a good friend, y'know” A voice she knows says.
“However what I've learned from all of our adventures, discussions, and friendship together is that when it comes to something important and serious, we have each other's backs and each other's stories.” She is getting closer. “You’re nice too, hah. Very surprisingly. More than that I guess if I had to be forced to compliment you by some sort of curse, I like that you’re real.” This one is not in the surface either. “Suffice it to say I know you care more than you let on. About us, about me. Don't go.” She tries to unbury it. “I have time for the people that matter.” She hears footsteps behind, over the sound of the recorder. “Santana you are a cool friend.” She keeps unburying. “I thought that mirror monster was beautiful and honest.” It’s buried deeper down than the other. “You aren't a condition that needs fixing. You've already proven to be fiercely loyal and a keeper of secrets without the aura potion. You’re super sweet when you’re nice, anyway. And same on the mutual respect thing. You’re my trusted friend.” She notices those phrases weren’t said at the same time, even when it was by the same person. But the order didn’t matter. “What do I think you are? You are my friend, and I love you and I care about you. There are things I'm afraid of, there are things that affect me more than others, but that's not a judgment towards you. Those are things I have to work out myself.” She is getting closer. “You challenge me, which I appreciate.” She sees the recorder. “They care about you, too. We might not die, but we'll be sad. We'll miss you. More so if you go off and get yourself killed.” She keeps staring at it, in silence. “We can be so much more than that. We shouldn't have to be just ‘monsters’ or not even that just a label that they want to put on us.” She takes the recorder with her. “Thanks for this, inviting me over. Not being weird. I've missed you.” Still knife in hand. “She told me that she thought I was always thoughtful, even though I thought you were a monster. Santana, I don't believe that you are anymore. You've shown me there is more to you than tricks and illusions.” She gets out of the hole where the recorder was buried in. “However I don't want to leave you behind if that's what turning my back means.”
She throws it to the ground. And stabs it with the kife. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up!” She shouts, crying, still stabbing the recorder. “Shut up! This just makes me feel worse! Shut up! I would leave everyone of you behind. I’m just tricks and illusions. I was using you! Monster is the highest status I can fucking reach!” She keeps stabbing the recorder even when it stopped working already. “No one will miss me. Shut up! I thought I wanted this, but the more they care, the more far away I fucking feel. The closer they are, the easiest is to notice there is nothing here.” She grabs her own tshirt and keeps crying. “I fucking hate it... I can’t… I can’t pretend anymore to be a person. People are telling me they care about me? And I fucking feel so empty when they do.” Someone sits next to her.
“¿Que hay debajo de toda esta basura, niña?” Her mom asks.
“Nothing! There’s nothing!” She feels so little. She looks up to her mom and she is not even going to use the quotation marks. “Mom, help me! When is this over? When do I start enjoying life?”
“¿Por qué estás aqui?”
“I don’t need a fucking reason to be here, in the world! What? I don’t have to contribute ANYTHING to a world that only give me pain! Fucking answer me! I’m just like 10 and I’m already so fucking tired of everything” No. She is not 10. She looks like a 10 year old but she is 24. “No, no, no, fuck. 14 years more of this? When am I going to become human, mom? Mom, please, I just want to enjoy life and I can’t as a trickster!”
“¿Tienes miedo? ¿De que tampoco podrás como humana?” Her mom asks. Santana blinks and she is alone again. She keeps crying. “It’s ok, it’s ok. Soon I will be human and happy.” She never was, but she could be. Right? “And I will connect with my friends for real, and I will care for real. I will be real.” She stands up, and walks alone, trying to remember the way back to where she was at the start. She is going back in age too. She is getting younger and younger. “Oh, no.” She will reach the moment when she couldn’t even turn into a human. She sees herself as the unglamoured kid, hidding her monstrous features under gloves, coats, hat and sunglasses. “No no no no.” She runs, she runs until she sees the red car. “I can’t end as I started! Without accomplishing anything!” She stops running when she reaches the car, she tries to open the door. It’s locked. “I don’t want to die as an animal! What was all the effort I did for? Nothing?” She keeps crying, desperately trying to open the door. If she was older, she could had open it. She knew how to unlock cars locks when she was older. She didn’t knew it now. “No! Help me!” The little girl uses the knife in her hand to try to open the car, as if stabbing the lock would work.
Tagging: Sam Evans, Shadow!Sam, appearances by everyone in Sam’s head
When: October 24, 2018, evening
Where: Manhattan Bus, Sam’s mind
What: Sam falls asleep and ends up in a place in his mind he never thought he would see.
General Notes: Mentions of Brownstone, the Lamias
The crisp ocean breeze was sharp against his nose and skin, the saltiness of the rushing waves filling his tastebuds even if he couldn’t actually taste the water beneath him. He was sitting in a rowboat, using an oar to move, even though he didn’t know what his destination was. Somehow, Sam found himself in the middle of the ocean, with nothing to guide him. His phone wasn’t present and even though the necklace was on him, he couldn’t use it for some reason to summon for help.
It was as though he was in some sort of dreamworld that he couldn’t escape from. Only the oar guided him through the currents. The clouds above him were different shapes, some appearing to have holes where eyes would be. They sent a shiver down his spine as he looked around, trying to find a sign of land anywhere.
What he did see, though, were clouds shaped like doors. It was an odd sight and despite the unsettling feeling he got whenever he saw doors still, he felt like they were beckoning him to come closer. He used the oar to swim to the closest one. Interestingly enough, while the clouds themselves were pure white, the rectangular portion where the doors were had different colors attached.
The first one he saw was actually white and when he put his hand on the knob, it turned easily. Opening it, he stepped inside the door, able to step onto the fluffy cloud and peer inside. He could see his family around the dinner table, all of them. But when he tried to call out to them, it was like they didn’t see him. But they were all smiling.
Seeing this was like a jolt, wondering if this was even possible. If this was just what he wanted and couldn’t have. Or thought he couldn’t have. It left him feeling peculiar so he walked back out into the rowboat. He paddled to the next door, which was orange. This door opened just a little bit easier and he could see inside. He recognized the walkways of campus, the Great Tree brimming with life. It felt safe being here.
His curiosity shifted to the other doors, wondering what he would find. He stepped out and rowed to the third door, bright yellow and a little harder to open than the last one. When he opened it, he saw the stage at Florence Farr. He recognized the figures, all in different groups. Tina, Quinn, Kurt, Kitty, and Santana on one side. Elliott, Blaine, Matt, Brody, and Ryder on another side. In the center, he could see Hunter, Rachel, Dani, and Marley. Towards the back, he could see Sebastian, Jesse, and Karofsky. He wondered why they were grouped like this, what it meant.
“Guys? Hello? Can you hear me?”
They didn’t look at him, although Dani did look down at her necklace. He touched his, but didn’t say anything. He turned away, feeling even more unsettled. What was happening?
When he got to the fourth door, a shiver went down his spine and he felt cold all of a sudden. The red door was foreboding, like a room that said do not enter. But he had to, to see what it was, and he felt like he knew. He tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge and he eventually got it open. He was sickened to find the room resembled the larder room, right down to the expired food. Except instead of seeing them the way they looked in that moment, he could see the people they had been, before the damage done by Fuchs, by him.
They looked at him, as though they knew he was there, and he couldn’t take his eyes off them. Things said by those who wanted him to face it, to see deep down what he had done, ran across his mind, and he didn’t want to leave. But it was stifling and he wondered if he could get them out.
“Come with me. I’ll get you out this time. I will.” He said, but they just looked at him. How could he go?
“We can’t. Not until you accept it.” One of them spoke, like she knew he was there.
It was a moment that jarred him and he reluctantly stepped out, but when he tried to look back, the door slammed shut.
Now he was reluctant to open the next door, a blue one, not knowing what to expect. The door was even harder to open, he had to push hard against it until it slowly opened to reveal different pieces of paper strewn across the floor. They all said the same thing.
‘Job application denied.’
‘Reason for denial: Brownstone.’
‘Job denied.’
His heart fell in the pit of his stomach and he knew he had one more room to go. This door was black and this time, it was locked. But he could hear someone calling to him, a voice that sounded familiar. How to get it open? He looked down at the lock and wondered if he could his magic circle. It actually worked and he muttered, “Water pass through the lock, let me find my way inside.”
The stream of water flowed through the hole and he heard the telltale click. When he went inside, he could see himself on the beach. He was sitting on a chair and while it appeared to be hot, the Sam he saw was dressed up, wearing nice suit pants and a long sleeved button up. Almost like clothes that Kurt would have suggested for him.
“Well, well, well, you finally showed up. Took you long enough to get here.” The other Sam said, just giving him a raised brow.
“Where is here?” Sam asked, looking around.
“Oh this? Your own thoughts. Your desires. The things that haunt you, what you need to accept. It’s a lot, I know. But we can go through it all if you want to.”
Sam looked around, “Can’t we just get out of here?”
The Other Sam looked at him with disappointment. “Really? You finally come to pay me a visit and you want to leave? Why don’t you like me? Didn’t you see what was in your head? All of those feelings inside you just waiting for you to finally notice them.”
Sam shook his head, “It’s not like that…they’re still trapped. We have to get them out. They shouldn’t be trapped anymore.”
The Other Sam looked at him in wonder. “But they are. Why don’t you like me?”
Sam looked away. “No, but they shouldn’t be there. They should be-“
“Free? Just like they should have been. You could have saved them. You had healing magic. Everything you needed. But you didn’t. Oh, is that why you don’t like me? I didn’t help? I knew it!”
Sam closed his eyes and shuddered. “So why are they stuck?”
“You tell me, Sam. Come on. Use that brain of yours. I know you have one, you just need to use it. You’re so caught up on trying to do good, but are you seeing what you need to see?”
Sam looked at himself, wondering what he was supposed to be. Who was he supposed to be?
“I haven’t accepted it.” Sam said and The Other Sam did a slow clap.
“Bravo. But what haven’t you accepted?”
“That I’m a killer.” Sam said.
The Other Sam snapped his fingers and looked wounded. “Oh so close! This is why they don’t like us, why can’t they like us? It’s part of you now, and we both know you will be smarter, you won’t do anything like that again, but you have trouble facing it. Tell me why.”
Sam looked down at his feet, where the water was crashing against them, just barely keeping him afloat. “Because then I have to see the parts of me I didn’t see. The way I grew up, being sheltered, not seeing them for who they were. It’s a lot to deal with.”
“But you have to deal with it. You can do all you can to be a better person, but remember, it’s not about the recognition. And that’s what we want, right? We want them to like us! We want to be noticed, for people to see that you are trying to do better. But are you trying? Are you trying with the right people?”
Sam took a deep breath and just stared at his Other Self. “Like who?”
“Tina. You messed up big time there. Why doesn’t she like us?” Sam looked down mournfully, almost pouting and Sam scoffed.
“She’s the one who stopped talking to me.”
The Other Sam rolled his eyes. “Here we go again, pinning the blame elsewhere. She did this, she did that. But did she really? Or did you just take her silence as a means of her not wanting anything to do with you? Sure, she said it later. But you didn’t make any effort to try earlier. You just fell into a pit of despair, thinking every single person hated you. We just want them to like us! Oh, I wish they would be our friend again. How can we know for sure now?”
Sam shook his head, looking at himself. “This. No. It’s not…it’s not about that.” He refused to listen to this but when he looked around, he found he couldn’t escape.
“Yeah, right. All those times you pleaded with people to listen? For them to hear you? How did that song go? Oh yes. “I need you to see I’m screaming for you to please hear me.”
Sam glared at his Other Self. “That’s not…that song is not me. It shouldn’t be me.”
“But you want them to listen? To like you again. It’s okay to admit it. Why don’t you listen to me? Hear me!”
Sam just wanted a way out at this point, to not listen to this. “It doesn’t matter. I did a horrible thing. They won’t see me the way they did before again. We both know that.”
“We do. But it doesn’t change the fact that you want them to. You want everyone to see you as that guy again.” Other Sam looked around, a pleading look on his face. “How can we make them like us again? Why do I keep trying if they don’t like me?”
Sam thought about what he was hearing. He knew deep down he was right. When he would plead with people to hear him, to know he never wanted to be that person, he was trying to get them to see him again. But that was before, wasn’t it? He wasn’t doing that now. Or was he?
“I didn’t want to be alone.”
The Other Sam snickered, “Whose fault was that? You could have went to them a lot earlier, talked to them, tried to do better by them. But you made so many mistakes, how are you going to even look sincere now? How will they like us now?”
Sam ran his hands across his face, sighing to himself, looking at his clothes. He wondered what they meant, if he was wearing something that looked like it was a suggestion from someone else. That he was so desperate to be noticed he wore what someone else suggested.
“Nothing I do works anyway. Even if I do things myself, no one believes it.”
Other Sam shook his head, making a tsk sound as he spoke. “But one person did. One person said they were glad you did things yourself. And does he like you?”
Sam shook his head, “I’m not…I don’t think so, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Or does it? Come on, Sammy, he said he was actually glad you did things yourself. Is his approval as important as those who aren’t hearing you? I know you wish he liked you.”
Sam blurted out, “Yes, I do, but he’s already told me how he felt. I know he-“
He took a deep breath, looking down at the water flowing at his knees now. He could still stand, but at what cost?
“So what am I supposed to do? Admit it? Be the person who wants to just be liked? I don’t. I want to make things right.” He looked at himself, trying to understand what was going on.
Other Sam quirked an eyebrow and pursed his lips. “And how will you do that?”
Sam looked down at the water, taking in what he was saying. He felt like he always had to tell the others what his plans were. To get them to listen. To believe him. But that wasn’t how it worked, was it?
“By not expecting anything from them.”
“That’s right Sammy boy. You can do what you’re doing, but you have to do more. Did we seek approval when we did the post about the collars? No? But you still want it, don’t you?”
Sam sighed, looking down at the water at his stomach before looking at the Other Self again. “Just because I accept what you’re saying doesn’t mean I’m going to act like that. It’s not what they deserve.”
“And just who is they?” Other Sam folded his arms.
Sam looked to the left, where the fourth cloud was, the door he couldn’t free. “How do I set them free? They can’t be stuck there anymore.”
Other Sam looked at where he was looking. “They will be free when you move on. Stop living in the past. Let them be at peace.”
Sam took a shaky breath before gazing at himself. “I don’t want to be like you.”
“But I am you. It’s up to you how to deal with me.” Other Sam said before sitting down on the chair. “You can go now.”
Sam looked behind himself to see the door was open, leaving sunlight to pour in, the reflection hitting the ocean surface of his mind. He just wanted to go home. He took the first step.
When his eyes opened, he found himself sprawled on the back of the bus. It was now nighttime. The bus had stopped moving and it looked like the driver had no idea he had been there. Stepping off the bus, he looked down at his watch and realized how late it was. He’d have to either summon Dani or walk back.
Walking back it was, even if it took a couple hours. He had no idea how to explain to Dani why he was out so late. And his dream left him rattled enough that maybe a walk would help him think about it more.
[ This really isn´t the best time to be going to class. Fucked up things were happening left and right and yet people still insisted they´d go about theirs days just like nothing had happened.
Dani sighs as she grabs her bag and stuffs her notes inside. She´ll still make it on time if she leaves now, even if everything inside her is screaming to just make a run for it. It´s not a feeling she´s had in a while and it´s a little…unsettling. She doesn´t really want to leave anyone behind. She´s come to care for these people and she´s not fighting this fight alone.
Not anymore.
And yet…
She sighs once more, swings the bag over her shoulder and moves towards the door, catching a quick glimpse of herself in the mirror.
She stops dead in her tracks.
“What…?”
Dani´s sure she´s opted for the blonde, shoulder length hair today. And the blue jeans with a white shirt.
But the glimpse of the reflections that seems to be staring back at her from the mirror doesn´t look like that at all.
Long, pink hair. Boots with black pants and her favorite leather jacket.
A grin.
Dani blinks and feels her heart miss a beat.
When she catches her reflection in the mirror again she´s the same she´s been before. She lifts her hand, touching her face and slowly wrapping a hand around a blond streak of her hair.
“Maybe I`m going insane…” she whispers as she shakes her head and heads for the door. ]
WHO: Matt Rutherford, with an appearance by Auntie Dame, and someone else.
WHAT: Matt falls asleep while on the phone and wakes up to the weirdest dream he’s ever had. (1/3)
WHEN: October 24th.
WHERE: Matt’s mind. Also Sciron.
WARNINGS: None yet.
“Ah, fuck.”
“What happened?” Auntie’s voice asked him on the phone.
“Nothing, spilled some anointing oil. Gotta get a funnel to refill my bottles. But, uh-- yeah. You were saying? About--about the house? Going alright?”
There was a deep sigh, followed by what Matt recognized as a moment of recollection, and he paused in his sorting of components. “We’re thinking about downsizing--keeping Aveline’s as... as a place for magic. There’s been pushback lately. About housing Commons downstairs. It used to be--it used to be that we could move on despite the rumors but...”
His chest sank, and took a seat at his desk, a strange tiredness pushing down at his bones. “But?”
“But things change. And we have to adapt to the new reality.”
“Hm,” he said, unsure, and he opened his mouth to say something, but a yawn pulled his jaw open wider, and his body started to sag against the chair.
“You sound tired.”
“No, ‘m fine,” he started to say, words slurring as his eyelids drooped, head growing heavy. He shouldn’t be this tired, and he shakes his head to remain alert; the last time he’d felt like this, he’d been controlled by a necromancer and used to attack people. “Y’should--Not ‘vry--” his voice faded off into mumbled nonsense, and even as he fought to stop it, he nodded off.
When he started back up, he went to tell Auntie see, I’m fine, I’m totally awake, but closed his fist around nothing. His phone was gone. With a sharp intake of breath and a jerk of his head upwards that something told him, Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. Matt was sitting on hard concrete, shadowed by a large structure looming over him, which he vaguely recognized in his hazy awareness. How did he get to the city? Was this a dream? There was a quiet, sweeping noise in the background, as if someone was rhythmically raising and lowering the volume on a white noise machine. Maybe he just wasn’t awake. Pushing himself up to stand, he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned, there wasn’t anything there; nothing but stray pieces of paper littered along the floor, anyway.
One of them caught his eye, and he picked it up. It was formatted like a flyer of some kind, maybe a missing pet poster, but the contents were sort of bizarre, in context. It was an essay he’d bullshitted his way throughout, hating every aetherdamn second. He crumpled it up. Just before he could finish closing his fist, a small dark blurr rushed up his side, and picked up the piece of paper in what Matt could only conceptualize as its mouth. It skittered downwards, sending an odd tingle through his body, before climbing on the fucking wall, and disappearing... towards light? He didn’t notice there was light.
Scratching the back of his neck, he followed the path of the creature.
It was, indeed, lighter outside, with the last hints of sunlight tinting the sky orange and pink, and when he turned to look at the structure he had been underneath, his chest dropped. The Brooklyn Bridge. But... not quite. The stone was darker and worn out, and it stretched over a large body of water, unrulier and deeper than the East River; the source of the sweeping sound. It was strangely muffled, still, considering his proximity. He stood on a cluster of rocks, keeping him out of reach from the waves, on one end of the bridge. A strange glinting golden light led up towards the bridge, like a landing strip. He couldn’t really see what was beyond, aside from street lamps dotting the edges. The structure was flecked with both light and dark oval and rounded shapes, where the waves hit the construction. Barnacles, he thought they were called. Aether, it stood much lower than the actual Brooklyn Bridge. The other end seemed very far away.
Matt approached the glinting lights, and was relieved to find they indicated a ladder. It was sprayed intermittently by the waves, slickening the footholds, and coating the inside of his nose in salt. The briny water made the pit of his stomach contract uncomfortably, but before he could really think about the sensation, he was on the bridge. His chest was heaving from the effort of dragging himself upwards, his muscles were aching, and his hands were starting to blister, but he could barely remember the journey.
To his left, the bridge seemed to stretch impossibly long, to disappear into a mess of greenery, from palm trees to red-tinged leaves scattered in the distance. The streetlamps seemed to become more and more sparse the farther away into that side he gazed. A glimpse of movement caught his eye on the other side, and he turned, sluggish and heavily. The city stood proudly, both familiar and not. He’d been here before, he could tell. If only he could think of when, Aether, it was on the tip of his tongue... Another dark creature skittered across the ground in front of him, carrying a different piece of paper.
“Hey,” he called out to it, as he gave it chase. It was quick, and seemed to pass through most obstacles without any issue. “Where are you going?” Matt asked, and the creature didn’t respond. Obviously. Because it was obviously some sort of weird magical animal that couldn’t talk as most animals couldn’t. Fucking hell. He skidded on the floor going around a corner, and promptly came to a stop. A dumpster. The creature crawled up the side with the same ease it had climbing the wall, and dropped the piece of paper inside. He leaned in over the edge and found an assortment of things; pieces of paper with messy font, blurry pictures, and even money. Weird.
As he looked up to inspect his surroundings, a shiver went up his spine; it was getting colder outside. Walking along the side of the dumpster, which stretched abnormally long, he noticed a door. It looked like a back door or some kind, open wide. And hell, he’d already climbed random ladders and chased trash creatures. Might as fucking well.
When he went inside, a familiar hallway greeted him, the walls earthy tones and scuffed paint, carpet dull and dusty where it met the wall. It smelled like dragon’s blood incense and like mac and cheese fresh out of the oven. Aveline’s, he thought. But... No, it was NYADA, obviously. The chairs lining the sides of the halls, the ones with a missing leg or leaning sideways, were like the ones they had at the Coughing Coffee. Or maybe it was Aveline’s, after all. The plants were in clay pots decorated in bright colors, and the smell. The kitchen was empty, which was odd for Aveline’s. There was a tray of mac and cheese set on top of the stove, and he knew he could just get a bowl, somehow. But he didn’t. There was obviously something going on here.
Just as he stared at it suspiciously, a noise caught his attention. Like a rhythmic tap on a wooden floor. A shoe? And music, if he was not mistaken, coming from upstairs. What was it? Maybe whoever it was, they had answers. Besides, if this was a dream, he’d just wake up if some shit went down, right? He couldn’t remember finding the stairs, or going up them. A vague memory of a crossed out painting of a house crossed his mind, but he couldn’t be sure he had just seen it now. Had it been a dream from the previous night? The previous week? Maybe it was a picture.
The music and the tapping got louder, but it was still muffled as he went through the hall. This was more Sciron than Aveline’s, but there were traces of it still. The sculpture Aveline had gotten him last year reflected light against the wall, water fragmenting it into gentle waves, and it helped keep him calm as he got closer and closer. It was spotless, unharmed, unlike the sputtering mess that was hidden by the desk in his dorm. The wooden floors were worn and scratched, the walls a cool blue littered with what seemed like street graffiti at first glance, and raised reliefs that looked like gibberish. But the graffiti spread across a blank wall, and it spread far. It was made of tiny symbols; two intertwined circles, a wilting plant, a cell phone, a stack of books, a single flame... The style was casual but careful, deliberate in its relaxed energy.
He stopped. There was someone behind this door. This was it. The noise he’d been following. The rhythmic tapping sent a slight tremor through the ground, and a cheesy pop song blaring through was almost making the walls vibrate. His hand was gravitating towards the doorknob before he could really process it, but it wouldn’t turn. Locked. Of course. Made sense. So he did the next logical thing.
He knocked. The music stopped, and there was a long pause before anything happened.
Tagging: Quinn Fabray
When: October 24th, Evening
Where: Santana’s Dorm room, and Quinn’s Mind
What: Quinn confronts an old friend. Or not friend, it’s uncertain.
Warnings: None.
Quinn woke up in the United Magic Council Headquarters, fingers splayed against hard marble floors. The exhaustion that had overtaken her in Santana’s dorm room was replaced with a cold chill, and a racing heart. The hallway was still, devoid of the usual bustle of people. There was no chatter, no rustling of papers from inside office doors. In fact, all of the doors were closed. Dimly lit and silent, Quinn was reminded of late nights with Russell, back pressed against his legs as she read the night away, waiting for him to put work away and take them home.
He’d always shake her shoulder, when the clock struck midnight, “Come on, Lucy. Close the book, it’s time to go.”
She swore she could hear his voice, echoing down the hallway. But it was nothing. What was this? A trap? She considered a teleportation spell, falling through spontaneous portals, an elaborate illusion on Santana’s part, but...Santana likely didn’t know what the Commission hallways looked like at night, and she would’ve remembered falling through a portal.
There was nowhere to go, no way to understand without moving forward. Quinn pushed herself up off the floor, footsteps echoing down the empty hallway. Her eyes traced the names on the golden plaques outside each doorway, catching briefly on C. Smythe before landing on Fabray, where her father’s old office use to sit. Just Fabray? “Commission Head” was displayed proudly beneath it. A light shone from underneath, soft and familiar, and Quinn reached up to turn the handle with a shaking hand.
Everything is exactly as it should be. Books fill the shelves around her: political theory, various accounting books accumulated over the years at NYADA, management, Bloodline history. Quinn knows them by heart, how they’re organized, what they contain. The carpet is a deep red and gold, circling into the cherrywood desk that sits in front of a night-black window.
There’s a figurine sitting on the left corner of the desk. It had been a gift from Quinn at fifteen. Was that there before?
“Daddy?” She calls quietly, but it’s not Russell Fabray she finds seated behind the desk. The high-backed office chair spins slowly, and Quinn’s eyes go wide. Her feet scramble back against the floor until her back hits the office door. “No, what’s happening?”
“Hello, Lucy.” She sees herself, hands folded in her lap. Her hair is done in careful curls, a string of pearls around her neck. The dress she wears is a familiar, soft pink, spotless and pristine. Her smile is careful, professional. Quinn has seen it in the mirror too many times to count. It’s practiced, that ‘I’m offering you this so you’ll believe it’ smile that never quite makes it past the curve of her lips. But there’s something different about it. Something in the eyes, something light and easy.
Quinn shakes her head, hands finding the handle of the door at her back. It turns, and turns, but doesn’t pull the pin. “No, no no no this isn’t real.” She pivots to face the door, shaking the handle, tugging until the wood creaks against the door jam, but it doesn’t move. Her forehead hits the smooth wood of the door with a dull thump, and her eyes screw shut. “Why this?”
“Didn’t you miss me?” Quinn’s eyes pop open, and she turns to face herself once more. There was something oddly familiar about the situation. Like a stone path she’d walked a thousand times, but she was missing a step. “Oh, you can be so thick sometimes. Let’s try this.”
She stood up, smile turning bright. Her posture was different, the stiff set of her shoulders relaxing. When she moved around the desk to stand in front of Quinn, it was nearly a skip, and she placed her hands on Quinn’s cheeks, “I look perfect, you just don’t see it do you? Oh, but I think you might be starting to.”
Quinn’s breath left her in a rush. For a brief moment, the room was chaos, flashing carnival lights and the distant sound of cows, before it settled back into the quiet calm of her father’s old office. “Lucy?”
“Yeah, yeah you get it.” Her shadow waved a dismissive hand, eyes rolling skyward as she pivoted and stepped back into the office chair. “I prefer Quinn, now. It’s more refined, don’t you think? There’s only one Quinn Fabray, thank you.”
Quinn’s brow furrowed, hands working at her skirt. Her own outfit suddenly seemed far too casual in comparison. The shadow who had crawled from the mirror was not the same person who sat in front of her. That shadow had been soft, hair a mess, a smile that formed often and easily. Quinn thought this shadow looked more familiar. It made her stomach turn, her breath catch. Like the mirror wasn’t something ethereal and magical. It was her bathroom mirror, age fifteen.
“You look...different.”
“You don’t.” Her shadow countered, without looking up. Instead, she rifled with some papers on the desk. “Have you been paying attention to the Smythes lately? That donation was just campy, what are they playing at?” She said it, but there was a strange twist to her lips. Her fingers played restlessly over the pages. “Ha, ‘Look at us, we’re so good.’ Like I can’t see right through that. It’s a classic.”
“Right...” There was something in her shadow’s eyes, Quinn couldn’t quite place it. She took a step closer.
“It’s easy, when your family is literally bathing in gold. It was pocket change to them–OH! That’s a good spin, isn’t it? Silly Smythes, throwing money around like it actually means something to them. But it’s just a useless gesture to garner them favor. Meanwhile, the Fabrays are doing the real work.”
Quinn takes another step. It’s like...it’s like glee, isn’t it? So unfamiliar and wild.
“Focusing our attention on putting the money where it counts. Education, defense. NYADA isn’t non-profit, you know. It’s a state institution...”
“What are you going on about?” Quinn finally interrupted, close enough to read the papers scattered across the desk. The plaque doesn’t read Russell Fabray, it reads Quinn Fabray. There are numbers and names scattered across each paper, a proposal for Anderson-Fabray partnerships, something about potential dates for Frannie and Cooper’s wedding.
Her shadow meets Quinn’s eyes, and there’s something entirely unsettling about the look. Deadly calm, but a gleam just beneath the surface. There’s a frenetic energy that has Quinn warring between running, and digging for more.
“Like you haven’t thought of any of this. Or are you really that gone? God, you really took it to the extreme, didn’t you? Buried in all your friendships, off looking for angels in stone faces.” Another roll of her eyes, her hands splayed out against the desk. Her smile grew. “What was it you said to Kurt the other day? This long tirade about how horrible this all is. Like you don’t have a choice.” Her voice rose to a pitiful falsetto. “I’m Lucy and I’m a victim of my circumstances. No one cursed you into withholding testimony, and we both know it.”
Quinn cringed as the shadow laughed, taking a step back from the desk. She didn’t want this desk. Maybe three years ago she had, but not anymore. God, she’d come too far to be pulled back to her father’s blind ideals. “You’re crazy. What are you supposed to be, anyway? Not another shadow. I’m not...this isn’t me, not anymore. Not ever.”
Her shadow only smiled, saccharine sweet and soft around the eyes. It didn’t look quite as wild, but it was no less unsettling. “I like this angle.” One finger pointed at the papers, “This whole it means nothing to them, but look at us working hard to do things that matter. It’s a good spin. Useable. Oh, I’ll make a post about it, shall I? Not quite as long as something Hunter would do, God, doesn’t he realize how ridiculous he looks on social media? How he ever garnered fangirls is beyond me.” A pause, her eyebrows lifted and head tilted to the side, “No, I know how. But that’s not politics.”
The way she said politics. It rolled off her tongue, smooth like silk, near euphoric to say. Quinn’s stomach rolled again, her hands clenched. Her eyes screwed shut, and she breathed a “Please not this” that fell unheard between them.
“I don’t how you ever let this hurt you.” Quinn’s eyes popped open. Her shadow had stood up, perfectly curled hair bouncing against her shoulders. She rounded the desk in a flurry, hands clenched around the papers. The words didn’t even make sense anymore, just names and dates and ‘this is me’ written on repeat. “Does this hurt? Think of what we could do with this, Lucy. Just imagine! You’re always treating it like a chore, you’re never around anymore but God you’re bored. Aren’t you? I’m so bored.”
“Stop! This isn’t fun, this has never been fun.” Quinn bit out as hands grasped at her shoulders, excited and imploring.
“No? You debate with Elliott a lot for someone who hates him.”
“I don’t enjoy it!”
“No?” Quinn’s hand nearly connected with her shadow’s face, but she found it caught in an iron grip. The expression painted in front of her was one she knew well, and yet was entirely foreign. One eyebrow lifted, a corner of her mouth quirked upwards. A silent victory, a challenge. “And Kitty. Aether! Kitty Wilde, what a girl. She’s completely absurd, isn’t she? But it’s kind of nice.”
“It’s not...nice.” The name fell like lead in front of her, heavy with a responsibility she didn’t want, had never wanted.
“She loves you.”
“It’s disturbing.”
“Is it?” Quinn groaned in frustration, yanking her wrist free and turning to face the bookshelf instead. There wasn’t anything exciting there. The Music of Numbers by Franklin Barnaby, A Word of Your Own by Dimitri Petrov, then...her eyes caught on Wuthering Heights. Her brow furrowed, shaking fingers traced over the gold lettering of the title. “Think of what we could get her to do. It’s everything I could have imagined. Fourteen, dreaming up a better life.”
Quinn pulled the book off the shelf, the first paragraph read in perfectly memorized detail. She’d read it far too many times. It felt...out of place, given the situation, but so familiar in her hands.
“I thought I needed to look better, to get out of the books and maybe Daddy dearest would see me. But this? It’s so much better.”
Quinn snapped the book shut, and turned turned to look at her shadow. They were still close, close enough to see the manic glint in the shadow’s eyes, to feel the energy.
“Oh.” She said, the pressure that had been building in her chest eased slowly. “I thought...the last time I saw you, I thought you wanted me to forget all of this.”
The shadow rolled her eyes, “I don’t care about this life lesson. Learn it in your head, if you must, but keep quiet about it, yeah? I’ve bigger things to focus on. Like November. It’s the campaign, and Frannie is going off books. What’re we going to do about it, Luce?”
Quinn was actually thinking about it, when the room started to twist and warp around her. Wuthering Heights melted and fell between her fingers like syrup, the books slammed off the shelves around her.
“That’s my girl.” Came her own laughing voice, as the dream fell away completely.
WHO→ Tina Cohen-Chang and Shadow!Tina (and others)
WHERE→ Tina’s Mind Palace
WHEN→ Wednesday 24th October, Night
WHAT→ Tell me all the things you want to do
I heard that you like the bad girls honey, is that true?
It's better than I ever even knew
WARNING→ NSFW, Mild Violence, Death Mention. LONG AF (6K WORDS)
Over highlighted textbooks, scrappy scattered pages and colorful index cards surround Tina like a wave of words cast over her. Not an inch of her bed could be seen apart from the spot Tina sat with her glasses slipping down her delicate nose as her face remains stuck to the screen whilst her fingers danced over her keyboard endlessly. Playing catching to everything was growing difficult.
Every passing day, a new issue seems to find a light of day and no they were not the go to sweep under the carpet kinda deals, the whole month seems to be drenched in disaster. Oh you know, the everyday witch hunters who were out to destroy magical kind; exposer to magic to Commons who happen to be your parents with one being your father who got magically healed and not really having the ‘hey-I’m-a-Witch’ conversation with parents who now knew but not really knew;to the government pretty much putting things into a war like state where everyone had to fight and their were soul pact partners that she needs to make sure she was constantly impressing because now everything was pretty much a life and death situation. Not to mention daily living seems to not seem as easy going with her best friend not being so close anymore, arguments here and there about partnerships or battle styles. Not to forget racist collar laws coming.
But hey, this was just another October at NYADA, right? And it wasn’t even Halloween yet!
Tina was taking no chances in letting something else distract her. Her mind had been in so many places that it was beginning to be exhausting catching up. She had not even been spending her free time or study time on Tumblr or anything fun. Everything had always been working and distracting. The bags under her eyes were getting darker. Taking care of herself meant getting through the day, training a little bit of magic, keeping up notes in classes and repeating all the same in-between. Nothing else seems to run through her head. The fear she felt that day, she was not gonna allow that feeling to creep back in her. No aetheing way. Tonight was the night that she was making sure to be ahead of her modules knowing fully way that Halloween would give her a setback, would it be emotional or physical? Only the aether would know.
Yet something felt, not quite right. Something pulls at Tina, tiredness something she is able to lull alway with the best magical potion commons had to offer, coffee. A yawn stifles her lips, as the words on her screen all start to blur. She takes off her glasses, pinching her nose as she blinks a few times, shaking her head. Sliding the elastic band from her hand, collecting her raven hair into a high ponytail, she tugs on it try to focus on her reading on progressive artificial intelligence or was it the molecule structure of atoms. Tina couldn’t tell you as her eyes fell heavy, her head resting on her keyboard like it were a pillow.
The night does not pull her into a gentle sleep where once she opens her eyes again that it would be a daylight again. Not this time. This time she is falling, falling into darkness. A delicate darkness that felt warming and familiar, cradling her softly as her toes touch an hard surface. Her whole back comes into contact with a hard surface. Darkness still remains to dominate but she does not allow that to dull her light. She pats herself down, her pockets, her bra, her shoes but her phone is nowhere to be found. Her hands suddenly feel clammy but she lets out a breath remaining calm yet vigilant. Darkness before had been kind to her, nothing wrong was done. Fear of the unknown and what you can not see always play on her mind more. Last time, everything was fine, it was what she found outside in the dark was truly terrifying.
Still, Tina wanders around the dark aimlessly, searching for something, anything that would trickle a light for her. Pausing, she casts a simple spell <<Flash>> in hopes for a little electric light to appear around. She casts and her magic follows, little lights dancing around her like phantoms lighting the way in the dark. Little help they provided as it only illuminated more darkness. Tina doesn’t lose hope if there was even any left in her by this point. She sighs but then bought to a sudden halt at a door not far in the distance.
“Great,” Tina sucks on her bottom lips as the doors were making their appearance once again. “Freaking doors, just what I wanted.”
Sighing heavily, she rubs her temple in frustration approaching closer to the door. There was something about this door that was more peculiar than the ones she and her friends had encountered before. Times before the doors had been far more simplistic in design varying from wood, metal to something that was rather grand and elegant, but this door was different. Standing in front of her was an arched doorway, that looked a mess of different materials. Strain glass windows beginning at the top but next to impossible to peer through them. Halfway down the door seems to split into two different materials: one a darkish wood with chipping black paint with peeled off stickers of anime from her younger years or torn posters from magazines. The other half of the door more crisp and polish with the numbers #202, with the last two hanging off a bit. Also, crisps autumn leaves or a mistletoe sticker or two that had been picked at. Tina blinks as everything meshes together. Her hand shakes as she turns the crystal door nob, biting down hard on her lip, readying herself to what monstrosity would be on the other side.
Something about the door opens with an ease, pushing gently the sound creaks into the empty room. Tina looks around blinking frantically, too consumed of the room than the gears changing to the locking door behind her. The mixed match door has only been an indication of what, Tina could expect to find on the other side. To her left, there was a black painted room only lit by the fairy lights that curved against the wall with witchy posters hanging on the wall of cliche witchy things from the pentagonal star or crystals and all sorts hanging on the wall with books on the unruly sheets with misinformed information on witchcraft. This half being her childhood room. Then, to the right of Tina sat her dorm room: walls plastered with photos, all the happy times from Halloween, selfies with the people who were important to her. There is also the painting Ell gave her for Yulemas and every single one of Blaine’s letters that always bought a tear to her eye. This room was her home, the other place that she calls home.
Each room stretched much larger than they actually were as if they were two repelling rooms from each other. Yet in the middle, they married together with a large flat screen mounted to the wall with the words “Press Start To Begin” flashing in a pixelated graphics. Her eyes wander down, as she spots a PlayStation 2 wired up to the TV. Controller wires entangled with one another, stretching out not too far from the TV. Tina’s eyes follow as the controllers rest on an empty spot on an empty spot on the floor. Looking around there was not a single soul around.
Each “room” stretches much larger than they actually were as if they were two repelling forces from one another. Yet in the middle, the rooms seem to mesh together in a warming invitation. Mounted on the blending walls is a flat screen with the words “Press Start To Begin” flashing in a pixelated graphics. Her eyes wander down, as she spots a PlayStation 2 wired up to the TV with two controllers with wires entangled with one another. They sat stretching as far as they possibly could from the screen but were still pretty close to be sat crosslegged to look up at the screen. Tina’s eyes follow as it seems to appear that there are two controllers sitting on the floor, without methodically picking one, she takes a seat on the floor resting the gaming controller in her lap. She doesn’t push start, yet the game suddenly begins. Tina jumps up suddenly, considering all the possibilities: a phantom, a virus, an illusion or someone controlling. Another tech witch?! Her head looks around the room but her eyes fall to the screen the voice orders “Choose your character!”
The answer had been sitting next to her the whole time. Aether, and that girl was all too familiar. July 2017. The last time she had seen her, a creeping feeling hung in Tina as questions began to spark up. Why was she here? How could she be? Even though Tina knew exactly who she was, there was something different about her, the way she decides to dress. She still sits tall with an air of confidence to her. A smirk that looked like nothing but trouble or rebellion, it was hard to decipher. Her hair, although it still hung in the classic tight ponytail, this time the girl sat with a witches’ hat on. Something rounded and pointed, that fell ever so slightly the Common sign of a witch. Knocking the hat back, she looks up at Tina coy, “Who are you?”
The question was drenching in deep philosophy but Tina was too confused, to lose at the retightening of her Shadow self-being all too comfortable in her distorted rooms.
“What?” Tina’s mouth is dry, “What do you mean?”
The witchy dressed Tina points to the screen at the character selection. “Who are you?” She repeats with laughter in her voice.
“Oh…” Tina replies dumbfound, taking a seat next to her taking the controller into her lap going through the characters and reading their stats not even sure what this game entailed but aether spell you could bet that Tina was going to play- play to win. Tina looks at all the stats: health, speed, magic, her choice has to be a character that could be an all rounded, best to be safe not knowing the aim of the game.
“This one.” Tina presses X only to get a denial sound from the screen. Meshing the button to make sure it was correct, then attempting to mesh all the other buttons only to get the same result. “Okay then,” she accepts defeat flicking the analog stick to choose another character, “This one.” Yet the same pattern repeats. Again with another and another and another. All the characters that she decides to select will not allow her to play. Throwing her controller to the floor she grits her teeth, “Okay what gives?!?”
Shadow!Tina rests her face on her hand, “I dunno. Maybe there is a big in the system or something?” Tilting her head to the side, “Though I have to be true with you, I can’t even believe that you dared to make a selection. You making an actual choice? That is something new. When do you ever make a choice, Tina?”
Questions were starting to be asked. Tina was not in the mood to address anything. As, you know, that is just the Tina way. Not to talk about anything. She ignores the shadow replica of herself closing her eyes tightly shouting from the top of her lungs, “I am thou, thou art I!”
And that is all it takes.
Fits of laughter can be heard as Shadow!Tina falls to the fall, whipping a tear that forms in her eyes. “Haha, I am sorry but did you really think that would work? You did it once, don’t think you can do it twice. Looks like I am hanging around for a little while then Teeny.”
“Please go,” Tina asks simply instead, “I accepted you. Why am I even seeing you again?”
Pouting at Tina, “Maybe I wanted to come out and say hello to you. It has been a while since you know…you accepted me but you kinda did leave me behind didn’t you?” Tina gives no answer but Shadow!Tina finds herself on her feet, inching closer to Tina. “I can see that you at least started wearing your hair in a ponytail then,” her fingers twirl at the tends, “Have to say it suits you, means you have finally stopped hiding behind your hair and started to face things head on…well you kinda have. Not to forget, your hair does look sexy pushed back?”
“That still doesn’t explain why you are here?” Tina asks in a frenzy before pausing to ask the really big question, “Wait…wait are you quoting Mean Girls to me?”
“Yeah…what of it?” Shadow scoffs, “You have a thing about Mean Girls or just mean people in general, don’t you, Tina?”
“Stop!” Tina raises her voice.
Sticking out her tongue in delight, “Oh, what is this? Have I hit a nerve already?” Placing a hand on her heart, “Ooo, I think that I have. What you don’t wanna talk about the mean girls, Teeny? The ones that actually got you to be where you are right now? How you should be grateful to them, instead of always trying to be a sad, sad story.”
“I’m not a sad story!” Tina refutes.
Mockingly Shadow repeats, “I’m not a sad story. Fuck, could you be more tragic than you are right now? See the things is Teeny, that part of your life, you’ll always see as a sad, sad story.” Shadow gives her a wink, before the scenery around them both changes. People…no teenagers are parading around, screaming and cheering about meaningless things, clanging of lockers being shut. Tina feels small in this place, how she hates it.
“Take me back to my rooms!” Tina orders through gritted teeth, no longer wanting to be here.
Shadow tugs down on her witches hat, pacing the halls slowly, “I could but I decide not too, because well… I don’t want too. It is high school! You remember how lucky you played the victim here. Ahh, the mean girls bullied me, they made my life worst…blah, blah, blah. But aether, did they really make your life such a living hell when really they ware the reasons why you are what you are now.”
“What would that be?” Tina asks eagerly to know, “Tell me.”
Rolling her eyes, Shadow turns back onto Tina pausing at a random locker, opening it slowly. With a sweet smirk, Shadow starts to pull out a bag placing it around her own shoulders, hugging onto a binder that was evidently, something that reeked of Weeaboo Tina. She paces around not having a care in the world, with Tina following closely. Students passing through them like phantoms gave Tina a chill. Shadow walks into what appears to be a school bathroom with graffiti bathroom stools with the stench of burnt out cigarettes and urine. Only Tina and Shadow stood in the bathrooms. Tina shriveled her nose at the smell, shuddering at the memories that were here.
“Aether, only bad thought in here? All because that you cry and another part of your sad, sad story is it Teeny?”
Shying away, she blinks back tears to the time that she always ran in here crying.
“Ew, that is all you remember? No, that isn’t all that you should be remembering!” Shadow goes into her bag, pulling out original Plue from the school bag. Tina’s face lights up at the sight of her old friend but Shadows face screwed up, “You really couldn’t at least have had a Blackberry that was at least in trend back then?” Though Shadow does not wait for a single answer. “Okay, come here and let’s take a selfie!”
“A selfie?” Tina repeats blunt. Aether this was starting to become a massive waste of time. Before she could protest further, Shadow already has her arm around Tina, pulling a classic duck face as she takes a photo.
“Take a look!”
“Pa-” Tina’s voice chokes fast as she looks at the selfie on the phone. Tina and Shadow are not alone. Tina is surrounded with other girls, girls she once knew. Each had badly dyed hair with heavy makeup or something glittery. Tina bites her lip as she holds the phone in her hand tracing around each girls’ face in disbelief. “H-how..PHOTOSHOP!” Was her first answer to all of this. “This is fake, this is photoshopped. No way!”
Shadow leans against the wall posing like she was a bad girl in a school movie. “Nope. Data, I used your data to bring it to the phone. Call it…a little tech magic with bio-electricity involved. That photo is from your memories, Tina. Those girls, they were your friends. Or do you not even remember that part because you were always crying about being lonely.”
“For a while, actually for the longest time, high school always felt…overshadowed by the bad things. By what those girls did to me and what they said to me all the time. I felt like I was the only being effected by it that it was my own battle that I was fighting. Me against the means girls…” Tina whispers still starting at the phone. Shutting her eyes, she tries to think of the other girls' names but aether her mind draws to a blank. Not a single one comes to mind. Not a single girl was now in her new life. “But…but this is the past. I’m different now. They probably live a better life now. No one ever gets in contact with me.”
Snatching the phone from Tina, Shadow wines in annoyance, “When was the last time you ever dared to do something Common like checking your internet accounts instead of your ethernet accounts. Hmm?” Shadow raised the point, “And Teeny, if you think that this is thinly time that think the bad overshadowed the good you really don’t know yourself at all. Like what the spell is wrong with you?’ Shadow swipes something off Tina’s phone sliding it in her pocket. “So while we are at sweet valley high, let’s talk about teenage Tina and how you look over how good that you seem to have it.”
Suddenly they are back in the first room that they were in, this time sitting on the side remaking Tina’s childhood room. Tina grabs a pillow hugging onto it tightly wanting to just awake from this nightmare.
“Okay so, you had friends but you straight up forgot about them. Then you still think about the mean girls all the aether damn time. Aether they could be like your besties or something. Or maybe you are way obsessed with them,” Shadow tries to read Tina. “I mean you really are hung up on them, aren’t you?”
“I’m not hung up on them!”
“Teeny, Teeny, you are! Look when you saw one of them, you suddenly acted like you were back in high school like you did when this is - - actually, I won’t spoil that part for now. Anyway, you coward away. You saw her when you were on a date with Matthew, your Thundercat!”
“That was no a date!’
“Sweetie, you just at the time didn’t know it was a date but it was very much date,” her Shadow self even knew it. “You saw Ashely B, T, Z or who could give an F. She didn’t even notice you but still acted like you were such a big deal. Like I said before, do you ever think about saying thank you to her?”
“Thank you? Oh yeah, saying thank you to someone who has been so horrible to me, that made me cry most nights to sleep. For girls who thought that it was okay to make me feel like it was so hard for me to make friends and open up to people about how I feel?” Tina feels herself welling up.
Shadow yawns throwing a pillow at Tina, “Waterworks really on me? On me? Do you ever stop to think about the positive? To think,” Shadow begins to well up herself, “To think about all the good things that could come from the mean girls. You never do, you hide them and you forget about them so easily. They made you stronger, they have you a kinda heart and aether, how you can forget that they have you the greatest change in your life. They are the magic in your life.”
Two girls crying in her old bedroom. Felt like high school all over again. Tina rubs her eyes, as she listens to the shadow looking for the good in the worst that she had. “That…that isn’t a reason to be thankful to them.”
“Isn’t it the same with Santana and Kurt and Kitty-I have more to say about her later but aether,” Shadow blubbers, “There is so much you can be thankful for. Sorry…I need a tissue.” Shadow has mascara running down her eyes, using the bell sleeve of her dress to rub it off. “Why, why don’t you ever look at the good that they have to offer. Each pushed you to be better. Why do you ignore that?”
Her face is solum as she stares into the nothing. Why didn’t Tina think about that? Why didn’t she look at what the worst people had done to her was actually…the best thing that could have happened to her? “Please…please stop crying,” Tina pleads, “You…you don’t need to be crying.”
Shadow instantly stops, her smirks appears on her face. Tear strained mascara running down her cheeks, “I never said that there was anything wrong with crying. So you see it don’t you? All the things that you think are bad, really do help you out. You are just the one who makes the matters worst. That is just one thing of our list.” She hangs her head off the bed, her witches hat falling off, as she kicks her legs in the air, flicking on her phone like Tina would if she were looking for a spell. Shadow hums to herself as Tina sits in silence thinking about it. Without the mean girls she would never be the girl she is today. The girl with magic. Tina stares at her hands.
“Oh yeah- before we talk about something else, I wanna know, self to self. Would you do it again?” A deviance in her voice.
“Do what?”
“Turning them into rats!”
Tina stays silent. “Um…”
“Beep-wrong answer. You hesitated.”
“I didn’t-“
“Yes, yes you did. You always hesitate. Helping Blaine, telling your parents, casting a spell, helping the people who need it, helping yourself. You always, always hesitate. How about we play a little game to prove hmm?” Shadow snaps her fingers and they are both sitting in front of the TV again. “You love those choice based games, don’t you? Bae or Bay? Wait you made sure that you picked both endings…so indecisive Teeny. Never making choices.”
A controller is forcefully in her hand. Loosen her grip, she expects it to fall to the floor but is stuck. Static charges around the controller, keeping it almost glued to Tina’s hands. She tries to shake it off but the controller stays connected. “What the spell?! Let me go!!”
Shaking her head, “Oh come on, Teeny, I have been nothing but nice to you. You can’t always expect that sweetness and kindness to always be around. Take too much and you are going to break. Surprised that you already haven’t!” Shadows’s voice begins to fall darker. “Now we are going to play a little game and if you hesitate even for a shaken, the wires will begin to take you.”
“The wires?” Tina blinks but aether she wishes she doesn’t start to ask. The wires in the sealed plastic snap free, slowly begging to coy around Tina’s arms, the burning of the wires starting to tackle it.
“Time to play,” Shadow takes a seat at a suddenly appearing from thin air. She sits back, rocking in it. “Let’s start simple, shall we? Blaine or Elliott?”
“What?!” Tina stammers.
“I’m sorry but, what was not an option,” Shadow talks in a show present voice. As she does, wires start to curl further up Tina’s arms, restraint her further. “Mom or dad.”
“ No.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Magic or no magic? Witch or common? NYADA or oh what is this NYU? You were gonna study history at NYU?”
All the questions come so fast but Tina bites her tongue allowing the wires to burn up her arm until they reached up her shoulders.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” Shadow scoots her chair closer. “Like why don’t you actually talk to anyone about anything. It is eating you away. I know it does because it is eating me away too.” Shadow leans into the binder Tina, running a thumb over her cheek, “Aren’t you tired of all this? Aren’t you tired of being silent? I can see that you are trying to open up, Teeny but not enough.” Shadow takes the phone, casting over it as little message windows begin to pop up everywhere, all of them being rather familiar.
The ‘f’word. A text group created for the people that Tina deemed her friends. The ones who were really there for her. Each message surrounds Tina flowing. Shadow doesn’t even have to read them out, as Tina reads them all for herself. The mixture of messages: some so happy, some so sad, times were she needed someone to be there for her before she bottled the world up and tippled over to a few. Tina bites down on her lip.
“I’m tired of being silent. When’s it my turn?” Shadow stands before Tina, “When is it my turn to be heard? When is it my turn to be taken seriously? When is it your turn to not be a second thought or used only for tech magic? When will it be our turn, Tina?”
“When we make it our turn. When we speak, when we say something. When we actually do something?” Tina whispers.
“Than actually do something. Do it and don’t you dare think about stopping. There is so much in this world you want to control but sorry, you can’t. Look.” Shadow point to either end of the world, “You want your common life a part and your witch life a part. Sorry, Teeny they are apart of each other now. You can’t have one without the other anymore. Mom and dad know but they don’t know. Again you not saying anything about it. Are you actually gonna say the words?” Shadow pinches Tina mouth smirking. “You don’t even guts to say anything. Just…remain silent. Or a simple no…you got good at that but in the wrong ways.”
Shadow pulls away, as Tina looks down, trying to fight free from the wires but they only tighten around her. Swiveling back in the chair, as Shadow starts to get comfy. “Alright, I got a good story to show you. It is called Erotic Friend Fiction…you know like how Tina Belcher does in Bob’s Burgers but these ones are a lot better.” She swings back and forth, “This one is a self-insert, oh you love these. This one is reader x Kitty Wilde.”
Tina feels herself burning all shades of crimson. She doesn’t wanna hears this. Aether she already knows how this is going to be. The shameful thoughts that came playing in her mind. Shadow is already enjoying this as she scrolls down on her phone, kicking her legs in the air, cackling like a fangirl who enjoyed smut way too much.
“Okay…let’s get down to the really good part.shall we?” Shadow clears her throat as she reads in a low husky voice. “She pins you down hard to the floor. Your arms are trapped as she keeps a firm hold above your head. Her tongue runs over her soft lips, the lips that you desire so much. She pushes herself closer to you, whisperingly lowly in your ear all the things you know you shouldn’t be doing. For a brief moment, her lips ghost yours but she is the kinda girl who likes to tease and torture you, making you only want her more. Her lips find your neck as she kisses hot open mouth kisses before she gently bites down. A soft moan leaves your lips, turning Kitty on that more, as she presses her body against you as her hands gently roam your body, dipping under your skirt and then you - -“
“Stop reading that! Stop,” Tina is crimson, heated in embarrassment that those were the thoughts she suppressed about Kitty Wilde. “It is just a fantasy.”
“Oh Teeny, you want her and you want her so badly to touch you,” Shadow bites down on her lip.”You wanna be very naughty with her in a lot of ways. All the friend fiction shows it and their are a lot of ways that you have thoughts about her. A lot, a lot.”
Tina shakes her head denying it even more so, “No way! She is nothing but an evil bitch.”
“Bitch is just another word for ambitious. That girl knows how to get something done.”
“I beat her in a fight!” Tina tries to argue with Shadow but it was a loosing battle.
“You beat her once and she topped you, twice I believe? And you can’t stay you didn’t even like because you want her to top you and not even stop when you - - “
“Enough!!!” Tina whines like a little school girl.
“Yes, just like that, you are gonna beg and plead even though you don’t want too. C’mon Tina, admit you want her. Even if it is just to do the naughty. You like the bad girls over the nice guys anyway. Cause you know you can’t be love. So may as well be with someone who is terrible right?”
Tina bites her lip admitting something, “She isn’t terrible…”
“Say that a little louder for the folks in the back please?” Shadows voice is condensing.
“She isn’t terrible!!” Tina shouts louder looking away from Shadow.
“See that wasn’t too hard now was it? Now tell me why she isn’t terrible? Amuse me,” Shadow locks the phone rocking in her chair. “It is funny because I think you know how much of a terrible person she is. You just said she was a bitch. Or is it the fact that you have feelings for a terrible person and so utterly terrified about what the world is gonna think about you, sweet innocent Tina having such dirty little thoughts about someone.” Shadow looks at her,” And you can’t say “It is complicated” that is not an option. This is emotions, not a freaking facebook relationship status. Your emotional code is far more detailed than that.”
Tina falls back, “She is terrible but because of her…I push myself and prove myself but it is not only for her. A lot of others too. We’re fighting…everything is life and death not. Everything has been life or death for a while now and just I need to be at my best, which she makes me.”
Shadow sits up clapping her hands, “Finally, few it took you a while. Wow, I can’t believe that it took Wilde to admit that the things you think are so terrible are actually the things that better you. Easy, lemon squeezy or whatever it is.”
“Can you untie me now?” Tina looks at Shadow.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Another lesson, Teeny.” Shadow stands up, starting to walk away. “What is everything that you fear, but something that you love dear? All the terrible that brings to the beautiful? Something wicked that comes this way but such a sweet soul seems to have? A power to create, a power to destroy? Something new, and bright and rare. What are you, Teeny? Saw it loud and proud.”
“I’m…I’m a witch…” Tina whispers. “I’m a New Age Witch.”
Shadow tosses her hat in the air that gracefully lands on Tina. The whole room begins to flicker out, to nothing but a cold and empty hologram room. Grim, grey and dull. Nothing is there but the plain walls. Tina is on her knees as her Shadow walks away from her.
“Say it proud and remember what it actually means.”
As a lightning bolt strikes, Tina jolts out of bed in a cold sweat.
“New Age…” she whispers, “Remember what it means…”
