#sheilannah

[nothingunrealistic]

love in hate nation (2019)

[mellancholy-mushroom]

made this for all 3 of the other Love In Hate Nation fans 🫡 SUSANNAH MY BELOVED!!!

[susandsnell]

storm (15) for lihn?

Send me a number 1 thru 50 for a word that I’ll use to write either a headcanon, drabble, or starter. Send 🔄 for a random number instead.

15 — storm

It’s just their luck that after twenty-two years and a hundred thousand lifetimes with half of them missing spent apart, Susannah and Sheila get rained out on date night.

Neither thought to bring an umbrella; clear skies were promised the entire day, which is why they had the hubris to book a terrace spot – shit, Sheila had even brought roses for the occasion, like a properly gallant butch.

And now they were running through the rain-soaked streets of Greenwich village, the bouquet haphazardly stuffed into Susannah’s jacket, squealing and laughing like they were sixteen again and ducking under the stairwells to evade Asp’s eagle-eye, Buzz’s furtive hands, and Judith’s terrible sneers.

“Hey, partner! Think fast!” Sheila calls, and suddenly, a heavy mass of leather smacks Susannah right in the face. The prized leather jacket muffles her grunt, but she still manages to inhale deeply before setting it to rights as a makeshift umbrella.

“What about you?” Susannah demands, breathless and giggling – for a prison escapee, she’s short and stocky as ever, and as such, running’s never been her strong suit.

“I’m a big guy,” Sheila proudly proclaims, “I can take it.”

And with a swiftness and suave maneuvering that would surely be the envy of Zorro, Sheila grabs Susannah’s hand, sending sparks up her arm that put the lightning strikes around them to shame, and yanks her under the canopy of the first deli they find.

Susannah lands somewhat gracefully in the doorway, caught in a pair of wiry arms strengthened by years of proper nutrition and toning muscle.

“So much for a picnic under the stars, huh?” She huffs.

Sheila raises her eyebrows, thick eyeliner running down her cheeks in clumps. Susannah wants to reach up and trace every path over the age lines written into those strong features, but she settles for offering the jacket back.

“I guess this is why they call it a rain check,” Sheila shrugs, taking back her prized possession and sliding it back on. Susannah rolls her eyes.

“God, you’ve gotten cornier than I ever was.”

“Well, that’s ’cause I missed you so much, chum,” Sheila says, tapping her nose playfully. “Bad sense of humour was my best bet to keeping a part of you with me.”

Something in Susannah melts at this. Something else possesses her to playfully shove Sheila, moving that strong body with surprising strength. Sheila shoves her in kind, then audaciously reaches to grab a handful of her hip.

Out in the open like this, on a street where anyone could see – things definitely have changed, Susannah decides, since they last saw each other. But then again, Sheila’s not dumb; this is Greenwich village after all, and besides which everyone’s running around to not be caught dead in this downpour. Still a catch, still an asterisk, still so much work to do; it makes her sigh.

But it also makes her bolder.

“Y’know,” she says, pulling the battered-but-still-blooming roses from under her jacket, “These should really go in some kind of vase. I have one back at my place…” Her eyes rise from the bouquet and the petals that have fallen loose to coyly meet Sheila’s.

“Gift from a secret admirer?” Sheila asks, the husk of her voice making the subsequent thunder claps dull by comparison.

“None of them were you, baby.”

Sheila cups her face. “S’pose getting you home safe would be the gentlemanly thing to do, weather being what it is. And you haven’t invited me back to your place yet.”

“Consider yourself invited.”

A shadow passes over Sheila's eyes, and she is seventeen and hungry once more, thirty-nine and starved. "Anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are, firebug?"

Sheila makes sure to tell her that often – first at the record store, then at the coffee that followed, the lunch that elapsed, the tearful plea to not leave the city turned into the night at Sheila's apartment, when they danced under dim lights and she got a good look at Susannah in custom clothes – and when she got her out of them, of course. She told her she was beautiful between laughter and tears, mid-gasp and mid-kiss, when she was wide awake and when she was fast asleep.

She'll tell her again now, over and over, with a storm going on around them, and a storm sweeping the nation, though the latter's nothing new, both of them have enough blood on their knuckles and battle scars on their body to attest.

She'll tell her this all the way back to Susannah's place, military-neat, practical and utilitarian, so entirely unlike the storm-aftermath that's at Sheila's.

And Susannah will grin, and give her the same answer every time: "Nobody sings it like you can."

The storms continue to plague New York for days to come, but this will suit the both of them just fine.

They don’t leave Susannah’s apartment for over forty-eight hours.

[p-chux]

They fell in love in Juvie hall

[aliencatart]

There are two girls in the john…

[redandfranticfeelings]

also, sheila/susannah

i will be honest that i think their relationship could have used Just A Bit More, ie the actresses being allowed more subtle physicality- obviously they cant be overt in their setting but i think even just more, like, attempted hand-holds and such when they start to realize their feelings would have gone a long way.

but as a dynamic? it’s a very classic but very precious story. i think sheila and susannah make up each other’s differences well- sheila is extremely self-sufficient but has never known delicacy, while susannah is extremely delicate but has never allowed herself self-sufficiency. i admittedly think sheila is a little bit of a manic pixie dream girl (just in the sense of being The Key To Open You To New Exciting Worlds), but susannah bringing love into sheila’s life and teaching her ways to coolly and secretly express that love makes the relationship more even. also, i recently read an article about how black women are so often used as props for white women’s development even in seemingly “progressive” sapphic stories so i think it’s a good choice to make sheila the one who highlights susannah’s story rather than the other way around.

im always interested in the implication given the staging of “three failed attempts” how susannah could see through sheila and realize she was just as scared and insecure as susannah was, deep down. i also find it funny how susannah actually gets to find her footing in calling sheila out during “the other one” when sheila romanticizes her self-ostracization and susannah essentially responds “okay yeah well im black so i dont really have a choice” which is probably the closest to brutal honesty shes been at that point (something she desperately needed to utilize against francis who was also romanticizing the idea of being an outcast except his was entirely posturing for clout). and then of course sheila reminds her “you’re actually fine the way you are and social norms are dumb” and all that. i would have liked more time to see their dynamic demonstrated in that song where they actually push back against each other, because it’s the first time susannah actually can push back against anything but that’s just what sheila likes to see from her.

so basically susannah sees through sheila’s facade and i think that’s really cool, while sheila sees susannah’s potential, but she’s really attracted to her dorky mystique. but neither of them can express that bc of susannah being convinced no girl could love her that way and sheila being afraid of vulnerability pushing susannah away and ugh that dramatic irony…..and then in act two we see susannah holding out hope while sheila loses hope and it’s that lovely optimist/realist dynamic that we love in ships bc of how it balances out!!!

also i love their ending, it’s so cathartic and both times i saw it i just started crying because it’s such a perfect world of coincidence and things working out after you think they’ll never meet again…. i think their journey is very ideal and very necessary in a world of lesbian love stories that are either tragic or completely neutered, and while i wish we got a bit more of their dynamic in act one, and more physicality (which could easily be explored further in a revival, HINT HINT) they’re really a beautiful couple.

[nothingunrealistic]

14. not enough, sheila and susannah

14. not enough

On nights like this, when thunder rumbles like a thousand Yamahas revving and shakes the windows in their frames, and lightning flashes bright enough you’d think it was broad daylight, and rain and wind pound the roof and walls searching for the thousand holes and cracks that’ll let them in to curl up by the radiator, Sheila lies awake and hears crying. The wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney — that was in a story someone read her once, or maybe it was a radio drama, and for some reason it’s stuck. Every storm brings a baby wailing for Mama, or a toddler with a skinned knee, or a child without a friend in the world.

Tonight, though, as Sheila listens, it sounds more and more like someone really is crying, and close by. It’s a rare sound — blubbering is one of the few things scorned equally by Nation’s warden and its inmates. Which means the only girl who’d dare to do it is one who doesn’t know the rules.

She turns onto her side, waiting until the next flash lights up Susannah’s bed. Empty.

Sheila kicks off her sheets and rolls out of bed. The floorboards squeal — they get louder every year, and there’s a few new bad spots just since she got out of bing — but the storm still drowns them out. Past the crammed-in beds, through the door with its shrieking hinges, three steps down the hall to the john, following the sound of sobbing.

There’s one dim light bulb left in the bathroom, the rest broken by lighters or lipsticks or shoes and never replaced. It’s just enough to see Susannah by. The bandage on her arm is the brightest thing in the room. Her head is bowed, and her hands squeeze the sides of the sink nearer the door, and if there were more light, her eyes would surely be red.

Sheila coughs. Susannah jumps about a foot. “Oh! Sheila!” She wipes her hands on her nightgown, all frantic. Not a bit elegant. “I-I-I was just… washing my face.”

Sheila’s learned a thing or two about Susannah since she got here, without being told. First thing: she lies a lot. Second thing: she’s bad at it. “Gotcha.”

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

It’s the bathroom, whaddya think? would be the easy answer. Wouldn’t be real, though, and Susannah might know it. “Couldn’t sleep. Never can when it storms like this.”

“Me neither,” Susannah says, too quickly. “That’s why I’m awake too.”

Another rumble rolls through the room, closer this time, and Sheila wonders if the roof’s finally going to fall in on them, until she sees Susannah putting a hand to her middle. Huh.

“Hungry?”

“Yes,” Susannah whispers. Christ, she sounds about ready to cry again. “All the time.”

“We’re all hungry here. Except when Rat gets something good and shares. Doesn’t happen much.” They’ve gotten used to it over the years, as the food’s gotten worse and the portions have shrunk. But Susannah, for all her troubles, seems to have eaten well enough before Nation; after three days, she must be feeling the pinch. “Want a cig?”

Susannah looks at Sheila like she’s nuts. “I can’t eat a cigarette.”

“You can smoke it. Smoking stops you being hungry, that’s how it keeps you thin.”

“No thank you,” Susannah says, somehow making it sound like fuck you. She’s got potential.

“Suit yourself. I’m having one.” Sheila pulls her pack and lighter from her nightgown. Susannah gives her the kind of critical eye she’s seen on the faces of a hundred nuns.

“Do you sleep with those in your pocket? Isn’t that a fire hazard?”

“This whole building is a fire hazard.” Sheila lights up. “You know why we don’t have billiards anymore?”

“Because it’s not ladylike?”

“Good guess, but no.”

“Because… you were throwing the balls at each other and Miss Asp confiscated them?”

“No. One day I hit a break shot and half the balls exploded. Set the table on fire.” Sheila waits a beat, watching Susannah’s face as she tries to work out whether Sheila’s pulling her leg. “Then she confiscated the rest.”

Susannah giggles, then shuts herself up like she expects a ruler to the knuckles. Could be that’s what she got at that school she says she burned down. Or from her parents, who don’t much sound like they’re full of jokes, any more than that oh-so-wonderful boyfriend of hers. She’s got every bit of the picture perfect family Asp wants them all to have, and she talks like she’s trying to be Betty Anderson. What’s she really doing here with a bunch of delinquents, clinging to Sheila like her shadow when she’s the most delinquent of them all? (No matter what Judith says.) 

And how is it that Susannah sometimes looks at Sheila like she can see right through her, leather jacket and skin and bone all peeled back to show her beating heart? That keeps her up at night, worse than any thunderstorm.

(Put a number and two characters in my ask box and get a hurt/comfort drabble)

[nothingunrealistic]

*walks up to a gay couple* so which of you is the other one who doesn’t quite fit in and that’s how they like it, and which of you is the other one who never quite fits in and doesn’t like it