#ud drabbles

[untildawndrabbles-blog]

Names (Until Dawn Drabble)

Prompt: Will you help me choose a name? Daniel’s not who I am.

Words: 700+

Pairing: Trans!Hannah x Sam

heavily inspired by @smnius bc i spent forever going through the ‘queer au’ tag!

“H-hey Sam?” She murmurs from where she sits, at the edge of Sam’s bed, tugging at the sleeves of her sweater. Sam looks up from her phone, over to where her friend sits, and hums, lowering her phone onto the bedside table and scooting forwards to sit beside her. Her hair’s concealing her face, but Sam can tell that she’s frowning — it’s subtle, but Sam knows, she always knows how her friend is feeling, even if she doesn’t.

“What’s up?” Sam asks, smiling as she brushes her hair behind her ear, showing her face. Sam knows that she hates her face, hates how sharp the edges of her jaw are, how she has to shave her face every few days. She’s just counting down the days until she can begin hormone replacement therapy, her parents promised her that if she still ‘feels this way’ by the time she turns seventeen, they’ll let her start it — they originally wanted to wait until she turned eighteen, but all three Washington children argue, and now they call it a compromise. She agreed, because she really hates arguing with her parents, especially about her identity. Only eleven months to go. She sighs.

“I— Will you help me choose a name?” She asks, looking over at Sam, a flush of red creeping up her cheeks. “I don’t— I want a good name.” She admits, swallowing. “Daniel— Daniel’s not who I am —  who I want to be.” Sam grins, nods, moves to her bedside drawer and pulls out a Big Book of Baby Names. Her dark-haired friend chuckles, a smile taking over her frown as Sam bounds back to her, book in hand.

“Let’s find you a name!” She says, tapping the book cover with her hands. She nods, smiles at Sam as she opens the book. “Do you have any in mind?” Sam looks over to her, her comforting smile never wavering. She shakes her head, shrugs. She hasn’t really put much thought into it— always thought that she’d continue to live a lie just to please her parents, always thought her friends and her brother and sister wouldn’t accept her for who she is. She never thought they’d just, you know, accept her — unlike her parents, who were adamant that she had no idea what she was talking about. They insisted that she was a boy and that’s how she was going to stay. She’s pretty sure her Mother’s warming up to the idea, it’s her Dad that she’s worried about, afraid that he’ll change his mind when she turns seventeen.

 She and Sam sit like that for a while, shoulders bumping together as they flick through the girls’ half of the thick book, offering their opinions on each name they come across. Abigail doesn’t feel right, Beverley seems too mature for her, Caitlin is the name of Jessica’s sister, Danielle is too much like the name she was given at birth. Sam jokingly suggests that she should change her name to Beth, that way it’s like they’re not only twins, but the same person — and that cracks the blonde up for longer than she’ll admit. When she says it, Sam wonders why she chose her to help pick out a name, when she easily could have gone to Beth or Josh to do so. She almost asks, but decides to leave it. She knows the reason, really, knows it because of the way she looks at Sam sometimes, like she makes her so happy. She makes Sam happy, too.

 “What about Hannah?” Sam suggests, looking up to her friend for her opinion. Their eyes meet for the hundredth time since they started reading the book.

“I— Yeah.” She nods, “Hannah— Hannah sounds good. I like it.” She smiles, bigger and brighter than Sam’s seen in a while. “Hannah.” She tests it out, nods again, turns to Sam. She holds her hand out, her smile stretching into a grin. “Hi, I’m Hannah Washington!”

Sam clasps her hand in Hannah’s. “Nice to meet you, Hannah.” She laughs, a cheerful sound escaping her lips. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Thank you, my friend helped me choose it.”

“Just your friend?” Sam playfully raises her brow.

“Sorry, my best friend.” She laughs. Sam throws herself back on her bed and picks up her phone. Hannah watches with drawn brows, wondering if that’s the end of their conversation. “What are you doing?” She eventually asks, scooting up to lie beside Sam. She peers at her phone, watches as the word Danny is erased, replaced by Hannah and a heart-shaped emoji. Hannah grins, leans over and presses a kiss to Sam’s cheek. “I love you.” Sam puts her phone down again, turns her head to look at Hannah, mirroring her smile.

“I love you, too, Hannah Banana.” She replies, leaning over to kiss her friend’s nose in return. Hannah rolls her eyes.

“Already with the nicknames.”

[mackanndcheese]

Let It Kill You For a Few Hours

Thanks to looking through hyacinthusau‘s music headcanons and a certain song I’ve been listening to on repeat for the past hour, I just had to write. The idea was swimming around my head all day since I’d first heard the song yesterday, and then when another consideration popped up  — what if Josh had chromesthesia?  — this whole thing kind of... splurged out. I have no idea where almost a thousand words came from. Haha, oops.

It wasn’t unusual for Josh to be found in such a position.

His bedroom was tidy enough that floor could be seen, but articles of clothing and random objects that had once been put in their place now crept out from the corners. The fact that his bed was made, drawers and closet doors closed with no sign of material poking through them was a miracle in and of itself. The blinds were cracked open, the warm light of the setting sign gently sweeping inside and warming up the walls.

His bed was made, with himself lying on it. Arms outstretched to the point where fingertips dangled off the edge, he had one leg lazily bent, foot pressed against the sheets as his ankle rested against his other leg gently, keeping the limb somewhat upright. Lazily lidded eyes stared up at the ceiling, the edges of his vision blurred as his whole body relaxed.

On days like this, it was socially acceptable to ignore the neighbours, ignore the mother who worried over his health and made sure to be present in the flat until he felt better, ignore the whole world around him and drown in the sounds, in the music, in the calming lifts and gentle swoops that his speakers produced.

With every sound of the drum kit, with every bass note, he felt his body slip further away from the bad day, from the bad memories, from the prank gone horribly wrong. The prank that was out of line — completely and utterly out of line, how could you have even thought it was okay, that they would forgive you!? —, the prank that caused damage, irreversible damage, damage an apology would never be able to make right.

It wasn’t easy to ignore the way they looked at him. It was in their eyes, the distrust that now settled in their souls whenever they saw his face, recognised his posture or his gait when he was walking however many feet away, when they heard his voice— He’d lost so many. They’d slipped through his fingers, burned at his touch. He felt disgusting when they flinched away from an accidental brush up against him.

He hadn’t lost all of them. Some still wanted to give him a chance, some understood. Some understood but couldn’t do more than that. They pitied him. His disgust in himself only sky-rocketed every time he caught a bit of that pity. Poor boy. Not in his right mind. Not okay. Irreversibly ill with no cure—

It was okay. He’d convinced himself it was okay, because that was the only thing he could do, now. The only thing that allowed him to keep going, even with the guilt and self-loathing that had settled onto his shoulders after that stupid fucking prank.

Eyes closed completely. Drown yourself in the music, let it wash over you, let it paint colours on your eyelids. Let it kill you for a few hours.

The familiar tints of colours that appeared in the darkness of his lids with each note only calmed him further. Pale colours, calm colours, warm colours. Colours he wanted to wrap around his body, around himself. Colours he could use to protect himself from everything around him.

Josh could live like this; constantly alone, frozen in time, seeing and hearing the calmness he could only wish to possess. When was the last time he felt this good in his own skin without help? When was the last time he didn’t feel the need to break every mirror in this godforsaken flat, just so he wouldn’t have to see what it was — who it was that ruined everything.

Nobody was supposed to get hurt. No physical harm should have happened. Okay, yes, maybe a few bruises, a few bumps in their minds they’d have to iron out over the next few years but… Nobody was supposed to be dead, to have been killed and never be able to hear him apologise to hear him explain—

No. They were dead, and here he was, thinking about how he wanted to let them know what was going on inside his head, that he wasn’t okay, that he was damaged goods— Had he ever been goods? Would he have been worth, would he have deserved things if he didn’t have to choke back pills and therapy sessions that made him want to claw away his skin?

Everybody was in pain, everybody was suffering. How he hadn’t died in a “freak accident”, whether from his own actions or those of his friends, yet was the only thing that surprised him anymore. He was giving them time, allowing them to adjust out of the shock, to gather what they know, to maybe put two and two together. To face him again.

But it had been several months. Several months alone with nobody he cliqued with, with nobody he could joke about with or even talk to. He had no one to express his feelings to, to allow his pain to be heard by someone he completely trusted.

The replies to texts he got — if they decided to return them — didn’t satisfy him. They angered him, annoyed him to the point where he had actually chipped his bedroom wall from throwing his phone so hard at it in frustration. He understood they needed time but how much? He wasn’t sure if he had much time left, each second dragging out long enough to be a minute in its own right.

He hadn’t realised that his brows had furrowed, mouth settling into a thin line until he decided to relax his face, feeling his features ease up. Drown in the music. Drown forever and breathe deeply, let it fill your lungs. Let it relax you from deep within.

Let it kill you for a few hours.