#wr mina

[mor-beck-more-problems]

@drowningisinevitable replied to this:

[pm] I do. Want. I miss you just thought it might be good to hang out. And I’m… alright. I’m thinking about signing up for a few summer classes in addition to tutoring.

.

[pm] Okay.

Alright like you aren’t but you don’t want to talk about it? Or actually, you know, healing up into alright territory?

What classes are you thinking of?

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Running in the Dark || Morgan & Mina

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @drowningisinevitable & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Sometimes grief isn’t what you’d expect. Morgan already knew this. Mina’s learning it the hard way.

CONTAINS: references to emotional abuse

Thaddeus had been kind to Mina. She didn’t tell him, as he walked with her to what was left of Dark Score Lake, about the different ways that she’d thought about killing him, and she didn’t tell him that she needed to walk back to the East End, anyway, if only to get some of her stuff from Morgan and Deirdre’s. The walk had been long, her side not particularly healed at all, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care. She just didn’t care. She’d patch herself up inside, and then she’d…

She didn’t know what she’d do. Mina looked at the large house, dark and (for the first time that she could remember) ominous. It looked like no one was even home. She grabbed the spare key that was hidden near the pool for her on the nights she locked herself out. If she listened, she could hear the sound of laughing, good memories begging to be heard and reminisced. She ignored them. There was mud and blood in the footprints that she tracked up to her room; she’d need to clean up before she left. She added that to the list of things to do.

Mina trudged up to her room and went to her bedside table where she kept a first aid kit. She took off her shirt, assessed the damage. Her phone was on the table, the battery dead. She plugged it up. She wanted to sit, to take a moment, to stop and breathe. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. If she stopped, she’d start thinking again. And she couldn’t do that. She needed to not do that. She needed to fix herself and gather her things and leave. She needed to do that. She had to do that.

Morgan ran from dead time as much as she could. She was a zombie; she could outpace anything. She could try. The house could be scrubbed, dusted, polished. Books could be re-organized. Comments on student assignments could be longer, more thorough. And there were other people in town to talk to. Maybe she didn’t have much of a family anymore (maybe she’d been foolish to think she had one at all), but she could still do things. But time was more relentless than any body. It outpaced her and waited in a hallway she could not avoid, in silences she could not escape. Eventually, even soon, it would catch her.

But what caught Morgan now was a hushed sound of movement from Mina’s room. “Mina?” She called. She ran, fresh hope writing itself over her grief (she came back, of course she came back, Mina was so loyal, Mina was raised with a sense of duty and maybe that wasn’t so bad all the time, she must have been lost and scared, maybe she wanted to change before looking for her), and stepped through the doorway. Maybe Mina was going to change, eventually, since she was so caked in blood and water filth she looked liked the creature from the black lagoon, but judging from the neat stack of clothes and wrapped up charging cords, that wasn’t really her first priority.

The hopeful words in Morgan’s head dried up, the brightness in her face grew dim. “Oh.You...” The rest of the words she knew seemed to dry up too. “...So it’s like that, huh?” She searched inside herself for a shield of anger to put up, but her voice, frail and cracked, was already giving her away.

Head snapping up, Mina looked, and there was Morgan in the doorway, and there was Morgan looking so, so small. Mina felt herself shrinking a bit, falling in on herself. She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “I thought the house was empty.” But why would it be? Everyone else didn’t leave just because Bex did. Everyone else didn’t leave just because Mina did. She fumbled with her hands, and she didn’t look at Morgan. “Like what?” she asked. But she knew what. She knew.

The best Morgan could do to protect herself was fold her arms over her chest, holding herself. “I mean…” her voice croaked and she had to swallow and try again. “You didn’t even want to shower or change your clothes first. Are you really gonna make me say it too?” She looked at Mina, pleading. “Why were you...I know your empty room would have spoken for itself, but to make me come home and suddenly know out of nowhere you were never…” Never coming back. Never wanted to stay. Never what Morgan thought she had been. “Do you blame me, for losing her? Is it the memories, and the quiet? Or something else? I know apparently you don’t want to talk to me but can you please at least tell me why?”

“I was going to clean up,” Mina said, her voice barely above a whisper. And she knew that want what Morgan wanted. She knew. She was well aware. “I just needed to…” She didn’t know. Tending to the place on her side had been paramount. Anything else would come after, she figured, along with an explanation to leave, a note to write. And she didn’t plan on staying gone forever. Her body just knew it couldn’t stay here, stay still, for too long, or it was going to break, shatter like her heart into a thousand little pieces. She looked at Morgan sharply. “Blame you? How could I blame you? Why would I ever blame you? I let her— she said it was— I stopped you, from hurting her parents, or I tried to, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t not listen to her. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.” She frowned. “Why do you think I’d blame you? Why do you think I wouldn’t want to talk?” Even if she didn’t. Even if she did. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Mina felt like she’d been still too long. She felt like she was going to crack open if she didn’t start moving again soon.

Morgan shrank under Mina’s gaze. “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “I’m just...trying to understand why you’re doing this. I thought…” We were closer than this. That I wasn’t so easy to leave behind after all. Morgan sniffled and blinked her eyes dry. “I’m grasping at straws. I don’t know what to think. But you weren’t wrong to listen. She was wrong to ask you, and to make the choice that she did. You haven’t done anything wrong, Mina. You don’t need to think that.” Instinctively, one of her hands freed itself and reached for the girl. But she remembered herself and at the absurd question, gestured to what she thought was a pretty obvious mess. “Well, something about slipping in and not saying anything and being in a bigger hurry to pack than to take care of your injuries and explaining that you were doing this now because you thought the house was empty sort of gave me a vibe that you don’t want to see or talk to me. What am I supposed to think instead?”

“I’m sorry,” Mina said immediately. “I’m sorry. I don’t--” She wanted to leave. She wanted to be back in the forest, walking until she couldn’t anymore. She wondered if that was what it was like to swim in the ocean, to just go and go and go and keep going with no end in sight. She wanted that. She wouldn’t have to think if she could just keep moving. But here was Morgan, forcing her to stop. To think. “I didn’t want to let her down again. I feel like I did, though. I feel like-- I feel like--” Mina sagged forward a bit, and then she just sat, heavily, on her bed, not caring that she was getting dirt and blood all over it. “I didn’t want you to see me like this, and I wanted to get everything, well, not everything, I’m not taking everything, I’m going to come back, I promise I’ll come back, but I had to go. I had to. I stayed there, and I stayed, and I stayed, and nothing changed, so I started walking because, if I didn’t, I was just going to-- What’s wrong with me?” she managed to gasp out between words. “What’s wrong with me? Why is it like this? Why does it feel like this?” And Mina was genuinely at a loss as she looked at Morgan. What was wrong with her? Why was she like this?

“You didn’t let her down, Mina,” Morgan replied. Slowly, she came up to the girl and sat beside her. She was so young sometimes. So heartbreakingly young. How lonely must she have been to have gone this far without anything important enough to ache over losing like this. “Nothing is wrong with you. As a magically certified expert in suffering, I can guarantee you that all of this, as horrible as it feels, is as natural as the beat of your heart. Having your heart broken is the exchange for love.” Slowly, once again, she reached out for Mina in a timid request. “Can I touch you? Can I help clean you up? Please…? I don’t care how you look, but you won’t heal right if we leave you like this.”

“It can’t be that, no, no.” But even as Mina said the words, they hurt. They burned in her mouth like iron, but, maybe, if she kept saying them, they wouldn’t feel like a lie. “It didn’t hurt like this when my dad died, and Bex-- she’s not dead.” Just gone, and it felt like Mina would never get her back, and it felt like the world was ending, and it felt like it already ended. “It’s not that. It can’t be that. I can’t-- I’m not capable-- I was told-- It hurts so much, here.” She put her hand over her heart and hated the way it was pounding. When Morgan reached out for her, Mina could only look at the older woman with slight confusion before she remembered that she was bleeding, that she was hurt, physically. Swallowing, she said, “I can’t even feel it.” Another lie, though she wished she could feel it more. She wished it would drown out the ache in her chest. “It’s not that bad.”

Morgan slipped her hand under Mina’s to feel her chest. She had no sense of its beat, but she heard the girl’s voice strangling itself in her throat. She saw how her neck throbbed with each gasp. “No, she’s not dead. But loving Bex is different, and so is losing her, when she left.” Probably because where Bex was concerned there was more hope, and more return. The loss of a starved love hit different from one you had grown to trust. Morgan reached for the corner of the bed sheet and brought it up to wipe Mina’s face. They were already dirty from her sitting, and she didn’t want to turn away for a moment and lose her. “And of course you’re capable. Why wouldn’t you be capable?” She cradled Mina’s face carefully as she wiped. “You love her, and now that she’s left, it hurts. It’s awful, I know it’s awful, but it’s nothing mysterious.” Then she turned Mina’s head, hoping to get her to meet her eyes. “Slow down and talk to me, honey?” she asked quietly.

In. Hold. Out. Mina tried to control herself, to slow down the terrible, rapid beat of the heart in her chest, to make it less painful. She could slow down her breathing, but she couldn’t make her heart stop aching. It wouldn’t stop. It hadn’t stopped in days, and she didn’t know if it’d ever stop again. She shook her head. “I wasn’t taught to love. I’ve never loved. Not like that. It’s not my place to get attached.” But she had gotten attached, and now she was facing the consequences. It was almost worse, to think about it as love because it meant that she’d done this to herself. “I don’t want this,” she said. She’d rather go back to being chased down by a sianach. She’d rather go back to being hunted by a warden. “I don’t know what else to say. I don’t want this.”

“Yeah, that’s the funny thing about, love, Mina,” Morgan said, smiling in a way that hid nothing of her heartbreak. She started plucking the leaves and twigs from her hair, combing through soothingly. “You don’t need to be taught how to feel it. Just how to do it well. But even with that, you were doing so good, and I am so proud of you for that. You don’t have to say anything right now. I know it hurts. I know. Just let me help with this other stuff, okay? Hurting like this is hard enough on its own, right? Let me help with the rest. Please, Mina. Please…”

Shaking her head, Mina said, “I don’t…” It hurt. It hurt so much. It hurt in ways that she couldn’t even truly explain. This wasn’t the kind of hurt Mina was comfortable with. She was comfortable with iron burns from knives that had been sharpened the night before until they were razor thin, and she was comfortable with broken bones that came from both people and great heights, and she was comfortable even with the sting of sharp words from people that saw her as a monster, a pest. All of that was something she could understand. She couldn’t understand this. “I don’t-- I can’t stay, not here, not all the time, and I don’t want to go, but I-- I--” If she stayed, it’s just get worse, and she needed to be able to move and move and not stop moving, and Mina knew that Morgan would try to make her stop. She looked at Morgan, her eyes begging. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back, I promise. I’ll come back. I’m not leaving you. I’m not.”

“When, next month?” Morgan asked, barely loud enough to sound like anything. “Next year? When Bex gets off her bullshit? When some banshee’s screamed for you and your body drags you over to breathe your last breath over whatever’s left of this place?” She shook her head and tried to dispel the words and the desperation that came with them. She smiled. She could be that person that she sometimes believed herself to be: a woman who could hold up anything she was given, who could make any shithole of a problem just a little better. She started cleaning the girl again. “You’re not going to last long anywhere in this shape. You need a shower, and a patch up job, and maybe a soak in the pool. You’re hurt, honey. And whatever you’re afraid of, whatever you’re trying to outrun, I just have a feeling that you can’t. And maybe if you’re not so alone you won’t break so hard when it gets you. But that’s just my guess. I’d have a better idea if you told me?”

“Next week,” Mina said, immediately. “At least once a week. And she can-- she can do what she wants.” Thinking about Bex hurt. It hurt. And no banshee was going to scream for Mina. Maybe Deirdre. Maybe. Probably not, though. Not until it was too late. “I’ve been in worse shape,” she managed to croak out instead. “This was really my own fault. I fell down a hill. There was a sianach after me. I think a fallen branch just--” she motioned towards the place on her side-- “that.” She shook her head. “It really doesn’t hurt bad. I-- I feel like if I stop moving, I’m going to… I don’t know what’s going to happen. The last time, I cried.” What was she outrunning? Her own thoughts. Her own memories. This pain that wasn’t physical but somehow hurt worse. “I just can’t stop moving.”

“F-for the pool. Of course,” Morgan said. Once a week to top off and not keel over. “That’s…” Real thoughtful. Don’t strain yourself on my account. She had the good sense to taste something wrong in those thoughts and said, “Sensible.” She was running out of clean patches of sheet to wipe her clean with. They needed the first aid tub and the fae salve and a fucking shower. Stars, Morgan could barely smell anymore, but her brain could still concoct some ideas from how filthy everything was.

“Being impaled is a real bitch, though. Even if it’s just your side. For me it was always easy to destroy myself a little when I was grieving. Not just death grieving, any kind. My body acts like the world is ending, life goes on, and it feels kind of crazy to act like everything is fine. But then that’s what everyone else is doing, so I felt like I had to hide it. I’ve never run before though. You should tell me how it feels so I can imagine it.” Finally running out of ways to help with what little she had, Morgan put her hands gently on Mina’s shoulders. “What’s so scary about crying, through? What else do you think is gonna happen if you stop? Come on, we can move while you tell me. You can use my shower to rinse off and I’ll tape you up, okay?”

Mina sighed. “Not the pool, Morgan, no. It’s-- I mean, it’s a nice pool, but I don’t have to stay here. I don’t-- I like it here. I… want to be here. Not because of the pool.” She swallowed, tightly. “You know I’ve… never stayed anywhere for long, right? White Crest is the longest. Here, right here, is in the top three. I want to be here. I don’t-- I don’t have to be. Not even because of the pool.” She could go anywhere. She could go back to that pond in the forest and never move, if she wanted to, and her body would adjust, and it would be okay. But she felt… home was a foreign concept to Mina, but when she thought about it, she pictured this house, these people, even if one of them was someone that she felt like she’d never see again.

“Impaled makes it sound so bad. It barely did anything.” The lie was obvious just from the injury itself, but Mina kept her tone light, the taste of blood familiar on the back of her tongue. “I just need to move,” she said, more honestly. “I’m always-- I always have to move, somehow, someway. My dad would call me fidgety, as a child. All the time I would, well, move. Either my hands or my feet, anything. I just couldn’t stay still. It gets worse, when I’m… emotional.” She allowed Morgan to lead her down the hall with little resistance. She didn’t have much resistance in her anymore. She stumbled a bit. She was tired. She could curl into a ball right there on the floor. She knew she wouldn’t sleep. “If I stand still, I’ll cave in on myself. That’s what it feels like. If I stop to think about anything for too long, I won’t be able to stop. I won’t be able to get up, and I have to keep going. I have to.” She had to do better, starting then, starting the second she stepped out of this house.

Morgan didn’t know what to do with Mina’s assurances except look at her with stupid confusion. Somewhere in her mind, far away in places she had run from in her own way, was a thought from her books about not taking rebuffs and rejections personally. But where she stood now, she could only think, if Mina wanted to be here and felt at home here, then why didn’t she just do that? And since she couldn’t be totally lying, there had to be something wrong with the home or the people in it, and if there was something wrong, why couldn’t she just know so she could fix it. She could fix it. She could.

“I haven’t lived with Deirdre this long without catching how your lies burn your throats,” she said, leading Mina into the bathroom. “Also, I’ve been impaled twice. And it still kinda hurt when Constance got me on a chalkboard with a chair leg, so you’re really trying to convince the wrong person here.” She turned on the water and gestured for Mina to tend to herself and get in. “I’ll get you a better change of clothes and the good stuff we have from Deirdre’s stint at the fae clinic. Okay? The only thing running through town while you’re like this will do is make you stop somewhere you don’t want to be. So you can move by washing up. Then we’ll talk about the rest. But Mina--you won’t cave in, if you stop. Your body is telling you that it will, but your body is just a lonely, heartbroken animal. You won’t collapse. You won’t break. Not the way you’re afraid of. Okay?”

“It usually makes me sick, too, but I feel quite alright.” Lies also gave Mina nosebleeds, but she didn’t care. She didn’t feel one coming on, she couldn’t possibly feel any worse now than she already did, and she just didn’t care. “It’ll make me stop thinking. That’s all I want. I just want to stop thinking.” She looked at Morgan with tired eyes before turning away and stripping and stepping into the shower. She didn’t care. She was still covered in dirt and blood and debris, and she didn’t care. She felt like her feet were going to fall off as she stood still, but she didn’t care. She wanted to keep moving. She’d stop when she passed out.

Morgan closed each door behind her as she went back to Mina’s room and rummaged for some of the clothes she wore to their fighting practice. She thought about erring on the side of impractical. Maybe she wouldn’t be so keen on running away for a week at a time in a dress or pajamas. Maybe Morgan could get one night in the house where she wouldn’t have to be alone. But the more she tried to focus on holding Mina on the couch, or staying up together in the studio, the more she saw Mina tearing out of the house, more vulnerable to the elements than she needed to be. So, activewear.

Then she came back, opening the doors one by one again. She laid some towels near the tub, took out the salve, bandages, and supplies for stitches, just in case.

“Let me know if you need any help,” she called.

Water was usually a reluctant comfort. Sometimes, when Mina had been younger, she’d been uncomfortable with how much she needed it, how much her body would more often than not crave to be in the water. Then, she figured out it was the best way to heal, to get better, and it stopped seeming so damning. Yes, she wished she had the enhanced healing outside of it, but it was a hard world; she’d take what she could get because she had to, even if she didn’t want to. But now it didn’t feel like anything. Dirt and blood swirled down the drain, and it should have been a relief, to be clean. But it wasn’t a relief. She just wanted to leave, to start walking and maybe come back when she wasn’t feeling like this.

And Mina couldn’t help but think it was wrong, that she felt like this, no matter what Morgan said. She shouldn’t be grieving. No one was dead. Nothing had been taken from her. There had never been anything there to be taken. (Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was what hurt so bad. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.)

Mina was out of the shower and dressed robotically before heading back to Morgan. Being clean showed off the bruises, the cuts and scrapes that had probably been much worse before she’d spent so much time in the pond. She just… hadn’t noticed them. She’d been preoccupied. If her eyes were red, then it was only from a lack of sleep. That was it. That was a lie she could tell herself. “I don’t think I’ll need stitches.”

Morgan lifted Mina’s shirt to examine her side. The shower had done a lot for the wound, but leaving it alone was probably a bad idea if running through the woods was Mina’s idea of self-care. “I think you’re right. Just a bandage and some salve and lots of tape so it doesn’t come loose.” She knelt down and started to work, thinking of ways to treat the more minor injuries as she did. She did not want Mina to go like this and she did not want to be alone in this house.

“You never did tell me what was so bad about crying that one time you did stop,” she said after a while. “That doesn’t sound like breaking to me. Can you tell me more?”

“I started crying and a sianach heard and decided I’d make a lovely meal, and now I’m… here.” Mina sighed. “Sianachs are really lovely creatures in the fact that, if they touch you, you’re going to die, and I’ve been pretty miserable since I left, but not that miserable.” She stood completely still as Morgan worked on her, not looking, not even paying attention. “I stopped, and all I could think about was the fact that I’ve never felt like this, and it’s like I’m being stabbed from the inside, and that’s just a wonderful metaphor, right? See, I’m getting the hang of metaphors. Stopping gets you killed, or at least really close to it.” Mina closed her eyes tightly, tears escaping even when she didn’t want them to. “It hurts. So bad. So bad, Morgan. I can’t-- I feel utterly ridiculous, but it won’t stop.”

“The spinach deer, right,” Morgan said, laughing softly. “We had one charge into this house once. Before you, obviously. I had a panic attack in the middle of the library when I heard about it because one of my ancestors was killed by one, so I thought, yep, that’s it for me and everything I love. Granted, I did die a couple of days later, but that wasn’t the spinach deer’s fault. But in the moment, just hearing that everything familiar that I’d finally come around to thinking would stay, or at least be kind-of-sometimes mine had been destroyed while my back was turned, it did feel like my insides had been ripped through. My lungs, my stomach, my tendons. I tried to leave the building, but I collapsed instead…” She paused to lay the bandage for Mina’s side just so and keep it in place with one strip of tape before adjusting herself to secure it better.

“But the pain you’re running from isn’t about the cursed deer. It’s you, and what you thought you had, and what you thought was yours, and all that space that’s left behind now that those things are gone. And so of course it doesn’t stop. It just does what wounds do: it smarts and it gets infected if you don’t take care of it, and it hurts even when it’s scabbing over, and it numbs out and scars over and fades after a while. It never gets undone. It just heals, or it doesn’t, and then really does keep stabbing you forever, depending on what you choose. There’s nothing ridiculous about that.” She looked up at Mina, all softness. “I am so very sorry, my poor sweet girl. This was your first time being in love at all, wasn’t it?”

Any other time, and Mina might have felt like scolding Morgan over calling something as serious as a sianach a spinach deer, of all things, but she was more caught up in everything else that Morgan was saying, what she was asking. Mina shook her head, the motion jerky. “I’m not in love,” she choked out. And the words did choke her like the lie that they were. If she repeated them, though, maybe they’d be true. “I’m not in love. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.” And they didn’t taste like iron, now, just blood that had gathered in the back of her throat, that would likely be pouring from her nose in minutes. “This isn’t love. It isn’t. I can’t love people like that. He always told me I couldn’t, and he was right. He was right. I can’t. I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to do my duty and protect people and not fall in love and I can’t even do any of that right.” She couldn’t protect Bex or herself or anyone, and she couldn’t do what she was supposed to, and, “I’m not in love.”

“Mina--” Morgan reached over for some cotton balls and held them against Mina’s nose. Dark blood was coming down, splitting down the curve of her lips and staining her chin. “Mina, listen to me. He lied. He probably didn’t know that’s what he was doing, but he lied. You can love. Your heart is so big and so steadfast. Of course you can love.” The cotton balls started to drip, so Morgan tossed them into the sink and grabbed more. She urged Mina to sit on the edge of the tub, so she could guide her head forwards easier.

“Lying just makes you hurt worse and longer, honey,” she said. “And I know you don’t want that. I know you want the hurt to stop. But the only way out is through. Don’t hurt yourself worse.” She kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay to be like this. It’s okay to be in love with her. And you did it just fine from what I could tell, especially for your first time. You can say it, it’s okay…”

This really was making just an already horrible time even worse, wasn’t it? Mina sat down and leaned forward, well-versed in the methods of taking care of a nosebleed. She pinched her nose tight and licked the blood off her lips. She’d just gotten clean. She didn’t care. Blood and tears. That was really all she had left, wasn’t it? “I don’t want this, if it’s going to hurt like this,” she managed to say.

Only that stung, too. Another lie, one she hadn’t even realized was one until it dripped off her tongue like acid, and she swallowed tightly against it. Because maybe she didn’t want to feel like this, but it felt real, in its hurt. It felt like the most real thing she’d ever felt. Her throat tight, as if her own body feared that the next thing she’d say would hurt it, Mina said, her voice small, “I love her. So much. And what a piss poor way I had of showing it. I couldn’t protect her, I made a mess of everything, I didn’t even tell her what I was, Morgan.” She tried, the day before, but then Bex’s mother was there, and it felt like the world was ending. It still felt like it was trying to end.

“Hey--” Morgan wrapped Mina in her arms. “What do you mean a poor way of showing it? It’s not your fault she chose what she did. It’s not your fault Frank chose what he did either. Love isn’t about being a bodyguard, Mina. You’re not bad. For two people who were barely shown what love really looks like, you did so well. You did so, so well, Mina. Isn’t it kind of incredible?” She pulled back to cup the girl’s face. “Love is so much a part of who you are and what you’re capable of, you did it without realizing, without knowing how. And it’s a mess, yes, but I think love is supposed to be messy. And you didn’t make it. Not the way you’re saying. You’re okay, Mina. You’re not bad. You’re just a girl who lost her first love.”

“I didn’t tell her,” Mina said, and she felt the same amount of panic building in her chest that had been there the day at the coffee shop. Her heart was pounding, even in Morgan’s arms, and she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin. “I didn’t tell her, and you were right. You were so right. I should have done it sooner, but I didn’t. I didn’t know how. I still don’t, and it’s too late, and she’s-- I--” A sob forced its way from her chest, and Mina moved her arms, finally putting them around Morgan. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I wasn’t taught to speak about things, or be gentle, or let people help me.” And how strange it was, to her, that the woman in front of her was the one that was teaching her about those things. She was learning to be gentle from a zombie who couldn’t feel things unless pressure was applied. And yet she was one of the gentlest people that Mina knew. She tightened her hold. She was shaking. Everything hurt. It just hurt, and she was in love, and it hurt.

Morgan held Mina tighter and let her cry for a while. She rubbed her back and combed through her damp hair, starting a slow, steady rhythm she hoped would soothe. And if it didn’t soothe, maybe it would give the illusion that the world was still in tune, and she was still dancing in time, and this wall okay. Morgan would have given anything to feel like that herself, but she would settle for Mina.

“You were never taught those things, no,” she said at last. “But you’re learning so much already, so fast. You must be pretty good at it, to pick up so quickly. Especially being gentle. I never saw anyone be more gentle than you were with Bex. And you can learn the rest, if you want. Once you get over the first couple of tries, talking, letting people in, stuff like that, it gets easier. But I would be lying if I said that there’s such a thing as completely knowing what you’re doing. Because no one does. Even with all the experience in the world, doing something new, or with someone new, pretty much feels like you’re making it up as you go. So don’t hold that against yourself. Don’t hold anything that’s happened with Bex against yourself. You can learn without doing that. And you don’t need to hurt any more than you already do.”

She sighed and fit another kiss into her steady rhythm. “Can I help you right now, Mina? Would that be okay?”

It was so dangerous to fall apart like this. Mina knew that. She knew that she’d regret it, probably the next day when she got up and the need to be anywhere else was still there. But she’d allow it, if only for right in that moment, if only because she knew it was safe to do this with Morgan. And while Morgan didn’t make the pain go away, it was somewhat comforting to have someone else there. It made her feel less alone. She could almost believe Morgan, really, if she tried hard enough. If she stopped thinking for too long, stopped listening to the ever present voice in her head, then she could almost believe. But the voice was a bit like the ache. It was always there. It had just been around a bit longer. It sounded a lot like her dad. It sounded a lot like Mina.

“It hurts,” she murmured, and she felt young, younger than she had any right to, younger than she ever had, in saying these words over and over again. She should get up. She should tell Morgan she was okay. She should leave. She should make an escape while she still could. Instead, she said. “Please. For tonight, I-- Please.”

Morgan’s own eyes finally overflowed at hearing Mina’s voice shrink, at hearing her surrender to staying, even for just a night. It didn’t feel as good as she thought it would. But how could anything feel good when Mina was this devastated? “Oh, my love,” she whispered. “Of course. Of course. For as long as you want, even just tonight, I’ve got you.” And so with great care, she scooped her up like the child she still was and carried her out. She did her best not to think about how small and terrible things had become for them, that carrying a frightened girl felt like comfort. She only thought about her next plan (rest and dinner and the right kind of distractions and packing; she hated helping Mina leave her but if she couldn’t stop it, she had to make it good) and the simple fact that in the sunken places their heartbreak had made for them, for once, for a little while, they weren’t alone.

Mina went rigid the second Morgan picked her up, her eyes widening before she forced herself not to flinch, not to react too strongly. In theory, she knew Morgan was strong enough to pick her up. She had picked her up, months ago, in a desperate race against time to get her from the car to the bathtub after the werewolf attack. But it was still strange. Morgan could pick up passed out werewolves to put in the basement and animal carcasses to take to her shed, and it didn’t phase Mina, but the second Morgan picked her up, it took her brain too long to process.

She was still processing that as Morgan ordered food, and still processing it when she put on The Sound of Music, and still processing it as they sat on the couch as the food arrived. Surely Mina ate. Surely she fell asleep. She blinked as it was morning, and she blinked again and they were in her room, packing up some of her clothes. “I’m not… you know I’m not leaving for good, right? I’m not.” But even as she said it, Mina wondered how long it would take her desire to keep moving to make her want to leave town. This was the longest she’d stayed anywhere. Maybe this was a sign that it was time to go. But she didn’t want that. But it might be.

“No,” Morgan admitted quietly. “I don’t. Because I release you from your promise to come back.” She no longer had the strength to be resentful about it, or to conceal the plaintive waver in her voice that underscored her words with please tell me I’m wrong, tell me I don’t have to do this by myself, tell me I’m not losing you too. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who traps you with them against your will. I don’t want you to come just because you made some reckless promise to make me feel better.” But I do want you here. Why do you even have to go? You know it won’t help, so don’t go, please don’t go. “So...I don’t really know anything,” she sniffled. “Here, don’t forget your battery pack. Not a lot of outlets in the woods. And this first aid bag, in case anything else happens…”

She looked around the room but found nothing else to shove into Mina’s backpack that would do any good.

“There is stuff for breakfast,” she added quickly. “You should have a big meal before whatever you’re doing. Or for lunch. I can cook and pack it up for you, if that’s better. And…” And what else? “...Will you tell me to my face, please? When you go today, can you...say goodbye? And call or message or...something if you can if you do decide to...I-I know I haven’t confided much in you about my history, but I’ve lost so many people without a word, without a chance to say goodbye, so...I would appreciate it if you didn’t disappear while my back was turned or anything. It doesn’t make anything better.”

“Morgan…” And Mina didn’t quite know what to do, so she put down the shirt that she was holding and walked over and hugged Morgan, tightly. She didn’t even think about it too hard; she just did it, the action right. “I’m going to come back. I’m not going fully wild, you know. I like camping, really, but I like four walls and somewhere to keep my clothes so they don’t get all wrinkly.” She sighed. “I’m going to come back. I’m not even taking all of my stuff. I might just stay at the little house near Dark Score, make use of the rent money that comes out of my account every month. But I’ll be back, and I’ll be on campus, and I’ll always be around.” She didn’t promise it. She hoped Morgan knew she meant it.

Mina had never known comfort like this, or care, or love. Not like this. This was gentler than anything she ever had, so gentle that most of the time she didn’t know what to do with it. She felt like she’d break it, shatter it, make it to where Morgan wanted nothing to do with her anymore. And she wanted to trust this gentleness, but it was so hard. And she was a coward. She always ran in the end. She always turned her head away in the end. “Breakfast sounds lovely,” she said. “And of course I’ll tell you. Last night was stupid. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be one of those people to you. I’ll let you know before I leave today. I promise. But I’m coming back. I’m telling you now that I’m coming back.” Morgan was one of her people, and she was in short supply of those. She wasn’t going to leave without keeping in touch. She’d promise that, too, if she needed to.

Morgan squeezed her arms around Mina until she could feel the curve of her arms and the sharp ends of her shoulder blades. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t be a crime against one of them.There were no more assurances she could ask for. There were only the last steps of her plan (downstairs for breakfast, get Mina to take some lunch anyway, get her to help with the dishes) and the empty, unclaimed hours that lay beyond them. It was like lights flickering off halfway down a strange hall. You know there’s ground ahead, that’s how halls work, but there’s no certainty in the dark. There’s nothing but hope to keep you from falling.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

@drowningisinevitable​ replied to this:

[pm] 

[user attaches a selfie. she looks tired and bruised but is giving a thumbs up, so she’s obviously fine. her hair is indeed blonde] 

We both made it out without dying, so I think that everything went okay, yes. And that’s good. How is she? Did her trip go alright?

.

[pm] Adam told me how it was down there. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine, but...I know it was hard. 

Your hair does look cute though.

She’s okay. We’re both better for being together again. And the trip was...something alright. I’ll let her tell you, when you feel like checking in.

Do you need anything?

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Fight Them || Morgan & Mina

TIMING: Current, shortly after Morgan’s run-in with Dani on campus

PARTIES: @drowningisinevitable @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan comes home, still reeling from Dani’s attack, where she is found by Mina. 

“It’s never going to stop, is it?”

CONTAINS: panic attack

It was a little after ten by the time Morgan made it to her house and stepped out of the car and stood frozen in the middle of the walkway. She was fine. She had all her body parts and after three pointless detours around town, she convinced herself that there was no way the hunter girl had followed her home. She was fine. The windows glowed with warm light and the purple-white glare from the TV in the great room. She could imagine Deirdre carelessly tipping the delivery driver fifty dollars and Bex sorting out the food and Mina’s face when she got her sushi and the cringes and the small talk and the whole wonderful nothing of dinner at home in the kitchen. She was fine. Any minute now, she would shuffle forward and open the door and call out to them and Deirdre would know just how tight to hold her and she would be fine.

But Morgan’s feet would not bring her any closer to her front door. If she moved anywhere except down to her knees, it would be around the side, where she would pass the kitchen windows and the paper cartons strewn on the counters on her way to her garden, her studio, her shed. It was as if that girl’s hand was still around her throat, pinning her down, ready to cut her existence away. The night wind billowed, making the grass sing in whispers and reminding her how alone, how vulnerable she was, standing alone in the dark with her back turned to the street.

Morgan turned and marched around the side of the house until she was through the fence and staggering toward the back porch. Her chest burned, collapsing inward. There was no lung function to disrupt and so no hyperventilating to make her dizzy, her breath simply stuck in place and the fear boxed away in her spilled out of her in taut muscles and trembling hands. Morgan bent over, too tired to do anything but let her hurt take her, and opened her mouth to cry out. Only the faintest croak rattled out of her breathless lips. She clawed her throat, hearing the echoes of her own pleas in her ear, and sank to her knees at last, wheezing and whimpering all the way to the ground. She was fine. She was home. All she’d wanted was to be able to come home and now she was home, so everything was fine...

Mina had left the house early, claiming a late night swim before bed and managing to stave off any curiosity that Bex might have to stick around. All she really ended up doing is soaking, something that she probably could have done in the tub but wanted just a bit more space to do. She wasn’t even shifted much, just the patchy amount of scales broken out. She’d been about to get out anyway when she heard whimpering, crying. Pulling herself up, Mina proceeded towards the porch until she saw Morgan curling in on herself. “Morgan?” She’d never heard Morgan make that sound, and Mina didn’t know what to do. For a second, she just stood there, eyes wide, unsure of what she was supposed to do. But then Morgan started clawing at her throat, and Mina leapt forward. “Morgan!” She reached out, trying to pull Morgan’s hands away. “Hey, hey, Morgan. Can you hear me? Morgan? What happened? What’s wrong?” She looked for marks before she realized that she probably wouldn’t find any. Zombie healing took away most forms of outward harm. “Morgan, please, breathe. Please breathe. Please breathe.”

Morgan heard her name as if from inside the house, but her hands were being moved, she was being pulled again, and what if she wasn’t fast enough this time? She sat up and tried to pull away, her frightened cry coming out in broken squeaks. But it was only Mina. Morgan slumped, still shaking but no longer fighting, and at the girl’s bidding, her lungs opened and the sobs that had been trapped inside her spilled out. What had happened? The same thing that always happened. The same thing that would keep happening, until one day it stuck. Morgan tried to breathe. When she was alive, breathing had always been a dependable comfort, but the more she tried, the harder she shook and sobbed. Morgan couldn’t even lift her head to look at Mina. It felt wrong to throw this at her feet, to make her carry this with her, but she couldn’t even sit up on her own, how was she supposed to keep it together long enough to get inside? Morgan shook her head and prayed to the earth that Mina knew how ashamed she was, how much she didn’t want this for either of them.

At last, in a voice warped with tears, she said, “There was a hunter. On campus. S-she knew...I didn’t tell her anything, I’d never seen her, she just knew. What I am. I was j-just leaving the building. I just wanted to come home...” She shivered and shrank inward, hating the plaintive sound of her voice, how she couldn’t seem to stop begging.

There was that moment when Mina almost panicked because of course she shouldn’t have just reached out and touched Morgan like that without asking, but then Morgan slumped forward, and Mina grabbed her under the arms and hugged her, held her, as she cried. This was terrifying. She’d never seen Morgan this upset. Morgan was so strong, always, in Mina’s eyes. She’d never watched Morgan break like this and shatter in so many places. Swallowing tightly, Mina attempted to soothe the older woman, remembering how Morgan had comforted her before. She could do this. This was something that she could do.

“There’s a slayer on campus?” she asked. She wondered if it was the same slayer, Bex’s slayer, the one that saved her from the vampire. This wasn’t fair. There couldn’t be a slayer out there that saved one of Mina’s favorite people while hurting another one. That wasn’t fair. “It’s okay. It’s okay. She won’t come here. She’s not going to come here.” She moved them a bit, tried to keep Morgan from caving in. “She won’t come here, but, if she does, Deirdre and I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay? We won’t. It’s not happening.”

Morgan didn’t have the strength to tell Mina she was sorry for crying on her, that this wasn’t her job, that she wanted to protect her too, and if she could just get inside and see the warm lights from the great room, she might finally feel safe. The only thing she could manage between repeating some variation of what she’d already said was more cries, until her voice buckled. Then she quieted and forced her eyes open to look at the world around her while her body continued to release its panic. Thousands of blades of grass, one freshwater pool fostering plant life, one nix who had done so much for her that she would never be able to repay, two steps to the front porch. Three clouds in the sky, one moon, ten constellations she’d made up with Deirdre. She went around like that, counting the chimes that tinkled in the wind, the rustles from night bugs, the points of pressure from Mina’s grasp that she could actually feel, until the rest of her quieted and she only felt dull and hollow.

“I almost made it out on my own. I bought myself time, and then I didn’t,” she mumbled. “If it wasn’t for the fucking face-stealer, I wouldn’t...I wouldn’t…” Be here. With Mina. With anything. “I don’t want it to be your job to protect me. I don’t want the last thing I hear to be someone telling me I stopped existing the moment I died. That I deserve to be executed.” She breathed, chest shaking. “Did your dad’s friends ever tell you stories about people like me?”

“There’s really no way to prepare for something like this,” Mina said. “I’m just glad you made it out.” Her eyes widened. “There was a face-stealer, too?” Okay, alright. One problem at a time. She took a deep breath. “You’re here. You’re here. You’re here.” Mina didn’t know what she’d do if Morgan wasn’t here, if the slayer had succeeded. Would she have gone after a slayer, a human, to avenge a zombie? Would she really do that? Would she so firmly disregard her training in that way? Yes. The voice in the back of her head was tiny, but it was hers, and it was honest. She would. She would. She didn’t want to think on that too hard, didn’t want to think on the fact that she couldn’t avenge her father’s murder but would Morgan’s in a heartbeat. She didn’t want to know what that meant. Maybe it meant that she was as much of a monster as she’d always believed. Maybe it meant something else.

“It’s not my job to protect you. I want to. There’s a difference.” Mina knew this. This was about more than duty. She pulled away a bit, trying to look Morgan in the eye. “My dad’s friends were wrong. My dad was wrong. If they’d met you, they’d know that. He would know that.” The words didn’t sit well. Then, quieter, “I’ve seen zombies before.” She knew how to take down zombies, too. She’d never had to, didn’t want to, but she had the knowledge. That’s what happened when your dad wanted to be able to take one whatever, whenever, for however much was offered.

Morgan could only meet Mina’s eyes for a few moments before becoming too embarrassed of how broken she looked. “I tried to tell her…” she swallowed thickly. “To explain that I wasn’t what she thought I was. That I was a person. It was the first thing I tried…” And if it had accomplished anything at all, it had just made the slayer even more determined to kill her. It was too important to the rationalization bedtime stories some hunters told themselves. Of course they needed to stamp out any challenge they heard to that. Of course they’d try to double down. Morgan shivered, and decided to let Mina keep her own illusions; at least those were full of hope. “Were they starving, like the ones you see on TV, the zombies you saw? Or were they...like me?”

“Sometimes, they can’t hear,” Mina said, quietly. “Or they-- they-- they don’t want to hear. They don’t want-- They can’t-- To think of you as a person,” To think of myself as a person, “Is for them to completely rewrite everything that they know, that they were taught, and it’s not possible for some people because if they slowed down and they listened and they heard, they would know that you’re good and a person and that you’re not going to hurt them.” And some zombies were bad because not everyone could be a Morgan and try to live alternatively and eat animal brains cooked like a person. Not everyone did that. It was hard to explain that, especially to someone who always wanted to see the worst. How readily Mina had just… accepted Morgan as Morgan. How readily she’d accepted that Morgan could be a person, that Ari could be a person. Deirdre. They were people, and she knew that now, and maybe there was a part of her that had always wanted to see supernaturals as people but just didn’t know how. Still didn’t know how, sometimes.

Mina looked at Morgan, looked away. “They looked like you.” There’d been one man, and Mina would have never known what he was if it wasn’t for the slayer with them letting them know he was a draugr. He was old and young at the same time. He looked so tired. When they’d cornered him, Mina had looked away. She almost always looked away. “They just looked like people, but we were told they were dangerous people, and they needed to be-- So they were.”

Morgan knew what Mina was going to say before she even began. How many dinners in Texas had gone quiet when she brought up the hate crimes in Montrose or the attempts to give places the right to turn away queer couples from their apartment complexes and churches and schools and bakeries. If there was ever a real person in those discussions, and not just some hateful, fear-stricken idea, it wouldn’t be so easy. They might have to feel like a bad person. They might have to regret half their whole life in one go. And in a world that nurtured so little forgiveness, they couldn’t handle that, could they?

And with how Mina was brought up, with how her father had made her promise to be like him on pain of death, she wasn’t surprised that Mina had helped kill zombies like her, who died frightened, alone, and in so much despair. She nodded, accepting this, and sank a little further. “...It’s never going to stop, is it? It doesn’t even matter to them that I hate what human brains do to me, that I didn’t choose this, that I don’t even want to hurt anyone, much less…” She breathed deep, her breath still trembling with sobs waiting to burst. Then again. Then again. When she spoke again, her voice was firm. “Will you teach me? How to fight like them? Because I don’t want this either. I don’t want to spend the rest of my existence waiting for someone to find me and break me like I’m an abomination from hell, like I’m a thing made to be crushed. I need to be able to do better the next time this happens. I need to know I can make it home. You offered to show me once: no holding back, for either of us. Do you still mean that?”

Was it ever going to stop? Mina didn’t know. She didn’t think so, and she hated that. “They don’t-- They don’t know. They just don’t know. They don’t want to know.” She breathed in with Morgan, swallowing down bile. None of the people that she grew up with would see Morgan as a person. None of them. She wouldn’t have, over a year ago. She didn’t know what she would have done, if she’d known Morgan as a zombie before she knew her as a human. She might have found a slayer to deal with the situation. She might have never listened to Morgan about anything that she’d tried to tell Mina about supernaturals and life and just being a person. She probably still wouldn’t believe that she was a person. She took a deep breath. “I’ll teach you. I’m not losing you to people who don’t understand and refuse to listen.” She squeezed Morgan’s hand tightly. “There’s no learning to fight like them. You can’t. They were made to fight you.”

Mina’d had to learn that from wardens. She could mimic them all she wanted, but that wasn’t teaching her to fight them, just like them. “You have to learn to fight them.” She didn’t know how to fight back, only to hold her ground until she could escape. It looked like they’d both be teaching each other something. “But I did mean it. No holding back. You’re going to learn how to make sure you can always make it home.” Maybe she was damning herself, teaching a supernatural how to fight back against hunters. Maybe this was the ultimate step in the wrong direction. Maybe she didn’t care.

Morgan squeezed Mina’s hand in turn. Fight them. It didn’t sound so just-in-caseies like that. There was nowhere to hide what she wanted, how many Good Little Zombie rules she’d be breaking, how much she would be disappointing Remmy, or how much of the world she wanted to believe in might crumble away.

Gold lamplight splashed into the yard. Morgan flinched, whimpering, then she lifted her gaze to the windows. There was Bex in her pajamas, her hand still on the master switch, gaping with fear. She said a word and out of the shadows stepped Deirdre. Morgan let go of Mina’s hand to reach for her and toppled against the nix instead, too overwhelmed to remember how to balance. Deirdre was in her black robe, the one Morgan had gotten for her because it had bats and tombstones on the inside, and her hair looked damp from her shower. She was so beautiful in the most ordinary way, Morgan started to cry all over again, thinking of her swallowed by eternal nothing alongside the girls she loved so much.

Bex and Deirdre ran for the nearest door and as they knocked past each other and dashed into the garden, Morgan realized how much they looked like they’d known each other for so much longer, like they belonged in the house together.

“The hunters think I was made to fight them. Maybe I can prove them right,” she rasped, her eyes still on Bex and Deirdre, coming closer and calling her name. She swallowed thickly and hid her last words in Mina’s shoulder, audible only to the two of them. “Meet me at seven, just after sunrise. No holding back.”

Then she was surrounded, hands all over her face, bodies pressed against her back, familiar voices mixing into worried noise, and the only thing Morgan wanted more than the power to cut down anything that would take her away from this (all she loved, all she had, all that could be) was the power to hold everyone close to her at once and carry them safe inside.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

@drowningisinevitable​

[pm] I don’t like feeling like I’m being a parasite to you and Deir Certainly! There are a few streams that branch off the lake that are still alright, and I’ll probably just use one of them. I’m mostly healed and not at any risk dehydrating any time soon, and I’m incredibly appreciative of you and Deirdre both, but I know you need your space. And I don’t mind, really! Cleaning is the least I can do.

[pm] We’re fine, Mina, really. My studio space is all set up so there won’t be any more power tool sounds, and things aren’t so yell-y anymore and it’s honestly nice having one of our friends still around.

But I definitely get if those few days of having the place to yourself made you miss full time privacy. 

Also, didn’t we talk about splitting the difference with this need to defer to and do things fore each other not too long ago? This would be a good time to try that, right?

[mor-beck-more-problems]

[pm] Would you want to get lunch on campus tomorrow?

@drowningisinevitable

[pm] Um Yeah, sure. If you want. Do you actually want to or That would be really nice.

How are you? Is everything okay?

[mor-beck-more-problems]

@drowningisinevitable​

[pm] Oh no. Yep! Just, you know, thinking on it, and it would be nice, if my education was a bit more well rounded. I haven’t taken a literature class since my first year at university for good reason. Ah, what classes are you teaching?

.

[pm] You want to take one of mine?

I only have two actual courses right now, the others are just sections of the same. They’re cross-listed with the Mythology and Supernatural Studies department. One is kind of a survey of speculative and horror fiction that’s just a fancy basics course, Fear and Loathing: Western Literature of Speculation. But I have a sophomore level seminar that counts as an elective, Our Monsters, Ourselves: Recognizing the Other in Speculative Literature. It focuses a little more on developing intersectional feminist and queer readings of texts in that genre, and making room for self-reflection of your own, or developing your own monster image of what you’re afraid of or how you feel like you’re seen. 

I have special add codes from the school. Even if the class looks full, I can make room for you, if you really want. 

[mor-beck-more-problems]

@drowningisinevitable​

[pm] Of course. You... seem like you could use a break.

[pm] Oh. Did you um...hear stuff, when Deirdre came home? It was just a lot to process all at once. 

Only if you’re sure, though. I can just take a walk if you want to stay to yourself. The gesture is really kind as it is.