#the weaning is actually going fine. i just. ugh it's so SLOW and i HATE how it makes me feel

[adelle-ein]

medication is so frustrating bc sometimes the side effects are making me so miserable and i want to flush it all down the toilet but then i remember what i felt like without it and aaaaargjh

[hadtochangemyurlquick]

your writing is so so great! could I please request a one shot where maybe Toni falls of a cliff/gets injured badly in order to protect Shelby and her friends and they are insanely worried (both for Toni and Shelby’s mental wellbeing) JUST LIKE IN YOUR LAST ONE SHOT, I actually think the girls are the best thing Toni could ever get and she deserves all of the comfort and love

it’s 2.3k of hurt/comfort fresh off the presses. i have not even read it. initially it was gonna be a lot angstier but i couldn’t make the stakes high enough in that so we’re sticking with this for now. i’ll post it on a03 as soon as i get positive feedback bc i crave validation and also i ahve not eaten lunch and am running on three hours of sleep and if you’re wondering if that’s your fault. well.

Toni woke up and groaned, her head pounded and she was cold all over, shivers wracking her body.

She gave a slow cough, and dust rattled around in her lungs.

She was alive, at least. That was something.

Fuck, Shelby.

“Shelby?” Her voice was so hoarse it barely pierced the gloom, but it was clear. Toni was alone.

The worst of her injuries seemed to be her leg, which was trapped under a rock she didn’t have the leverage to move. She didn’t have the space to move at all actually. There was no light in the alcove, or the space between rocks she was in, but hopefully it wasn’t airtight.

Her head was bleeding, and her back was bruised, and there were scrapes up and down her arms, but she could really barely feel her leg.

There was water, which was very very bad, but it was only ankle deep, and the soft trickle she heard did not indicate she only had a few hours left.

The thunderstorm had come on suddenly, tropical ones sometimes do. It wasn’t Toni’s first time caught up in one, usually they were in the trees and they had to race for a nearby cave or the beach just in case lightning decided to strike. But she and Shelby had been by the cliffs, looking for more caves or maybe a place to get ten minutes to themselves.

The rain had dropped down like a hammer, the wind was strong enough it carried them both off their feet. Toni remembered, vaguely, being slammed into something hard. She grabbed Shelby’s hand and kept them going against it, wind and hail pelting them hard enough to bruise. She hadn’t heard the distant rumbling, stupid, but had shoved Shelby into a cave and at the wrong second her grip slipped and the wind picked up, and she was flung away.

She crawled into some pace between rocks and the rumble had been a mud slide. Everything was kinda hazy after that.

At least the storm seemed to have stopped. She rubbed her eyes and winced at the pain in her head. Probably a concussion.

God what if Shelby was buried too? What if Shelby was dead?

That was a nasty storm, what if the other girls were hurt, even if they were on the beach?

What if Toni died here, alone and cold and bleeding and hurt?

“Toni!” Someone screamed.

She closed her eyes, allowing herself to sink into the relief. From how far away they were, and muffled by the rock slide, she couldn’t recognize it, but she’d give anything that it was Shelby.

“Toni!”

She tried to call back but her voice wouldn’t let out much more than a rasp and a series of coughs that shook her to her spine.

She tried slamming her fist against the rock ceiling but that made the water at the bottom start trickling faster.

“Toni!”

The voice sounded further away and she began to panic, what if that was her last shot?

“Toni!”

She settled for slow scratching at the mud trapping her in and the voice started getting closer again.

“I think I hear something over here!” Someone called. “Toni, is that you?”

“Yes,” she tried to rasp out, “Yes, I’m here!”

“I can’t hear anything,” someone said.

She kept scratching.

“There’s definitely something there,” someone said. “Maybe it’s an animal or something.”

“She has to be around here somewhere,” someone said. “TONI!”

The water around her ankles was filling up faster, had almost reached her navel. The more she scratched the higher she got, the rocks behind her head felt less stable.

“Toni if that’s you knock twice okay?” Someone said.

She knocked twice.

“Guys she’s down here!”

There are more voices, scratches and banging around on top of her head. It all feels incredibly dangerous, like they might get sucked down too, but she doesn’t have a way to warn them.

In the end Dot managed to get them to their senses, got them to stand back and used the hatchet to slowly carve a hole in. It was enough for her to peer through and Toni realized what she must’ve looked like. Bloody and pale and broken.

“Yalright Toni?” Dot asked.

Toni shook her head, and with the penlight she knew Dot could see it. At least the fresh air was nice, she suspected the ventilation wasn’t as great as she thought it initially was.

Dot pulled away to address everyone. “Okay guys, it’s filling with water which means we have to be super careful.” Dot reappeared, “Any major injuries?”

“Leg,” Toni tried to rasp out.

“What’s that?”

Toni pointed at her leg.

“Ah shit, is it trapped?” Dot asked.

Toni nodded.

Dot disappeared again and her voice was too quiet for Toni to make out.

“Toni?” It was Martha, which at least meant she was okay. “We’re gonna get you out of there you just have to stay calm.”

Where the fuck was Shelby?

The hole they dug got a little wider, she could hear Dot over-exerting herself, Fatin simply exerting herself, Leah going into hyper drive. Nora gave instructions from the sidelines and Martha kept talking to her.

Where was Shelby where was she.

When Dot’s hand finally managed to reach her hand Toni let out her first audible noise in hours and it was a scream of pain. Her leg felt like it was falling out of her socket and she collapsed back into the water with a splash, it now at chest height.

“Toni,” Martha’s voice returned, “We might have to amputate.”

“No,” Toni rasped, tears streaked down her dusty face. “Please no.”

She knew they couldn’t hear her but still. She found herself begging, begging like she never had before.

“Shelby wants to talk to you,” Martha said, she sounded unsure. “Is that okay?”

Toni nodded, as aggressively as she could. So Shelby was okay, it was her voice in the beginning.

“Toni,” there was Shelby’s voice, she almost closed her eyes at the sound of it, but she didn’t want to miss her eyes. “Toni I’m here.” She reached her hand out and Toni bent as far as she could, letting their fingers intertwine in a loose hold before she collapsed back down again. “We’re gonna get you out of this, okay?”

Toni wiped at her eyes. “Shelby.”

“I promise,” Shelby said, “you’re gonna be just fine.”

They managed to carve her out, Toni wasn’t quite sure how. She faded out after a few hours, when the water reached her chin. When she woke up she was back on the beach, in clean clothes in the shelter, her leg was elevated and wrong looking, and her head was in Martha’s lap.

“You’re awake,” Martha said, Toni’s hair was probably filled with a million different braids. “Let me get Dot, alright?”

Toni nodded and to her horror tears started streaming down her cheeks the moment Martha left. Maybe it was exhaustion, pain, but it felt like fear. That all consuming crippling terror.

“Hey,” it was Shelby’s voice, not Dot’s, that came through the shelter. She spotted the tears immediately and Toni closed her eyes, willing them to stop. A soft, calloused finger, wiped them away and Toni leant into the touch so desperate and cold and her arms wrapped around Shelby as Shelby lifted her just a little into her arms.

“You’re alright,” Shelby said. “I’ve got you.”

Toni was aware she was shivering and shaking, her entire body felt weaker than it ever had.

“I’ve got meds for you, alright?” Shelby said. She pulled away. “You need to eat somethin first, and drink somethin, you’re probably dehydrated.”

She helped Toni sit up against one of Fatin’s balled up sweaters and gave her some of the goat jerky Shelby had managed to smoke. Toni chewed slowly and felt exhausted afterwards, and didn’t argue when Shelby handed her a pill and some water. She fell asleep to Shelby’s hands caressing hers.

Things faded in and out. Shelby and Martha were both there as much as they could be but it was Rachel who took up the mantel more often than not. One hand meant taking care of Toni was about as productive as she could get.

“How does the leg feel?” Rachel asked, when Toni was more lucid than usual.

“I can’t feel it,” Toni said. “Probably not a great sign.”

“Well I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Dot said we got to wean you off of the painkillers because you might get addicted.”

Toni rubbed her eyes, the last thing she wanted to think about right now was her mother.

“I’m also probably blowing through the stash,” she said.

“Hopefully this is the last major injury we get,” Rachel said. Toni looked at her. “Fine. Be that way.”

They were silent for awhile, Rachel picking at some of her bandages and Toni focusing on the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore.

“I don’t think Shelby’s a homophobe,” Rachel said. Toni looked at her, “I know I know but—she was really freaked out when we found her. She’s definitely got a major guilt complex or something, but I don’t think she hates you. At least not anymore.”

“Okay,” Toni swallowed hard.

“I just mean—ugh,” Rachel went from picking at her bandage to picking at her clothes. “Listen I’m not saying you have to forgive her but just like. You didn’t see her once we found you. She was freaking out man, kept saying how god had taken you. Remind me never to go to Texas like she and Dot keep inviting me?”

“Can’t be all bad,” Toni said, ignoring everything else Rachel just said. “I hear the Mexican food is great.”

Rachel hummed.

“Hey,” Toni kept her voice soft when Shelby came in that night with dinner. “I wanna talk to you.”

“Eat first,” Shelby said. “I need to check your scrapes. How does your head feel?”

“Like I have a mild concussion,” Toni said.

Shelby re-bandaged the worst of the scrapes, and cleaned them again. A lot of them were so bad they were yellow with pus, and likely Toni would have wicked scars there.

“Nora said it was an off shore hurricane, one of those that dies before it reaches the mainland. It was probably almost dead which is why it only last a few hours.”

“Oh,” Toni said. “Does that mean were close to somewhere?”

“It could, but it might mean we’re closer to Japan,” Shelby said. “How’s the leg?”

“I can’t feel it,” Toni said. Shelby nodded.

“Dot wants you to only use the meds to sleep,” Shelby said.

“It’s a good idea, with like—my mom and everything,” Toni looked away and Shelby took her hand.

“You know I don’t think less of you for that, right?”

Toni nodded.

“Good.”

They ate in relative quiet, for dessert there were lychees which Shelby had evidently picked up for the two of them if her blushing was anything to go by.

“I wanna talk to you about something,” Toni said at last. Shelby nodded. “Rachel was talking to me about how they found you.”

Shelby frowned, “alright?”

“Did you—“ Toni furrowed her brow, “Shelby did you really think god had taken me away or something?”

Shelby looked away away, fidgeting with that damned cross necklace. “Toni you didn’t see it.”

“Shelby I’m pretty sure I’m the only other one who did.”

Shelby shook her head, “No, no Toni you didn’t see it—not the way I did. The storm came on so suddenly, and there was lightning and thunder everywhere, and your hand was in mine but I turned around I just barely saw you go flying, like you were actually being sucked up into the sky.”

“But I’m okay,” Toni said.

“No,” Shelby kept shaking her head, “It was my fault. If I had held on a little tighter, or if I hadn’t been there you wouldn’t have been there at all.”

“I would still be on this island—“

“None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t been here,” Shelby said. “Don’t you see? I had feelings for you and you got food poisoning, we kissed and everyone nearly starved, Rachel got attacked by a shark after we had sex—Toni what more do you need?”

“Shelby,” Toni grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“I mean you got pulled away by Him when I was about to tell you I—“ Shelby cut herself off. “It’s a sign, is all. It’s a sign.”

“Shelby look at me.”

When Shelby does her eyes are red and wide and scared.

“Shelby do you really think God would kill me for this,” Toni traced a thumb over Shelby’s hand. “For loving you?”

Shelby swallowed hard. “I can’t rightly say.”

“Shelby,” Toni’s voice cracked, and she couldn’t even blame it on the dust. “You really think he’d do that? Kill some random ass teenage girl because she happened to love another teenage girl? I know I don’t know a lot about the Bible but I’m pretty sure Jesus was too busy turning water into wine to worry about if a couple of girls were kissing behind the church.”

Shelby kinda smiled at that and Toni ached to pull her into her arms, to run her fingers through her matted her and kiss her until the cows came home. Or the goats. But her body was too weak, and she had to settle for pressing a kiss to Shelby’s knuckles.

“I love you,” Toni said. “Now say it back.”

Shelby looked at the door to the tent, worrying her jaw, she looked back at Toni, “I love you too.”

She flinched and waited, but all they heard was the gentle crashing of distant waves and Shelby seemed to sag.

“I’m gonna be fine,” Toni said. “And we’re gonna be fine. And I love you.”

Shelby nodded, “I love you too.”