#this is hardly relevant to the prompt anymore but a lil tiny bit <3

[ladyintree]

@sourfilm sent shelter protect them.

taissa's eyes haven't stopped wandering since she arrived;   every corner of this apartment is painted with van's personality,    parts of which she remembers so clearly,   other parts slightly different than she remembers.    the latter is a harsh reminder of the time they've lost in between,   decades of taissa compartmentalizing her first love and everything that came with it,   the trauma of the woods and the mysteries in her sleep,   all so infectious of the love that was so beautiful,   yet soured by what they were forced to endure,   no matter how they managed to come out on the other side.   it's comfortable here,   knowing van has found a place for herself,   enough to make taissa look at her own life and consider just how well-crafted her own image was.    this looked like van,   but looking around her own home,   no one could really tell who taissa was,   and she preferred it that way.   it makes her wonder what's hiding behind the surface here,   if van is even different now than tai's come to assume.

as she sits on the couch next to van,   eyes finally dry from the blow up they finally came down from,   somehow,   she feels too close and too far away all at once.   van's words repeat in her mind the way they used to when she was younger;   taissa was always so good at shutting down the fight,   convincing both of them that they were fine and they could move on,   but they're older now,   van isn't afraid to call her on her shit,    and taissa's once again reminded that burdening van with her own problems was never fair for her to do.    she shouldn't be here,   and yet,  selfishly,    she wouldn't want to be anywhere else,    too comfortable with the reminder of how van's presence used to make it so easy to pretend she may sleep through the night ---  even though that was rarely ever true.   at least van understood,   and maybe that's all taissa really needed now  ---   someone who saw her,   the person she worked so hard to hide,    but the person van always saw right through anyway.

this is the part where she should say she's sorry, but it doesn't come out, somewhere caught in her throat, because what is she sorry for? the list doesn't end. ❝  thank you--- for letting me stay for the night. i don't have a fucking clue about how i'm getting home, ❞ she admits, an empty laugh falling from her lips as she brings her hand up, rubbing her forehead, trying to recall where she left her assistant's car to begin with ( a blurred memory that she can hardly make out at all. ) ❝  your place always this quiet? ❞ she's prying, but she tries to play it off, brush off the awkwardness from earlier and attempt to move forward.