#this is what evanston will feel like

[freshattitudeyoungbody]

They were butchfemme.

[pathologicalreid]

an ode to a conversation stuck in your throat | s.r.

in which Spencer tries to talk you out of taking a job across the country

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: fluff content warnings: miscommunication (sigh), very cheesy, brief mention of wine, defining the relationship, insecure spencer, easily confused reader, chemist!reader word count: 1.04k a/n: if i could go a week without writing a dwg song fic that would be crazy. also surprise it's chemist!reader again.

"Thanks for stopping so I could change,” you say to Spencer, leading the way into your apartment and locking the door behind you. “I’m sure lab dress code and David Rossi dress code are miles apart,” you continue, hanging your backpack on the wall.

Spencer hums in response, “You’d look great in anything you wear.”

Your face warms at the compliment, “You’re sweet. You can just wait out here, I shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes,” you gesture to the living room, smiling at him before heading off to your room.

Nervously, you pull off your lab-safe attire and discard all of it into the laundry hamper before putting on the dress you’d chosen for dinner tonight. It’s not overly fancy, but you hope his team will like it. You hope his team will like you.

Looking at yourself in your dresser mirror, you reconsider your choice of shoes, switching from a pair of kitten heels to flats before walking out the door, “Hey, Spence, is Rossi’s patio heated, or should I bring a sweater for when the sun goes down?” You stop in your tracks when you find Spencer, still in the entryway, looking at the color-coded whiteboard calendar you keep by your front door, “What’s up?”

His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his slacks, and he looks upset. What’s worse is you think he might be upset with you. “What’s this dinner you have planned next Friday?”

You feel like a child who’s been caught doing something they shouldn’t be, draping the proposed sweater over the back of a kitchen stool and crossing your arms in front of your stomach. “It’s a work dinner,” you answer nervously.

“With?” Spencer asks, but he’s not pushy about it, there’s something desperate in his tone.

Pursing your lips, you look at the purple writing on the calendar, “The chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at Northwestern, and a representative from the college's dean. They’re offering me a job with a private lab and my own team of researchers… so they’re taking me out to dinner.”

Spencer’s face fell, “They’re offering you a job in Chicago?”

“Well, that’s where Northwestern is. Evanston, if you want to get technical about it,” you respond, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

He looks at you dumbfoundedly, “I don’t want to get technical about it. When were you going to tell me that you’re taking a job in Chicago?” It almost seems like he’s afraid.

You raise your eyebrows in curiosity, you’ve been seeing each other for a month, and you’ve never known Spencer to jump to conclusions. “I’m not,” you tell him, keeping your tone void of any accusation, “They’re just taking me to dinner.”

Spencer sighs, “But they’re offering you a job. In a different state. In a different timezone.”

Admittedly, he was beginning to sound a bit ridiculous to you, “Don’t you field offers from colleges all the time? They want you to teach or tell you to become Spencer Reid, PhD, PhD, PhD, PhD, or whatever?” 

His eyes follow you as you move to sit down at the kitchen counter, “It never gets as far as dinner.”

“I’m not taking the job,” you tell him simply, shrugging your shoulders demurely.

Spencer falters at that, knitting his brows together as he tries to piece together the answers you’re willingly giving him, “If you’re not taking the job then why are you going to dinner with them?”

Hiding a small smile, you give him the truth, “They pick up the tab. I go to a lot of these and I get good food out of the deal. These people love to schmooze but I’ve never been offered anything that I would be inclined to accept.” This specific job seemed perfect on the surface, but they weren’t willing to let you choose what to research. That was non-negotiable for you.

“I could schmooze you,” he insists, “You don’t need other people to schmooze you.”

You giggle at him, waving him over to you so you can look him in the eyes when you tell him, “I go for free food and good wine. No other reason.” Your smile was gentle, but inside your heart was pounding. He was scared I was going to leave, you think to yourself.

He sighs, “Will you… will you tell me in the future when you get these dinner offers?” His voice is tentative, almost as if he’s afraid you’ll think he’s asking too much of you.

Nodding, you reach out and take one of his hands in yours, “I can, but I didn’t think were at the ‘I’m being courted by another workplace, and I wanted to let you know’ stage yet. That’s kind of a girlfriend thing,” you explain.  

Spencer frowns, “Aren’t you?”

Tilting your head to the side, you look at him curiously, “Aren’t I what?”

“My girlfriend,” he clarifies.

Your eyes go wide, “Oh! I didn’t think so, I thought you had to ask yet.” Although you’re far from a relationship expert, you’d had to ask your PhD advisee what to wear before your first date with Spencer.

The panicked look on his face returns, “I’ve been telling people you’re my girlfriend. Should I not have been doing that?”

Shaking your head, you beam up at him, “I don’t mind. I just thought you had to ask about that kind of thing.”

“I don’t know,” he admits, “I’ve never really done this before.”

The two of you sit in an awkward silence for a moment before you decide to speak up again, “So, just so we’re on the same page. I’m not moving to Chicago.”

Spencer frowns again, and you have to hold yourself back from using your thumb to smooth out the crease on his forehead, “Will you?”

Confused, you lean your head back, “Move to Chicago?”

“Be my girlfriend,” he amends quickly.

You nod, “I would love to.”  

“And just so we’re on the same page,” he ducks his head down, so close to a kiss that it makes you feel dizzy, “I like to think I’m the only one who can really court you.”

Laughing, you lean forward and peck his lips, “I would be insulted if you didn’t think that.”

[you-call-it-a-dude]

Call It What You Want

Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.4 Pt.5

Summary: You went to high school with Regina George and she is now your neighbor in your college dorm. She, of course, pretended like she didn't know you at first. Until she got some alcohol in her system.

Pairings: Regina George x gender neutral/fem reader

Warnings: internalized homophobia, feelings, school lol, swearing

Notes: Hi, yes. So this is my first time writing for not only Regina George but also for like reader POV. If it's any good and something people enjoy, I will do more of it. Hopefully you like it, but if you don't that's totally cool too. Thanks for reading either way.

------

You had managed to, for the most part, avoid Regina George your three years at North Shore High School. You transferred there your sophomore year, your mom taking full advantage of your dad's Evanston address when you got in trouble once at your public high school in the city. You didn't even actually do anything, but both your parents prioritized your future college education too much to let even a thought of bad behavior ruin it.

You made it through high school pretty unscathed. You laid low, had your small group of friends and kept to yourself.

You witnessed the rise and fall of Regina George in real time. You felt bad for her almost. Yes, she was a major bully, but the one time you overheard her dad yelling at her at a parent teacher conference kinda made some things make sense. She also didn't really target you with her bullshit.

Well, okay, someone wrote in the burn book that you were a carpet muncher and would call you a gay slur here and there, but you've been called worse things. People in that book were certainly called worse things.

Senior year was relatively quiet after Cady dismantled The Plastics.

Regina had taken up soccer, which was actually a really terrifying thought given the neck injury she sustained. She was good though. Good enough to get into University of Illinois, Chicago with a partial soccer scholarship.

But of course, her parents writing a big fat check may help with that.

She didn't even need the scholarship. You don't even know how she got away with getting it.

You also were accepted to UIC. You worked harder than Regina did academically, had some of the best grades in your class, did all the volunteering and extracurriculars, and you still didn't get close to the same amount of money offered in scholarships that Regina got (and didn't need).

You were angry when you found out about her almost full ride, but it was a big school and you were almost certain once you were graduated you wouldn't even be giving Regina George ,or anyone from that high school aside from your best friend, a second thought.

Seeing her at orientation seemed like just a coincidence. Watching her get her keys to the same dorm you were staying in had to be a fluke. Passing by her room, the room that happened to be next to yours, just seemed like you were being punked.

You got yourself settled while waiting on your roommate. You had been speaking with them throughout the summer and know they're coming from Colorado and also know they wouldn't be coming until tomorrow because they texted you. So you were taking advantage of this time to get yourself sorted without having to rush or anything.

You left your door open while you got yourself unpacked, a bunch of people coming by to introduce themselves to you or stop in and talk.

There was a soft knock and you turned your head, expecting to greet another person. Instead stood Regina, leaning against your wall with her arms crossed.

"Hello." You greeted, sounded a little surprised.

"Hi, I just thought since we were going to be neighbors I would introduce myself."

She almost sounded nice? Pleasant?

She also clearly did not recognize you. Yeah you trimmed your hair a bit and dyed it slightly darker, but nothing extremely different.

But this also really helps solidify just how invisible you were to her in high school.

You had two routes. You could bring up the fact that you actually know each other and make it weird, or just introduce yourself.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I'm Y/N."

"Regina. No roommate?" She pointed to the empty side of your room with her head.

"Coming from Colorado. So long drive." You scrunched up your nose at the thought of how long that drive was and she hummed in acknowledgment.

"Are you from around here?"

"Uh, yeah. The city, northside. You?"

"Evanston, so basically from the city."

"Ahh, you're one of those people." You chuckled.

"What is that supposed to mean?" She scrunched her eyebrows up, clearly getting defensive.

"You say you're from the city but you're from the suburbs. That's all I meant." You said softly, watching her face soften when she realized you weren't actually insulting her.

"Most people don't know where Evanston is, so." She defended with a small smile.

"Unfortunately for you, I do." You smiled back at her.

"Are you going to the freshman mixer tonight?"

"I didn't even know there was one." You answered truthfully.

"Mkay, you're gonna come with me then. I'll be back at like nine?"

You pulled your phone out of your pocket and saw it was only like 11am and you quickly realized the long night you've gotten yourself into.

Or that Regina had gotten you into.

"Yeah, that sounds cool."

"Awes. See you later then." She slapped your doorframe once before leaving.

But you didn't miss the way she turned and let her eyes linger on you for just a few seconds longer than what's considered socially acceptable.

---

You spent the rest of the day unpacking and getting settled. You went off campus for lunch then took a walk to get some refreshing frozen lemonade from a popular place near by and drank it while you made your way back to your room.

Regina was still setting her dorm up to her standards. Her door was open and when you peaked in, she was standing on a wobbly chair trying to tape posters to her wall.

Of course she got a single room.

"Need help?" You took a sip of your partially melted peach lemonade and knocked on her doorframe to get her attention.

"Yes, please. That would be great." She said, sound exasperated.

You held out a hand to help her off the chair, but she ignored it. Opting to just brace herself on your shoulder instead. You scratched your head and assessed the situation. You weren't really much taller than her, but your arms were longer so that could work in your favor.

You looked around for somewhere to set your drink before she took it from you to hold. You stepped on to the death trap of a chair and did your best to hang the poster. It was of an artist you had never heard of, but you wouldn't be opposed to new music if she was any good.

You pressed the corners of the poster against the wall and moved out the way. Regina thought for a few seconds before asking you if it was possible to 'pretty please' move the right side up like a quarter of an inch.

You did your best to gauge a quarter of an inch, and your best was thankfully good enough because Regina was satisfied with your efforts pretty fast.

She reached her empty hand up to help you off the chair and you hesitated at first, but took it. She stiffened her arm and gave you a firm platform to put your weight so you had support when hopping down.

Did part of you kind of expect her to let you fall? A little yeah.

"So, what are my chances of getting you to build something for me, too?" She asked sweetly while she handed you back your drink and you took a sip, your dry throat feeling relieved already.

"It depends what it is."

"It's a stupid metal shelf thing." She stepped aside and over the metal parts scattered across her floor.

There was an attempt made, so you at least know she tried before asking.

"Yeah, that looks easy to me. Do you have the instructions?" You handed your drink back to her and kneeled on the floor, rifling through all the pieces.

She set your drink down on the desk and handed you the instructions, sitting down on the floor next to you with her legs crossed.

This shelf wasn't too difficult to build, but it was definitely frustrating. The pieces were in the right spot but they just weren't fitting. Regina complained about how her parents bought her such cheap stuff and didn't even stick around to help her build it. It wasn't like they had a long drive home ahead of them.

She kept apologizing for asking you to help her with stuff or for the shelf being too difficult. She said many times that if you couldn't get it she would just throw the shelf away and not to worry about it if it didn't work out.

You reassured her that it was really okay and you were happy to help. That there was no need to throw out a perfectly good shelf. After a few pinches to your skin, a few scrapes from jagged edges, and a lot of swearing later, you managed to get it built for her.

You didn't expect her to be as involved as she was. She was handing you pieces, going over the directions with you.

You stood up and picked up the shelf, turning it up right so it was standing correctly. She stood up after you, eyeing the shelf with her hands on her hips and nodding.

"That looks perfect. Thank you so much, really."

"You're so good, happy I can help." You picked up your now melted lemonade and took a sip, trying not to be visibly upset over the fact it was no longer frozen.

"Did you get that on campus?"

"No, it's a few minutes away. Really close by. You didn't know that, city girl?" You teased and bit back a smile when you noticed the small blush to her cheeks.

"I was going to offer to buy you a new one, but since you want to be mean I'm taking that offer of the table." She crossed her arms with a small pout and the overwhelming urge to kiss it away scared you.

"No, no. I wouldn't accept anyway. It was like halfway gone. No biggie, honestly." There was an awkward pause between the two of you. "Um, was there anything else you needed help with? Or should I go?"

"You can go now." She said in a tone that felt like a war flashback or something. "I'll swing by your room to pick you up at like 8:45."

"Do you still want me to go?" You asked, because honestly her tone was suggesting otherwise.

"I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't." She defended, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Okay. I'll see you later then."

---

9:15pm and you were sitting at your desk dressed and feeling stupid. Because of course Regina was still going to very much so still be Regina.

There was a knock at your door and you waited a second before answering it.

When you opened the door, you keep your face neutral and unimpressed. Which was actually extremely difficult to do because Regina looked breathtaking.

"Yeah, I know. I'm late. Also, you look hot." She commented and it immediately made you feel self conscious because you couldn't gauge if it was genuine or not.

You thought you looked good, but Regina had been notorious for giving out fake compliments.

"Thanks."

"So you agree? You think you're hot?"

Jeez, talk about a war flashback.

"I do." You answered without missing a beat, but your insecurities were threatening to crawl their way out of your mouth at any second.

Regina pursed her lips and nodded in approval at your response and you slowly let out the breath you had been holding.

"Let's go then."

---

Regina abandoned you the second you guys got to the mixer. Which you half expected. You quickly realized that this was not an official university organized event, though the 9pm start time should've made that clear ages ago.

Another indicator being that they were at a frat house.

Alcohol was flowing, students from all different grade levels were mingling.

You grabbed a cup of whatever alcoholic beverage was concocted and got to mingling.

You talked with a few people that you found out you would be sharing classes with, which was cool.

After about an hour of mingling and drinking, you found your way to the front porch and parked yourself on their porch swing and just did a bunch of people watching.

A cat with a collar came and sat next to you, purring and nuzzling against you. You had no idea if it belonged to the frat house or if it was a stray that just frequented the area. The collar said her name was Roach which really made you thing she belonged to the frat boys, but an off campus address on the back put those fears to rest.

"You found a cat!" Regina slurred, stepping out of the house loudly. Her heeled boots clicked against the floor of the porch and she slammed the door behind her, completely shutting out the thumping noise of the party.

"Yeah! Well, more so she found me. Her name is Roach."

"Ew." She hiccuped and made her way over to you, sitting next to Roach. She angled her body and rested her head on your shoulder. "I have to tell you something." She slurred again, reaching down to let the cat sniff her hand before petting her between the ears.

"Sure, what's up?"

"I remembered you and I pretended like I didn't." She lifted her head up to look at you. "But you're a sneaky bitch too because you did the same thing." She poked your cheek with her index finger until you turned your head away from it.

"You talked to me first. I wasn't going to bother you." You admitted, getting a little frustrated.

"Why? You didn't want to talk to me?" She asked, sounding almost disappointed?

"I didn't think you'd want me to. Then I thought it would be really embarrassing if I said I remembered you and you introduced yourself to me. So I just didn't say anything."

"I didn't want you to tell anyone about who I was in high school." She rested her head against your shoulder again. "I just wanted to start over."

"I'm not going to say anything." You said quietly, a little disappointed that the only reason she tried befriending you was to do damage control.

"I feel bad about it."

"About what?"

"How I treated people." She sniffled, clearing her nose. "I'm sorry about what I wrote about you."

"It is what it is." You shrugged. "It's not like I hid my sexuality or anything."

"You didn't. It made me jealous."

Your ears perked up at this admission. You didn't know whether or not to press on or drop the subject. Whatever amount of alcohol she drank was giving her loose lips and you aren't actually sure how much of this information she actually wants anyone to know.

"You don't want to talk about this sober?" She shook her head against your shoulder.

"Talking about it sober is hard."

"Your parents not accepting or...?"

"My mom? Maybe. Probably. My dad? Absolutely fucking not." She took your drink from your hand and downed the rest of it.

"We don't have to talk about this anymore." You offered while she was downing your drink.

"I'm gonna get another drink." She began to get up, but you pulled her back down"

"Hey, no. Come on. Just stay here with me and Roach." You motioned to the purring cat between you both. "I don't want to lose track of you or the cat. So just stay."

Regina sighed and leaned back against the back of the porch swing. She bit her bottom lip and looked up at you.

"What if we brought the cat inside with us while I got a drink." She offered, giving you a silly little smirk that made your heart somersault.

"I think it's too loud for her in there." Roach let out small meow. "See, she agrees." You scratched under her chin, trying to ignore the way Regina was staring at you right now.

"You were always so nice to us."

"What are you talking about?"

"When I let Gretchen drive my car one time to get us lunch and she got a flat tire in the school lot and you helped her change it so I wouldn't get mad at her. You talked her out of a panic attack because she was so afraid of me."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." You lied.

"Or when Karen was upset after the Christmas show junior year because I was just so cruel to her about her body count. Which wasn't even high. I saw you bringing her that stupid red and green caramel popcorn that the cafeteria was selling for the show."

"I saw her crying, I thought it would cheer her up."

"You also gave me ice when they dropped me on my face and you tried taking care of me."

"I was working backstage and nobody else wanted to help you. Though, I do recall being called a shitty name or two when I did that." You teased.

"I know. I'm sorry. Like really fucking sorry. I was just...projecting."

"I know." You reassured.

You sat in silence for a few minutes, watching people come in and out of the house. Regina adjusted next to you and you put a protective had on Roach and scooted her closer so Regina had more space to move.

You could feel her staring at you. It made you anxious because who knows what she was thinking about.

Regina shifted again and before you can even register her movements, her lips were pressed softly against the sensitive skin of your neck.

"I always thought you were so hot." She mumbled against your skin, her tongue poking out slightly to taste you and her right hand coming up to cup your neck.

You froze for a few seconds, getting lost in the sensation of her lips on your skin, before your rational thoughts kicked in.

"Regina." You said calmly, pulling her hand on your neck. "You're drunk." You laced your fingers with hers and rested your joined hands on your lap.

You watched her stare at your hands, fully expecting her to go off on you or to say something cruel in her drunken state.

Instead, she swiped her thumb over your knuckles and hummed a small approval to herself.

Then a cluster of rowdy frat boys came fumbling out of the house and she let go of your hand faster than anything you had ever witnessed before.

She wiped her hands on her pants and stood up with such ease that it made you question if she was ever even that drunk to begin with.

"I'm gonna get another drink. I'll find you when I'm ready to go."

[cator99]

Last year around this time I was in Chicago trying to buy shrooms off some underweight white dreads boy at addison station after trying to go to some "sapphic night" at a bar only to pull up and be told that tickets were $30 absolutely not happening I went back to my old time fav Charlie's but it was lowkey a flop wasn't feeling it at all crowd was boring as fuck not a single latino offered me coke which was how I knew it was an off night so I went back to the train. Omw back I hung out with a bunch of black dudes who were sitting on fold out lawn chairs out the back of a suv celebrating one of the dudes nephews graduating top of his class and getting a university scholarship and little dude was gay so they wanted to show their support but like since he was too young to go into the gay clubs they decided to just hang around in boystown getting wasted together and that was really fun those dudes were dope but by the time I got back to addison i was like um i came out here tonight looking 4 shrooms and will be disappointed to go back empty handed so when I saw the opportunity I took it but this white dreads californian refugee was acting wack from the start despite the fact that he also clearly was prepared to sell to me--- he started sayin I looked like a cop (normie hair, all black fit, shoes that are far too reasonable and would in hindsight be considered cop shoes to the average drifter from the west coast unaccustomed to the east coast way of life (yes I was wearing hokas), mostly sober, suspiciously in shape for someone trying to buy drugs from strangers)- I remember exactly what he said: "if you're a cop I will kill myself- no joke, straight up, I will kill myself." By the time I took out my flip phone to get his number... it was all over for me. Absolutely not happening. Please– I pleaded– I'm Canadian! "What, they don't have smartphones in Canada?" Dude I feel like cops have the budget to get normal burner phones for stings... I don't! I just want shrooms! Also worth mentioning is that there was some sort of annoying-type lesbian that had just left the sapphic party Very Disappointed By The Vibe who had been trying to hit on me prior to my asking that dude if he knows where to get shrooms since he asked to bum a smoke first and sure from her perspective I'm sure she felt as though we had been hitting it off but I'm just a friendly person and when I quickly diverted my attention away to ask some bum for drugs... she scoffed, full on scoffed. Proceeded to make a whole thing about backing away slowly and saying "I'm going to go waaayyy over here now! Good! BYE!" You're wearing cut off overalls. A tie dyed crop top. A choker. You're going back to your parents place in Evanston. I do not want to continue our conversation all the way up the red line til I get off at morse, I will kill myself- no joke, straight up, I will kill myself.

[whenmemorydies]

Another Storer/Calo musical deep cut:

Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam and the focus of so much of my adolescent thirst whose voice is featured all over The Bear’s soundtrack -

See: Vedder’s rapid-fire, gutteral one-two-three-four-five against one […] torture from you to me of PJ’s "Animal" over the end credits of 1x01 System or propelling the energy in Richie and Syd’s last ditch effort to save Friends and Family in 2x10 The Bear. See: Eddie (and Neil Finn) wailing And though we try to forget it, you will make me call your name, as I shout it to the blue, summer sky in "Throw Your Arms Around Me" over shots of Carmy making Syd's lamb ragu for Cl@ire while Syd undresses at home (this fucking show lmao) (also shout out to Melbourne/Naarm rock group Hunters & Collectors whose song Vedder and Finn covered). See: Eddie's yearning as he croons I've been planning out all that I'd say to you in PJ's "Come Back", as Carmy and Syd have metaphorical sex under a perfectly level table (shout out to @sydcarmyfan for that brilliant meta). See also: Vedder covering The English Beat's "Save It For Later" and singing, Save it for later, don't run away and let me down, you let me down in 3x02 Next while we see a litany of working class and racialised hospitality and food service workers gearing up for another work day in Chicago, just as Carmy is about to commence fucking over his working class and racialised crew at The Bear for the remainder of season 3 (this fucking show, gah) -

that Eddie Vedder, who is more commonly associated with Seattle and the grunge movement that was birthed there, was actually born in Evanston, Illinois: the same suburb of Chicago that its implied the Berzattos lived in (I say implied because its never explicitly stated on the show but we know that 2x06 Fishes was shot in Evanston). I always get a little chill up my spine when I come across connections like this on the show.

The Bear is such a love letter: to the food services industry, to film, to romance itself and almost certainly, to Chicago.

Author's note:

Enjoy this video of Eddie Vedder continuing to be a man after my own heart, talking about visiting his grandmother's old home in Evanston - a home he describes as the Sun that the rest of his family orbited around - which made me tear up because that's exactly how us grandkids felt about our Ammamma's apartment in Canada. Eddie talks about his grandmother having 6 kids and wishing he had bought the apartment to keep it like a time capsule, only to meet the current residents and changing his mind because it was a place full of "love and power and good vibes" that they took and also raised their 6 kids in. And all of this before launching into "Throw Your Arms Around Me" *sigh*

Its no secret that I love The Bear, but what I might love even more than the show itself are all the tangents, winding paths and deep cuts that it takes me to and which pull at my own memories and history. This art is so cathartic for so many reasons. And I doubt I'm the only one on here feeling that way.

[ashecampos]

ANYONE BUT HER 3

JANIS IMI-IKE X FEM READER

Part one part two

Warnings - smoking, alcohol, drugs, swearing, cheating, mentions of anxiety.

The POV switches between reader and Janis (I use — when I change the POV)

there will be more parts to this, make sure to reblog and comment and I will get the next few parts up as soon as I can, happy reading lovelies 🫶🏼

“and where have you been?” My best friend Tess says while she sits on my bed, cross legged, her gym clothes still on. She smirks at me before throwing my pillow at me face, earning a groan from me. “Tee I feel like shit, no abusing ur token gay today please” I look over at her before falling next to her on my bed face first. “What’s wrong? Did Bea or Jason approach you again? Look when I come back to school tomorrow I’ll stick by your side to make sure they piss off yeah?” She states proudly.

Tess has been my best friend since middle school, we can’t actually remember how we became friends but our closest guess would be that we got sat together in some class, the rest is history. She got put into a different high school freshman year, however she is being transferred to Evanston for the rest of high school.

I lift up my head and smirk “oh yes my princess in shining armour please save me from this distressing part of my life” I say dramatically, rolling over to face her fully. She smiles back, shoving my shoulder a little laughing, her face lights up and she scoots forward a little “oh before I forget, this girl in my bookclub called Cady said we can sit with her and her friends at school, she’s really nice, and her friends sound amazing” she says while grabbing her tote bag off of the floor and pulling a book out, swatting me on the head with it “now read and we shall watch a movie of your choosing later” she hands me my book off of my cabinet.

——-

Cady walks into my basement where me and Damien are already sat down gossiping about todays events “hey guys where did you two disappear to earlier?” She says while plopping her backpack down and sitting on one of the beanbags. I look over to Damien begging him to not say anything, but let’s be real it’s Damien. “Damage control, little miss lover girl may or may not have overdosed a little” he says, earning a slap on the arm from me “for one” I look over to Cady pointing “she didn’t overdose, two she got spiked, three don’t call it damage control, im really worried about her” I say with a sad smile. Cadys phone pings a few times earning an ‘ooo’ from Damien, she picks it up and smiles “oh it’s my friend Tess, she’s just transferred to Evanston, I invited her to sit with us if that’s cool?” She says vibrating with excitement.

Great another new friend. Actually this might take my mind off of y/n, seeming though she hasn’t stopped ringing through my mind since that one gig.

—-

“Y/n/n. Wake uppppp” I am shook awake by Tess, “cmon we fell asleep” she says, my body jolts up, how did we fall asleep? What time is it? I look over at my alarmclock, it’s only 6am. Thankgod.

I roll over to face her and she smirks “hey do you have any clothes I can steal?” She laughs before getting up out of the bed and grabbing me by the ankle and pulling me with her to my closet. “Ugh fuck you and your strong rugby arms” I curse her out half asleep as im being dragged across my room.

I sit up and she is raiding my closet. Groaning I lay back down on the floor, she walks back to my bed, clothes in hand then back to my closet. I start laughing “you’re in the closet” I say squinting up at her with a smirk. She kicks my shoulder and throws some clothes on my head “cmon goofy, get your emo ass dressed” I stand up and we get changed.

Upon entering the school, Tessa is stared at by every man we walk by, we attend classes together, I thank every god in the sky that me and her have all of our classes together. The day is going smooth until third period art, we walk into the room, she is told to sit in front of me, that’s when Janis strides into the room, immediately noticing the blonde and freezing up.

The story is, Tess is Regina Georges cousin, she attended the same middle school, was indeed apart of the plastics. However Tess had no part of the downfall of Janis.

Tess turns around to me “is that?” She asks leaving the question open. “Mhm” I groan back to her. “As in your longtime crush Janis?” She mocks me, with a sweet smirk. I throw a pencil at her as Janis walks by, sits down next to us. “Hey Janis, y/n here has told me so much about you” she continues, making me regret being born. The class goes by, I end up drawing sketches of people in the class, while my dearest best friend talks to Janis, telling her embarrassing stories.

——

Walking into that art classroom was my worst mistake of the day so far. As soon as I walked through that door, I saw her. Tessa George, or as she goes by now Tess. You see the problem with Tess is that she is one of the kindest souls to walk the streets of suburban Illinois, however she is regrettably related to the one and only Regina George. In middle school, Tess was there for me when we were both plastic but when Regina ruined my life she was out of town and didn’t find out till I was long gone and expelled.

“Heyy Janis, y/n has told me so much about you” she says happily, meanwhile y/n groans a little and puts her face in her hands before slowly putting her head on her desk while Tess continues to talk about y/n, spilling secrets and telling stories. “Oh and then there was the time she tried to fight a man a foot taller than her when she was drunk” the blonde continues her rant. My eyes flicker from y/n to Tess, I never knew y/n was even friends with Tess, never mind best friends. Tess sounds really good for y/n. The bell chimes to indicate lunch has started, Tess grabs her phone and squeals causing y/n to roll her eyes, I try to ignore them, I start to pack up, grabbing my bag “Cady said meet her outside, she can’t wait to meet you” Tess said, grabbing y/n’s arm and dragging her out of the classroom. So Tess is cadys mysterious friend.

…

I walk to outside and find Damien, we end up sitting under our tree, I pull out my cross stitch and start sewing the rest of the eye I have been working on for this art contest. I hear leaves crunching and look up to see Cady, Tess and y/n walking over. “Oh my god, is that Tessa?” Damien starts to freak out. “Y/ns best friend Tess, Regina’s goddam cousin Tess?!” He exaggerates but shuts up just before they reach us. They all say hi and sit down. Y/n sits next to me, Tess and Cady sit on the other side of Damien.

“So Cady tell us about this Aaron dude you cannot shut up about” Tess says while nudging Cady. to this all of us snapped our heads toward her “Samuel’s Aaron Samuel’s?” Damien asks “oh no Cady no” I continue “are you unwell?” Damien leans forward. “Wait you like my brother?” Y/n speaks up making everyone stay quiet, I look over and she shakes her head “Cady in the nicest way possible be careful, things with him and Regina ended horribly, and I don’t want him to be hurt” she says protectively “well things ended horribly with you and Bea but I don’t see Aaron sticking up for you” Cady bites back. A few seconds go by in silence before y/n stands up “sorry I have to go grab my charger from the art classroom” she says, Damien and his quick thinking blurts out “Janis can go with you, she left her needles there” which makes me look over and mouth ‘what?’ To him.

Y/n starts to walk away not waiting for me, which would be my que to get up and follow her, I stumble up and run after her. We end up in the art classroom, she grabs her charger and turns to leave but I grab her arm. “Wha..” she starts to say “what’s going on with you?” I cut her off, she looks at me as if she’s trying to analyse me to see if she can trust me. “Nothing in fine” she shrugs “no no your not now tell me what the fuck is going on” I push further, walking to the door and locking it. I walk back to her and hug her. She stumbles back a little but regardless her arms wrap around my waist. “Sorry” she mumbles into my shoulder “maybe let’s try explaining our actions instead of apologising for them” I say while rubbing her back. “Jason got his friends and beat me up, I rely on drugs to cope, my brother is in love with the queen bee of the school. Everything hurts jan” she says while tears stream down her face. I pull away from the hug and wipe her eyes. “Okay so we keep you away from Jason, we find better ways to deal with pain and we ignore the fact Regina exists mh?” I push some hair out of her eyes. She stares up at me before stepping forward a little, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling our faces together, she pulls me into a kiss. My fingers graze her hips and I use the loops of her belt to pull her closer to me. She starts to pull away to say something “this isn’t going to be awkward later right?” She questions, “no..I really don’t think so” I say pulling her in again, deepening the kiss.

——

(With Damien and the girls)

“So shall we talk about the elephant in the room?” Damien says as Janis and y/n walk away.

“What the fact that those two would make an adorable yet scary power couple?” Tess quips back to the boy, in return he clicks his fingers and points at her “truth” he says smirking.

“So how do we get them together because I know Janis is as stubborn as they come and y/n well y/n is just y/n” Damien laughs.

🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

Heyyy my gayssss, I hope you liked this chapter, it is a bit happier than the last one. The next chapter should be up in a few days, thankyou for reading.

[slutforreginageorge]

Secret surprise arm muscles

Ship: Regina x Janis, Cady x Aaron, Gretchen x Karen

Tw: mention of self harm, little bit of sexual content, Regina simping

Fluff

It was hot in Evanston, the children in school were sitting in class with portable fans. The AC was constantly running, trying to cool down North shore highs class rooms.

“It’s so fucking hot, I think I might die!” Damian exclaimed as he tried to fan himself with his hands. Cady nodded in agreement as she help her cold water bottle against her forehead.

“It’s Friday l, so we could go to my family’s lake house. It’s not far, maybe an hour or two and it’s probably not as hot as it is here.” Gretchen said taking a bite of her food.

Damian’s face lit up at the idea ”Absolutely, yes!” he exclaimed, a little too loud since a few students around them turned their head.

Regina raised an eyebrow having just arrived at the table ”What has gotten you so exited?” she asked. Damian started to explain the situation to her, ignoring the disinterested that was laced in her voice. He knew she asked out of politeness but he decided to ignore it and just continued to tell her their plans, since most of them had agreed to it.

Regina had gotten a lot nicer since the bus crash of course there still were times where she could be quite mean, but most of those times she had a reason so the friend group just ignored it.

”What’s up with her?” Aaron asked, once he had set down his lunch tray, nodding his head to Janis who seemed to be asleep.Aaron had to do senior year again, since he had failed Ap calculus. Janis’s head was resting on her arms which were clad in a long sleeve. ”Asleep, didn’t get much last night, since she had to finish a school project” Damian answered glancing hat his best friend, Regina frowned looking at her girlfriend with concern.

”Yeah, no! I can see that she is asleep. My question was why she is wearing a long sleeve. It’s burning hot outside.”

“Aaron you can’t ask things like that, maybe Janis doesn’t want to wear a shirt or something that hast shirt sleeves” Cady scowled him, giving him a glare.

“That’s not the reason, well it is at some point.She just does not want people to see her arms” Damian spoke. ”Omg, she has self harm scars and is insecure about them,” Aaron gasped, Regina looked like she was going to slap him while Cady and Damian just glared at him.

”Aaron that is not the reason at all!” Their heads whipped around when they heard the new voice join the conversation.

”It’s true, I don’t want people to see my arms but not because I’ve got self harm or scar from self harm in them. I have got a skin disease, that when it’s healed or in the process of healing looks like I have a heroin addiction” Janis spoke, her voice calm.

”To answer your questions, it’s a form of neurodermatitis, that forms little knots under your skin which then fills with fluid and start to hurt or itch”

Aaron just nodded and continued to eat his food.

”Janis we thought about gong to my families lake house over the weekend, do you want to come?” Gretchen spoke up trying to change the subject.

”Sure!” Janis smiled leaning against Regina, who kissed her on the head.

”Babe, are you sure you are fine?” The blonde whispered looking down at her girlfriend

”Yeah, I’m good” the smaller woman smiled up at Regina and kissed her shoulder.

The friends gathered at Gretchen’s house after school to drive to the lake house, the ride it self was fast and relaxed. Everyone keeled to themselves most of the time and while Regina and Janis as well as Gretchen and Karen were in their own little worlds the rest decided on what to cook for dinner, in the end the only thing they could decide on was pasta with pesto.

———————————————————

”Jay?” Regina asked from her position on the bed. “What’s up?” the brunette spoke as she stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in an old t-shirt from Damian and a pair of shorts.

“Can I see your arms? It’s fine if you don’t feel comfortable showing me them” Regina spoke softly not wanting to cross any lines. There were still some parts of their relationship where Regina, and Janis as well, were careful not to over step any boundaries. They had only been in a relationship for about 3 month. Janis smiled softly and made her way over the bed.

“Of course just be careful with touching them,” she spoke while sitting next to her girlfriend, careful not to sit on her legs by accident. Janis rolled up the sleeves showing Regina her arms.

“Does it hurt a lot, or is it just dry skin that sometimes gets infected,” Regina asked eyes going over the area of dry skin on the brunettes arms. There were small scares from what Regina could guess was self harm but nothing too big, like she had seen on other parts of her girlfriend body. “It’s fine most of the time, but there are times where its more dry that usually and it gets infected more easily. But that really just happens in winter and I have a cream that helps with it”

Janis’s voice was soft, there was no hint of insecurity or anything else in it.

“Is there anything that I can do to help it or is it just something that you have to wait out?” Reginas was trying not to make her girlfriend uncomfortable but also wanting to know how she could help her.

“Not much I’d say. It’s the best if you don’t gift me skincare, because most of the time im allergic to it and it all could just get worse but besides that nothing really.”

Regina just nodded trying not to show that a part of her was worried that she could make Janis’s neurodermatitis worse or asked out more than usual.

“No, you can not make it worse by doing anything, stop worrying. You are going to get wrinkles in that beautiful face of yours,” Janis said while kissing her girlfriend’s cheek hand smoothing out the wrinkles that had formed due to being in thought. Regina smiled had kissed Janis on the lips “I’m not worrying you are. I would never worry about someone like you,” Regina said a hint of irony in her voice. Janis gasped, “ how could you say that?! I think you need to get punished for saying something like that to your own girlfriend, who had caught you carrying and simping over her several times.”

“Yeah, are you going to punish me?”

Janis pushed her finger in the side of the blondes rips making her shriek.

“You fucker, come here!”

Regina grappled on to the brunettes waist and allied her down on the bed, sitting on top of her, as she began to tickle her. Janis who had been caught in sock from the quick movement startet to laugh and kick trying to get her girlfriend off of her.

Which was not as easy, since Regina was good one and a half or two heads taller than her.

“Stop you are pushing my boob,” was the only thing Janis was able to get put in between laugher.

After a while of egging and kicking from Janis the blond decided to let her go and just lay down on her girlfriend chest.

“I think like you more than most people I know,” Regina whispered agains Janis’s chest, who was breathing heavily. The statement was followed with a quiet `I love you’ and a kiss to the collarbone.

Regina could feel the smaller woman smile against her hairs as she kissed it and whisper “I love you”

———————————————

The next day the friend group decided to go down to the lake, Gretchen said she know a cute spot not far from the house - they ended up doing an hour long hike, but in the end they had to admit it was worth it.

While most of the girls- Regina and Gretchen-as well as Damian decided to stay out of the water and tan - “Janis, honey, I gotta keep the tan up” Damian joked and but on the rest of the sunscreen- Aaron, Karen and Janis decided to try the water. Karen came out a few minutes later because it was too cold for her, while Janis and Aaron decided to water fight. Around lunch time the two decided to come out and eat.

The conversations they had were flowing uncomfortable, no one made any remarks or stared at Janis is arms or made comments about Regina scars or in-general made any remarks about anyone’s body.

Regina was mostly listening not in the mood to talk, or maybe she was too busy staring at Janis’s, who had decided to wear a simple dark green bikini top with swimming shorts. Regina wasn’t starring at her boobs or abs- which she had never seemed to notice before- no the blonde could not tear her eyes away from her girlfriend upper arms. Which flexed every time the brunette shifted changing her sitting position or when Janis reached out to grasp another sandwich and Regina caught a look on her shoulder, which was just as muscular as her arms.

If you had asked the tall blond what was going through her mind in that moment she would have given you a glare and walked away.

“Regina you are starring,” Damian had leaned over to whisper in her ear, to his surprise she lushed and moved her eyes away from her girlfriend’s arms top her face. Just to see that Janis was looking at her smiling with a mouth full of some kind of sandwich they had made before leaving, there were soft freckles on her face and she was just had that glow on her, that made Regina fall even more.

“Jan, when did you become so muscular?” Damians voice interrupted their conversation and Regina just glared at him, if looks could kill Damian would be six feed under. Of course Damian already knew the answer he just wanted to annoy Regina.

“Always been, I just don’t wear things tight enough to see,” she answered taking another bite out of her food. The other nodded in confusion not really knowing where Damians question came from.

The group of friends made their way back to the house in the late afternoon exhausted from swimming and everything that had happened that day.

They all decided for a nap bevor going out for dinner or cooking together.

————————————————

“Damians question confuse me earlier, i like came out of o where and I thought he knew that I did sport on a semi regular basis,” Janis stated as she crawled in to bet wearing nothing but the lose fit tank top and her underwear

A blush creeped up Regina’s neck as she thought for an answer, not trying to give herself away.

“Pretty weird right, but what kind of sport do you do? You never really told me about it”

“Gymnastics, I nerved really stopped doing it. It just is something that does not come up often in conversation and so I did not think about bringing it up.”

Regina nodded eyes lingering on the brunettes triceps imagining what it would feel like biting or gripping them as her girlfriend’s finger put her over the edge making her scream and cry for more. Janis smirked knowing exactly what was o the blondes mind, they did not have sex with each other yet, there were several steamy make out sessions that could have led to more but every time that happened they were interrupted by someone or something.

“But do you really not know why Damian asked?” Janis teased moving her arms behind her head flexing them in the process.

Once again creeped blush up Regina’s neck making her face go deep red.

“Oh, you absolutely know why he asked stop teasing”

“Babe I very much don’t, that’s why I’m asking,” Janis camel over to Regina sitting atop of her legs flexing the muscles in her thighs and arms as she leaned forward.

“Fuck me, please! I don’t care that our friend are in the room next to us. I need you so badly it’s not even funny anymore.”

“Desperate are we, ‘Gina you know who much I want to, but you already her how Damian teased you about your starring today. Do you want that about hearing you screaming my name?” Janis moved to kiss the blondes neck, she knew the answer and she hated, but she knew that she would be fucking her girlfriend the moment they got home the next day and she did not care who hear.

“No, I just need you so bad,” Regina almost whined trying to get some friction by moving her hips against Janis’s.

“Tomorrow baby i promise. Let’s just take nap now, cause I actually am really tired.”

“You can not leave me all hot and bothered now, Janis do you hear what I’m saying?!”

“Yes I am but we both know you can’t take the fact that the other are going to knew that you are a bottom, so just wait till tomorrow, okay?” Janis kissed her lips and moved to lay her head on Reina’s chest.

The blonde huffed but wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s waist and kissed her head.

Let’s just say the wait definitely was worth it and not just for Regina.

That’s it, I did not spell check so don’t mind the mistakes

Feed back always welcomed

[erikahenningsen]

Headcanons for a Regina that goes to college but breaks contact with everyone from high school for at least all four years. How do you picture her? If you can't picture her ever doing that then forget i asked lol

In my heart I refuse to believe she would break contact with Shane (or Cady) but we don't have to talk about it

I think that she wouldn't necessarily break contact because she was on bad terms with everyone but more out of a dislike of who she was while she was in middle/high school, especially sixth grade-junior year and she feels like she can't really get away from it without fully starting over. Maybe she even goes private on her social media.

She goes to a large university somewhere far away from Evanston, maybe UCLA or NYU where she can blend in

Regina has a lot of trust issues after everything that happened junior year and really internalized a lot of the things her classmates said to/about her when they turned on her, compounded by the guilt she still feels about what she did to Janis, so she's kind of hesitant in making friends

She eventually develops a small but close group of friends that she feels sure, for the first time in her life, actually like her for her and not because they want something from her

This gives her the confidence to finally start exploring her sexuality after shoving her attraction to girls down for so many years (as a side note I think she felt guilty about her sexuality after bullying Janis her for being a lesbian so she just decided to ignore it until she could get away from NSHS)

I think she also starts experimenting in other ways—maybe she cuts her hair, maybe she gets a tattoo, maybe she dyes her hair pink, maybe all three!

Regina does become somewhat notorious in the lesbian circles at her school for hooking up with girls and then being messy about it but as she gets more confident in her sexuality she has her first girlfriend and they go to Regina's first pride together

I think she's still dramatic and messy but she mellows out a lot once she doesn't have the pressure of the expectations of people who have known her all her life. Like in high school, she didn't know which parts of her were a performance and which were real and that was a lot of why she acted so insane.

Regina, rumored to be dead or perhaps in jail, reemerges at the five-year NSHS reunion looking like this and everyone loses their minds

Sleepover Saturday

[loreleismusings99]

Two Body Problem

Ch 2

[Masterlist]

Mark's having a crisis and doesn't understand Shakespere references.

You and Mark have an impromptu duel, and a much needed heart to heart follows.

AN: turns out the energy and motivation was there to write more. As always, let me know what you think, and thank you for taking the time to read this 💚

●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

"What the fuck-" 

Mark shuts the door to his and Colin's apartment and lets his satchel slump to the ground with a dull thud. 

"What's got you out of sorts now?" Colin calls out from his room next to their small kitchen after turning down the The Dead Kennedys album he's playing. Mark walks further into the apartment and searches around in their fridge for something to sip on while updating Colin on the state of the crisis he's been in the throws of since the little grading session he had with you the previous night. 

"The bane of my existence for this past year is driving me up a wall," Mark settles on a Pepsi, and plops himself down on their couch he brought over from an estate sale in Evanston. "I made the most inconsequential of mistakes during my office hours and they just had to show up just to correct me in the most humiliating way possible--in front of a student no less-" 

"By embarrassing, do you mean actually embarrassing, or are you just upset at being wrong and getting called out on it?" Colin asks bluntly. 

"Dude, whose side are you on?" Mark scoffs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, I didn't know there were sides again." Colin retorts before standing up from his chair and leaning in the doorway leading out of his room and sighs. "I thought you two were getting along, what happened?"

Mark groans and runs a hand down his face. "I don't know... I feel like getting under eachother's skin has become a habit at this point. Like, if feels weird to be civil." Mark says into a swig of Pepsi. Since the two of you met, the both of you have always been all teeth and snark, finding new ways to raise the others blood pressure. Trying to turn that around now, however advantageous it was, felt like trying to fit a square peg through a round hole.  

"These things take time, you know." Colin says with a raised eyebrow. "You need to actually bond with them, make an effort to get along before you can expect them to do the same." 

"I wish it were easier; sometimes it's impossible to figure out what's going on in their head..." Mark sighs out dejectedly as he props his feet up on the coffee table. 

Colin considers Mark for a moment before asking, "Have you maybe tried asking them? What's going on, I mean; how they're feeling?" 

"What, and let them know I might care about them?" Mark let's out a deflated chuckle before uttering a soft "no thank you." As much as he dispised you, Mark found himself thinking a lot about you in a way he wasn't used to. When he met you, he mistook you for an undergrad with how uptight and nervous you seemed, but after seeing you in his advanced controls class and watching you pick appart his work with the precision of a surgeon, he quickly recalibrated his perception of you, having proved yourself to be quite the formidable force in Northwestern's academic ecosystem. You were the kind of person who let their work speak for itself, and you had the chops to back it up too. Hell, he'd maybe even allow himself to admit how much you intimidate him if it wouldn't bruise his pride too much-

"Therein lies the root of your troubles, mon frère-" 

"Ugh, please don't psychoanalyze me-" 

"You're afraid of getting to close, of what you'll find if you take the time to actually delve into what you and others are feeling. Maybe start there, and you might actually get somewhere with them and you can stop all this-" Colin gestures wildly at Mark who's somehow wriggled around so that he's lying face down on their couch, thinking that if he isn't looking at Colin then what he's saying will somehow be less correct, "melodrama and strife-filled grumbling. Hopefully sooner thather than later, though, I need you at your best for trivia tonight." 

Mark groans into the seat cushion currently molded to his face, "fuck, that's tonight?"

"Sure is, Mr. Benedick of Pauda. but you should be just fine, considering your area of expertice. Tonight's theme is the planets apparently," Colin calls out his response as he starts walking towards their kitchen to pick up an apple.

Mark turns his head and shoots Colin a confused look before asking, "...The celestial bodies or the orchestral suite by Holst?" 

"Could be either--no further clarification was given." Colin shrugs. " But between you and Meghan, we should have both bases covered" He says, referring to a mutual friend in the music department.

"Well, at least we have Meghan..." Mark sighs into the couch cushions again, and Colin rolls his eyes. "God Mark, If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're lovesick over your so-called 'rival'" Colin says with a chuckle. 

"Well, it's a good thing you know better, then." Mark's mumbles into the cushions, sending Colin into a laughing fit. 

☆☆☆

"Please, you gotta help me out! You dont have to join, it'll just be for tonight, I swear" Hana hangs onto your hands, walking backwards as the two of you stroll through the quad, on your way to different classes. 

"What happened to your girlfriend, Vanessa? Doesn't she usually go with you to trivia night?" You question, raising an eyebrow at how dramatic she's being about this.

"Yes, but she's dog-sitting for her Aunt in Hinsdale and won't be able to make it tonight. Hence my dilemma." Hana planted herself between you and the path to your destination and rested her hands on her hips. "Please? It'll be fun, and it's for a prize, we'll split it with you." 

You considered her for a moment before sighing and conceding, "fine, but you're buying me dinner while we're there." 

Hana clapped her hands together, "Deal!" She then looked down to her watch as the union bell rang throughout campus. "Shit, I'm late-" starting to jog away she calls over her shoulder, "I'll see you tonight! Thank you!!" 

You let out a sigh of resignation before continuing back on your path to your signals and systems class. 

Trivia. Seems easy enough. She said that the theme was "planets" so it shouldn't be too difficult; you work at the Adler planetarium, so you already had knowledge to work with under your belt.

A rogue thought runs through your mind as you walk into the ECE building, I wonder if Mark's gonna be there. Heh, it would be lovely to get the chance to wipe that smug look off his face again. Thinking about his face, though, proves to be a dangerous line to cross; you find yourself reminiscing about the night previous, remembering the heat radiating off Mark's body as he finished your work on the whiteboard. He smelled faintly of cinnamon sugar(which surprised you, you didnt expect him to be into more gourmand sents, let alone sweet ones). He has flecks of brown suspended in his mostly green irises, so rich in color they almost looked russet in the study room's florencent light, and his flaxen hair looked so soft--

You shook your head in an attempt to free yourself from spiraling down that train of thought. You can't let him effect you like this, that way lies madness and possibly ruin for your reputation. Feeding into that gives him the upper hand, which is, of course, unacceptable. You took your usual seat in the classroom and took out your laptop. 

Hopefully this lecture'll be sufficiently distracting...

☆☆☆

The sheer volume of people and conversation happening is bordering on overestimating as you walk into the busy bar Hana directed you to when you asked where this 'trivia night' was. You shuffled past full tables and busy servers until you found where Hana, and a friend of hers--you think their name's Booker?--are seated. 

"Oh, thank God you made it, we're about to get started-" you set down your bag and look up, expecting to see Hana's face but instead locking eyes with a pair of viridecent ones. You can feel you heart drop to your stomach as the realization that Mark is also here sets in.

"You've got to be kidding me." The two of you utter at the same time. You feel a hand on your shoulder and whip your head around to see Hana with an apologetic look on her face. 

"I didn't know he was also going to be here, he isn't around every time." Hana says, trying to console you as youtpull your chair out from the table. 

"It's fine," you take your seat at the table and look up at Mark, smirking at him with a competitive glint in your eyes. This just got a lot more interesting. 

"What is carbon dioxide!" You say forcefully after hitting your team's buzzer. The past 10 questions have been about various planets in the solar system and you and Mark have been dominating the field . You look to your right at Mark to see his reaction; his hand is a mere milimiter above his team's buzzer; the overly confident smirk he started the game with is still present, but he's getting fidgetty. You're making him nervous. Good.

"Correct! Now, moving on to the Red Planet with this next question: Martian regolith has many things in common with that in the red rock canyon on Earth save for its lack of biological material and the presence of this compound that makes it marginally toxic-" Mark reaches for and hits his buzzer before you get the chance to hit yours. 

"What are perchlorates!" Mark calls out and you sit back dejectedly in your chair; whatever. I knew that, I could've totally answered that. 

"Correct!" Mark also sits back in his chair, but in relief. He runs a hand through his hair and looks at you with a... genuine smile on his face? The look in Mark’s eyes hold less of a boasting, and more of a hopeful air to them. If you didn't know any better, you'd say it looks like he's looking for a sign of approval. You were glaring holes into his skull before, but seeing the look in Mark's eyes causes your frown to soften into a soft and muted surprise. This moment is broken not 1 second later though when Mark twists his face into an impish grin and sticks his tongue out at you. 

"Wha- the audacity-" you say scandalized and look away from Mark, hoping he doesn't see you trying and failing to suppress an amused grin of your own at the immature gesture.

The two of you go back and forth answering questions until the questions run dry and you stalemate, your teams running out of time to do a tie-breaker. The two groups start to pack up and pay their respective tabs, and you gather up your bag onto your shoulder, saying goodnight to Hana and Booker (who verified that was, indeed, their name just before the game started) before making your way out of the bar.

You're walking down the sidewalk towards a bus stop shelter before you hear your name being called out behind you. You turn to see Mark jogging to catch up to you, and you pause to let him. Mark starts walking with you and asks, "where are you headed? You aren't headed back with Hana?" 

"No, I live in uptown--Hana's headed back to Evanston." You respond taking out your phone to check the time while you pull your coat tighter around you, trying to block out the cold Chicago wind. 

Mark is silent for a moment, considering you with an indicernable look--the same one he had the previous night when you two parted ways at the library. He looks out at the traffic infront of the bus stop shelter and sticks his hands in his pockets before asking, "that's actually where I'm headed too..." He trails off, looking lost in thought. 

You Interrupt his pondering by asking, "oh, okay. speaking of that, actually, where's Colin? Isn't he headed back home too?" raising an eyebrow in confusion up at him. 

Mark looks down at the concrete. "Nah, he's headed out with Megan and her partner to spend the night at their place to work on an assignment together. Some paper about the bubonic plague and secular mideval music?" He answers questioningly and looks up from the ground and at you, and you're suddenly reminded of the weight of Mark's presence. He doesn't really tower over you--in fact, he's only a few inches taller than you--but he'd be hard to miss. He stands with an air of poise you didnt expect after meeting him at that mixer only a few months ago now. He's surprisingly still; it took you a while to notice, but over time you discovered that Mark rarely moves unnecessarily or accidentally. Every gesture, every step he takes is effortless and made to look laissez, but are undeniably efficient. Around you, though, he's different; he loses the choreographed air to his movement and it makes every movement he makes around you feel monumental. Like you're a planet whose movements cause ripples in the fabric of his space time. 

"Oh." You give a muted response and look away from him, the intensity of...whatever is happening to you right now becoming too much. Mark picks up on this and leans away from you slightly.

Mark looks quickly behind him then back at you as he says, "Hey, I can take a different route back; there are other ways outta downtown-" and you cut him off with a hand on his shoulder. The contact sending a bolt of energy up your arm and straight to your chest.

"No no, it's okay. It's probably for the best that we go together anyway. Safety in numbers, right?" You look at him with the friendliest smirk you can muster. It takes a noticeably long eat of time before Mark answers, seemingly distracted by something.

"Yeah...Yeah, of course." You nod at this and return your hand to your pocket. Mark looks past you and down the street before saying, "looks like our bus is here." The two of you show your student IDs and find a couple of seats in a well lit corner of the bus. The two of you sit in silence for a beat before Mark speaks up, finally breaking the silence.

"So... have you heard that Winston's moving to UChicago in the Spring?" Mark looks over to you as you turn your head to give him a confused look, wondering what he could possibly be getting at. 

"I actually haven't--different department, remember?" You respond with a smirk.

"Ah yeah, well... supposedly they offered her more funding so she's taking her lab and students with her--at least the ones who want to leave." 

"Facinating." 

"Yeah, indeed." 

The two of you sit, silently looking at each other, before the both of you burst out in a fit of laughter. 

"God that was... possibly the worst attempt at small talk I've ever heard-" you choke out in-between laughs and gasps of air. 

"Well, you don't exactly make it easy" Mark laughs back. And you frown slightly, finally starting to compose yourself. 

"What do you mean?"

Mark pauses and lets out a laugh before looking first down at his hands, then up at the empty seats infront of you. "...It's hard to tell what's on your mind sometimes; I'm, uh... I'm used to people being a lot easier to read than you are." Mark looks over to you on his left then back down at his hands, which have started to fidget with a red REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT tag attached to his key ring. "Which leads to me trying to talk to you about gossip in a department you aren't even in." He let's out with a scoff and looks out the bus windows infront of you two as the city lights zip past.

You take him in visually for a moment, considering what he just shared with you. First the prospect of being hard for him to read makes you proud, but that quickly gives way to a surprising melancholy. You find yourself kind of wanting him to be able to read you. To share with him as much as he shares with you. Finally you break your silence and ask him, "why Botany?"

"...What?"

"Why Botany? What calls you to it? What makes the hours of writing and literature review worth it?" 

Mark looks at you and considers this for a moment before answering. "You know, I actually studied engineering in undergrad? Well, molecular engineering. There's something very profound in building something--starting from the bottom up. your effort and energy turning into something tangible that can interact with and help the world.

During the pandemic, I picked up gardening with my dad and I got that same feeling. I realized that nature's an engineer too; it builds these wonderful structures and systems around us. Systems we can find novel uses for and are beutiful in their own right." He closes his eyes, shakes his head, and laughs. "You're probably gonna think this is corny, but the prospect of getting to build something with that, to make it easier for someone to get food and water here on Earth or elsewhere..." Mark trails off looking out into the distance behind you before meeting your eyes. "That's, honestly,  incredibly thrilling. Not just to build using nature, but to build with nature. To work together with it." 

When Mark talks like this, it's like a mask slips off and you can see the inner workings of his mind. His motivations, his love, his fear, his joy, all layed bare to you. "Thats not corny at all." You respond with a soft smile before you begin to share yourself. "...One of my earliest memories is watching lighting strike a transformer outside my bedroom window as a toddler. I remember feeling like time slowed down, like I could feel it's power through the window pane. I watched the bolt travel down the power cables and shut off power for my entire block and the next neighborhood. It felt like magic. That something from the sky could effect the light bulbs, the tvs, the family computer. Could be powerful enough to tear the sky apart just to seek ground.

When I learned we could harness what causes it to power the world, to make sand think and calculate, to even help fix something wrong in us, to give someone life again... it feels like the closest humans can get to being superheroes. Magicians pushing electrons around to get us to the Moon, or to monitor someones health. I don't think enough people realize that we aren't that different from a circuit. Humans have more in common with the machines we build than we realize. That the heart's a capacitor driven pump. That technology isn't the antithesis to all things natural. That it is natural." 

This time you look down at your hands and let out a scoff. "It's funny how ironic that sounds." You run a hand down your face before continuing, "especially considering how hard this all has been." 

"What do you mean?" Mark asks carefully, tilting his head to see your face better. 

"...I, uh, don't come from a long line of academics like you do," you laugh out, "I've no guide or blue-print to follow. No-one to teach me but experience and my advisor. I'm the first in my family to get into a PhD program. Which comes with its own set of expectations and pressures." You pause for a moment, looking out ahead of you before continuing, "It's hard to feel like I even belong here sometimes..." you hear Mark turn in his seat so that he's fully facing you now. He says your name and you turn to look him in the eye. 

"When I say this, know I mean this with every fiber of my being: you deserve to be here. More than most of the people that go here. You're fucking brilliant. I know we get under eachothers skin just a little-" 

"Understatemt of the century-" 

"Would you please not ruin the moment we're having right now?" Mark interrups you back with a laugh and you laugh with him. "You're one of the few people I really have to use my brain for when I'm talking to them. You're too good to mess up around. You make me actually try." The bus's automated announcement calls out your stop and you tug on the stop signal cable. "And, I hope I do the same for you, at least."

The bus stops and the two of you stand to disembark. As you start walking towards your building, you look up at Mark and say, "you do.... Probably more than you realize." 

Mark looks down at his shoes and sways to bump his shoulder into yours, a goofy-looking grin lighting up his face. His shoulders warm and feeling it against you is surprisingly grounding.

Mark walks you up to the entrance of your building before saying goodnight and walking off in the direction you presume his apartment building is in. You close the door and start walking down the hallway leading to the elevator before pausing to process what just happened. You used to hate Mark. He used to be an obstacle in your path. A distraction at best, and an active hindrance at worst. Now, though, you can't find it in you to conjure up the malice you used to feel for him. What's taken its place is this warm feeling of... comraderie? Mutual understanding? Fondness??? You take a breath before running a hand down your face and walking up to the elevator doors. 

"... what the fuck..."

[freshattitudeyoungbody]

armf ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ⟡₊ ⊹ 21

they/them 𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆ MA

that one dude who don’t play about american rock band say anything

[forever-will-last]

Ask game: 15 for PG/ATP Cady

As a bisexual autistic, who also has some of the mental health issues cady faces, this fic has been great for me to process my own emotions and I’m curious to see how cady dealt with that more in depth

Heyyy fellow bisexual autistic with similar mental health issues! You can really tell who I projected myself onto a bit LOL. It's been interesting balancing my own thoughts/feelings/experiences with how I think Cady would handle similar situations throughout the course of this fic series. Anyways, here's the answer!

(Disclaimer from future me, this ended up being WAY longer than I expected. I'll put the stuff about the sex part of the question under the cut!)

15. 😍 - Thoughts on romance and/or sex?

This series began with a point of canon divergence that occurs after Stupid With Love happens, so we can take that prior to Aaron's death, she very much had the same outlook that canon Cady does. I'd also throw in that she had confusing feelings about Regina that she didn't quite understand, and didn't understand that they were similar to her feelings about Aaron, because the thought of being Not Straight had never particularly crossed her mind, but that one's more of a headcanon I have for canon as well LMFAO

Post-Evanston but pre-Regina, it was far from the first thing on Cady's mind, but as she started to get better, she began to allow herself to fantasize again about being in love, although this time, there wasn't anyone in particular. I think she was scared for a long time about developing feelings for anyone, because of her trauma associated with Aaron's death, but the more she exposed herself to romance in media, the less scared of it she became.

Most of her time at home with Betsy in those early years was spent consuming media, primarily TV and movies at first, because it was an easy way to keep her brain occupied and not spiraling. The better she got, the more she got into it, and eventually, began reading again as well. Romance books and fanfiction about her favorite shows were her go-to, and helped her to not only desensitize her to her trauma, but also to start thinking about love and romance as it could pertain to her again.

While romantic relationships in these books, shows, and fics aren't always the healthiest, she often sought out works that were praised for depicting good, healthy relationships, because she really had no examples in her life. She'd never been in a relationship, her mother didn't date anyone until after Cady started dating someone, so her real world examples were practically zero.

This was something she ended up talking about in therapy a lot after years of improvement, as she began thinking more and more about what the rest of her life is going to look like. She had a lot of fears about not being a good partner for anyone (well before Regina's return), and her and Thalia worked on a lot of hypothetical healthy relationships skills together, using examples of fictional relationships they were both familiar with through TV and movies, with the agreed upon understanding that they aren't always super realistic.

After Regina returns and admits her feelings, and Cady starts processing her own feelings about Regina, Cady has to think about it in a more concrete way. She still has her fears about not being a good partner, about not catching cues or understanding things that Regina wants or needs from her, but in reality, it comes up far less than she had initially feared.

Cady, at heart, is a bit of a hopeless romantic. As soon as she starts experiencing the softness of romance, even in more obscure ways, she finds herself happy and comfortable. Even through hardships, she knows she would do anything for Regina, and Regina would do anything for her, because they're in love, and that's what people in love do. It's a very simplified way of looking at it, but it's her way.

When that happiness and comfort isn't available, such as during an extreme crisis like at the end of ATP, it does send Cady into a bit of her own crisis on it. Does Regina really love her if she's not turning to Cady for help in the same way Cady turns to her? All of the soft things said to each other in the past, do they mean anything at all? What is their relationship?

And, well, we'll get to see them start to unpack that in couple's therapy a bit more Soon™️.

(NSFW half of the question under the cut!)

From this ask game! Send me asks :)

Cady's view on sex is something we see develop a lot throughout the course of ATP, and so far, glimpses of it in PG. Cady spent the years following her time in Evanston adjusting to various medications with a number of side effects, including SSRIs, which often lower sex drive as a side effect. It's not that she was never in the mood, but it was certainly very rare. Sex wasn't something she ever felt like she needed to be fulfilled, although the longer she remained inexperienced, the more nervous she got about said inexperience, in both the realm of romance and sex, although significantly more in the romance field.

Just as she turned to media to help bridge some of the gaps in her knowledge and experience with romance, she did the same with sex. Prior to Regina's return, when she was in the mood, she would read erotica, although, this wasn't necessarily always with the intent of using the smut as a masturbation aid. Sometimes it was because the specific dynamics fascinated her, or certain aspects intrigued her. She primarily read straight smut prior to Regina's return, as she was still fairly unaware of her sexuality and had never fully reflected on it in that way. When Regina returns, and she discovers her long-misunderstood feelings about Regina, she starts exploring sapphic smut in a sort of mad-dash to get any sort of basic understanding of it, as the vast majority of this type of "preparation" she'd done over the years through straight smut didn't really translate well to this relationship.

When she and Regina get together, she's very open about this lack of experience and her anxieties around sex. Regina lets her set the pace, goes slow, and makes sure she has a good experience for her first time. Although she's still on the same medications that do still lower her sex drive, those first couple of months, prior to the leaks, she was much more interested in sex than she's ever been in her life. It helps that she had someone to explore with now, and understand what she likes and doesn't like. At first, she assumes the role she felt she always should, bottoming in many of their early sexual experiences together. She plays around a bit with the idea of a role reversal in some early experiences, but she was still feeling inadequate and inexperienced enough to actually take charge. In my view, both of them are true verses in this AU, although they had only just begun to truly explore this towards the end of ATP with the chapter my beta and I have lovingly nicknamed "The Toppening" (Chapter 45).

The Toppening is a very important chapter to me in that I wrote it with the intention of conveying a lot more about the growth of the characters themselves, as opposed to just smut for the purpose of writing smut. Which is certainly valid and great! But I do feel that some of the earlier smut chapters in ATP served primarily as simply an outlet for me to write smut, as opposed to actually driving the narrative and the characterization further. Which isn't necessary in a story, by any means, but the longer this AU has gone on, the more intentional I have wanted to be in where I put smut and why. (Now I have other fics as an outlet for writing smut. Hi, SBAU and psych ward fans!)

ANYHOW, The Toppening serves multiple purposes for the narrative and the characters. For Cady, throughout that chapter, we see immense growth from the beginning of the fic, both in and out of the bedroom. It's the chapter where she finally applies to community college, taking back control of a part of her life that she long, long felt would be impossible to achieve, both due to her mental health and the fees associated with college. It bolsters her independence and confidence, something that early ATP Cady would have shied away from out of fear of failure. That fear is still there, and we've seen a bit of it and will continue to see more of it, but the difference is that now, she has even stronger emotional support and the financial support to know that if, if she does fail, if she cannot do it, if school is truly not for her anymore, she at least knows that she didn't waste her savings or completely ruin her life by leaving her barista job to go to school.

We see this attitude of confidence continue as the chapter goes on, with Cady practically jumping Regina at lunch to make out with her. Importantly, every sexual fantasy they've ever talked about in relation to the workplace has revolved around Regina topping Cady in her office, yet, the first time anything remotely raunchy happens between them there, this make-out session, Cady is the one taking charge in the moment. They're interrupted by Raúl, so it's cut short, but it's another demonstration of her growth and confidence.

And then, of course, we have the actual sex scene itself. Cady is bold and confident, and despite little awkward moments of lightheartedness, very much in control. Regina's into it, which does inflate Cady's ego a bit, which contributes to the demeanor. For Cady, this true role reversal is not only demonstrating her growth in the bedroom, but also symbolizes her growth in their relationship (and her life) in general. She's spent a long time being taken care of by everyone around her, with little bits of independence here and there, but she's been stuck in awkward place in her emotional and social development for the better part of the last ten years. Now, she's navigating a relationship, friendship, a new job, taking back control of her life, and becoming more comfortable in who she truly is, all while still dealing with a lot of mental health problems. She isn't cured, she'll never be cured. But she's not in constant crisis, and she doesn't need to constantly be taken care of like she used to. She can take care of herself, and her partner.

While the Toppening shows Cady regaining control, it's also some slight foreshadowing around Regina's uncertainty in losing control. In the moment, when things are actually happening in the chapter (when Regina finds out about Cady's application, when they're making out, and during the sex scene), Regina is genuinely happy/into Cady taking control. She's genuinely thrilled that Cady applied, and she's very turned on by Cady taking charge in the other two scenes. But after? When things are over, and she has time to process and overthink and analyze every little thing, in the way she always does? She's nervous about the change in the dynamics, and what it means. Or, rather, what her overthinking and spiraling brain thinks it means. Her fears around these changes feed directly into the events of the last couple of chapters of ATP in her big breakdown, although she doesn't quite name it directly in those chapters. We'll explore a bit more of this when we get to the couple's therapy scenes in PG, and how this shift and change effects both of them as individuals and their relationship itself, once it's identified and named. (I know this ask was about Cady, but I couldn't leave Regina's side of the Toppening untouched!)

We'll continue to see how Cady's feelings about and relationship to sex continue to change and adapt, as frankly, after the breakdown, they aren't having any sex for a while. It's far from on the front of their minds while Regina's in the early stages of her recovery, and would probably actively do harm if they did attempt to do anything before either of them are fully ready for that type of intimacy again. Obviously, however, we know from the first chapter of PG, that by the time December hits and they go on vacation, they're fucking like rabbits. We'll see more on how this gets from where they were to where they are as more of PG comes out.

I have no idea how long this is, but I do know it's way longer than I intended... Oops! 😅 I hope this answered your question, Anon, and I can't wait to get back to working on PG and telling more of this story, because CLEARLY I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the characters in this AU!

[rabbitcruiser]

National Ice Cream Sundae Day

HISTORY OF NATIONAL ICE CREAM SUNDAE DAY

Ice cream sundaes are one of the handfuls of foods that are loved by almost everyone. You might be handling a bowl of delicious right now as you read through this post, but have you ever wondered where this sweet nectar of the gods, a.k.a. sundae came from? How did it get its bizarre and unusual name? Who was the creator of this lovely dessert? We might be able to answer you.

The original ice cream sundae dessert consisted of vanilla ice cream topped with strawberry-flavored sauce, whipped cream, and a maraschino cherry. They were originally served in small glass tulip-shaped vases. This glass then got the name, “sundae glass.” Over the years sundaes took many forms and shapes. They have become one of the most popular desserts in America.

Interestingly, there are several versions of the story of who is the original creator of the sundae. The key players in the list include Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Ithaca, New York, Evanston, Illinois, and Plainfield, Illinois. But according to most people, it was the Two Rivers in Wisconsin that was the original birthplace of Sundae. It was invented by Edward C. Benners, the owner of Berners’ Soda Fountain in 1881. Much like the origin, there are varied stories about how Sundae got its name. One story claims that the name comes from the translation of “Sonntag” which means Sunday in German. Another story says that when Evanston, Illinois passed the Blue Law, restricting soda on Sundays, the town invented the term Sunday Soda, which later turned into ‘sundae’.

But whatever the origin is or whatever the name is, one thing that is absolute is how much we love Sundaes. So, grab your ice cream appetite and enjoy the day!

NATIONAL ICE CREAM SUNDAE DAY TIMELINE

1881

The Invention of Sundae

Edward C. Berners from Wisconsin invents the iconic sundae.

1890

The Blue Law

Illinois passes the Blue Law that restricts activities on Sundays.

1920

Sundaes Go to the U.K.

Sundae gets introduced into the U.K., renamed “Knickerbocker Glory”.

1980s

The Most Loved Dessert

Sundae becomes one of the most loved ice cream desserts in the U.S.

NATIONAL ICE CREAM SUNDAE DAY FAQS

What is the difference between sundae and ice cream?

In simple terms, ice cream is the ingredient that you use in sundaes and other desserts and a sundae is the finished dessert made with ice cream.

How do you make a regular sundae?

All you need to do is take scoops of ice cream in a bowl and pour caramel or chocolate fudge and then top it with whipped cream, almonds, and cherry.

Is banana split a sundae?

The banana split dessert is a classic sundae loaded with vanilla, chocolate, strawberry ice cream, syrup, nuts, whipped cream, and cherries. It is a perfect summer sundae.

NATIONAL ICE CREAM SUNDAE DAY ACTIVITIES

Eat a sundae: The best way in which you can celebrate National Ice Cream Sundae Day is by eating a sundae. Enjoy it while you relish the memories of your childhood when you first tasted this delicious dessert.

Throw an ice cream sundae party: Are you feeling too guilty to eat this delicious dessert alone? Throw an ice cream sundae party! Invite your friends, family, and colleagues and have a blast.

Pass on the joy: You might be having the luxury to have sundaes whenever and wherever you want. There might be underprivileged kids in your community who might have not even tasted it, so buy them sundaes and share the joy.

5 YUMMY FACTS ABOUT SUNDAES

The biggest ice cream sundae: The Serendipity 3 restaurant in New York City created the biggest ice cream sundae.

The best sundae ever: Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream in New York is voted as serving the best sundae in the U.S.

The world’s heaviest sundae: The world’s heaviest ice cream sundae weighed a hefty 55,000 pounds.

The most expensive sundae: The most expensive ice cream sundae costs $1,000.

Some aide in weightloss: There are actually ice creams that are designed for weight loss if one eats sparingly.

WHY WE LOVE NATIONAL ICE CREAM SUNDAE DAY

It reminds us of what is important: We live in a world that seems to focus too much on the big picture. Days like Ice Cream Sundae Day bring back the joy of the small shared moment together, which are the important times when one looks back.

It spreads joy: Let’s all be honest, just even hearing the word ‘sundae’ brings joy and happiness. Each of us has a trip down memory lane when we hear that word. So, is there really a reason to not love this day?

It brings everyone together: National Ice Cream Sundae Day is one of those holidays that brings everyone together. You can happily enjoy a sundae with your friends, family, or even a stranger.

Source

[immortanfuriosa]

BENEATH BLACK SUN

TAGS ON AO3: HALO REACH - FANDOM, NOBLE SIX | SPARTAN-B312, PRE-CAMPAIGN

Deep breath in. She crawls to the ledge of the building as the active camo begins to bend the low lights around her, leaving her obscured from view as the silenced muzzle swings over the concrete lip, and the bipod’s feet gently press against it.

TARGET IDENTIFIED.

She leans her head until the scope fills the vision of one eye. The simple crosshair lines up with his head. The bolt handle pulls back, and music in her ears is the soft c-lick of the .57 cal shot slotting into place when she pushes it forward again.

RANGE: 457 METERS.

She tilts the barrel, carefully, until the dot is hovering the very top of his skull. And stops. There’s a flash of something just barely in her field of view - in the building across the way. First instinct is to move; bad idea. Rather, she keeps perfect stillness. There’s another flash at the edge of her scope.

THERMAL VISION ON.

Insurrectionist sniper; looking right at her. Briefly, she considers that he doesn’t see her - in the moonlight it is already difficult to be tracked, nevermind the camo. And yet, she can feel hairs standing on the back of her neck.

She begins to consider her options. If he knew her position, firing at the target was a bad idea; it was likely the other weapon was trained on her helmet. Changing position could potentially work - but then he’d know he had been seen, and the entire compound would go on high alert. Though, if he knew she was there, she doubted that they weren’t already. Not that any of it mattered, in all actuality. It wouldn’t be difficult to pick them off one by one.

The target’s moving. In another corner of the scope she can see the convoy that’s being stocked with armaments; no doubt to follow him to his next destination. Now or never.

In a split second, the aim of her beloved SRS99 flicks upward, and her finger pulls the trigger. Breathe out, the recoil impacts her shoulder. In the same second the bullet finds its mark on the enemy sniper, she leaps to action. The empty cartridge skitters across the roof as she slots a new one.

CAMO DEACTIVATED.

With a running start, she jumps off of the building as the rifle is stowed to her back, freeing both of her hands to catch against the neighboring building to slow her fall.

RECEIVING RADIO SIGNAL.

“What are you doing?” her current handler hisses into her helmet. She ignores it as she lands in the underbrush. It was too risky to respond.

CHANGING FREQUENCY.

It crackles static for a few seconds, looking for a signal to latch to.

“We have a problem.”

“Report.”

“Evanston is down; clean shot. What should we do?”

Shit. If they found him that quickly…

“Don’t panic, the boss is almost out of here. Shuffle perimeter units inward - one Spartan doesn’t mean jack here.” That nearly makes her blow her cover by laughing.

“We’re talking about the same Spartan, right? The Black Sun?”

Oh, so they’ve got a code name for her now. She doesn’t dwell on it, instead sliding closer to the convoy as the enemy begins closing in. Engines fire up. The target climbs into the passenger seat of the second to last vehicle -

CAMO ACTIVATED.

She nearly runs into someone making a break for it - the loud expletive that escapes him turns heads, but she’s already dropped to the ground, careful not to kick up gravel when she slides under the civilian transport. Of all the things to forget when modifying it… She doesn’t complain as she swings her rifle to her chest and finds purchase for her hands and feet, pulling herself flush with the undercarriage.

There’s shouting across the comms frequency when someone else finds Evanston with his head a rather large smear across his not-so-secret perch. It’s drowned out by the compound gate announcing the departure rather loudly, save for a voice barking to cover their exit, instead of searching for her.

The vehicle she’s clinging to groans for a moment with the unexpected passenger. Deep breath in. It begins to move, slowly at first. The engine whines as it spins up. Coughs angrily when switching gear, but finds its throttle when they make it past the gate, tearing for the trees.

CAMO DEACTIVATED. TACTICAL MAP OPEN.

Across her vision the immediate area lights up in a dull green hue. Even in the low light, moving to attack out in the open would cause many more problems than she wanted to deal with -

JOHN STEELE MEMORIAL TUNNEL - 32 KM N.

Perfect. It’s been inactive since these fools took control of the area, and they’d switch to night vision to traverse through the mountain, because having headlights on was a risk they wouldn’t take. She snorts.

CHECKPOINT - 61 KM NNE.

Less…perfect. Her window for getting out just got a lot shorter.

CHANGING FREQUENCY.

“- the whole mission is in jeopardy!”

She rolls her eyes. “Change of plans. Send evac here,” with her eyes, she marks a spot about 7 klicks southeast of the checkpoint, cutting her window smaller. It’d have to work.

CHANGING FREQUENCY.

“- You catch that static?” Worry in the voice over the radio.

“It’s just the tunnel approach, Raven One. Keep driving. Don’t be alarmed when we lose signal on the inside. Night vision on, men.”

And that they do.

RADIO OFF. CAMO ACTIVATED.

Climbing up from any direction was dangerous. From either side, they would feel the Warthog shift, from in front or behind, there was a chance that someone’s night vision would catch her figure distorting the air. Staying in place was also bad - if they reached the checkpoint all hell would break loose when the seismic sensors caught her.

NIGHT VISION ON.

She carefully picks her way to the back, ignoring heat seeping through her gloves. When her head pops out, she looks directly at the vehicle behind the one she’s stowed on. It’s about 200 meters back as the tail of the convoy - and would be easy enough to pick off the driver and shotgun with the M6G. There’d be no way to tell what would happen after; and even without comms, it’d be pretty damn obvious if it exploded in the tunnel. Out of the question.

If they notice her, nothing happens as she crouches above the driver of the M12S. She slings her rifle to her back again, dropping between the seats.

CAMO DEACTIVATED.

“Hello boys,” she grins. Before they’ve had a chance to recover from shock, there’s a knife for each of them, buried in their throats.

TARGET DOWN. HEAD FOR EXTRACTION.

The vehicle swerves left. She’s ready for it, leaning to the right, using the momentum to haul the dead driver onto the passenger. A hand grabs the wheel, cutting it to the right, bringing it back into formation as she slides into his place.

RADIO ON. NIGHT VISION OFF.

The radio comes to life as they exit the tunnel - “Raven Three, is everything alright?”

Her grin widens. She doesn’t answer.

“Raven three. Do you copy?”

She pulls the pin on a grenade. Tosses it into the floorboard.

“Had fun riding with you gentlemen. Unfortunately, I have other places to be.”

ARMOR LOCK ON. RADIO OFF.

BOOM

It sets off a chain reaction in the cab. Her ears begin to ring, her HUD flashes a warning or two. Rather spectacularly, the M12S goes up in flame as it flips through the air, off the road.

The wind is knocked from her lungs when it lands again, making her chest tight as her vision blurs.

ARMOR LOCK OFF.

She ignores it, hopping out of the wreckage. By the time the rest of the convoy has gathered, she’s already making a break for evac.

[thenightlymirror]

I think I’ve managed to pause my rage cycle for a while. I worked for four hours off the books on Saturday, because grounds came in to get double-time and a half to install markers all weekend. I figured if they are only going to install markers two days out of the month, I should probably be there for it. I just drove around on the golf cart and answered questions about layout and different things.

I spent two hours in the middle processing a few orders that didn’t get done and organizing things, which is impossible to do during working hours, because the counselors are constantly dragging me out to solve various catastrophes they have caused. I was getting this pain in the pit of my stomach the whole time, that if anyone walked in and tried to interrupt me as I was working secretly off the clock, as if I owed them any of my attention, I would split their fucking face open and unzip the skin and peel it off their fucking scalps. Or at least smash a giant rock through their windshields.

This did in fact happen, the interrupting part, anyway. Valerie came in and asked me to take a meeting with a Chinese family later in the week to design their monument. As soon as she walked in, I saved and began shutting down my work station. I said, “That’s sounds fine,” and left.

I did my rounds one last time, and talked to each of the guys about various things. They have Pedro, but feel like they are without a superintendent to do certain office tasks, like helping a grave digger who got locked out of his scheduling app on his cell phone. We gassed up the golf carts, and I left home.

With about two shots of rum and some ginger beer, all I could think about at home was Valerie seeing me in the office, and how I had been caught working extra days off the clock like a slave, like she suggested, and the humiliation and rage made me insane, as if something far worse had occurred but never occurred. It didn’t matter.

Suicidal ideation is essentially an inability to appropriately process rage, specifically, to point the blade inward because you cannot say No, cannot strike out at the external enemy, when the moment calls for it. So I spent the night completely insane with suicidal rage.

And it never let up. Even as I woke up this morning, picked up a coffee, and drank it in my car by the beach in Evanston, as is my habit to do on Sunday mornings. I stopped into work afterward, spoke to Pedro briefly, he showed me a few concerns, and I left a few minutes later.

And the tension, like a cramp that re-tenses with periodic aftershocks, eventually subsided.

Tomorrow, the sales manager comes back from Europe. The new receptionist starts. There’s a new counselor too in a few days. A new season. When did it start? I’d say, probably when it was revealed that my friends stopped talking to me for sixth months probably for a lot of reasons, but specifically because one of them started dating a guy. Not sure why that would matter to me. I figured it had something more to do with Harms going on a rant about Biden on Halloween in front of the normals, and me being in a constant smoldering rage about the genocide in Gaza, and just barely being able to contain my disgust and loathing at being alive in every moment. But no, it was just a secret boyfriend. People who get off on lying about what they ate for breakfast.

And so it starts.

[ashecampos]

The ‘heart breaker’ and the ‘self centred’

Janis ‘Imi’ike x reader

Warnings : corse language, mention of past breakups. Enemies to lovers??maybe

(I’m so sorry if this is bad, I am currently high on pain and cold meds to try and get over this flu I have <3 also pls ignore how it switches from 1st to 3rd person so much)

You had heard the rumors about the infamous north shore high, everyone had. Little did you know, you would soon be apart of one of these rumors.

Moving schools was not on your list for the things you expected from the year. You had officially been expelled from your last school due to an incident that was not at all your fault. Now all you had to do was survive senior year at a new school where you only knew two people, one being your best friend, the other being a person you hated with your entire being. Janis ‘Imi’ike.

You and Janis go way back. Like as in third grade. You hated her and she hated you, end of story. Or was it?

It was now Sunday night, you and your best friend Tessa are on FaceTime and she is getting you up to speed with the north shore gossip.

“Soo Regina and the plastics aren’t bitches anymore, everyone is friends like in middle school and there isn’t much drama. Got it?” She says finishing her rant. A pen and paper in her hand with a map of all the drama you had missed on it.

“Mh everyone is queer, no drama, Janis still hates me, Regina isn’t a mega bitch, you and Aaron are fucking and me now starting fresh at your school totally isn’t going to cause any drama at all. Gotcha” I say while grabbing more paint from a shelf at the store. She nods silently then going on another rant about how Aaron and Shane are going to make a group chat with everyone im going to meet tomorrow in it, I nod while walking around. Until I bump into someone, their notepad nearly dropping to the floor but i managed to catch it somehow. Apologising profusely i look the person in the eye and my heart stops, blood running cold. Not even a foot away stands Janis ‘Imi’ike in all her glory. I stand there for a few seconds, the notepad held out for her to take but it seems that she is having the same reaction to this awfully awkward situation. She takes a second to scoff before grabbing the notepad and walking past, our shoulders brushing past each other “since when did you move back to Evanston?”she mutters before vanishing to the next isle. What the fuck.? Of all people you could’ve ran into it had to be her didn’t it? You thought “you did not just literally bump into she who shan’t be named” Tessa interrupts your thoughts to only add onto the embarrassment your feeling. “Shut the fuck up tess” i say as the girl on the other end of the call is in the middle of a laughing fit. I speed walk to the cash register and pay for my supplies before practically sprinting home. Anything to get away from Janis before I have to put up with her for the rest of the school year.

The night went quicker than I’d like to admit, I painted a little, lost track of time and ended up dozing off with my head on my desk. The next day came and I now stand in my closet, Tessa stood with me looking for the appropriate outfit that doesn’t scream ‘I got suspended from my last school and I don’t want to be at this school’. “Hm how about this” she picks up a pink shirt earning a disgusted look from me. She groans putting the T-shirt back and sitting on my bed and shrugging “just wear a band tee or something” she says. “Just wear a band tee or something” I mock while grabbing some baggy jeans from my closet, I scan my shirts before smirking and grabbing a button up shirt and a vest. “Gay” Tessa shouts at me, laughing and pointing at my doc martens “wear those” she says with a smirk.

The thing is me and Tessa are polar opposites, shes the most girly girl you will ever meet. Whereas I look like I just stepped out of a hot topic store. She was apart of the plastics before project ‘destroy queen bee’ was put into motion. She had stated many times how much she despised what Cady done to Regina. And even though I wasn’t apart of the school or had no reason to know the drama or what went down, oh she kept me updated. I even went to see Regina after she was hit by the bus. Which got me an one way ticket to Regina’s good side. You see being friends with Tessa can be a struggle seeming that she is the popular it girl, or the girl next door per say, however o wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Oi y/n/n Shane is making the group chat now, then we are going to meet up with everyone at the front of the school”

Moments after she said that my phone vibrates, I look at it while changing into my jeans.

*Shane Oman added you into ‘norths-whores hottest’ groupchat* I laugh a little at the name, so does Tessa as she starts typing away.

(NORTH-WHORES HOTTEST)

Tessi 🪽: “hey bitches!! ready to meet north shores newest hottie?”

(8am)

Reginald 💁‍♀️ : “as long as it doesn’t cause me to get hit with a bus this time”

Kay-dee ✨ : “I told you I was sorry for that reg”

Karen 💁🏽‍♀️ : “wait we have a new kid?”

Gretch 🪬: “yeah Tessa’s mysterious best friend is transferring because they got suspended from their last school”

Y/n/n 🌺: “should I be concerned how much you already know about me? Also hey guys”

Shane💪🏽: “don’t worry it’s her thing”

Reginald 💁‍♀️ : “well then congratulations and welcomes are in order, speaking of orders what coffees does everyone want im making a pitstop at Starbucks”

Gretch💁🏽‍♀️ : “ooo I’ll have a Strawberry Acai Refresher and Karen will have a hot coco, thanks babe”

Shane💪🏽 : “caramel latte thx Reggie”

Tessi🪽: “hot coco for me too babe”

“Oh and y/n/n said they will have a iced chai with oat milk and brown sugar syrup and they said thankyou”

*Reginald 💁‍♀️liked tessi’s🪽message*

You where now driving both you and Tessa to the school, your palms where beyond sweaty and you felt the lump in your throat grow worse the closer you got to the school. Tessa was sat in the passenger seat belting out show tunes, as you guys did every day in the car. It was settling your nerves a little as you clutched the steering wheel, keeping your eyes on the road.

You pull up to the school with Tessa’s help as she directs you to where the parking lot is then directs you where to park. You see Regina’s pink jeep and Shane’s black Tesla parked next to each other so you park next to Shane upon Tessa’s request. The two of you get out of the car, simultaneously grabbing your bags and linking arms, you softly nudge her and put your sunglasses on, sniggering slightly “hey, we’re gonna rule the school” you say quoting grease like you do every year “hm yeah and how’s that went the past ten years you’ve said that?” She nudges you back cocking one of her brows “okay rude, but in my defence we haven’t been in the same school the past four years” you point at her “well let’s make this one count” she says before waving at a group who you recognise to be the infamous plastics and shane.

“Soo you must be y/n, god Tessa wasn’t lying your banging” Shane comes over, his hand outstretched for you to take, you press you hand against his and hug him, eventually letting go of the hug, he hands you your drink while another set of arms wrap around your torso making you laugh “hey Karen, I missed you too” you laugh hugging her with one arm while you hold your cup in the other. She looks up adorable as ever and smiles widely, seconds later her face drops “OH MY GOD YOU GOT A MULLET” she screams, pulling away, almost knocking your drink out of your hand, you laugh even harder as she runs her fingers through your hair, admiring the shaven sides of your head. “You like?” You say, she nods before unhanding you, she turns to another girl who you assume to be Karen’s girlfriend, Gretchen, the girl is pretty, clad in an academic fitting outfit, a plaid beige skirt and a white turtleneck, she was one of the prettiest girls here, she smiles at you, giving you a simple nod. You walk over and hug her, you then turn to Regina who practically tackles you in a hug. “Who’d you fight to get expelled this time?” She whispers into your ear making you smirk “legally I can’t say but don’t worry they got what they deserved” you say as you hug her back. She slaps your shoulder and gives you a stern look “no more fighting or I will make your life a living hell” she smirks back at you.

After a brief catchup you head to the principals office to grab your paper work and schedule which was only a quick pitstop due to the fact that you had been there yesterday to hand all your paperwork over to secure your place at the school. Once you got your schedule you went straight to home room which was your first class of the day, looking down at your schedule, you walk straight into the back of someone. “Dude watch where your- oh you have got to be fucking with me now” the person says just as you open your mouth to apologise.

There in front of you stands an angered Janis ‘Imi’ike, her face drops seeing you for a second time this week. She rolls her eyes “are you following me or some shit?” She says, earning an eye roll from you “oh ku'uipo, don’t flatter yourself, my world doesn’t revolve around you” you say while walking around the girl and into your home room class, she stays stood in the doorway for another moment seeming to be frozen in place before she snaps out of whatever trance you had managed to put her in and she then walks inside the room, taking the last available seat, the one in front of you. Just before she sits herself down you manage to catch a glimpse of her face, red with a bit of a flustered expression. You grin a little acknowledging the fact you still had that affect on her after so many years.

Home room drags, the teacher is sweet though, she introduces you to everyone and proudly embarrasses you by telling the class you won the state art competition last fall which in turn earns a look from Janis who’s eyes have never left you since the teacher pulled you to the front of the class. As soon as the bell chimes your out of there having endured enough embarrassment for one person to handle. You make it your mission to get out before Janis can. I then go looking for my next class. Chemistry. You walk in expecting to be in a class full of randos but to your surprise and dismay you walk into the class to find the class full of your newfound friend group and Janis. Of course. The teacher strides in pointing at the whiteboard where a seating chart is etched into. You look for your name as the rest of your group goes and sits down, you smirk a little when you see that you are all on one table. Not bothering to look who else is on the table you go sit without hesitation. “So how was everyone’s first class?” You start, everyone groans seeming to already be put off only an hour into the week. “Oh I have some gossip for ya..oh hey Janis” Gretchen says which makes your face drop. You whip your head around praying it’s not the Janis you think it is, yet there she stands. All colour drains from your face, you look at Tessa for help but she is too busy trying not to die of laughter. Regina seems to have a similar reaction to yours with the girl being at the same table. And yet again much to your dismay the girl sits next to you, slamming her book down and looking at the front of the class toward the teacher. “Hello students, my name is Mr Jenkin and im your chemistry teacher. So seeming that we are in chemistry I like to have all the students on the same tables to have a lot of chemistry. Today’s class revolves around getting to know your groups. So one person from each table grab a deck and we shall play charades” the teacher says as he throws like seven decks of small card on his desk with a smile. Oh now this one is cute, he seems a little too nice for his own good, especially in this school.

Regina takes it upon herself to go grab the cards, taking the rubber band off of them and flicking it at Tessa who flips her off with a laugh. “I guess I’ll start then” she says reading the first card. She snickers a little before looking around the table and pointing at Aaron. “Boy?” He says straight away, Regina then shakes her head but stops and waves her hand around to say that he was right but she needs another word. She then points at her head earning a few weird looks from the table, it took me a few seconds to click on but I quickly realised what she was getting at “boy genius” I mutter quietly not being too sure on if I was right but she smiles and nods, holding her arm out to make me stand up as she hands me the cards. “Who’s boy genius?” Karen says with a big smile “an amazing band” both me and Janis say in sync earning a look from everyone in the group, I look at Janis before looking down at the card that says ‘love’ I roll my eyes and groan a little, I put my hand over my heart looking around the group to see if anyone will click on “heart?” Tessa says first, I shake my head and another idea pops into my head, I make a heart with my hands while looking around again. “Heartbreaker?” Janis mutters, earning looks from the group again, I sigh and shake my head before Tessa swoops in and says “love” which o nod to. She grins and gets up, allowing me to sit back down. A few more rounds go by and it is now Janis’ turn. She stands up brushing by me and picks the cards off of the table, she looks down for a few seconds before she points at herself making me snigger again. “Self centered?” I say proudly earning a slap from Tessa who scolds me silently. Janis snaps back “don’t make me tell your new little friends who you really are because believe me I will” she stares into my soul, my fists clenching under the table, I take a deep breath before shaking my head and grabbing my bag and leaving, hearing the group calling after me and Tessa saying “seriously Janis is there any need? She didn’t mean what happened” the teacher then calls after me before asking what everyone on the table what the hell happened. Tessa thankfully made and excuse as Janis also left the classroom.

I end up in the bathroom, slamming my fist against the wall of one of the stalls. Before wincing in pain instantly. I throw my bag and slide down the wall so I am sat down with my knees to my chest. The door to the bathroom then opens and in walks Janis. She sees me and walks over crouching down so she in face to face with me. She hesitates for a few seconds before placing her finger under my chin and making me look up at her. “Hey breathe for me yeah?” She says in a calm, knowing tone. My breath hitches a little before it picks itself up again, I struggle to breathe earning a concerned look. She tries talking to me again but it falls on death ears. I look around the bathroom frantically trying to find something to help myself, then out of the blue I feel a pair of lips on my own. Her lips. The lips that had been tormenting my dreams for the past five years. She pulls away after a few moments which felt like a lifetime. She looks at me before assuringly repeating what she said before “im sorry for what I said. I know it wasn’t your fault, im just still not over it..over us” she looks down before going to stand up, I quickly use my uninjured hand to pull her back into me, we share another kiss until the bathroom door swings open. Revealing the whole friend group.

[maybeimamuppet]

and all the devils are here (1/2)

hello everyone happy wednesday!! i hope you’re having a great one :) 

this is finally a request fill for an anon who asked for veronica coming to evanston after the events of heathers (which for plot reasons happened in her junior year instead of senior year). i’ve had this one for a while (like. more than a year oops) and i’m so glad it’s finally done and ready to be shared :)) and thank you to my beloved for helping me proofread it <33

but it is a dark one!! tw for

ptsd/general mental illness

flashbacks

mentioned self harm

death 

mentioned violence

abusive relationships 

divorce/child custody discussions 

and as always if i’ve missed anything please let me know so i can add it in !

enjoy!

—————

“Are you okay, mpendwa?” Cady asks worriedly, looking at her girlfriend’s pale face. Janis startles slightly, snapping out of her daze and back to their weekly coffee with Damian. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Cady frowns in concern and checks her forehead with a kiss. “You don’t have a fever.” 

“I’m okay, Cads,” Janis chuckles. “I’m not sick.” 

“But you’re acting weird,” Damian accuses, pointing his straw at her. “Spill.”

“It’s nothing,” Janis mumbles. 

“It’s clearly not nothing, love,” Cady says worriedly. “You can tell us.” 

“You sure?” Janis asks sheepishly. “It’s… kind of heavy, I don’t wanna bring the mood down, or whatever.” 

“Noooo, of course you can tell us,” Cady says, hugging Janis’ arm. Damian nods eagerly around his mouthful of latte. 

Janis takes a deep breath to prepare herself for their reaction. “Okay, um… I have a twin.” 

Damian does a genuine spit take, choking slightly before spitting his coffee on the ground. “You have a what?! And you didn’t tell me?!”

“I didn’t know! My mom only told me yesterday,” Janis replies. It’s silent for a long moment, the tension palpable. “Caddy?”

“Sorry,” Cady says, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, like an Etch-A-Sketch. “But… what?” 

“I have an identical twin,” Janis explains quietly. “Our parents divorced when we were a year old. My dad took her and moved to Ohio, and my mom kept me.” 

“Oh my god, that’s why we were never allowed to watch The Parent Trap!” Damian gasps. “It all makes sense now!” 

“So… why did your mom tell you now?” Cady asks. “Surely it would be easier to keep this up if you two never knew about each other?” 

“She’s… um… she’s moving here,” Janis replies. Damian chokes again. “She went through… something, last year. My dad decided she needed a fresh start, and to be with Mama, I guess. So she’s moving here next week.” 

“Oh,” Cady says. “How do you feel about that?”

“I dunno,” Janis mumbles. “I only found out she existed yesterday, I haven’t really processed it yet.” 

Cady hums understandingly and nods. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah, she’s just, like, another you. She’ll be awesome,” Damian replies. 

“Technically, I’m another her,” Janis chuckles. “She’s older.”

“By how much?” Damian asks. 

“Three minutes.” 

“Okay, that’s manageable,” Damian nods.

“What’s her name?” Cady asks gently. 

“Veronica,” Janis replies, leaning into her girlfriend for comfort. 

“The hell?” Damian scoffs. “What kind of twin names are those? Veronica and Janis aren’t similar at all.”

“Dame, we’re identical, I think it’s better to give us different names,” Janis chuckles. “And my real name is more similar.”

“Your what now?”

“My name is Victoria, Damdam,” Janis chuckles. “I decided I didn’t like it when I was little and started going by my middle name.” 

“You what?!” Damian splutters. “I’ve known you since we were three! How did I not know this?!” 

“You never asked,” Janis shrugs. “It’s not like it matters, I’m only Victoria on paper.” 

Damian cups his face in his hands and stares past his friends at absolutely nothing, looking as if everything he knows about the universe has shifted a bit. Janis turns to Cady. 

“Well, this has been… interesting,” Cady giggles. “Any other life changing secrets you want to let us in on now?” 

“Not at the moment,” Janis hums. Cady kisses her forehead. 

“Alright, well, if you think of something.” 

“You’ll be the first to know,” Janis agrees with a chuckle. “D, you good?” 

“He hasn’t blinked in two minutes.” 

—————

“Love, it’ll be fine,” Cady comforts as Janis is pacing around her bedroom. “You might not get along right away, sure, but you’re sisters. Twins, even. I’m sure she’ll be as wonderful as you are.” 

“What if she’s better than me?” Janis asks, pausing her pacing and turning to look at her girlfriend in worry. “What if you like her better?”

“Janis,” Cady sighs, reaching out for her. Janis plops into her lap and cuddles in with a whine. “I love you. Not her. Just because you’re identical twins doesn’t mean you’re the same person. You didn’t even grow up together. She probably acts different, she might look a little different, who knows. I only want you. I don’t even know her. I know you. I love you. You don’t have to worry about her being ‘better’. You’re great as you are, and I’m sure she is too. In different ways. And I only want this way. Your way. Okay?”

Janis nods, but doesn’t say anything. Damian returns then, armed with the snacks he’d been sent to fetch from their kitchen. “I’m back and I have food!” 

Janis anxiously rips into the package of Oreos and cracks one open, nibbling all the filling out of the middle in a spiral. 

“What happened?” Damian asks knowingly. 

“I’m about to meet someone who, in theory, looks and acts exactly like me,” Janis replies. “Surely you, of all people, understand why that’s terrifying?”

“Oh. Yeah, fair point,” Damian nods. “You’ll always be the better twin to us.” 

“Thanks,” Janis snorts. 

The doorbell rings. Janis tenses. 

“Now or never,” Cady says gently. “We’re right here.” 

Janis takes a deep breath and nods, padding slowly out of her room and down the stairs. Damian and Cady follow, but linger on the staircase to give them a bit of privacy. 

Janis walks in on her mom in tears, holding a blue form as tight as she possibly can and murmuring something Janis can’t make out. A short girl in a pink sweatshirt and an only slightly taller one dressed all in yellow stand by the door, looking about as awkward witnessing this as Damian and Cady do. 

“Victoria?” 

Janis whirls around when she hears it. She’s seen photos of her dad. He sent a card to her every birthday and every Christmas. And here he is. In the flesh. 

“Uh… hi,” she stutters quietly. “It’s Janis now.” 

“That’s what I wanted to name you in the first place,” her dad chortles. Janis tenses as she’s suddenly pulled into a hug so tight she can hardly breathe. She sinks into the embrace after barely a minute and hugs her father back. “God, you’re tall.” 

Janis laughs. Or maybe she’s crying, she can’t be quite sure. Probably both. 

Her dad pulls away and holds her face in his large, warm hands. “Let me get a good look at you.” 

Janis smiles a bit, still not totally sure what to make of the whole situation. 

“Cool hair,” her dad says thickly. 

“Thanks,” Janis chuckles, wiping her eyes with a sniffle. 

Her mother lets go of her sister at around the same time, and the two turn to face each other. Their jaws drop in exactly the same way. 

“Holy shit,” Cady whispers from the stairs. 

Janis and Veronica are almost exactly identical. 

They have the same face, though Janis’ is coated in her usual dark makeup, while Veronica doesn’t seem to have anything on beyond maybe a lip gloss. Their natural hair color is the same, but Veronica’s is in a barely tamed puff cropped to her shoulders, while Janis has her long blonde ends and just a slight wave caused by probable years of bleach damage. 

Their clothes are wildly different, too. Janis is in a pretty casual outfit; a black sweater, denim shorts and some footless fishnets. Veronica has on a blue short-sleeved sweatshirt and some plain dark jeans. 

But the most noticeable difference is how they carry themselves. 

They have exactly the same build, they’re the same height and everything down to maybe a centimeter at most. But while Janis stands tall, proud to fill the space she does, Veronica seems to be trying to make herself as small as possible. There’s something haunted in her eyes, something that isn’t there in Janis’ matching ones. Veronica looks like she’s trying to make herself totally invisible. Like if she hunches in on herself enough the world might just swallow her whole. 

“That’s my face,” Janis accuses unthinkingly. “I mean, uh…” 

“Hey,” Veronica greets gently. 

“Hey,” Janis echoes. “I’m Janis.” 

“Veronica,” her twin says. They can hear one of the girls that came with her smack her hand against her forehead as Veronica sheepishly reaches out a hand for Janis to shake. “Mac, shut up! I’m nervous!”

“She’s your twin, Ronnie! Hug her!” the girl in yellow huffs. 

“This works for me,” Janis shrugs instead. She takes her sister’s hand and gives it a solid shake before letting go. Veronica flinches slightly when she says that. What happened to her?

“Well, we’ll let you kids go get to know one another,” their father says kindly, shooing the lot of them up the stairs. Janis blinks at her mom for a moment, checking to make sure this is what she should do. Her mother nods and points to Cady and Damian. Janis sheepishly gestures for the rest of her crew to follow her upstairs. 

Veronica and her little posse look around almost in awe at Janis’ room. Doodles cover every square inch of wall (and ceiling, now that she’s run out of room), along with alien posters and photos of her favorite people. The color scheme is dark, but it’s still quite cozy. 

Cady pulls Janis into her lap on the bed and hooks her chin over her shoulder. Veronica and Yellow Girl sheepishly sit down at the foot of Janis’ bed, while Pink Girl stands aimlessly next to them. Damian flops on the ground and lies spread eagle, like he normally does. 

It’s silent for a few minutes before he finally pipes up. “Alright, fuck this. Hi, I’m Damian, Janis’ best friend and token homosexual. And I hate silence.” 

“Me too!” Yellow Girl exclaims. “Oh, I’m Heather. Ronnie’s girlfriend.” 

“I thought your name was Mac?” Cady says, tilting her head in confusion. 

“That’s a nickname,” Heather explains. “I’m not the only Heather we know. There are- were- three of us. So we go by our last names, most of the time. Mine’s McNamara, so… Mac.” 

“Oh,” Cady says with a nod. “Cool! I’m Cady. I’m Janis’ girlfriend.” 

Veronica raises an eyebrow at Janis. Janis mirrors her and says, “Lesbian.” 

“Bi,” Veronica hums. Janis gives an approving nod. 

“Her too.” 

“Nice!” Veronica cheers, giving Cady a fist bump. Cady laughs and reaches to tap their hands together. 

“What about you?” she asks, looking to Pink Girl. 

“Huh? Oh! I’m Martha. I’ve been Veronica’s best friend since we were babies,” Martha says. “Or since diapers, as she so eloquently likes to put it.” 

“We were two when we met, that’s not a baby! That’s a toddler,” Veronica defends. “But we were still in diapers.” 

“Whatever you say,” Martha chuckles. 

“I do say,” Veronica insists. 

“It makes sense to me,” Janis says with a laugh. Veronica’s eyes widen when she realizes they have the exact same laugh. Janis mirrors the expression. She doesn’t know why, since they’re identical twins, but she really wasn’t expecting them to be so similar. 

“You guys are really similar,” Mac says with a giggle. 

“We’re twins,” Janis and Veronica explain at the same time. Everyone laughs. 

“We should see if you guys have twin telepathy or something,” Cady says. 

“Oh, yeah!” Mac agrees eagerly. 

“Come on, let’s go get some stuff,” Cady says. She and Mac go rushing off to find… something, leaving the other four blinking at the door. 

“Should we be worried?” Veronica asks quietly. 

“I think our girlfriends are more similar than we are,” Janis responds. 

“At least they get along,” Veronica says, tilting her head in confusion. 

“Martha, do you like musicals?” Damian asks, making conversation in the best way he can while they wait for Cady and Mac to return. 

“I love musicals!” Martha says eagerly. “Especially the happy ones.” 

“Can you stay forever?” Damian asks longingly. “Janis never watches bootlegs with me.”

“We watched one this morning,” Janis says with a roll of her eyes. 

“To distract you from your nerves!” Damian retaliates. “If I want to watch one any other time I have to get Cady to do her eyes on you.” 

“Hey, that’s what I have to do with Mac to get Veronica to watch with me!” Martha giggles. “Man, you guys really are twins.”

“I like the gritty ones,” Veronica says. “And the ones based on books. Like��Les Mis.” 

“That’s what we watched!” Damian says. Veronica turns to look at her sister. 

“You watched Les Misèrables to distract you from your nerves?” 

“Yeah,” Janis says like it’s obvious. “Caddy wanted to watch Frozen, so… lesser of two evils.” 

“Frozen is fantastic!” Damian says. 

“The Lion King is better,” Martha says. 

“Do not say that in front of Caddy,” Janis insists. “She makes us watch that at least once a week.”

“Mac always makes us watch Bring it On,”  Veronica chuckles affectionately. “Says it gives her ideas. She’s captain of the cheer squad.” 

“Caddy’s from Kenya,” Janis says as an explanation for Cady’s love of The Lion King. 

“Really?” Martha asks in shock. “That’s so cool!” 

“Yeah,” Janis says, feeling herself blush at the mere mention of her girlfriend. “My safari explorer. Mac’s thing is cool too.” 

“Thanks,” Veronica snorts. 

Mac and Cady return armed with armfuls of various things as Martha and Damian get into a deep discussion about The Princess Bride, already comfortable with each other enough to cuddle up sitting side by side on the ground. 

“Oh, I love The Princess Bride!”  Cady says when she hears what they’re talking about. She and Mac drop their armfuls of things on Janis’ bed. 

“We can never leave this place,” Martha says. “I found my people.” 

“What about us?” Veronica asks indignantly. 

“Yeah, you’re fine,” Martha responds. Veronica just rolls her eyes with a faint smile. 

“Everyone seems to be bonding except us, Janis,” she says. 

“We gotta do science!” Mac says. Veronica and Janis pull the same slightly frightened expression. 

“What are you gonna do to us?” Janis asks in concern. 

“It’ll be fun!” Cady says. 

“That’s what you said when you brought me to visitors’ day at your math camp,” Janis snorts. 

“Are you saying it wasn’t?” 

“Only because you let me sneak you away so we could make out in the woods,” Janis says. Cady humphs. Janis chuckles and says, “Do your worst.” 

“Damian, Martha, can you guys hold this up?” Mac asks, grabbing a large black sheet. 

“Sure,” Damian says, pausing their discussion. “Why?” 

“So they can’t see each other,” Cady explains. Damian takes one end and Martha takes the other, holding it up as a barrier between Janis and Veronica as they hesitantly take seats on the ground. 

“Okay, round one,” Mac says. “Think of… a color, and then when we count down you’ll say it at the same time.” 

“Why can’t we see each other, then?” Veronica asks. 

“That’s for later. And for the effect,” Mac explains. “Ready?” Both twins nod. “Three… two… one…”

“Blue,” Veronica says. 

“Purple,” Janis says at the same time. Cady and Mac both deflate a bit. 

“Okay, so you have different favorite colors,” Cady says. “That’s fine. Now think of a… a number.”

“Any number?” Janis asks. 

“Uh… between one and fifteen, we’ll say,” Cady says. The twins nod. “Three… two… one…”

“Eight,” they both say. Mac and Cady squeal happily and hug each other. 

“It worked!” Mac says. 

“Once, Mac,” Veronica chuckles. “You and Cady could probably do the same thing.” 

“So we’ll do it again!” Mac says eagerly. “Now think of any number. Any one at all.” 

“Okay,” Veronica chuckles. Mac gives them a countdown. “Nine hundred and thirty four.” 

Janis doesn’t think of one in time and barely manages to stutter, “Uh… six.”

“Janis isn’t the best with numbers,” Cady explains. 

“Hey!” 

“Name a holiday,” Cady says, changing the subject effortlessly. “Three… two… one…”

“Halloween,” they both say. Cady and Mac dance around again. 

“Now… now… uh…” 

“Cake flavor!” Mac blurts. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s good!” Cady says. She counts them down. 

Janis says, “Chocolate.”

Veronica says, “I don’t really like cake.” 

“Okay, this isn’t working,” Cady says. “Let’s do this.” 

She rests a few different snacks in front of each of them. A small tube of pringles, a pack of cookies, and some pretzels. 

“Pick one,” Mac says. They both observe their choices before making their pick. Martha and Damian move the sheet so they can see each other and reveal that they both chose the chips. “Yay!” 

She grabs the snacks from them to set up the next round. “Hey, wait, we don’t get to eat ‘em?” 

Cady rolls her eyes and hands the chips back. Janis and Veronica munch happily while some video games get rested in front of them. The boxes for Janis, and the actual disks for Veronica. Damian and Martha obediently hoist the sheet back up. They get a few seconds to make their choice before the sheet is dropped again. Mac and Cady cheer when they see they both chose Mario Kart. 

“They’re having more fun with this than us,” Veronica chuckles. 

“That’s why I’m still doing it,” Janis responds. 

“Such devoted girlfriends,” Damian says. 

“You’re a good sheet holder, Dame,” Janis says, looking up at him as her options are swapped out for the next round; candies. 

“Thank you! I’ve had lots of practice on the fly crew,” Damian says. He drops it again as they both make their choice. Cady and Mac make yet another ridiculous sound as they see they both chose Sour Patch Kids. 

“That’s three in a row,” Martha points out. Cady and Mac squeal again. “Why is this so fun for you?”

“Because it’s cool!” Cady and Mac say at the same time. 

“Maybe we should be doing this with you guys instead,” Janis chuckles. 

“Ooh, yeah,” Mac says. “We’ll go next. Okay, last round, ready?” 

“Sure,” the twins sigh at the same time. Much like the video games, some movies are rested in front of them. They pick their choice and the sheet is dropped for the final time. You’d think Mac and Cady just won the Superbowl with their own bare hands, the way they react to seeing they both picked a Barbie ballet movie from their childhoods. 

“This is fun,” Martha says happily. 

“But you’re just holding a sheet,” Mac giggles. 

“I’m just happy to be here, honestly,” Martha chuckles. “Your turn?” 

“Yeah!” Cady says. 

-

As it turns out, everyone has about the same success rate. Martha and Damian go a round after Cady and Mac. The girls are visibly trying to hide their disappointment at their very scientific experiments on the twins being disproven before their eyes. At least it was still a fun game. 

Veronica’s crew isn’t leaving until the next day, so they have the best sleepover ever. Making brownies with entirely too many people in the kitchen, playing video games way too late into the night, binge watching tons of movies and munching on ungodly amounts of snacks. 

Janis keeps looking at her twin. Veronica keeps looking back. She has to imagine they’re looking for the same thing. Themselves, in each other. Is that what I look like when I focus? When I laugh, when I smile, when I talk? Is that what I sound like? Is that what I walk like? 

Eventually, they all settle in various spots in Janis’ bedroom since Veronica’s isn’t quite… habitable, yet. Veronica and Mac snuggle up inside a sleeping bag, Cady joins Janis in her bed, and Martha and Damian, evidently feeling left out, snuggle together in their own sleeping bags like some strange caterpillar cuddle party. 

They stay up late talking and laughing and bonding, but eventually, they all fall asleep. 

—————

Unfortunately, Janis and Veronica’s father, Mac, and Martha do have to go home eventually. They came to see Veronica off and help her settle the slightest bit into her new home, but they have their own lives to get back to in Ohio. 

Janis does her best to hide it, but she’s honestly miffed about her dad having to leave so soon. This is the first time she’s gotten to see him in person since she was a year old, and she barely got a full night with him. 

He spends the morning with her, at least. Mac and Martha help Veronica unpack and start getting her room set up while Janis plays checkers with her dad and they watch a few movies together. 

After lunch, it’s time to say goodbye. It’s a long drive from Evanston to Sherwood, and they want to get back before dark. 

Cady and Damian already made sure everyone had each other’s phone numbers. Janis gives Mac and Martha quick hugs before she wraps herself as hard as she can around her dad. He murmurs comfort into her hair as he hugs her back and lets Veronica handle her goodbyes to her friend and girlfriend. 

“You’ll do great here,” Mac says louder than she thinks she does. “Call me every night, okay?” 

“More than that,” Veronica agrees with a sniffle. Janis wonders what could’ve possibly happened to her that would mean leaving her loved ones behind is the best option. 

“I hope things are easier for you here,” Martha says as she hugs her best friend tightly. 

“Me too.” 

With last hugs and a kiss between Veronica and Mac, the door closes and they’re both left alone, staring silently at the backside of the dark wood. 

“…You wanna go watch that Barbie movie?” Janis asks after a few minutes. Veronica sniffles and nods. 

“Yeah. I do.”

—————

Janis is lounging in her room about a week later, doomscrolling various social medias on her phone and playing a few games. 

She jumps when she hears a frustrated growl come from the next room over. Veronica did mention wanting to get started sorting her room out today. 

Janis sits up and heads into the room. “You good?” 

“I have too much shit,” Veronica grumbles, kicking a box a couple inches away from her and growling again at the new pain in her foot. 

“Need help?” Janis asks. 

Veronica looks up at her like she’s an angel descended from the heavens. “Can you help me get all the boxes into the hall so I can paint?” 

“Sure,” Janis says with a nod. She’s not really dressed for it; with her usual tights and shorts combo and a tank top, but it leaves her with enough mobility just to do something like this. 

With the two of them working together, all the boxes are moved out of the way within five minutes. Janis suddenly finds herself wishing she’d always had a twin to help with chores. Things would’ve gone much faster. 

“I can help paint, if you want,” Janis offers as they both suck down water in the kitchen. It might’ve been fast, but it was still heavy work, and they’re both more exhausted than they care to admit. 

“Yeah, sure, if you want to,” Veronica says. Janis gets the feeling some of her nonchalance is feigned. She remembers what it was like painting her bedroom with her mom. She can’t leave her twin to do that alone. 

“Let me change, I’ll be right back.” 

Janis heads back up to her own bedroom and changes into an old pair of shorts and tshirt of her mother’s. She grabs her phone to play music while they work and heads back to Veronica’s room. 

Veronica comes back from the kitchen with several bottles of water and some snacks. Janis helps her cover all the furniture in plastic and tape over the baseboards and outlets. Veronica hands her a roller, cracks open a can of cream colored paint, and pours some into a tray. 

They work in silence for the first little while. They’re still getting used to each other, and Cady was very much right in that they are different people. They still don’t really know how much they have in common; how much they’ll be able to relate to each other. They don’t even really know what interests they have in common. 

“Is that Mom’s shirt?” Veronica asks after a while. 

“Yeah,” Janis says. “Is that Dad’s?” 

“Yeah,” Veronica responds. 

They’re quiet again. Janis takes to doing a second coat on her walls. “Are you gonna leave them all this color?” 

“I dunno,” Veronica says. “I was thinking about an accent wall, but I don’t really know what I’d want to do with it. And I have absolutely no artistic talents.” 

“That’s weird,” Janis snorts. 

“Who did all the stuff in your room?”

“Me,” Janis says. Veronica whirls around to look at her and accidentally splashes her with some paint. 

“Shit, sorry,” Veronica says. Janis laughs and swipes the paint away from her eyes. “You do art?” 

“Yeah,” Janis says, taking a paper towel to scrub the rest of the paint off her face. Or, more accurately, as much as she can get off. “I’ve always, like, doodled and stuff. And I really liked art class. And then I went to art therapy in middle school and it kind of just… stuck, from then on.” 

“Huh,” Veronica says. She doesn’t even acknowledge that she heard the art therapy statement. Janis is almost glad for it. This might be her twin, but they’re still practical strangers. She’s not sure when they’ll be able and willing to talk about stuff like that. “That’s cool. I’ve always sucked at it.” 

“It’s not for everyone,” Janis shrugs. “I could do an accent wall for you if you decide what you want.”

“Really?” Veronica asks. “You’d do that?” 

“Sure,” Janis says. “I don’t do, like, landscapes super well, but I can do doodle-type stuff if you want. Some pattern or something.” 

Veronica takes a minute to look at the drying paint on the wall next to the door. “Could you do flowers?” 

“Yeah, totally,” Janis says. “What kind?”

“…Blue,” Veronica says. “I don’t really know.” 

“Veronicas?” Janis jokes. “They’re blue.”

Veronica shoots her a weird look. “Veronica’s a flower?” 

“Yeah,” Janis says. She grabs her phone and googles them to show her sister. Some of them are a sort of strange tube shape and look like something out of a science fiction film, but others simply look like a sweet, delicate blossom. She’s not entirely sure which ones fit her sister more. 

“Oh, I like those,” Veronica says. She points to one example. 

“I can do that if you want,” Janis says. Veronica nods.

“That’d be cool. Thanks, Janny.” 

“Sure, Vera,” Janis says with a smile. “Let me go get my stuff.” 

Janis keeps her smile as she goes to fetch the leftover colors her mom had let her buy when she was doing her own bedroom and some smaller brushes. 

She’s more excited than she thinks she should be. Out of everything, flowers are actually one of her favorite things to paint. Cady’s the only one who knows, since Janis paints her flowers from time to time instead of buying bouquets that’ll die in a few weeks. It doesn’t fit with the image Janis has tried so hard to build and maintain, so she keeps it to herself. But now she gets to do a whole wall of them for her sister. 

They actually talk the whole time Janis works, while Veronica gets started putting some more furniture together. Janis doesn’t even notice that they never wound up playing music after all. 

Her sister is easy to talk to, and soon, the wall is covered in sweet blue blossoms that match Veronica’s blue accents perfectly. They both flop onto the newly-made bed and look around at their masterpiece. 

“Thanks for helping me.”

“Anytime.”

—————

The dreaded night finally arrives. The last before the first day of school. 

Janis is already nervous just about going back. Things changed a lot over the summer, but she’s still not exactly looking forward to dealing with the Plastics and the jocks and other assorted cliques of North Shore. Add in all the other nerves that come with starting senior year, and Janis is a wreck. 

Veronica, on the other hand, is surprisingly calm. Janis can’t tell if it’s a facade or if she’s genuinely not concerned by what they’ll face tomorrow. Maybe this being a new start for her is actually working. 

Their backpacks sit ready by the front door, their outfits laid out on their dressers and their respective makeup products on their shared bathroom counter. Janis has many, many more products than her sister. At least they’ll be easy to tell apart. 

“You girls excited for tomorrow?” their mom asks over their dinner. 

“No,” Janis says. 

“Yeah,” Veronica says at the same time. They both turn to each other and pull the same weirded out face. 

“It’s school,”  Janis says, as if Veronica had forgotten that somehow. 

“Yeah, exactly,” Veronica says. “New books. New pens. Meeting teachers. Books.” 

“But school,”  Janis reiterates. “Stress and other kids. And stress.” 

Veronica just shrugs and returns to her mashed potatoes. Both of them say, “Weirdo.” at the same time. “Stop it! You stop it!” 

Their mother rolls her eyes, but the clearly delighted smile gives away her true feelings about having the two of them back together. “Both of you hush up and eat. You need to be getting to bed soon.” 

“Ugh,” Janis grumbles, stabbing into her potatoes. 

—-

They do a last check of their things and take their turns in the shower. Janis takes a minute to FaceTime Cady while she does her favorite face mask. They hang up around ten, since Cady gets grumpy without enough sleep. She has a very strict bedtime even in the summer. 

Janis bumps into Veronica on her way to get a bottle of water for her nightstand. Veronica’s sipping on some sleepy time tea and staring out the kitchen window into the backyard. She’s chatting with someone. Janis was expecting to see their mother, but Veronica’s alone.

“Hey,” Janis greets. 

Veronica jumps when she hears her and turns around, almost spilling her tea. She relaxes when she sees it’s just Janis standing there. “Hey.” 

“Sorry. Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody,” Veronica says immediately. “Uh… myself. I talk to myself a lot. I know it’s weird.” 

Janis just shrugs. Things between them are still quite awkward. It’s always weird to see a walking version of your reflection hanging out in your house, but they’re slowly getting used to having the other around. 

“I don’t think so, I do it too, sometimes. I’m going to bed. Goodnight,” Janis says once she has her water. 

“Goodnight,” Veronica says. Hesitantly, shakily, she reaches to offer a hug. Janis smiles faintly and leans in, giving her twin a squeeze. Neither of them are huge on physical contact (unless you ask Cady or Mac), but being close to the other is surprisingly calming for the both of them. Must be a twin thing or something. “Love you.” 

“Love you too,” Janis says. She gives Veronica  a final squeeze and pads off to bed. 

——-

She’s not expecting to be awoken by the sounds of screaming. She’s confused at first, until she puts together what the muffled sounds coming through the wall are and bolts upright. Her phone shows that it’s barely two in the morning when she checks it. 

She stands up and tries to run in to help and see what’s going on. She freezes in the doorway when her mother does the same and shuts Veronica’s door in her face. This is clearly something Janis isn’t supposed to know about. Doesn’t mean she can’t snoop anyway. 

She stands to the side of the door so they can’t see her shadow blocking the light coming through beneath it and does her best to breathe as quietly as she can possibly manage. 

It’s hard to make out specific words through the door. All Janis can really put together is Veronica sobbing hysterically about, “My fault” and “They’re gone” and various other things Janis can’t hear. Her mother is desperately trying to hush and comfort her. 

Eventually, she’s successful, and Janis has to quickly rush back to her room to avoid being caught snooping. She tosses herself into bed and feigns sleep when her mother pops in to check on her as well. She hears a relieved sigh before she decides to go back to sleep for real. 

What is going on?

————-

It’s weird, having another person there as Janis gets herself ready. Every once in a while her mom will have a later shift and they get to have breakfast together or something, but having another her walking around her house is still odd. 

They have a fun moment in the mirror before they both do their makeup, trying to see how similar they look without any products. Their hair is still very different, but their faces are almost frighteningly similar. 

They get dressed on their own, obviously, but they go downstairs at the same time for breakfast. Their mom took the day off so she’d be available to make them breakfast, drop them off, and pick them up from school. She’s always done it for Janis, but this is the first, and unfortunately probably the last, time she’ll get to do it for the both of them. 

They try their best to wake up as they munch slowly on their pancakes. They’re delicious, as always, but it’s also barely seven in the morning. Too early to go much faster. 

With a last double check of their backpacks, they’re out the door. Veronica looks anxiously at the large building when they arrive as it looms in front of them. Janis isn’t faring much better. 

She offers Veronica her hand. They’ll probably get some weird looks, but Janis thinks they could both use the comfort of each other for a little while. Being close is strangely calming for the two of them. 

They head to the office first to pick up their schedules and locker assignments. Their lockers are right next to each other, and their schedules are similar. They’re not exactly the same, but they have a few classes together. 

“You can have lunch with me if you want. Since you already, y’know. Know me. And Caddy and Damian,” Janis says as they walk to their locker. Veronica nods.

“Everyone’s staring,” Veronica says. 

“Own it, bitch,” Janis says. “But, yeah. I’m kind of infamous. And… now there’s two of me.” 

“Why not two of me?” Veronica asks. They open their lockers and shove their afternoon books inside. 

“Hey, Janis,” Regina greets as she approaches. “Cool outfit.” 

Regina hasn’t actually seen Janis yet. She came from Veronica’s side. Veronica obviously doesn’t respond, as she’s not Janis. Janis steps surreptitiously behind Regina and says, “Thanks.”

Regina whirls around to see none other than Janis, giving her that usual cocky grin. 

“What- but…” 

Janis’ smile grows when Regina gives her a look of absolute horror that just says dear god they’re multiplying. 

“How did-”

“This is Veronica,” Janis says. “My twin sister.”

“Your what now?” 

“My twin,” Janis says. “She just moved here.”

“We got Parent Trap’ed,” Veronica explains. “Hey.” 

“Uh… hi,” Regina says. Veronica offers a hand, which Regina hesitantly shakes. “I gotta… go to class. Bye.” 

“She seems well-adjusted,” Veronica chuckles as they head off towards the math wing. Veronica has calculus and Janis has environmental science. Their classrooms are one right on top of the other, so they walk together. 

“Getting hit by a bus apparently kind of rearranges your priorities,” Janis shrugs. “Among other things.” 

“She got hit by a bus?” 

“At the end of last year, yeah,” Janis says. “Long story. This is the first I’ve seen of her without her spinal halo.”

“Damn,” Veronica says. “This me?” 

Janis checks her sister’s schedule. “Think so. You want me to meet you after?” 

“Just for today, maybe?” Veronica says sheepishly. “And maybe just to, y’know. Give people time to adjust to there being two of us?” 

“Sure. Have fun in math,” Janis teases. Veronica sticks her tongue out before she heads into class. 

—-

They have second period psychology together. Janis waits outside Veronica’s classroom for her so they can walk together. 

Janis had the same teacher last year for her politics class. His eyes widen the slightest bit when he sees her and her apparent clone walk through his door. “Hey, Janis. And… Janis the second. Nice to see you back.”

“Hey, Mr. Kent,” Janis says. “This is my sister, Veronica.” 

“You have a twin?” 

“No, what do you mean?” Janis says. “Kidding. Yeah. She’s new.” 

“I figured,” their teacher chuckles. “Welcome to North Shore High.” 

“Thanks,” Veronica says. 

“Janis, no pulling switcheroos on me. Uh…”

“Veronica,” she supplies.

“Veronica, you can sit wherever you’d like. Today should be pretty chill,” their teacher says. Veronica nods. She can see why this is one of Janis’ favorite teachers. “You guys should be helpful for the twins unit.” 

“We’re not your lab rats, Mr. Kent,” Janis chuckles. 

“For now.”

Veronica laughs and looks around. A few really early kids have taken some seats. Veronica picks one in the front row towards the middle so she can see the board. “Ew, you’re sitting in the front row?”

“What’s wrong with the front row?” Veronica chuckles as she pulls out her notebook and pen. 

“Everything,” Janis grunts as she sits directly behind her. 

“Don’t whine to me when you can’t see the board.” 

“I’m not blind, Vera.”

“For now.”

“The hell does that mean?!”

—————

Lunch is… interesting. Janis hasn’t felt this many eyes on her since eighth grade. Cady notices how tense both she and Veronica are and suggests they eat in the ‘back building’. 

It’s still weird sitting with the Plastics. They had lunch together a few times after they reconciled-ish at Spring Fling, but old habits die hard. Karen and Gretchen are already outside when they walk up. Karen leans into her girlfriend and stage whispers, “Am I crazy or are there two Janis’?” 

“I don’t know,” Gretchen whispers back. 

“Where’s the back building?” Veronica asks, looking around for it as Janis sits on the ground. 

“It burnt down in 1987,” Janis says. “Sit.” 

Veronica shrugs and hesitantly sits down next to her sister. Cady sits on Janis’ other side and greets her with a kiss. 

“How’s your day been?” she asks as she pulls her sandwich out of her lunch box. 

“Not bad, for school,” Janis says. 

“Do you two have any classes together?” 

“Psychology,” they say at the same time. “And photography.” 

“Cool,” Cady nods. 

Gretchen and Karen are still staring at the twins. Janis suddenly remembers they forgot to introduce Veronica. “Oh. This is Veronica. We’re twins. She just moved here.” 

Damian and Regina walk up as Gretchen and Karen start asking a flurry of questions. Janis and Veronica field the ones they’re comfortable with and respectfully don’t answer the few that they aren’t. Mostly to do with Veronica’s past and why she moved to Evanston. 

Regina still seems like one of her most haunting nightmares has come true, but she’s polite and even friendly to the both of them as they eat. Veronica seems a bit more comforted having Damian and Cady around in addition to her sister. By the end of their fifteen minute lunch, she thinks she’s found a solid group of new friends. 

—-

“Hi, girls,” their mom greets as they clamber into the car in the pickup line. Veronica got the front seat on the way to school, so Janis gets it on the way home. “How was school?”

“Good,” they say at the same time. 

“Have any homework?” 

“No.” 

“You teenagers and your one word answers,” their mother tuts as she pulls out of the parking lot and takes them home. “Veronica, did you make any friends?” 

“Yeah,” Veronica says quietly with a faint smile. “Yeah, I think I did.”

—————

“Girls?” their mother asks a few months later as she enters the living room where Janis and Veronica are lounging side by side on the couch. They look up at her at exactly the same time.

“Yeah?” 

“Stop doing that,” their mother says with a flustered wave of her hand. “I got called in for the overnight shift tonight. Are you two gonna be okay here by yourselves?” 

“Mama, we’re almost eighteen,” Janis says. “We’re big kids.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about,” their mom mutters under her breath. “Veronica. You… you think you’ll…”

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Veronica says quietly. “It’s been a good day, I don’t think it’ll happen tonight.” 

Janis is confused, but she doesn’t push. They both have their own stuff going on. Not everything has to be shared between them. Even if they are identical twins. 

“Alright. Call me if anything happens,” their mother says, kissing both their foreheads. “I love you.” 

“Love you too,” they both call after her as she gathers her things and leaves. They lock eyes then and smile in exactly the same way. 

Time to go wild. 

-

Of course, wild for them is… a bit different than what they think most kids their age would get up to. 

A movie in the background, every unhealthy snack in their kitchen to gorge on, and some homework they need to catch up on. They did sneak a bottle of their mom’s wine to split between them, but that’s about as crazy as it gets. They’ve both had plenty of wild party days already. 

“Do you get this chapter at all?” Janis asks after twenty minutes of staring at the same question on her English homework. 

“Yeah,” Veronica says. “Do you get this math assignment?”

“Caddy will,” Janis says. 

“Switch?” Veronica asks. Janis nods, so she passes over her worksheet. Janis hands over her copy of Paradise Lost and her English notebook. Veronica dives right in to answer the question in Janis’ messy handwriting while Janis pulls out her phone to text her girlfriend for help. 

“We should do this for tests,” Janis says. “I might’ve passed my last English exam if you’d have been around.” 

“Yeah, and then what would I be stuck with?” Veronica snorts. “How are you still so bad at English if you read so much?” 

“Shut up, I’m dyslexic!” Janis humphs.

“You are?” Veronica asks. Janis nods. Veronica’s eyes go wide. “Holy shit.” 

“What?” 

“I only got into reading so much because of Martha,” Veronica explains. “She read all these dumb romance novels in middle school.”

“And got you hooked on ‘em?” Janis snorts.

“Shut up,” Veronica says, blushing a brilliant shade of pink. “But… I hated reading when I was a kid because it was always too hard.” 

“Dad didn’t get you checked out?” Janis asks quietly. 

“I never said anything,” Veronica shrugs. That’s one difference between them. As soon as Janis has a problem she will yell about it to anyone who’ll listen to her.  “I did well enough in school that it just never came up, I guess.” 

“Wait, then how are you so good at English if we’re both dyslexic?” 

“I don’t think the dyslexia is the problem, Jan,” Veronica snorts. 

“Hey!” Janis huffs. “I’m helping you with your math.” 

“By having a smart girlfriend,” Veronica accuses. 

“Exactly! How could I have gotten such a brilliant girl if I’m not smart?” Janis says. 

“Because she took pity on you,” Veronica says dryly. “I never said you’re not smart.” 

“You so did.” 

“I just said you’re dumb. You can be both.” 

“…What?” 

“Look at me. I have all A’s and one B and I still opened the fridge directly into my face,” Veronica explains. 

“That’s how you got that black eye?!” Janis cackles. 

“Yes. Now text your girl toy, I need help,” Veronica huffs as she scratches down the last word of Janis’ homework. 

“Fine. Meanie.” 

“Loser,” Veronica retaliates. They both stick their tongues out at each other before they burst into giggles. 

—-

After a phone call to Cady so Veronica can actually finish her math homework, they both sprawl on the floor of their living room side by side and stare up at the ceiling in a wine-drunk haze. 

“What was Mom like when you were little?” Veronica asks completely out of nowhere. 

“Uh… she was cool,” Janis says. “She worked a lot, but she always made time for me. We’d always make dinner together and talk about stuff. And she made up the best games. I know it was really rough on her being a single mom, but she… never let that on. She just… loved me. Showed it.” 

“Hm,” Veronica hums pensively. “Sounds nice.” 

“Yeah. She’s great,” Janis says softly. “What was Dad like?” 

“He’s always been such a dork,” Veronica snorts. “He loves crossword puzzles and those terrible mystery novels. But he somehow can never guess the endings. He used to carry me everywhere on his shoulders. And he’d always join whenever Martha and I had tea parties.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. He wore the tutus and everything,” Veronica chuckles. “He was great. He spent a lot of time making sure I got along with Alice and she treated me well before he even thought of marrying her and stuff. I used to think he could fix anything. He was my superhero.”

“Are you ever mad at them for what they did to us?” Janis asks quietly. Veronica mulls this over before she nods. 

“Sometimes,” she agrees. “Are you?” 

“Sometimes,” Janis echoes. “I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I think having my twin there would’ve made things a lot easier. And I always thought it was my fault dad could never come visit. I just thought he never wanted to.” 

“I thought mom didn’t want me either,” Veronica says. “He never explained why she couldn’t come see me.” 

“Mom never really did either,” Janis says. “She just said it hurt too much for them to get in contact so she left it to him to send me cards for my birthday and stuff.” 

“Dad said she wouldn’t want to see him so she couldn’t visit,” Veronica says. 

“What do you think happened between them?” 

“I dunno,” Veronica shrugs. “Must’ve been pretty serious. It had to have hurt knowing they might never see us together again, but they… did it anyway.” 

“Yeah,” Janis says. 

“Did you ever suspect anything?” Veronica asks. 

“I guess so,” Janis says. “Looking back, there’s… some weird stuff that makes sense now. Like a bunch of my baby photos were cut in half.”

“Yours too?!” Veronica gasps. “I wonder if we actually got the right ones. Maybe Mom kept mine and Dad took yours.” 

“Could be,” Janis agrees with a shrug. 

They’re quiet for a while, before Veronica quietly says, “I’m kind of glad I had to move.” 

Janis gently squeezes her twin’s hand and says, “I am too.”

—————

They stay up much later than they should; watching dumb old movies and chasing each other around the house and eventually making drunk calls to various friends. 

But, they do eventually have to go to sleep, and bid each other goodnight as they head to their own individual bedrooms. 

Janis is awoken by the screaming, once again. 

She’s comes barreling into the room, looking for her sister. She’s confused when Veronica isn’t in her bed. The screams were definitely coming from in here, but where? 

She pauses, and waits for more sound. Suddenly, she hears muffled sobs, coming from… the closet? 

Gently, she opens the door, finding her twin huddled among the wrinkled clothes on the little bit of ground she has available and sobbing into a blue blazer Janis hasn’t seen before. 

“Vera,” she says sadly, crouching down next to her. Veronica flinches almost out of her skin and scrambles away with a cry when she gently rests a hand on her arm. “Hey, hey, it’s-”

“Get away!”  Veronica yells. “Get out of my house!” 

Janis frowns in confusion. This is her house too. Veronica doesn’t recognize her. She doesn’t know how to handle this, but she knows how to try, and that’s all she can do for now. 

“Vera, it’s Janis. I don’t know where you think you are right now or who you think you’re with, but I promise you’re safe. Nobody here wants to hurt you. You’re in Evanston, Illinois. It’s Saturday, and it’s… 1:12 in the morning. It’s raining outside, can you hear it?”

Veronica stays pressed against the wall, but she’s stopped thrashing and seems to be at least trying to listen. 

“It’s October eleventh,” Janis continues in a low tone. “You’re not in Ohio. You’re with me, your twin. We were studying together earlier, can you remember?” 

Veronica gradually relaxes, the tension in her muscles fading and some clarity returning to her eyes as Janis continues speaking. Her voice is a low, monotone croak when she speaks again. “Janny?”

“Yeah,” Janis says in relief. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

“Wh-what happened?” 

“I don’t know,” Janis replies. “I heard you screaming and found you in here. You didn’t recognize me, you told me to get out of your house. Bit rude.” 

“Fuck,” Veronica whispers harshly, the sound tearing out of her throat. She shoves past Janis out of the closet and rushes to her desk to grab her diary. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Whoa,” Janis says, picking herself off the ground she’s been rudely thrown to and sitting down on her sister’s bed, watching in concern as Veronica paces back and forth and scribbles frantically in her diary. Janis isn’t sure what she’s writing, but she’s pressing almost hard enough to shred the pages. 

“Fuck!” Veronica growls, pitching the diary to the side and letting it slam against the wall with a loud, dull thump. 

“Vera!” Janis yells. Veronica flinches and turns to look at her, like she’d forgotten Janis was still there. “What the hell is going on with you?” 

“I can’t,” Veronica replies, still pacing and now digging her fingernails harshly into the delicate skin of her upper arm, hard enough to leave marks. “You need to leave.”

“No,” Janis says.

“What?”

“No,” Janis repeats. “I get that it’s hard for you to talk about. I get that you don’t want to tell me, I know we’re not as close as Mama wants us to be, I know you don’t trust me, but fuck, Vera, I can’t keep doing this! I can’t keep waking up in the middle of night hearing you scream and worrying about whether or not you’ll be here the next morning! I’m scared of you, and for you. Tell me what’s going on.”

Janis’ admission stops Veronica in her tracks. Her own twin is scared of her? 

Janis is concerned when Veronica breaks into sobs yet again, hunched over with the force of them. She stands, and gently rests a hand on Veronica’s shoulder, guiding her to the aggressively blue bed. Her twin grabs the yellow stuffed bunny sitting by the pillows and clings to it like it has the weight to tether her to the earth. 

Janis has had plenty of her own moments like this. Where she’s had so much she wants to say, like the words are on the tip of her tongue, but try as she might, something in her gut holds her back. 

Veronica needs time. 

Janis is content to give it to her. They sit on the bed, barely able to see one another by the light of the moon streaming in through the blinds. Janis curls into a ball and watches the minutes continue to tick by. Minutes turn to hours, faster than either of them are ready for. Neither of them knows how long it’s been by the time Veronica takes a shuddering breath and starts to speak. 

“Okay,” she mumbles, voice wavering with emotion and uncertainty. “You really want to know?”

Janis nods, as if to say, obviously. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” Veronica continues. “Even-even Cady. Damian. Nobody.”

“I won’t,” Janis promises, crossing her heart. “We’re twins, aren’t we supposed to, like, know all of each other’s secrets instinctively? I won’t tell anyone.” 

“I killed four people.”

Janis chokes on air, making Veronica worry she might have a fifth on her hands for a second. “You what?! You?” 

Veronica nods hollowly. “Heather was the first.

“I was a nobody, for years. Kindergarten ‘til junior year. Everyone knew who I was, y’know, small school, but nobody really… knew me. Martha and I were… alone. We got bullied and stuff. And I didn’t hate it like that, necessarily, but… I wanted more. And I wanted the bullying to stop. So I tried to join the Heathers. The Heathers were like your Plastics, but… worse. More serious drama, more eating disorders, more… more. I rescued them from a teacher in the bathroom on the first day of school.”

Janis listens intently, wondering how this leads to murdering four fucking humans.

“I was part of them, from then on. An honorary Heather. Had my fucking… prison uniform I had to wear every day, I had to eat lunch with them, I had to abandon Martha, I had to go to all these fucking parties and drink these gross Jell-O shot things and fuck, Janny, it was awful,” Veronica says hollowly. There’s nothing behind her eyes, as Veronica is totally lost in her memory. 

“We went to this Remington party. College party. Big deal. I-I… drank… way too much. Got sick. They-they wanted to… torment Martha, in front of everyone. They would’ve posted that shit everywhere, they would’ve ruined her. I stopped them. Was already on thin ice. Then I threw up on Chandler’s shoes.”

Janis can tell from her tone that this Chandler is probably Veronica’s own personal Regina George. If not worse, somehow. 

“And then told her to lick it up,” Veronica says, laughing bitterly, harshly. “So, I was… a dead girl walking. I knew it. I left right then and walked home. But I got lost, and then… stopped in front of this boy’s house. Jason fucking Dean.”

The amount of venom in her tone when she says his name throws Janis for a loop. “Wh-what happened?”

“We fucked,” Veronica says blankly. “A lot. Wasn’t great. Woke up the next morning in a panic, because I knew Chandler was gonna crucify me on Monday if I didn’t do something major to apologize. I said I had to go, tried to leave, but JD had to fucking come with me. Moral support. Bullshit.

“Made it to her house, and… she wanted a prairie oyster. Hangover cure. JD joked around and said it would be funny to give her drain cleaner instead. But he wasn’t joking. He switched the mugs when I wasn’t looking, I grabbed the wrong one.”

Janis’ eyes go wide as she starts to put together where the story is heading. 

“I didn’t realize what I’d done until she died clutching my leg,” Veronica whispers. “She was fucking seventeen. Seventeen years old and I killed her like it was nothing. JD had me forge a suicide note and that was that. I pretended like I missed her at school. Acted like it was a suicide. Like I wasn’t the one who put her in that fucking casket at her funeral.

“And I thought that was the end of it. But then Mac volunteered me to get date raped in her place by these two jock boys. I escaped, but… they still spread rumors. Told everyone I had taken both of them at the same time. It was too much for me. I cried, a lot. JD said we had to make them pay.”

“God, Vera,” Janis whispers. 

“You know why I take German?” Veronica chuckles hollowly. “So nobody can trick me like him again. He told me he had these special bullets. World War Two relics, that just knocked the victim unconscious without killing them. Ich lüge bullets. So I lured them to the woods and we met them there. With a pistol, and these bullets. You know what ich lüge means? 

“I lie. I fucking shot Ram Sweeney. He bled out in front of me and I did nothing. I couldn’t, I didn’t… didn’t know what to do. I watched him die, Janis. JD took the gun and went after Kurt. God, it… it’s so… the shot was so loud, Janis. I can… I still hear it, every time I close my eyes. I see them, with their fucking eyes all glazed over.”

Janis stays quiet. This is somehow much more than she was expecting, even though she knew people would die going into the story. 

“I broke up with him then,” Veronica says bitterly. “Tried to. He was… he wasn’t there anymore. I like to think that somewhere deep down he actually loved me. Wasn’t just using me as an accomplice. But he wasn’t sane anymore. So he decided I was next.

“He had gotten everyone to sign this fucking fake petition agreeing to die. I found out and he knew. Knew I would stop him, so he had to get me out of the way. He came over, climbed in through my window. And found me hanging in my closet.” 

So that’s why she had been in the closet, why she yelled at Janis to get out of her house. A flashback.

“He was… ranting, and-and raving. I was terrified. I had to listen to it all and act like I was dead, like I didn’t want to cut the noose and kill him with my bare hands. Like I didn’t know there was a chance he’d notice it wasn’t tight enough and kill me himself. But he didn’t. Somehow.

“As soon as he left I cut myself down and just… ran to the school as fast as I could. There was a pep rally, it was gonna be on TV, everything. A big deal. I knew he was gonna try and make it bigger, somehow. I found him in the boiler room. With a bomb.”

“He bombed your school?!”

“He tried to,” Veronica says. “That one was just a small one to set off more in the gym. Everyone was supposed to die that night. I clocked him with my croquet mallet. Took his gun. I fucking… I shot him too, Janis. I shot him in the hand. I thought I killed him too, right then.

“But I hadn’t. I don’t know if it was adrenaline from bleeding out, or what, but… he kind of came to his senses. Kissed me, said it wasn’t too late. For me. It was too late for him. I could save myself, I was worth saving. He wasn’t. And then he took his bomb to the football field.”

“Did he-”

Veronica suddenly lifts her shirt over her head, leaving her in just her sports bra. Janis can see her upper arms and the top of her chest, and realizes she hasn’t seen them before. 

Veronica is peppered with scars. Some big, some small, some with evidence of stitches, others that seemed to heal on their own. All of them are rough, jagged, irregular. 

“Shrapnel.” Veronica explains with a single word. “He set it off hugging it. I had his brains in my fucking hair. There wasn’t even enough of him left to cremate, let alone bury. They just… mopped him up. Got new turf and moved on.” 

“Fucking hell, Vera,” Janis breathes. 

“There. I’m a murderer. That’s why I’m this… fucked. Why I wake up screaming, why I have flashbacks, why I can’t show my upper arms. Why I’m a freak.” 

“You’re not a freak,” Janis insists. “If you’re a freak, then so am I.” 

“How could you possibly-”

Janis tugs her own shirt off, letting her twin see the mess of faded scars lining her arms, and stomach, and hips. She holds out her left arm so Veronica can see the deepest carving she did. Space dyke, permanently etched into her flesh. Not that it was meant to be spectacularly permanent when she did it. 

“I’ve been there,” Janis whispers. “I didn’t… go through… anywhere near as much as you. But… I used to wake up screaming too. Had flashbacks. I have scars. None of those things make us freaks. It makes us… hurt. We’ve just been hurt, that’s all it means. We have trauma. Trauma that wasn’t our faults, wasn’t caused by anything we did. But trauma we have to work through. It doesn’t make us any less human. Or any less loved.” 

“Mine was my fault, Janny,” Veronica whispers. “I killed them.”

“No, you didn’t,” Janis insists. “You were manipulated, Vera. You had no idea what you were doing. You didn’t want those people dead, even after everything they did to you. Everything you told me was his fault. He tricked you, he lied to you. Vera, he fucking abused you. None of those deaths were your fault. You were an accessory at best.” 

“I’ve always been shit at accessorizing,” Veronica mumbles hollowly. “I could still be arrested. There’s a lot… a lot of evidence. I’d be in for life.”

“Which is why we won’t tell anyone,” Janis promises. “You can trust me.” 

Veronica looks visibly relieved for the first time all night at Janis’ words. Her shoulders relax fully, and she gives the smallest thankful grin she can muster. 

“Um…”

“What?” Janis asks, concerned there’s more. 

“If I can trust you with that,” Veronica mumbles. “I still… see them.” 

“See who?”

“Them,” Veronica repeats. Janis’ eyes widen in understanding. “I don’t know if they’re ghosts or hallucinations, but… they’re still here.” 

“Cool, so you see dead people,” Janis hums. “Cool. Cool cool cool.” 

“Hey,” a quiet, echoey voice says suddenly. Janis shrieks and leaps into her twin. 

“Vera?” she asks shakily. “I… I see them too.”

“I’m not crazy!” Veronica cheers, throwing Janis off her lap by accident in her celebration. “Sorry Janny. Guys, don’t be rude. Introduce yourselves.”

“What the fuck what the fuck what the-” Janis repeats under her breath as four forms hover before her. 

The first is a girl, clad all in red even down to the scrunchie in her ginger curls. Janis can… see through her, slightly, allowing her to see that her mouth and throat are stained an unnatural, chemical blue. It drips from the corners of her mouth and down her chin. 

The next two are almost naked, revealing more skin than Janis has ever wanted to see from a man. One has a bullet hole through his chest, and the other has one in his head. The area around each is stained red with the ghost equivalent of blood, but they don’t seem particularly fussed by them. 

And the last one is in a trench coat, glaring the twins down. He’s covered head to toe in ash and soot, and Janis thinks she can even distantly smell the acrid scent of burned flesh. 

“I’m Heather Chandler,” the girl says, apparently having decided to speak up first. “Pleasure to meet the Wonder Twins.” 

“I’m Kurt Kelly,” one of the Tighty Whitie Twins says.

“I’m Ram Sweeney.” 

“And we’re not gay for each other!”

“We’re not?” 

“Dude!” Kurt huffs. “…Maybe.”

“Jason Dean,” the final phantom says with a sly, infuriatingly smug grin. “Pleasure.”

“Okay,” Janis says, trying to process several existential crises at once. “Um, just… collectively. Fuck you guys! The fuck?! What the hell were you thinking, you’re all assholes! If you weren’t already dead I’d kick your ghost asses from here to kingdom co-”

She gets cut off as Veronica gently slams a hand over her mouth. “Just give her some time, guys.” 

“Why can she see us?” Kurt asks. “I thought you were the only one.”

“I don’t know,” Veronica shrugs. “Maybe… maybe because we’re twins. Our spirits are tied together, or some bullshit like that. In tune enough that she can see you too.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Heather says sarcastically. “Can we go now?” 

“Sure, Chandy,” Veronica chuckles. 

“Don’t call me that,” Heather says before she fades away, leaving Janis wondering if she was actually there in the first place. The other three follow suit, and they’re alone once more. 

“Wh-”

“It’s best if you don’t question it,” Veronica shrugs. 

“I just saw ghosts!” Janis insists. “Can they still hear us?” 

“I don’t think so,” Veronica says. “They’re kinda like an Alexa. You have to call on them. But they could, I don’t really know.” 

Janis blinks at her. Veronica laughs in spite of everything. 

“Um… I’m fine now. You can go back to bed.” 

“Nah,” Janis smirks. “I’m staying.” 

And she does. They stay up a little bit longer talking, before they both drift off huddled together. 

—————

A few months later comes a much needed art freaks movie night. 

“Hey, Cads,” Damian greets, leading Cady down the hall to the living room. Cady pauses in her tracks when she sees Janis and Veronica both clad in identical hoodies with their hair hidden and faces clean of makeup. They’re even in the same pants and socks, and their hands are tucked into their sleeves so Cady can’t see their nails.

“Oh god,” she groans. 

“They did it to me when I got here,” Damian sighs, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring the twins down. 

“Think you can tell us apart?” one of them says with a smile. 

“Damian got it wrong,” the other one chuckles. “Do you think you can do better?” 

“Mm,” Cady hums. “Let’s see.” 

She heads over and leans in close to the both of them, her eyes darting back and forth between their faces. Cady knows she doesn’t really have a shot based on looks alone; since they’re almost perfectly identical physically. She’s hoping that one of them will give her a tell that the other doesn’t have. 

Sure enough, the one on the left blushes a bit when Cady gets close and looks her in the eye. Janis still does that every time Cady gets up in her space. She also has the familiar smell of paint and apples faintly emanating from her; while the other smells like fresh ink and ocean-scented perfume. 

Cady smiles to herself as she realizes she has them down, and decides to play her own little joke on them. She gently cups Veronica’s cheek and leans in, acting like she’s going in for a kiss. 

Veronica recoils and Janis starts to say, “Caddy, no!” before she’s cut off by Cady’s lips on hers. Cady laughs against her lips before she pulls back. 

“Gotcha,” she grins. “That’ll teach you.”

“Hey,” Janis pouts. “That’s mean.”

“Oh, like this wasn’t?” Cady chuckles. 

“How’d you know who was who?” Veronica asks as she takes her hood down and fluffs her hair out. 

“You guys smell different,” Cady shrugs. “And this one still blushes every time she gets close to me.” 

“No I don’t!” Janis huffs. Cady rolls her eyes and gently leans in. She’s not even touching her, but Janis still flushes a cute shade of pink. Veronica snorts. 

“You so do! Dork,” she laughs. 

“Hey!” Janis says. “You asshole, that’s-”

Cady takes advantage of her head being turned to kiss Janis’ cheek. Janis squeaks quietly and pauses her tirade on her sister. Cady smirks. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Janis says softly. 

“You’re welcome, Veronica,” Cady chuckles. She settles on Janis’ lap to pin her girlfriend down just in case. Veronica laughs again.

“Yeah, thanks, Cady,” she says. 

“You wanna join us for movie night?” 

“Uh…” Veronica glances at her sister. “If you guys want me to.” 

“Of course we do!” Damian says. 

“Then sure,” Veronica says with a faint smile. 

“Girls!” Janis and Veronica’s mother calls. “And children who never spend time at their own homes.” 

“Hi, Ms. Sarkisian,” Cady says with a smile. Ms. Sarkisian smiles back.

“Hi, Cady. Girls, I found an old tape of you two in the attic, if you’d like to watch it.” 

“What’s on it?” Veronica asks. It’s dated Winter-Spring 2001/2002, when they would’ve been roughly six months to a year old. 

“I have no idea,” their mother says. “You’ll have to watch it and let me know. I’m off to work.” 

“Bye,” the twins say at the same time, each getting a kiss on the forehead. Damian and Cady smile as they each get a pinched cheek and the woman is out the door. 

“Do we even have a VCR?” Veronica asks. Janis nods. 

“We still use a lot of DVD’s. Our DVD player has both,” she explains. “We can watch it later.”

“Noooo,” Cady pleads. “I need to see baby Janis.” 

“No.”

“Pleeeeease?” Cady begs. Janis does her best to resist Cady’s infamous puppy eyes. She groans quietly as she feels herself about to give in. 

“Veronica has to say yes too!” she comes up with at the last possible second. 

“I don’t care,” Veronica shrugs with a snort. “I was a cute baby.” 

“Dammit.”

“Yes!” Cady cheers. 

Everyone takes their places on the couch as Veronica puts the tape in and Janis figures out how to get it playing. 

The camera cuts on, and shows a very blurry zoomed-in image of a baby. Janis and Veronica both smile as they hear their mother’s voice. “How does this work? Is it- oh, it’s recording. Okay, I’m making a video of the twins. Everyone always asks how we tell them apart, and I think that someday I might not remember how we used to do this. So, for posterity. Oh, wow, that’s really zoomed in. Theeeere we go!” 

The baby in question wiggles in delight at the attention on her. Not even Janis and Veronica can tell which of them it is. 

“Oh my god,” Cady says. She sounds almost choked, like she’s physically biting back a squeal. “You guys were so cute.” 

“This is Veronica,” the video says. Now-Veronica smiles a little wider. “Veronica is the happiest baby you’ve ever seen.” A hand suddenly materializes from behind the camera and tickles her chin to coax that famous laugh. “She’s only ever grumpy when she’s hungry.” 

“Still true,” Janis says. 

“Bitch!” Veronica scoffs. Janis raises an eyebrow and hands her an Oreo. Veronica takes it with a grumbled, “Shut up.” 

“And then this one,” the video continues, panning up to baby Janis crawling and trying to climb into her toy box. “Is my problem child.” 

Everyone laughs except Janis, who just humphs and crosses her arms over her chest. 

“Victoria,” their mother says in the video. “Hey. Victoria. Tori. Vicky. Victoria Janis, look at me!” Baby Janis only responds to her middle name, snapping her head up to look at her with an impish smile. “Hi, wild girl. Come here.” 

Baby Janis crawls to the camera at breakneck speeds and sits next to her twin with a smile and a little exerted noise. 

“Damn, Janis,” Damian chuckles. “Speed demon.” 

“Glad that changed,” Cady chuckles, looking at Janis lounging against her like a little slug. Janis just grunts and cuddles closer. 

“Baby me had shit to do. I just finished it all.” 

“They’re already correcting us when we mix them up,” their mom says. “Girls, who’s Veronica?” 

Baby Janis eagerly pats her twin, and baby Veronica squeals again. Their mother laughs from behind the camera. 

“Good job! Where’s Victoria?” 

Veronica practically tackles her sister. Their mother just barely manages to drop the camera and catch her before baby Janis can be knocked over. 

“Ronnie, gentle,” their mother laughs. “She’s a little aggressive sometimes.” 

“Yeah, Ronnie,” Janis pouts. “Be gentle.” 

“Not my fault you were the weakling,” Veronica hums with a shrug. Janis scoffs and shoves her. Veronica retaliates, and sends her sister into Cady and Damian like dominoes. 

“Alright, alright,” Cady says with a laugh. “Break it up.” 

“Hmph,” Janis grumbles, cuddling closer into her girlfriend to get away from her sister. Cady protectively holds her closer and looks back to the video. 

“Alright, let’s see…” their mother says. “They aren’t super different physically. We usually try to tell by their temperaments. But we also paint their toenails just in case.” 

The video zooms in on chubby little feet to show that their big toenails are decorated with different colors of nail polish. Janis’ is green, and Veronica’s is blue. 

“Tori also has a little freckle right underneath her eyebrow,” their mother says, holding the camera very close and very unfocused against baby Janis’ face. Everybody laughs as little fingers suddenly appear on the lens and she tries to munch on the camera. 

Now-Janis recoils a bit when they switch to checking if her freckle is still present. “You do still have it!” Cady says, gently resting a finger right beneath it. “It’s just tiny.” 

“You’re all very close,” Janis says. Everyone but Cady pulls back, and they all laugh as Janis blushes again. 

“Aww, your mom was so pretty!” Damian says suddenly. They all look back at the TV to see that the camera is now facing Janis and Veronica’s mother. 

“Oh, gosh,” she says, brushing her hair to the side and wincing a bit. “You girls have been tough on me, huh?” One of the babies squeals in apparent agreement. “Okay, this is the easiest way to tell the twins apart.” 

Baby Janis suddenly appears in her arms. She smiles contently and looks around, seeming totally chill with just being held. 

“Victoria loves to be carried,” their mother explains, looking at the baby with a smile. “She’s happy doing her own thing, but she also loves to hang out with anyone she can. She’d stay here all day if I’d let her.” 

Janis is swapped for Veronica. Veronica almost immediately starts wiggling and trying to climb out of her mothers arms. 

“This one cannot stand it. She’s growling at me,” Sure enough, some little growls can be heard coming from Veronica. She eventually resorts to going totally limp, flopped backwards over their mother’s arm and looking at the camera upside down. Her lip is curled up in a half-snarl, half-smile as she gives another desperate grunt. “Not a big cuddler.” 

Cady and Damian look at the twins now. Janis is lounged such that every part of her body is in contact with someone else, while Veronica is tucked as close to the arm of the couch as she can get and is actively leaning away. 

“You guys really haven’t changed all that much,” Damian snorts. Janis bends her arm at a strange angle to give him a weak whack. “Ow!”

“Weakling,” Janis and Veronica say at the same time. 

“Alright, it’s nap time for these two,” their mother says as she puts Veronica down and picks the camera up again. “Say bye-bye, girls.” Both babies wave bye, unknowingly to their future selves. 

The clip cuts to another. The date in the corner is a few months later, just a few weeks shy of their first birthday. 

One baby is sitting in front of what looks to be a closet of some sort, in the middle of a massive pile of jackets, coats, and sweaters. She’s managed to get one on that most definitely does not belong to her. 

“Tori, look at Mama,” their mother’s voice says. Baby Janis does with a cheesy grin. “What are you doing?” 

“Daddy!” baby Janis explains, pushing herself to stand and toddling towards the camera with the jacket flowing like an elaborate cape behind her. Cady makes a very strange noise at hearing Janis’ baby voice; somehow a laugh, sob and squeal all at once. 

“Yeah, you found Daddy’s jacket, huh?” their mother says. 

“Wait, Jan, isn’t that your jacket with the eyeballs on it?” Damian asks. 

“Yeah, it is,” Janis says with a smile. “I never knew it was his.” 

“Oh, here comes Ronnie,” the voice behind the camera says as Veronica toddles up to the pile of jackets on the floor and grabs one. “Tori, you’re corrupting your sister.” 

“Yeah, Tori,” Veronica teases. “Look at what you’ve done.” 

“Shut up!” Janis scoffs with a laugh. “We totally switched places, I’m the innocent one now.” 

“You set the toaster on fire this morning.” 

“Not on purpose!” 

“You’re still totally the problem kid,” Veronica chuckles. “I was way cuter.” 

“Oh please, we look like the same person,” Janis huffs. “You can’t even tell who’s who.” 

“You’re both so cute,” Cady says, muffled by her hands over her mouth. 

“Caddy, are you crying?” Janis asks with a chuckle. 

“You were so tiny!” Cady defends. “It’s not every day you get to see your girlfriend as a baby. Look at you.” 

“I have that jacket,” Veronica says, frowning at her baby self on the screen; clad in a much too large denim jacket. “Dad said he found it for my birthday.” 

“Now Ronnie’s in my jacket,” their mother chuckles. “Goofy girls.” 

“It’s Mom’s?” Veronica asks quietly. A faint smile grows on her face. “That’s my favorite jacket.” 

“Daddy?” baby Janis repeats. Cady makes the sound again and holds her hands against her face in disbelief at how cute her baby girlfriend was.

“Where is Daddy? You wanna go show him?” their mother asks. Tiny Janis nods and goes padding off to find her father. Veronica goes tearing after her as best she can on unsteady legs. The camera shakes as their mother stands up and follows after them. 

The sound of a man laughing can be heard just before the camera pans up to baby Janis being tossed in the air by her dad. “Hi, Tori! Nice coat!” 

“Daddy,” baby Janis repeats. 

“Yeah, you look killer, kiddo,” her dad chortles. He grabs Veronica by a little arm and hauls her up too, holding both of them side by side. Now-Janis smiles seeing her little self being loved on by her father. “You’ll grow into it.” 

“I’m taking that jacket back, Ronnie,” their mother teases, tickling baby Veronica’s tummy. “That’s mine, you little stinker.” 

“Feels telling for our futures, eh?” their dad chuckles. They can hear their mother sigh behind the camera. 

“As long as they stay this cute, I think I’m okay with it,” she says. Now-Janis and Veronica look at each other. They both nod confidently and look back to the screen. 

There’s no goodbye for that clip, it simply cuts off and into the next one. Both Janis and Veronica frown a little bit as this one is bits and pieces of their first birthday party. To think of how many birthdays they had apart, none the wiser to the existence of the other. 

Their parents aren’t actively filming them this time, instead leaving the camera rolling on a nearby counter and, for once, both being on the other side of it. 

It’s obvious to everyone watching that things have already started to go a certain way for their parents. They seem to tense if they get within a few feet of each other and quickly look away if they happen to lock eyes. 

In spite of that, they’re clearly both delighted by Janis and Veronica. It’s just as obvious that they absolutely adore both of them. 

Damian and Cady just watch as each of their modern day counterparts point out their relatives that the other hasn’t gotten to meet yet. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, family friends. So many people who knew, and yet… they didn’t, somehow. 

They watch as their first birthday song is sung to them and their parents blow out their candles in their stead. Once they’re removed, baby Janis dives right in and smushes her hands into her birthday cake. She grabs large fistfuls of it and, obviously, puts it right in her mouth. 

“Oh, you like that, uh oh,” their father chuckles. “Is that yummy cake?” 

“Yummyyyyy,” baby Janis echoes happily. She grabs another handful and reaches out towards her dad, offering him some. He laughs and takes a small taste from the chubby fist. 

“Thanks, Tori,” he chuckles. “What’s wrong, Ronnie?” 

Baby Veronica has been sitting politely in her high chair next to her twin, watching the entire cake smash go down but refusing to touch her own. 

“You don’t want your birthday cake? It’s yummy! Look at your sister,” their mother says. Veronica does. She seems very concerned by Janis’ frosting covered face and hands. 

Their mom gently takes one of Veronica’s hands and swipes a little finger through the frosting. Veronica looks curiously at it as it’s brought to her mouth and hesitantly sucks the frosting off. She squeaks happily at the sugary taste and smushes the other hand into her cake. Only when she pulls away with a handful does she realize it’s definitely not a texture she wants all over her hand and bursts into tears. 

“Oh, baby,” their mother chuckles sadly. Veronica gets picked up and comforted while Janis somehow manages to eat a solid half of her cake. 

There’s a few more clips of the party. Opening presents, a few games, and some well wishes from various relatives and friends. 

Janis and Veronica’s faces both fall when the scene suddenly changes again. The date is about six months later, and the time shows it’s practically the middle of the night. The two of them are just barely visible in the nearly pitch darkness. They’re cuddled up together in the same crib, and someone can be heard crying quietly behind the camera. 

“Veronica and I are leaving tomorrow,” their father’s voice whispers shakily. “I really hope your mother and I are making the right choice here.” 

Baby Janis stirs as he gently strokes a large hand through her hair. He quickly pulls back and sniffles as she cuddles closer into Veronica. 

“I don’t know when I’m going to get to see you together again,” he continues quietly. “You won’t sleep unless you’re together. I don’t know how we’re going to do this. But we’re going to, and we’ll be okay. I hope… I hope someday you girls get to know about each other. And I hope that you know your mother and I love both of you so, so much.” 

Everyone’s silent as the tape ends and abruptly cuts to black. Nobody moves, nobody says anything. They’re not entirely sure anybody breathes. 

“I need a second,” Janis says after a couple minutes, standing and rushing off to the kitchen for some privacy. She splashes some cold water on her face and tries to breathe around the heavy lump in her throat. 

Veronica slams into the kitchen after her and goes right for the fridge. Janis pats her face dry with a towel and watches in concern as Veronica chugs an entire bottle of water and pulls away with a growl. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m fucking fantastic,” Veronica huffs. 

“Sorry,” Janis mumbles, hanging the towel back up. 

“How could they possibly think that was the best solution?” Veronica asks. “I could’ve had a mother my whole life, but they-they-”

“They had a tough choice to make-”

“And they chose wrong,” Veronica growls. “Don’t you dare try to defend them.”

“I’m going to! They’re our parents!” Janis yells. “We have no idea what they went through with each other, or with us. We have no idea what led them to the choice they did. It sucked, but we can’t do anything about it now except live with it.” 

“You can’t tell me you aren’t just as pissed as me, don’t try to act like you’re so high and mighty,” Veronica scoffs. 

“I’m not!” Janis retaliates. “I am pissed, I think this is a really shitty thing they did to us! But I can’t blame them for making a misguided decision in whatever circumstances they were in!” 

“Whatever they were going through doesn’t excuse the shit they pulled on us,” Veronica says through grit teeth. 

“Oh, yeah, and whatever you were going through doesn’t excuse you killing a bunch of people, then? You can’t fucki-”

“Oh, that’s low,” Veronica says with a hollow laugh. Something about it scares Janis more than she cares to admit. She’s never seen her sister like this. “Even for you.” 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Janis yells. “Why are you acting like this?!” 

“Because I’m fucking rightly upset about some shitty circumstances I went through that I didn’t have to! It’s not my fault I got stuck with a fucking pushover like you! I’m glad we’re only identical in looks.” 

“Jesus,” Janis laughs ironically. “Come find me when you get a fucking clue, Vera.” 

Janis stalks off back to her friends, leaving Veronica alone in the kitchen to mull over what just happened. 

“You okay?” Cady asks gently. She looks almost like she’s scared of the answer. Janis thinks she might be too. 

Janis nods, but she feels her face crumple as she does. She’s in tears again before she knows it. Cady pouts and reaches out for her. Janis sinks into her embrace and cries, even as Damian leans in against her back and gently rubs her shoulder. 

She knew they were bound to fight at some point. It’s only natural for siblings. She just wasn’t expecting it to hurt so badly when they did. Something about knowing it’s her twin that’s upset with her hurts in a special way she’s never experienced before. Like part of herself is somehow upset with her. Like that part of her is just… gone, altogether. 

She can only hope it comes back. Can only hope they work this out. Sure, it was only an argument, but it was a big one. 

Cady holds her as she cries, and Damian comforts by simply leaning his comforting weight against her back. Janis briefly feels even worse. Veronica’s comfort people are all in Ohio. She only calms down when she hears Veronica in the kitchen on her phone. She must be talking to either Mac or Martha. She hopes they can help her. 

She gradually stops crying. Cady gently strokes away her leftover tears and presses the softest kiss to the corner of her lips. “You’ll be fine, I promise. Let’s watch a movie.” 

—-

They watch several, until both Damian and Cady have to go home. Veronica walks by in complete silence at one point and goes up to her bedroom. 

Janis is still reeling from earlier. Entirely too many thoughts are whirling in her head. So, she heads downstairs to her studio and decides to paint them out. 

“Hi,” a muffled voice says. Janis jumps and whirls around to see Heather floating a few inches above the couch on the other side of her easel. 

“Jesus!” she says. “Hey, Heather. Is Vera-”

“She’s fine. She’s asleep,” Heather says. “Nice place.” 

“Uh… thanks?” Janis says in confusion. 

“You don’t have to be afraid of me. I literally can’t do anything to you,” Heather says. “I can’t do anything to anything.”

“You can’t, like, make stuff float?” Janis asks. 

“I could do that, maybe,” Heather agrees. “But I’m too weak to do much else.” 

“Weak?” Janis questions, tucking her paintbrush behind her ear and coming over to her. 

“Spirits aren’t really… designed to stick around on Earth after death,” Heather explains. “We get weaker every day we aren’t released to the afterlife. Everyone starts out with different levels of strength. I died young, so I’m stronger than a lot of spirits, but I don’t have anything I left unfinished in my life that I need strength to stick around for. I’m fading fast.” 

“Is Veronica gonna lose you, then?” Janis asks sadly.

“No,” Heather says. “I’ll just get weaker as time goes on.”

“Then why don’t you leave? To the… afterlife, or whatever? If you’re so tired and weak?” Janis asks.

“She’s not ready,” Heather murmurs softly. “That’s part of why I’m here.”

Janis waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t. “…Okay?”

“I need you to promise me you’ll take care of her,” Heather says. “She needs someone. She needs you.”

“I promise,” Janis says. “Of course.” 

Heather nods a bit. Fiddles with the cushion on the couch. Janis wonders how much she can actually feel. “She’s a pillowcase. But she can be something big someday. She just needs someone by her side. Mac is… beyond good for her, but she… she needs you.” 

“I’ll take care of her,” Janis says. “I promise.” 

“Good,” Heather says with a sigh of relief. “Good. I know you’re mad at each other, but… don’t let this ruin it.”

“I won’t if she won’t,” Janis says. “It’s a stupid argument.” 

“It is,” Heather agrees quietly. “I just… know how much damage stupid arguments can do.” 

Janis nods empathetically. “I’m… really sorry about what happened to you.” 

“Me too,” Heather says softly. “But I’m not sure things would’ve been much better if I’d survived.” 

“What do you mean?” Janis asks. It should be weird, making conversation with a ghost. Weirder than it is. Janis feels like she’s just talking to a new friend. Who happens to be translucent. 

“JD would’ve still been around, I don’t know if he would have come after me again if I survived the Drain-O,” Heather begins. “I died quickly. I barely felt it. He might’ve done something else. And, I mean, look at what happened to your friend.”

“Regina?” Janis says. “She’s fine.” 

“To you,” Heather says. “She got hit by a bus going twenty miles an hour. She’s probably got all sorts of pain that’ll never go away. I’m glad she got a chance to make amends and build new relationships with you guys, but she’s probably suffering in ways that’ll never leave her. I’m… I think I’d rather be dead.” 

Janis is quiet. Truth be told, she hadn’t thought about what Regina would be going through after the bus. But Heather is right. Regina had at least four surgeries, two of them emergencies to save her life. Her spine broke, among numerous other internal injuries. The more sadistic part of her might be glad Regina’s hurting in such a way. But now… it just makes her sad. 

“I’m not trying to excuse what she did to you. Veronica told me what happened. Well, I kinda… made her tell me. I’m sorry that happened to you,” Heather says. “But… I really think you should let her, if she tries to apologize and make amends with you personally.” 

“I will,” Janis agrees quietly. “Did you get to do that with anyone?” 

“The people that really matter,” Heather nods. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m content. Whenever Ronnie’s ready to… to let me go, I’ll… be ready.” 

“You don’t seem ready,” Janis says, trying not to sound accusatory. 

“I don’t have a choice,” Heather snaps. Janis holds her hands up in immediate surrender. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s fine,” Janis says. “Sorry for pushing your buttons.” 

“You really are like that pillowcase,” Heather says. Her tone doesn’t match the affectionate look in her eyes. 

“Am I?” 

“Yeah,” Heather snorts. She seems so regal, even as a ghost in what appears to be lingerie. Janis laughs hearing such a sound come from her. “You’re both huge fucking nerds.” 

“Hey!” Janis laughs. 

“It just… as soon as we met you it made sense that you’re twins, even though you’ve been separated for so long,” Heather continues. 

“I think that’s how we both felt too,” Janis says. “I see why she wanted to be friends with you.” 

“I don’t know that you do,” Heather admits. “Anyway. Sorry I kept you from your painting.”

“It’s fine,” Janis says. “I’m glad I got to talk to you.” 

“Me too,” Heather says. 

Janis stands and starts packing up her things. Heather stays, seeming to want to linger in the land of the living for just a bit longer. Watching Janis has to be slightly more interesting than watching Veronica sleep. 

“Can I ask you something?” Janis asks as she screws the lid on her last tube of paint. 

“I dunno, can you?” Heather hums haughtily. 

“Bitch,” Janis snorts. 

“Yes, thank you, glad you caught on,” Heather says. “Shoot.” 

“Are you scared?” 

“Scared of what?” 

“…Whatever comes next for you,” Janis asks, not entirely sure how to phrase what she’s trying to ask. Heather pauses, floating aimlessly a few inches off the ground. 

“Not… really,” she says after a few minutes. “Not of moving on. I’m already dead, I think the hard part’s done with.”

“But…?”

“But I’m scared of what I’ll miss,” Heather admits softly. “The things I’ll never see. Friends I’ll never see again. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye for a lot of people. And I’ve… kind of had to come to terms with the fact I’m not going to. And I’m terrified of never getting to see her again.”

“Her?”

“Veronica.”

“Do you… are-are you…” 

“Yes,” Heather admits. 

“You should tell her,” Janis says sadly. 

“It’d only hurt her more,” Heather says with a shake of her head. “And she has Mac now. She has her person.” 

“I hope you’re happy wherever you end up.”

“You too,” Heather says honestly. “Goodnight, Janis.” 

“Goodnight, Heather.”

—————

Janis resumes her painting the next morning after a fitful night of poor sleep. She looks up and back down quickly when Veronica comes quietly padding down the stairs.

“Hey,” Veronica says sheepishly. 

“Hi.” 

“Can we talk?” 

“Sure,” Janis sighs, putting down her brush and looking at her sister. “Talk.”

“I’m sorry,” Veronica says. “I was totally out of line last night.” 

“Yeah, you were,” Janis agrees. 

“I don’t think I’m wrong for being mad at them, but… not to that extent,” Veronica continues. “And I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I was a major asshole.” 

“You were,” Janis says again. “But I’m stuck with you, so I guess I can forgive you.” 

“So gracious,” Veronica snorts. Janis leans in and rests her head against her shoulder. 

“Lucky for you.” 

“Get off, loser,” Veronica laughs. 

“No,” Janis says, leaning in even closer in spite of her sister trying to shove her away. She loosens all her muscles so Veronica is just trying to push away her dead weight. Eventually she gives up and lets Janis stay for a while. “…Are you okay?” 

“What do you mean?” Veronica asks in confusion. Janis watches as she tries and fails to surreptitiously dry her sweaty palms on her pants. 

“I’ve never seen you like you were yesterday. Was scary,” Janis explains. “Did something happen?” 

“No,” Veronica says, too quick to be believed. Janis doesn’t press her anyway. “I just… snapped. But I’m fine. Swear.” 

“You should tell Mama if somethings going on,” Janis says quietly. 

“Nothing is happening! I’m fine!” Veronica huffs. Her hand tightens uncomfortably around Janis’ knee. Janis resists the urge in her gut to pull away. 

“Okay, okay, jeez,” Janis says. “Chill.” 

“Sorry. But seriously, I’m fine,” Veronica says. 

“You’ve been distant lately, too,” Janis mumbles. “Did I do something?” 

“No, Jan, seriously,” Veronica sighs. “You’re fine, I’m fine. It’s fine, just forget it.” 

Janis doesn’t think she can. “Fine. You wanna see if Cads and Dame can come over for a real movie night?” 

“Sounds tits.” 

“Yes!” Janis cheers.