#zippie menchal illness reveal i guess lmfao

[zillyeh]

Broken Boxpin

Ink fingers gripped the rim of the slate gray tub, the ones opposite them clutching at the matching shower wall plastic. Being submerged at all was not the troll in this bathtub’s ideal scenario, but she knew better than to go for sopor when she was like this. The water was certainly also subtly hallucinogenic- who knows what chemicals were in the Old North's supply- but its warm embrace was preferable to the mild hallucinogens of that slime. It made her worse. It made the hers and hims at the edge of her vision and hearing more tangible. Whatever calm it brought the average troll, if it did at all, it did exactly the opposite for her.

Water, warm and familiar, wasn’t that good of a replacement. Her aching joints rejoiced for it, and so did the electricity lurking dangerous just under her skin. If she wasn’t careful in this soothing little bath, she could level half a city block. Maybe more than that. Her last leveling had been when she was starved and sickly. She wasn’t un-sickly now, under her skin disguising tattoos, but she’d put pounds of muscle on underneath them. Stronger places for those sparks to latch onto.

He blew bubbles in the water. It was still slimy, at Bessba’s insistence. With some fizzy, citrusy little ball she’d thrown at her head before she left. It was orange and pink like everything else Bess had brought to their now shared apartment. The swirling foam’s pleasant smell made a good anchor. A dock in the waters of her growing wet panic attack.

She gripped the side of the tub harder, eyes darting around the room. Seeing too much and too little all at the same time. The chitinous plastic of the tub rim would have broken if not for the fact that the projections of her brain made her weak. All that strength of his wiry muscle seemed to leave his body the further back she went. 

The cool drone concrete of the underground compound underneath her bare legs. The stark but sparse fluorescent lights. Her. Him. Tendrils of His hair at the edges of her vision, the heave of her breathing in her ears. Never the her she wished would haunt her. If she wanted that at all. 

Her old warden's fingers curled on the side of her bed. The tub. Her black painted fingernails and wrist rivets were solid. Touchable. Tangible. The troll in the tub- the medical bed?'s eyes fixated on her knuckles. Rough with use, but soft enough for the scalpel. He knew that all too well. The rest of her could hardly fit in the room. Funny how they'd found this place, but couldn't accommodate the hulking monster that called herself a surgeon.

She smelled like citrus. No. Someone he loved smelled like citrus. The one that was alive- not the one that was buried in the crater she'd made with the bomb in the bed. With Cerayn. With…

His eye swirled above her abdomen, bright red and orange with wisps of hot yellow and near white. His blackened claws grabbed her legs. Black hair dancing around his swirling eye- no, pink, pink pink. The swirl was pink and the dark of the water was her own tattooed skin. Skin that was not sick and cast with the vile color in her veins, if it ever had been anyway. 

With a gasp she pulled her head above the water. Her long black hair clung to her shoulders like a second- or in her case third- skin. The warden's hands still clung to the tub, still tangible, but almost silly looking without anything higher than her forearm to connect to. His eye disappeared with a swat of the water, but his arms remained. Multiplied. Crawled in and out of the water like spiders, then as spiders hissing at the edge of the tub. All of them had his terrible eyes, but all of them were also trying far too hard. Like a dream that isn’t quite right when you try to close your eyes and get back to it.

“Fuck off,” she grumbled, grabbing the hosed shower head above her and turning on the water. Spraying the bare wall made them disappear. Disappear enough, anyway.

“Babe, you okay in there?” called En- called Bess. Gods he couldn’t start drawing that line. Then she really would blow the Old North to nothing.

“Fine,” Zippie croaked hoarsely. Citrus. She’d always found the scent unpalatable. Those were hard fruits to come by in the swamp. Now it was the only thing that drew her out of her head- or at least helped. She glared at the warden’s hands. She flipped them off. They did so in return. Their tangibility faded as Bessba spoke more through the door.

“I made that tea that doesn’t bother your stomach if you’re up for it…” The warm of the bath had faded, sending a shiver through him. How long had he been in there for? Too long if Bess was knocking.

“Okay, I’ll be out in a minute.”

He sat up with a cough. Then hacked a more significant amount until he felt new wetness on his pruned fingers. The purple glob in his hand gave him one last spike in adrenaline, making him splash the water as he scrambled out of the tub. Seeing her shadow with such clarity should have snapped her out of it immediately. The logic of her glasses on the edge of the sink didn’t make her heart slow, however.

Tall. Overstretched. Some shape of her dual braids curling behind her like snakes. Her eyes were that same color, glowing like that false smear of blood on the tub. She was entirely shadow otherwise, but Zippie didn’t need her mind to reconstruct her. She could never forget every agonized angle that the warden and that demon took from her.

One of the shadow’s hands extended, warped into claws to punish her once she got close enough. Her voice rattled- falsely high and far too scratchy to belong to the young woman in question as she attempted to speak.

“Zvejia…”

All of that electricity seemed so alive now. Just under the surface. So close to the pool of water under her.

“Zippie!” Knuckles rapped on the door three times in quick succession. “I need you to not be in there like, right now.” 

It was easier said than done, but she pulled herself shakily to her feet, not taking her eyes off the shadow. Was this the first time? In how many sweeps? She almost didn’t want her to fade. She knew she deserved her ire, but more than anything she wanted to be able to manipulate this one. To have the half-real thing say she forgives her and that she did was for the better. Or have her slap her as hard as her own hands could.  

It’s eyes only narrowed. Disappearing as quick as it came. She coughed again- no blood this time- and grabbed a towel. One of the fluffier robes Bess brought with her as well for good measure. He’d almost forgotten he was in his apartment when he opened the door to Bess.

“I feel bad,” she managed to say through chattering teeth. Bess pulled her close.

“I know,” she said, planting a kiss on her temple. “Amy’s gonna be here in a little bit… Are you gonna be okay?”

Zippie gave her an exhausted, wry smile.

“Have I been since you met me, sugar?”