The Marquis de All The Knives (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
balsamandash) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2016-11-05 01:40 pm
balsamandash) wrote in rainbowfic2016-11-05 01:40 pm
Darling Grey, True Blue, Aurora
Name: August
Story: Don't Be Afraid of a Little Bit of Progress
Colors: Darling Grey #3, "I haven't found a single way to keep it"; True Blue #14, "Sharing"; Aurora #16, "Foreday" with SWL's paint-by-numbers (Surprise me!: Lesbians).
Supplies and Styles: Glue ("You're eager to explore new ways to break up the routine of your daily life and free yourself from old patterns. ...the unfulfilled potential for positive change fills the air and encourages you to take a chance and reinvent yourself.")
Word Count: 757
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Consensual relationship briefly mentioned as starting with the initiating party is underage (17 and 19), and also between two people who are, by mutual agreement, keeping a lot of things from each other, because of dangerous circumstances around them.
Notes:I wrote someone throw me a parade it only took a year and a half. This was written super stream of consciousness well after I should have been asleep, and I'm not rereading it or else I'll never post it, so I'm hoping this makes sense? Meet one half of the sisters that are central to the main story, although it's not actually the one who's a main character.
Also, I need a tag for Darling Grey.
May can't sleep.
She's been tossing and turning for longer than she can keep track of. The air is still heavy with smoke and sparks and the promise of sunlight if she'd only open the curtain, but Tabby is dead asleep, that deep sleep she never seems to get when anyone else is in the room. May's not sure how long she's known Tabby's sleeping patterns, and that worries her. She should be counting sheep, but instead, she's counting Tabby's breaths like it'll keep them from stopping.
That worries her more.
The sheet stirs and settles around her as she turns onto her side. She closes her eyes, but it's no use; sleep's a wash. There's an itch in her limbs and a heaviness on her chest like something that wants to be said. She wants to wake Tabby up and confess, but she's not sure she won't say too much.
She's not sure when she wanted to start admitting things, and that's maybe the most worrying thing at all. Anonymity is how they stay alive.
She thinks about turning around, shaking Tabby awake, and admitting, I've still got a sister alive. She'd call me Sarah.
She thinks about saying, We were 15 when I first presented, and Sue liked to make me bring her books without having to leave the couch, and we never thought anything might be more important than that.
She thinks about saying, What's your name, and that's when she has to get out of bed.
It's dangerous to even know as much as Tabby's let her learn. Telepaths might be rare, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. If someone finds one of them and flushes all their secrets out, they know more than enough about each other to get the other one pinpointed. Neither of them ever went through the tests; unless Sue presented, or Tabby's got someone at home she's not talking about who did, they're probably both presumed dead by now.
But May knows enough - only ever little details, stories that come too close to revealing Tabby's hometown, that she has one sibling and May's pretty sure it's an older brother, that her father taught, probably older grades. Only ever little details, but someone could line it up to an old missing person's case, figure out who they're looking for. Even if they survived, if Tabby managed to get Sue caught up in an attempt to track them, May would never forgive her. She's sure Tabby feels the same way about someone out there.
And they'd use whatever they had, if they had the chance. Telekinetics are still one of the rarest categories, the last May had reliable information. Pyrokinetics are a dime a dozen, but the handful that are on Tabby's level are either dead or working for their countries on the front lines.
It would be better to go now, before she does something unbelievably stupid.
Tabby wouldn't hold it against her. They've been doing this dance practically since they met; Tabby taught her how to survive when she was seventeen and scared, almost five years ago now. May had never been the kind to keep her admiration going from afar; it hadn't taken long for her to corner the older girl and kiss her, and once that domino was knocked over, all the others fell like they'd been set up long before either of them ran away from home.
The first time, it had been May too, determined to prove her self-reliance in this new world; but it had been Tabby the second, and May hasn't kept score on who's left who since. They've had good reasons and bad reasons, they've fought and they've had other things to do and they've both become just plain restless, and May never let herself consider that it might get harder to leave.
It wouldn't change anything, the next time they managed to find their way to each other. It wouldn't do anything except keep May from saying something she shouldn't, if Tabby happened to wake up too soon. It would be smart, and smart is one of the other keys to staying alive. But she leans against the wall instead of gathering her clothes, and she doesn't want to walk away all over again.
Tabby's been the only one who could get her to want anything new for years.
It's not enough for a confession. But May stares into the darkness, and listens to the soft sound of Tabby breathing like it would disappear if she left, and she wonders if it could ever be enough of a place to start.
Story: Don't Be Afraid of a Little Bit of Progress
Colors: Darling Grey #3, "I haven't found a single way to keep it"; True Blue #14, "Sharing"; Aurora #16, "Foreday" with SWL's paint-by-numbers (Surprise me!: Lesbians).
Supplies and Styles: Glue ("You're eager to explore new ways to break up the routine of your daily life and free yourself from old patterns. ...the unfulfilled potential for positive change fills the air and encourages you to take a chance and reinvent yourself.")
Word Count: 757
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Consensual relationship briefly mentioned as starting with the initiating party is underage (17 and 19), and also between two people who are, by mutual agreement, keeping a lot of things from each other, because of dangerous circumstances around them.
Notes:
Also, I need a tag for Darling Grey.
May can't sleep.
She's been tossing and turning for longer than she can keep track of. The air is still heavy with smoke and sparks and the promise of sunlight if she'd only open the curtain, but Tabby is dead asleep, that deep sleep she never seems to get when anyone else is in the room. May's not sure how long she's known Tabby's sleeping patterns, and that worries her. She should be counting sheep, but instead, she's counting Tabby's breaths like it'll keep them from stopping.
That worries her more.
The sheet stirs and settles around her as she turns onto her side. She closes her eyes, but it's no use; sleep's a wash. There's an itch in her limbs and a heaviness on her chest like something that wants to be said. She wants to wake Tabby up and confess, but she's not sure she won't say too much.
She's not sure when she wanted to start admitting things, and that's maybe the most worrying thing at all. Anonymity is how they stay alive.
She thinks about turning around, shaking Tabby awake, and admitting, I've still got a sister alive. She'd call me Sarah.
She thinks about saying, We were 15 when I first presented, and Sue liked to make me bring her books without having to leave the couch, and we never thought anything might be more important than that.
She thinks about saying, What's your name, and that's when she has to get out of bed.
It's dangerous to even know as much as Tabby's let her learn. Telepaths might be rare, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. If someone finds one of them and flushes all their secrets out, they know more than enough about each other to get the other one pinpointed. Neither of them ever went through the tests; unless Sue presented, or Tabby's got someone at home she's not talking about who did, they're probably both presumed dead by now.
But May knows enough - only ever little details, stories that come too close to revealing Tabby's hometown, that she has one sibling and May's pretty sure it's an older brother, that her father taught, probably older grades. Only ever little details, but someone could line it up to an old missing person's case, figure out who they're looking for. Even if they survived, if Tabby managed to get Sue caught up in an attempt to track them, May would never forgive her. She's sure Tabby feels the same way about someone out there.
And they'd use whatever they had, if they had the chance. Telekinetics are still one of the rarest categories, the last May had reliable information. Pyrokinetics are a dime a dozen, but the handful that are on Tabby's level are either dead or working for their countries on the front lines.
It would be better to go now, before she does something unbelievably stupid.
Tabby wouldn't hold it against her. They've been doing this dance practically since they met; Tabby taught her how to survive when she was seventeen and scared, almost five years ago now. May had never been the kind to keep her admiration going from afar; it hadn't taken long for her to corner the older girl and kiss her, and once that domino was knocked over, all the others fell like they'd been set up long before either of them ran away from home.
The first time, it had been May too, determined to prove her self-reliance in this new world; but it had been Tabby the second, and May hasn't kept score on who's left who since. They've had good reasons and bad reasons, they've fought and they've had other things to do and they've both become just plain restless, and May never let herself consider that it might get harder to leave.
It wouldn't change anything, the next time they managed to find their way to each other. It wouldn't do anything except keep May from saying something she shouldn't, if Tabby happened to wake up too soon. It would be smart, and smart is one of the other keys to staying alive. But she leans against the wall instead of gathering her clothes, and she doesn't want to walk away all over again.
Tabby's been the only one who could get her to want anything new for years.
It's not enough for a confession. But May stares into the darkness, and listens to the soft sound of Tabby breathing like it would disappear if she left, and she wonders if it could ever be enough of a place to start.
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Flying blind is pretty much the only way I know how to go (...is there a bad pun in there? I think there is). Seriously though, I see nothing wrong with learning as you go and I am happy to help in any way I can.
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Oh, that ending. It's almost sweet, and kind of frightening, and kind of bittersweet too. These girls are like planets almost but not quite crashing in to each other.
eta: your tag has been added!
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