Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was all but stuck on her phone like normal when she distractedly opened the door, looking tired but otherwise healthier than usual. Her clothing was no longer stretched to its limit with tightness, and her hair was up in a bun as it had been so often lately. She had no idea who was at her door, but seeing Cami there was a surprise she hadn't been ready for. Her eyes lifted and her mouth dropped, blinking in surprise.

She clicked off her phone, and gave the girl a small, regretful smile. It had been days since Otto had kicked her out. Maebe knew Mimsy would have taken care of Cami, so she wasn't as worried about the lack of contact, but she'd just started to get that nervous itch when the girl read her mind and showed up. She breathed a sigh of relief, and held her arms out.

"Hello, beautiful." It was dangerous for her to be here. Maebe knew that. Cami knew that. It was just as dangerous as when she went to visit Otto, and even moreso as each day passed and Maebe continued to plow through the unfamiliar terrain of abstinence. (Ugh, she internally groaned. Thaw felt this was an appropriate moment to laugh at her suffering.) Seeing Cami brought relief, and anxiety all at once. Yet all she could do was reach out to hug her, because she couldn't help herself.

Maebe's arms were tight and protective, squeezing around her middle with unearthly tightness. Her arms had gotten stronger, too. Everything about the girl had gotten stronger, in fact. She leaned her leg out enough to kick the door closed, and led Cami to sit down on her sole chair. Once she was settled in, Maebe slowly lowered herself, kneeling down in front of her and grasping both of her hands with her own. She leaned down and kissed the back of one, before facing up at her once more.

"Okay. Talk to me." She could have kissed those lips, if she wasn't so adamant about doing some good. "If the answer isn't terrible, I'm going to be super mad at you and kick you out of my room until you tell me you've been crying your eyes out for days at a time." Her lips turned up in a smirk, but she was serious. Cami needed to grief. She needed to hate. And if she was showing up at Maebe's doorstep this soon, Maebe needed to be sure that she'd done just that.

Maebe's face squished up in frustration as she dodged the question, and tried to distract her with compliments some more. She knew how well those worked; they threatened to crumble Maebe's determination within seconds. They threatened to turn her into a gooey, cooing mess of love me and pet me and make me forget. They were very dangerous words.

Maebe took a minute to breathe it all in, before she snapped her teeth at the woman in the chair.

"I am more beautiful." She admitted, falling into that easy shift for just an indulgent second. "But we're not here to talk about me. I want you to tell me how you've been. I want to know that you haven't been doing exactly what you're doing, right now." She reached up, and pressed her hand against Cami's cheek. "I don't need you to be strong for me, anymore. I'm trying to be strong for you. So tell me you haven't distracted yourself away from the pain of all of this. Otherwise I'm going to punch you until you cry."

And she could, too. If only Cami had seen how hard she was hitting now! She would seriously consider transferring to Sun, if Death wasn't so enticing.

Not angry. Not sad. Not hurt. Confused.

And that was exactly what Maebe was afraid of. That was exactly why she was relieved to see Cami here, when it was clearly too soon for any of them. Relieved, that the woman had come to her, and she had a chance to make sure something healthy was happening. And it wasn't.

She stood up, rather abruptly, and moved away from the chair.

"Oh, it's real." Maebe muttered, anger boiling under her breath. "And stop to think, for a second. He asked you back, and didn't ask me back. I mean, the levels of hurt all of this involved is sickening." She was staring at her closet, and her hand formed a fist. "And that is exactly why you need to be mad about this, Cami."

She turned around, and her expression had darkened into something more familiar, yet so much less beautiful than before. "He asked you to come back because he needed something to pad around him, and protect him. Do you understand that? He didn't ask you back because he loved you. He made you leave because he loves you. Because he finally ******** realized that all he was doing was using you, and it was <******** up."

Her nails dug into her palms, ticking away at her shield with their intensity.

"Here's the truth, Cami. Otto was selfish. Selfish, and blind. And you know what, I really feel like he's learning to be a better person right now. But in order to do that, he has to do some ******** up things - like asking you to leave, even though it's just as much your home as it was his, and I really need you to hate him for it. Because I hated him with all of my heart, and all of my soul, for so long already." The fists released, and she sagged with exhaustion. "And it helped. A lot. And now I don't hate him anymore, because he's doing what's right. But - but you can't just - forget - "

She slid down the door of her closet, and rubbed her hand across her face lightly.

"I'm so scared you're going to go your whole life carrying this burden, and it pisses me off, because if you do, then I will hate him forever for what he's done to you. What he could have done to me, if I'd never let go."

What Cami couldn't have possibly known, was how enraged Maebe got at those words. Perhaps she might have blamed jealousy for the way Maebe's eyes widened into saucers, and she interrupted Cami's honesty with an uncharacteristic scream.

"He said WHAT?"

But the truth of the matter came out the moment Maebe raced over, and bent down to stare ice blue eyes into Cami's.

"He called you. A thing." Her voice shook. The only thing Maebe was angry about, was that Cami did not seem to find a problem with the phrase "You're my most important thing." As if she was his. As if he had ANY RIGHT to claim her. As if he had any rights at all.

"You've never given us the impression you don't want to be used, and THAT'S why he asked you back. Because he knew that was what you wanted, too. That doesn't make it right, Cami. That DOESN'T make it okay!" She grabbed Cami's arms when she yelled, tightening them with a grip of desperation.

"We refuse to use you anymore. You hear me? And if you let anybody else use you in the future, I'm going to kill them. I'll kill them, I swear to God, Cami. I'm not letting this go on anymore. I'm just. I'm not."

But she'd used up every ounce of what limited energy Maebe usually ran on, in those few moments of anger. And now she was crumbling, releasing Cami's arms and flopping down to sit at the woman's feet in defeat. Maebe was never, and could never, be the type of person to stay that angry for that long.

Even when it meant so much to her.

"Thing." She spat out, one final time, before dropping to lie down on the ground. She was going to punch Otto in the teeth, the next time she saw him.

Maebe couldn't handle the sound of that apology. Her head snapped up to stare at the woman for a moment, trying to digest the words as sanely as she could. But she was afraid, so afraid, and it showed clear as day in her eyes.

"Apology not accepted, sweetheart." Maebe tried to be as soft as possible, but she could feel the anger welling up inside of her. She wanted to believe that Cami wouldn't always consider herself a thing to be used. She wanted to believe in Cami more than anything. But that wasn't going to happen in an instant, and it wasn't going to change with any words she said. She was scared, because she knew how easily she could fall back into that mindset.

She was a thing to be used. She'd always been a thing to be used. The dark sickness that came out of each lover, shoved inside of her until they could forget, and leave her just a little bit less healthy. Cami still believed in what Maebe had only just convinced herself out of. She was scared, not for Cami, but for herself.

"I don't love things." Maebe told her, the hint of sharpness tainting her attempted soft tone. "He loved things. I love people. And I can't love you until you learn to love yourself."

She regretted the words as soon as she'd said them, because Cami shouldn't have had to deal with two people breaking her heart so soon after one another. But she was scared, and angry, and scared all over again. She wanted to believe that this was for the best, because separating herself from Otto had done them both wonders. If it could save Cami, too..

Maybe it would be worth it.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry, I'll be a thing too, please don't run.

Maebe felt the wind whip at her face when Cami stumbled off of the chair and tried to leave, and she winced as she regretted everything, and her anger solidified in her veins, turning into black, burning self-hate.

"Cami don't run from this." She felt like she was crumbling, childishly curled up on the floor as she watched Cami try to leave. "Please, I just, I want you to love yourself, I want you to - to see me, to see that it's possible, I want you to believe it's possible - I want to believe it's possible."

Distilled down to it's core, that was her reason for lashing out, every time. She found it so hard to believe that she could learn to love herself enough to change. But if Cami couldn't do it.. what chance did she really have?

And yet, there she went, running away from Maebe because she couldn't, she couldn't. Nothing would change. Not her, not Otto, and certainly not Cami. She should have known better than to believe in herself.

Cami was right. They were just things to be used, after all. All she'd done was end up breaking a heart along the way to figuring the truth out. A good, kind, beautiful heart.

She wished she were dead.