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 Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 7:21 pm
"Autumn," Alexis mumbled through a mouthful of blood and wondered what kind of bullshit magic they'd done to deserve this, "Autumn. Smith. Wake up." Sitting on her bed covered in blood with haphazard self-done first aid was a terrible way to wake someone up at 6:30 AM, but it wasn't the worst way -- probably -- ?
They weren't thinking straight. (It was probably blood loss, Alexis opined distantly; and if it wasn't, they didn't know that sort of thing.) This shirt was definitely a lost cause, at any rate; there were sharp rakes of toothmarks cut into the back of one hand, deep punctures on the base of their pointer finger, and their lips were a mess of blood.
"Autumn. Need yer help. Come on."
They bounced up and down on the bed, impatiently, and kicked their legs in the dull light, keeping one hand carefully pressing a dishcloth to their mouth and the other hand as stiff as could be.
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 7:37 pm
At first, when she woke up, she was silent. Trying to figure out if this was a fever dream, or what. When it proved not to be a fever dream at all, Autumn blinked a few times, and finally sighed. A very worn, very exhausted sigh.
"Did I kill someone, in a past life?" She asked, pulling herself out of the covers and moving towards Alexis. The strange, sad intimacy they'd established felt stifling. Blood on their face, teeth crooked and raw. Her in her negligee, unmade and awkwardly sexual. But that wasn't the here or there. What was here was her taking Alexis's mangled finger, wrapping her own pristine fingers around it. Inhale, exhale. Healing it.
"What the ******** were you doing, you dumbshit? Did- did you EAT someone?"
Not to mention, how did you get into my house. But then. Not the priority right now.
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 7:47 pm
"Maybe," Alexis shrugged, trying not to move too much while Autumn healed their finger - the blood was stopping, that was good, that was good...everything was still a little fuzzy, but that was to be expected, they were still wincing.
"No, I didn't, look -" Their free hand pulled their lip up, exposing more shredded lip but mostly...a lot of teeth. A lot of very sharp, very jagged, very bloody teeth -- decidedly inhuman in shape, almost more like a shark's, all of them interlocking together to form a space very unfriendly to human flesh. "Woke up like this - didn't realize 'til my hands..." Another one-sided shrug, again. "Didn't know what else to do. Sorry for wakin' you up."
(Alexis was trying not to stare at Autumn's chest, but it wasn't working, and it served as a good visual focus point as they worked on blinking the sleep and the fuzz out of their eyes.)
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 9:28 pm
"Woke up like what, out to give me a ******** heart attack?!" Autumn snapped, despite earlier mental promises to stay calm. Her rope was worn so thin now it could barely support even her own weight, let alone Alexis's or anyone else's. Even for waking up early, she looked worn. Weary. Like all the sleep in the world would not be enough to pacify her demons. Autumn forced herself calm, swallowed the anger in her throat. It wasn't Alexis's fault that Alois had tried to kill himself. It wasn't anyone's fault.
That's what she kept telling herself, anyway.
"Don't- don't apologize. Just." Autumn took a steadying breath, as though she were in the heart of exercise (and for all of the heart trauma these idiots had put her through lately, she might as well have been,) and went back to healing. Her words were quiet and stilted as she forced them out whilst healing on, further. Feeling the pain of gnawing her finger off.
"I'm. I'm so sick. Of everyone getting hurt. Of my friends being hurt. I don't like seeing you hurt, Alexis. You may not think it's a big deal, but christ, I do. Okay?!" ********. The not getting worked up thing wasn't working very well. The pain wasn't helping any, either.
"All of my friends are getting hurt, and acting like it's no big ******** deal, but it IS! It IS a big deal! And I'm SICK OF IT!"
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 9:47 pm
"H-hey, Autumn, hey -" they patted her face hesitantly with their free hand, shifting it down to her shoulder, trying to be a comforting weight. "Hey. 's okay. If it hadn't been so deep, I wouldn't have woke you, right? I can deal with it from here." Alexis' words were careful, stilted, designed to get the point across without biting their own tongue again.
(Like this, they almost felt guilty for what they were going to do; to leave their life to a perfect impostor and fall under Alois' eye for months, but -- that was pushed aside. Alexis had nothing to ruin that they hadn't already. The only thing their fetch would be able to do would fix it.)
"Autumn. Y'can't change what already happened to me. It was shitty, alright? I know that now. But -" a new cut on their lip caught air, blood shining - "it's a big part of...how I react." They yawned, still tired now that the adrenaline was cooling down, shoulders slumping -- in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, they looked oh-so-very young.
"Y'can't convince me I don't d'serve to hurt. Won't work."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:00 am
"I'm so tired of all the people people I give a s**t about getting hurt. Even if they do it themselves." Autumn folded her arms, staring at Alexis, raw and open. "So here's my rule. My apartment, you don't- you don't get to get hurt like this. Since I know for a fact you stole one of my keys and made a copy, you basically live here. Which means you're my tenant. Which means I don't give a flying ******** if you disagree, you follow my rules."
She really, really needed to stop caring about these ******** up kids. They were going to be the death of her, Autumn knew. And yet, she loved them. Even Alexis- odd, strange little Alexis. Alexis who would deny being a friend, and yet was here in the dark hours of the night, with her. And not anyone else.
"I don't care if you think you deserve to hurt. I don't. And I'm always right, so there."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:30 am
"I coulda broken in, you don't know that," Alexis mumbled, but it was really a lost cause -- they couldn't look Autumn in the eyes. They couldn't. So instead they stared down at their hands, crumpled in the bedsheets, pastel scars sprinkled all throughout.
"I don't try to hurt myself, okay? I don't. Not since I got to Ashdown. It just -" and again, searching for a word in the odd hours of the morning - "I'm just a trouble magnet. I promise I won't do anythin' stupid today, though, I'm just -" they yawned, big - "tired. It alright if I clean up and sleep on your couch? I won't make a mess or anythin', I promise."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:28 pm
"Don't lie to me. I don't even need a magical bullshit sense to know you're lying," Autumn scoffed, rolling her eyes. She wasn't stupid. Just trusting. Faithful. But it still didn't mean she was taking Alexis's bullshit. Instead, she scooted over, patting the bed.
"Just lay down. I don't want you bleeding all over the sofa and scaring the piss out of Zac." Or going where I can't see you, she left unsaid. Alois had been the wakeup call she'd needed to realize her friends were hurting.
She wasn't going to let Alexis go.
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