I think having the glorious centipede shitpost directly after your grand emotional climax kinda really lessens the impact of the later. For anyone reading this later you might want to switch them around or do some other juggling.
Silence is Not Consent
- Thread starter justanothercat
- Start date
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- Tags
- worm
- Location
- Earth, probably.
- Pronouns
- None/Any
It is an absolutely fantastic chapter and you're right to be proud of it. The whole thing was fantastic, but I am a big fan of the ending, especially this part:
It's just so good.
I agree that the effect of the two back to back was a bit offputting. Going directly from Victoria's extreme trauma to a cutely worded and quirky interlude about the centipede she just killed is... jarring.
Also though though this may strictly be a "me" problem, there's a weird mirroring between Victoria killing the (newly anthropomorphized) centipede because of a panic attack and the institutional machine of the PRT emotionally destroying Victoria because Amy is useful in the main chapter. I personally feel that mirroring undermines what I see as the emotional goals of the main chapter.
Also though though this may strictly be a "me" problem, there's a weird mirroring between Victoria killing the (newly anthropomorphized) centipede because of a panic attack and the institutional machine of the PRT emotionally destroying Victoria because Amy is useful in the main chapter. I personally feel that mirroring undermines what I see as the emotional goals of the main chapter.
- Location
- Somewhere
i was anxious af reading the main story chapter, and then Cenpai's interlude made me fcking cry. The end of the interlude wouldn't hit if we didn't already know Cenpai was dead. Parsing the fun quirky beginning of the interlude gave me time to process and settle back into my emotions.
Just to get suckerpunched in the feels.
RIP Cenpai 😭
Just to get suckerpunched in the feels.
RIP Cenpai 😭
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I imagine they are banking on Victoria not being considered a reliable witness since she doesn't talk verbally, she's traumatized by the S9 and she was (presumably) mastered by Regent.
Still, I can't see Piggot being happy about an effective biotinker with master's power acting on civilians. Is anyone pressuring her, or doesn't she know the limits of Amy's power?
Was the Simurgh bomb defused via Contessad Amy, since Coil via WoG tried to use her in a throwaway timeline and it didn't work?
Edit: It wasn't Canon, but WoG
Still, I can't see Piggot being happy about an effective biotinker with master's power acting on civilians. Is anyone pressuring her, or doesn't she know the limits of Amy's power?
Was the Simurgh bomb defused via Contessad Amy, since Coil via WoG tried to use her in a throwaway timeline and it didn't work?
Edit: It wasn't Canon, but WoG
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- Pronouns
- Male
You
I can't
Cloak&Dagger
Definitely Insane
Silence is a Consonant
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- Location
- The Internet?
Thank you for sharing the chapter and the interlude, even though they made me feel ways about stuff. Well done!
love bug centi-pal?
Calvert Amy said.
"No…" I replied. I couldn't see, so I screwed my eyes closed, felt the moisture of tears threatening to spill forth. I took in a deep breath.
"…But I suppose, in a roundabout way, you made me into one," I finished. I aimed the gun and fired.
Where's your content warning for bodily harm to everyone's favorite
Big oof, like everything about this chapter oof, but this part, oh my goodness.
That's... Good? Silver lining, I gues- nah, Amy's still bad and did a bad, horrendous thing, but at least there's a way for Tori to differentiate between then and now, work her way out of the dissociative state?
"Sorry, Taylor, I'm leaving you for a new team. One with Stallone, and Statham, and..."
"You're not a killer,"
"No…" I replied. I couldn't see, so I screwed my eyes closed, felt the moisture of tears threatening to spill forth. I took in a deep breath.
"…But I suppose, in a roundabout way, you made me into one," I finished. I aimed the gun and fired.
I don't take WoG into account when writing, because I think it's unreasonable to ask someone to be aware of every tiny forum post or reddit reply an author ever did. I go off of the text. We never see someone touch noelle's upper body, so I took that as an opportunity. Imo Amy depowered Noelle after Dragon held her down (since Dragon is inorganic) and they Thinker procogged their way into realizing that Amy would be cloned if she touched her upper body, but wouldn't be power nulled. So they just killed her clones on sight until she finished altering Noelle.
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
RIP Cenpai
So Vicky was Amy's name and Victoria was Carol's name/common name, and with the pain of this whole betrayal I guess she's decided to disassociate with her common identity. I suppose in a way it's similar to cape rebranding. Hmm. I suppose my question is if the change was just a temporary thing to deal with the trauma, but seeing how the author is already addressing her as Tori in the end-of-chapter notes, I think I know the answer.
So Vicky was Amy's name and Victoria was Carol's name/common name, and with the pain of this whole betrayal I guess she's decided to disassociate with her common identity. I suppose in a way it's similar to cape rebranding. Hmm. I suppose my question is if the change was just a temporary thing to deal with the trauma, but seeing how the author is already addressing her as Tori in the end-of-chapter notes, I think I know the answer.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Completely fair, it was an assumption I made because I don't know how to feel if a Ziz bomb is defused like this.
if you want to get into power logistics, Dinah is of a similar precog level to Contessa and the Simurgh (which, props to Worm for making all the terrifying precogs girls, based). The fact that she was used (however slightly) to judge outcomes in the moment is what allowed them to avoid Ziz's pathing.
Aminadab_Brulle
Decimus Computator
I was struggling to not shed tears over Cenpai in my train ride back home after work, and you two then go and write this?
Grow some heart, my dear interlocutors.
That's a great example actually. Cenpai is stealing the show of
Aminadab_Brulle
Decimus Computator
No. I simply haven't stated my opinion about that chapter on SV. The comment I posted does not in any way express the idea that 4.4 was less impactful than 4.c.
Also, come on, our main character openly cries over this centipede. Is it really so unusual to almost do the same?
It's not over (until it is)
- Location
- Myanmar
It's not over yet. There is still hope. We can rebuild cenpai. We have the technology!
Gorgeous. Hilarious. Almost a derail. Iconic for this thread. What a masterpiece.
- Location
- Somewhere
? I don't understand this reaction.
31 out of 54 people in a short SB-fan poll voted Cenpai; I'm just following the will of the people.
In Her Arms
Thank you to the incredible CasualCarnation for this piece of fanart, I'm seriously beyond words. This is incredible. Totally not crying.
Thank you to the incredible CasualCarnation for this piece of fanart, I'm seriously beyond words. This is incredible. Totally not crying.
It's incredible and I hate having to ask but isn't Taylor taller than Victoria? At the least she's of comparable height, so the legs should be dangling out at least a foot more.
Brightness 4.5
It took a long time for me to feel comfortable letting go. For my heart to slow down and my breathing to calm and the screaming sense of sicktwisteddangerthreathurt to ebb away. For me to hear anything but the steady thump of Taylor's heart against my ear. I came back to myself half slumped over a gangly, bony lap. Tears and snot stained my face and my hair was strewn over my eyes and stuck to the corner of my mouth. A pair of slender arms wrapped around me, and the comforting hum of the swarm buzzed away in the background, muffling the rest of the world and holding it at bay.
Her knee was digging into my side, I was pretty sure I'd been squashing her legs long enough for them to go numb, and from the awkward way she was rubbing my back and the jittering of the nearby bugs, she had no idea how to comfort a crying girl on top of her.
In this moment, here and now, it was perfect.
I slowly pulled back far enough to look at her face. Her arm slipped off the side of my back automatically, but I didn't let that distract me. Her eyes… there was a violence there. One I was familiar with. But for once it felt like the heat of a hearth at my back. Like a promise.
I closed my eyes and slowly leaned forward. Taylor didn't stop me. After what felt like minutes but must have only been seconds, my forehead gently touched hers. I felt her breath ghost over my face. Matched mine to hers. In, and out. In and out. Together.
I was here. I was safe. Amy was a problem, but one that could be solved later. Right now, only this mattered. Us in our hideaway, absent the world.
"Thank you," I whispered, barely enough air scraping past my lips to carry the sound to her.
She didn't say anything. But her hand squeezed mine–my clean hand, the hand not still curled miserably around a sticky mess that my thoughts shied away from as too much right now to bear. Her fingers curled in to tuck my palm as close to hers as possible, and tightened with gentle pressure; not enough to hurt, aiming just to reassure. She'd heard me just fine.
I took a deep breath and rolled back onto my knees, then pushed myself upright, never letting go of Taylor's hand the whole way. She understood what I was doing, and let me pull her up until we were standing again. I gave her hand one last achingly careful squeeze in return–my heart pounding like I was pinwheeling at the edge of a cliff at how fragile it was, how easily broken, the risk I was taking just for comfort–then reluctantly let it go.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly. "Do you need anything?"
Did I… I needed a lot of things. For any of this to get better. For this complicated, twisting heat in my stomach to go away. But I tried to focus on the immediate.
My head was, if not clear, then clearer. As good as it was going to get right now. Better than it was likely to be for a while, honestly. But the rest of me felt awful. My skin was sticky with sweat and stress. Much as I loved this hoodie, I'd been wearing it for a day too long and it smelled like it. My hair was dirty and stringy, the grease clumping the strands together. And my hand–
I needed a shower.
I needed a shower.
"All the showers are occupied except mine," Taylor said after I finished signing as much. "Do you want to go now?"
A soft noise escaped me, either sob or humorless laugh. 'Want' fell woefully short of what I felt right now. If I had to feel the filthy violation of her touch on me for much longer, I'd tear my own skin off. And I couldn't risk waiting even if I could bear to. Running water was rare after Leviathan–one of the sick little ironies you didn't appreciate about the aftermath of an Endbringer attack until living through one. There was no telling when the plumbing would decide to stop working for the ninth time this week.
But all of that wasn't the real reason. I was… scared. Terrified. That as soon as Taylor left, as soon as I was alone, as soon as my clothes came off, everything would come rushing back. That I'd be back there again.
Helpless.
I took a deep breath, pictured a point beneath my heart and imagined it pulling me down. Rooting me to the ground–tethering me to the earth so I wouldn't be blown away by the breeze. I was better than this. Taylor helped. But I could do this.
I looked up, and nodded.
"Okay then. You can go first, I'll be outside. If you need something, you can knock on the wall?"
I dug my nails into my palm. We had done this before. The first time she'd seen me in that bathtub. We had a system. It worked, more or less. I could do this.
I reached out and squeezed her hand once more, dizzy at my own recklessness, before making my way to the bathroom and closing the door. I took a moment, and closed my eyes. We had done this before. I knew that Taylor was aware of everything for blocks around her, nevermind two rooms away. If I made any noise of any kind, she'd hear, and come to help.
There was nothing to worry about. It was fine.
I could do this.
I reached forward and started the water. It was probably bad practice to let it warm up before showering given how little we had, but I decided to let myself have this one thing. My hair wouldn't wash itself, and the water had to be warm for me to–
I froze.
She liked my hair. She'd said it was nice when she was with me. When she'd pushed me down onto the bed and started to peel me out of my–
I yelled and slammed a fist into the mirror, shattering it and just barely avoiding going through the brick.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Two seconds in and I was already a wreck. Why? Why was I still here? Why was it so easy to spiral back into thinking about Amy at the slightest opportunity? Why couldn't I just move the fuck on?
"Tori?" Taylor's voice, through the door. "Is everything alright?"
I froze.
It would be so easy. To ignore her. To not say anything. To just wait until she stopped asking and assumed that I was fine. Like everyone else did.
"If you need something, knock on the wall three times."
I floated in my body, disconnected, as it slowly reached up and knocked three times on what remained of the mirror.
"Do you need me to come in? One knock for yes, two for no."
My fist–the clean one, the one not held in a trembling curled-up claw at my waist, held away from touching anything or anyone–floated dreamily over the fractured glass and brickwork. I watched it hover like one of Skitter's bugs, waiting for orders I couldn't hear.
One knock.
"Okay. I'm coming in."
The door opened, and there she was. Taylor, still in her silks, staring right through me with that intense green gaze. I wondered what she saw. A hero reduced to someone else's sidekick? The brainless Brute from the bank, too angry at her reflection to leave a simple mirror intact? A helpless girl, hopelessly out of her depth? Maybe all of them; all bloodstained, fractured facets of a broken glass figurine.
I didn't know which I hated more.
"You need to tell me what you want. I can help, but I need to know how."
"You."
We both froze. I was mortified. Of all the times for my hands to work, why was it now?
"No I mean–can't–need to shower." It took a few seconds for my left hand to join in, and it did so half-heartedly, slower and less expressive. I kept my eyes on Skitter's face rather than look at it. But I couldn't stop signing. The words spilled out like a broken faucet. "I know it'll look bad if I go out smelly and dirty even though we have clean water so I need to get in," someone please stop me, "so I need to do it but I can't because my stupid head keeps remembering her and every time I close my eyes it gets worse," my fingers burned, "and I haven't even gotten my clothes off I don't know how I'm supposed to do this and–"
"Okay."
I froze. Blinked.
I didn't understand.
"Do you need to take a shower?"
Slowly, I nodded; the barest dip of my chin.
"Can you do it on your own?"
I shook my head mutely, eyes not leaving hers.
"Do you want… help?"
I… surely it couldn't be that easy. Would she even–she'd only unmasked to me earlier today! Even if it felt like years ago. She couldn't possibly be implying what I thought she was.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, and slowly let it out through my nose.
If this was any other day. Any other time. Any other person asking this, I'd say no. Hell no. But my skin still felt slimy and raw. My hair lay plastered to my scalp. I couldn't even look at my left hand. If I spent any longer like this, I'd flay myself just to get it to stop. With my strength and the panic clawing at the insides of my ribcage, it wasn't an idle threat.
I needed to shower. It wasn't an option. And… after what I'd just been through, I didn't have it in me to go through a flashback again. Couldn't. Maybe that was weakness, but right now I didn't care.
I took another breath, and nodded.
"Would you feel comfortable with me helping?"
I looked at her. Eyes serious, locked on my face like she could find the solution to all our problems if she just looked hard enough. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she broke down the problem in front of her. Wide mouth pinched, pulling down at the corners as she took in the state of me.
I nodded again. Her. It had to be her.
"Are you sure? I'll need to take my clothes off too."
I closed my eyes, and god help me, I nodded.
Taylor closed the bathroom door. Nothing changed, but the room was suddenly hotter. The walls pressed in. The steam coming off the shower was stifling.
"Alright," said Taylor. "How do you want to do this?"
I swallowed, my throat dry. Taylor had this way of just, cutting through all the nonsense to get at the heart of wherever she needed to go. It was intimidating, but right now I was thankful for it. Better this than me making a fool of myself by begging.
I pointed at her.
"I'll go first then."
And with that, Taylor started to take off the rest of her costume. First came her bracers and chest plates – an involved process, with lots of straps and buckles holding the whole ensemble together. I'd seen her costume weather blows that would put almost anyone else without a Brute factor on the ground, but I'd never thought about the practicalities of how it worked. It made for a good distraction from actually looking at Taylor as she stripped off her armor and defenses.
Next came the silk body glove itself. She'd coached me through taking this off before, when changing the dressing on her shoulder. The material was thin, but deceptively strong. I'd never tested it myself, but I'd done some research after the Flechette incident. My phone had enough reception for that much in the downtime between crises. Spider silk's strength to weight ratio was frighteningly high. It made up her whole costume; lightweight and cut resistant. I looked away as she peeled the last of it off, the material making a faint rustling noise as it pooled on the floor.
And then it was over, and she stood in her underwear, bare in front of me while I was fully clothed. It barely felt real. Even Skitter's poker face couldn't mask her feelings completely. Her hair fell forward over half her face, not-quite-hiding a faint colouration of her cheeks. Her arms had half come up to hide her, and I could see her tensing her stomach out of the corner of my eye.
But her embarrassment was nowhere in her voice, and she didn't hold herself defensively or turn away.
"Okay," she said flatly. "Your turn now."
I tensed immediately, my hand reaching for the zipper on my hoodie. My fingers gripped the metal tab and… they wouldn't move. They were stuck. I was stuck.
My teeth clenched. Come on, Tori. It was just a stupid zipper. She'd seen me in worse before. This was no time to be shy. I'd asked for this.
Taylor reached for me. I stepped back instinctively, my back bumping into the sink, and she paused. We looked at each other for a long moment.
"I won't look. But she isn't here. She won't touch you. Knock three times when you're ready."
And with that, she turned around and faced the door. I let out a long breath, emotionally exhausted already, and pulled the zipper down. It was surprisingly easy to zone out without her looking at me. I tried to treat it like a task I was doing, divorce myself from context. I knew how to take off my clothes. I could do that.
It was harder to take them off one-handed. But my left hand stayed clenched. Signing had used up its nerve. It wouldn't uncurl for this.
Still, eventually I found myself knocking on the wall three times. Without so much as a glance Taylor turned around, walked past me, and got into the shower. She'd tied her hair back out of her face while I'd been undressing, I realized. After so long seeing her hair loose, the low ponytail looked strange. She'd taken her underwear off too, and her bandages, matching my state. I kept my eyes on her face, and swallowed.
"The water is fine, you can come in when you want."
I took a deep breath and stepped into the shower with her, my body as taut as a bowstring. There was something in the air that I couldn't name, but Taylor seemed determined to bulldoze past it with her trademark stubbornness.
"Here," she said, and reached for my hand.
My left hand.
My soiled hand.
I hesitated. She waited, fingers spread invitingly beside my wrist. The spray washed over her, soaking her hair, running down her skin. The scar on her shoulder still looked angry and red, if not quite as bad as when I'd changed it.
I'd probably need to help change it again, I thought numbly. At least this counted as cleaning it. Even if it must be stinging like mad.
Slowly, reluctantly, as if someone else was moving it, my hand drifted into hers. Her fingers circled my wrist the way her centipede had, and squeezed reassuringly.
"It's okay," she said.
And guided my hand into the spray.
It tore a wrenching sob out of me. But only one. I breathed through it, eyes stinging, breathing in and out in slow, steady, shaky gasps, and she kept one hand on my shoulder and the other loose and gentle around my wrist until I was through.
If this was what losing a pet felt like, a distant corner of my mind observed, I never wanted another.
"Do you want to wash your hair?"
I nodded. That was the most important thing now that my hand was clean. I couldn't stand the sticky, greasy strands one minute longer. Not for the first time in my life, I considered a haircut. Maybe later. Maybe as soon as I got my hands on some scissors. For now, though…
"Do you want to wash it yourself, or would you rather I do it?"
I bit my lip. Washing my hair was… private. Intimate (as if this isn't intimate already, a part of me laughed hysterically). But I knew what would happen if I closed my eyes. Like I had to when washing it out. I knew what would be waiting for me. There was no other choice.
I pointed at her. Taylor grabbed the shampoo in the corner, squeezing some of it out in her hands and started lathering it up. It was a nice smell. Lilac and lavender. Familiar and soothing.
She gestured for me to turn around. I did, tensing as her hands drew nearer. It was okay, I told myself over and over. I was safe. She was safe. I'd asked for this. If I wanted her to stop, she would.
She would.
My fingers dug into my palms hard enough to leave marks. It helped.
Finally, her fingers sank into my hair. I froze for a moment, before relaxing. Taylor's hands were… both softer and harder than I imagined.
Skitter's movements were always sharp and precise, almost machine-like (or insect like, I thought, barely holding in a snort). Every step she made felt premeditated and considered.
This was not that. Taylor's hands were gentle as they combed through my hair, spreading the suds of the shampoo through my roots. The motions felt practiced and sure, even as she treated my long hair with more reverence than I'd expected. Certainly more than I ever had.
As if reading my thoughts, Taylor started talking, "Your hair is so long, I have to be careful while washing it, so it might take a bit longer than you're used to."
I flinched. My breath caught in my throat. I knew Taylor wasn't Amy, that she'd never be her, but she'd said that when she'd had me in the bedroom, when she'd sunk her fingers into my hair and pulled, when she'd made it grow out of my arms, my legs, my toes, my–
Taylor's hands paused in my hair. "Breathe," she said evenly, "slow and deep."
I choked out a gasp, coughing as one of her hands slid down and pressed firmly into my back. My breath caught and I hacked up what felt like some small bit of breakfast that was stuck in my throat from earlier, coughing it down to where the swirling water around our feet caught it and sent it spinning down the drain.
There went my dignity, I thought. Whatever was left of it, anyway.
Once I'd collected myself, Taylor resumed combing through my hair as if nothing happened.
"When I was a kid, I wanted my hair to look just like my… mom's."
She paused. I didn't dare reply, or even move. Any response might make her decide to stop sharing. Taylor almost never talked about herself, and suddenly I wanted to know more.
"I grew it out for years before I was satisfied," she said wistfully. "So much of it came out in the wash it felt like it would never grow."
Her hands caught on a particularly nasty knot and I groaned at the tug on my scalp. She paused, then continued more gently, coaxing the twist in and around itself until it started to unravel.
Taylor hummed absently as she continued to tease the mat out. "Even… after, I still kept it. Stupid of me, really. Anyone could've seen that it didn't cover for everything else," she snorted.
I wondered at that. At what she meant. But she continued before I found the words to ask.
"I wanted to look like her so badly, I designed my whole costume around it. Left the hair out and everything. Idiotic. Lung almost burned it all off the first night I was out and I would've deserved it. I mean, what kind of moron–"
I winced as her hands caught on another snarl of hair. She paused again, murmuring a 'sorry' under her breath I barely caught before she kept talking.
"I guess I just wasn't willing to give up that part of myself, in the end," she said quietly.
I reached back and caught her hand, and kept hold of it as I turned around. She was warm against my palm. Pressed close inside each other's space in the cramped shower stall, almost nose-to-nose, I ignored the hand still in my hair and looked at Taylor; really looked for the first time since this strange companionship had started.
I looked at her angled cheekbones and pursed lips, so afraid that I'd judge her for what she'd done to get here. Her eyebrows, angry and sure as she thought about her younger self. Her nose, crinkled with disgust.
I reached up with my hand and cupped her cheek. I looked into her eyes and tried to convey everything I couldn't say. How sorry I was that her life had turned her into this. How I thought her hair was pretty. How maybe her younger self was naïve for going out like that, but she was still brave. How I wished I could find it in myself to say any of what I felt out loud.
I couldn't tell how much she understood. But she smiled and squeezed my hand against her face. Perhaps that was enough.
She continued washing my hair after I turned back around, gently brushing the shampoo out. She kept up a constant stream of quiet conversation, telling me all about the inane things people were doing in her territory. I didn't know why she did it, but I was so, so grateful she did. Normally when I washed my hair I had to close my eyes. And right now I couldn't, because… But with Taylor talking, my brain couldn't convince me that anyone else was in the bathroom with us. I could be okay with that. I could face the dark behind my eyelids, and not drown in the horror that lurked there.
"… Charlotte's downstairs, sorting out an argument. Mikal and Josiah, I think. They used to be neighbors, did you know that? Fought a lot. They get along better now, since they wound up here…"
"… someone's playing a guitar a block west of us. They've drawn a crowd. A couple of people are dancing. The rest are clapping along. One's singing, from the way they're all turned his way…"
"… a bit more to the right… yes, that way. A couple of blocks out that way, someone's frying something for their kids. Bacon, maybe. Or hamburgers. Whatever it is, the kids are really excited; they're jumping up and down as they wait…"
"… the twins are playing with Tia downstairs. Drawing on one of the armchairs. I don't know why they didn't use a couch; Akiko has Tia half in her lap and Naoki's squashed up against her shoulder…"
"… ah. Trouble in the guitar crowd. Someone just tried to pickpocket a… woman? Or a man with a high ponytail." A pause. "I stung him on the wrist and she caught on. They'll deal with him..."
"… Aiden's reading in his room. He hovered outside for a while before leaving. Wanted to make sure you were okay…"
When she finished I stepped back out of the water instinctively, and bumped into her. The shock of skin contact all along my back made me yelp and stumble forward again, then let out a nervous giggle before slapping a hand to my mouth. Fuck, did I really sound like that? Like a goddamn schoolgirl. And yet I couldn't have a verbal conversation to save my life. A certified basket case.
I turned around, ready to defend myself, only to see the shape of gentle amusement curling her mouth at the edges. I felt my cheeks heat. Goddammit. I couldn't be mad when she looked at me like that.
"Tell no one."
"Scout's honor," she said before giving me a salute–a salute? Really?
I tried to glare at her, lips twitching, before losing the battle and breaking into helpless laughter. God, if only the Protectorate could see the dreaded Skitter now, giving me an honest to god boy-scout salute. I drew myself up to tell Taylor, only to peter off at the look on her face. Her lips were pursed, and she had that particular expression of needing to say something unpleasant but not knowing how to start.
After a moment, she decided to just bull through as usual. "We need to wash your body now," she stated bluntly. "Do you need help?"
I paled. I hadn't thought that far ahead. Into this… whatever this was. Now that my hair was taken care of, the clammy stickiness of my skin stood out even more, itching furiously, feeling like sweaty hands plastered over every inch of my body. Could I do this? Should I do this? Could I trust Taylor to do this for me?
I took a deep, steadying breath. Maybe I could do this much on my own. But… I didn't want to. Taylor was gentle with my hair. Tender. I needed that right now. To ground me. A reminder of where I was, and where I wasn't. She was offering to help. If she didn't want to, she wouldn't have done so. I had to trust that.
I gulped, balled my fists, squeezed my eyes shut. And nodded.
Taylor let out her breath in a whoosh, but when I opened my eyes again, her face was as calm and controlled as ever. "Okay," she said, and over the sound of the spray I thought I caught the faintest change in pitch of the swarm beyond these white-tiled walls. I could only imagine what it was doing in her stead. "I'm going to get the soap then." She bent down and picked it up, lathering it in her hands.
I tensed and closed my eyes. This was fine. It was better than me doing it. I could trust Taylor. I'd never be back there with her again. Taylor had promised. I was safe.
Taylor paused, and I cracked an eye open. There was something in her eyes I couldn't quite place. "I'm going to touch you now, but I need you to do something for me first."
I nodded, my throat hot and tight.
"I need you to know that I'm never going to touch you without asking. Not like this. I need you to tell me what parts you're okay with. Can you do that?"
I let out a shaky breath, and tried to ignore the water getting in my eyes. I didn't know why I was worried this would feel different. It was still Taylor. But for a moment…
I nodded and pointed.
"Thank you, Tori," Taylor said, before she stepped behind me and started to wash my shoulders and back. She had long fingers, I realized. She kept her nails short; getting in and out of her silks would've been a pain otherwise, but her hands were more a pianists's than a gym rat's.
Except a pianist wouldn't have had calloused knuckles and palms as she brushed over my back, or small scars on the back of her hands as she passed over my ribs.
The water was a benediction as she put my hair up out of the way and let it hit my skin. I'd had stronger showers, hotter ones, more spacious ones, but none of them compared to the relief of this. A thousand drops of hot, clean rain beat down against my skin, and it felt like I could pick out every warm caress. It was liberating. Rebirth in water, as the filth and grime that Glory Girl had died in washed away. I held on, bracing my hands on the tiles and breathing in ragged gasps as the smears on my skin melted and ran down in rivulets to the drain, as the touch of violation was stripped away by the hammering of the spray.
And through it all, Taylor was with me. She was gentle in ways I didn't expect. That I didn't know to ask for. "I'm going to touch your shoulders now," she'd say as she moved up my arms. "Nod if you want me to stop," she'd say when I tensed up. "You can close your eyes if you need to," she'd say as I flinched.
It was… easier than I thought it would be to let her handle me, mostly because it didn't feel that way. It felt like she was letting me use her to wash myself, like she wasn't involved at all. I couldn't even describe how thankful I was for that. It made the experience bearable.
Safe.
It was twenty minutes all told by the time we got out of the shower, shivering in the suddenly cold air. Taylor threw me a towel before grabbing one herself, quickly and methodically drying herself before starting to put her hair up in a turban. I glanced at her before attempting the same and failing miserably.
Taylor let out a gentle laugh as the towel fell down to the floor. "Here, let me–" she froze for a moment. I didn't move. Had I done something wrong? Crossed some boundary I wasn't aware of? God it could be anything.
After a moment she continued, her motions slower this time. "Can I show you how to do that?"
Oh.
I looked at the six inches between her hands and me as she hovered, and smiled helplessly, small and fond.
Then I nodded, and she took my hands and guided me through putting my hair up to air dry. Slide, twist, turn, pull; her fingers chased mine until before I knew it my hair was up and wrapped just like hers. She considered me for a moment, nodded, and then took the turban down and stepped back.
"Alright, now you try."
I faced what remained of the mirror and concentrated on looking at my hands as I put the surprisingly delicate arrangement together, folding my hair over in layers between the towel before pinning it in the back.
"Nice job," Taylor said from behind me. "Now hopefully you should be able to do that part yourself. But if you need me for it again just knock."
She moved to leave. A flash of panic went through me. No. I tensed and threw myself into her, knocking us against the door with a muffled thunk. The breath left her chest in a rush.
"Tori?!" Taylor said, sounding alarmed if slightly muffled.
I froze. I wasn't sure what I was doing. Why I was doing this. Any of it. All that I knew was that Taylor was about to leave this room, after giving me back something I never thought I'd have after the past few hours, and she was pretending it was nothing. I disagreed with that. Violently. I had to say something.
I took a breath.
"Thank you," I said, my voice raspy. Taylor went rigid under me, her expression freezing. "I just… thank you."
She didn't say a word. But–stiffly at first, then with gentle confidence–her arms came up to hold me as I cried softly into her shoulder.
A/N:
So I think this counts as technically Monday right? I don't think anyone is going to complain.
I know I've said that a lot of chapters are special. And they were. But this is the first thing I ever wrote for SiNC. My computer dates it as December 3rd 2022, and it wasn't even originally on a word doc. I was typing it out in discord one message at a time because I saw a prompt that infected me so hard I could barely keep it back. And here we are, one hundred and forty thousand words later. It still doesn't feel real.
I could say a lot about this chapter. About intimacy and trust. How labels don't always correspond to the boundaries we expect. How love often looks so different between people from one moment to another. How vulnerability sometimes isn't in what you say, so much as what you don't. But I think this speaks well enough on its own.
In case you wanted more on any of the above, there's a small essay on The Differences Between Antares and Weaver in appealing to people's better nature you might find interesting. And while I don't normally do this, there's a song by Mindy Glendhill that fits very nicely with all of this. Anchor. Give it a listen if you feel so inclined. Take care of yourselves out there.
Her knee was digging into my side, I was pretty sure I'd been squashing her legs long enough for them to go numb, and from the awkward way she was rubbing my back and the jittering of the nearby bugs, she had no idea how to comfort a crying girl on top of her.
In this moment, here and now, it was perfect.
I slowly pulled back far enough to look at her face. Her arm slipped off the side of my back automatically, but I didn't let that distract me. Her eyes… there was a violence there. One I was familiar with. But for once it felt like the heat of a hearth at my back. Like a promise.
I closed my eyes and slowly leaned forward. Taylor didn't stop me. After what felt like minutes but must have only been seconds, my forehead gently touched hers. I felt her breath ghost over my face. Matched mine to hers. In, and out. In and out. Together.
I was here. I was safe. Amy was a problem, but one that could be solved later. Right now, only this mattered. Us in our hideaway, absent the world.
"Thank you," I whispered, barely enough air scraping past my lips to carry the sound to her.
She didn't say anything. But her hand squeezed mine–my clean hand, the hand not still curled miserably around a sticky mess that my thoughts shied away from as too much right now to bear. Her fingers curled in to tuck my palm as close to hers as possible, and tightened with gentle pressure; not enough to hurt, aiming just to reassure. She'd heard me just fine.
I took a deep breath and rolled back onto my knees, then pushed myself upright, never letting go of Taylor's hand the whole way. She understood what I was doing, and let me pull her up until we were standing again. I gave her hand one last achingly careful squeeze in return–my heart pounding like I was pinwheeling at the edge of a cliff at how fragile it was, how easily broken, the risk I was taking just for comfort–then reluctantly let it go.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly. "Do you need anything?"
Did I… I needed a lot of things. For any of this to get better. For this complicated, twisting heat in my stomach to go away. But I tried to focus on the immediate.
My head was, if not clear, then clearer. As good as it was going to get right now. Better than it was likely to be for a while, honestly. But the rest of me felt awful. My skin was sticky with sweat and stress. Much as I loved this hoodie, I'd been wearing it for a day too long and it smelled like it. My hair was dirty and stringy, the grease clumping the strands together. And my hand–
I needed a shower.
I needed a shower.
"All the showers are occupied except mine," Taylor said after I finished signing as much. "Do you want to go now?"
A soft noise escaped me, either sob or humorless laugh. 'Want' fell woefully short of what I felt right now. If I had to feel the filthy violation of her touch on me for much longer, I'd tear my own skin off. And I couldn't risk waiting even if I could bear to. Running water was rare after Leviathan–one of the sick little ironies you didn't appreciate about the aftermath of an Endbringer attack until living through one. There was no telling when the plumbing would decide to stop working for the ninth time this week.
But all of that wasn't the real reason. I was… scared. Terrified. That as soon as Taylor left, as soon as I was alone, as soon as my clothes came off, everything would come rushing back. That I'd be back there again.
Helpless.
I took a deep breath, pictured a point beneath my heart and imagined it pulling me down. Rooting me to the ground–tethering me to the earth so I wouldn't be blown away by the breeze. I was better than this. Taylor helped. But I could do this.
I looked up, and nodded.
"Okay then. You can go first, I'll be outside. If you need something, you can knock on the wall?"
I dug my nails into my palm. We had done this before. The first time she'd seen me in that bathtub. We had a system. It worked, more or less. I could do this.
I reached out and squeezed her hand once more, dizzy at my own recklessness, before making my way to the bathroom and closing the door. I took a moment, and closed my eyes. We had done this before. I knew that Taylor was aware of everything for blocks around her, nevermind two rooms away. If I made any noise of any kind, she'd hear, and come to help.
There was nothing to worry about. It was fine.
I could do this.
I reached forward and started the water. It was probably bad practice to let it warm up before showering given how little we had, but I decided to let myself have this one thing. My hair wouldn't wash itself, and the water had to be warm for me to–
I froze.
She liked my hair. She'd said it was nice when she was with me. When she'd pushed me down onto the bed and started to peel me out of my–
I yelled and slammed a fist into the mirror, shattering it and just barely avoiding going through the brick.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Two seconds in and I was already a wreck. Why? Why was I still here? Why was it so easy to spiral back into thinking about Amy at the slightest opportunity? Why couldn't I just move the fuck on?
"Tori?" Taylor's voice, through the door. "Is everything alright?"
I froze.
It would be so easy. To ignore her. To not say anything. To just wait until she stopped asking and assumed that I was fine. Like everyone else did.
"If you need something, knock on the wall three times."
I floated in my body, disconnected, as it slowly reached up and knocked three times on what remained of the mirror.
"Do you need me to come in? One knock for yes, two for no."
My fist–the clean one, the one not held in a trembling curled-up claw at my waist, held away from touching anything or anyone–floated dreamily over the fractured glass and brickwork. I watched it hover like one of Skitter's bugs, waiting for orders I couldn't hear.
One knock.
"Okay. I'm coming in."
The door opened, and there she was. Taylor, still in her silks, staring right through me with that intense green gaze. I wondered what she saw. A hero reduced to someone else's sidekick? The brainless Brute from the bank, too angry at her reflection to leave a simple mirror intact? A helpless girl, hopelessly out of her depth? Maybe all of them; all bloodstained, fractured facets of a broken glass figurine.
I didn't know which I hated more.
"You need to tell me what you want. I can help, but I need to know how."
"You."
We both froze. I was mortified. Of all the times for my hands to work, why was it now?
"No I mean–can't–need to shower." It took a few seconds for my left hand to join in, and it did so half-heartedly, slower and less expressive. I kept my eyes on Skitter's face rather than look at it. But I couldn't stop signing. The words spilled out like a broken faucet. "I know it'll look bad if I go out smelly and dirty even though we have clean water so I need to get in," someone please stop me, "so I need to do it but I can't because my stupid head keeps remembering her and every time I close my eyes it gets worse," my fingers burned, "and I haven't even gotten my clothes off I don't know how I'm supposed to do this and–"
"Okay."
I froze. Blinked.
I didn't understand.
"Do you need to take a shower?"
Slowly, I nodded; the barest dip of my chin.
"Can you do it on your own?"
I shook my head mutely, eyes not leaving hers.
"Do you want… help?"
I… surely it couldn't be that easy. Would she even–she'd only unmasked to me earlier today! Even if it felt like years ago. She couldn't possibly be implying what I thought she was.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, and slowly let it out through my nose.
If this was any other day. Any other time. Any other person asking this, I'd say no. Hell no. But my skin still felt slimy and raw. My hair lay plastered to my scalp. I couldn't even look at my left hand. If I spent any longer like this, I'd flay myself just to get it to stop. With my strength and the panic clawing at the insides of my ribcage, it wasn't an idle threat.
I needed to shower. It wasn't an option. And… after what I'd just been through, I didn't have it in me to go through a flashback again. Couldn't. Maybe that was weakness, but right now I didn't care.
I took another breath, and nodded.
"Would you feel comfortable with me helping?"
I looked at her. Eyes serious, locked on my face like she could find the solution to all our problems if she just looked hard enough. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she broke down the problem in front of her. Wide mouth pinched, pulling down at the corners as she took in the state of me.
I nodded again. Her. It had to be her.
"Are you sure? I'll need to take my clothes off too."
I closed my eyes, and god help me, I nodded.
Taylor closed the bathroom door. Nothing changed, but the room was suddenly hotter. The walls pressed in. The steam coming off the shower was stifling.
"Alright," said Taylor. "How do you want to do this?"
I swallowed, my throat dry. Taylor had this way of just, cutting through all the nonsense to get at the heart of wherever she needed to go. It was intimidating, but right now I was thankful for it. Better this than me making a fool of myself by begging.
I pointed at her.
"I'll go first then."
And with that, Taylor started to take off the rest of her costume. First came her bracers and chest plates – an involved process, with lots of straps and buckles holding the whole ensemble together. I'd seen her costume weather blows that would put almost anyone else without a Brute factor on the ground, but I'd never thought about the practicalities of how it worked. It made for a good distraction from actually looking at Taylor as she stripped off her armor and defenses.
Next came the silk body glove itself. She'd coached me through taking this off before, when changing the dressing on her shoulder. The material was thin, but deceptively strong. I'd never tested it myself, but I'd done some research after the Flechette incident. My phone had enough reception for that much in the downtime between crises. Spider silk's strength to weight ratio was frighteningly high. It made up her whole costume; lightweight and cut resistant. I looked away as she peeled the last of it off, the material making a faint rustling noise as it pooled on the floor.
And then it was over, and she stood in her underwear, bare in front of me while I was fully clothed. It barely felt real. Even Skitter's poker face couldn't mask her feelings completely. Her hair fell forward over half her face, not-quite-hiding a faint colouration of her cheeks. Her arms had half come up to hide her, and I could see her tensing her stomach out of the corner of my eye.
But her embarrassment was nowhere in her voice, and she didn't hold herself defensively or turn away.
"Okay," she said flatly. "Your turn now."
I tensed immediately, my hand reaching for the zipper on my hoodie. My fingers gripped the metal tab and… they wouldn't move. They were stuck. I was stuck.
My teeth clenched. Come on, Tori. It was just a stupid zipper. She'd seen me in worse before. This was no time to be shy. I'd asked for this.
Taylor reached for me. I stepped back instinctively, my back bumping into the sink, and she paused. We looked at each other for a long moment.
"I won't look. But she isn't here. She won't touch you. Knock three times when you're ready."
And with that, she turned around and faced the door. I let out a long breath, emotionally exhausted already, and pulled the zipper down. It was surprisingly easy to zone out without her looking at me. I tried to treat it like a task I was doing, divorce myself from context. I knew how to take off my clothes. I could do that.
It was harder to take them off one-handed. But my left hand stayed clenched. Signing had used up its nerve. It wouldn't uncurl for this.
Still, eventually I found myself knocking on the wall three times. Without so much as a glance Taylor turned around, walked past me, and got into the shower. She'd tied her hair back out of her face while I'd been undressing, I realized. After so long seeing her hair loose, the low ponytail looked strange. She'd taken her underwear off too, and her bandages, matching my state. I kept my eyes on her face, and swallowed.
"The water is fine, you can come in when you want."
I took a deep breath and stepped into the shower with her, my body as taut as a bowstring. There was something in the air that I couldn't name, but Taylor seemed determined to bulldoze past it with her trademark stubbornness.
"Here," she said, and reached for my hand.
My left hand.
My soiled hand.
I hesitated. She waited, fingers spread invitingly beside my wrist. The spray washed over her, soaking her hair, running down her skin. The scar on her shoulder still looked angry and red, if not quite as bad as when I'd changed it.
I'd probably need to help change it again, I thought numbly. At least this counted as cleaning it. Even if it must be stinging like mad.
Slowly, reluctantly, as if someone else was moving it, my hand drifted into hers. Her fingers circled my wrist the way her centipede had, and squeezed reassuringly.
"It's okay," she said.
And guided my hand into the spray.
It tore a wrenching sob out of me. But only one. I breathed through it, eyes stinging, breathing in and out in slow, steady, shaky gasps, and she kept one hand on my shoulder and the other loose and gentle around my wrist until I was through.
If this was what losing a pet felt like, a distant corner of my mind observed, I never wanted another.
"Do you want to wash your hair?"
I nodded. That was the most important thing now that my hand was clean. I couldn't stand the sticky, greasy strands one minute longer. Not for the first time in my life, I considered a haircut. Maybe later. Maybe as soon as I got my hands on some scissors. For now, though…
"Do you want to wash it yourself, or would you rather I do it?"
I bit my lip. Washing my hair was… private. Intimate (as if this isn't intimate already, a part of me laughed hysterically). But I knew what would happen if I closed my eyes. Like I had to when washing it out. I knew what would be waiting for me. There was no other choice.
I pointed at her. Taylor grabbed the shampoo in the corner, squeezing some of it out in her hands and started lathering it up. It was a nice smell. Lilac and lavender. Familiar and soothing.
She gestured for me to turn around. I did, tensing as her hands drew nearer. It was okay, I told myself over and over. I was safe. She was safe. I'd asked for this. If I wanted her to stop, she would.
She would.
My fingers dug into my palms hard enough to leave marks. It helped.
Finally, her fingers sank into my hair. I froze for a moment, before relaxing. Taylor's hands were… both softer and harder than I imagined.
Skitter's movements were always sharp and precise, almost machine-like (or insect like, I thought, barely holding in a snort). Every step she made felt premeditated and considered.
This was not that. Taylor's hands were gentle as they combed through my hair, spreading the suds of the shampoo through my roots. The motions felt practiced and sure, even as she treated my long hair with more reverence than I'd expected. Certainly more than I ever had.
As if reading my thoughts, Taylor started talking, "Your hair is so long, I have to be careful while washing it, so it might take a bit longer than you're used to."
I flinched. My breath caught in my throat. I knew Taylor wasn't Amy, that she'd never be her, but she'd said that when she'd had me in the bedroom, when she'd sunk her fingers into my hair and pulled, when she'd made it grow out of my arms, my legs, my toes, my–
Taylor's hands paused in my hair. "Breathe," she said evenly, "slow and deep."
I choked out a gasp, coughing as one of her hands slid down and pressed firmly into my back. My breath caught and I hacked up what felt like some small bit of breakfast that was stuck in my throat from earlier, coughing it down to where the swirling water around our feet caught it and sent it spinning down the drain.
There went my dignity, I thought. Whatever was left of it, anyway.
Once I'd collected myself, Taylor resumed combing through my hair as if nothing happened.
"When I was a kid, I wanted my hair to look just like my… mom's."
She paused. I didn't dare reply, or even move. Any response might make her decide to stop sharing. Taylor almost never talked about herself, and suddenly I wanted to know more.
"I grew it out for years before I was satisfied," she said wistfully. "So much of it came out in the wash it felt like it would never grow."
Her hands caught on a particularly nasty knot and I groaned at the tug on my scalp. She paused, then continued more gently, coaxing the twist in and around itself until it started to unravel.
Taylor hummed absently as she continued to tease the mat out. "Even… after, I still kept it. Stupid of me, really. Anyone could've seen that it didn't cover for everything else," she snorted.
I wondered at that. At what she meant. But she continued before I found the words to ask.
"I wanted to look like her so badly, I designed my whole costume around it. Left the hair out and everything. Idiotic. Lung almost burned it all off the first night I was out and I would've deserved it. I mean, what kind of moron–"
I winced as her hands caught on another snarl of hair. She paused again, murmuring a 'sorry' under her breath I barely caught before she kept talking.
"I guess I just wasn't willing to give up that part of myself, in the end," she said quietly.
I reached back and caught her hand, and kept hold of it as I turned around. She was warm against my palm. Pressed close inside each other's space in the cramped shower stall, almost nose-to-nose, I ignored the hand still in my hair and looked at Taylor; really looked for the first time since this strange companionship had started.
I looked at her angled cheekbones and pursed lips, so afraid that I'd judge her for what she'd done to get here. Her eyebrows, angry and sure as she thought about her younger self. Her nose, crinkled with disgust.
I reached up with my hand and cupped her cheek. I looked into her eyes and tried to convey everything I couldn't say. How sorry I was that her life had turned her into this. How I thought her hair was pretty. How maybe her younger self was naïve for going out like that, but she was still brave. How I wished I could find it in myself to say any of what I felt out loud.
I couldn't tell how much she understood. But she smiled and squeezed my hand against her face. Perhaps that was enough.
She continued washing my hair after I turned back around, gently brushing the shampoo out. She kept up a constant stream of quiet conversation, telling me all about the inane things people were doing in her territory. I didn't know why she did it, but I was so, so grateful she did. Normally when I washed my hair I had to close my eyes. And right now I couldn't, because… But with Taylor talking, my brain couldn't convince me that anyone else was in the bathroom with us. I could be okay with that. I could face the dark behind my eyelids, and not drown in the horror that lurked there.
"… Charlotte's downstairs, sorting out an argument. Mikal and Josiah, I think. They used to be neighbors, did you know that? Fought a lot. They get along better now, since they wound up here…"
"… someone's playing a guitar a block west of us. They've drawn a crowd. A couple of people are dancing. The rest are clapping along. One's singing, from the way they're all turned his way…"
"… a bit more to the right… yes, that way. A couple of blocks out that way, someone's frying something for their kids. Bacon, maybe. Or hamburgers. Whatever it is, the kids are really excited; they're jumping up and down as they wait…"
"… the twins are playing with Tia downstairs. Drawing on one of the armchairs. I don't know why they didn't use a couch; Akiko has Tia half in her lap and Naoki's squashed up against her shoulder…"
"… ah. Trouble in the guitar crowd. Someone just tried to pickpocket a… woman? Or a man with a high ponytail." A pause. "I stung him on the wrist and she caught on. They'll deal with him..."
"… Aiden's reading in his room. He hovered outside for a while before leaving. Wanted to make sure you were okay…"
When she finished I stepped back out of the water instinctively, and bumped into her. The shock of skin contact all along my back made me yelp and stumble forward again, then let out a nervous giggle before slapping a hand to my mouth. Fuck, did I really sound like that? Like a goddamn schoolgirl. And yet I couldn't have a verbal conversation to save my life. A certified basket case.
I turned around, ready to defend myself, only to see the shape of gentle amusement curling her mouth at the edges. I felt my cheeks heat. Goddammit. I couldn't be mad when she looked at me like that.
"Tell no one."
"Scout's honor," she said before giving me a salute–a salute? Really?
I tried to glare at her, lips twitching, before losing the battle and breaking into helpless laughter. God, if only the Protectorate could see the dreaded Skitter now, giving me an honest to god boy-scout salute. I drew myself up to tell Taylor, only to peter off at the look on her face. Her lips were pursed, and she had that particular expression of needing to say something unpleasant but not knowing how to start.
After a moment, she decided to just bull through as usual. "We need to wash your body now," she stated bluntly. "Do you need help?"
I paled. I hadn't thought that far ahead. Into this… whatever this was. Now that my hair was taken care of, the clammy stickiness of my skin stood out even more, itching furiously, feeling like sweaty hands plastered over every inch of my body. Could I do this? Should I do this? Could I trust Taylor to do this for me?
I took a deep, steadying breath. Maybe I could do this much on my own. But… I didn't want to. Taylor was gentle with my hair. Tender. I needed that right now. To ground me. A reminder of where I was, and where I wasn't. She was offering to help. If she didn't want to, she wouldn't have done so. I had to trust that.
I gulped, balled my fists, squeezed my eyes shut. And nodded.
Taylor let out her breath in a whoosh, but when I opened my eyes again, her face was as calm and controlled as ever. "Okay," she said, and over the sound of the spray I thought I caught the faintest change in pitch of the swarm beyond these white-tiled walls. I could only imagine what it was doing in her stead. "I'm going to get the soap then." She bent down and picked it up, lathering it in her hands.
I tensed and closed my eyes. This was fine. It was better than me doing it. I could trust Taylor. I'd never be back there with her again. Taylor had promised. I was safe.
Taylor paused, and I cracked an eye open. There was something in her eyes I couldn't quite place. "I'm going to touch you now, but I need you to do something for me first."
I nodded, my throat hot and tight.
"I need you to know that I'm never going to touch you without asking. Not like this. I need you to tell me what parts you're okay with. Can you do that?"
I let out a shaky breath, and tried to ignore the water getting in my eyes. I didn't know why I was worried this would feel different. It was still Taylor. But for a moment…
I nodded and pointed.
"Thank you, Tori," Taylor said, before she stepped behind me and started to wash my shoulders and back. She had long fingers, I realized. She kept her nails short; getting in and out of her silks would've been a pain otherwise, but her hands were more a pianists's than a gym rat's.
Except a pianist wouldn't have had calloused knuckles and palms as she brushed over my back, or small scars on the back of her hands as she passed over my ribs.
The water was a benediction as she put my hair up out of the way and let it hit my skin. I'd had stronger showers, hotter ones, more spacious ones, but none of them compared to the relief of this. A thousand drops of hot, clean rain beat down against my skin, and it felt like I could pick out every warm caress. It was liberating. Rebirth in water, as the filth and grime that Glory Girl had died in washed away. I held on, bracing my hands on the tiles and breathing in ragged gasps as the smears on my skin melted and ran down in rivulets to the drain, as the touch of violation was stripped away by the hammering of the spray.
And through it all, Taylor was with me. She was gentle in ways I didn't expect. That I didn't know to ask for. "I'm going to touch your shoulders now," she'd say as she moved up my arms. "Nod if you want me to stop," she'd say when I tensed up. "You can close your eyes if you need to," she'd say as I flinched.
It was… easier than I thought it would be to let her handle me, mostly because it didn't feel that way. It felt like she was letting me use her to wash myself, like she wasn't involved at all. I couldn't even describe how thankful I was for that. It made the experience bearable.
Safe.
It was twenty minutes all told by the time we got out of the shower, shivering in the suddenly cold air. Taylor threw me a towel before grabbing one herself, quickly and methodically drying herself before starting to put her hair up in a turban. I glanced at her before attempting the same and failing miserably.
Taylor let out a gentle laugh as the towel fell down to the floor. "Here, let me–" she froze for a moment. I didn't move. Had I done something wrong? Crossed some boundary I wasn't aware of? God it could be anything.
After a moment she continued, her motions slower this time. "Can I show you how to do that?"
Oh.
I looked at the six inches between her hands and me as she hovered, and smiled helplessly, small and fond.
Then I nodded, and she took my hands and guided me through putting my hair up to air dry. Slide, twist, turn, pull; her fingers chased mine until before I knew it my hair was up and wrapped just like hers. She considered me for a moment, nodded, and then took the turban down and stepped back.
"Alright, now you try."
I faced what remained of the mirror and concentrated on looking at my hands as I put the surprisingly delicate arrangement together, folding my hair over in layers between the towel before pinning it in the back.
"Nice job," Taylor said from behind me. "Now hopefully you should be able to do that part yourself. But if you need me for it again just knock."
She moved to leave. A flash of panic went through me. No. I tensed and threw myself into her, knocking us against the door with a muffled thunk. The breath left her chest in a rush.
"Tori?!" Taylor said, sounding alarmed if slightly muffled.
I froze. I wasn't sure what I was doing. Why I was doing this. Any of it. All that I knew was that Taylor was about to leave this room, after giving me back something I never thought I'd have after the past few hours, and she was pretending it was nothing. I disagreed with that. Violently. I had to say something.
I took a breath.
"Thank you," I said, my voice raspy. Taylor went rigid under me, her expression freezing. "I just… thank you."
She didn't say a word. But–stiffly at first, then with gentle confidence–her arms came up to hold me as I cried softly into her shoulder.
A/N:
So I think this counts as technically Monday right? I don't think anyone is going to complain.
I know I've said that a lot of chapters are special. And they were. But this is the first thing I ever wrote for SiNC. My computer dates it as December 3rd 2022, and it wasn't even originally on a word doc. I was typing it out in discord one message at a time because I saw a prompt that infected me so hard I could barely keep it back. And here we are, one hundred and forty thousand words later. It still doesn't feel real.
I could say a lot about this chapter. About intimacy and trust. How labels don't always correspond to the boundaries we expect. How love often looks so different between people from one moment to another. How vulnerability sometimes isn't in what you say, so much as what you don't. But I think this speaks well enough on its own.
In case you wanted more on any of the above, there's a small essay on The Differences Between Antares and Weaver in appealing to people's better nature you might find interesting. And while I don't normally do this, there's a song by Mindy Glendhill that fits very nicely with all of this. Anchor. Give it a listen if you feel so inclined. Take care of yourselves out there.
- Pronouns
- Male
good lord
that was intense. And intimate. It's not a tear jerker or romantic scene as well.
It's beautiful.
that was intense. And intimate. It's not a tear jerker or romantic scene as well.
It's beautiful.
Geas
Meat Thing
This. A thousand times this. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.
Misery
More by casualCarnation, I'm in tears
