deercountry | notice all the ways i've changed (closed)

She's had periods of time in her life when she didn't have nightmares with any frequency. Abby thinks of it as a rollercoaster track. Sometimes she's on the up, and it's good, it's really good, but eventually she hits the top of the arc and she has to come down the other side.

River didn't fucking help.

The one tonight is just weird. It starts in the aquarium and she spends what feels like hours in there looking for Owen with anxiety clawing up the back of her throat. His boat in the harbor is there, cabin lights on, and Abby approaches it but it's not him in there. It's somebody else.

And the dream progresses like that for a bit–

Turns to something weighty and cold on her chest, pushing her down. It stinks. She shoves at it, and the dead body rolls off of her. The head lolls slowly to the side; ants cascade out of the hole warping one eye into ruin, and she screams at the sight of Manny's blank eyed expression. His mouth is open as he begins to scream with her–

At this point, three months in, Clarisse can't say she's used to her blood powers. They don't feel intuitive to her the way her powers from Ares do, and she's worried they never will, that for the rest of her time here she'll feel like she's wielding a weapon she doesn't know how to use. But there are things she's beginning to make her peace with, like the sharp stabs of other people's dread and panic that hit her in the middle of the night and make her jolt out of sleep.

Usually it's Abby. Abby has more fucked up nightmares than any mortal Clarisse has ever known. She hasn't witnessed any of them firsthand, which she's thankful for, but the horrible feelings they inspire in her friend have her waking up with her fingers clutching the blanket tight enough to hurt, her jaw clenched shut to keep back a scream.

Last month she'd lain awake with her head pounding until the feelings had subsided on their own. Now she climbs out of bed, grabs her bag off the side table, and makes her way down the cold hallway and down the stairs. She enters Abby's room, shivering, and lays a hand on her arm. Abby's skin is hectically hot, a sharp contrast to the cold air seeping in through the old house.

"Hey." It's hushed. "It's me."

The sudden touch on her arm makes Abby lash out in response as she jolts out of sleep. A quick, blind strike: she hits Clarisse hard in the hip with a balled up fist, all strength and zero technique. She cracks her knuckles right on the bone. The zing of pain through her hand wakes her all the way up with a grunt.

It's just Clarisse. Only her room, and the two of them in it. Abby's got her sheets twisted up around her legs, and cold sweat on the back of her neck. She has to kick a bit to get herself free.

"Ouch," she grumbles, grouchy and upset in the aftermath of her nightmare. She hunches up around her sore hand to hide the tears that well up and blur her vision. How down her brain come up with this shit? Could be something in Trench that spurs it on. Could be something in her blood.

A soft sniff. She runs her tongue along her teeth.

"You're so bony." Read: sorry.

"Ow, fuck!"

Okay, maybe she should have expected that. Clarisse takes a stumbling step backward (too late, already punched) and rubs at her hip, wincing as Abby gets herself untangled and sits up. Her hip aches and she knows there'll be a bruise there tomorrow morning, but she's consoling herself with the knowledge that there are way worse places to be punched at 2 AM.

Besides, they're lucky it was Clarisse who came down here to wake her up instead of, like... Lev. Abby might have punched his head right off his shoulders and into the backyard. The thought is just cartoonishly mean and chaotic enough to make Clarisse have to stifle a laugh.

"I'm not bony, dumbass, you just have terrible aim," she says, and climbs onto the bed, nudging Abby with her shoulder as she goes. "Shove over, I'm freezing."

"Yeah? Well you're bad at dodging," she counters, but she's feeling properly apologetic now. Rude of Abby to hit... albeit stupid of Clarisse to try and touch her, that was really the last thing she should have done. She knows that now, though. Oops.

She scoots on the mattress, and pulls the comforter up over Clarisse's legs once she's in. It is a gesture of peace.

"... You are freezing." She's dropping her head down on Clarisse's shoulder anyway. Get comfortable, you are now her pillow.

It's warm under the blanket, and Clarisse settles in, leaving her bag at the foot of the bed. "Stupid house gets so cold at night now," she mutters, as Abby uses her as a pillow. "I miss Phoenix."

She misses the mountains. And... cacti. And no rain. And the Suns. She hadn't thought she'd miss it so much, but she also hadn't thought she'd end up in a perpetually damp place that always smells like mushrooms, fish, and blood, either. So whatever.

"Seemed like you were having some fucked up dream," she says with a sigh. "I never know what to do. Like, do I come wake you up, or let it finish on its own?" Isn't there some rule about not waking people who are having a nightmare? No, Clarisse, that's sleepwalkers.

Yeah, the presence of the bag makes her smile slightly as Clarisse gets cozy next to her. It's like she's here for a sleepover. Abby allows herself to briefly entertain the notion of them being back in Deerington in the time before they shared a house, when they would take it in turns to show up at each other's and stay a night. Yeah. She misses those times, if only because none of this blood shit was going on in the background. Abby can't believe she was ever excited about having powers of her own.

"Really fucked up."

She mutters it, and promptly turns onto her side, curling into Clarisse with a huff of breath. Who cares if she seems needy. Clarisse doesn't give a shit, "Waking me up is good, I'd rather you did. But– yell at me. Or throw something from the doorway."

A beat. "Sorry I punched you. You good?"

"Okay," Clarisse agrees, thinking at the same time that there's no way she's ever going to wake Abby up by yelling or throwing something at her. It seems too fucked up to do that to someone who's having a nightmare, even if the alternative is getting punched.

She rubs at the sore spot on her hip. "I've been hit worse. Besides, you were, like... asleep." So it's fine, Abby, really. She waits a second, then says, "We can talk about it if you want." The nightmares. Or whatever. "But we don't have to if you don't."

Just get your girlfriend to do an ice-pack situation with her hands later, that'll do ya.

Abby grunts and knuckles over her face, ironing her skin with the palms of her hands. Sighs, long-sufferingly. "Not much to talk about." It's not that her pains her to say it to Clarisse, she's past that. It was disgusting, that's all. It disturbed her. "Some... fucked up thing, about Manny."

She wants to think about other things. She wants to talk to Clarisse about her friends. It's a new feeling, and Abby lets it sit on her breastbone for a moment before she acts on it.

"I told you he was my roommate, right? We shared for years. Owen was jealous. I said if we shared I'd probably end up strangling him in his sleep over something." Thought makes her snort even now. Her and Owen were always better while Abby could put distance between them when she liked. Shitty, but true.

Wow that's kind of a sore subject right now, Abby! Rude!!!

"Yeah, at the stadium." Manny was the only person from home Abby'd mentioned, back in Deerington, and it had happened totally organically, without any prompting, which is why Clarisse remembers it so well. Manny who could make beer out of anything and who used Spanish to pick up women.

"You were probably right," she says, "since living with someone always makes them like a hundred times more annoying." She and Chris had used to pay lip service to how awesome it would be if they could share a cabin instead of having to room with their respective siblings, but secretly it had been nice, at least on her part, to have that boundary.

"Exactly." See?? Everybody else got it but him... Men...

It's weird, but it feels really good to just say something like that to her, off the cuff. It's something she would have said to anybody else back home, something she did say to Manny frequently. He had to listen to the bulk of her complaining, and he was as good at getting her to snap out of it as he was at being very firmly on her side.

It fills Abby with instant, overwhelming affection for Clarisse. From her head to her toes.

So, naturally, she takes the opportunity to both bag on her like old times, and also find out if she's ticklish, both hands digging into her midriff. "Definitely made you a hundred times more annoying-"

Tickling is not and has never been on Clarisse's radar. Ever. Abby digging her fingers into her stomach like that is so unexpected, catches her so totally off guard, that she lets out an extremely undignified little shriek and writhes away in the opposite direction so quickly that she nearly falls out of the bed.

So that's embarrassing.

"What the hell, Abby!" But she's laughing, anyway, and she rolls back toward Abby and tries to pin her hands down. "Some thanks I get for waking you up."

Oh, the Ares cabin didn't tickle? They didn't get the upper hand by cheating like this, and catching people wildly off guard?

She sniggers, and tries to keep going, except Clarisse is just about the only person who could catch her hands and really hold them down. It's so weird, it kinda surprises her every time even though she knows that Clarisse is really fucking strong. She yanks against it a little bit, testing the hold, wriggling.

"You're cheating, asshole-"

Most of the Ares cabin is too dumb to cheat like that. Besides, they're usually wearing Greek battle armor. Makes tickling impractical.

"It's not cheating, mortal girl," Clarisse says with a smirk, keeping Abby's hands pinned to the bed. "It's winning." A (wink wink) god-given advantage. But Clarisse honestly hasn't been thinking too much about her demigod powers since she's been in Trench. She's been too caught up in dealing with the angst of the new ones caused by her blood type. It's nice to know she still has it, that connection to her life before all this. She thinks she might go crazy without it.

Without warning, she pulls one of Abby's hands up and makes her smack herself in the face. "Hey, stop hitting yourself."

"It's definitely cheating," Smack, "Oh you little–"

She's not actually mad, she's fighting back a belly laugh just to give Clarisse the most terrifying frown she can muster, struggling to get out of the hold. Fight her fairly!!

"It would be cheating," Clarisse counters, smuggest grin ever on her face, "if I let you beat me up just to satisfy your ego. It would just be cheating in your favor. Suck it up."

Just to prove her own point, she smacks Abby's face a few more times (lightly. ish.) before releasing her, and laughs. Kind of quiet, almost like she's surprised she still can. That it's okay to goof around and have fun, even here.

"I don't want to beat you up, I just want it to be fair!" Equally paced, so they both get to hit each other?? C'mon...

She makes a face when Clarisse baps her with her own palm a couple more times, choking out an, "C, I'm serious!" Even though she isn't. Even though this is probably the most fun she's had since she fucking got to Trench, and it feels like a thousand awful knots have loosened in her chest. It feels like it normally does when she's hanging out with Clarisse.

She bucks Clarisse off the moment she's released anyway, but the laughter has finally bubbled up and she's shaking with it, her head tipping back.

notice all the ways i've changed (closed)

for clarisse (cw description of a dead body)

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that icon... i've been looking at it for five hours now

that was the first time i ever used it

#blessed...

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