Hello and welcome! Before we jump into this, please read the warnings and anticipate that this is a femcr fic, which means the characters, all from MCR, have been turned into women. Please click away if that's not your thing and please refrain from commenting anything negative about it if that's the case. But, if you'd like to stick around and read this, then I hope you enjoy this gigantic fic that I somehow managed to write in four months. Let's begin!
——
"The fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress. Until I wrap myself inside your arms I cannot rest."
— Howl, Florence + the Machine.
Frankie has these repetitive dreams that begin feeling like a deranged prophecy each time she awakens with a jagged gasp and a cold sweat coating her body.
It isn't a recurring specific element, but rather a barrage of gore and bloody images she's unable to turn away from. Each nightmare is a chilling onslaught of things that are derived from the most sickening horror movies known to man; perhaps some that are so outlawed it's nearly impossible to locate a copy. But Frankie can only assume this is an accurate comparison because her love for horror can only stomach so many horrifyingly realistic depictions of inhumane acts. There's a level she can't surpass. Otherwise, she wouldn't know what to compare it to and the thought of such isolating uniqueness is something she isn't prepared to tackle.
Frankie cracks her eyes open in the glare of the early morning with sweat trickling down her temple and a broken scream stuck in her throat. She gulps it down as hard as she can with a cotton-dry mouth and hacks out a truly wretched cough from the dryness webbed in her throat. Frankie grips the tangled covers and waits for the lingering fear to tide over. She still feels hands curled around her head in an iron grip and pinning her eyelids open to force her to take in the formation of carnage. She fights off the imprints of beyond disturbing images and tries to ground herself by staring down the flyers and posters haphazardly pinned to her walls, burying the plain white she couldn't bother to paint when she first moved in two years ago. It helps in increments and she goes through her routine of reminding herself she's safe.
Another part of her weekly routine causes her to fully awaken with a groan. Exhausted, Frankie slides out of bed, caring little about the rumpled state of her flannel pajamas, and strips her bed of the sheets. She doesn't have to wash the covers every day, but she brings herself to stuff the washer to its maximum capacity every Sunday morning to wash away the traces of desperate fear and shed sweat trickling off her as she thrashes in her sleep. The smell isn't so fresh after a week's worth of slipping under the blankets and uselessly praying she won't endure another cycle of disturbing dreams.
Frankie tiredly pours liquid detergent into the washing machine after dumping her covers inside the hollow barrel. The house is quiet in the wake of another weekend's sunny morning laced in golden sun rays indicating Frankie shouldn't be awake yet after unwillingly succumbing to sleep at three in the morning, but there's no doubt in her mind that she won't be returning to bed despite the hour. No way in hell.
Grabbing a soft quilt from the mound of extra blankets her mother hoards in a closet upstairs, Frankie wraps herself in it and trudges back down to the basement as quietly as she can, but she doesn't think she can dodge her mother's exceptionally sharp hearing for long. The entire spacious basement was converted into a small apartment of sorts for Frankie to inhabit until she's ready to move out entirely. Although she was promised her privacy, she knows her mom still listens out for her and magically emerges each time Frankie resurfaces to rummage around for some necessities she doesn't have downstairs.
Frankie curls into a quilt burrito on her bare mattress and rests her head on a mountain of pillows, sighing deeply and looking around. She doesn't feel much accomplishment having her own space when she knows how close she was to taking off before it all crumbled at her feet. Frankie had been hustling holding down two jobs while attending community college to start on a transfer degree in journalism, a nearly impossible feat, but somehow she managed to find balance in all of the chaos and came out shimmering like a polished star each time she submerged from the jungle with impressive test scores and extra tips from her shifts she worked hard to earn.
But then the nightmares began devouring her sleep and fogged over her mind until everything became so difficult that she had no choice but to let go. Freshly dropped out of college after failing three courses and getting fired from her jobs due to dragging on her feet with exhaustion, Frankie resides in her makeshift basement apartment hoping that this phase in her life will surpass her so she can continue on the path she originally worked towards. Frankie can't help but feel like she's worth little now that all of her potential has been kissed goodbye, but she supposes it's a fleeting thing– better than accepting she'll never return to herself even if she's less than halfway convinced.
Frankie's mom insists on paying for her therapy, but it's pricey, so she's limited to two visits a month. Recently, they had some bullshit breakthrough about her dreams being a manifestation of stress and the pressure of needing to stay at the top. Frankie thinks it's only a matter of people needing to have a logical and scientific explanation for everything, but some things just are, not even science or psychology have the words for some events. Her trial with medication for other things clouding her brain has failed and now she's back at square one.
Frankie startles when her phone starts vibrating on her nightstand. The sound is awful as it pulses through the wood, so she grabs it swiftly and answers it without even thinking about checking the caller I.D. She mutters a half-hearted greeting that's grainy with the remnants of sleep. She clears her throat away from the phone and prays no one hears it.
"You're actually awake," Rayna, Frankie's best friend, sounds surprised on the other end, "I thought I was playing God trying to call you at this hour."
"I shouldn't be awake, but I am." Frankie sighs heavily and flips over in her cocoon of blankets. "I wanna know why you're awake right now. Isn't it your day off? A normal person would spend that time sleeping until noon."
"You know I can't do that, I get the headache of all headaches if I oversleep. I'm actually taking Lucy out for a walk right now."
"Put her on the phone, let me say hello." Frankie pleads. She hears rustling movements until the familiar grunts of her favorite overweight pug fill her with joy that replaces some of the remaining dread. She cooes at Rayna's dog until she hears Lucy snuffling against the mic, trying to reach for Frankie through the device.
Rayna guides the phone back to herself. "She misses you sneaking her food scraps when she's not supposed to be eating them."
"I'll come around soon, I've just. Been feeling weird." Frank's gleeful smile begins to fade automatically, so she switches the subject before Rayna's given the chance to ask about her wellbeing or her nightmares. "I know you didn't call me so Lucy can catch up with her favorite person."
"Right!" Rayna exclaims, far too chipper for someone up and wide awake so early in the morning. "I wanted to let you know that Rock N' Records is hiring right now."
Frank dislodges herself from the swaddle of blankets, kicking free and sitting upright on the bed. "Seriously?"
"I think they posted about it this morning, actually. They're looking for someone to work the register. You might like this, since you'd rather die than work at a fast food place."
Frankie whines at the accusation. "It's not like that, I just don't want to relive my nightmarish experience at the place that shall not be named."
"Good enough reason, I guess. Anyway, I texted you the link. It says employees get discounts on any record of their choosing."
"Fuck, thank you," Frankie breathes, "I'll repay you somehow. Uh, you liked that pumpkin bread I made that one Thanksgiving, right?"
"Well yeah, but you really don't have to—"
"I'll make a loaf when I get the job. I'm saying 'when' to manifest it by the way. Gotta go, I'm applying right now." Frankie swiftly hangs up before Rayna can protest any further. Frankie cradles her phone in her mildly trembling hands to see where the link carries her, typing in information and scrambling around the room as she tries to fill out the application as quickly as possible without making many mistakes.
Frankie has her troubles, but she's vowed the record store is the only place that could possibly bring her back to her feet if they ever offered job openings. This opportunity is precious as it is rare and she'll be damned if she misses out on it without trying out, at the very least.
When the application is sent, her resume attached in a neat file, Frankie splays out on her mattress and shuts her eyes for a long moment. Realistically, Frankie isn't prepared to start again, but opportunities don't come knocking at her door so easily everyday. She supposes a shove in the right direction might help her heal, but whatever little doubt that survives in her head grants her a sinister promise that she needs to brace for the worst outcome. Frank curls into a ball on her mattress and fights off the urge to fall back asleep until her mother is knocking on her bedroom door asking if she wants a veggie omelet.
—
The day Frankie receives an email from Rock 'N Records requesting to see her in person for an interview, Frankie springs off the couch and her thumbs fly across the screen letting the manager know she's available that day. She tears apart her closet in search of semi-formal clothing and can only come up with a somewhat sophisticated gray sweater and a pair of dark pants without any tears or patterns. She kicks on a pair of sneakers that aren't too rough around the heels or the toes, rides off to her interview, and absolutely conquers it. It's no question whether or not she got the job, it's apparent in the boss's beam as they run over her obligatory answers to questions and her enthusiasm. Perhaps Frankie kisses ass just a tad, but who cares, it lands her the job.
On the first day, Frankie enters the store and punches in her time card. She's relieved the store doesn't call for sweaty uniforms forcibly tucked into her waistband, Frank recalls the discomfort of unbreathable fabric that kept scrunching out of place with every rushed movement she made. She's allotted to wear her normal apparel, if not dressed down a bit, and nothing too casual.
Frankie introduces herself to the few coworkers she'll be working alongside. Thankfully, they don't view her with a look of distaste or awkwardness she expects as a newcomer, partially because they recognize her from her frequent visitations to the store, and they're quite kind showing her the ropes and introducing her to the flow of the workspace. Frankie's quick to master the register from memory and greets customers warmly, as required, not even taking offense when an older man comes in and eyeballs her piercings in a nose-in-the-air manner. On her lunch break, she calls Rayna briefly to enthuse about her easy adjustment and spends the rest of the time discussing music with Jamia, the girl who's mostly buried in the backroom opening boxes and breaking them down.
By the end of the evening on the cusp of the end of her shift, all has been relatively still for a moment save for restocking and arranging their products back in order. The entry bell trills with a silvery sound and announces the arrival of two girls walking in each other's shadows. They may as well be shadows themselves dressed in black, one of them donning a mop of dark hair she shoves into her face as she angles her head down. The other looks around with intrigue, her eyes settling on a specific row of records.
Frank doesn't think much of them at first. She continues leafing through a box of returned items hidden behind the counter in mild interest, also because she happens to be the nosiest motherfucker. Frank doesn't look up again until she senses someone standing behind her.
Frankie turns and her tongue ties into a knot swelling in her mouth. She swallows hard looking into the porcelain doll face of the girl with black hair who entered a moment ago. She looks afraid of social interaction, possibly dying of anxiety approaching someone she doesn't know. Frankie can't help the way her heart hops into an irregular pattern as she studies possibly the prettiest face that's ever existed. When their eyes meet, something strange tingles between them in a current. Frankie can't place her finger on it, but it's possible that's due to the scattering of her thoughts as her surroundings fall away from her in a blur and all she can see is a pair of mossy hazel eyes. It's a television moment that leaves her speechless and incapable of doing anything but staring in a daze.
"Excuse me," The girl asks in a timid voice, "I was wondering if you guys have, um. 'Bloodflowers'. You know, by The Cure? I wanted to ask just in case I'm setting myself up for disappointment."
Frankie's tongue-tied state doesn't make her very helpful for a few moments. Then she stammers, tearing her eyes away from the spiked choker and rosary hanging from the girl's neck. "Oh! Shit, yeah, we probably do, let me look it up for you. Oh, sorry for swearing— I keep forgetting that's like, forbidden in the presence of customers."
Her lips spread into an involuntary smile as she looks down. "You're fine. I'm the last person on earth to have a problem with swearing, trust me."
Frankie's heart is hammering as she looks for the record in the store's system. When she finds it, she tells her where she can retrieve the record and the dark-haired girl thanks her, scurrying over to the person she came with. They mumble a bit before following the given directions and unearthing the record from the section.
The pair approach the counter to make their purchase. Frankie scans their item, asking obligatory questions on whether they found everything alright and if they'd like to sign up for a membership, knowing her face is flooded with a blush. Her eyes keep darting up and meeting the eyes of the dark-haired girl who also continues to glance her way with roses in her cheeks. Each time their eyes meet, that unusual spark ignites between them again and it's difficult to turn away.
"Thanks for the help," says the other girl with mousy brown hair and glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. "The place we lived in before doesn't have an actual record store. Our Barnes and Noble was so outdated they didn't even have a music section."
"Unfortunately record stores are getting more and more scarce, it's kinda sad to see. But the few that are still standing are pretty awesome. I shopped here all the time before I applied for a job." Frankie slows as she bags their item. "Did you two just move here?"
"Yeah, last week. I'm Mikey, this is my sister, Gee." Mikey seems a bit more social, unlike her sister who awkwardly stands beside her and tugs the sleeves of her jacket over her hands without saying much.
"I thought I hadn't seen you around before. It's sort of a tiny town, you get to know faces around here without even meaning to." Frankie tears out the receipt from the printer and tucks it safely in the bag, hanging it to them with a grin. "I'm Frankie. And no, it's not short for anything, people ask that all the time."
"I like that name," Mikey smiles back and takes the plastic bag. "Just a warning, you might be seeing us a lot in the future. We're record addicts."
"I'm looking forward to seeing you two around more often." Frankie's eyes quickly flicker over to Gee's. "Have a nice night, feel free to bug us as much as you want. Legend says you might get a small discount if the cashier likes you, but you didn't hear that from me."
Mikey laughs, waving her goodbye and starting for the door. Gee lingers for a moment, an upward curl settled on her mouth.
"Thanks for the help. It's really nice seeing a friendly face around here, most people here just like to stare at us like we've fallen from the sky." Gee holds Frankie's gaze with her wide eyes and toys with the spiked choker around her neck. Frankie wants to say it's as though they've met before, but she knows for certain she would've remembered a pair of eyes like that, a blend of earth tones that stare back at her like she experiences the same thing Frankie does in her presence.
"Yeah!" Frankie stammers out. "Yeah, no problem. Um, welcome to Havenbrook."
Gee smiles, then hurries off to meet her sister who holds the door open for her to exit through. Frankie thinks about that spiked choker until the store is closing up and the drive back home is accompanied by the album she sold to the pair of sisters.
—
After a couple more shifts and a while spent growing accustomed to being involved in a workplace again, Frankie links up with Rayna and lays back in a diner booth as they snicker to themselves at the awful karaoke being displayed across the room. The lights are dimmed a notch and the twinkle of cheap colorful lights spinning from a globe placed on the ground guides Frankie's eyes to the dozens of bright orbs taking flight along the ceiling and the walls. She picks through their plate of fries for the softest ones, leaving the crisper fries for Rayna's enjoyment. Sharing fries with her is convenient considering their preferences for their texture rests on completely different ends of the same scale.
"So how's your dream job going?" Rayna dips a fry deep into one of the round plastic containers of house ranch that's far too easy to grow a craving for after being without it for a certain amount of time.
"It's pretty easy. My brain doesn't feel fried by the time I'm ready to take off. I get less dirty looks than when I used to work at that place."
"Less, meaning you still get them?"
"We have tons of bigoted old men in this town, what do you think?" Frankie grins and pops a soft fry in her mouth.
"I'm proud of you for not yapping at them like a demented little chihuaha."
"Believe me, I am on the inside." Frankie pauses to take a sip of her drink. "You think if we hand that guy doing karaoke a five dollar bill he'll give us an awful performance of a Celine Dion song?"
Ray represses a laugh while taking a drag of her drink through a clear straw to avoid choking. "'It's All Coming Back to Me Now' or 'The Power of Love'?"
Frankie goes to make her decision, but she becomes inevitably distracted when her eyes dart towards the glass door at the front just in time to catch Mikey and Gee entering, brushing their hoods off their heads and shooting a quizzical look towards the stage.
"Look who just came in." Frankie whispers, knocking her elbow into Rayna's side.
Rayna's forehead creases and she looks around confusedly until she spots the girls across the room. Automatically, her nose wrinkles. "The weirdos who just moved here?"
Frankie recoils. "They're not weird, who's saying that?"
"Literally everyone, Frankie. They're always mumbling to each other and ignoring people at all costs, it's a little bizarre. Gosh, you seriously need to get out of the house more, remind me to bribe you with food more often."
"They're nice, people are just assholes. Apart from you, so I'll let your comment slide this once." Frankie leans heavily into Rayna's side and points with a gesture of her head. "Anyway, their names are Mikey and Gee. Gee's the girl I mentioned a few days ago."
Rayna's eyes bulge. "Gerianna?"
Frankie stares at Rayna for a solid second. "You saying her full name feels like I'm hearing forbidden information."
"Probably, I don't know." Rayna's face shifts into a look of mild curiosity. "I thought you meant someone else besides them had moved into town. She's the one you had a West Side Story moment with?"
Frankie's ears burn with a blush. "I guess you can call it that."
"Well— I mean, do you wanna wave 'em over or something? I feel kinda bad that everyone avoids them if they're actually cool."
Frankie takes the initiative without answering Rayna's question first. She leans across the table and flags down the girls, calling out their names. They freeze up as though it frightens them immensely, but when they turn and find it's only Frankie grinning their way, they instantly regain tranquility. Rayna pats down her chestnut curls that spill over her shoulders and tries not to appear so nervous. The girls approach the table, buried in oversized hoodies and loose fitting jeans, like they hope the fabric will drown their outline.
"Hey guys, I see you're giving our town's infamous waffle and pancake diner a try?" Frankie beams.
"There's nothing better than a towering stack of waffles drowned in syrup and strawberries way past breakfast time." Mikey rocks on her heels and Gee stifles a soft chuckle, nodding. Her eyes skitter over Frankie's face and linger when she finds her looking at her, color filling her face. Frankie almost chokes on her air when the current returns, the warmth flooding her system. By the way Gee's eyes widen a fraction, it's either visible on Frankie's face that she's greatly affected by her, or she encounters the same sensation. Frankie tries not to hope for the latter option in case she's bound to have her heart broken at some point.
"You've come to the right place. This is my best friend, Rayna." Frankie breaks out of her mini trance and gestures to Rayna sitting beside her.
Rayna greets them, earning a shy acknowledgement.
"Ah dude, that's a fucking great shirt." Mikey smiles and nods to Rayna's Alice in Chains tank top peeking out through the part in her jean jacket. "'Dirt' is a legendary album. You'll have me rambling about it for hours if you get me started on it."
Rayna's eyes light up— and in an instant, she's sold. Frankie figured all it would take is for her best friend to get a scope of their similar music taste to get over her initial apprehension.
"Wanna sit with us?" Frankie invites them.
They share a look that asks each other the same question, but resolve the matter with their acceptance. They slide into the booth across from them, shuffling around to get comfortable, the vinyl squeaking against their jeans.
"I'm starving. I've been thinking about scarfing down ten pounds of pancakes all day." Gee mumbles, and just as she says it, a waitress wanders over to them with a pair of menus to look through. Frankie and Rayna, having already shared a massive waffle and half a plate of fries, order a round of coffee for each of them.
"Holy fuck, that's good." Gee groans once the coffee arrives and she takes her first sip after dressing it.
"You're gonna get hooked on the coffee from this place. You should try the iced one next time, it's a game changer." Rayna enthuses.
"Thank god there's a good coffee place out here, I was wondering who was gonna feed my addiction. Although I haven't really gotten around too much. Unpacking and getting the apartment set up is super overwhelming." Mikey's brow crinkles.
"So you've been getting eaten alive by boxes. No wonder, I've been waiting for you guys to come back to my store so I can give you your sneaky discounts." Frankie leans her cheek upon her fist.
"I've been leaning towards thinking you're not actually allowed to do that." Mikey raises an eyebrow, an amused smile on her lips.
"I absolutely can. Just, uh, don't say anything about it while it's happening, I don't wanna get booted so soon. They just hired me."
"So . . . you're not allowed." Gee chuckles.
"That doesn't mean I can't, technically. I'm perfectly capable of getting away with things."
"If they don't fire you for giving out discounts like suckers at the dentist, then they'll fire you for falling asleep at the counter. You drool." Rayna holds in her smile. Frankie kicks her leg underneath the table and Rayna's suppressed laugh comes bursting out of her.
"I don't fucking drool, in your dreams," Frankie grumbles. "Let's not talk about drool, it's bad enough that someone's singing an awful cover of 'Making Love Out of Nothing At All' in the middle of a diner right now."
"C'mon, awful karaoke is great. Sometimes I find it more fun than watching someone who can actually sing." Gee's soft voice is colored in amusement. She immediately has all of Frankie's attention with just a few quiet syllables.
"Even with all the voice cracks?"
"Keeping count of them is like a game. You should try it." Gee's lips curl into a smirk. Frankie likes the look on her and quickly glances down to her neck to see if she's donning the spiked choker she hasn't been able to stop thinking about since she got her first view of it. She isn't disappointed to find its absence is made up for a perfect canvas of smooth skin Frankie imagines leaving a trail of bites across. She feels an electric jolt run up her spine when Gee's foot grazes hers under the table by accident, but lingers. Their eyes meet for a moment before Gee drops her gaze and hides her smile.
"I'll give this crowd something to come alive for. Once we demolish our food, who's joining me to crash karaoke night with some wild eighties music? Literally the worst performance you can possibly give." Frankie grins widely.
"You know I'm always down for screaming out some Bon Jovi to get on everyone's nerves." Rayna reminds Frankie of one of the reasons why she adores her so much.
"Ah— I think I'll pass on this one. You don't wanna see what happens when I get on a stage in front of people." Mikey says, her nose wrinkling in a way that's admittedly adorable.
"We'll throw sugar packets and you can pretend they're roses. Just pray the staff doesn't ban us from this place, I'm already hooked on their coffee." Gee adds on with a giggle that does wonders on Frankie. She feels her palms become clammy and her heart races in a way spiking nerves in her system she's unaccustomed to— such a curious development, until the moment she recognizes the blush staining her cheeks when Gee's sneaker keep gently colliding with hers under the table through the next thirty minutes. Frankie thinks a rush of doom falls over her and spoils the tingles she gets when Gee keeps looking at her from under her sweep of ridiculously long eyelashes, but it's squandered by something that's invigorating each time Frankie stares back.
After a round of ridiculous karaoke that makes a few people lift out of their seats and leave, Frankie's dizzy from wheezy laughter and her throat feels as raw as Rayna's must feel when a waitress approaches them as tensely asks them to cut it out. Frankie loves being a disruption, perhaps that the lingering teenager inside her that refuses to die even as she rides on the wave of her early twenties. It's ridiculous how people think she can be so mature and hardened when she was considered a child not even a handful of years ago, it makes her roll her eyes and decide to participate in foolish things. Like horrific karaoke, for example.
Mikey and Rayna stay back chattering about music and their similar love for string instruments while Gee says she's going out for a smoke, an odd tightness in her jaw and a murky look in her eyes as she claims it's gotten a bit too loud in the diner. It all dims when she looks over and asks if Frankie wants to join her. It's a little offensive that Gee thinks Frankie might say anything apart from yes, but she agrees swiftly anyway and heads out to the side of the diner in the darkness illuminated by a street lamp.
The orange glow encompasses them and heightens with the bite of the flame simmering on the tip of Gee's lighter. Frankie watches how Gee holds the cigarette between her lips and handles it delicately like she thinks it'll disintegrate if she grips it any rougher. She's tense at first, possibly from getting overwhelmed back inside, but it rapidly begins to fade the longer she stands in the fresh night air. She lights Frankie's cigarette for her, to her surprise, getting close enough for Frankie to see the way the shadows dance across Gee's face and the light soaks into her hair like fibers of gold. Frankie doesn't avert her gaze when Gee catches her looking; Frankie wants her to know she thinks she's a breathtaking sight she just can't seem to look away from. Gee gets flustered and pulls away once Frankie's cigarette is lit, leaning back against the wall. Cute.
Frankie lays low for a bit as the comfortable silence wraps around them. Her eyes travel to Gee's hand and notes the moonstone ring on her index finger.
"Nice ring." Frankie comments.
Gee looks down at her hand, puzzled, like she's forgotten the ring is there, but she immediately recognizes it. Her lips curve around her cigarette and she plucks it from between her lips to speak. "Thanks. My mom got it for me a few birthdays ago. It's supposed to channel, like, divine feminine energy or something. I just think it's pretty."
Frankie breathes out a chuckle, a curl of smoke escaping between her parted lips. "Divine feminine energy? I like the way that sounds."
Gee nods, looking Frankie over and settling on her browbone. "You took out your eyebrow piercing?"
Frankie touches the scar embedded in her skin, surprised that she'd forgotten about it entirely. Even more so surprised that Gee noticed it enough to comment on its disappearance. "Oh– yeah, I didn't really like how it looked on me after all. It got annoying real fast. And it was itchy as fuck."
"I thought it was cool. I used to have a piercing, too." Gee rests her hand on her abdomen. "A belly piercing. Got it while I was drunk on my 21st birthday and I was suddenly dead-set on conquering my fear of needles."
Frankie pretends her mouth doesn't water at the visual. "Well? Did it work?"
"More or less. But I don't have the piercing anymore. It kept getting snagged on fabric and stuff, just wasn't my thing."
"Got any other hidden piercings?" Frankie arches a teasing eyebrow, eliciting a snort.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Gee's voice takes a shockingly sultry tone that makes Frankie's stomach clench pleasantly. Gee catches herself and shakes her hair into her bashful face as she tilts her head downwards. Frankie's disappointed to watch her hold herself back, but she respectfully doesn't comment on it.
Frankie lets her cigarette dangle between her fingers as the sting of smoke fills her and scratches the itch that develops more and more each time she settles for a smoke. It's not much of a bad habit, just an occasional thing, but she wouldn't be surprised if she ends up getting hooked.
"This is the most I've heard you talk." Frankie says. She rethinks her words and stammers, trying to smoothly recover. "Uh— not to say that you're talking too much or anything, just— It's nice. When you talk. You're just usually, I don't know, shy." Fuck, that was anything but smooth.
Gee rolls her lips into her mouth and looks down at her battered sneakers toeing at the lot beneath her. "Yeah, I know. I'm not that great around new people. Or people in general."
Frankie's never had much of a problem with socialization and finds it's more difficult to keep her mouth shut than it is to open it. She doesn't know how it feels to be on the other side, but she understands. She scuttles closer with discretion and tries not to think of the way she shivers when Gee turns her head in her direction and the smoke falling from her lips fans against Frankie's jacket.
"You should hang out with us more." Frankie clears her throat softly, tapping her foot against the floor. "Or with me, if you're not feeling up to crowds. And if you want to."
Gee doesn't hide her smile this time. The orange light casts into her eyes and makes them appear startlingly amber. The sound of her tone from before reappears and takes its form in her gaze. "Are you welcoming me to your treehouse club, Frankie?"
Frankie swallows down the sudden nerves and excitement that scatter. "Yes— except there's no treehouse, but I'm pretty sure Rayna knows a guy who could get us one. She has connections everywhere somehow."
That time, Gee's lips part over her teeth with a grin, revealing a row of small pearly whites. "Maybe I should give you my number if I'm gonna stick around, yeah?"
Frankie almost implodes on the spot. She knocks her wilting cigarette to the ground and grinds it to dust with the heel of her shoe as she fishes out her phone for Gee to type her number into her contacts.
Frankie doesn't check until they've said their goodbyes and left each other with a lasting glance she feels in the pit of her stomach when she lies in Rayna's bed at the late hours of the night, but she notices beside Gee's name typed into her phone is a small heart. Frankie falls asleep with her phone hugged against her chest, not thinking once about her fear of rest.
—
Frankie comes to regret allowing herself to sleep so long when she gasps awake in the morning. She chokes on her own breath and hacks up a series of deadly coughs squeezing her lungs and raking the sides of her throat. She bites down a scream buried in the center of her chest as images of carnage she saw in a dream burn behind her eyelids.
Rayna startles awake the second she hears Frankie and rushes to soothe her. Frankie doesn't accept the touch— she can still feel the phantom sensation of thousands of hands pinning her down and prying her eyes open to witness the slaughter of faceless people. Frankie thrashes, until she gets too exhausted to continue fighting it, and everything in her crumbles. She collapses in Rayna's arms and weeps, endless tears streaking down her face and pooling in the fabric of Rayna's shirt. She shakes like a fucking leaf and just lets herself be held because she never does, and she thinks this nightmare is one of the worst she's gotten in so long. Her resilience in all of this feels forced, almost as if she has no choice— there's no relieving herself, no purging these nightmares. Death is a single option she won't choose just to obtain her peace.
"Frankie, you really need to talk to someone new about your nightmares." Rayna strokes Frankie's hair slowly.
Frankie's fingers curl into the back of Rayna's sleep shirt. "They'll tell me the same thing."
"We don't know that. There's gotta be a bigger reason for them. Not just stress. I've been stressed to the point of breaking and I never had a nightmare nearly as intense as the ones you get."
"Therapy's fucking expensive and— and I don't know what else to say to get a proper explanation." Frankie wipes her own snot and wrinkles her nose. She hates crying because of how messy it is. "God, I'm getting my gross tears and stuff all over you, I'm sorry."
"I don't care. That's what washing machines are for." Rayna holds on tighter. Frankie doesn't know if it helps or makes her feel more vulnerable. She sucks in an unstable deep breath and tries to block out all lingering traces of the dream.
"Just gotta wait for them to pass," Frankie croaks, "They can't last forever. Fuck, they'll kill me if they last forever."
"They won't." Rayna saids firmly, almost scoldingly, but she instantly regrets it and pets Frankie like a cat. "Look, I'll help you pay for your therapy."
"No." Frankie pushes Rayna away and glares. "You're not spending your money on me like that. I can fix this, it's just— it's just gonna take a while, you can't just slap a bandaid on a gunshot wound and expect it to go away in a few days."
"I finally have a steady job that I don't think I'll quit when it gets too hectic. Frankie, you're my best friend, I'm not gonna—"
"I know, Rayna, I know, I'd try to do the same for you, but you'd also refuse to take my money if I offered it to you like that."
Rayna sighs with defeat. Frankie knows she's right and seals the mild argument, lowering her highly raised eyebrows that dare a protest to bubble from Rayna's lips. It's not fair to ask anything of Rayna or expect her help when she struggles enough with her own shit. After her father up and left his family so abruptly, Rayna's mother floundered in a crisis to make ends meet by piling on any jobs she could to sustain for the family while Rayna stayed back to practically raise her younger brother. When she was old enough, she hustled to earn her driver's permit to take their only car to her afterschool job to work the hours her mother finally dropped in order to stay home at to look after the youngest in the bunch of three. There hasn't been a moment in Rayna's life where she hasn't constantly strived to keep her family from collapsing into poverty, and now that her mother has grown exhausted, Rayna still takes up us much work as she can handle, sometimes even beyond an ordinary person's breaking point, and she studies during her spare time to guide herself towards the retrieval of a master's degree in psychology to become a family therapist. Although Rayna's never spoke the words out loud, when she enthuses about her aspirations, Frankie sees in her eyes that she only ever wants to bring broken families back together before anything like what happened to her own can create a long ripple effect of damage in anyone's life. Frankie's been there to see most of it play out and Rayna's the most honest, selfless person she's ever met, which is why Frankie can't bring herself to take anything from her.
Frankie heaves out a heavy sigh and deflates against the pile of pillows grown too warm from the steaming heat radiating from her head in sleep. Frankie wonders if one day, she'll combust so quickly that her eyes won't even peel open to witness the rapid pulse of flames engulfing her before she succumbs to a blistering fate. She winces, turning to bury her face in a stuffed dragon Rayna's held onto since her childhood.
"I know you just wanted to veg out on the couch all day and watch every Harry Potter movie, but we should probably go out again. Take your mind off things." Rayna suggests.
"Go where?" Frankie mumbled into the mossy green fuzz of Rayna's dragon.
"Dog park. Lucy needs to go on walks more often, my mom keeps stuffing her with food she's not supposed to eat."
Frankie brightens a tad. Dogs are one of the few things in the world that help alter her mood. Lifting her head, she looks into Rayna's earnest eyes that worry for her wellbeing and Frankie almost feels guilty for being so chronically miserable when it comes to her dreams. But alas, such a thing can't be helped, and sometimes, Rayna feels like the only person in the world who seems to understand that.
Frankie stretches her neck up and hugs Rayna tightly. Rayna's never been intolerant of her tendency to cling, it's become second nature for her to turn and find Frankie's arms have encircled her or her head is resting in her lap as she nods off here and there as her body's way of catching up on her lack of deep sleep.
Rayna smiles when Frankie pulls away, bouncing out of bed and dragging Frankie with her into the kitchen to get some food into her grumbling belly.
—
"Are you okay?" Gee asks the next time she appears at the record store. Surprisingly, she isn't striding in her sister's shadow, and she's made up in a way Frankie's never seen before.
Frankie is almost dazzled enough to snap out of her daze, but the cloud of exhaustion resting over her is unbreakable. It slightly obscures her vision as she takes in the breathless portrait of Gee's face pinched with concern. It's the only thing that day that sends an awakening jolt through her body. As the question registers, Frankie rubs her eye, forgetting she has a fading smudge of eyeliner under her bottom lashes until she pulls her hand back and catches the black smear. As if this day could get any harder to power through. She quickly shoves her hand behind the counter and rubs it against her jeans.
"Yeah, I'm— I'm fine and dandy, just tired and ready to wrap up my shift." Frankie takes the record Gee has set on the counter to scan it and hums. "'Hunky Dory'. Good selection."
"Frankie, you're seriously looking zombified right now. No offense, I mean— you seem wiped out. Are you sure you're doing alright?" Gee lowers her voice in case anyone listens in on their conversation.
Frankie knows— she feels it. All day, she's been dragging her feet, barely putting the bare minimum into her work to avoid lectures from her manager that's already keeping one beady eye on her. A dark cloud knits together and hovers above her head, coaxing out an equally gloomy mood she can't shake out of. Frankie hates to ever feel sorry for herself, but throughout the day, all she's yearned for is burrowing under piles of blankets, disappearing under a sea of fabric and only needing to worry about the sun disappearing behind the horizon as she stays unmoving for hours on end. Before she started working again, Frankie took advantage of her temporary at-home situation by giving into these feelings whenever they returned, warding off the brewing darkness that can bring her to tears if she lets it invade her thoughts too much. Thoughts about how she hasn't seen her father in over a year and how she ought to be living out her prime years with circles of friends and success that brings a bright smile to her face, but something always holds her back, and that something mostly appears to be herself.
But Frankie isn't going to mention all of this.
There isn't much she can say to console Gee enough to brush off her increasing concern unless she plans on splitting herself open and exposing the only thing she's kept secret from the world.
"Really, Gee, it's fine. I just stayed up way too late last night and now I'm paying for it with exhaustion. It's been kind of a long day, so. I'm sure you've been there before." Frankie scans the record, her hands careful as she handles the fragile product.
"Have you been partying too hard?" Gee tries making light out of the subject, but the curve of her smile is nervous, almost falling apart with nuts and bolts pouring everywhere.
Frankie snorts. "You can say that. Speaking of partying, it looks like you're headed somewhere."
Gee's eyes grow round and surprised. "What makes you think that?"
"You're all dolled up." Frankie's eyes dart to the smoked eyeliner and the bit of gloss on Gee's lips, the return of the spiked choker matching the leather jacket fitting around her frame. If Frankie ever admits she has a type— which she swears she doesn't— a prime example of the type of women she tends to entangle herself with are made in the image of exactly what Gee aims to appear as. Only, Gee isn't quite a sight one can anticipate to see often. She's not easy on the eyes in a way where she's unattractive— looking at her is like gazing into the sun as an avid lover of summer.
Gee squirms in her spot as her cheeks glow a bright shade of vermillion. "I'm not going anywhere. I just— I just. Felt like getting ready. Nothing wrong with that."
Frankie keeps her smirk to herself. Some part of her hopes Gee's reasons for sprucing up a bit is to attract her attention, but Gee so easily gains it in anything she adorns herself with, unbeknownst to her.
"You can admit you're looking pretty just for me. I'm flattered." Frankie flutters her lashes in a way that's meant to be humorous, a short laugh spilling from her as the tips of Gee's ears turn cherry red. Gee doesn't deny it nor try to defend herself, she simply looks down at her shoes with a knowing smile that's more than enough of a confirmation for Frankie's stomach to go berserk with an eruption of butterflies. Gee looks up at her through her long eyelashes and suddenly, Frankie is overcome with the feeling that she'd do just about anything for this girl if she asked, even if it meant something ridiculous as juggling cantaloupes while balanced on one leg in public. She wonders if she just has the kind of face that makes everyone feel this way or if it's exclusive to Frankie.
"You wanna head out somewhere once I'm done here?" Frankie takes a bold step forward, because why not? If Gee stammers out her rejection and looks on with offense, she's seriously in need of assessing her bad habit of sending mixed signals; but if Frankie's senses have ever been rendered useful and wise, Gee's most likely inclined to accept her invitation.
Gee looks a bit taken aback, but she doesn't show any refusal. She chews her lower lip. "I thought you were exhausted?"
"I'm gonna stay up again anyway, might as well spend my time doing something nice."
Gee tries withholding her smile and fails. She beams up at Frankie, rocking back on her heels as she slides over her debit card to pay for her record. Suddenly, she's a pot of building excitement, taking Frankie by surprise. "Maybe you can show me some good hangout spots around town if they're still open. It's not the same scoping them out alone. Mikey's kinda lame in that way, she doesn't wanna go anywhere with me unless it involves food."
"A fellow foodie. I can't blame her." Frankie grins, deciding she likes this kick of enthusiasm coming from Gee. "If you hang back for another thirty minutes, we can split the second I'm off the hook. I've got just the place for you to see."
"I'll be gushing over my new record on the sidelines."
Once Frankie's shift is complete, she punches in her time card and alerts her coworkers of her departure, shrugging on her jacket and ignoring the waggling eyebrows coming from knowing peers. She whisks herself and Gee out into the crisp October night, the moonlight's half crescent spills silver spotlight over them and enhances the shadows encompassing their walking forms shrouded in coats to keep out the chilling breeze. It's like a layer of pitch falls from the night and weaves itself into the purposefully messy arrangement of Gee's dark hair framing around her face the way the sky surrounds the moon. Something about the atmosphere holds a promising electricity to it that hums under Frankie's skin. She notices it intensifies the closer she drifts to Gee's side, but pretends she doesn't, in case she gets her hopes up too soon.
Gee shivers, a strange look passing over her face as she slows her pace.
Frankie looks at her with concern. "You okay?"
Gee swallows down whatever briefly came over her and waves it off, but a furrow remains at her brows as she chuckles. "Yeah, just— weird passing nausea. I'll be fine."
Frankie looks over her for a second more to assure all is well. In the small frame of time, Gee continues striding on as if nothing happened, looking over her shoulder with a tiny smile and her hand gesturing for Frankie to walk alongside her again.
They hit up a nocturnal retro style arcade a couple blocks away from the record shop and escape into the game graphics, seating themselves upon every available exhibit and testing out different virtual activities to keep the grin on their faces. It turns out Gee's one of those people who easily master things once she gets the hang of it, wiping out Frankie's high scores with her insane numbers. Frankie is by nature a sore loser and her friends often avoid engaging in games with her because of her scowl, but it's impossible to be sour when Gee's triumphant beam helps eradicate a few layers of her natural shyness. Sometimes she catches herself becoming overly enthusiastic and tries some form of restraint, which makes Frankie wonder if anything has caused her to mute herself. She encourages Gee's dazzling grins and goofy laughter, thinking it's much more charming than a demure and reserved mask.
They spend roughly around two hours in the arcade before they both decide they're suddenly ravenous. They walk down the street to Wendy's in giggly solidarity, shoulders knocking unintentionally, and find themselves with two trays full of food as they slide into the faux leather seats colored in faded crimson.
"You've never dipped your fries in a Wendy's frosty before?" Frankie tries to keep her voice at an acceptable volume in the empty restaurant, but it doesn't mask her outrage. Her fry dangles in midair above a chocolate frosty resting on the table between them.
"It just doesn't sound good," Gee fails in hiding her smile. "How mindblowing can it be? It's just sticking a potato in some ice cream."
"It's very mindblowing. Don't knock it 'till you try it." Frankie shuffles the fries they share forward along with the cup of frosty, giving an insistent nod of her head.
Gee dubiously observes the items for a moment. Hesitantly, she plucks a fry from the carton, observing its crisp and quality. Then, she plunges one half of it into the frosty and pops it into her mouth to test out the combination. Frankie hangs onto every second as Gee experimentally chews, her brows knitting together, until she swallows and stays silent for a moment.
Picking up another fry, Gee sighs deeply as she dips it again, ignoring Frankie's whoop of victory that causes a few employees behind the counter to shoot them a startled look.
"I told you! Now you're gonna be craving this at midnight and cursing me for introducing you to it."
"As if I really needed a new thing to crave at obscene hours in the night." Gee grabs two fries and plunges them back into the frosty, her eyes blissfully closing as she takes her bite. Frankie smirks and leans back in the booth, nibbling on a small piece of tomato Gee distastefully removed from her chicken sandwich.
"There's this place back in my old city that has the best diner fries. I love fast food fries, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing like those diner fries drowned in ketchup." Gee wipes her fingers across a napkin resting off to her right side and smiles dopily thinking about her beloved fries.
At the mention of Gee's previous city, Frankie's interest sparks up, bringing her to lean forward on her folded arms resting on the tabletop. "Oh yeah, you guys moved down here from pretty far away, didn't you?"
"Just a couple of hours up north. You can get there in a day if you're the type that likes long car rides." Gee's mouth tilts into a frown. "It wasn't the best place to live. Lots of . . . very opinionated people."
Frankie hums sympathetically. "I know that tone. Were these opinions no one asked for by any chance?"
At that, Gee giggles, the sound of it slipping out and almost surprising herself. "Definitely. You'd hate it there."
"How'd you survive in a place like that?"
"I don't really know. It's a town where you can't be different or most people will give you shit for it. Me and Mikey . . . we're happier without a crowd of friends. With a few exceptions, but we mostly like to keep to ourselves. It's not like it was super easy to make friends even if we wanted to. No one really liked us."
"They sound like a bunch of assholes."
Gee winces. "Yeah— yeah, they were. People came up with a bunch of rumors about us, I don't even wanna repeat them 'cause they give me a migraine— it's fucking stupid."
Frankie enjoys the way swear words roll off Gee's tongue, moving past her slightly crooked mouth like the smoke from her cigarettes she keeps handy on her. Frankie's positive it's easier for her to become addicted to the sound of Gee speaking than it is to get hooked on nicotine.
"That's a load of bullshit." Frankie scoffs, then a concerned arch of her brow forms. "You know it's not much different here, right? Small town. Most of the stereotypes about them are true."
Gee's smile is almost wistful as she picks at the remainder of her fries growing cold. "Yeah, but it's just a temporary shock. They'll move on. At the very least, they'll just ignore us, and honestly that seems like the better option."
Frankie feels compelled to learn more from the way Gee's voice grows distant. "Is it okay to ask why you moved out here?"
Gee's eyes raise to meet Frankie's. They're apprehensive at first, wondering if she can trust in Frankie to spill information about her personal life. Frankie does all in her ability to signal to her that she's completely trustworthy and her curiosity stems from a place with no malice. Gee sees it within her and the tension in her shoulders fades. Her eyes drop down to the table again as she moves to share, her voice lowering.
"I've already told you half of it. Close-minded people. But also . . ." Gee anxiously fiddles with the edge of her napkin, sadness swallowing her up. "Mikey's girlfriend was— she died."
Frankie stands still for a moment that goes on so long she wonders if time has taken a pause altogether, but in reality, it's only a few tense seconds that feel eternal weighing down on her mind. Frankie doesn't want to stare, so she looks anywhere else she can, eyes darting around aimlessly and eventually setting on a painting of a fruit pinned to the beige colored wall.
She swallows thickly. "Well that's certainly a reason to want to get the hell out of that place."
Gee raises her thumb to her mouth to nervously gnaw on what's left of her nail. "I was the one who suggested for us to leave. I saw what it was doing to Mikey, staying there. It was worse because Kristin's parents were cruel to her. They didn't even invite her to the funeral."
Frankie's anger flares up. She knows the feeling well. Her father's side of the family isn't exactly warm and welcoming whenever she's forced to visit on holidays or during her brief visitations with her dad. Her eyes meet Gee's that shine in immediate understanding, her jaw hardening.
"She showed up anyway. Had all those holier-than-thou Christians having a stroke the moment they saw her," Gee's smile is faint and doleful. "She stayed for just a short while. There was no way in hell she was gonna stand around those assholes and give them her condolences the whole day, as if they cared enough to accept them. I wanted to tell her to not waste her breath on those assholes, but I couldn't keep her from going. It's not her fault she just wanted to say goodbye."
Frankie swears and goes silent for a long time, deciding what words are enough and which aren't. She's never been the best at expressing deep emotions, it's a reason why her therapist has trouble digging into her brain at times, but she feels the urge to formulate everything she feels into the perfect sentences just now.
"I'm sorry," Frankie whispers, "I'm just— it's a good thing she had you with her. Has you still. Taking off was probably in your best interest."
Gee nods, her eyes warm with appreciation despite the sad tilt of her mouth. "It wasn't easy. But nothing really is. It's not much different compared to the rest of the shit we've put up with our whole lives."
Frankie nods, staying silent for a moment until a thought pulls her back. She wonders if she'll cross any lines by asking, but considering none of it is exactly a secret anymore, she rakes in her growing grimace. "Is it . . . is it okay if I ask how Kristin passed?"
Gee's eyes flash. For a brief second, it seems either anger will overtake her in a bitter hold or grief so strong will be the cause of breaking her calm demeanor she's managed to keep together while sharing an unpleasant story, but it clears away the way clouds dissipate after a furious wave of rain.
"Um. It was an animal attack." Gee winces, twisting her moonstone ring around her finger.
Frankie's mouth dries as if it's been stuffed with cotton. She blinks away imagery, biting the inside of her cheek hard to fight off the horror that wants to lap into her serene tide. She accepts it and lets the silence build for a long time before she redirects them onto a different path of conversation. "Had you been planning on leaving since before that happened?"
"Sort of. We definitely had the funds to do it. A couple years ago, when our grandma passed away, she left us a large inheritance for us to share." Gee bites her lip to hide her frown. "It was, um . . . almost a million."
Frankie does everything in her capability not to choke on her own spit. Her eyes fly open wide and her mouth hangs open through her shock. "What?" She exclaims.
Nostalgia radiates from Gee as she leans back in the booth, picking at the remainder of her fries with flicks of her pale fingers. "My grandma was a bit of an actress back in her day. Then a dancer. And a piano player. To put it plainly, a fucking legend. She gathered all of this money through the years with the intention of giving it to her family once she passed."
She speaks with pride clear in her voice, pride in all of her grandmother's accomplishments. Something about it brings a curl of warmth to Frankie's chest, a pinched reminder of her grandfather who she treasured so much before she went through the same painstaking process of loss and grieving the way Gee had. She chooses not to mention it; it only brings sadness.
"Jeez, I'm sure she'd be happy to know it came in handy." Frankie fiddles with the edge of her napkin the way Gee had done earlier. "So . . . I kinda heard you live in those nice apartments a couple blocks from here?"
Gee's eyes twinkle. "You heard right. Have people been whispering in your ear about me?"
Frankie cheeks burn with a flush that both catches her off guard and embarrasses her under Gee's amused eyes. "Not— not exactly. I mean, I did learn your full name, but I've kinda wiped that from my memory in case I wasn't supposed to know."
Gee's giggle is a blend of nervous giddiness and genuine joy she retrieves from Frankie's sheepish behavior. "Thanks. So many people back home called me by my full name despite the numerous times I told them not to, I hate it. It's like a clean slate here."
"It's never coming out of my mouth. No worries." Frankie languidly salutes as her chagrin fades. Some part of her softens as she rerounds to the previous topic of discussion, noting the relaxed curve of Gee's posture and the gentleness of her faint smile. "And thanks for trusting me with this stuff. It's always flattering to be the person someone wants to talk to about things, but— even more so since I know we just met."
"It's nice getting to talk to someone about it." Gee wavers, a line puckering between her brows. "Just, um. Don't tell Mikey you know about this, okay? It's an extremely sensitive topic"
Frankie's a bit surprised by the way Gee reverts to a rigid posture, as if she fears the knowledge spilling will cause any damage, and it leads Frankie to wonder if it'd been an impulsive decision where the mind wanders too far out in a comfortable setting. She hates thinking she'll be sworn to secrecy on a basis of regret.
"I won't. Scout's honor. Are you really sure you're fine with me knowing?"
Gee senses how she comes off and instantly begins chipping off her uneasy look. She looks over Frankie's features as though observing her for the first time, searching for something within her Frankie hopes she'll find. "You're easy to talk to, Frankie. I feel like I can trust you with anything."
Frankie's heart races. She feels the weight of it drop down to her stomach and raise back up to her throat in a quick succession, her pulse flitting down to her fingertips in the rhythm of a hummingbird's wings beating in a colorful blur. Locking eyes with Gee gives her a strange yet warm feeling that piles in her stomach until it begins to tingle, reminding her of submerging into a warm body of water when her body shivers from the cold. She decides she's fond of the feeling and chases after it.
"You can. You can always come to me." Frankie swears a complex thing in just a few words. She knows it's enough for Gee as her soft eyes wander over the rest of her features with gratitude. Frankie feels the toe of Gee's boot bump into her sneaker under the table, reminding her of the previous time they'd sat down at a table, and Frankie can't help the massive grin that unfolds.
They part ways and Frankie feels dizzy during the drive back home, but the thing she recalls the most is how luminous Gee appeared in the moonlight just before she waved goodbye. It's strange how someone who radiates brightness from the sun can be so delicately put together in the image of the moon. Like the way the silver light radiating from space makes Gee come alive. Frank ponders it until she can't stand to stay awake anymore and unwillingly falls into the arms of her suffocating dreams.
—
Frankie's psychologist doesn't perform her sessions in a traditional office. She offers her services within her home, a modern suburban house equipped with a porch you can imagine viewing in a film and a massive garden in the front showing off Dr. Dianne's green thumb. The interior is homely, dashed in farmhouse decor and splashes of spring colors such as dewy peach and soft lavender showcased in the throw pillows and the miscellaneous knickknacks placed upon white shelves. Every session is held in her office which is visually similar to the rest of her home, apart from the multiple certificates strung up on the walls. Pictures of her grown up children donning graduation gowns and caps accompany her framed certificates along with images of her small family on vacation when the children were much younger. Frankie notices the absence of a father in every photograph, but of course, never mentions it whenever she gives a rare comment on particular photos that give her a warm sense of a loving family. It seems Dr. Dianne's children have all taken off to prestigious colleges, leaving a shining beam on their mother's face whenever she mentions them. Frankie thinks she'd be just as proud if she was in her position.
Frankie sits on the edge of the lounging sofa across from the desk Dr. Dianne sits behind with her pen and paper. It's impossible for Frankie to ever loosen up during her sessions, she sits with a rigid back and leaves wincing from the burn in her muscles and the irregular rhythm of her nervous heart.
"Have you ever heard of parasomnia, Frankie?" Dr. Dianne asks after approximately thirty minutes of catching up.
Frankie stills when she hears the familiar name, fragments of various memories coming together to click into a blurry but solid picture. She chews on the jagged corner of her thumb nail and moves it away briefly to speak. "I've seen the name a few times. When I've looked up stuff about chronic nightmares."
Dr. Dianne nods as if she anticipated that exact response. "It's a sleep disorder. It can include night terrors, sleepwalking, sleep paralysis."
Frankie's brow furrows. "I don't sleepwalk or get sleep paralysis."
"Exactly. I initially wondered if we possibly had a case of parasomnia here, but there's just not enough criteria. However, you do fully qualify for nightmare disorder."
It's a relief that allows a breath permanently held in her lungs to disperse at long last. Frankie wondered if they'd ever surpass this insistent assumption that Frank's nightmares are strictly stress-induced. She supposes the amount she's spilled out today has completely driven them off the track and pointed towards a direction Frankie treads in.
"That's what I've been trying to say— not to be rude, Dr. It's just that this isn't normal and it affects my everyday life." Frankie rubs her tingling and clammy palms along the knees of her jeans, locating a loose thread and curling it around the tip of her finger.
"Of course, but I need to do more than one session and plenty of analyzing to get to the bottom of things before I come up with any diagnosis." The doctor sets down her notepad and folds her hands on top of it. "Perpetual nightmares can be a result of many things. Some kind of trauma or ongoing issue you have in your life."
"I don't exactly have trauma."
"You'd be surprised how many people discount their own experiences. Watching your parents argue excessively and go through a divorce as a young child can be traumatic, even if divorce is so common. Being outcasted by an entire half of your family for your sexuality is traumatic."
Frankie nearly winces as her own experiences are placed as examples. She isn't the type to dwell on parts of her life she'd rather abandon, or else it'll open another form of dissatisfaction. She withholds envy as often as she can when she witnesses a child with their mother and father seemingly content beside one another, or when she sees a person just like her surrounded by an accepting bunch of family that don't fake their smiles at gatherings. However, it seems she's part of the group of people who discount their own experiences by the belief that things can be much worse. If she catches certain behaviors within herself that can be a result of those experiences, she strives to overcome them.
"Okay . . . I guess so. But it's not enough to give me nightmares like these, so. A disorder sounds about right." Frankie adamantly searches not to settle on the topic and focuses on what she reached out to a psychologist for instead. She hates to have her brain picked for things that are apart from her main issue.
"You've developed insomnia as a result of this. Your depression, it's not a new thing, you said?" Dr. Dianne pages through her notes and settles on one passage.
Frankie shifts uncomfortably. "I've always had it. Both my parents struggle with depression."
"Hmm." Dr. Dianne observes Frankie from under the frame of her blocky glasses for a contemplative moment, trying to appear disarming as possible, but Frankie is always unnerved here no matter the circumstances. "Here's what we're going to do, Frankie. Something that can help you is another shot with medication."
Frankie immediately stiffens and shakes her head. "I don't want it. It completely numbed me the first time I tried it, I hated it."
"Not all medication does that to you. If you encounter problems, you have to contact us as soon as it happens and we'll find one that's compatible with you." Dr. Dianne responds calmly. "I want you to try again with the depression medication. We'll prescribe a different one this time, see how it works with you."
Frankie chews her lower lip to the point where a bead of blood saturates the tip of her tongue in an irony film. She recalls her trial and error with medication, something she's wiped her memory clean of after vowing she'd never indulge it again. Her emotions were numbed, and if anything, she felt worse than she did facing the rawness of her troubles without the pills. Above all things, she isn't sure how this can help if the nightmares continued when she was on the medication.
"What about the nightmares? How would medication help that?"
"Unfortunately, there's almost nothing we can do about that. Tackling your depression and anxiety first, however, can make a difference. You'll continue visiting me as well."
Frankie falters. For a moment, it feels like bleeding out her thoughts and sacrificing it for observation have all been for nothing. A spark of anger swells in her with a flickering orange light; she wonders if it's visible through her eyes as her fingers clench around the edge of the sofa, but she instantly takes a deep breath to calm herself. It's no one's fault if her diagnosis doesn't have an exact cure. Despite the way it makes her chest quiver with hopelessness, she can't pin the blame on the person who's only been seeking to help her.
Dr. Dianne sees her internal conflict and soothingly interjects. "I can't force you to do this. It's completely up to you, I'm only here to lend you the help you need and direct you towards a better path. How about it, Frankie? What do you choose?"
Frankie doesn't have an answer. She doesn't think she will within the remaining five minutes of their session as she glances at the clock, causing her to swallow hard and repress the impending dread dangling above her head like a threat.
"I need to think about it." Frankie doesn't make eye contact. She's already checked out of the room and sitting in the passenger seat of her mother's car as she says the words. She craves nothing more than the comfort of her own bed while fighting off sleep so she can settle in with her thoughts until she's composed enough to make decisions.
"That's perfectly fine, Frankie. You can give me a call anytime you make your decision and we'll work something out." Dr. Dianne offers a warm smile Frankie tries to return, but she fears it appears as more of a grimace.
On the ride home, Frankie explains to her mother the results of her session and tries gaining a second opinion. Of course, Linda tells her to take any route that can possibly alleviate her even if it's in slow increments. Any other person would be so willing, but Frankie has a strange knotted feeling in her stomach that it won't be so easy to get rid of her nightmares. Perhaps the side effects may decrease, but what about the rest? What about the root that's so deeply instilled in her that it's practically unshakeable? She's starting to wonder if she should give into the part of her that's willing to take any chance as long as it makes a difference. What stops her is being unsure if she's the kind of person that can be saved.
Once Frankie arrives home and decays in her bed for roughly over an hour, she finds her mind drifting to over a week ago when her outing with Gee had been a moment of pure peace on a day where it felt exhaustion would never cease. Frankie is used to being chained to the iron clutch of tiredness when it comes to avoiding sleep just to preserve her own sanity and it's rare to ever feel like she's come close to breaking out from those chains even if it's only for a minimal amount of time. She thinks of Gee's shy grin and her moonstone ring she twists round and round her finger when she's listening to what she's being told or sharing a story of her own. Just the memory alone brings a subconscious smile to Frankie's face, a yank of something an awful lot like longing making her pause to let that feeling sink in.
Oh, boy. She recognizes the signs as something she can only affiliate with Gee and part of it is scary knowing this is a completely unique feeling she's incapable of fighting off. It's like the world's doing and she's a piece of its puzzle, the perfect fit being Gee. The funniest part is, Frankie can't seem to find a reason to not allow herself the pleasure of letting warmth consume her in Gee's presence. Frankie always tries to find reasons not to indulge in anything new, a consequence of her picky personality. There's something about being near Gee that makes momentary peace fall over Frankie, worries disregarded and fears practically nonexistent.
Frankie's mind rounds back to the night they spent together and her sympathies rise thinking of the circumstances that lead the Way sisters to this small town. Frankie distantly recalls hearing about an incident where a young woman was found dead when her mother was watching the news as she does every morning, but it's so similar to the tons of other horror stories being read back on the news that she must've tuned it out to block out anything that can provoke an onslaught of nightmares with a very specific theme. Now that she thinks of it, she's surprised her grotesque dreams haven't been riddled with carnage created from a brutal animal attack, but she quickly represses the thought before her subconscious comes to the same sickening realization and fabricates a surprise for her to unravel in her sleep.
In dire need of distraction, Frankie feels around for her phone and tosses Gee a text. They've made a habit out of texting every day since Gee isn't the type to venture out of her house often and they also exchange more messages in a group chat she arranged between herself, the Way sisters, and Rayna. It takes about fifteen minutes before she receives a response, a time spent wondering if she was being clingy for missing Gee in the short time she was away from her phone, but relief falls over her the second her phone vibrates.
After a round of texting, Frankie bites her lip, contemplating. As much as she loves sinking into her bed and trying not to think of anything, she has a sudden longing to escape her basement bedroom. Maybe Gee happens to feel the same way. Frankie anxiously bounces between reasons to ask and reasons not to ask, but eventually, she calls Gee in a burst of determination and tries to pretend she isn't breathing quickly with slick palms.
"The girl who says she hates phone calls decides to ring me?" Gee answers with this, a teasing note in her voice that Frankie instantly recognizes and likes.
Frankie giggles. "It's fine if I'm the one reaching out, there's a few exceptions to my rule."
"What do I owe the pleasure of you making me into one of your exceptions?"
Frankie holds the phone far away to take a deep breath and guides it back to her ear. "You wanna come over and just take a walk around the block or something?"
There's the briefest pause. Gee's surprised tone echoes, "A walk?"
Frankie's face brightens with a flush. "Yeah. It was sort of a shitty day. It'd be nice to hang out for a little while, I'm not up to venturing very far though."
"I'll bring something to take some of the edge off. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes, that sound good?"
Frankie fights her wide grin until she can't anymore. "Sounds great."
They hang up and Frankie immediately springs to her feet to freshen up. In the midst of brushing out the tangles formed in her hair from lounging across her pillows, her phone trills again and Gee's name flashes across the screen.
Frankie confusedly answers, "Hello?"
"So, I don't know where you live."
They laugh until they're aching from it and Frankie rattles off her address, the smile lingering on her face long after they've said goodbye a second time.
—
"You brought a flask?" Frankie's eyebrows go up. They rest on the silver flask decorated in Powerpuff Girl stickers wilting around the edges and threatening to lift, but the colors still pop out with surprising resilience. Frankie loves that she can automatically tell Bubbles is Gee's favorite.
"It's tiny, I know." Gee frowns insecurely. "But it's filled with some kind of vodka, so I guess it's good it's not very big."
"Some kind? I pray it's not the kind that makes you regret your entire life after a few sips." Frankie snorts and switches around to walk on the other side of her bike she wheels along with them so she's standing beside Gee without anything between them.
"Only one way to find out." Gee takes an experimental swig. Her eyes immediately widen the moment she swallows and spits a quarter of it out onto the sidewalk. She hunches over in a viscous fit of coughs, her face scrunching once the worst of it has surpassed but the putrid sting still lingers in her throat. Frankie fails at holding back her laughter, patting Gee on her upper back and gently prying the flask that's somehow remained in her grip during her near death experience.
"Maybe we shouldn't drink this," Frankie holds it at an arm's length with a grin, "I'm not a lightweight, but there's no way I'm taking a single sip of that shit."
"Don't," Gee rasps, shaking her head slowly as she braces her hands on her knees. "It feels like I just swallowed an entire campfire, holy shit."
"Yeah, I don't think we're gonna need this. Back in the bag it goes." Frankie tucks the flask away in the pocket of the small teal backpack slung over Gee's shoulders so she wouldn't be waving around a silver flask while the town is still scrutinizing her like an alien species.
"Sorry. I thought it would help a little, not give one of us an ulcer." Gee says once she straightens back up and they resume their stroll. She flushes as she swipes her thumb across the corner of her mouth to clear away a droplet of vodka that glistens on her skin.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Saves me the vodka migraine." Frankie chuckles, kicking a pebble and watching it skip across the road. "You know, the last time I drank, I got so shitfaced I broke Rayna's shower rod and tore her curtain trying to get into the tub."
Gee tosses her head back with an incandescent grin Frankie wishes she could snap a picture of. "Why the hell were you trying to get in the tub?"
"Rayna says I was talking about some secret tip to getting the best night's sleep. I don't know why I said that, I've never slept in a bathtub before."
"I wish my drunken stories were half as entertaining. I think I get into embarrassing situations more often when I'm completely sober." Gee beams. She gazes off into the tangerine sky that's illuminated by clouds painted in pastel shades as the sunset begins to break out over the town. The roads are soaked in a pale golden glow that reminds Frankie of films where two lovers approach the horizon until they're encompassed by the glimmering peach tone of the sunset. Frankie is terribly fond of those cliches. What others find indigestible about them is the exact reason she finds them endearing; they're completely separate from reality and depict an enchanting twist on life. If she were given the opportunity to be the blushing heroine of a film where she's desperately loved by a beautiful protagonist, there's no way she'd turn it down. She struggles believing every romance film haters truly would.
Frankie peeks at Gee from the corner of her eye and finds her breathtaking in the light that encapsulates the mesmerizing quality of embers. It brings out the smoothness of her skin and shines most prominently in her eyes Frankie finds dazzling enough without the help of the sun. Gold illuminates her dark hair as it messily flutters around her face in the breeze and she's exactly how Frankie imagines pleasant dreams to look like. Undoubtedly, Gee would inhabit them if Frankie had any.
Gee notices her looking and smiles, meeting her eyes. "What?"
Frankie turns several shades of red and quickly looks away. Gee chuckles softly, bumping their shoulders together.
"So, you wanna tell me what's got you down today?" Gee asks softly, a touch of hesitation coloring her tone.
Frankie's blush disperses, a piece of her faltering even though she desperately wants to stay in this content moment with Gee. She rolls her lips into her mouth and squints into the sun, shrugging her shoulders.
"Just, uh, just a shitty therapy appointment." Frankie speaks as if it isn't a huge deal. If she treats it as such, maybe she'll convince herself it isn't. "I'm not sure if you've ever had your brains picked by a psychologist. It's not very fun."
Gee hums sympathetically. She tries to keep it casual to match Frankie's vibe, but the crease of concern forming between her eyebrows gives away her true emotions. "I haven't. But from the sound of it, it seems like it sucks."
"Yeah," Frankie mutters distantly. She thinks about the way this makes her sound and her face twists, daring to meet Gee's eyes. "I'm not like, super fucked up, in case you're wondering. It's just some things I need to take care of before I can get on with my life."
Gee looks between her eyes and her mouth that shapes around her words. With a faint frown, she says, "I wouldn't mind if things were worse. You know I wouldn't judge you for anything, right? Like, I have no place to judge anyone else's personal feelings, I've definitely had my fair share of shit I'm not super proud of."
Frankie hadn't known she was searching for this validation until a tight feeling in her chest bundling up subconsciously suddenly relieves itself. She breathes easier, the sound masked by the wind chimes tinkling playfully in the wind at the porch they dangle from. With it, Frankie wants to spill her guts out, she wants to confess things she never has and let Gee dissect her completely if there are parts of her she wishes she could see up close. Frankie only abstains because as welcome as she feels with Gee's gesture of reassurance, she knows how intense her condition can sound and how no consolation can absolve the ache it brings her. The only thing that can make it fade is its disappearance.
Frankie bites her lip hard. She nods, sighing and letting her breath tangle with the wind carrying away the words that pooled at the tip of her tongue just a second ago. "I know. I wouldn't judge you for anything either. Thanks, Gee." She says it with the utmost sincerity.
"Don't mention it." Gee murmurs just as softly. Their hands knock together and Frankie swears she feels it fizzling all the way to the base of her spine, leaving behind a stardust trail that makes her suck down a deep breath before she does something idotic.
Swinging her bike forward, Frankie waits for Gee to look over to gesture to it, the corner of her mouth raising high. "You wanna hop on the handles while I ride this thing?"
Gee's eyes grow round and afraid. "It's not gonna tear me a new one?"
Frankie laughter bounces across the neighborhood as she hops onto the seat and steadies the bike. "It's not as horrific as it seems. Just hold on tight, I won't go super fast. Promise"
Gee hesitates, shifting her weight from foot to foot until her apprehension fades. She keeps herself steady as she grapples the bike, cautiously guiding herself onto the handles and curling her hands so tightly around them that her skin whitens stretched across her knuckles. She gives an unsure sound as she wobbles, but Frankie anchors her with a hand on her shoulder until Gee is fully settled, if not maintaining an incredibly tense posture. Frankie bites her lip in a smile.
"This feels dangerous. I've never done this before." Gee whines.
Frankie looks over Gee's shoulder with a wide grin, applying pressure onto the pedals and beginning to pump her legs at a sluggish pace. "You've gotta trust that I won't let you fall flat on your ass, okay? I've done this before with Rayna tons of times. You'll live."
Gee twists her body to glance over her shoulder with a worried crease between her brows. Frankie sticks her tongue out at her and resumes a slow pace, waiting to gradually build it until some of Gee's anxiousness withers. In a matter of a couple minutes, Frankie's able to pump the pedals at an acceptable speed and Gee's hair whips around her in short streamers of black, tension bleeding away from her back muscles as she flexes her shoulders and leans back the smallest bit.
"Okay . . . maybe this isn't so bad," Gee mutters, "You don't have to take me down the whole block though, I don't want you to have to haul my ass around for so long."
"Oh no, we're definitely going down the block and back like this." Frankie leans forward with a large smile stretching across her face. "Hold on tight."
Gee's uncertainty diminishes once she gets the feel of gliding as Frankie takes care of the rest. Her elated laughter bells out across the street and bounces back at Frankie, a repeat of a sound she grows to love eliciting from her over and over just to marvel at the unbridled glee in it. She asks for the pace to pick up, which leads to Frankie's thighs protesting with a burning sensation in her muscles, but she disregards the inescapable soreness she knows will come for her tomorrow and fulfills Gee's request. Nothing can wipe the grin clean from her face and a part of her wishes she could see Gee's face just knowing what a precious smile must be curving her mouth.
At some point, Gee instinctively lifts her hand from one of the bike's handles to brush away collecting strands of hair away from her eyes, much to her misfortune. Frankie is barely swallowing down a gasp when Gee feels herself losing her balance, the bike tipping over, and they crash onto the grassy lawn of a house that's thankfully listed for sale. The sharp grass burns against their skin and leaves behind vivid red markings, but neither of them pay any mind to it. They erupt into a fit of belly-aching laughter they couldn't control if they wanted to. Frankie swears she senses tears building behind her eyes nearly pinched all the way shut, blindly patting across the lawn on her hands and knees until Gee's hand stretches out towards her and wraps around her wrist to drop her back down on the grass beside her.
"You dumbass, you're not supposed to let go!" Frankie wheezes.
"I didn't mean to let go, I just—" Gee pauses to cough dryly around her hysterical giggles, "I'm sorry!"
Their laughter resumes until they're both struggling to catch their breath and gripping onto their stomachs, massive grins mirroring each other. They turn their heads as they lay flat on their backs in the grass and their gazes link, instinctively bringing out another giggle from the both of them.
After a while, Frankie hisses softly, lifting her arm. There's a scarlet trail going across her elbow and impressive grass burns, bits and pieces of green blades sticking to her skin and staining patches of it in faint green. "Aw man, that's gonna sting like a motherfucker in the shower later."
"At least we're not smeared across the sidewalk like roadkill." Gee chuckles as she sits up and examines her knees that are left exposed since she dons a pair of shorts. In autumn, nonetheless, but Frankie wears hoodies in summer occasionally, so she doesn't comment. The irritation is brighter across her fair skin a few shades lighter than Frankie's complexion.
Frankie sighs heavily and hauls herself up to her feet, cringing from a subtle pain in her hip she ignores. She holds a hand out for Gee to take and bites her tongue to keep from noticing the warmth of her grasp as she helps the girl up. They brush the grass off their clothes and poorly mask the remnants of their laughter.
"Maybe I'll just take it slow and you can walk next to me." Frankie smiles at the bike laying on the sidewalk.
"Sorry for breaking your bike and your bones." Gee wrinkles her nose.
"C'mon, there's hardly any damage. When our first layer of skin grows back, you can ride and I'll sit on the handles."
Frankie almost reaches out to wrap her fingers around Gee's wrist to encourage her towards the bike, but she wavers as she notices Gee's smile is fading and the blood rushes away from her face to leave behind a pale slate. An odd expression befalls her.
"You okay?" Frankie asks concernedly.
"I . . . I don't think . . ." Gee trails off in a thin voice. Suddenly, her eyes widen and her skin fills with a pale green parlor. She staggers to a nearby bush and folds forward, heaving into it with her arms curling protectively around her stomach. Frankie cringes and forces herself to look away before she too is filled with the urge to vomit.
She waits for the sound of gagging to fade into mere heavy gasps before Frankie rushes to Gee's side and gently rubs her back, holding her hair away from her face now harboring a feverish flush. She's only surprised for a moment at her own attentiveness. Normally, in the presence of a sick person, she keeps her distance to avoid becoming ill herself, but she doesn't care if that's the consequence this time.
"Gee, are you alright? Do you need to do that again?" Frankie pointedly refuses to glance at the vomit and focuses on the girl's distress.
Gee clenches her eyes shut with a pained look. "I knew I was coming down with something. God, I've been fighting off nausea for days, I guess it's finally catching up to me. This sucks."
Frankie's face lines with worry. She gives a sympathetic nod, tucking Gee's hair behind her ear instead of holding onto it. Gee's blush deepens. "Hey, let's get you back to my place, yeah? You can rest a little before you head home."
Gee nods. She shakily guides herself into an upright position, wincing at the mess she's created and regrettably checking over her clothing in case she's gotten any sick on herself. By the time they turn around with Frankie's anchoring hand on Gee's back, the sunset is fading into a bluish hue tinted with bruising lavender kissing the line of faraway mountains resting on the horizon. She wheels the bike along on her other side
"Are you okay?" Gee asks as she leans into Frankie.
Frankie swallows hard and tries not to think too hard about the closeness of Gee's body, reprimanding her fluttering heart as she uses this as an excuse to guide her hand to her waist to help her along.
"I'll be fine," Frankie reassures, "And so will you."
—
After Gee rested for an hour until the nausea passed enough for her to drive, Gee took off and went missing in action for a few days. Frankie assumes it's due to the illness taking over her and leaving her so drained that even the thought of socializing makes her feel worse. Frankie patiently waits for some kind of update, growing increasingly worried each moment she checks her phone and only finds notifications for Rayna's texts and the Instagram posts she shares with her. She considers reaching out herself, but decides not to be a bother until she can't take the silence much longer. The day she sends a message, it goes untouched for the remainder of the day until the next. Frankie can't promise she doesn't lunge for her phone the moment it buzzes with a new text notification, or that she didn't sigh in deep relief when she sees Gee's name on her screen.
She discovers through a short round of conversation that Gee's still recovering from the major stomach bug that took over her on the day they last hung out and thinks she's mostly over it now. Frankie hates that she suffered, but a part of her is glad she wasn't hit with a wall of illness too on top of everything else. It isn't a surprise when Gee confirms the past few days were spent with her getting through an agonizing phase of incessant vomiting and spending the rest of the time sleeping in hopes of rest holding the key to a quicker recovery.
Since Gee claims she's no longer heaving over a bucket and craving death, she asks for Frankie to come over to her apartment to rescue her from her despair, sending over the address almost immediately after. Frankie's breath catches and she sits upright in bed. Without further consideration, she immediately agrees and flies around the room cleaning herself up, then sets off to the apartment. Just before that, she makes a pit stop at a nearby gas station to collect a few goodies, mostly consisting of the first appealing items she lays eyes on.
Mikey answers the door when Frankie gets to the massive complex. She's a bit breathless from taking the stairs instead of opting for the elevator— she may or may not have an irrational fear of elevators breaking down while she's inside them.
"Frankie," Mikey says with surprise, "Hey, what's up?"
"I'm here to be a bad influence on your sister." Frankie grins, thumb hooking through the loops of her jeans that bit into her hips and lower belly. Beauty is pain.
"For her sake, I hope she no longer looks like Night of the Living Dead." Mikey moves away from the door to let Frankie in. "She's barely come out of her room since she got sick."
Frankie can tell someone's been ill from the tons of empty ginger ale bottles riddling the counters and the pyramid of chicken noodle soup cans. One side of the sink is piled with freshly washed bowls and mugs still dripping with water as they rest on their drying rack. A used pot sits abandoned on the stove beside a baby blue tea kettle. Tea bag wrappers scatter across the counter beside a partially open bottle of honey. Aside from the bit of mess, the apartment is endearing and spacious, with splashes of soft colors and thrifted furniture that give the place a nicely vintage charm. Decoration is minimal and a tiny percentage of what's there seems a bit odd as it caters to very specific personal interests, but it's just enough to prevent the place from feeling too hollow and lifeless, and it seems perfectly fitting for the two residents inhabiting the place. It's well-lit and more impressive than Frankie expected, although she wasn't sure what she'd been anticipating in the first place. Frankie's mouth twitches with the beginning of a smile as she spots a cat clock hanging on the wall, its tail ticking back and forth with the seconds that pass.
"I brought presents for the sick one and the healthy one." Frankie waves a plastic bag from the gas station in the air.
Mikey arches an eyebrow and takes it. She pulls out the peppermint tea, Pepto Bismol, sour gummy worms, a can of pringles, and a tall bottle of melon Mountain Dew. Including two cans of Arizona tea, but those are for Frankie and her peach tea addiction.
"Did you empty a shelf of random things into a bag?" Mikey laughs.
"I don't really know what you guys like, so I just took a wild guess. Everyone likes sour gummy worms and Pringles. Also, if you want heart failure, I've seen people put gummy worms in their Mountain Dew with Warhead powder."
"I'll pass on that. I will be taking the Pringles though." Mikey piles the items on the round dinner table curtained in a soft checkered print cloth. "Thanks. Gee's gonna appreciate a different flavor of tea. I've been practically waterboarding her with chamomile tea, I think I've made several gallons this past week."
"Chamomile works miracles. Take it from the perpetually sick one."
"I'm hoping, since you're perpetually sick and so wise because of it, that you're not intending on feeding my half-dead sister junk food?"
"Hey, if she insists she's out of the woods and dives headfirst for the gummy worms, I have no say in that." Frankie throws her hands up.
A door opens at the mouth of the short hall and Gee pokes her head out. Her hair is askew and damp from a fresh shower and she's a bit pale in color— which is astounding for someone already fair in complexion. "Did someone say gummy worms?"
Mikey sighs. Frankie just grins, grabbing the bag and setting off towards Gee's bedroom.
They hole up in her room on the ground, splayed out on her plush soft carpet that's kept pristine and in top condition. It's possibly the cleanest thing in the room considering the slight disarray that matches the state of the kitchen outside. The tangle of blankets Gee's been nesting in is kicked to the foot of the bed atop of a pastel yellow quilt with little patches of a fabric with blue flowers printed on them. Gee blushes and says it's her childhood quilt her grandmother sewed together for her. She spreads it over her mattress when she's in need of comfort. The room is bathed in the light of the room's standing lamp with a thin printed scarf draped over the top to give the room a pinkish glow. Lights falling in a waterfall of wires intertwined with fake flowers frame the window, an additional twinkle against the thick cream colored curtains concealing the inside of the room from the outside. It feels like the inside of a magic lamp, serene and familiar in a nostalgic sense.
With an open and nearly empty package of gummy worms resting beside them, Frankie
feels the weightlessness of her body as it rests completely relaxed and boneless stretched out on the ground, her head resting on a pillow she plucked from the bed. Gee sits cross-legged nearby and it would only take shifting the smallest bit for Frankie to rest her head in her lap. She's not certain how she ended up in this position, but her heartbeat pounds erratically each time she looks up and sees Gee's pretty face framed in her dark hair that's twisted in untamed waves. The pink glow encompassing her makes her look like an image pulled from a cathedral window pieced together from fragments of stained glass, but the shy curl of her mouth and the way her face twitches when something odd or gross is brought into their humorous conversation animates her. Frankie smells a distinct blend of pine trees and vanilla perfume radiating from Gee's cardigan. She has to stop herself from turning her face into it and inhaling deeply.
"How come that poor guitar is collecting dust bunnies over there?" Frankie notes the acoustic slumped in the corner in an impressive blanket of gathering dust, abandoned beside a pair of gray sweats kicked across the room.
"I'm not really made for string instruments." Gee flushes and squints in faint chagrin. "I think every variation of string instruments hate me. They produce awful sounds when I try to learn anything."
Frankie bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. "It's not all that easy."
"It can be. Mikey's real into the bass, she got the hang of it the second she laid hands on one. Like a real show-off." She scoffs. Gee's voice is soft and a bit worn from her battle with the stomach bug. "Mikey got one for Christmas a couple years ago and I got a guitar. I guess my mom wanted to see if we got the music gene from our grandma."
"I'm sure you've got some of that in you." Frankie grins up at her. "I have a gut feeling and I don't tend to be wrong about things. What can you do?"
Gee smiles as if it embarasses her to openly admit anything, but she wavers under Frankie's eager look. "I can sing. Sort of. I never really did anything with it, it's just a waste." A look of worry flashes over her face. "Please don't ask me to sing something. I can't—"
"Oh, god no, I wasn't gonna put you on the spot." Frankie laughs breathily and slightly shifts towards Gee to knock her gentle fist into her arm. "I thought maybe you'd be into piano or something. Singing's cute."
Frankie can vividly imagine the smoothness of Gee's tone as she hums along to her favorite songs on the radio, subconsciously springing into quiet karaoke as she carries on towards her destination. Frankie's smile broadens instantly.
"I don't know about cute." Gee blushes furiously and chuckles. "Damn, playing piano sounds way cooler. I bet I could be a wizard at it, I'm just too lazy to try."
"Well stop being lazy." Frankie grins. "I wish I had multiple talents. Maybe I do and I haven't realized it yet, I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite telling you to get up off your ass and try out something new."
"Rayna mentioned you can play guitar to Mikey." Gee smiles, looking down at Frankie. The angle isn't the most flattering when she does so, but nothing takes from the delicate prettiness of her features.
Frankie's chest rumbles with an internal laugh. "I knew she talks shit about me behind my back."
"She says you're good. Mikey says Rayna's pretty good too, she's teaching her how to handle the guitar."
"Well damn, she's in the right hands. Rayna's a guitar god. Anyway— yeah, I can play. That was all I ever did in high school."
"Guitar instead of homework, right?"
"Hey, you'd be surprised what a good student I was. Lots of people probably wouldn't anticipate that, but I was. Still would be if I continued going to college." Frankie snorts half-heartedly. She stifles a yawn, which makes her stiffen as she acknowledges how every bone in her body is begging for sleep, but she can't give in. She'll sleep when her body takes over against her will.
Gee fixes her with a concerned look, her smile fading. "Is it okay if I ask why you always look so tired?"
Frankie frowns. She considers politely telling her she'd rather not speak on the topic, thinking her time with friends is the only moment of peace she receives where she doesn't need to linger over her issue, but some part of her reminds her it's impossible to run from her own reality for so long. On another hand, Gee's trust in her has led her to share plenty about her personal life, it's only fair Frankie performs an exchange of some sort to save her from being the secretive one.
Messing with the strings of her hoodie, Frankie's tongue anxiously runs along the backs of her teeth, her eyes avoiding Gee's. She decides it's almost impossible to do in her position, so she rises until she's sitting upright, scooting around to settle beside Gee.
"I have nightmare disorder." It's the first time Frankie's let the words fall from her lips in such a straightforward manner. She hadn't raked up the guts to spit out the name to her mother, nor had she told Rayna yet. It leaves an ache in the center of her chest that feels like a warning sign of her skin splitting to reveal the bone encasing a battered heart beating wildly inside. Frankie itches the side of her neck, hating how her previous feeling of weightlessness seems to have nearly vanished with these thoughts that grow heavy in her mind.
"Nightmare disorder?" Gee's concern grows.
"Yeah. That's kinda the reason why I dropped out of college and all that good stuff. I started going to therapy to see what the problem was, but I just barely got a proper diagnosis pretty recently."
"Shit. So, you have bad dreams every night, and it messes with your sleep?"
"They're not just bad dreams, they're like . . . I don't know. It looks like if you suddenly entered the goriest, most terrifying movie you've seen. Honestly, if you saw what happens when I sleep, you'd wonder how I haven't gone crazy yet." Frankie chuckles wrly. She presses against her temple where a headache suddenly springs out at her.
Gee shakes her head, sadness shining alongside the empathy in her eyes. "That's why you're always exhausted."
Frankie's tongue peeks out to wet her lips nervously. "Yeah, I guess. Lately, I've been— I've been doing everything I can to avoid sleep. My shrink says it's insomnia, but I'm doing this to myself. I feel . . . I'm scared."
Gee's face softens as the weight of Frankie's confessions sink into both of them.
"It doesn't really feel like dreaming anymore. It feels so real and that's the worst part of it." Frankie looks away. "Sometimes I wake up screaming my throat raw, it just. Just really, really sucks. It's worse to be scared of something we need to get by."
It's not often Frankie admits she's fearful— she feels exposing her vulnerabilities will only make her susceptible to worse things being sprung upon her, a strange superstition she's held onto for most of her life. She minutely worries her nightmares will strengthen in power now that she reveals how inferior she feels while in their hold, but it's soothed as she pays attention to the way Gee shakes her head and gently rests a hand over hers. The touch is electrifying, almost pulling a gasp from Frankie, and it seems a similar effect takes over Gee as color rapidly fills her face.
"You seem to take it a whole lot better than I would." A rueful smile lifts Gee's lips. "I don't know how you're doing it. You're not as powerless against it as you think, you know?"
"I think my disorder has me pretty beat."
"If it really won against you, then you wouldn't still be fighting."
It's easy to quickly deny it and bring out her exhaustion and swelling fear as an example, but she acknowledges that she hasn't slipped into madness simply because she hasn't allowed herself to, giving signs of clear control. Perhaps a disorder bringing on an array of things isn't capable of pulverizing her life, putting aside all days where she feels she'll completely fall to the ruthless mercy of her worst nightmares in the most literal sense.
"Eventually, me and Mikey wanna head off to college. Just a community one around here, once we find a job of course. Maybe you can go with us and pick up where you left off." Gee brightens.
Frankie's face twists unsurely. "I don't even know what I'd major in anymore."
"I don't either. Probably something I've never tried, like writing studies. I can write one hell of a poem every now and then."
Frankie smiles faintly. "Have you been writing secret admirer poems to people, Gee?"
Gee's face shadows over with an alluring look that Frankie recalls and has desperately missed for how fleeting it can be. Gee looks down at Frankie with a crooked smile. "Why? Do you want me to write one for you?"
Frankie's stomach fills with an eruption of butterflies. She sucks her bottom lip in, the tip of her tongues probing her piercing. "Well it wouldn't be much of a secret if I knew who my admirer is, would it?"
"It would be a mystery to everyone else if we kept it between the two of us."
Frankie's heart flips and pounds thinking of something being kept sacred between them. She struggles to keep her breathing even, keeping her eyes on Gee. She only startles a bit when she feels her fingers grazing her skin, but immediately melts into it, poorly concealing her shiver. Gee strokes along a scrape that's still tender slashed along a space between her knuckles.
"Looks like your battle wounds are healing pretty nicely." Gee says humorously, but her voice is still stooped down into a breathy sound that makes Frankie's body light up. She almost can't handle it, doubled by the feeling of her fingers softly brushing along her tiny scrapes from the time they fell over into a bed of freshly cut grass.
"It's not exactly a gunshot wound. Just a couple scratches here and there, they barely sting anymore." Frankie gulps. "How are yours?"
Gee smirks. "Not exactly gunshot wounds, as a wise woman once said to me. But they're already gone. I've always been able to heal fast. Weirdly enough, I kinda wish they wouldn't fade so quickly."
"Why not?"
Gee's simmering gaze dulls down with a touch of softness that enters her so both parts of her coexist, one effortlessly seductive and another shrouded in shyness that dominates her mostly. "It reminds me of that day. I know the ending wasn't perfect, but I don't like perfect."
A feeling Frankie isn't so used to overcomes her in such a short amount of time that she wonders if it's reckless, but it most definitely can't be— she feels completely safe. Something deep within her is being coaxed out in increments whenever Gee smiles at her in a way that's almost tender. It makes Frankie want to peel her skin back and show Gee what's inside of her, where things hurt and where her happiness is located. She wishes she had more things worth showing her.
"I don't like perfect either, but sometimes I wish I could be just to know if being imperfect is the problem here." Frankie's breath hitches. "I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, Gee."
Gee stares at her for a bit. A hint of a smile ghosts around her lips with a secret settling into the corners where a faint shadow falls into the dimpled edges. "I don't either. We might as well be clueless together until we figure something out."
Frankie twists her hand around so her palm presses to Gee's in gentle contact. Their fingers thread together the way constellations string into formation and the pink glow in the room enhances as it collides with Frankie's sight like a permanent filter mirroring the giddiness of fluttering butterflies wreaking havoc in her belly. She senses pink floods through her body and colors her blood spilling into her cheeks, almost as vivid a shade of the one overtaking Gee's face. It fills in the unique connection that's formed between them and it makes the world dissipate in the moments they're together. She wonders, how is it possible to become so attached to a person after such few encounters? Are films and cheesy television shows she loves so much not exaggerating? Even when they delve into romantic stories about locking eyes with a person and having their surroundings peel back so it feels they float through space every second their gazes are connected? It's bottomless. But it's the furthest thing from frightening.
Frankie isn't sure if the pink invades her rationality or if Gee's long lashes fluttering as she blinks her gaze away in a sheepish way endears her so much that it causes her body to move on its own accord. Whichever one it is, it leads Frankie towards Gee, gravitating in one fluid movement. She nudges Gee's nose with hers until she's facing forward and brings her lips to hers in a tentative press.
When Frankie pulls back, she's terrified Gee will recoil or push her away. She meets her eyes that stare back at her, unblinking, but fluttering as their gaze falls to Frankie's mouth. Frankie feels her soft breath touching her quivering lower lip. Gee swallows and it sounds dry. The pink lighting in the room makes her eyes appear darker than normal, a glimmer taking over the irises being blanketed over partially by her eyelids growing heavy. Frankie is pulled into their orbit and thinks she's being spun in circles going the speed of lightning, but instead of getting overwhelmingly dizzy, she feels the same weightlessness of when alcohol warms her blood and fuzzes over her brain in a hazy bliss. It's the drunk feeling without the nausea or the regret.
Gee closes the gap between them and pecks her lips twice, then connects their lips in a kiss far more certain than the first. It still speaks of softness Frankie isn't accustomed to, but she soon adjusts as her lips instinctively respond and her eyes flutter shut. Gee tastes of candy and Frankie must too. It feels like liquid fire fills her lips and spreads beneath her face, intertwining with blood vessels and seeking out arteries flowing into her heart. Once the sensation enters her chest, she kickstarts. It's like she's never been alive to start with. Her soul gets hooked on the feeling and pulls her closer, kissing with more urgency. Gee allows it and responds to it with just as much enthusiasm, if not more. Frankie feels fingers sinking into her hair and angling her head for their lips to move together like a perfect jigsaw. She wonders that if she kisses her deeply enough, she'll be able to taste the secret that lingered at Gee's lips just before she covered them with her own— she wants to know everything about her, about the compiled childhood memories that gather dust at the back of her mind and the mistakes in her life she can't look back on without wincing.
Gee's mouth is pliant and warm beneath her, a shock of coolness runs between their mouths each time they move apart for milliseconds at the time to draw in a ragged breath. The heat rapidly seethes under their skin and turns an innocent test into a pool of desire they build together. Frankie clambers closer, raising up to her knees so she can ring her arms around Gee's neck and run her hands through her hair until the knots are undone and every strand slides like silk between her fingers. She parts their lips and tastes their mingled breath, pushing past Gee's mouth with her tongue until it meets Gee's that eagerly awaits her. Gee gives a soft sigh that melts into a gentle squeak of surprise when Frankie tightens her fingers in her hair. Gee's hands fly to Frankie's waist and once she gets a feel of her, she runs her hands all across her torso and her back, pulling Frankie closer and closer until she's straddling her lap and pressing their bodies together so tightly it's like they'll meld into one mass of existence.
Frankie gasps into Gee's mouth as her warm hands slide underneath her hoodie and smooth up her sides, seeking. Her hands feel like a fire that doesn't scald. When they creep up her stomach and reach her heaving chest to cup her breasts through her bra, she pulls away for a moment and breathes, "Gee, your sister's home. Probably right next door."
Gee fixes her with a look that makes Frankie's tongue feel swollen in her mouth. A wave of heat floods the top of her head and waves all the way down to the place between her legs. "She went to Rayna's place. Didn't you hear her leave?"
Frankie blanks. "Uh, no?"
"She's gone. It's just us for the next couple of hours."
Gee's hand cradles the underside of Frankie's jaw and tilts her head back. Her warm mouth attacks Frankie's neck and an involuntary moan leaves her. Fuck, it makes her skin burn with fleeting embarrassment, but after it passes, she's shocked by how good it feels to be vocal in a moment like this. She's amazed by how boundless and comfortable she feels around Gee.
"I want you so bad, Frankie." Gee stretches the neckline of Frankie's hoodie to expose more of her skin so she can draw a line across it with her tongue, sucking a tender spot resting just on the curve between her neck and shoulder. Frankie whines at the soft sting and ache that resides under her skin, but every bit of her shivers under the flutter of Gee's tongue. She definitely has an idea of where else she wants that tongue to wander, but she clears the mist from her head just enough to speak.
"How much?" Frankie asks exactly how far she can anticipate this to go without shattering the heat of the moment with her rational thought.
Gee pulls back to gaze at her with a look she's never seen on her before. Her hands slide back underneath Frankie's hoodie, but this time, they tug at the hem and start to roll it up. "Wanna fuck you. If you'll let me."
Frankie's astonished by how Gee's shy nature can evaporate so quickly. She figures desire may be capable of doing that to a person and a full-body flush envelopes her thinking she's the cause of Gee breaking out of her shell to claim what she wants. And Frankie— she's more than willing to oblige. She thinks she'll implode if Gee doesn't touch her in every way she imagines.
Frankie's hoodie comes off, followed by Gee's, and they take turns kicking off their pants as they clamber up onto the bed since the floor isn't the most comfortable place to take things further. Frankie's mouth waters as she piles atop of Gee and runs her hands over the worn straps of her black bra, caressing her ribcage and past her soft belly, encountering the cotton hem of her panties. She brings them back up and finally gets a feel of her tits. She's only partially embarrassed by the groan that comes from her once her hands make contact with the soft skin of the tops of Gee's breasts spilling out from her bra, euphoric just from getting to grope and caress. Frankie decides she has the best tits she's ever gotten her hands on. How awesome is it that Gee has two of them?
They kiss until their mouths are practically numb, but each movement of their lips and exploring tongues ignites a new addictive spark glowing under their bodies plastered together. Frankie's exhilarated as Gee flips them over to hover over her without disconnecting their lips, hands groping her chest and coaxing her tits from her bra. Frankie gasps and her hips rock towards Gee's thigh slotting between her legs, an electric shock rippling through her from the sensation of Gee rolling one of her nipples between her fingers. Frankie can't even put into words the kind of heat that blisters in her when Gee gets her mouth on her tits, her pretty eyes gazing up under her long lashes and her pink tongue sweeping across her hard nipple. For a second, Frankie thinks she sees a flash of vivid amber, but it's gone after she blinks a few times.
"You're so pretty," Gee says as she pulls back and trails kisses up to Frankie's neck again. "So pretty, Frankie, when I first saw you I couldn't stop thinking about all the ways I wanted you."
Frankie hiccups around a soft moan slipping from her. "Me too, Gee. You're— you're so fucking beautiful."
Gee's hand cups around Frankie's face in a surprisingly tender gesture, bringing their lips together in a quick but hungry kiss. She pulls back only a breath's distance apart and whispers, "I was scared you wouldn't want me the same way."
Frankie's heart clenches. "It's impossible for me not to. I just . . . just, everything feels right when I'm with you."
"It's easy," Gee kisses her jaw and cups her breast with her wandering free hand, "Like all the bad things seem so insignificant that they just disappear. God, please, I want to— can I—"
"What?" Frankie rasps and almost chokes on her own pounding heartbeat after hearing Gee say the words she couldn't.
"Let me taste you," Gee whimpers beside Frankie's ear, "Wanna make you come with my tongue, I bet you taste so fucking sweet just like the rest of you."
Frankie's eyes roll back. "Fuck, yeah. Yeah, god, I just— I need that. I need you."
It's like a haze where Frankie is trapped in a vat of sweet honey. Things blur and slow down as a saccharine taste invades her tongue, her eyes never leaving Gee as she watches her mouth her way down her body, taking her time to lick and get her lips over every inch of her skin and it feels so good that Frankie's arching towards her. She's fascinated with the few tattoos she encounters, biting gently at Frankie's hip bones as she appears enraptured by the ink wrapping around Frankie's hips. When she reaches her pantyline, she gets rid of her underwear at record speed. Frankie kicks them off and doesn't bother to see where they land when Gee's hands caress her legs and coax them into an open position laying her out.
Frankie cries out the moment Gee spreads her open and brushes her mouth across her lips, hot breath fanning against her, and she finally kisses her pussy with a gentle touch. Her whole body shudders, a whimper following her initial sound. Gee soothes her with soft shushes, kissing the insides of her thighs and keeping them apart.
"Are you gonna relax for me, baby?" Gee sounds so fucking perfect like this even though she's almost unrecognizable. It makes Frankie twist, her hips rocking up. Gee gives her a dark look that makes her stomach drop with both lust and pure exhilaration.
"Yes," Frankie gasps. "Sorry, I've never been that good at controlling myself."
"You'll learn." She waits for Frankie to move back into a lulled state before she returns between her legs, kisses turning to gentle strokes of her tongue, then fingers drawing tight, slow circles over her clit. Frankie gasps and air bubbles in her lungs, almost too much as she continuously sucks it down with every new spark of pleasure ringing through her body. Gee's tongue alternates between savoring strokes and rapid fluttering motions against her clit, making Frankie moan to high heaven. All she can think about is how good Gee is with her mouth, how gentle her hands feel stroking over her body to keep her still even though it's difficult when all she wants to do is writhe across the covers, consumed by what she's feeling whenever Gee flutters her tongue and sucks her clit. Time is nonexistent as Frankie feels every string holding her together snap one by one, her hips rolling towards Gee in a search for more and her body squirming because it's almost too much when she delivers.
"Fuck," Frankie gasps when the heat grows in her, "Fuck, Gee, I don't know how— I'm already close, it's so fucking good."
Gee hums softly against her as if she knows she's fucking phenomenal at this. Creating the perfect suction around her clit, Gee pets Frankie's entrance with the tips of her fingers to gather enough wetness onto them—which isn't an issue considering Frankie's dripping, oh god— and she easily fits her two fingers inside her. Frankie clenches around them and chokes out a needy moan the deeper they slide in, pumping at a slow rhythm to let her adjust until Gee deems her ready and crooks them in a way bringing colors to her vision.
"Gee," Frankie practically sobs, "Don't stop— please, don't ever stop, oh my fucking—" She can't bring herself to speak anymore. Gee keeps on strong strokes of her unyielding tongue and her fingers fucking into her at the same pace, pushing Frankie onto a rocky precipice that's about to shatter. It gathers, warming and glowing like the embers of a fire that are made with the same shade of pink blanketing over the room.
"Fuck!" Frankie almost cries when she comes. She can't help grinding her pussy against Gee's face, her fingers raking over the covers and grasping. She turns her head and bites down onto a nearby pillow to muffle a throaty sound clawing through her, her body shuddering and her pussy quivering under Gee's expert mouth and fingers.
She thinks it's almost too much as she rests on her high peak, but she can't deny how heavenly it feels to be touched through her orgasm. At some point, Frankie discovers that Gee has no intentions of stopping. She gasps, her body giving a pathetic shudder, and she doesn't have it within her to tell Gee it's too much— she craves it, she needs it. A sort of frenzy breaks out and fills her with her desire as Gee's fervent tongue swirls around her clit and laps at it, wet sounds filling the room over Frankie's broken moans.
When Frankie breaks apart again, that time, she curls up and away from Gee's mouth in a shivering mass of sweaty skin and high whimpers. Gee lets up, but follows Frankie, stroking over her with ginger touches and soft kisses pressed against every part of her she has access to. She whispers soft praise, the tip of her nose dragging along the valley of Frankie's throat. Frankie cracks her eyes open and knits her fingers in Gee's hair to pull her down in a kiss, licking away the taste of herself that gives her just enough of a burst of energy to reach into Gee's underwear to finally get a hand on her. She moans along with Gee when she encounters more dampness than she anticipated and she notes the way the cotton beneath her knuckles is soaked through.
"You're so wet," Frankie moans softly. Gee nods jerkily, incapable of speaking all of a sudden.
Frankie rubs Gee's clit fast, relishing in the slick noises her fingers make against her pussy. Her hand is soaked within a few minutes and the look of Gee's face is something that's a cross between heavenly and filthy. Only Gee can look like an angel while roses of lust color her cheeks and her eyes are squeezed shut in pleasure, her wet mouth hanging open to let her noises flood Frankie's head with such intoxicating prettiness. Frankie doesn't care that her wrist starts cramping, her fingers that have sunken inside of Gee keep pumping, building a hard pace that reaches the spot that makes Gee quiver all over. It's an ethereal image when Gee falls apart as Frankie fingers her and it combines with Frankie's own pleasure— she feels overcome with a tide of yearning for Gee even as they're as close together as can be, it's an insatiable feeling Frankie burns with as she pulls her fingers from Gee's pussy and wraps her lips around them to gather the taste of her on her tongue.
Frankie is overcome with her need to taste more of Gee. She pins her down onto her back, parting her legs and barely getting to savor the trails of kisses she makes from between her breasts to the place at the middle of her thighs. Gee gasps and cries out when Frankie's eager tongue is on her. Frankie knows for a fact that she's good at this, and it's not because she's cocky, more-so because she's gotten her ego stroked just a touch by her previous hook-ups praising her mouth endlessly. It helps that Frankie is completely in love with this feeling; the taste, the soft texture, the sounds it elicits. She can continue with this until her jaw is numb and her entire face is glistening by the time the other can't take it anymore. Her tongue laps, drags, dips inside, and flutters until Gee is doing everything she can not to thrash around the bed.
As Frankie sucks her clit, Gee tangles her fingers into her hair and says, "Don't fucking stop even if I come."
Frankie does exactly as she's told and makes Gee come two more times after the first— once with her tongue, another with her thigh between her legs rocking up hard as she allows Gee to needily rut against her. Gee claims she's never been able to get off in that way before, but her sensitivity allowed her too, and Frankie decides to test it out for herself until she's reduced to a shaking pile of sweaty limbs resting heavily on top of Gee.
Tangled up together under a blanket that smells of Gee, Frankie can't hardly bear spending a single second without her lips connected to some part of Gee. She frequents her lips, aching for the sweetness of her kiss, and she continuously wonders how she ever imagined she's had adequate kisses now that none of them can even compare to the way it feels when her lips are pressed to Gee's. She twists locks of Gee's black hair around her fingers as she kisses her deeply, sometimes soft as a feather, some with hunger until their jaws burn from the work they put into it.
"You should stay the night." Gee's thumb strokes against Frankie's lower lip.
Some of the paradisiacal high evaporates. Frankie twists around and glances at the alarm clock resting on the table informing her that it's past midnight. She's amazed by how much time has passed, but a wave of unpleasant dread and worry falls over her.
"I . . . I'd love to stay, but I just. I don't wanna scare you. Things can get pretty ugly with the nightmares." Frankie turns back around and avoids Gee's eyes so she can't see the disappointment in them.
"You won't scare me. I've told you before that I'd never judge you for anything. I meant that, Frankie." Gee returns her gentle hand to Frankie's face and strokes her cheek in a sweep so tender it nearly brings tears to her eyes. It takes everything not to nuzzle into her palm and let herself rest there for the remainder of the night.
"I appreciate that, but I— I don't know." Frankie sighs. "I don't want you to feel forced to take care of me now."
"Forced?" Gee sounds surprised instead of offended or annoyed as Frankie feared she would. "Frankie, I care about you. And I wanna be there for you."
"Well, I just . . . I don't know if this is a one time thing for you. I hope it's not. You should just tell me if it is before I allow myself to be so vulnerable." Frankie's surprised she's being fully honest and addressing a fear she hadn't realized developed until she vocalizes it. Only then does she acknowledge the tightness in her throat that doesn't exclusively stem from hesitation. If Gee drifts from her side after a night like this that Frankie counts as something she doesn't believe she can ever feel again, she doesn't know what she'll make of herself. She'll constantly compare future kisses and moments of pleasure to this endless night that glows pink and grants her complete freedom.
"No," Gee says softly, almost pleadingly. She tilts Frankie's face up and looks in her eyes. "I like you. Truly. I don't sleep with just anyone. And it's never— it's never been like this with anyone before."
Their gazes hold. Frankie is always startled at first when Gee's thoughts align with her so perfectly that it's almost as if they run on the same frequency and their soundwaves merge into one synchronous melody. It melts down into a warmth Frankie's never been touched by. She thinks she should be wary, even a touch afraid of it's intensity, but there's no denying its existence and there's no reason to run from it. Frankie senses its inevitability and can't seem to find it within herself to hold any of her guards up when Gee's tenderness brushes against all the sore spots that are in desperate need of it. Of her. It's her, Gee surrounds Frankie when they're together and even the air feels sweeter flowing in her lungs when she spends a little time in her presence.
And that's when Frankie decides to fall back into Gee's arms.
"Okay," Frankie whispers with a small nod. "I'll stay."
Gee smiles, a mixture of surprise and relief. She brushes a kiss to Frankie's forehead and basks in the scarlet glow of her blush that tells her just how big of a step she's taking considering the amount of time they've known each other. It's such a quick blur that feels like only a day has passed while also holding the equivalent of a year's worth of getting to know the difference between real grins and nervous ones.
Frankie rests in Gee's arms, dreading what she'll find if she lets herself sleep. Her heart pounds and Gee listens to the rapid thrum of it with her head pressed against her chest this way. She starts humming to her— a song she can't figure out even when she reaches the end of it. Frankie sinks into the sound of her voice, taking apart each dip and sway, basking in the softest rasp that appears at the end of every note until she falls into darkness.
For the first time in months, Frankie dreams of absolutely nothing.
—
In the morning, Frankie awakens to soft kisses being pressed into the back of her neck and along her shoulder. At some point in the night, they'd turned over so Frankie's back is to Gee's front. Breaking through sleep in increments, Frankie processes things sluggishly. She notes the tickle of Gee's hair against her skin, then the softness of her breasts pressed against her naked back, the coolness her kisses leave behind. It's not so bright in the room, but a dull golden light bleeds through the curtains and sweeps pretty shadows across the walls and the bed they rest in. Tingles travel down her spine and nestle in the contours with a staticy fuzz. Frankie draws in her first deep breath of the morning, alerting Gee of her consciousness.
Gee's kisses transfer to her neck, then a flicker of her tongue which makes Frankie grow more alert. Her hand is gentle dragging along Frankie's arm, tracing the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip. Her fingers dig into Frankie's thigh as she presses herself tighter against her back, her breath warm fanning against her skin.
"I don't know why some part of me expected for you to magically vanish by the morning." Gee whispers. "I'm glad you're still here."
Frankie's chest expands with warmth. She goes to say there wasn't a chance she'd leave her to awaken to an empty bed after a night like the one they shared, but the words break apart and pile into a ragged gasp being pulled from the pit of her lungs as Gee's fingers skim over her pelvic bone and dip between her legs. Suddenly, no part of her is asleep. She's wide awake and her body hums like all the electricity has been pulled from the earth and now crackles alive in her lower stomach.
"Is this okay?" Gee asks with her mouth pressed against Frankie's skin.
"Touch me." Frankie begs in a quiet gasp.
Frankie's noises are soft and mostly consist of needy gasps while Gee's hand stays between her legs. Her movements are slow and intent, fingers stroking over her clit and moving between her folds to dip inside with deep, perfect strokes. Frankie rocks back against her and her eagerness becomes so palpable that Gee stills for a long moment to let her fuck herself on the knot of her three fingers, relishing in her muffled whines. When Frankie gets close, Gee returns to her clit, circling at a quicker pace with just enough pressure to make her fall apart all within the same minute she warns her of her impending orgasm. She moves through a slow honeyed moment again as she regains her breath and relishes in the warm press of Gee's body, the comfort of her hands laying innocent strokes upon her body until she recovers. She goes to return the favor, but Gee shakes her head, turning Frankie towards her to press a lingering kiss on her lips.
"Gee," Frankie says with her face pressed into her pretty neck just as realization clicks into place. She takes a moment to assess how well rested she feels, no signs of crippling exhaustion or dry eyes making her morning take a sour turn. "I didn't have any nightmares.."
Gee's hand stroking her hair pauses. "None? You're sure?"
"No, I don't think— I'd remember if I did." Frankie's head pops up, her eyes large. "I . . . I actually slept well for the first time in months."
"I kept checking on you," Gee whispers, "Every time I sort of woke up, I made sure you were okay. God, I almost wanted to stay awake all night to keep an eye on you, Frankie, just in case you woke up scared."
Frankie melts. She brings her lips to Gee's soft skin and gives kisses that work as offerings of her gratitude. "I think being with you made the nightmares go away."
Gee pulls back to meet her eyes. Her lids are a bit puffy from sleep and her hair is tousled, but there's a soft pink flush in her cheeks and her lips that surround her in a perfect glow Frankie gazes at in awe.
Surprise, a line forms between Gee's brows. "Me?" She says almost doubtfully.
"Yes, you. I feel fucking fantastic because of you." Frankie throws her arms around Gee and lays into her until she has Gee on her back and she hovers over her, the blankets falling away from their intertwined bodies. Their giggles mingle and Frankie reaches to yank the blanket over their heads so they remain concealed from the world as her lips gravitate towards Gee in a delicate press.
A soft touch of lips progresses and Gee muffles her sounds as Frankie goes down on her again. She can barely breathe under a wall of fabric and while being pressed between Gee's full thighs she digs her fingers into whenever they long to squeeze around her head. Half of Frankie's face is glistening by the time she resurfaces to let Gee taste herself, their legs tangling together and Gee's seeking fingers curling strands of Frankie's hair around them in a snug hold.
Frankie hates to part from Gee's side after spending most of the morning hiding underneath blankets and curled up together like two halves of a whole. She feels empty, colder without Gee's skin to touch and have pressed against her own. She soaks in the phantom sensation that wanders underneath her skin and instills a deeply set craving that'll awaken upon the smallest motions, she feels it. Changing into yesterday's clothes and hardly being able to suppress her rising giggles that join Gee's each time they stop to kiss each other is like another unspoken promise that this isn't the last time they'll have each other so intimately.
Finally making her way out of her room with a grin plastered on her freshly kissed lips, she shuts the door and spins around to head out. She freezes when she spots Mikey at the dining table with her hands cupped around a yellow porcelain mug covered in illustrations of honeybees. For a moment, they stare at each other in silence, until Mikey arches one eyebrow.
"It's, um." Frankie purses her lips. "I'm not even gonna try. It's exactly what it looks like. Sorry."
"I don't wanna know. The least you could've done for me is lie." Mikey shakes her head, bringing the mug to her lips to have something other than Frankie's flushed face and rumpled appearance to look at.
"Sorry Mikey," Frankie ducks her head, "At least I had the decency to ask if you were still here last night?"
"Oh god," Mikey drops her head into her hands. "I don't know whether to thank you or just pretend we're not having this conversation."
"Maybe the last option is better." Frankie begins slinking out, but she slows, eyes settled on Mikey's pajamas donning images of tiny cats wrapped up in beds of sushi. She waits for Mikey to turn on her with a stern look and deliver the sibling talk before she continues on her current path with Gee, but all that happens is a moment of silence that grows progressively more awkward the longer Frankie expectantly stares.
Mikey's expression turns quizzical. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
A nervous pattern begins in her heartbeat and her hands ball up, shoved inside the pocket pouch to her hoodie and she feels her palms dampen. "Are you gonna give me the 'so you're getting involved with my sibling' talk?"
Mikey's face scrunches for a second, then she arches yet another sharp questioning brow. Her gaze is piercing in a way that's more intimidating than Gee's. Frankie finds it funny how Mikey's been completely harmless in her eyes until now.
"Do you need me to give you that talk, Frankie?" Mikey asks dryly, a touch of humor dancing around her name.
Frankie balks. "No? I— I'm not here to fool around and break her heart or anything. I just uh. I don't know. I thought you'd threaten to choke me out if I by any chance didn't take Gee seriously."
Mikey's face dissolves into a look of understanding. Her gaze falls past the rim of her mug and settles for a moment as she thinks, her thumb swiping back and force over the mug handle. Frankie braces herself for a full lecture she may have unintentionally conjured up because she has no idea how to accept things that don't make sense to her without opening her mouth.
Mikey sighs. "It's not you I'm worried about, Frankie. I see the way you look at her, I kinda saw this coming, it's just . . . I hope Gee unpacks her baggage before anything gets too serious."
Frankie's eyebrows pull together. "Baggage?"
"Everyone has baggage. My sister just has a little extra. It's not my place to share it." Mikey rises from her seat, the legs of the chair lightly scraping against the linoleum flooring. She nods towards the kitchen. "You want some coffee before you head out?"
Frankie sits on a response she hadn't anticipated. A piece of her bristles and awakens a cruel thought saying Mikey doesn't have a place to insinuate anyone carries something that can be a burden for others to hear out when she certainly has her own fair amount of baggage, but Frankie knows it isn't really herself speaking and the thought dissipates immediately. A flash of worry glimmers in her mind and taints a tiny portion of her contentment, so she tries convincing herself there's no perfect person on the planet and she shouldn't hold Gee to unrealistic standards. They're moving at a brisk pace that some could consider too fast, but room remains for more stories, more learning about the origins of specific mannerisms and thoughts clouding each other's minds.
"I'm good." Frankie shakes her head. "I guess I'll see you around since I'll most likely be over more often?"
Mikey nods, stepping into the kitchen to refill her mug. Frankie makes her way out of the apartment, but as she looks over her shoulder just before shutting the door, Mikey has herself braced against the counter with a strange look upon her face.
It looks an awful lot like fear.
—
"So," Frankie starts as her kitchen knife glides smoothly through the overdue pumpkin loaf she promised to bake for Rayna. "I kinda have some news to share."
Rayna stops making hungry eyes at the loaf resting in its baking pan and looks up expectantly, a touch eagerly— who doesn't love getting to learn a new round of gossip? Frankie wouldn't consider her personal life gossip exactly, although she's sure Rayna anticipates something of that nature.
"I went over to Gee's place the other night. Just to hang out, I hadn't gotten to see her since she got sick."
"Is she okay now?" Rayna serves herself a slice of bread on the spring colored paper plates Frankie plucked from her pantry.
"Yeah, she's good, she was able to dig into a bag of sour gummy worms so I'd say she's way over the nausea." Frankie serves a slice for herself and pulls out plastic forks from the package, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. "Anyway. So. I may or may not have hooked up with her."
Rayna makes a strange choked nose that's between a gasp and a shout. Her eyes bug out and she slams her hands on the table, pulling a nervous wide grin from Frankie.
"You guys fucked?" Rayna calls out too loudly considering Frankie's mother is home and they have the right to suspect she may be eavesdropping since she's admitted to the habit whenever she catches a fragment of an interesting conversation. Right now, she's watching the news, something about their town cautioning everyone about bears excessively ripping up animals recently.
"Jesus christ, you wanna scream that out from the rooftop, too? Eat your pumpkin loaf and quiet down, this is not something I want my mom to hear about." Frankie strangles out an anxious giggle and Rayna flashes her an apologetic smile, sinking back comfortably into the kitchen stool and digging into her slide of bread.
"Sorry, it's just— this is huge. I thought you were becoming cellibate or something." Rayna says around a mouthful.
"I just don't ever meet interesting people out here." Frankie slides into the seat beside Rayna. "Well, anyway, that happened. We've kinda established it's not a one-time thing."
"Are you guys like fuck buddies now or something? What's going on there?"
Frankie hates such a loose term being settled over them, but from an outside perspective, it's fitting. They aren't exactly prepared for a relationship, yet they've grown close enough to build on intrigue and lust that's laced in growing affection. Frankie fears it may fade, but a part of her refuses to believe it could ever be so languid and unexciting.
"I don't really know. I guess? Fuck buddies with actual feelings for each other." Frankie shakes her head. "Kinda complicated. Kinda not because it feels . . . nice. It feels right, I should say."
Rayna's lips split into a grin. "You're smitten."
Frankie's face floods with a violent blush. "Something just happens when I'm with her. I know it sounds dumb, but like. I don't know how to explain it."
"A West Side Story moment that never ends." Rayna reiterates. "Except your romance isn't forbidden and no one's gonna die. I sure hope not."
Frankie rolls her eyes and smothers her smile by taking a bite of pumpkin loaf, her hair falling into her face. "She helps with my nightmares. I don't know how, but she does."
Rayna sobers up at this, her face softening. "I hope you're taking it as a sign to keep building on whatever you two have going on right now."
"I am, I am. Maybe it'll help along with this bullshit medication I decided to give a second chance to, who knows." Frank eyes the brand new prescription resting near the sink, still concealed in a paper bag from the pharmacy. After much deliberation, she decided to move forward with the medication, wondering if being in a different place in her life now compared to before can make some of a difference.
Rayna, having just heard about the situation with Frankie's diagnosis and her medicine, follows her gaze and bites her lip. Frankie hates the silence that builds and waves her hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Well, part of the reason I'm telling you this is because Mikey caught me sneaking out of Gee's room and she sort of . . . said something a little concerning?"
Rayna's eyebrows raise. "Did she say she'll beat your ass if you hurt her sister? No offense to Mikey, but I don't think that girl can fight."
Frankie sets down her fork with a sigh. "No. She said that Gee has a lot of baggage and she hopes she tells me about it. I mean, isn't it a given that everyone has some sort of baggage? But I'm also a little scared because Mikey means Gee has more than normal. What if she like . . . doesn't tell me? Ever?"
"If it's something big, she will at some point. You can't really just jump into anything serious if you think something might get in the way." Rayna frowns. "You guys haven't known each other for that long. It's gonna take time."
Frankie worries her lower lip between her teeth. She traces back to the night Gee shared so much about herself and her sister, claiming Frankie made her feel secure enough to empty out her emotions and memories without faltering insecurely— but most of it hadn't been her own burdens, exactly. She considers sharing this with Rayna, but that would entail needing to share a piece of information Gee asked her not to spread around.
"I guess. She did share some things with me already, but maybe there's more to it." Frankie picks up her fork again and pokes at her bread, muttering, "I unloaded my baggage."
"Now she knows it's her turn. It'll be fine, Frankie, you just need to be patient." Rayna finishes off her slice and Frankie offers the remainder of her own, which she gleefully transfers to her plate. A mischievous smile unfolds and she leans in to whisper, "Was she good?"
Frankie's face burns as she hits Rayna's arm, the two of them sharing a round of giggles before they pack away the rest of the bread and head downstairs to hole up in Frankie's room for the remainder of the night.
When they're meant to be sleeping, both of them cramped up in Frankie's bed, she looks around the darkness and whispers Rayna's name to check if she's still awake. A raspy grumble answers her and Frankie's mouth twitches into a semblance of a smile.
"Remember when we were eleven and we went on the swings?" Frankie asks softly, "You pushed me too far and I knocked you over when I swung back?"
Rayna snorts. "I still have a scar on my elbow from when I landed in the sandbox and ate shit. Of course I remember."
Frankie stays quiet for a long time. "Even if things don't work out with Gee, I still have you, don't I?"
Rayna shuffles in the dark, They turns towards each other and although they can't see each other's faces, Frankie knows she's there just like she's always been.
"Even if you push me into the sketchy playground's sandbox as adults, you can count on me."
Frankie closes her eyes and relaxes. "You know it's the same with me, right? I'm sticking it out until the end, too."
Rayna chuckles. "Forever's a long time, punk. But we knew that when we made our pact as kids."
Frankie still hears the words now and takes comfort in them. 'Best friends forever.' Such a universal phrase not everyone is capable of carrying out, but Frankie as confidence they'll be able to.
—
When Frankie was eleven years old, it was the first and last time she grew so critically ill that no amount of over the counter medicine or mild doctor's antibiotics could fight it off. She dimly remembers it; her fever burned so hot in her tiny body that she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Her rattling coughs would drag her out of her slumber and the pain in her lungs was almost unbearable, coughing fits bringing her to tears or becoming so incessant that she gagged hard enough to vomit. One thing she remembers most clearly is waking up in a bathtub her mother submerged her in, shivering and pleading to be taken out, but her mother insisted it would help break her fever. When it didn't, Linda surrendered and took Frankie to the hospital to receive proper treatment.
It turned out to be a severe case of pneumonia. It hadn't started that way, it developed from another similar illness that seemed innocent in comparison. She'd been wheeled into a private room and given oxygen therapy, hooked up to an IV and being fed the nutrients and liquids she needed. The doctors beamed at her during her recovery as they served her Jello and other plain hospital food to start her slowly, turning to her relieved mother and noting if she'd stayed at home for any longer, they feared a tragedy would've sprung up on them.
Although Frankie isn't suffering from a traumatic case of pneumonia at the moment, she feels like death warmed over. Her mother is off to work and she's left to fend for herself, warming different tea concoctions and barely making it to the stove to warm up cans of Campbell's for the warmth to soothe her sniffles and cough that makes her wonder if she's caught the plague. Frankie finds it funny how exposing herself to public settings more often has automatically resulted in her catching whatever floats in the air. Frankie expects no less, but that doesn't mean it doesn't come to her dismay.
Gee insists on coming over and babying her the moment she hears she's alone. She arrives with tissues, chocolate, lemon cough drops, vapor rub, and a container of real soup she ordered from the Chinese place in town. Frankie thinks she should've taken notes from Gee before getting to her apartment with a bag full of junk the previous time they saw each other, she's awed by Gee's preparation and dedication to helping ease Frankie to an average state at least if she can't recover instantly.
"Aren't you worried about catching the plague?" Frankie asks as Gee helps her out of her shirt so she can rub vapor rub across her chest. Her voice sounds strange with her stuffed sinuses.
Gee snorts and dips her fingers into the jar. "The plague? If you don't look like the Exorcist, then it's just a little cold."
"I felt like I was gonna die in the morning." Frankie flinches from the cold gel meeting her skin and Gee softly apologizes. "Jesus, did you keep that stuff in the fridge before you got here?"
"Don't be a drama queen. This warms up fast, you'll be fine." Gee's magical hands massages the thick gel into Frankie's skin and she immediately feels the minty tingle working into her tissue, inhaling deeply through her nose in hopes of it having a similar soothing effect on her suffering sinuses.
"I'm more concerned about the fact that you're here by yourself in this condition." Gee's brow furrows. "Is everyone working or something?"
"Yeah— I should be working too, but surprise, surprise. A cold slams me to the ground out of nowhere." Frankie sighs. "I take care of myself most of the time anyway. Growing up sickly means I've picked up on all my mom's home remedies."
"Campbell's soup isn't the greatest. You need real nutrients, not preservatives."
"You were eating Campbell's when you were sick." Frankie squints her eyes open to glare.
"That's because my sister is the worst cook on the planet and I wasn't in any condition to make anything myself." Gee chuckles. "Even if I gave her a recipe, she'd burn the whole apartment building down."
Frankie laughs, resulting in a rattling cough that even concerns Gee. Gee applies a touch more pressure to her chest, pausing to wipe her hand and pop a cough drop between Frankie's lips for her to dissolve on her tongue.
"Does that feel better?" Gee asks with a small smile once she's finished giving her massage. The light streaming in from the window behind her illuminates her head and gives her an angelic glow Frankie beams at.
"So much better. I'm alive again." Frankie groans softly at the sensation of Gee's gentle hands working the rub into her skin. She thinks for a small moment that she's only in her bra and her sweats, a tiny pulse passing through her as she remembers what went down the last time her clothes were shed, but she's in no shape to think of such things when it means she'll definitely pass her illness onto Gee if she chooses to be selfish. Even though she craves Gee, especially as her touch resides just above her breasts. She sighs heavily and shuts her eyes.
Two hours later, once Frankie is fed and has been given every antidote coming from Gee's bag, the pulsing headache behind her eyes has evaporated and one of her nostrils is clear. It's been a moment since she's nearly hacked up a lung. She rests her head in Gee's lap and revels in the feeling of her fingers working through her hair, endlessly soothed by the occasional soft scratch of her nails against her scalp.
"I think you work miracles. You'd be giving every doctor a run for their money if you advertise your magic hands." Frankie blinks her eyes up at Gee, fighting a smile unlike Gee who grins sheepishly.
"Maybe I was a doctor in my previous life. I was probably in newspapers and everything, I guess we'll never know." Gee's hand grazes Frankie's cheek. "I prefer just taking care of you in this life though."
Frankie's heart kicks at her ribcage. She's overbrimming with the desire to kiss her, but she refuses to spread her germs more than she already has. She blows Gee a kiss instead, meeting her puzzled look with a grin.
"No fucking way am I giving you tuberculosis. That's my way of kissing you until I can actually put my lips on you the way I'm supposed to."
"It's funny how you think I care about catching your disease." Gee stuns Frankie with her sultry eyes. She hoists Frankie into an upright position and kisses her deeply, proving her point about caring little for the state of her health. Frankie's will is too weak to deny her this, or deny herself this.
"If you wake up coughing your lungs into your hands, that's on you." Frankie breathes when Gee's hand starts to wander.
Gee giggles excitedly in her mouth. She has the most curious twinkle in her eyes, like a child high off of sugar. It would be unnerving if anyone focused on it for too long. "Guess we'll have an excuse to isolate in your room so I can fuck you all day, right?"
Frankie doesn't know where this is coming from exactly, but she'll be damned if she tries to put a stop to it. Gee giggles again, pushing Frankie onto the couch and undoing the tie to her sweatpants to tug them down.
—
As predicted, Gee catches Frankie's cold. She's not as up to fucking Frankie's brains out all day the way she claimed even as they're cooped up in Frankie's room together. Although she looks worse for wear, she's not nearly as miserable as Frankie is as she suffers through sneezing attacks and concerning wet coughs that eventually fade into dry coughs aching at the center of her chest. Frankie takes advantage of the recovery to care for Gee with the same antidotes she used to soothe her during her peak.
Gently working her hands into the kinks of Gee's sore shoulders, Frankie smiles softly. She rests between the V of her legs on the ground and sags into Frankie's nurturing touch.
"There," Frankie murmurs, "Sick soreness sucks. What did I tell you about sleeping on a giant pillow mountain?"
"It felt nice." Gee mutters.
"It does, but it's just extra strain on your neck." Frankie kisses Gee's shoulder and affectionately adds, "Dummy."
After a moment longer of massaging, Frankie takes a pause when her fingers begin to slightly cramp from the repetitive motion. She goes to make another comment, but Gee's stiff posture going impossibly still makes her words fade in an instant. Her eyebrows furrow as Gee lifts both hands to her face.
"Gee?" Frankie asks. When she doesn't receive a response, she removes herself from behind Gee and crawls around. A sharp gasp bubbles at the sight of Gee's nose leaking a river of blood that flows alarmingly quickly. She stares blankly at the crimson splattered on her pale fingers, dribbling past her knuckles.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" Frankie takes Gee's hand.
"I'm fucking fine." Gee snaps and snatches her hand back to cup it around her nose. It's so unexpected that Frankie recoils. The silence that follows is thick, uncomfortably palpable. Frankie's so staggered that the hurt coming to rest in her is a slow burn.
Gee instantly regrets snapping, guilt etching into her face. She curls her hand in a loose fist and takes a calming breath, eyes squeezing tightly shut. "I'm sorry, Frankie. I don't know where that came from."
The smallness of her voice leaves Frankie no option to hold it against her. She quickly gets to her feet to grab the box of tissues they've kept handy. She returns, ripping out two and guiding Gee's hand away from her nose to block the blood flow with the tissues instead. Blood stains her clothes and stains her skin, a concerning amount, which Gee seems aware of as she begins to tremble.
"Hey," Frankie says to her softly, brushing her hair away from her face. "You're fine. It might just— it's probably just dryness now that your sniffles are fading. It happens sometimes."
Gee opens her eyes. For a second, they glisten strangely, her pupils seem too small, but it vanishes within a second. Frankie thinks of it as a trick of the light now that the angle of the sun coming into her room through the tiny window is shifting. Gee looks peculiar and doesn't meet Frankie's eyes.
"Yeah," Gee whispers, "Maybe that's it."
Frankie's uncertain and put off by Gee's demeanor. Her questions aren't something she has the means to ask now that she's slightly cautious considering the way Gee snapped at her. She can't even bring herself to say anything when Gee stumbles to the bathroom and stays behind the locked door. Frankie remains deeply troubled until an hour later when Gee quits keeping her distance and emerges from the bathroom with a clean nose and a plea on her lips for her to come and hold her for a while.
Frankie struggles trying to hide the unease that coils in her when she notices the strain behind Gee's smile whenever she asks if she's alright, and the feeling that it goes beyond the blues of battling a temporary cold.
—
Frankie's disquiet feeling surrounding the situation she's tangled herself into with Gee dissipates as easily as it came when it becomes evident all they needed was that much of a shove to discard the boundaries set between them. Despite Gee's aversion to going out so often, she makes efforts to join Frankie out on the town, revisiting the arcade where Frankie continuously loses every match against her and lounging around in the waffle and pancake diner for hours on end as they consume lethal amounts of coffee. They cause a ruckus with their obnoxious rounds of giggles the more comfortable they become in their setting, the most minor happenings setting them off such as Gee accidentally ripping a pack of salt into her coffee instead of sugar or Frankie accidentally dripping pancake syrup on her jeans and making a noise similar to the squall of a bird. If the night causes the town to sleep, the pester the Wendy's drive-thru to dig into fries dipped in Frosty before Frankie crawls into Gee's bed for the night.
She undresses her like an intricately ribboned gift and lays her mouth on every square inch of skin she's given access to, her heart racing at the sighs of delight and the shuddery gasps escaping Gee's parted lips rubbed raw from heated kisses. When Gee reciprocates, when she fucks Frankie slow and draws out her pleasure like a lazy feline with her huge bright eyes glittering in the evening, it's the closest Frankie's ever come to sitting between Heaven and Hell. It's the solace and the chaos meeting in the middle and in combination work to lull Frankie into another state of existence that doesn't solely feel like surviving. It's living. Frankie's only begun to get a taste of the things life holds and she thinks this is one of the many fruits people ramble about during their tangents centered around breaking people out of the habit of being too miserable to see the treasures life offers them. Frankie still finds those talks belittling and aggravating, but she feels as if a blindfold is lifting from over her eyes each time Gee pulls her into a desperate kiss once the bedroom door is shut or hooks her ankle around Frankie's under the diner table even if people are around. She kisses Frankie softer when it's time to part from her if they're unable to spend the night together and Frankie does everything in her capability not to wrap herself around her, refusing to let go.
An important factor that makes Frankie cling to much is that her nightmares fade into a forgotten thought when she's with Gee. When she hesitantly slips into slumber beside her at night, she dreams of nothing. She awakens with no dryness or pounding headaches behind her squinting eyes, no yells of terror lodged in her throat or gasping breaths pouring out of her once she snaps awake. It's nothing but serenity that's so rich, she's like a half insane man that's dragged across a barren desert just to get to the oasis waiting on the other side.
A part of Frankie fears she'll grow dependent— but another part tells her it isn't that simple. An antidote is settled right in her reach, how could she be expected not to reach for it? It's only a matter of sleep, after all. Everything else comes naturally, beautifully, but it's only tainted in the faintest shadow by Frankie's fear every morning of whether or not she can have a peaceful night again, if Gee's bed will be available to her and she won't need to curl up in her own, alone and scared of losing consciousness.
It confuses her every now and then. She leans heavily into Gee and finds it hard to believe she's ever gone through life without an experience like this, one where the world doesn't stop disintegrating around them each time she looks at Gee, but it's not really clear what they are. It's not as easy as friends, definitely more intimate than friends with benefits, and too risky to assume they're in a relationship— yet part of the situation's beauty is the simple existence of it. It continues to flow the way waterfalls do, without question or obligation, and it grows into something grander the more time passes. If Frankie finds herself worrying, she brushes it off like a bad habit.
Only, in tandem with their bliss, Frankie begins to discover more about the oddities in Gee's behavior. As lovely as she is with her soft politeness and unexpected moments of humor, there's times where she swivels between unidentifiable darkness and strange excitability. She'll scowl when the noises in the room get too loud and speak in a snappy tone when Frankie asks if she's alright, then spring up from her seat with a large grin and tug Frankie to her feet, insisting they visit the arcade or buy tons of snacks to splurge on in front of a television screen. Some days, she insists she feels unwell and refuses to leave her apartment even for Frankie, her text responses curt and cold or practically nonexistent, indirectly telling Frankie she needs to be alone, leaving her hurt but willing to accept she's only human and needs to recharge. Other times, she'll cling to Frankie's side with a pale face and feverish skin, whispering about having an awful night spent feeling sick and missing Frankie's presence.
Something's definitely amiss that Frankie can't figure out on her own. She supposes this is the alleged baggage she carries that Mikey warned her about, she Frankie patiently awaits the moment when Gee is curled up against her chest and silently letting her tears fall where she'll open up about the wounded parts in her soul that cause her to act so bizarrely at times— but that moment never arrives. Frankie won't push it, she won't ever address the words that have been spoken to her, but she holds onto a fragment of hope that someday, she'll be able to understand the reasons behind the enigmatic part of Gee that make her feel like a stranger at times, an oddity best left alone, and a part Frankie deeply fears will overcome her in the future.
Frankie tries not to linger too much on it as she drives them to the movie theater on the further end of town that night. It's difficult not to as Gee sits quietly in the passenger seat, zoned out in her own head and only coaxing herself out of it to reply in short sentences at Frankie's attempts at making conversation. She finds comfort in the fact that Gee's trying her hardest, going out of her way to brush through her hair neatly and draw sharp eyeliner around her pretty eyes, adorning herself in her signature leather jacket resting over a shirt she borrowed from Frankie. It's snug around her chest— she's way more blessed in that category than Frankie, it makes her jealous sometimes— and a bit around her hips, but Frankie loves the way it looks on her more than it looks on herself.
Frankie weaves into the parking lot and slides into a space a bit far from the entrance since it's a Saturday evening and most of the town is crowding into the theater in need of entertainment. The new Spider-man movie is raking in plenty of attention, the film Frankie intends to view with Gee.
Except, Gee doesn't appear all that ecstatic about it anymore. Frankie gazes at her for a long moment and Gee remains in her head, chewing her nails to near stubs.
"You're not really up for this anymore, are you?" Frankie asks Gee. Her voice sounds too loud in the silence, weighing heavy in the car despite her aim to keep it soft.
Gee wades out of her thoughts and returns to where she sits in the passenger seat. She glances at Frankie, assimilating what she's said in tiny steps, and color floods her cheeks. She drops her head and obscures her face with her hair.
"I told you I'm fine, Frankie," Gee practically whispers. "I just wasn't feeling good again earlier. I'm shaking it off."
Frankie's brow furrows with concert. "Again? Gee, why haven't you gone to the doctor yet? This is getting pretty worrying, it's not normal for you to constantly feel—"
"Because I don't need a doctor. I said I'm fine, how many times do I need to repeat that?" Gee snaps. Frankie musters the strength not to recoil at the frost lining her words that transforms her into a version of Gee that Frankie feels miles away from, a part of her she isn't certain harbors any of the same warmth for her the way her ordinary self does. Frankie clenches her jaw and looks out the window at the fog clinging to the edges of the glass. It's all she can do to prevent from snapping back as she edges towards her limit.
Regret brings Gee away from her tightly strung form and she disintegrates into a hunched posture, brushing her hair away from her face and sighing. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt your feelings."
Frankie bites her lips, considers, and decides to go along with the words piling on her tongue. "I know you don't mean to, Gee, but you do. You've been really weird lately and sometimes you let it out on me."
"I wish I could explain, but I really can't, and I just . . ." Gee grips the hem of her shirt in a white-knuckled grip, her chest rising and falling with every tiny ragged breath she drags in. "I don't need a doctor. I can manage fine on my own, it's been like this for years."
Frankie's eyes flash over to her instantly. "Years?"
Gee squeezes her eyes shut as if she regrets letting that part slip out, bringing a striking sting to the center of Frankie's heart.
"Yes." Gee says curtly. "Nothing changes, I just . . . endure. And I'm fine, I know it doesn't always seem like it, but you're gonna have to trust me on this, Frankie. Please."
Frankie wants to find it within the good of her heart to fully entrust Gee and blindly move forward without doubting her words, but the side of Frankie that begins to grow increasingly frustrated seems to handle things differently. This is becoming one of those moments where each time she thinks her outstretched hand has come to rest over Gee's, there's only a grazing of fingertips, as infuriating as the sluggish running in dreams when your heart pounds knowing someone rides your tail to take your life as you know it.
"I've been trusting you," Frankie huffs, "I've been so patient and just letting you do this on your own, but it's like you shut me out completely, Gee. I mean— god, do I even really know you? Or do I only know one side of you?"
Gee's eyes widen. The words inflict pain, Frankie knows, but they fly the way her flag of surrender will when she reaches the end of the cycle again; she'll forgive Gee and pretend nothing is out of the ordinary as she lowers herself beside or on top of her. It's where she can feed herself on the bliss that's powerful enough to override everything else.
"I can't give you everything, Frankie." Gee's response is nothing like Frankie expects. Her soft voice is lined in hard edges that taste metallic as they slice through her. "You're not my therapist and I won't treat you like one. I—there's things I just can't share. I can't. It's not because I'm scared of what'll happen to me once you know, I'm scared of what'll happen to you."
Frankie's head snaps up. "I'm not asking to be your therapist. All I'm asking is a little insight because it's fucking hard sucking up my feelings when you snap at me or just completely cut me off out of no where. How is that harmful for me?"
"Because you wouldn't understand." Gee runs her hands over her face and shakes her head back and forth. "I barely understand. Please, Frankie, I just can't bring myself to say it out loud. I'm asking you not to make me do it. Don't make me beg."
"How are you gonna tell me I wouldn't understand if you won't even—" Frankie swiftly cuts herself off and forces in a deep breath. Her frustration is welling into a dangerous wave of anger she refuses to let implode. As her body trembles from holding back, she tilts her head back against the headrest of her seat and closes her eyes, trying to envision a white light that'll drown out her flurry of infuriated thoughts raining over her head. She sinks her hooks into one key thing Gee asked of her. Don't make me beg.
Frankie wishes she could ask the same of her.
They lay in suffocating silence for an unknown amount of time. Frankie wouldn't doubt their argument and time spent coming down from it with no resolution has cut into the beginning of the movie. She finds no point in asking if they're still going to bother walking into the theater; it's evident neither one of them are up for anything anymore. Instead of feeling pissed about the wasted time and a spoiled evening, sadness thickens in Frankie's throat growing tight. A sting builds behind her eyes and she fights it back furiously. There's no way she's going to let herself lose it in front of Gee. Although she's hurt and defeated, though she knows what she deserves, there's the other side of the scale that she also understands. Whatever Gee battles isn't an easy feat, so how could it be simple to put it into words? Perhaps she fears the shape it'll take once she says it out loud. Part of it has to do with her desperate consideration for Frankie, but there's a serious doubt in her mind that Gee's afraid of how it'll affect her. It stings wondering if it's a lie to cut off Frankie's questions and make her accept this.
"Don't be mad at me, Frankie." Gee's soft voice returns and trembles. "I know I messed up our date and I'm sorry, I just— I don't want you to be mad at me for the rest of the night."
Frankie opens her eyes slowly. She turns and finds Gee's that are wet and shining in the dim parking lot lights, illuminated in neon blue from the dashboard's glow. A pleading look rests over the brokenness that radiates from her, something she tries raking in, but she fails as a damp breath tumbles from her lips. Frankie suddenly feels just as torn apart just by looking at her.
"I wanna help you, Gee. Because you help me so fucking much all the time." Frankie's whisper is broken up and fluttering from her struggle to hold down her tears. She envies the way Gee freely allows her tears to fall without the fear of weakness.
Gee nods, her movements jerky as she crumbles. "I wish I knew what to say. Or how to say it. I just don't want you to be so mad at me that you start putting distance between us, I— I wouldn't forgive myself."
She sucks down a small gasp and rubs underneath her eyes, smearing her makeup that runs with the rivers pouring from her. Frankie instinctively reaches out to wipe away her tears with her thumbs, cupping her delicate face in her hands and tilting it up to look her in the eye. Gee tries to break out of her grip, but Frankie shushes her softly.
"That's not gonna happen. You're still my girl." Frankie says to her tenderly.
Gee gives into her gentle touch the moment the reassurance hits her. She squeezed her eyes shut, tears escaping the corners that Frankie swipes away for her. Her chest quakes and clenches as if she's shedding the teardrops that fall from Gee's eyes. It always gets to her how it feels like her soul yields to Gee's and vice versa no matter if she was upset at her seconds prior. Frankie, in the privacy of her thoughts, always wonders if they're an intentional match and their togetherness is not a matter of coincidence.
Pulling Frankie's hands away from her face, Gee leans in and presses a hard kiss to Frankie's mouth. The taste of her teardrops mingle with the desperation behind her soft lips immediately pleading for a requited kiss, her tongue sweeping along the surface of Frankie's lower lip and lingering around her lip ring. Frankie is stunned and motionless for a split second by the intensity of Gee's mouth covering her own, but a part of her that stays in a constant state of desire for Gee's lips kicks into overdrive. She returns the kiss, aiming to slow it down a tad, but Gee's tongue is eager licking its way into Frankie's mouth, tickling the roof and sliding along Frankie's to guide it past her lips. Frankie's hand returns to Gee's jaw, feeling the way it works under her fingers spreading out over her flushed skin. She thinks she should pull away, find the reason behind Gee's heated kiss, but she finds herself slipping under in the warmth of Gee's skin radiating from the blush staining her cheeks, thinking of how she wishes she could bottle it and stow it away from the nights they're apart and she shivers under the covers from the cold.
Gee pulls back every other minute to whisper Frankie's name in the most enamored fashion that it brings chills to Frankie's body. The hands in her hair, pulling and pressing their mouths together harder, feel intoxicating as Frankie stops holding back her hushed gasps of pleasure each time a sharp spike of tingling pain flourishes under her scalp with every tug. Gee revels in her gasps with tiny moans of her own. It's startling how Frankie fades into her completely this way. Every other sense is swallowed up by Gee's presence and nothing aside from the way their skin feels pressed together feels right.
Gee tilts Frankie's head back and licks a possessive strip along her neck. Frankie can hardly catch her breath at how fucking hot she finds that, holding onto Gee's arms tightly like she'll fall somehow if she lets go. Gee kisses her neck as her hand slides down to her thigh, maneuvering to the inside and up to stroke between her legs.
"Frankie," Gee purrs, "Fuck me in the backseat."
Frankie's eyes crack open. Her body is thrilled by the idea, but suddenly, she slams back into reality as she squints under the glare of the parking lot lights. She startles as she remembers where they are. Although they're the furthest car away from the theater and most people are inside viewing a movie, they're still in a public place where they can be discovered.
Frankie sits up rigidly and tries prying Gee off her neck, but she's like a leech, sucking a dark mark close to her collarbone. "Gee— hold on, wait, we can't—"
Gee whimpers, pressing harder between Frankie's thighs and making her moan involuntarily. "Please? I need you— need you so fucking bad. Let me show you how bad."
Frankie definitely would let her if they weren't risking getting caught by passerbyers, or worse, the cops if anyone rats on them. She shivers in her attempt to restrain herself, blocking out the sensation of Gee's rubbing hand and the heat of her wet mouth exploring her skin.
"Gee, we're in public. We should leave first." Frankie breathes. When Gee refuses to listen, a line forms between her brow. "Seriously, we can just go back to your place or mine, it'll only take maybe twenty minutes at most."
A strange wetness drips down the side of Frankie's neck. Gee freezes, her mouth pulling away from Frankie's skin and her breath pausing abruptly. Frankie's breath pauses on instinct, leaving an uncomfortable silence weighing on them both and pushing down. Frankie breaks it by whispering Gee's name.
Gee pulls back with a peculiar look settled on her face. She touches beneath her nose and Frankie only realizes blood is dripping from her right nostril when a scarlet trail slips over Gee's fingers. Frankie fixates on it for only a second, concern filling her, until she looks up into Gee's huge eyes and a jolt of fear takes her by the throat.
The mossy green and golden brown Frankie is accustomed to looking into has vanished. Gee's eyes are a vivid glowing amber, pupils tiny and startling onyx in contrast, pulsing in the darkness and pinning Frankie under their piercing stare.
"Frankie," Gee's voice is tiny and shaking just like the rest of her, "I need you to take me home right now."
Frankie's chest feels too tight to breathe. "Gee—"
"Now!" Gee yells out and her voice distorts in a way that makes Frankie think she should leap out of the car and run for cover, but instead, she finds herself wrenching the car into drive and splitting out of the parking lot in the direction of the apartment complex.