A/N

Flooding the fandom, aren't I? My apologies! I've been wanting to write about Cassie again for a while, but couldn't really think of a plot, so you get this instead. Hope you enjoy!

The Girl Who Knew How To Be Beautiful - Sid POV

Nobody else did it right.

He had kissed other girls, at parties sometimes, and sometimes they made him feel good. Michelle in particular was like a flame - making him a moth? A moth seems to think that a flame will make it happy. Of course, it never could.

Michelle was so pretty. Those perfect curls, that dainty little nose and mouth. The way she smiled and giggled and rolled her eyes.

But there was something about Cassie; something he couldn't pin down. Like the movements she made, the things she said. Like they were all so inexplicably right. As if she knew just what jigsaw puzzle piece she made in the world. As if she knew, when she picked out a dress - held between finger and thumb, bone-thin and dangerous - or smeared glitter across her eyelids, or smiled so wide her face seemed to split in two, as if she knew just what she was doing. As if she knew so much more than anyone else.

No, nobody knew how to be beautiful like her.

First Snow - Cassie POV

"Cassie."

It's not a question. It's as if the other girl just wants to roll Cassie's name between her teeth. To taste its vowels and consonants on her tongue. She's girl-next-door pretty in a white blouse and light blue skirt, just enough make up to show she cares, not so much she looks slutty.

Cassie smiles because she knows more than the other girl. She knows that slutty isn't always a bad thing. That sometimes when people know just how many boys you've slept with - and girls too, Cassie likes girls, they're softer and the look in their eyes when they realise what they're doing is worth any jibe to be thrown at her - when they realise you don't care, their disgust matures into something a little more like awe. Cassie can make herself look slutty when she wants to. Beautiful-slutty though. The right kind of slutty.

"Annika," replies Cassie. (That's probably not the girl's name but it's worth a try.)

"No, Michelle," she says, looking confused. It's January, there's one stray snowflake caught at the top of her hair, the part which is almost a fringe, and she's so lovely, lamb-like in the snow. Cassie decides she doesn't want to fuck this girl. She's too pretty and too safe. She can be friends with her though because it's about time Cassie started making friends.

"Wow." Speak, smile, pause, think, speak. "You look like an Annika though, so I'll call you that today, and Michelle tomorrow, yeah?"

Michelle doesn't answer, maybe she doesn't know how. Cassie likes Michelle's arm - the skin looks soft and just the right shade of pale - and so she links hers through it and drags her away, telling herself all those things she never believes. We can be friends, Michelle spoke to me first, Michelle likes me, Michelle is my friend, Michelle is my friend.

Hadn't Seen Her - Tony POV

He'd never spoken to her. Her smile was too wide and her clothes hurt his eyes with their brightness. He knew she was vaguely friends with Michelle, so he didn't say things when she was there, but when it was just him and Sid, him and Maxxie, him and Chris, him and anyone... Then he could say anything he liked. And he liked to say a lot.

Made him feel in control. Saying things.

When she kissed him outside Abigail's party he wasn't expecting it to be good. She tasted ridiculously sweet, painfully sweet, like burnt sugar. She tasted like citrus and vodka, stinging his lips. She tasted like things that slip between your fingers, vague, elusive, not tangible and feminine like Michelle, not sickly sweet like (as he'd later found) Abigail, not smoky, drunk and cheap like the people he kissed at parties. Not like anyone who'd ever kissed him before. Not like anyone he'd ever kissed.

You know what, he thought absent-mindedly, Sid's not in for a bad night.

Michelle pulled her off (more motherly care than jealous anger, which said a lot, Tony thought) but apparently the kiss was more than a whim because Cassie had something to say. She resisted for a moment, tracing words into his sleeve, before letting Michelle drag her backwards (leaving Tony lost and missing it slightly, almost wanting more.) There was a look in her eyes that told him exactly what those words had said.

I win. I win, I win, I win. You say those nasty things about me Tony Stonem and then I kiss you and you like it. I win. I knew I would. I always do. I win, I win, I win. And now I'll have him too. I'll make him want me like you wanted me then. Make him more than want me. Love me like he loves you. More than he loves you.

Maybe Cassie meant those things and maybe she didn't.

But Tony wasn't taking any risks.

London's Burning - Effy POV

"Do you think you're different from everyone else?"

Effy does think she's different from everyone else, but she senses it's not the right answer. "No."

Cassie laughs. Maybe she knows Effy's lying. Probably does. She knows most things.

A long time passes.

"Shall we light a fire and watch it burn?"

Effy loves fire, she loves the way it changes things, hurts them, makes them so they're not what they were. She loves ash, broken and defenceless. She loves embers. The way they're still trying. Pathetic. "Yeah."

They do. They burn grass, which doesn't work well for long, but when it does, it's beautiful. Cassie's face between the smoke is wild and fae-like, her skin silver with light and grey with darkness. Effy knows then that she wants, no, has to be like her. To do everything like she does. To burn like she does, to laugh like she does, to break hearts like she does. To be all pills and tears and skinny legs. To do everything like she does.

Except more and better and worse.

Friends - Sid POV

Sid thinks Cassie's crazy and kinda nice, too.

They hang out sometimes. She gives him advice about Michelle. It's sorta weird advice, all 'There are other girls you know Sid' and 'Michelle's not all that pretty, really', and she says it like there's something he's supposed to understand, but he never does. Cassie's hard to get.

One time she takes him to the park and says these are the swings, I like to go on the swings. So he thinks maybe she wants him to push her on the swings, and he does because that could be quite cool, and it's the sort of thing you do with friends when you're little. Cassie makes him feel like he's little sometimes. Sometimes she makes him feel really grown up, but that's weird, a bit creepy, really, so he doesn't think about it.

So she's flying on the swings with those pale legs pushed into the air, head thrown back, blonde hair everywhere. She's got a load of momentum now so Sid's just standing back hoping she doesn't hit him in the face. She's saying wow a lot and giggling, which isn't out of the ordinary.

Then she jumps. Sid wasn't expecting it so he massively freaks out, doesn't exactly want her to die on him, does he? He goes galloping after her like he thinks he can catch her or something, but she lands on her feet and runs like she's expecting him to chase her. He does because he's a bit distracted and no-one's watching, so that's good, that's fine.

When he catches her she falls, or pretends to fall, and she pulls him down with her because she's Cassie and that's the sort of thing she does. They've left the tarmac behind now, and the swings, and alla that. They're in a really nice bit, and the grass has just been cut. He can smell it. Anyway Cassie rolls over, facing him, and she starts playing with his hands. She does that a lot. Then she takes his glasses, which is kinda difficult to justify but she does it anyway, so maybe she just likes taking his things. He tries to take them back, obviously she doesn't like it but after a while she lets him. She smiles, softer than her usual smile, eyes all sparkly. It's a real shame we didn't fuck at that party, 'cause that could do wonders for my reputation, and I bet she's good in the sack.

"I am," she says, like she's read his mind, and smiles again, smiles so wide with those bright red lips and those pretty brown eyes, only she probably hasn't read his mind, she's probably just saying shit. Random shit. 'Cause she's Cassie.

Sparkles And Starvation - Cassie POV

The girl in the mirror is not beautiful but she can be, Cassie can make her beautiful.

She can take all of her make-up off and put it back on again, carmine lips like a femme fatale 'cause sometimes Cassie pretends she's one of those. Sparkles on her eyelids 'cause that's what she always does, but none of the normal stuff, no orange face paint covering up the little marks (Cassie likes those) and no mascara making her lashes all long and dainty, like Michelle's. Cassie doesn't want to look like Michelle. She wants to look better than her.

She can put on a sparkly dress, sparkly like her eyelids, sparkly short and silky. She can find nice shoes and nice sparkly things to put in her hair. Oh, her hair! She can brush her hair all raggedy, too, that'll match. It'll make her look like a fucked up fairy princess and that's just how Cassie wants to look, fucked.

But she wants to look like a fairy too and there's only one way to do that.

She can push her thighs apart with the ache in her belly, the biting hunger. She can squeeze her stomach flat with measuring tap and she can urge the scales to steal the fat from her arms and her hips and her everywhere. She hates the fat. So yes, steal it away, take it like a changeling, fairy changeling. Make Cassie light like a fairy with gossamer limbs, so light, so light. She can do all of these things, she can do them until she is so, so beautiful that it makes people hurt.

Cassie almost drowns herself in sparkles and starvation. She tries and tries and tries again. She does it all, she knows how. But somehow it never works.

Silk - Maxxie POV

Maxxie likes boys.

He doesn't like girls. He doesn't know why. Maybe he finds the curve of breasts unpleasant, maybe he needs weight and hardness and masculinity to steady him on this earth. Maybe they're too high maintenance. Maybe he doesn't like the way they smell.

He doesn't like fucking girls and he doesn't fall in love with girls. But he can love them, love them like a friend, and he can tell when they're pretty, and he can tell when they're sad.

Cassie is pretty. Cassie is sad.

Maxxie loves Cassie because she's like art. Like a poem, vague yet somehow always true, built in strange forms and full of rhymes and stardust. Like a painting (and how he loves to paint her), smooth and strange strokes alternating to create a vision that can only be understood as a whole. He's had to overcome his urge to dissect her, to take her apart, because she's so much better together.

And like a dance. Smooth and silken limbs, laughter that makes its own music, moving with grace and style and fluidity. Maxxie wants to dance Cassie, but when he tries he can't, can't be her, can't dance her. Can't do it the way Cassie does it. He can draw her, draw her cheekbones and the light of her eyes, but there's something he's missing. He can write her, write the lilt of her words and the way she loves people so much it hurts, but there's something there isn't there. Still. He can try. And she's beautiful in his art, if not complete.

But he can't dance her.

He can carry on trying, though.