This Is How the World Ends

by lovecatcadillac

Daisy was the one who suggested they turn to Lana for help. Yet, as they draw nearer to Lana's place, Daisy is having second thoughts... Something that could have happened at the end of Episode 9 of the 2007 web series.

Pairing: Daisy/Tyler (with some Tyler/LouAnne and Tyler/Lana)

Notes: Written just after Episode 9 of the web series aired. Title is from a Killola song that I listened to a bunch of times while writing this story.

Thanks: As always, to Alicia, for her beta-reading skillz and incredible friendship.

Disclaimer: The Girltrash! web series is the property of Angela Robinson and Ourchart.

Lana's neighbourhood is probably the ritziest place I've ever driven through. The houses are obnoxiously huge and they've got all this security prowling outside 'em. Every single house seems to have the same gigantic SUV parked outside. The streetlights are up so high that they make most of the street look like noon, and throw these weird shadows everywhere else.

Lana's neighbourhood creeps me the fuck out. Why are we here, again?

I look to the side, at Tyler's hands gripping the wheel so hard her knuckles are just about popping out through her skin. I take a deep breath in, and I gag on the fumes of LouAnne's skanky perfume that are still hanging around the front seat, no matter how far I roll the window down. I look down at my phone, where I'm holding it in my lap in the hope that it might ring again.

Shit. Seems that looking at my phone wasn't such a hot idea. It's making me remember Colby screaming down the line that Monique was gonna- what was it? Saw her head off like in a horror movie. Any other time my sister comes out with shit like that, I laugh in her face and tell her not to be such a prissy little drama queen. This time, it's no joke. I know what Monique's capable of, what she's done to some of Tyler's and my friends.

Again, I sneak a look over at Tyler. I should be madder at her for all this. Just 'cause she let me cry all over her and then agreed to go beg money from her batshit insane ex isn't gonna make me forget that this is all her fault. For the past year she's been screwing LouAnne, and now she's only just starting to figure out that LouAnne can screw her back. You'd think she'd have guessed that around, say, the time that LouAnne tied us to a pipe and lit us on fire? Tyler was so completely gone on LouAnne that she managed to come up with some lameass, bullshit explanation for every fuckin' thing. Talk about being slow on the uptake. I should be furious with her for being so dense that it's put Colby in danger.

But she is risking her life to save my sister, which scores her some points. She's actually risking her life to save someone I don't even like that much, just because she knows it means a lot to me. Tyler knows exactly how I feel where Colby is concerned, that I think Colby is just about the most irritating little shit I have ever laid eyes on. I often have trouble getting my head around the fact that we share the same parents. Seriously, the kid could whine for America at the Olympics. I can't stand my sister, and I tell Tyler that about every ten minutes.

It isn't supposed to be this way. Colby can't die. Colby and me, we're supposed to be able to keep going the way we have since she opened her mouth and said her first words. We're meant to be able to get into stupid arguments and call each other stupid names for a long, long time, like fifty more years or something, until one of us is on her deathbed. At which point I'm supposed to be able to say to her, "Listen, sorry I called you a douche and a dipshit and a screw-up all those times. Not gonna say I didn't mean it, but maybe I coulda kept my mouth shut sometimes."

And then she'll reply, "That's cool. Sorry I called you a whore, I guess."

Colby can't die now, that completely fucks up the entire plan! She's only just twenty. When I was twenty, I didn't know shit. There's so much that Colby needs to find out for herself, and so much that we still have to rub in each other's faces. We can't let her die!

"We're not going to let her die," was what Tyler said about an hour ago, when I was still at the nasty snotty stage that comes directly after bawling into your best friend's shirt. She really was talking right out of her ass, trying to get me to calm down so we could figure out a decent plan. "I'll fix it, I'll make it right," was what Tyler said next, sounding so sure of herself that it was like a swift kick in my nonexistent nuts when she later came out and admitted that she had no idea what we were gonna do.

Well, now we have a game plan. That's led us this far, to Lana Dragovich's neighbourhood, with Tyler gripping the wheel like she's gonna rip it out of the dashboard and me trying not to look at my phone or Tyler or the creepy street we're driving down.

Tyler stops the car. The engine goes quiet, and after a few seconds I finally speak. "Which one's Lana's?"

"That one." Tyler points out the biggest, most intimidating place on the block.

"Of course, it would be that one." I roll my eyes. I want to make some wisecrack like, "Oh, so that's the place you used to go spend weekends and come back Monday so worn out from sex that you couldn't move or speak?" I stop myself from coming out with anything stupid- barely. This is so crazy. I just want to ease the tension. Except now all I can think about is how, after the last time she saw Lana face to face, all Tyler could say for about seven hours was, "Never again."

"We're here," says Tyler, kind of unnecessarily, sounding as though she can't quite believe it.

I frown. This house isn't like the other houses. After a sec, it hits me what the difference is. "Where's her security?"

Tyler shrugs. "Back in the day, Lana didn't have any. She had guys on speed-dial to come and intervene if there was a break-in, but she never did like calling 'em. When there was a breach, she liked to deal with it herself. I suppose she's still the same."

I remember when Tyler and Lana first started seeing each other. I was curious, wondering what it was like to be with Lana, this super-secretive, deadly Russian mobster. I asked offhand one day, what Lana was like.

Tyler looked caught off guard by that question. She thought about it for ages and finally said, shrugging her shoulders, "She has a lot of houseplants."

I couldn't help giggling. I'd been expecting something more impressive. "Houseplants?"

"Yeah. You know how some chicks can be like, crazy cat ladies? Lana wouldn't have the patience for cats. She'd kill 'em if they left hair on her clothes or ate out of the garbage. Lana's definitely a crazy plant lady. 'Cause they're obedient and they don't talk back."

Well, that was something. Still, I had to press on. "Fuck, Tyler, you're sleeping with one of the most dangerous women in LA, and there's nothing interesting or juicy you can tell me other than that she likes plants better than people?"

Tyler waved her hands impatiently. "She doesn't like the plants. She cuts the heads off her flowers. Like, not even the dying ones. I'm talking about the healthy ones." Tyler was looking kind of creeped out even as she told me about it. "She snips them off while she's talking to you, and she stares right at you while she does it. Doesn't blink. I've asked her- fuckin' begged her- to stop doing it, but she says she doesn't know what I'm talking about. Then she does it even more. I think it's to keep me on my toes."

"Um… that's real interesting. Anything not related to gardening?" I was a little concerned that Tyler seemed to be so disturbed by a girl she was sleeping with. I tried to cheer her up, change the subject by asking, "So, what do you guys do when you go out?" Tyler didn't say anything. I got kinda desperate and asked, "Tell me, how is she in the sack?"

Tyler wasn't listening. "When she gets really pissed off with a plant, she puts it in the hall closet for a week, like she's putting it in solitary or something. Or she kills it by giving it too much water. Or she puts weed killer in the plant food. One time, she threw a Chinese evergreen down the stairs because a deal went sideways on her."

I stared at Tyler like she'd confessed a secret, burning wish to be Martha Stewart. "… Tyler, just the fact that you know what a Chinese everthing is tells me you shouldn't be spending so much time with Lana. Dude, blow her off tonight, your sanity depends on it. Come out with me instead, OK?"

In the here and now, neither one of us moves so much as a muscle. The entire street is creeping me out, but for Tyler it's all about that house. Lana's house. "Never again," was all Tyler could say, after the last time she saw Lana. "Never again."

We agreed that this was the only way. There's no chance of us switching over, of me making the appeal to Lana and Tyler hunting down LouAnne. Lana doesn't know me, wouldn't be interested in helping me. If Tyler were given the job of catching up to LouAnne, chances are LouAnne would just do her slutty Jedi Mindfuck on Tyler and somehow talk Tyler into helping her skip town. It's pathetic. Tyler is such a pussy when it comes to LouAnne.

And yet, I don't think Tyler would do this if it were LouAnne needing two million bucks. I mean, she's that much of a pussy that she would probably try something fuckin' stupid like robbing a bank, but if LouAnne suggested that Tyler hit up Lana for money, Tyler would've said no and stuck to it.

So ha ha fuckin' ha, LouAnne. Sure, it's petty and it's pointless for me to even be thinking about this… but this, right here? This is one area where Tyler loves me more than you. So you can kiss my ass.

(God, why is it that I wanna start crying again? I can't start that again. No freakin' way.)

Tyler sighs. "I should go, I'm losing time."

"Yeah…"

I don't move. She doesn't move. Tyler looks sideways at me. "Gimme just one minute?"

"What?" I ask weakly.

"Just gimme a minute," she says, pulling out her smokes. "I need a cool head for this."

She's taking a cigarette break now? Now, of all times? "Tyler-"

"Won't be a sec," Tyler mutters, locating her lighter.

I say, "Take your time." Then I want to smack myself in the head. Why the hell did I say a thing like that? Every second that Tyler's getting her nicotine fix is a second for Monique to get more and more pissed with my whiny little sister and her mouthy ex-girlfriend, until Monique finally gets to thinking, Hey, I don't need two mil that bad, I'll just blow their heads off and be done with it.

… No, no, no, can't think that. Can't think of that right now, I'll turn into a wreck. I'll turn as pussy as Tyler is when LouAnne comes by. Can't think how everyone I love could die before midnight tonight.

"Dammit," Tyler says, under her breath, when the cigarette doesn't light. She tries to light up, fails, tries again, fails again. "Dammit," she says, more forcefully.

I stare at Tyler while she tries, yet again, to light her cigarette. It pisses me off that I'm finding the sight of her not being able to work her lighter to be weirdly sweet. She's not sweet. I'm glad that she's not. There are so many things that are so much better and more important to be than just being sweet. Yet, Tyler lets LouAnne get away with so much shit because LouAnne acts all corny and sweet around her. I've said that to Tyler before, and Tyler always shrugs and tells me, "She's not perfect. But I gotta let some things slide with LouAnne, if I want to keep seeing her. We can't all be hardasses like you, Daisy."

Again, Tyler fucks up the lighter and curses softly. I want to snap at her that OK, she's made her point, she's got me in the palm of her hand, she doesn't need to start being sweet on top of it all. Woman has the worst fuckin' timing, I swear to God. If Tyler was ever gonna tell anybody that she loved them, I bet she'd wait until the last possible second, until they were about two minutes away from- from dying or something, because Tyler's timing sucks that bad.

Finally, I roll my eyes. Enough is enough. "For fuck's sakes, Tyler. Give it here." I reach over, seize her lighter, light her cigarette in one go. Tonight, it seems, is one of Those nights, the nights where it kind of hurts leaning close to her. Most of the time it doesn't… I mean, I'd go insane if I let myself go all swooning and stupid every time I touched her. When you're close the way the two of us are, you end up touching hundreds of times a day, for all kinds of reasons. Most times I can reason everything away so much that Tyler could probably strip naked, jump into my lap and make out with my face and I'd be able to find some not-sexy explanation for why she would. "She's rehearsing a play!" I'd say, or, "She's giving me mouth-to-mouth, seeing as I'm… not drowning."

The times when I can't find a reason for us being close are the times when it starts to hurt. Like now, for instance, I have to lean in to light Tyler's cigarette for her. There should be no reason for me to do that, 'cause Tyler's totally able to use a lighter on her own, and now she's… not. Because she's scared. Because she's going to go and ask a favour from someone who tried to shoot her. Because Tyler wants to save my sister, because she wants to make things right.

We sit in silence as Tyler blows smoke rings. She loves doing that. Right now, Tyler's blowing smoke rings like she's trying to fill her smoke ring quota for the rest of her life. She notices me watching, rounds her lips and blows out three perfect ones, one right after the other.

I roll my eyes, and smile in spite of myself. "Fuckin' show-off."

"My first girlfriend taught me how to do those," she says. "Did I ever tell you that?"

I shrug. "Sure. You tell me a lot of stuff."

Tyler stares out the window with this weird thoughtful look, the kind she gets when she's talking about how she thinks LouAnne'll come around and stop fucking all of Tyler's friends any day now. "Yeah, well, we've had a lot of time for me to tell you," she says, and gets out of the car.

I follow her. "So this is goodbye," I say, in this cringeworthy upbeat voice. My pathetic attempt at lightening the mood. Tyler looks at me, she sees my face fall as it hits me like a truck that oh my God, this really could be goodbye forever. She doesn't comment. I want her to say, "For now." or something like it, but she doesn't say a thing.

What the fuck should I say? With any of my other business associates, I would just clap 'em on the back and say, "Good luck, dude!" Maybe toss in a "Been sweet working with ya!" if I thought- like I'm thinking now- that there was a very big chance that they weren't going to come back. With Tyler, I randomly burst out with, "Hey, let me walk you up."

Tyler has her game face on. "Whatever, man, I…" She trails off, looking at me, and says, "Thanks."

We walk. It's like I'm the one who's about to die, not Tyler, because my whole fuckin' time with Tyler is flashing in front of my eyes, like I'm drowning. Eight years of our lives. We've changed so much. Back when we first met, I didn't want to act like I was impressed or anything… but I was. Tyler was so cool and professional already, so badass even though she was barely out of high school- and then I caught her checking out my rack as she leaned over to stub out her cigarette. I raised my eyebrows at her, and she actually looked embarrassed about being caught checking me out. God, she was young. I never thought about her being young. I mean, I knew she was, but the things we saw, the things we did… it would've felt like too much, to dwell on the fact that she was killing people for a living back when she still had to use a fake ID.

She was young. She was young, and tough… gorgeous, and smart. I bet in some fucked-up alternate universe there's a Tyler Murphy who- like, went to college and got a diploma, did something with her life. She never would've held a gun. She never would've even met Daisy Robson.

She's young now. Twenty-six is way too young to die, especially at the hands of your batshit crazy ex-girlfriend. I find myself saying, "Maybe I should come with you to see Lana."

"No," says Tyler simply. "That's not gonna work, Daisy. You're supposed to be finding LouAnne, remember?"

Svetlana Dragovich's fortress of doom is looming larger than life. "I don't mind coming with you, man," I say, trying to keep my voice light.

Tyler grits her teeth. "You'll mind a hell of a lot if your sister gets a bullet in her brain." The bluntness of it makes me cringe, but I let it slide, because Tyler's right.

Fuck me, this is it. This is it. We're walking up the driveway now. My heart is racing. I can't even remember why I thought this was a good idea. Sure, Lana's so rich she could probably find the two million we need between her couch cushions, but there's also the part where she's out of her fuckin' mind. There must be someone else we could try. I wrack my brains, coming up blank. This is crazy. Tyler's got to have slept with richer, saner people than Lana Dragovich.

I can't make Tyler do this for me and Colby. If I lose my sister and my best friend in the same night, what am I gonna have left? There's gotta be some other way.

I blurt out, "Look, I changed my mind, all right? I don't want you to go."

"I have to."

Fuckin' A. Why does she have to pick now of all times to grow a conscience? Why can't she be a scuzzy lowlife like the two of us are 98% of the time, and try to find some way to weasel out of it? "Dude, she'll kill you!"

"Maybe not."

I'm desperate. I'm so desperate now that I'm even willing to admit that I'm desperate. That's something I would never do in any other circumstance, not even in that fucked-up alternate universe where Tyler would be a grad student. I pull out my A material, my numero uno reason why Tyler seeing Lana is a Really Fuckin' Bad Idea: "She tried to kill you before."

"That was a long time ago."

It wasn't that long ago. I still remember the call I got in the middle of the night. Tyler was as freaked as I've ever heard her. I remember the sound of her voice in my ear, sounding about a frillion times closer than the chick I had sleeping beside me at the time. "Daisy? I need you to come pick me up." Before I could ask where she was, Tyler blurted out, "She put a fucking gun to the back of my head. Lana. Svetlana. She told me- she said… almost shot me. Almost shot me in the head."

I have never heard Tyler sound so freaked as she did right then. I don't think I ever will again.

What a fuckin' stupid thing to think. Of course I won't hear her that freaked ever again if I let Tyler go into that house and Lana finishes her off. I mean, what did we say Tyler should try to do? Reason with Lana, appeal to her better nature? That's ridiculous. Why didn't I see how ridiculous that was when I was pressuring Tyler to go? You can't reason with Svetlana Dragovich. I'm sending my best friend off on a goddamn suicide mission.

Tyler's willing to risk her life to get the money to save Colby and Misty. To save my sister, who I don't even like that much. It's the bravest thing anybody's ever done for me.

She's going to go whether I've changed my mind or not. I can't let her go without telling her. I say, more tenderly than I've ever spoken to her before now, "Tyler, listen… I want to say something-"

Tyler motions for me to can it. "I'll get the money, OK?" She starts to walk away, points at me and says, "You find LouAnne." She starts to climb the steps, clouds of cigarette smoke swirling around her.

I am fuckin' fuming. That, right there, may be the last thing she ever says to me, and it includes that traitorous bitch LouAnne's name? Screw that!

"Tyler!" I shout after her. She doesn't look back. I run to catch up with her. "Wait!"

"Don't try to stop me. I got us all into this mess, I'll get us out." She pauses and looks at me. "Whatever happens, I'm sorry, OK?"

I punch her on the arm. "Dude, you're not gettin' out of it that easy! We need the money for Colby and Misty, there's no other way, but- I need to tell you something."

She stops, irritated. "Fine, what?"

Fuck. Fuck, she's put me on the spot. I can't say it.

Tyler's the best friend I've ever had. She's doing the single coolest thing that anyone will ever do for me. She's brave and she drives me up the fuckin' wall on a regular basis, and I- I- I can't lose her, I can't, but she's determined to fix this and I can't stop her and… she's looking right at me. So much is resting on this moment and I just- can't- say it. Most of the time I can't even so much as think it without cringing or wanting to introduce my head to a brick wall, but now is the second when it matters most of all, nothing has ever mattered as much as this does right now and- fuck, what is it about this that's so hard to say? It should be easy. Tyler, I love you. Five goddamned syllables is all I have to say. Maybe elaborate a little, like, I love you for doing this for me. Or, I love you 'cause you're my best friend. Or even, I love you 'cause honestly, if I was with anybody else in the fuckin' universe when I went through even half the shit I've gone through with you, I'd never want to see them again, but you I could probably stand seeing every day for a really fucking long time (not so wise to say the rest of our lives because yours could be over in the next five minutes, oh what am I even talking about, I don't know if I want to be with you for the rest of our lives, or even a "really fucking long time." I don't even know if I wanna be with you in the girlfriend kind of way because that'd just get us into a whole other world of shit. I just wanna be with you right now, which isn't unreasonable considering our work is so dangerous that right now is really all we ever have, and hey, if we manage to stay together and stay alive for something resembling a "really fucking long time," then yay for us!). I don't understand why I have to say this right here and now, because dude, talk about your bad timing. I don't even want to be this way, not about you, not about anyone, really, but the truth is you bring out this side of me whether I want it to be brought out or not.

"I, uh… forgot?"

Tyler looks at me in disbelief. Then, she laughs. "Oh, right, I believe that."

My face feels like that summer day that the Grand Torino basically puked up its own engine on Santa Monica Boulevard and we had to push it home. Oh, God-fucking-dammit, I could shoot myself right now. I could shoot Tyler for doing this to me. "Shut up, man."

"You want I should try and guess?"

"Don't guess. Seriously, just let it go. Just- I'm going now."

"No, let me guess," she says, her voice tight like she's trying not to laugh or cry. "You're gonna tell me I'd better not get shot, because if I die, no-one's gonna understand your jokes?"

Oh, God, Tyler. You dumb fuck. Right now, I love her more than ever for being so clueless, because me being so exasperated with her for being so dumb is saving me from embarrassing myself. I mentally add another reason to the list: I love you, Tyler, in spite of the fact that you're a dumbass. No, BECAUSE of the fact that you're a dumbass, because it means I don't get hurt… much.

She laughs softly. "And then, you're gonna go on to say that I'd better not get shot 'cause you've always loved me, or something like-" She stops talking when she sees my face.

OhGodohGodohGod…

"Daisy?"

"What?" I say, way too fast.

"You don't really, do you?"

"Shut up."

"Is that it?"

"Um."

Time is against us, and we both know it. She looks over her shoulder at Lana's house before turning back to me. "Is that it?"

It all comes out in a rush. "That's it, yeah. That's what's up with me, what's been up with me for… ages. That's how I-"

"How?" she asks, cutting across me.

"What?" I ask weakly.

"How do you- like a friend, is that it?"

I could lie. I totally could. But I figure, why bother? "No."

"Like a sister?"

I don't say anything. She can't seriously think I'd be this torn up about loving her like a sister?

"Like a sister, right?" Tyler presses.

"Sure. Right." I pause, then, "No, wait. Stop. Fuck it, I take that back."

"Oh?"

"I don't-" I clear my throat. "I don't love you like a sister, Tyler."

I'm freaking out all over my skin right now. But I shouldn't be. She won't get it, she's always too clueless to get what I mean about stuff like this. "I don't love you like a sister" could mean a million things. It's not like the world is separated into people you love like a sister and people you wanna ride like a dime store pony.

"For ages, you said? You've felt this way for ages?" Her eyebrows are in danger of getting lost in her fauxhawk.

I squirm. "It doesn't mean- I just-" Here I go again, trying to cover my ass. It's pathetic. If I were someone else, I'd bitch-slap me right about now.

"I figured," Tyler says softly. The way says it makes me stop… makes me consider, makes me wonder. I give her a weird look. Tyler smiles a little, sadly, and nods her head.

She knows. Oh my God, she knows. Fuck. Fuck!

"Tyler, I-"

Tyler motions for me to can it again. "Tell me when we see each other again."

"That sounds good." At least, the part about seeing her again. Gotta say, I could do without the whole love confession.

"I'll see ya soon," she says. Tyler starts to walk away, quickly, unstoppably away and away from me.

I stick on my game face. No-one does a game face like me. "Man, if you say that you might as well say, 'I'll be right back!' That's how people get fuckin' killed in scary movies."

She laughs. I turn my back and start to walk away, so I don't see that last laugh of hers. That might be the last joke of mine she ever laughs at, but weirdly, the idea isn't making me wanna crumple into a heap. At the very least, she knows how I feel. That's OK for me. That's enough, really it is. Even if I don't have a clue what she thinks about it…

All of a sudden, I hear her stop. She turns and calls my name. "Daisy!"

I stop walking, but I don't turn around. "What?"

"For what it's worth… I don't love you like a sister either," she calls.

… She doesn't love me like a sister? What the shit is that meant to mean? That could mean a million things! It could mean a million things, and Tyler knows it too, the bitch! I turn again, but she's taking the steps at a run. She's not gonna look back now. She's said what needs to be said, and now she has a job to do. And as a matter of fact, so do I.

For so long, I've wanted to grab hold of her, shake her, yell at her to stand still, to shut the goddamn hell up and listen to me. I thought if I ever got around to it, I'd have to use diagrams, sock puppets, a freakin' interpretive dance so that she'd finally get it. I wanted to make Tyler understand so that she'd kiss me or hit me or do whatthefuckever she'd do if her best friend confessed to being in love with her.

She might love me. I'm not grinning like a shit-eater, the way I do when I wake up from seriously embarrassing dreams about Tyler, but it feels like something's lifted. It feels like something's changed. I don't love you like a sister could mean a million things and a lot of them… are pretty sweet. Maybe later, when we're all in the clear and all this is like a bad dream, the two of us can break out the sock puppets and do this thing properly.

Right now, I want to do something physical and real, something nobody could ever misinterpret, no matter how slow on the uptake they were. Hang on, Colby, I'm coming. Before I do, I have a traitorous, two-faced bitch to find…