A/N: Thank you so much to Anna, Beth, and Logan for helping me with this fic [even though Anna detests Jess] This Quad is based of a series of videos done by Marina and the Diamonds. This one is called "Fear and Loathing", which is actually the visual image I tried to convey here. I recommend watching this video.
In reality, I probably should have seen this coming. But I was either to strung out or drunk to care. The lights still glimmered their party colors, broken bottles, glitter, and the sticky marble floor reflected the rainbow with the in coming sunlight.
They mocked me with their laughing colors, lingering together reminding me of my loneliness. Every day alone. Even surrounded in a sea of people I was still alone. They didn't want me, they wanted what I had. They want the cheap thrill that comes with having something that others don't. But no amount of money, alcohol or painkillers can mask that emptiness.
The sun continued to rise and came in brightly from the bay window, burning my eyes causing me to lean my head back against the couch, sinking further to the floor. Tears burned over what I knew were blood shot eyes, and spilled over. They cut through my carefully applied make-up and my carefully constructed lies. My body shook with emotions that overwhelmed me, all consuming, all conquering. My hands sank into the white shag rug as I tried to will the pain away.
"I didn't pick this." My sobs echoed in the empty hallways. Blindly, I stumbled to my feet knocking over what I was sure to be a priceless vase. I stared at it for a good while, until my vision blurred and I forced myself to blink. A hollow laugh escaped my lips as I looked down at the vase, with it's broken pieces mixed with wine glasses and beer bottles, with no real difference between the three. It was ironic really, how it only had value when pieced together and could be as worthless as beer glass when smashed to a million pieces.
The foreign crazed laugh didn't stop as I ignored my groaning aches and pain, tumbling up the stairwell. I made it all the way to my room before I emptied myself. Acid, artificial flavoring and something that tasted a little too sweet covered my taste buds, followed with could only be described as the worst dry mouth in the history of man.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my arm, I tried to make it to my vanity with more precision. I plopped down on the plush chair and began applying make-up. I couldn't even bother myself to take off what I had left from the night before. I paused in mid-stroke, gazing at myself in the mirror. Is this what my life had been reduced too? Pretty lies up kept even though everyone knew the truth? Setting the brush down, I turned my gaze to the room.
Gold, gold everywhere.
All that glitters is gold. Isn't that what Midas had said? Someone had. The word stuck in my head. Gold. Gold. Gold. Gold. Like a chant that just wouldn't stop and wound in with my hangover. Gold.
I glimpsed at my mirror again, my hair was even gold. Damaged and brittle from all the abuse from never taking care of it properly, stiff just like the metal that seemed to define my life. "All that glitters is gold, Tess, don't forget that." Is that right, mommy dearest?
The face in the mirror contorted into a face that wasn't quite mine as I picked up the scissors from my shelving. Gold. I was so sick of it, of everything.
Snip.
The air rush from my lungs, and for a minute I stared at the lady in the glass. What had she done? What had I done? The worry was over washed with a sense of empowerment. That was right, I could still change myself. When had I decided that kindness was weak?
Snip.
Or that I had to be alone? Use other people's words with my voice? I could still be anything that I wanted to be! I was Tess Tyler, dammit.
Snip.
I paused in the mirror again and looked at the half-crazed woman. I was no longer Tess.
Snip.
But I wasn't Thessaly Irene Tyler either. I was someone new, still venturing, still searching in the chaos.
Snip.
But I was closer to the light than I'd ever been before. Partying was over rated, Drugs were expensive, Booze stained your carpets, and gold...
I took the last piece of long hair between the scissors and held it in my hands.
Gold was dead.
Snip.
"Pop princess Tess Tyler was seen yesterday leaving a building yesterday debuting a new do. Rumor has it that the daughter of TJ Tyler cut it off after a party dare gone wrong. Either way it looks great. But we can't help but wonder... has the starlet finally lost her shine?" He sighed as they showed the blonde bombshell leaving what looked like a corporate high rise. She looked thin, tired, and just worn out on life in general. It wasn't unusual to see her like this now, but it still took him by surprise when he saw her. In his mind, Tess was still the defrosting queen of camp and just learning what it meant to be happy. What it meant to smile. What it truly meant to fly from the nest.
But she never made it out. She caved in on herself, running back to the only life that she knew and blurred away every reaching hand. She'd clipped her own wings, feared her flight. She'd been so close, so damn close.
Jason ran a hand through his hair and set his coffee back down on the counter with the sigh, muting Hot Tunes and just closing his eyes. Tess had to get better on her own, he knew that now but that didn't mean he hadn't tried first. Maybe when she woke-up, she'd realize that there will still people to turn too, people who still cared. He open his eyes and they landed on the one thing that stilled tied them together.
That stupid bird house.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Everyone asks me that now.
"Yes, I'm positive." But I'm not.
"Tess, this is your house. Once you sell this, you can't just come back and take it for yourself. You'd have to buy it back." I bite back the rude retort that bubbled in my throat. I knew how housing markets worked; I had moved enough as a kid. But Dana didn't deserve that; I didn't deserve Dana.
"It's not mine." That much was true, I couldn't even walk through the door anymore without feeling like an invader. "I- I just need to start over Dana." I took a deep breath and pretended to flip through a real-estate magazine. Her hand covered the pages and I could feel her eyes searching mine. So much warmth and understanding, just like there had always been. "I need to prove to myself that I don't have to be like... this. That I can still have a chance, take it and actually be something."
Dana would understand, how could she not with Axel as her father, but Sander wouldn't be as forgiving. Dana knew; she picked up the phone on the first ring when I reached for her, loyalty to something she saw potential and worth in made her unshakable from my side even at my worst.
"Okay then." She removed her hand from the glossy pages and picked up the paper pamphlet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her circle something but the agent came over.
"Hi, which one of you is Tess?" As if he didn't already know, he didn't even bat an eye at Dana. He had the same smile as every wolf, and this sheep knew better.
"The one leaving. Come on Dana."
Dana found the person to sell what had become "the Hair salon" and she found my new house.
"And what is it about this new place that you like more than the other?" Dr. Helen Talbot ask me, propping her feet up on the coffee table in her office. It was one of the many things that I liked about her. The eye-brow ring, burgundy hair, and the sneaking suspicion that she had a tattoo or two made me pick her.
"All of the walls are white, except for the stone wall, I like that..." I leaned back in the leather chair and looked out of the window. "It means that I can do whatever I want, verses what someone else thinks that I would want."
"So a symbolic cleansing of sorts. The stone wall sort of represents your past and a 'foundation', if you will, and the white for the new chapter you're starting." She offered with a slight grin, holding her coffee to her stomach and rhythmically drumming her fingers on the ceramic.
"I know that I'm supposed to be all artsy and stuff," I ran a hand through my shortened locks "but they're walls. I'm gonna paint them whatever damn color I want, put whatever furniture I want in my rooms and use the kitchen to actually cook... you know... maybe."
"Excuse me, let me correct myself then. You want to take the aperance of the new house-"
"Loft."
"whatever, and make it into whatever you want... much like you're doing with you're life." She gave a smirk.
"I still think you're reading too much into this."
"Eh, it's my job." Helen looked over at a small digital clock on the wall. "So, same time next week?" I nodded.
"Okay, now, I know you don't want to think about anti-depressants but maybe I could find some type of tea or something and you could try that."
"No pills?" She shook her head and gave a tiny smile before standing up to open the door.
"No pills." She opened her arms and looked at me expecantly. "What? You're making progress emotionally, you should do the same physically." I hestiantly sank into the hug, and almost immediatly regretted it. No one hugged me except for the one person I had hurt the most. The one person who really mattered.
Jason.
He looks at me, us, skeptically.
"Mister Brown, I can assure you that Tess has made excellent progress." Helen hands him a cup of tea and take her normal positioning on her couch. She gives me a pointed look and jerks her head.
"Um- uh." I look down at the journal in my lap and grasp it tightly, swallowing the lump in my throat. "I- I wanted to st-start over." I flinched at my own stuttering, when had I ever been this nervous? "I wrote a song, well songs, a lot of them." I all but tossed the spiral into his lap. His eyes roamed over my face. My eyes watered as his hands went to open the cover, but his eyes stayed on my face. "I- I just, I want to make something that I was proud of, ya know?" I rambled wiping my eyes quickly. "I- I want to be better. I'm still working on that, b-but I'd really like for you to see that too." I wanted, needed, his approval. Knowing that I was actually doing something worth pursuing. Showing someone else from my pre-drug-induced-haze that I really was trying. Brown was the first person to tell me that I shouldn't have to conform to my mother's preset ideas.
He was right. He was always right.
"I- I," The tears dribbled over again, and Brown covered my hand with his.
"Come by the studio tomorrow." He placed the spiral in my hands. "Show us all what you have, love."
She sat at the piano. In all my years of instructing her, seeing her preform, watching her spiral, I had never seen her even touch a keyboard. She must play often, her posture showed that she was more than comfortable siting on the wooden bench. She took out the battered spiral and flipped to a page, then closed it again and set it on the piano stand. She placed her hands and started what sounded to be a plea bargain.
I've lived a lot of different lives
Been different people many times
I live my life in bitterness
And fill my heart with emptiness
How many times had I seen her fall into the same pattern? Diva, Tantrum, Trouble, and Falseness. She was acknowledging that, her constant state of shifting and taking her own anger out on others. She was accepting that she was an angry, confused, and very hurt young woman.
And now I see, I see it for the first time:
There is no crime in being kind
Not everyone is out to screw you over.
Maybe, oh just maybe they just wanna' get to know ya'.
I could see very clearly who she was picturing.
After all this time, I could see the lasting impression that my nephew had left.
She was giving him the praise he deserved for the kindness he gave away freely. Kindness that she'd previously thrown in his face.
Now the time is here,
Baby you don't have to live your life in fear
And the sky is clear, is clear of fear
Don't wanna' live in fear and loathing
I wanna' feel like I am floating
Instead of constantly exploding
In fear and loathing
Her shoulders trembled and the pieces fell into place. Tess knew that she had been spiraling. Knew that she was on a path of self-detonation if she hadn't cleaned up in time. She feared what she'd become, a bloody mess. So much like her mother, that I think she forgot that she didn't have to follow in her mother's footsteps.
Got different people inside my head
I wonder which one that they like best
I'm done with tryin' to have it all
And endin' up with not much at all.
Is this what it had taken to break her from her drugged stupor? Being done with not being enough for people and, even worse, not enough for herself? No one cared for Tess when they were sober. She was only useful to them when they were drunk, and she realized that. She had to be strong enough to stand on her own.
And now the time is here,
Baby you don't have to live your life in fear
And the sky is clear, is clear of fear
Of fear
Don't wanna' live in fear and loathing
I wanna' feel like I am floating
Instead of constantly exploding
In fear and loathing.
And when the time comes along
And the lights run out,
I know where I will belong
When they blow me out.
This new sound was so different than what people usually expected from the pop princess. Worn, tired and angry; the baring of a soul into the music. It was the potential everyone had seen in her finally coming into fruition. She was finally ready to be on her own.
"Hey love, what would you say to a little bit of recording today?"
