Hewwo y'all sorry about the bad layout of last chapter—I fixed it I think. I'm from Ao3, and I haven't posted on FF in like, wow so long, so it had no markers showing when my notes ended and when the story began because I tried using special little flower emojis that don't work on this site, apparently. You know what else doesn't work on this site that irritates me to no end? Quotation marks look alike. They're the basic bitches of quotation marks. Look: " " Those don't look the same in my doc, or even in the editor, until suddenly they do, when i post it. I use special formatting for a reason! Let me have my fancy text, FFn!


•Two•

One thing Bella envied was Leah's total control, which was most evident when she was absolutely blasted off her ass. She could smoke three bowls and take an online history course test, passing with 100% plus extra credit; Bella had watched her do it during one of their Skype calls.

Bella, on the other hand, became slow, introspective, and fixated on random things that lead her off in tangents. Whether they were mental ones or spoken, she never was quite sure; she relied on other people telling her to shut the fuck up to truly know.

Leah got up from the log and plopped herself down in a lawn recliner, leaning forward to examine the instructions Jake had thrown in her general direction. Her demeanor changed drastically from blissed-out stoner to Snarky Leah.

"Need these, big boy?"

"Directions are for chumps," he stated, eyeing the booklet with disgust.

"We die without shelter like men," Leah said solemnly, nodding. "As in, the women are not dying. We are living, in a well constructed tent. Because we read the instructions." She stuck the booklet under her butt. "Jake, I will enjoy watching you begging for this back within ten minutes immensely."

Jake rolled his eyes, but his shoulders were tense as he roughly pulled the fabric of the tent out of the bag.

Bella smiled at her, untying and shaking the stakes out of their bag and out onto the grassy floor.

She tried to help for a good minute, she really did—putting forth her best efforts and everything, such as reaching for stuff only to have Jake snatch them away—but he kicked her out of the 'Danger Zone', as he liked to claim, 'for her own safety.'

Bella showed him both her middle fingers. "You're a prep."

"I hate it when you call me that," he muttered, frowning down at the heap of tent stuff.

Which is why she did it. Obviously.

Jake and Leah didn't know about her mom, and they sure as hell didn't know about her. She was still horrifyingly clumsy in her human form, but at least now she knew if she fell off a roof or something, she'd be able to land on all fours.

Unfortunately, she couldn't exactly outright say that. Or anything, for that matter.

She moved away from the Danger Zone and into the Leah Radius, where she always somehow ended up in the other girl's lap. She wasn't complaining. She was just as touch starved as the next depressed lesbian with physically awkward and distant parents, and Leah was an awesome cuddler with a really comfortable lap. Seriously, if she could leave a Yelp review, she would. Five stars. Great accommodations, with excellent thighs that were prime real estate for Bella's tuchus.

But she knew that Leah had been burning to ask her why she came back here ever since she'd arrived days ago.

At Billy's, she'd been assaulted by their adopted family every single second of the time spent there, and Leah hadn't had the chance to ask. Instead, she spent the night drinking an alarming amount of orange juice at an intense rate, and glaring at Billy with her arms crossed. She hated crowds, Bella knew, but she didn't understand why Billy was the main focus of her ire.

Leah'd tried getting her alone to talk, tugging at her arm silently, but everyone wanted to say something to Bella even if it was just the infuriating "wow, you've grown so big, I knew you when you were this tall!" comment middle aged people seemed to be overly fond of.

Like, we get it. You're old, and I used to be short.

That how it be sometimes.

Leah, in response, got more and more irritated throughout the night. She'd gotten in a fight with Jake in the kitchen about something they both didn't elaborate on later, which wasn't all that surprising—their friendship was rocky at best, and both of them were stubborn.

Bella had just wanted to go to sleep. The whole event had been draining.

She stood and watched Jake try and fail to get the metal rods into the sleeves to keep the tent up, hovering in hopes he'd ask for help, but when he didn't she gave up. She kicked open a cooler that had LEAH written on the lid in fading sharpie and grabbed a Pepsi.

The Leah Radius always won. Bella was weak.

Wordlessly, Leah sat back and opened her arms to let Bella sit down. The chair was surprisingly spacey and sturdy; she was able to slide in a little at an angle, so she could face Leah without breaking her neck. Her legs were really, really warm.

"Hey."

Leah smiled, a soft little thing that looked curiously brittle. "Hey back."

Bella stared at her, waiting. Years of talking on the phone, texting, and video chatting made them personally close. She knew her favorite foods, her most hated actors, how fiercely protective of her family she was. She knew what would make her laugh, how to cheer her up, and how to distract her on a bad day.

But that was all pushed to the side when you meet someone again in person after such a long period of time apart. It'd been five years since she last came up here for longer than a week. They'd followed a pattern on the first day back: she came to the rez, they hung out on the beach, Jake came along, they fought over something stupid, and sand was thrown. They tried desperately to fit a year of shit to do into six days, but what they ended up actually doing was lay around smoking weed and talking about safe topics.

Summer jobs. Sports teams. School. The pressing anxiety of reality and how one thing can fuck your life up forever.

Yaknow. Safe topics.

And Leah always made sure she was okay where she was. Leah wasn't comfortable with asking for stuff, and she definitely was the last person to talk about feelings, but she cared and it showed and she sent "you ok?" texts at 3am on a bad day and that's what mattered.

Leah glanced over at Jake, who was cursing at the tent's inability to magically become assembled, and then back at Bella, who was raising her eyebrows. "What?"

"I thought you wanted to talk to me, before." Bella said slowly. Had she imagined the wide eyes and the pleading looks yesterday? No.

Something had changed.

She glanced back at Jake again, who had stopped messing with the tent momentarily to stare back at Leah. They seemed to wordlessly communicate something that had Leah's shoulders sag and her eyes cast down to Bella's lap. She moved her free hand that wasn't supporting Bella's back, starting to pick at the threads of her old ripped jeans.

Bella looked between the two, suspicious. "What?"

"Sorry," Leah sighed, thumping her head back to look up at the sky. "It's nothing, I'm just stressed out about college."

At the corner of her eye, she saw Jake nod and go back to messing with the tent.

Sure.

Right.

As if. Leah was ready to kick college's ass. She'd told her so multiple times over video calls, and there was almost always fists involved in the statement, followed by punching the webcam.

Bella decided to roll with it, because she felt like that was the best thing to do. Leah would—hopefully—tell her what was bothering her and Jake sometime in the future. And it better be sooner than later, or she'd end up pulling her hair out. She hated not knowing.

She hated thinking it had something to do with what she'd potentially done.

"Ugh," Bella grunted, hiding her anxiety, "college."

She wanted to die whenever someone reminded her about college.

"You missed a year, but can't you just test out and come to Leah's college?" Jake asked, optimistic. "That would be so rad, not going... um, there."

"Where?"

"Oh, um, the local high school." Jake elaborated, shifting from foot to foot, looking caught out. He shrugged. "It's highschool. So. Pretty terrible."

Behind her, Leah sighed loudly.

Bella narrowed her eyes at him but had no real reason to be skeptical of his reasoning. He was just acting... shady as fuck. He and Leah were up to something. Or possibly in on something.

Or something.

"I fuckin' wish, dude. My mom made me promise to go back and finish the last year, though. One of her many Mom Commandments she demanded when I decided to come back up here." Including no shifting in the day, no soda, and no weed.

She glanced down at the Pepsi and pushed the tab open, taking a swig, ignoring the old bong teetering precariously on the log next to them.

Whoopsie.

At least she followed the most important rule.

Who knew that hitting Shifter Puberty and turning into a forty pound cat during a road trip back home would cause academic problems for her years later? Not Bella, at the time. Especially not Reneé, who'd thought the half-humanness of her would suppress the Lynx genes. It was such a surprise that her mom had almost crashed the car—Bella, for her part, had tried to exit via window, while screaming.

Lynx's didn't roar like most big cats, given that they were not big cats. They sounded like drunk metalheadbangers impersonating the end of the 'it's Wednesday my dudes' vine.

It was horrible, and Bella was rightfully embarrassed and amused at the same time. The year off school had been nice, excluding the training she'd had to endure just to keep her human form long enough to be considered stable—until she realized that her mom fully intended to put her back into the year she left, instead of just skipping a grade like a sane person would.

"That's shit," Leah said darkly, squeezing her back in a comforting way. "She's on my shit list. You shouldn't have to go through more hellschool—you're smart, you'd test out easy."

Bella smirked, looking directly into her eyes. "I know this, and I love you."

Leah blinked, seeming struck by something, and laughed a little. It sounded slightly strangled, but she melted back as she laughed. "Give me a sip of that, since you're not letting me get up."

Handing off the Pepsi, Bella turned to assess the damage that was the tent.

Jake had gotten the rods in the sleeves and they were clamped down onto the stakes, so she gave him credit where credit was due; he was in fact making progress.

However.

He was struggling with the tarp that went over the top. Every time he swung it over the top and clipped it to one of the rods to secure it and moved to clip the other side, it slipped down the tent and hung awkwardly on the side, flapping in the light breeze.

"Need the instructions yet, Mr Ikea?"

"Shut up. I can do this. I know I can do this." he said, practically growling. She watched as he did it again twice and then started jogging in place, shaking his hands and feet like he was warming up to get in a fight.

"Leah, can I sleep in your tent?" Bella asked without turning back to look at her, attention on him. "I think he's about ready to beat this poor tent into submission."

"Yeah," Leah sighed, leaning forward and shifting Bella more firmly into her lap, resting her head on Bella's shoulder. "Careful, Jake," she said, her voice hiding a warning.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, trying once more to clip it into place. There was a moment of silence as he wordlessly moved from rod to rod, with such intensity on his face she couldn't help but snicker. He succeeded, and the quiet was broken by him yelling "Victory!" And then taking a knee, pointing up at the sky. "Thank you, White Jesus."

Leah snorted. "All hail White Jesus."

"Our savior," Bella concurred, "Mr. Jesus."

"Does that mean White is his first name?" Leah laughed, wrapping her hands around Bella's waist and squeezing. Her arms felt like fire.

Bella touched her forearm. Hot.

No, literally, she wasn't just being gay—it was hot. In temperature.

"Wow, did you get a sunburn? Your skin is wicked warm." She asked, looking closely for a red tint in her tan skin. "You need to stop forgetting sunblock."

"Yeah, sorry," Leah said, sounding oddly sheepish. "I keep forgetting."

"I have some," Bella said, absently patting her friend's hands. "Let me up? I'll get the lotion and set up my side of the tent, since apparently Jake—"

As she talked, the tent wobbled and collapsed. Jake looked crestfallen, still on one knee, and Leah let out a rather loud barking laugh, startling one stoner from across the field enough to yell "fuck!" as he dropped his lighter in the dirt.

"White Jesus fails us yet again," Bella said, solemn. "A moment of silence. RIP Jake's tent, 2018 through 2018."

"May it rest in pieces," Jake sniffed. Then he said, "can I have the instructions?"

Both Bella and Leah smirked.

"You're going to have to beg," Bella reminded him.