Red Leaves and Polaroids

Dany moved her mouth away from her palm. There was a dark lipstick print where her lips had been resting. The salon was quiet except for Missandei trying to be discreet about blasting Call Me Maybe from behind the desk. Irri was absentmindedly licking a tea bag and Jhiqui was picking apart the sandwich she'd ganked from Doreah's fridge. No customers had been in all day, and it was almost four.

Doreah sat down next to Dany.

"How's Sansa doing?"

"I don't know. I haven't called her yet today."

"What about Arya?"

"She's seeing a therapist. They think she might be depressed, and bipolar."

"Well, then, you could help her, because-"

"Because I'm both of those things, how observant of you."

"I know you don't like to show emotion but you could really help her in this situation, we were all here for you in the summer and also all those suicide attempts-"

"Doreah, please."

"You're still going to see that therapist right?"

"I told you I was..."

"That's exactly what you said last time, when Irri caught you cutting in the back room? Remember?"

"You mean the day after the funeral?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean, that's no excuse." Doreah half-screamed, Missandei looked up from her fanfiction,

"CAN Y'ALL...?"

"Sorry." said Doreah, Missandei glared and kept reading.

Dany got home before everyone else. With the iPhone's volume full blast, her headphones blaring constantly as she walked through the hall and into the apartment, Marina's voice kept Quaithe's grating one silent to a small degree. Dany laid down on the couch and stared blankly at the ceiling, it seemed to almost swirl,

'I wish I'd been I wish I'd been a teen teen idle, wish I'd been a prom queen fighting for the title,

instead of being sixteen and burning up a bible, feeling super super super suicidal,'

Suddenly, Dany's phone died. When she looked, she'd seen that she'd turned it off and unplugged the headphones.

"Look what you made me do!" She yelled at Quaithe, who emerged from the kitchen and sat next to Dany,

You look nice today, Daenerys.

"Stop, please."

You don't tell me what to do, you stupid bitch. You worthless, disgusting, pathetic whore, I own you, you're my bitch.

"Please go away, please..." Dany sobbed plaintively, covering her ears as tears began to pour down her cheeks, she felt Quaithe's hands come to rest on her shoulders, nails digging angrily into her flesh, "I've never done anything to you."

You saw a therapist, you told your brother about me, you got engaged and had a baby, you didn't kill Arya, you didn't quit your job, you didn't LISTEN!"

Quaithe smacked Dany across the face, she hit the hardwood floor suddenly and felt her forehead begin to bleed, this time it was real blood. She suddenly remembered a different voice, someone other than Quaithe, a real person,

21-year old Caucasian female, approximately 110 pounds, schizophrenic with paranoid, disorganized and catatonic subtypes, attempted suicide by drug overdose on acetaminophen and Ambien-

Dany felt herself beginning to lose consciousness, and Quaithe standing over her...

...

"Quaithe did it?"

Dany stared at Sansa across the kitchen table as she held the ice pack against her head where the blood was coming from, she nodded.

"She slapped me again."

Sansa rolled her purple-rimmed eyes, exasperated, tired and distraught, "She's not real."

"So I just jumped off the couch and knocked myself out?" Sansa shook her head, "It felt so real. She hit me..."

"It's just a tactile hallucination, I just think you might have a concussion."

Dany smirked, "How can you tell?"

"You knocked yourself out for a good thirty minutes and you kept calling me Viserys." said Sansa, entirely serious. Dany looked into her lap, Quaithe was muttering to herself in the corner, Dany saw sweat beading on her palms.

"How's Arya?"

"She's doing a lot better." Sansa breathed, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to keep herself awake, "I was up all night last night, though, she was being a bitch."

"What was she bitching about?"

"How Jon and I are overprotective and ridiculous. Then she starting ranting about school and how much she hates it and then about our finances."

"She's just angry she got caught, she's taking it out on you, I did it too, it's fine."

"Maybe I am overprotective. How was work?"

"Nobody came in, Doreah gave me a lecture, and Missandei was reading some particularly disgusting fanfiction."

"Jon's still at the hospital, Asha won't be home until nine and Theon is... I don't know where he is."

"With his girlfriend."

"I thought you were..."

"No, it's that Kyra."

As if on cue, Theon burst through the door in a cloud of weed smoke,

"Hey, sexy..." he slurred, stumbling and falling over Dany's shoulders, she smacked him away,

"Get off me..." she snapped, "You fucking stink."

"Yeah! Eroeh grows weed in an old pair of pumps... I stole them." he laughed, extracting a pair of red heels from a drug store bag, a package of painkillers came with it. "I'm gonna fuck you till the sun comes up, just try and stop me."

"Go the fuck to sleep." Dany ordered,

Theon smirked and stripped off his shirt and proceeded to unbutton his jeans, "Second stop on the crazy train, departing from Kyra Station into the Dany St-" Theon was cut off as Dany punched him in the nuts.