CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fourth batch of pancakes down and the failed ones passed down to Hot Dog, the the second rewatch of the week of 'A Cinderella Story' was underway. Considering the movie they were in process of watching was a rom-com, it was actually fairly depressing if you took specific note of the way the main character's step-mom was fake bitch, the dad was years dead, and the character's biological mother was assumably the same.
Maybe that's why she had been obsessed with it ever since the first viewing, aged probably six years old or something like that and watching it on some television channel in the summer holidays – because she could relate; or at least she could relate in the region of biological parents. In the position of the fictional step-mother instead world her alcoholic uncle that she couldn't find any love for other than the one she forced upon herself because he was family, after all, and in opposition to the film then were absolutely penniless.
She still remembered that day she'd told him that she wouldn't pay his bills to make up for the way he refused to go to work for a third of his shifts. He'd told her that she was disloyal. Told her that this wasn't her house to enjoy anymore. That any night spent there from that day onwards would be entirely out of rare courtesy. So what? It wasn't her home anyway. It wasn't even a home at all.
But, this time round, Toni couldn't help but take note of how damn simple the character's lives were more than ever. No murders. No gangs. Popular girls. Unpopular girls. Girls who want to be popular but – let's face it – probably never would be. The teen sports star who didn't know what he wants to do with his life. Toni couldn't help but strive for that normal.
Because, yes, a high school movie from the early noughties was more normal than their day-to-day way of life.
Because, of course, despite the slightly dark themes running throughout – such as the deceased parent idea, although that was a theme also explored in every Disney film ever to exist – this was a film released in 2004 with a PG rating, and they couldn't exactly do that much with it without parents going off on one about something pathetic and so-said 'controversial'.
Still, Toni watched on as the teenagers got on with schoolwork (what's even is that in the movie universe, though?), college applications, crushes, jobs. Legal jobs. Diner girl. Drive-through-car-wash dude, entrepreneur, or whatever. Nothing like her own job – long nights at a biker bar which gave her a million blisters and made her want to shower in boiling water the next morning and cough up everything her lungs had in them besides oxygen. Illegal, of course, as it had been for them past two years. Not that nobody cared, apart from that cop who had once walked in and given her a bit of a 'look' when she'd told them she was nineteen at the start of her employment period.
Not that she blamed them. She'd be a bit concerned too if she saw a five-foot-tall teenage girl who looked about ten serving an already drunk fifty-year-old biker guy with a criminal record a glass of Jack Daniels.
But those occasions were short and sweet and, most importantly, rare. So right now she was fine saying that she was twenty, even though she was pretty sure Sheriff Keller knew that she was in his son's sophomore class at this point.
She felt her phone vibrate on her thigh. It would probably be a text from Hog Eye or FP or somebody else, telling where what time she was on tonight. She didn't want to look at it, really, or even do so little as think about the idea of going to work after all of this bullshit she and her girlfriend had been through these past few days, but the more and more time she spent trying desperately to sway her mind back to the school dance scene in the film, the more and more time she found that it was impossible to ignore it. After several minutes of contemplation, barely even thinking about the movie on the old and small television screen at this certain point, flipping her phone over and moving it to the shielded area from Cheryl behind her hip, she turned it on, opening the 'messages' app with a concealed sigh.
Hog Eye [11:32] - 5 12 tonight
Seven hours. It was only seven hours of her without Cheryl, Cheryl without her, right? It could be eight. In all reality, it could actually be ten hours she was on. But it wasn't. Maybe that was the biggest blessing she could ask for at this moment in time. Not much else was looking up, to be honest. Glancing over at the other girl, her hazel eyes set on the movie she too had admitted to watching an excessive number of times over the years, she realised that her being safe was the best thing ever. But with another nightmare last night, plus the several panic attack which were only to be expected but still wounded like a bullet, the breakdowns and just the pained and haunted look dwelling in her eyes, Toni was beginning to feel that heavy sensation in her chest which made her just want to break down for the other girl. Take her pain from her.
It was a silent prayer for her to be okay, but God didn't exactly reside in biker bars so she was fairly stuck there.
Getting back onto the film, she tried to focus on that for half an hour. She pulled herself closer to Cheryl, the redhead doing similar as the shorter girl felt fingers searching in the darkness for hers, and she felt eyes burning into the side of her head. When she was struggling to take it anymore, she reached back down for her phone and tried to tap in a message before the other girl took any notice.
Tinyyy [11:48] - favour
Tinyyy [11:48] - u in tonight?
It wasn't exactly a question; the serpent knew that her figurative brother was on sibling-sitting duty the majority of weekends, with his mom on the night shift where she wasn't on the day shifts or in training most where she wasn't on a shift. And, most of the time, she would be there to help out if she wasn't spending the evening at her own job. The amount of times her gang had told her that they owed her ought to be remembered in times like this, right?
Fangs [11:56] - Yass
She drew a breath of relief as the notification. Good. Because if that hadn't been the case for whatever reasons then Sweet Pea would have had to cancel his plans or she'd have to find someone else to look stay with Cheryl whilst she was at work. And Veronica was currently on a strict curfew, as previously noted. Jughead was probably with Betty, and also probably unwilling to step in at this point. Did he even know what was going on? She couldn't remember if she had said anything to be honest. Regardless, would they have actually stayed and kept an eye on her or would they have gone off and done whatever the fuck else they decide to do, that most like being the word used thirteen words back? She had her suspicions.
She sighed, tapping in another message.
Tinyyy [11:57] - would it b too much to ask if u cld have cheryl over? work x
It only took a couple of minutes to receive the reply she needed.
Fangs [11:59] - anytime tineees
"Who are you texting?" Cheryl murmured from beside her, eyes still set on the movie but clearly having noticed the other girl taking a minute away from the storyline. Toni shifted a bit, flicking the home button on and off continuously as she fiddled with her phone before looking up to the taller girl.
"Fangs," she uttered monotonously, chucking her phone across to the other end of the sofa, placing her eyes back on the small screen in the corner as she tried to forget about what was going on.
"Oh," Cheryl hesitated, trying to interpret the other girl's facial expression, squeezing her hand. "Is everything okay?"
"Mm." The serpents couldn't will herself to add more at that moment. Clearly noticing her lack of motivation, the redhead laid off with the questions. If it was that important, she trusted her to tell her later. For all she knew, it could have been a good morning text – not everybody woke up as early as she usually did, after all.
They were about two thirds through. They could wait until the end once they had finished this movie for her to go into details about the evening schedule. She could only hope that Cheryl got the picture.
Almost fifteen minutes until the credits rolled, Toni knew that she had to tell her at that point. It was just that gut feeling – say something now or forever remain in piece. She fumbled around for the black remote, feeling around for the 'pause' button towards the bottom. She tried to not stop the movie with the camera set on some person, or at least not on some weird facial expression if that weren't possible. She got lucky.
"What's up?" Cheryl turned to her after several seconds, face screwed up in confusion, gripping the smaller hand in her own tighter than ever. She examined the shorter girl's face, frowning at the grave expression she was met with in front of her.
Toni inhaled. She looked up, meeting Cheryl's eyes for a moment, her own travelling down the rest of her body and eventually setting themselves on the bruises on her own knuckles left form the other night when she'd tried to access her uncle's apartment – why had she thought that would be a realistic possibility let alone a good one, again? – before shaking her head, glancing back up at the girl in front of her.
"Is Fangs okay?" The redhead asked. "Is that's why you stopped the movie, may I add, just before my favourite part?"
Toni chuckled to herself as the other girl nudged her with her shoulder jokingly. She was still there. She nodded, smiling reassuringly.
"He's good, thank you. We were just talking about something—"
"Something?" Cheryl rose an eyebrow. Toni sighed deeply, leaning back as she closed her eyes.
She hadn't said an awful lot to Cheryl about her part-time job, in all honesty. Sure, she'd brought up on the odd occasion that she had to go to work meaning they couldn't FaceTime or text one another on a couple of nights when they'd first started being friendly with each other, and she was pretty sure that Cheryl knew where about she worked, but besides that?
"Would you be alright to stay with Fangs tonight whilst I'm at work?"
Toni held her breath as the redhead paused in thought momentary, perhaps digesting the words which had come out in all one long breath, but the other girl hadn't been hesitant to curtly nod her response once it had all been digested.
"What time?"
"Five 'til midnight," Toni pursed her lips, shrugging almost sleepily. "Seven hours. I can probably persuade them to shave an hour just this once with minimal effort if we're not that busy. I work there enough, anyway."
"Oh..." the redhead picked at the trim of the blanket, frowning at the idea of her girlfriend being out for such a long period of time. Not being able to see her for that period of time. Six hours was just about manageable – she could catch up on schoolwork as a distraction, maybe watch another ten or so episodes of some shitty TV show – but anything above that limit felt like too long. Especially not being in this trailer – her safe space, as recently discovered, somewhere where she was protected, somewhere she knew, somewhere she was used to, somewhere warm and comfortably – made the idea stand out with obnoxious flashing red lights as one not so brilliant. "Why Fangs? What about Sweet Pea?" She questioned.
"He's coming to the Wyrm too, at his leisure," the pink-haired girl murmured against the other's skin, shaking her head only just a noticeable amount. "Fangs is the only one staying in tonight who you know. He has to look after his brothers, so..."
The redhead flinched as her breath caught in her throat. Toni sighed deeply, massaging the redhead's hand with her thumbs
"Can I not come with you?"
"You remember what happened at Pop's, right?" Or rather, what didn't happened at Pops. The way that the Pop's thing never actually even happened for some specific reasons which so finely related to the current topic of conversation.
"Well, that was before–" Fuck it. Fuck the past, regardless as to whether it was recent or distant or whatever. She shook her head, ridding it of those thoughts which really did just demonstrate to her how much she was losing this debate she so desperately wanted – nope; needed – to win. "–and besides, I'm over that now."
The shorter girl simply shook her head before speaking softly. "No, Cher. It's been a day; and not even that, come to think of it now."
"I can handle it. I'm sure. Besides, I don't think my mother will be coming around to visit this area of town."
"Still, Cher, I had to say no."
The redhead groaned, rolling her eyes and pulling her hand away from Toni, who watched her every move like a hawk, breath caught in her throat and heart racing as she couldn't do anything besides stare as the other girl's words flew out of her mouth almost angrily, bitterly. "You don't have to babysit me. I'm okay."
"I'm not taking chances on the panic attacks or flashbacks. And, literally, anything can trigger them. You know that as well as I do."
"I'm going to have to leave the trailer at some point, TT. May as well be today, at night, when nobody is around because it's the middle of fucking February and snow is most likely on the horizon, knowing this place."
Toni continued to shake her head. Her heart was torn between her conscience and her affection, and she just couldn't do it. "You can't go to the bar. I'm sorry. It's– you know."
"What?" The redhead snapped, making the shorter girl flinch and fall silent. She felt her eyes pool with tears which stung like a papercut you got vinegar in, and the lump rise in her throat made it seems impossible to say another word.
This was a front. She had to remember that. Cheryl was hurting, more than anything else in the world right this second. She's lost everything. And now that Toni was saying she can't come to work with her, sit on a barstool or in the back room or something, she probably feels as unwanted as she did in the past, during the days where she lived with Penelope Blossom on Thornhill, and then Thistle House. And maybe that's what had swayed her opinion, making the pink-haired girl frown and bite her lip as she considered whether there was any way in the world that they could go either way.
But there just wasn't.
"The Wyrm isn't a clean place," she murmurs eventually. "And I'm not going to say much more than that because you know what that means as well as I do."
Whatever she had just responded with would have changed both of them in twelve hours time.
Basically the premiere has inspired me to write massively... oh and excuse if some bits seem a bit random, because I feel that it could be since I wrote the later part of this at 3am last night. I have Too Young To Fall Asleep (yes, that is getting a couple of more chapters added to it at people's request!) and this to write for, and then several other li'l oneshots I have ideas for, so I guess I'll have to hope that I'm able to channel that random energy into my writing... oops. Oh well, leave comment if you've enjoyed/hated (lmao) this chapter, love hearing your feedback, and I'll try to write a lot more regularly now!