Onesmartcookie78
Summary: "Jamais Vu": an expression often defined as being the opposite of deja vu; that is to say, the feeling of experiencing a situation for the first time, despite logically knowing you've been through it before.
Enter Camille Villeneuve, who thought she was normal and for most of her life, she was. Well, other than her childhood best friend's dad suddenly marrying her mom. That was pretty weird. And then she turned eighteen and suddenly things are a lot stranger than she ever could have dreamed.
Disclaimer: I don't own Life Is Strange. I only own my Original Characters!
Nathan sounds both trashed and half-dead when he picks up, but Camille is just glad that he has. Picked up, that is.
"Nathan?"
She hears what sounds like an absolute rager in the background. Is he at a party? Then he lets out an extremely muffled "shit", followed by a ridiculous amount of noise, like he's banging his phone into every available surface in his search for privacy. The slam of a door causes her to physically jump.
Still, he says nothing.
"You there?" she asks after what she deems to be a decent adjustment period for him; long enough to settle into a spot, long enough to come to terms with the fact that she's calling him in the first place. She lets out an exhale that isn't quite as quiet as she had meant it to be when he doesn't reply right away.
Then, he releases a long exhale of his own. "I meant to—" he trails off. His voice is soft when he starts. "I'm sorry."
She forgives him instantly, because how could she not?
"It's okay, Nathan," she tells him, because she's fairly certain that there's nothing he could ever do that would make her lose faith in him completely.
He makes a noise of utter frustration and scrubs at his face so roughly that she can hear it. "No, Camille, it isn't okay!" he exclaims. There's a loud bang, then a crash, and then he hisses out a strangled "fuck!" that makes her eyes squeeze shut. He shouldn't be in pain. Not because of her. Never because of her. He gets enough of it from his dad.
He's silent for so long that she worries he might have abandoned his phone somewhere, or knocked himself unconscious or otherwise decided he doesn't—
…doesn't want to talk to me ever again.
"Still there?" she dares to ask after what has to be five full minutes.
Nathan releases a shuddering, shaking breath. "Y-yeah."
He's crying.
Camille rises, her limbs moving faster than her brain, and heads over to her computer. She's murmuring to him all the while, soothing sounds so insignificant that she has no idea what she's even saying, because Nathan is crying and that isn't okay. She pulls up a recording of whale sounds that she knows Nathan sometimes listens to, when he can't differ reality from his imagination, when the world becomes too much, when he's so sad that he just wants someone—anyone—to sympathize with him.
And then, she waits.
Waits for him to collect himself, the broken little pieces of him that he can only find if given the time to. She can't help him through this. She can be there for him, but this is something he will have to do for himself.
She wants to help him, though.
"Fuck," he finally manages after probably way too long.
"Yeah," she agrees readily. "How are we doing, Nate?"
She hopes using the nickname he gives only her the privilege of wielding will put him at ease.
His laughter is bitter.
She takes it to mean "do you really need to ask, dumbass?" and determines that a change of topic is in order. "So, I received an interesting letter in the mail today," she begins, leadingly.
He snorts and cuts in just as she had fully expected him to. "Just say you got the wedding invite, Cam." Well, at least he's finally starting to sound like himself. "We both know that you only really get letters from Teresa and—" he stops short, takes a breath, "and me." He allows for a sufficiently awkward pause. "I'm so sorry, Cam."
"I know, Nate."
"No, you—"
She waits.
"I don't mean to." His voice is so small when he continues that she can almost picture him all curled up, trying to take up less space, the room dark, bass vibrating through the walls from somewhere in the distance, eyes red and swollen. He's probably cross-faded right now, simultaneously drunk and high and a little more off-balance than usual for it. "And you're always so fucking…nice about it." He sniffs. "Fuck, Cam."
"That's because I care," she tells him, and wonders if he knows how secure, how earnest her affection for him is, because she can't even pretend it isn't.
Another quivering exhale, though steadier than the last. "I—I looked at your photos. Every one of them."
Her heart starts to thaw from the inside out. She hadn't even realized it was frozen. "And?"
"Not my style, but…" he trails off. This breath is peaceful. "Beautiful, Cam. So beautiful."
Her heart races and her grin is so wide, her dimples threaten to cleave her face in two. "Thanks, Nate."
"Yeah."
"You know, I'm coming home at the end of the month when school's over…" she trails off invitingly.
He takes the bait. Of course he does. "I'll be there."
She doesn't doubt him, feels the certainty of it in her bones, feels it swell through her chest. "Good! I'm—I'm actually going to…" She pauses even though she knows she's about to make the right decision. It's the gravity of the matter that scares her. It's bringing it up to her mother. "I'm not going back to France," she says decidedly, "not for school. I want—I want to be with you. You need me, now more than ever…and I need you too."
She doesn't know how right she is.
His laugh is hoarse but genuine. "Took you long enough."
She's not sure she's ever been happier.