Sasha stares down at the complex equations in her lap and groans. She was not going to finish these twenty problems tonight.
Stupid Algebra, stupid polynomials, stupid exponentials, stupid solve for x and y and the whole god damn alphabet. She misses geometry. Geometry had actually shapes and could theoretically be applied to real life problems like chucking things off a building.
Unlocking her phone Sasha swipes through a handful of apps looking for something to distract her. Normally, several of Anne's awful handmade memes and a five page paper on Marcy's latest obsession would be waiting for her but tonight there is only junk emails and screenshots of jokes she'd already seen on different apps.
Anne is out of town visiting her grandparents and has undoubtedly been forced to go to bed early, because old people. And Marcy… well Marcy's phone had been confiscated after her parents had tracked her phone data usage and figured out she'd been using it at school, like all day, even though she'd been doing that all year and her grades were still perfect.
Sasha rubs her eyes making the numbers swim and glances at the time. Midnight.
"Fuck it."
Sasha shoves her textbook and papers off her bed, kills the light, and shoves her face into a pillow. She'll get Marcy to help her finish it in the morning.
Sasha braces herself in the kayak as the next wave of red saltwater crashes over her. She drives the beaver that she's been using as a paddle into the water trying to turn away from the waves. She needs to get out of the red ocean before her kayak capsizes or the man-eating washing machines catch up to her.
"Sasha… Sasha…" a soft female voice calls out from nowhere and everywhere and suddenly there's a blinding white light in her eyes. She raises her hands, but it doesn't stop the light from burning her eyes.
"Whoops! Sorry, Sash, sorry," says the voice, and the light dims.
Sasha claws her way out of the dregs of sleep to see a small figure looming over her in the darkness their fingers half covering the source of the blinding light.
"Um, heeeeey, Sasha," they continue, "sorry again about that and sorry for breaking into your house. Well, it's not really breaking in, you gave me a key for emergencies, but this isn't really an emergency-"
Sasha blinks long and slow. Marcy. The voice belongs to Marcy.
"Uh, I had that nightmare again, the one where I mess up and say something dumb and everyone at school is laughing at me, like in the fifth grade, only you and Anne aren't there to make things better-"
Marcy who is talking a lot and is probably not going away.
"And my mom and dad said I'm too old to sleep with them anymore, that I'm big enough I need to deal with this on my own-"
Sasha frowns. Marcy's parents sucked. Anne didn't like it when she said stuff like that, but it was the truth.
"But I've tried, okay! I just can't! Not with this one. I have empirical evidence. I've charted it. Normally go to Anne but she's out of town… Not, not like you're my second choice or anything! You're both my best friend it's just Anne is much more, I mean you're not, you just don't-"
Sasha squints blearily into the light watching the outline of Marcy shift back and forth and her fingers flicker around her Bintindo Swap.
"This is stupid, I'm stupid, sorry for waking you-" Sasha sloppily places her hand on Marcy's mouth."Eep!"
"Shhh," Sasha demands before shifting her grip to the collar of Marcy's nightshirt tugging her into bed.
Sasha waits for Marcy to worm her way underneath the covers before she turns away from the light still pouring out from Marcy's Swap and collapses back on her bed.
"Sasha?" Marcy's voice is small and fragile and not what Sasha intended.
Sasha scoots back across the middle of the queen-sized mattress until her back presses firm against Marcy's body.
"Oh."
The comfortable haze of sleep returns against a background of shifting sheets and Marcy's body making brief contact with Sasha's own. Then the light seeping in around the edges of Sasha's eyelids changes; brighter, sharper, and different colors. Sasha grunts and buries her head under her comforter.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Marcy mutters as soft music starts, and Sasha assumes the light dims, but she can't tell from under the sheets.
Mary's weight settles against Sasha and the other girl's body still except for the tapping of fingers or an occasional twitch of her foot. Silence settles over the room like a warm blanket.
"Sasha?" Marcy whispers into the darkness.
"Mm?"
"Thank you."
"Hmmmm."
Sasha drifts back off to the Air of the Wilds soundtrack.
Sasha wakes up warm which is weird because her house is always cold, as huge as it is, her step-father seems determined to burn out the CA power grid making sure every inch of it was freezing. The second weird thing is not only is Sasha warm, but there's also something warm in her arms, pressed up against her chest.
Sasha cracks open one eye and sees a crown of shiny raven hair close to her face. Huh, the three of them must have had a sleepover as they do sometimes. Only, only she can't feel Anne against her legs or back or arms and she had a strict rule against them sleeping together in a real bed, ending up in a cuddle pile was one thing, but being together in a bed was too much. Sasha couldn't allow it. So what is going on?
Craning her neck, she can see Marcy tucked under her chin, her arms wrapped around Marcy's frame, Marcy holding her hands in place, cradling them in her own. She can feel Mary's legs against her shins, Marcy slotted against her chest, breathing in unison with her own.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh no.
Sasha's heart is trying to claw its way out of her throat. She was having enough trouble just dealing with Anne.
The sound of artificial wind chimes rings out from her nightstand and Sasha's hand comes down with a vengeance slapping her phone into silence. Sasha freezes stretched out halfway across her bed, one arm pinned on the other side, waiting for Marcy to stir, her mind searching for good excuses about their intertwined position.
When Marcy only lets out a soft snore Sasha relaxes with a sigh. And then slowly, painfully slowly, slides out of bed without waking Marcy. It's Monday and they still have school.
Sasha gingerly pulls Marcy's Swap out from under her head and starts charging the dead device. With how chaotic the Wu household is in the morning with Marcy's grandparents and siblings a text should be enough to convince Marcy's parents she left early to ride with Sasha. Sasha fishes around in her closet for some clothes that Marcy left on accident from a pool party. She dumps the change of clothes on the floor, leans against the headboard, and pulls out her own phone.
There's no way she's taking the bus after last night and her stepdad is still in Miami, she thinks, so ordering a Doobr ride to school will be faster and charged to her stepdad's credit card, score. Sasha set their arrival ten minutes before classes start or thirty minutes later than the bus would get them there. Marcy will throw a fit when she wakes up, but the little idiot needs all the sleep she can get.
Sasha sighs and gently runs her fingers through Marcy's hair, thinking about if she's got any food with textures Marcy will eat, the math homework she going to lose points on, what type of stories Anne is going to come back from her trip with.
Marcy lets out a content hmm underneath her fingers and leans into Sasha's touch. Realizing what she's doing Sasha snatches her hand away and takes a step back. Marcy makes a disconcerted sound at the loss of contact, but Sasha forces herself to turn away, to act like this is any other day because it is, because it has to be.
She's fine. It's fine. They're fine. She won't let her dumb feelings change anything between all of them. She won't allow it.
Author Notes
Sasha leaves Marcy to wake up on her own and goes to look for breakfast.
Hmm touched starved Sasha.
Much more bittersweet ending than I planned for but this is before any of the girls have their issues shorted out.
Yeah, intense emotions scare the fuck out of Sasha cause she doesn't know what to do with them or how to control them. Except for anger which she uses like a battering ram.