AN: I will try to keep this short, and the ANs for this fic minimal. This fic is different than anything I've ever written or published, and is incredibly important to me.
This is not just a Bumbleby fic, but also an attempt for me to heal my own trauma. It's not a self insert exactly, but rather a blending of similar stories, my own and Blake's, to create one story from the two altered stories. The blending between the two stories has been carefully crafted in a delicate balance so neither story overpowers the other.
This fic is serious and somewhat dark. I will put trigger warnings at the beginning of each chapter, sorted into Active Trigger Warnings (Active TW) and Passive Trigger Warnings (Passive TW). Active trigger warnings are things that actively take place in scenes, or are being described in great detail about an event or person in the past. Passive trigger warnings are things referenced or discussed, that may or may not have happened in the past, or is just a passive topic mentioned in the world around the characters, but not depicted actively in a scene that chapter and are not key elements of the plot for that chapter. Please, take care of yourselves as you read, folks. Your own mental health matters too!
Thank you for all of your continued support. I hope you enjoy! You can find updates about this fic and a post when I upload on my tumblr, SuperbBirbFics!
Without further ado, I present to you: Two Doors Down.
Active TWs: Depression, suicidal ideation, mental breakdowns, mental illness
Passive TWs: Abusive relationships, emotional abuse
Part 1: Summer
1. June: Depression
Time ticks by, an unstoppable fact of life.
Blake laid there in bed, staring at the wall. The only noises that filled the room were the hum of the air conditioner unit attached to the ceiling, and the sound of her cat, Gambol, cleaning herself.
She wasn't really sure how long she'd been laying there. Hours, at the least, but she rarely bothered to check the time when she felt like this. It was a fairly common situation for her at this point in the night, staring at the wall, listening to the air conditioner, and trying not to drown in her thoughts.
It was a far harder task than it seemed.
It had been a full six months and some days it felt like it was fresh, like a scab she couldn't stop picking at, even though she knew she should just leave it alone. Let it heal on its own.
But she'd tried that, for six months, and it hadn't worked. Ignoring it wasn't the solution, but it wasn't exactly like she could, or should, confront the problem. She didn't even know what she could confront about it in the first place.
It was just hard. Living was just hard. Getting up in the morning was hard. She couldn't remember when she'd last had two full meals in a day. She was barely scraping by with one meal a day lately. Three meals? Forget about it, that hadn't happened since the semester ended, a month and a half ago at this point.
She had so many responsibilities, so many things she needed to take care of, yet she was just… not capable of doing any of it. Maybe she was capable, but the energy wasn't there. She had no motivation to do any of it. Instead, she was just going to lie here, stare at the wall, and try not to think about it.
The hum of the air conditioner came to an end. Blake groaned, rolling over in bed. Staying on the University of Vale's campus for the summer meant rooms with air conditioner, but it also meant living in the newest dorms, as they were the only traditional style dorms to include it. In an attempt to be more eco-friendly, these new dorms had air conditioners that ran on a motion detector. During the school year, this was totally fine, as the cold New England weather outside meant the air conditioner wasn't used often. But during the summer? Forget about it. Blake woke up in puddles of her own sweat more times than she could count.
She had hoped rolling over would trigger the air conditioner again, but it hadn't. She kicked her legs up in the air, still under her blanket, trying to get it to turn back on. Still nothing. She sat up, waved her arms around, feeling (and looking) like a fool… but still, nothing.
Blake let out a long sigh, collapsing back onto the bed and staring up at the massive white beam attached to the ceiling that covered the air conditioning unit. She decided that she was resigned to sleeping in heat tonight, unless it randomly decided that Gambol going to drink water at two in the morning was enough movement, but Blake sitting up in bed and thrashing her arms around wasn't. It had happened more than once so far this summer. If she wasn't always so depressed, she'd probably find it really funny. Instead, it was just really annoying.
Upon thinking of Gambol, Blake realized she hadn't heard the noise of Gambol cleaning herself for a while. She rolled over to her right, looking out into the room. Gambol, her tiny, all black cat, lay curled up in her small bed on Blake's futon. She was staring at Blake, probably deciding that the arm thrashing was truly the last of Blake's sanity leaving her, as if that hadn't already happened several months ago.
"Sorry," Blake said with a sigh. "You probably think I'm crazy, huh?" She let out a small laugh at her own statement. "Pretty sure everyone already knew that one, including me."
Gambol stood up from the bed, leaping onto the storage bin Blake used as a nightstand, and giving a meow before stepping onto the bed, almost as if asking for permission.
Blake tapped the half of her pillow that was permanently covered in cat hair, letting out a kissy noise. Gambol took this invitation and stepped onto the pillow, pushing her head into Blake's open hand for petting. Blake scratched behind the ears and stroked down most of Gambol's body. It only took a few moments for the purring to begin, as what sounded like a small motor started up on the fur covered half of Blake's pillow. A small smile came to Blake's lips. A dull warmth filled her chest, a positive emotion trying to fight its way through the sludge of feelings inside her.
"Hi sweetpea," she muttered, as Gambol pushed her head further into Blake's hand. "I love you so much, did you know that?"
A tear rolled down Blake's cheek. She hadn't even noticed it until it had left her eye. It seemed that her nightly attempt of keeping her emotions down and stopping herself from crying herself to sleep had failed, yet again. "I wish I could tell you how much you've done for me. I wish you knew how much you matter to me."
It was hard. All of it was so hard. Yet, Gambol didn't care about any of that. Gambol didn't care how many mental breakdowns Blake had last semester, or this summer. Gambol didn't care that Blake was still ignoring all of her responsibilities. Gambol didn't care that Blake was crying instead of sleeping, again. Gambol didn't care that it was so hard for Blake to care about anything.
Gambol didn't care about any of that. Gambol still loved Blake, unconditionally, and Gambol was the only thing in Blake's life that she could genuinely return that sentiment to nowadays.
"I would live for you," Blake whispered into the darkness, allowing the tears to flow as she continued to pet Gambol.
She was quiet for a while after that, simply listening to the purrs of Gambol as she continued to pet her and give her affection. Eventually, Gambol curled up in a ball on the pillow, to which Blake ended the petting session with a few head scratches. She leaned her own head up against Gambol's body, who continued purring away.
They laid together like that for a few minutes, Blake staring off into the far corner of the room. Gambol's purrs began to slow down until they became soft snores. Blake closed her own eyes, hoping any sense of sleep could come her way.
The air conditioner, completely unprompted, kicked on.
Blake let out a scoff, somehow both startled yet unsurprised by just how bad this thing was at motion detecting anything at all. Her eyes remained closed, allowing the soft snores of Gambol and the hum of the air conditioner to lure her into any sleep she could get.
Blake's alarm went off, the loud noise of a bike horn filling the room. She groaned, reaching around for her phone to shut it off. She slid the circle on the screen to "dismiss", and sat up in bed.
She blinked twice, stretching her arms up into the air as she sat up. Gambol, who had left Blake's pillow and returned to her bed on the futon at some point in the night, opened a single eye and stared at Blake.
"Morning, Gambol," Blake hummed, stretching her back. She let out a long yawn, thinking about collapsing back into bed. She glanced at the clock on her phone. 11:30 A.M. Time to take her meds.
Blake sighed, grabbing her medication from the storage container next to her bed. She reached down to the ground, fumbling for a moment before picking up a half-full bottle of Sprite. She opened the day of the week of her medication container, pulled out the meds she currently needed, and popped the five pills into her mouth. She spun the bottle open - no hissing. It had gone flat in the night. She dropped her shoulders in defeat, tilting her head back and chugging the rest of the flat soda.
She dropped the empty bottle into the pile that sat next to her bed. It had been growing steadily all summer, but quite honestly, Blake didn't have the energy to even walk the bottles down the hallway to the recycling bins. She flopped back onto the bed, picking up her phone and checking her notifications.
There was a part of her that still expected the messages and phone calls whenever she woke up. A little voice in the back of her head yelled at her for sleeping in this late, again, and she knew exactly who that voice belonged to.
She shook her head. He's gone. He's been gone for six months. He can't tell you shit about how late you slept in. He can't tell you shit about anything ever again.
Control, control, control. Everything was a game of control. It was still hard, getting used to being in control of her own life. There were times where the overwhelming reality of it all would make her panic, or when the fact that her life could head in any direction, not dictated by anyone but herself would send her into a spiral.
Today would not be one of those days, she told herself. Today was going to be an okay day. Good days were really, really hard to come by. But okay days? Those, those were much more possible.
She looked at the notifications on her phone. A new follower on the Twitter account she had made for Gambol, a message in the work group chat about a shift trade, a notification from the latest mobile game she'd been using to pass the time, and a YouTube video from one of her favorite creators had been uploaded in the middle of the night.
She clicked the YouTube notification and plopped her head back down on the pillow. She didn't have any work shifts today till 5pm, so she probably wouldn't leave her room for anything other than the bathroom until 4pm.
Blake considered herself lucky when it came to this summer job. Things were pretty relaxed on campus over the summer, and her job usually didn't involve too much. Being a Resident Assistant, or RA, as everyone on campus called it, during the summer was much easier than during the semester. She'd been doing both for almost a year now, having started in her role last summer.
There weren't too many people that stayed here over the summer, and even so, they came and went. A week here, a month there, and the other RAs that stayed the whole summer. There were a couple of academic and sports camps that would come around in July. The counselors for those would also be University of Vale students, but they were only ever here for a few weeks at a time. Since they were constantly chasing kids ranging from ages 7 to 17 around the campus, they were far too busy to interact with the RAs or the students that lived in the summer school dorm building. There were maybe a grand total of 15 coworkers she had on this campus, 15 people who were here all summer. 15 possible friends.
Yet, she hadn't really gotten close to a single one of them.
The summer Hall Director, Becky, had admitted concern in their second one-on-one meeting of the summer - Blake was the only summer RA who hadn't done any of the social outings or really connected with anyone on staff. Blake had managed to brush it off with a number of excuses - she was an introvert and spent most of her time writing in her room, she was keeping up with her friends that were here during the school year, being the only Faunus on staff made it difficult for her to build connections, and a dozen other odd excuses.
It had worked, to an extent, but they hadn't exactly all been truthful. Yes, she was an introvert. Yes, she was an author, but she hadn't written a word in six months other than things for her assignments last semester, and even then, she had struggled to hit minimums and done rather poorly academically. No, she definitely hadn't been keeping up with her friends. A few of them reached out regularly, like Sun and Ilia, their concern for her still as strong as it was six months ago, but she never really reached out first, and they rarely talked for more than twenty minutes, usually because Blake tended to cut the conversations short.
The bit about being the only Faunus on staff was true. She was the only Faunus RA who had signed up to work over the summer. Last summer, he had been the only other one. People loved to talk about him, to praise him for all of his work for the summer RA program. It made her stomach churn and her head spin. Whenever they started talking about him at the desk, she'd excuse herself to the bathroom. Hearing his name more than once was enough to send her into a panic attack, so getting away was important.
Some of her coworkers avoided discussing him when she was around. They knew something had happened - they had been so close last summer, they were very rarely seen apart outside of work. Yet, she wouldn't speak a word about him now. There were rumors, Blake had overheard some of them, but none of them were true. Even some of the Hall Directors had theories, but they were never correct. None of them could ever imagine that the golden child of Residential Life could do things so horrible.
If they'd ever asked, she'd tell them the truth about what he did, but no one ever asked.
A buzz from her phone snapped her out of her spiraling thoughts, the video forgotten. She looked at the top of the screen, reading the preview of the message for a second before clicking on it. A direct message from one of her co-workers on the app they used to communicate about work.
Hey Blake! Is there any way we could swap my 1-6pm shift today for your 5-11pm shift? I went home for the weekend, and there's a massive accident on the highway. I'm stuck in traffic over an hour away still and I don't think I'll make it back in time. Please let me know!
Blake blinked again at the message before typing a response.
Yeah, sure, just be sure to email Becky.
Instantly, a response came through.
Thanks so much! You're a lifesaver! I owe you one. I'll do that now.
Blake pushed the blanket off of her, staring at the ceiling for another few moments before getting up. What was truly the difference to her if her shift was a couple hours earlier? It's just time, all just time.
Time ticks by, an unstoppable fact of life.