Hey, so this isn't in the Sour Candies Universe. You'll notice I didn't add it into Unexpected Developments, that is on purpose, haha. This is an entirely separate Universe. In all honesty, Hozier dropped new music and it flowed through my fingers to make me type this.

This is going to be a much darker story than Sour Candies and will include many upsetting elements, including elements relating to SA, and CSA, though I do not intend to write details of either. One of the Characters has been through both, and their decisions as well as their character are shaped by that.

It can't be said I'm an early bird
It's ten o'clock before I say a word
Baby, I can never tell
How do you sleep so well?

Too Sweet / Hozier

There was a stillness to the alleyway, a quietness, only found in the darkest corners of the coldest nights of Gotham. The silence, however, was disturbed by the muted pounding of the bass, worshipped by the crowd of gyrating hips, and shaking tits. A sickening display of wealth and power, Sirens was a hotspot for the well-to-do men of midtown, its nearness to their own turf, and the desperation clinging to every gasping breath of the dancers' trembling charm.

Of course, most dancers who had been in the business longer than six months knew there was no chance of those men leaving their wives for a nineteen-year-old stripper, but that realization ironically tanked the commercial value of the women. Making them entirely replaceable, with someone newer, and dumber.

And maybe being fired from Siren's was a blessing for some of those girls, but for most of them, it only led them to the doorstep of another club. A club that may not just allow for the same extra favors, but makes them nonnegotiable.

Very few women were able to keep up that mask of naivety after they saw through that curtain though, and refusing to service the clientele was a good way to be removed regardless.

Of course, for every rule, there was an exception. Frannie. That's what her friends called her, but in there, she was Birdie.

She took another heavy draw from the cigarette she was nursing like a bottle, begging not to be forced back into the sweating claustrophobic nightmare that was Sirens.

She hated being touched. She hated it. It was debasing and humiliating. She had told herself when she was sixteen that she would never allow any man to have that particular kind of control over her again. A large plate of crow that she had been forced to eat, when six months later she was still no closer to employment, and she went to dance. Of course, faking her identification had been easy, they didn't really seem to care how old, or even who she was, so long as she was physically fit, young, and willing to go through their favorite kinds of hell. It had been years now, and on paper, she was nearly thirty years old by their records, yet she was still barely into her twenties.

But at least now, she got to choose who she went home with, and how far she went. Sure it was a given that she would go if she wanted to keep the job, but it was always her choice.

There was a quiet pride in her, something that forced her away from the Midtown men, with their large watches and expensive drinks, allowing the younger, less experienced girls to waste their time begging. And she knew to a degree they were right. Those men paid better, they were kinder and more gentle.

The men she often serviced were gang members, or of that ilk. They were often rough, and cruel, and didn't speak to her kindly. They treated her like a whore.

But there was an honesty in that that a part of her found refreshing. Men had always thought of her as one, and it was nice to hear them say it out loud, rather than pretending they could ever for even a moment pretend that she meant more to them than something to play with. She often grew tired of the platitudes of the public. Less so though, than she did of their pity. Birdie could take care of herself. She had been doing it for a long time, and she had been doing... a passable job. She didn't need a bunch of well-to-do's crying for her.

Birdie knew enough about cruelty to endure it, but the manipulation was so insidious she could only ice it out. She would never refuse to dance for the men, but always gently, pawned them off onto one of the other girls, who without fail would jump at the chance to spend her evening with someone stable enough to provide any kind of life for her, only to kick her out of the motel room before she's finished putting on her shoes.

Birdie may not get a motel room, but the back of a car isn't so uncomfortable once you're used to it, and at least they drive her home, usually. Sometimes they even tipped. Usually not though.

It wasn't required to sell favors at Sirens, but if you didn't you probably wouldn't last long.

Finishing her cigarette she sighed, spinning to kick the brick propping open the door, and as it closed behind her, she didn't catch the green eyes glinting at her from the darkness, curiously.

A stained mattress. A stinging cheek. Shouting. Pain, everywhere. The dream came to her in snapshots, as it did most nights since she had begun rebuilding at sixteen. A voice. A boy. An ally. A friend.

His face flashed for just a moment, smiling and laughing, before she saw him, lying mangled on a concrete floor, eyes drifting shut for the last time.

Frannie woke with a start, the clammy room too much as she wrapped a short robe around her exiting her bedroom. Without breaking stride, she opened the window, climbing out to step onto the fire escape. The cold air froze her, bone-deep, but she leaned into the feeling, her nausea dissipating by the second.

She hated this city. She hated the people in it. They were all horrible, and angry, and mean. They took what they wanted and they didn't care who got hurt or how much as long as they got to point B. But that wasn't the worst part, no she could almost respect that, that drive. But to pretend to give a shit about the people whose heads they stomped over to win? They can all fuck themselves with a cattle prod.

The question then was why didn't she leave? Sure, she was broke, but she could catch a bus out of the city, start over in a club in Metropolis, and never look back. But that kind of thinking only made sense to someone who hadn't grown up in the city.

Leaving just didn't make sense. This was home. Even if it was a shit one. It would never occur to Frannie without someone bringing it up to her.

It would be easy enough to disappear. She didn't exist on paper. She wondered if it had anything to do with her upbringing, and figured it must have. She didn't remember much from her time before the dark room, but she knew she had a mother and a father. And she knew that they had taken money from the people who put her in that room. They had told her. Laughed about it, when she asked where her mommy was.

Frannie wasn't entirely sure if they had known what would happen to her, but she couldn't bring herself to care. There was a reason she never looked for them after the boy had–

She shook her head, shivering. Suddenly the cold was no longer welcome, and for just a moment, as she had so many times since she had escaped, she felt eyes on her. Not in the smarmy, sleazy way that so many eyes slicked over her with the same consistency as snail slime. No, they were warm. Almost too warm. Burning into her like a hand held firmly to an induction burner, peeling, and scarring.

She fled from the heat searing its way into her skin, and the chill down her spine. Inside her apartment, she toed on her house shoes, smiling down at the plush sharks. So many parts of her were incredibly immature, having not been given an outlet for any childish joy, her apartment tended to reflect that. Cartoons stayed on the television and junk food in every drawer. It had made it embarrassing when she tried in vain to make friends years prior. They hadn't called back after that visit.

She made a slow walk around the apartment, checking all the doors and windows again, despite having done it before lying down the first time. It was a habit and a good one, she thought. You could never be too safe.

Once that was finished, she finally felt relaxed enough to try to sleep again. She checked the calendar, trying to remember what day of the week it was, before giving up and consulting the cell phone on her end table.

No work tonight… Good.

Frannie slid her drawer open, and removed the cotton from the top of the tiny canister, shaking a single bar into her hand before replacing the cotton in the bottle, and the bottle in its hiding spot. Gripping an old lipstick tube in one hand, and an empty can of hairspray, she carefully ground the Xanax into a fine powder, before panicking slightly. Why do I never remember the bill until it's too late to put the can down, fuck.

Quickly, she found a twenty, rolling it in a practiced move with one hand before sticking it to her right nostril and breathing it all in. Within a few seconds, her head was spinning, and the ball or muscle at the base of her spine released, finally letting her sleep the day away.

Outside of the grey concrete building, going green with crawling vines and mold, a nice car sat amongst the shit-piles that tainted the parking lot, tinted windows disguising the identity of anyone who may have been inside. Perhaps if the driver weren't intelligent enough to switch out his vehicle often, someone would have warned poor Frannie about the stranger watching her from outside her very home.

Perhaps she would have known to watch for those same burning eyes when she was working.

Maybe she would have been saved from what came next. Unlikely, but a possibility.

Unfortunately, the person driving was smart enough that they usually got their way. Eventually.

they wondered how much trouble she would give them.

then they wondered how much fun they would have together if the answer was "a lot".

Waking up is hard. I hate it. I always had, sleep was peaceful and painless. Life? Less so. In fact, quite the opposite.

Blinking away blurry vision I reach a can of the soda I kept bedside in its carton, before lighting a cigarette. The sooner I got substances into my system the better. Being awake with no external stimuli was hell, and I planned to make my plea to heaven before leaving the bedroom.

It was dark when I made it into the kitchen opening each of the cabinets individually to roll my eyes at the selection, as if I could blame anyone but myself for the contents. Quickly it became clear that nothing in the apartment would satisfy, but there was no way I was going out either, so I made myself content to couch rot until morning. Then I would get a breakfast sandwich before bed. Not exactly balanced, but it was what it was. Besides, I didn't need the extra calories.

I was two episodes of Ren & Stimpy in when the couple upstairs began to argue. I sighed, turning the television up. Once those two get started it's all night.

I always wondered what possessed people to stay in relationships with people they hate so much. I would never be so self-sabotaging. Which is saying something.

And they did hate each other. It was clear in their tone, never mind their words. He was a philandering bastard, which I had needed to google, and she is a cold-cunted harpy, which seemed pretty self-explanatory, if really weird.

I tried not to listen most of the time, but I couldn't deny that they were very entertaining. I sometimes wondered if they would kill each other. The way they screamed it was clear they wanted to. When the thought first occurred to me, I promised myself that if they stopped fighting for too long I would check on them.

I wouldn't want any viscera to have time to leak into my apartment, god knows the Landlord would never give my security deposit back.

"Listen- Listen- You aren't fucking listening, Jason! I want to know her name!"

I sighed, settling back on the couch. Maybe it would be like white noise after a while.

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