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constancecunningham · 4 years

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A Ghost is a Wish || Constance, Blanche, and Agnes Bachman

TIMING: Current/the Winter Solstice

LOCATION: The Common

PARTIES: @harlowhaunted, @constancecunningham, Agnes Bachman (written by @chloeinbetween)

SUMMARY: Constance and Blanche visit the seasonal lights in town to make their yuletide wishes and find themselves haunted. Constance makes a choice.

CONTAINS: mild gore, violence

Beneath the copse of glowing evergreens in the Common, Constance could almost believe in Christmas. The lights, steadier than flame and enchanted with colors she hadn’t realized could burn, spilled over the ground and painted the faces of spellbound children. Here, icy violet, th see ere pale green and rosy pink; there was no sense to it that she could discern beyond the thrill of beauty itself. “Your world has brought such wondrous magic to the mundane,” she said to Blanche, so close to her ear she could almost imagine the tickle of her hair. “Is it always like this? Such wonderful displays in the open for even the most wretched to see up close?” It was so magnificent with the light so bright in the evening it puddled on the floor in a magic carpet. Constance twirled in it and imagined the ground truly had transformed into the richest, softest fibres, the kind that would send you to sleep in an instant with their comfort. “It seems to me this should be the site of a great commemoration, a pageant or a gift. What would you ask for, Blanche Harlow?”

The colors shown through Constance’s transparent form, illuminating her in a strangely beautiful way that made Blanche happy only she could witness her. She was far happier than she had been in a long time. It was strange how such a simple outing could release the tension and stress built up for weeks and weeks on end. “I didn't believe in magic for the longest time,” she told Constance, jogging a little to catch up with her. “But I always thought the lights in the trees here this time of year was the closest thing to it.” Christmas with the Harlow’s wasn't an extravagant affair unless there was some holiday themed dinner party her parents hosted for work. After Blanche turned eleven, they rarely even bothered to get a tree unless they had to. More than once, Adrien and Blanche had woken up to a cold, empty house with money on the counter to order dinner and two wrapped presents - one for each of them. The Common was the only place where she could really appreciate the spirit - no pun intended. Blanche considered Constance’s question, her face flushing a deeper pink as it had taken to doing whenever she said her full name. “I’ve never been good at remembering what I want when I'm asked,” Blanche smiled ruefully at Constance, and she had the urge to reach out and grab her hand. A pang of sadness hit her when she remembered her hand would just pass through. Blanche looked down at the ground, thinking quietly.

“I also tend to wish for things I can't have.” She kept the bitterness out of her voice with surprising ease, and she seemed to recover almost immediately, looking up at Constance with a warm smile. “And you? Wha - What would you ask for?” Blanche asked.

“Sometimes a dream is the best thing to want,” Constance said. “So long as you know it. A gift you never receive can never disappoint and never betray.” Not for the first time, Constance felt that it would have been a mercy if Agnes’ false kindness had never touched her at all. At least when she was starving for food and kindness at once, her happiness could never grow more dangerous than a fairy tale. What good was learning what love could be if it only lasted for three years before growing teeth? What use had she for hope when it was doomed to be dashed? And yet for the first time, Constance hesitated when Blanche asked her what she would ask for. Naturally, there would be more peace in the world if Morgan Beck was stamped out for good. The distress she caused her friends, the harm she passed with her duplicitous, hypocritical Bachman nature would end, and Constance’s suffering would have been worth something. But if she could have two wishes, if the gifts could be guaranteed, or remain a dream forever… “It would have to be something wonderfully impossible, wouldn’t it?” She said, smiling back at Blanche. “Perhaps…I would like to climb into one of those pictures on your computer, like that lake in Prague, with the flowers falling onto the shimmering water? Perhaps simply to be alive again for a day before it all ends, in a body that touches and feels things like the living do…” There was at least one thing Constance knew she would enjoy touching. Oh, how sweet to dream such safe, impossible dreams…

Constance drifted closer to Blanche, another question on her lips, but she froze, aghast, when she saw a face drifting through the evening crowd. Agnes was much changed, more of a woman than Constance ever had a chance to be, the cruel wretch. But the broad features remained, haunting in their preserved beauty. “What are you doing here?” Constance growled.

Cold fear dropped over her as she watched Constance’s expression change from wondrously thoughtful to the twisted fury Blanche had come to associate with the Bachman family. It took her a moment to understand why, but she soon saw the familiar form of Agnes gliding through the crowd. “No,” Blanche said, her horrified voice barely a whisper. “Go away,” she pleaded, louder this time. It took a moment to shake herself of the ice that gripped her, before she planted herself in front of Constance, looking between them with a mixture of fear and a steely determination that she was unwilling to let go of. The only moment of hesitation was deciding who she was going to speak with first. She turned to Constance. “Please,” Blanche said softly, only for Constance to hear. “We don't have to do this. Not here. Let's go back to the lights.”

She had weighed her options over and over since that first night with Morgan by the poolside. Twice, Agnes had begun the trek back to Texas by herself, before turning back. Her heart tore in two opposing directions. Lights did not flicker and objects did not rattle when she felt things, the tempest of her emotions locked under her corset even in death, but they still twisted inside her until she felt like nothing but her indecision. It threatened to swallow her whole. The more she thought, the more only one solution seemed available to her. An end to her line’s suffering, the protection she hadn’t afforded her children in life, an end to her regret… and some kind of peace for Constance, if she would have it. She had moved through town for days, searching and at once hoping she would not find Constance at all, until she finally spotted her at the Christmas market. Agnes had been surprised to see how young she was, frozen in time decades before Agnes had been. The carefully prepared words fled her mind. All plans fled her mind. She didn’t respond to the living girl beside her, didn’t even consider her as relevant.

“Constance,” Agnes said softly, her face the picture of regret.

Agnes was always going to get more life than Constance had ever had. By design, she had granted her at least three more years before the floodgates opened on her suffering. But she had not imagined this. Agnes had wrinkles around her translucent eyes. She had a manner of dress Constance had never even seen. As far as she knew it was something out of a fashion plate, a grotesque extravagance she didn’t deserve. How worthless had her sacrifice been, that Agnes could gain this in the time between her undoings?

The tree lights flickered and flared, humming faintly.

Agnes’ face was as sad as Constance had ever seen, heavy and bent. How many times had Constance seen her present herself like that? So sorry and sad and wanting Constance’s comfort, her forgiveness. Constance drifted through Blanche to face her. “You have no right,” she declared, her voice rigid with fury. A section of lights sparked behind her and went dim. Control. Concentrate. This would not be her undoing. “Whatever reason you have come for, you have no right! Not like this! Like you’re sorry!”

“Constance please!” the desperation in Blanche’s voice caused her to raise her voice, flinching as Constance phased through her. It was hard not to feel the hot fear as her skin turned to ice, whirling on her heels as she watched Constance’s fury. “Please stop!” Blanche rushed to her side, looking at her. Lights were flickering, and Blanche's shouting caused several families to look over at her in concern. Blanche didn't care, the negative energy in the air sinking into her, resting like broken glass under her skin. She knew this feeling. The last time she had felt it was during the first failed exorcism when Cordelia’s spirit shifted into a poltergeist. Constance was already so close…Panic bubbled in her. “Don’t do this. We can go back - let’s enjoy the lights! Let’s enjoy the stars! Please! Please!” Before she realized what was happening, her voice broke and a large knot was tied in her throat. She couldn't properly breathe and her eyes were wide with unshed tears, and she looked to Agnes. “Go away,” she pleaded with her now too because she could feel the change in Constance’s anger, teetering so close to the point of no return. “Please. You don't know what you’re doing to her. You don't know what you’ll do. Please go away so we can go back. Please.”

Agnes did not shift in response to the flickering lights, nor Constance’s rage. She had always been the summer breeze to Constance’s fiery light, in joy and in grief. “I am sorry,” she said softly, knowing they would still hear. She looked to Blanche, still unsure after their last meeting, but Blanche had been right. She had been cowardly to avoid this before now. “I need to set this right. There must be an end to this suffering, for Constance too,” Agnes said desperately to Blanche, before turning back to the ghost of her ex-lover. She was no stranger to all of Constance’s tempers, some earned and some not in the life they had almost built together. Constance looked like a magnificent storm, too young by half for what she had suffered. “I am sorry, Constance. I want to do better by you in death than I ever did in life. You deserved better.”

“Better?” Constance spat. “Better is if I had used you for the curse! Better that you had never brought me to your home with your worthless—” Constance choked on the word. How pathetic, how cruel that she still could not speak of anything so impossible as love when there was no end to how loud or long she could scream and no point in holding back anything. Still, the word was burned out of her mouth. She felt its ghost in her, a hateful feeling that would fall into Agnes and her soft, quiet tears if she let it.

Constance clenched herself. Behind her, lights cracked and a tree fell to darkness. The decorations of ribbon, plastic, and glass quivered, rattling the branches. A child cried.

“What could you know about better?” Constance hissed. “What do you understand about right? Nothing about you is right, you, your cursed life—-” A horrifying thought struck Constance. It was hiding in the shape of Agnes’ cheeks, the way she frowned. Constance remembered those faces from long nights whispering her room, dreaming their way out of that house. But she also knew it from a crowded classroom, a bedroom window, a picture in the newspaper of Morgan Beck. They weren’t just any Bachman features. They were Agnes’. “Morgan is one of yours, isn’t she?” Not a great niece or a cousin or some other distant branch from the same guilty family, but her direct spawn. “Is that the real reason you’ve come? To stand by your blasted family again?” Of course, of course it couldn’t be for her.

The magic of the night was broken the second lights started exploding. No one was paying her any mind, and Blanche felt like she was going to be sick. Things were spiraling out of control too quickly, and she didn't know what to do. The only thought in her mind that it wasn't supposed to end like this, not this time. Constance would choose right, and her soul would be able to truly be at peace. She would be close to the edge, but never fall. “You don't understand,” Blanche pleaded with Agnes as the weight of Constance’s rage hit her. “You don't understand what you're doing to her. Go away, this won't help. None of this will help!” Blanche once again stepped between the two, trying to create a living barrier that would knock Constance back to how she was before. “Stop! This isn't the place for this. This isn't the - this isn't the - you can’t!” her voice cracked on the last word, and Blanche knew at that moment what she would ask for. There was a scream as glass ornaments started exploding, and the child’s cries grew louder. How could Blanche understand and articulate it in a way to defuse the fury that was raging through the Common? The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees, and she clutched the fabric of her jacket around her, looking between the two helplessly. The betrayal and anger and love wasn't completely foreign to Blanche, but she has never been hurt the way Agnes hurt Constance. People were starting to panic, confused and afraid. “Constance, look at me, please. You don't have to do this. You can't. Let’s leave. Let’s go. Go with me, please.”

In life, every time they argued, it had been a one sided affair. Constance would be angry, Agnes would make herself smaller and offer no resistance, and with no where for her anger bounce against, Constance would be even more annoyed. Those had been minor arguments, forgetting when they had arranged to meet, disagreements about local gossip, the meals which they had packed for their summer picnics. Nothing as grand or as terrible as this. Constance was owed so much more than another spineless moment. “You are right. I cannot change the past, no matter how might I might wish to.” She glanced at Blanche. “I understand better than I have for decades. You helped me understand,” Agnes said truthfully, talking past her to Constance again as the world rattled with Constance’s rage. “No! No, Constance, I came here for the both of you. To do what I didn’t before, to protect you from my family.” And her family from Constance, too.

Control. Concentrate. Control. Behind Constance, glass shattered and children cried. Snow boots pattered on the ground as people backed away or shuffled back to their business. Such cruel noise, such destruction. Blanche was calling, screaming, and pleading at her side.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do!” Constance snapped. She turned her attention for an instant. Blanche’s face was pink and wet with tears. Her eyes, so large and uncomprehending, were that of a wounded animal. Perhaps she didn’t understand, perhaps she couldn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t be trying to stop her. “We shouldn’t have to be the ones who leave,” she snarled. “You know. You know what she did to me! What all of them did! Why would you ask that of me?” Of everyone Constance had met, Blanche had been the one she thought would let her free, would stand with her. Not help her, she was too gentle for that, but to stand, to make it so she did not feel so alone… Constance’s face twisted with hurt. Perhaps she should never have wished for anything at all, impossible or not.

“Protect me,” Constance said bitterly, her voice warbling. She would be crying herself if she had any tears left to give the world. “How would you even know what that word means, when I bent myself broken protecting you!”

The streetlamps around them flashed with panic.

“What is there left to protect me from? What is there left to do to me?” She screamed. She flew to Agnes until their forms nearly blended into one. “What is it? I should be glad to know the truth from you for once! What is it? How do you protect me? How do you do anything for me? You stole my life and even my curse wasn’t enough to keep you from tormenting me! I gave everything to make what you did to me stop hurting! And look at this! What is this! How are you still--” Looking at me, pitying me, haunting me. Constance stared hard into Agnes, pleading for answers she knew would never come. But worse than the ignorance was the helpless pull inside her, still wanting someone, maybe anyone, to love her. But oh, that was never to be in this or any other world. Constance screamed and at last let go.

You helped me understand. The irony wasn’t lost on Blanche as the sting of Constance’s rejection settled like a heavy stone in her chest. She had questioned Constance and her motives time and time again, and Blanche wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab her by the shoulders. She would feel her warm skin and hold her as they cried under the ruined lights and they could move on and heal and all would be well. “You don’t know what you’ve done. What you’ve chosen,” Blanche whispered. Her words to Cordelia echoed in her mind. The only tragedy is a woman who ruined other people’s lives to the point where she ruined herself. Blanche wanted more for Constance, she deserved more than to perish in the ruins of her past. She wouldn't see that though, she would only see what she thought she wanted. With one final scream, Constance was lost, and Blanche’s hope was gone.

She couldn’t focus on the lights exploding or the horrible wind that had picked up around them, scattering residents and tourists alike with ear splitting screams. Blanche could only feel the raw power radiating off Constance. Focus. A small voice hissed through the static that raged in Blanche’s mind. What do you do now? Blanche realized she was crying and she was more than angry. She didn’t quite know what she was. Grief stricken, maybe? Her skin felt like it had been set on fire and her insides had melted and she was so - Focus! The voice snarled, louder this time. It was loud enough to make her stagger backwards, reorienting herself.

She could see and feel the electricity in the air as she finally moved, fumbling from her purse. “Agnes go. I’ll find you later! You need to get out of here, now. Find Morgan.” Blanche blinked tears out of her eyes as her hand gripped the iron rod. She rushed forward, much like she had in Morgan’s classroom, ready to fight. She didn’t want to - god, she didn’t want to. Constance needed more. Deserved more. Why didn’t she just listen? She did everything right, and Constance still -- Focus. There would be time, Blanche realized, for grief later. There would be time to scream and cry and figure out why it felt like someone knocked the wind out of her. She could figure out where to go from here later. Now she had to dissipate Constance before she killed someone. Again. Unable to choke anything out other than something between a battle cry and scream, Blanche swung her iron.

“Your soul. Constance, I know I’m much too late for everything else, I can’t change that, it would have been worse not to-” Agnes shied away from Constance’s rage, even now it could no longer touch her. There was a tiny pulse in the air, no more notable than the click of a necklace chain giving way. She didn’t understand what happened, other than the tears on Blanche’s cheeks and her insistence that she needed to go, but she fell back, still pleading with the face of fury beating down on her. “Constance, we can be better than this. Both of us. We can end this now. I forgive you.” Her eyes widened as Blanche jerked forward, and only now did Agnes actually move away, avoiding the iron so she wouldn’t be forced away.

Constance unspooled on the wind, the threads of her soul, her sad, desperate softness fluttering away like her hair from its ribbon. She heard Agnes speaking, her high little voice like some trained bird. But for once nothing in her reached out to harmonize and rescue her voice from being swallowed by the world. Constance reached out to the world now and the wind roared, drowning out every sound in the common, ripping ribbon off the branches and blowing broken glass.

“Forgive me?” She screamed. “I never betrayed anyone! I never hurt anyone until you! You did this to me, you wretch! I wish I’d done half the things you said I did! I wish I’d murdered all of you and had done with it!” She couldn’t stop Agnes’ heart or dash her to the ground, but she could rip the glass from the streetlights and tear the shards through her form. She saw Blanche coming with the iron and shoved her back. “I would curse you too if I still could!” Blanche’s body flew and crashed into the Christmas trees. “You think I didn’t know you could betray me too? That I hadn’t learned my lesson yet? That I was your precious fool?”

The wind was too loud for Constance to hear anything at all, but around her, humans scuttled for cover like ants. Some fell, silly parcels spilling on the ground. Mouths opened in fright, but they didn’t understand what was unfolding before them, and they did not understand her hurt. But she could make them. She toppled the lamp posts, snapping them in half like they were only twigs and sparked the Christmas lights into flame, torching the branches with flames greater than all the candles in the world. Constance only had to bid them to rise and they flared, engulfing the trees all the way to the top. With a twist of her hand, Constance snapped a web of rainbow lights free and sent them flailing, thrashing, into puddles of melting snow. Power rippled white into the ground. The wind fell and in the quiet, the common drummed with the sound of falling bodies. Constance raised one of the burning trees and hurled it into a gazebo where a thick crowd had thought to take shelter. “I am going to do what I should have months ago, and I will take the blood of anyone who tries to stop me as well, since she doesn’t have any left for me to take!” Constance roared. She pointed an angry finger at Agnes. “This is your fault,” she hissed. “All of this is you! Forgive yourself for it, I dare you!”

Blanche should have known that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been in the classroom. She was knocked backward before she was thrown off her feet completely by an invisible force. Her body crashed into the tree. Branches and lights tore into her as her torso slammed into the trunk of the tree before she bounced down to the ground, hitting the frozen earth with a hard thump. In an instant, all the air in her body was gone, and Blanche could only gasp for breath. With no air to respond to Constance’s screams, she could only let out a wheezing objection - Blanche didn’t betray Constance. She was upfront from the beginning since Maxine had died, since Constance had almost killed Nell. Blanche wasn’t about to let her hurt all of these people, no matter the devastation she felt in her heart. If Blanche was truly going to do what she had to, it didn’t matter if it was bad people like Lydia Griffin or August Thompson. And it didn’t matter that Constance Cunningham had been twirling under the Christmas lights, beautiful and good, because she had lost herself.

There was that voice again, as Blanche lay there, barking orders at her as the initial shock from the collision. Focus! Move! Blanche hurled herself out from under the tree as it went up into flames just she realized just how much pain she was actually in. Pain was practically a pastime for Blanche at this point, so she staggered to her feet, eyes blurred from hot tears. Stumbling forward, she saw the flamed tree uprooted from the ground, soaring - soaring - soaring towards the cowering people in a gazebo.

“No!” Her hand flew out. It was too late, she only managed to knock it off course a little, hitting the side of the gazebo instead of head on. There was an eruption of flame. Screams pierced Blanche’s ears and she staggered back. The crowd was scattering, running far away from the electricity crackling off the lamp posts, far away from whatever horror had been thrust upon the common. The energy was going to make her sick and the pain was getting worse.

Focus. Make the next choice. Focus, dear.

With a start, Blanche realized she recognized the voice, and she knew what she needed to do right then. Lunging for her fallen bag, Blanche hissed for Agnes to follow her, before she forced her aching body to sprint as she fumbled for her phone.

She needed help. Now.

#a ghost is a wish #wr blanche #wr chatzy #wr blanche chatzy #wr agnes #wr agnes chatzy

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constancecunningham · 4 years

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White Knight || Constance & Blanche

TIMING: Present

LOCATION: Blanche’s Apartment

PARTIES: @constancecunningham & @harlowhaunted

SUMMARY: Constance arrives back at Blanche’s apartment only to see her in trouble! As a chiviliarious ghost, Constance finds it only necessary to slay the … ninja?

CONTENT: Soft

People, Blanche concluded, were such idiots. Her and Nell found the blender sitting in the bargain kitchen appliance section in TJMaxx for under $20.00 and Blanche couldn’t resist buying it. Top of the line Ninja blender… She could make smoothies whenever she wanted! Except, it took Blanche like a month to actually go out and buy the supplies to make said smoothie, because she didn’t actually know how to make a smoothie and also Blanche didn’t actually have that much of a stellar appetite lately. Much to Ariana and Nell and practically everyone in her life’s displeasure. But as Blanche poured a healthy amount of yogurt, fresh strawberries and raspberries,and milk in the blender,tightly closing the lid, she decided that she was going to inhale the entire thing. Blanche hummed happily to herself as she pressed the little smoothie button on the Ninja, before moving to tap away at her computer set up on the counter. She had, once again, brought work home with her and was currently doing a horribly boring analysis on some poor girl’s Facebook page. Fiddling with the hem of her shorts with one hand as she scrolled, listening to the whurr of the blender, she felt the telltale pinprick of one of her other worldly friends. “Hello?” Blanche called, glancing over her shoulder. “Who’s there?”

Constance held her focus on the prize in her grip with all she had. She had made it a mile without dropping it thus far and she was determined to maintain her progress so she could show Blanche how she was coming along. She had been experimenting with different kinds of intentions, as if her focus were a spell. Her anger was still the strongest, truest source of power within her, but today she tried to look forward, imagining the pride that might await her if she was successful. Blanche was overly generous in her compliments as far as Constance was concerned, but this meant she was certain to be praised, and this time for something she actually deserved. She phased in through the door, beaming.

“Only me!” She declared. Blanche was in the kitchen area, dressed in a way that made Constance avert her eyes. The prize fell through her fingers and bounced to the ground; hardly the triumphant entrance she had hoped for. “I walked a mile carrying this the whole way, and I did not drop it once,” she said, eyes somewhere on Blanche’s shoes. “I found it in town just laying on the ground. Is it not strange and lovely?” She fumbled to get her focus around the object again: a lightweight dome encasing a blue faceted heart shaped pendant on a thin chain. “You may have it, if you wish to.” She cleared her throat, though she knew she had no body to feel discomfort.”How are...how is...your day, thus far?”

“Constance!” Blanche said, happy to see her, even if she was staring pretty intently at her fluffy black house slippers. “What - oh.” Blanche’s eyes widened when she saw the little pendent hanging off the thin chain. It was one of those trinkets you’d win after putting a couple hundred quarters into the claw machine outside the grocery store. Still, Blanche’s eyes lit up when Constance told her what she’d done. “Ah-ha! You carried it all the way here!” She threw her fist into the air. “Hell yeah, good job Constance! Oh god, the people seeing it speeding through the air with no one attached to it…” Blanche realized, before she started snickering. Hilarious. She looked at Constance excitedly. This was good. This had to be good. She was working on using means other than anger to use her powers and that meant, as a whole, her soul could still be saved.

There was still hope that Constance could still exist and be at peace when all this was over, and as Blanche reached out to touch the blue plastic jewel, she knew that it was a good thing. Blanche’ lips parted, and she examined her face a moment. “Constance…” Blanche said. “I’d love to keep it, if you’ll let me. I’ll hang up in my room.” Blanche nodded towards her open bedroom door, Iago visible sleeping on the end of her bed. “And I - I think we should talk more about-”

A loud shriek came from behind her that caused her to fly out of her skin. The whirring noise from the blender behind her turned into a horrible, shrieking grinding noise, the ninja shaking. Bits of strawberry smoothie mix were leaking out of the top - Maybe TJ Maxx sold her and Nell a bad blender after all. “Oh shit!” Blanche immediately dived to save her laptop from getting covered in go. “Stay there, Constance!”

A strange ache tingled in Constance’s face as she fought the urge to smile. Blanche’s enthusiasm didn’t feel quite so earned now that she had it. She feared she was being pitied or humored like a poor child. “I hadn’t actually thought of that part,” she admitted, still looking at Blanche’s strange slippers. She had been meaning to ask why she went practically nude in the house so often, if this was a new custom Constance didn’t understand, or something particular to her, and if so what and why. But to ask would require admitting that she had taken note, and that she could not do without being filled with enough embarrassment to shatter a window or three. “I wouldn’t have offered if it wouldn’t please me for you to have it. I don’t know what it is made of, but the color struck me as lovely, as the brightest gleam of water frozen and cut a dozen times over. You...go. Right. Good.” And perhaps put on more clothes.

She braced herself for something dreadful to happen next. The past several evenings had been pleasant, and that could only mean that the misfortune was hidden or yet to come. Serious discussions were not an uncommon herald of their arrival but-- before Constance could anticipate what would befall her next when a strange, inhuman sound erupted behind her. Blanche screamed and Constance knew that this must be something monstrous to frighten her like that. “I can save you!” She cried. She reached for the possessed machine, but her hands only past through. A substance like pale sauce spilled from the top and the contraption roared, as if angered. What could she do? What did she do? She couldn’t think of praise or pride with Blanche frightened and running somewhere else. The contraption rattled, wobbling as though it might lunge and aim its mouth at them. Constance reached for her fury and pulled. She would not be made helpless in the face of some monstrous machine. She would not. The lights in the apartment hummed and flickered as her hands closed around the machine and pulled it from the counter. It stuck on its cord, still roaring and thrashing as more sauce splattered all over the floor. “No!” Constance cried. She pulled it again, sparks flying, and hurled it toward an open window, and to her horror, right into Blanche.

Everything happened so fast. Blanche had just saved her laptop, rushing to stick it on the couch before she realized she should have been more worried about the rogue blender. She could have at least unplugged it! Stupid. She whirled, and - “Constance? Uh - oh.” Blanche watched in a sort of morbid fascination as Constance tried to turn it off. “It’s okay! It’s okay! Let me just - oh!” The blender was yanked from its outlet on the wall and hurled straight towards her face. Blanche had never reacted faster in her life. Diving to the floor as the angry blender soared over her head, dripping smoothie down her back and -- The loud crash came seconds afterwards, this time from outside. Blanche leapt to her feet, careful not to step on the smoothie on the ground, and poked her head out the window. She spotted the blender immediately, looking down at the smashed bits of broken glass and plastic and sharp bits shattered across the dumpster alleyway below. Her jaw dropped, before she backed up and carefully closed the window and locked it, as if nothing had just happened. The heat had been blazing in her apartment, which was such a nice change from the one she had spent two and a half years freezing her ass off, so she had opened the window to let some of the cool November air in.

She looked back at Constance, delight and mirth sparkling in her eyes as she let out a loud laugh. “Wow! My hero!” With a start, she realized she still had the heart pendant clenched so tight in her hand, that the little plastic jewel had left a small mark in the palm of her hand. “Ha!” She crowed, showing the trinket to Constance. “Look! It must be lucky, the blender missed and the window didn’t even break and no one was under the window.” She surveyed the damage to her apartment, which was mostly just slick smoothie that had splattered in various places. Nothing she couldn’t fix in five minutes. Her back was a little sticky though and she pulled at her crop top to glance at just how much had gotten on her. “I should probably change my shirt though.”

It took Constance several seconds to understand that Blanche was laughing, and several more to understand that she wasn’t being mocked. She gaped all the while, unable to summon so much as a stammer in her defense. “I’m sorry,” She managed at last. Drifting to the open window, she saw the mess below, gunk like pink gore splattering the walls and ground below. “It sounded so angry! And you screamed! I thought—I thought—” And then, somehow, she caught up to the rest of what Blanche was saying, and everything happening made even less sense than before. “Lucky?” She said the word slowly, ready for Blanche to correct her. “Are you mocking me…?” That didn’t seem like something Blanche would do. Constance had only known her a short while, and people surprised in the worst of ways, but there was something to her face, and the unnatural, silly way the concoction had splattered her. She looked like she’d fallen in pink mud. “I can try to clean, if...well…” she sniggered, unable to help herself and embarrassed for it. “If you are too comfortable in your new strawberry mud coloring, I may be able to a-assist.” Was her humor too strange? If it was alright for Blanche to tease without malice, might Constance do so too? “Although shirt may be too generous a word for your garments.” Her nerves won out and before Blanche could respond for good or ill, she asked, “Are you truly not angry? I would rather you say so, if you were. Lies are seldom the mercies we wish them to be.”

Constance was interesting in the type of way she perceived the world. Careful and calculated, as if she were waiting for the other shoe to drop constantly. Blanche knew the feeling all too well. “I’m not mocking you,” she said gently, before she laughed at Constance’s light teasing. “I always did like the color pink, so this pendant must be Lucky,” She mused, pulling at her shirt with a laugh. Her smile faltered, though, shaking her head. “I’m not angry, I promise,” Blanche said. “At least, not at you. The person that sold me that piece of crap blender? Totally. That noise was not natural, I just wanted to make a smoothie. And anyway, no one was hurt, no big deal.” She waved it off, before she finally registered the dig about her shirt. Then looked down at the blue and pink tye-dyed fabric that had been assaulted by her and Nell when they had too much time on their hands and a pair of scissors. The frayed edges rolled up a little, bearing her pierced belly button. “You don’t like my shirt?” Blanche asked, suddenly amused. It made sense, though. Constance was - well. Constance was born in a different era. She remembered what she had said about school. Blanche realized then that her shorts and shirt, while normal lounge clothes for her, were probably considered scandalous to Constance. Her face grew hot and she let out a nervous laugh. “I guess tye-dye wasn’t really your generation,” she said. “Here, let me go change. Don’t worry about cleaning, I can do it.” She slipped into her bedroom, gently bumping the door closed with her hip.

Iago was on her bed, lazily lifting her head up to stare at her.

“... What?!” she hissed quietly, shedding her shirt and tossing it into the laundry basket. She grabbed another shirt of a similar style…. Those this time she grabbed one of her pink zip up hoodies to go along with it. Blanche, as she came out of her bedroom again, realizing she still clutched the cheap pendant in hand. She realized she hadn’t let it go yet, and Blanche put it around her neck. “There we go, that way whenever any more flying blenders come at me, I’ll always have the agility to duck,” Blanche said, proudly showing Constance.

Constance let out an uneasy laugh of relief. She wanted, desperately, to believe everything Blanche said. She could piece her faults together only too easily, but to Blanche, they were less than a trifle. Even Blanche’s own mishaps rolled off her, less than dust. At times she seemed almost weightless, floating beyond the reach of the cruel world. Constance knew better than this, of course. Blanche’s power taxed her painfully, but this made her levity even more wondrous, more inexplicable. “It is--what little there is, is--” To say anything favorable about the shirt would be crude, wouldn’t it? Constance shrugged, arms flailing. “I don’t think I understand the fashion of this world very well. But you are beautiful regardless of the quality or coverage of your garments. That is, it’s no concern of mine to like or dislike anything…”

When Blanche was gone, Constance turned back to the kitchen and tried to move one of the thin, disposable towels that pervaded this world. Her fingers lipped through, falling in and out of the counter. Whatever strength she had was already gone. Constance huffed with frustration and managed to grip the towel bundle for a moment, before her own surprise broke her concentration and she fell through again. It was as though even her form was bound by that wretched woman, Morgan. Her conviction, her power, only rose to the occasion where she was concerned. No other cause was more clear. And for all Blanche did to make her safe, or at least comfortable, Constance did not know how to feel this release Blanche and Remmy seemed to think she needed in order to escape Morgan’s wrath. But how could she leave anyway, with her work unfinished, her one wish for justice in shambles? Constance lingered in the kitchen, passing her finger back and forth through the towel until Blanche returned.

“I did not want to be idle,” she explained. “Not that I was especially successful.” And yet as she said this, looking at Blanche done up in her new plain garments like a soft pink pastry, her fingers grasped the papery fabric again and she managed to wipe up one glob of the strawberry mess.

Blanche hadn’t missed Constance’s compliment, but considering the way her cheeks were heating up, she thought it was better to just sort of… leave that handing in the air. Still, she couldn’t help the smile on her face as she watched Constance struggle with the paper towels to wipe up a glob of smoothie. Blanche strode over and reached out, plucking them off the counter with a grin. “You carried this necklace a whole mile,” Blanche said, “And then you slayed that nasty excuse of a blender for me. I think you deserve a minute to rest, don’t you?” Though, it was a good thing that Blanche wasn’t used to having working heating. She wouldn’t mention that bit to Constance, for fear of lessening her accomplishment. Blanche made quick work of mopping up the goo that splatter her floors. Luckily, it mostly seemed to have gotten on her and the counter where the blender once stood. “Well, really, at the risk of being annoying,” Blanche said, stooping to start on the linoleum floors. “You deserve more than just a minute to rest.”

Constance obeyed and slid off to the side, fiddling with her airy fingers for lack of anything else. Blanche’s question should have been more easily predicted, but then, Constance was terrible at predicting people and outcomes, however much she tried. But she had thought that Blanche had come to terms with her way of seeing things, or at least that Constance wouldn’t change her mind on a whim. Distantly, like cotton rolling around the back of her head, she thought of Remmy and this ‘other way’ they had been so sure of. “If you have such hopes for me, mightn’t you hope I can get my wish and find peace after? One may unlock the door to another, after all,” she said. “Besides, I cannot fathom any alternative more potent than what I seek. Can you?”

“Oh Constance,” Blanche said. The sadness was weighted in her chest, and she sat back up, resting her hands on her knees. “Your wish…” Blanche bit her lip unsure how to say this, and she was afraid of making Constance angry. “Do you remember what I told you? About what could happen to you, should you let anger and resentment rule you?” There wasn’t going to be any arguing over why Morgan didn’t deserve to die. Morgan didn’t deserve to die again, and Blanche would sooner die herself than let that happen to her. That said, Constance didn’t deserve to be tortured and be eradicated from this universe. But such arguments, after whatever pain Agnes had caused Constance, would do nothing. “I’m afraid your wish will ruin your chances at peace,” she admitted. She could feel it in Constance, a soul on the edge of a cliff: one wrong move and there would be no going back. Blanche picked herself up off the floor, tossing the soiled paper towels into the trash bin, before looking at Constance. “You could go peacefully. I don’t know what’s on the other side, and I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I do. But you deserve to see what’s there. To be at rest. To wish for something else. I don’t want you to lose yourself, Constance.” Blanche wasn’t sure where her emotional speech was going, but she suddenly felt a little glassy eyed and tight throated. “It… It would be such a shame. I like you the way you are now.”

Constance may not have been able to understand the cause of Blanche’s concern, but she could take in its look plainly enough, the gentle timbre of her voice, so different from when she spoke to her living friends on her strange telephone. She saw something softening that reminded her of flowers springing too early, something she wanted to protect or shield from the frosts still rolling in. Constance may not have been able to understand, but she felt it, ached for it. “I thought I told you not to be sad over me,” Constance said, just as gently. “I don’t want to be marched through a circle and sent away by magic. Magic has already betrayed me enough. I don’t want it to be my executioner on this world too. And I want to stay myself as well! Is that not a good thing, to learn to be more careful as I plan? Can you not trust that I will do my best, if I say I want it too?” She lifted her hand to Blanche’s cheek, missing her body, any body, and the comfort it might have been able to give. “I am fond of you too, Blanche Harlow. How may I make you happy again, or at least remind your of your so-wonderful hope and spirit? It is so very dear to find. You won’t give up on it now, will you?”

How long would it be before Blanche sounded like a broken record? “I’m not very good at doing what I’m told,” Blanche admitted, almost a little sheepish. “It doesn’t need to be by magic. You can go yourself. It wouldn’t be like with Nancy. It would be your choice, and yours alone, even if I may push it on you a little more that I should.” Blanche saw the hand raise, and steeled herself so she didn’t flinch at Constance’s touch. Her cold hand brushed against her cheek, a chill running up her spine. “I trust that you’ll do what you can to stay the same,” Blanche said solemnly. “But staying the same isn’t always your choice.” She thought of the screams ripping through Nadia’s body as Cordelia’s soul darkened to the point of no return. She never wanted that for Cordelia, but the thought of that happening to Constance made her sick. What would it do? Blanche wanted to ask her. What would it do? Was murdering Morgan worth ruining herself? But this argument wasn’t going to be won today, Blanche knew that. She wouldn’t stop trying, not until it was too late. She felt herself smile, despite her somber thoughts. “I don’t know many people that would say I have a lot of hope and spirit. At least, not the kind of spirit you’re talking about,” Blanche teased. “Why don’t you let me wash my hands, and I can show you more TV?” As an afterthought, she added, “But no, I won’t be giving up any time soon. Not on anything.” Especially not on Constance.

#wr blanche #wr chatzy #wr blanche chatzy #white knight

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