starberrybrunch

[starberrybrunch]

has it been over two weeks since i wrote? yes

do i still wanna make another oc to write a tai story? also yes

[starberrybrunch]

Like an Angel, 02

"DO YOU KNOW WHY SHAUNA WAS SO PISSY EARLIER?"

Gracelyn barely looked up, her eyes trained on the slow swirl of amber in her plastic cup. The liquid caught warm flickers of the bonfire crackling near them—comforting, in a weird way. She blinked once, slow, before turning her gaze to her twin sister's slightly furrowed brow.

"Maybe because you're trying to be a wingman for Randy?" she offered meekly. The substance she'd been sipping the last hour, something the man being discussed at hand, had thrust upon her- was warming the cool anxiety pooling in her stomach, but not by much. 

The wooded yard behind Lottie Matthews' house buzzed with energy. Wiskayok High's finest were scattered across the property—seniors, underclassmen, and a few stragglers from Rutgers. Somewhere, a speaker blasted fuzzy rock, thudding and creating a blanket of static over the chaos. 

For most of the night, the younger Taylor girl had clung to Jackie's side, leaning against Jeff's truck and quietly observing the intoxicated nature of her fellow students

"I mean," Jackie said, her tone a little too defensive, "he's not that bad, right?"

Gracelyn shifted her weight, suddenly aware of the way her cardigan top was a little too tight on the skin of her arms. "Jacks, I just don't think Ships appreciates the matchmaking. She's a big girl, if she wants to hook up with some baseball guy then she will."

The alcohol wasn't giving Grace the confidence to keep sticking her neck out like this with Jackie, but rather giving her something to do to avoid explaining why their best friend wouldn't exactly want to sleep with the most incompetent boy in their graduating class. While everything her older sister did was out of love and genuine nature, it sometimes was a bit... out of touch with reality. 

Seeing the slight dimming in her older sisters eyes was enough for Grace to backtrack, seeing Jackie discouraged was like seeing a confused, kicked puppy and it made her feel nearly queasy. 

"Look," the blonde started, occupying her empty hand with pulling up the spaghetti strap of her cotton dress back over her shoulder from it's fallen state. "You and Shauna will be fine, you guys are always fine. You're like...a ship and it's anchor," she comforted, an easy smile making it's way across her lips.

Further confusion spread across Jackie's face at the near dopey look on her sister's face. "How much have you had to drink?"

"No, no, seriously!" The younger of the two twins defended herself, "I'm serious, you guys like, keep each other sailing safely. Without the anchor, the ship gets lost- and without the ship the anchor is just..." she paused, looking down at the grass with consideration, "a big metal thing that sinks."

The loose metaphor made her think, what kept Gracelyn from sinking? Sure, the blonde had her twin sister, and the girls she cheered with, but what tethered her? What kept her on solid ground when it would be so much easier to stray....

════════════════════════════════════

Why can't I move?

Gracelyn honestly couldn't recall when, how, or why she had departed from the conversation with her sister. Or how she had ended up sprawled out on her back, alone somewhere on the Matthews wooded property. Her gaze was mesmerized by the vastly blank ether above her, surprisingly void of stars. 

As the night had persisted, she felt something was inherently off. The late May sky was dark, and a heaviness possessed her body, sticky with the evenings warmth that she couldn't seem to escape from. Somewhere in this lost expanse of time, she'd shed the butter yellow sweater that had been overtop of her dress. She felt the impulse to look for Shauna, the unsettled swirling in her stomach making her crave the comforts of her bed even more than she had upon arrival to the party. 

Despite the hour growing later and later, the energy of the party hadn't weakened hardly at all, as the crowds of Wiskayok students remained on the property, more cups and bottles and trash littering the ground than the highway. 

"Come on," the girl breathed, pushing herself onto her elbows with strain, trying to encourage herself to get up. For some reason the movement felt wrong, with every motion sending her head spinning. She managed to push herself onto her hands and knees, the palms of her hands feeling warm on top of the grass -

Why can't I move?

"Hey, are you good?"

The girl's voice calling out to her was loud enough to make her head jerk upward, searching for the source, but to her ears- the mysterious caller sounded as if they were underwater. "Wha-"

"Holy shit," the ginger haired girl jogged closer, shocked to see the school cheer captain spread out on the Matthews family lawn, "Taylor? What happened to you?"

There was a flicker of hesitation in Van's face. Like even she didn't quite know what to do with the sight before her.

There was a glazed look in the girls eyes that was almost possessed in appearance, like there was no operating engine behind her actions.

The blonde quickly recognized the teen standing over her, the infamous goalie of the nationals bound soccer team - 

Shaking her head, Gracelyn's tongue felt too heavy to lift the words she had stuck in her throat. "D-Don't know," she stumbled, still trying to push herself up off the ground and feeling as if her limbs were melting to merge into the ground beneath her. 

Why can't I move?

Van quickly realized the blonde girl wasn't herself, instinctively putting a hand to her shoulder and kneeling beside her, "Whoah, hang on a second, don't make yourself fall over," she eased, trying to get the girl back to the ground without falling. "Jesus, you're burning up," she remarked, feeling the pinpricks of sweat on her warm shoulder. 

Her fingertips were cool on the girl's feverish skin, "Have you seen Shauna? I wanna... go home," the cheerleader croaked, all of a sudden feeling a wetness across her flushed cheeks. She was numbed to knowing she was crying, merely discomforted by the pressure behind her eyes. The mounting confusion and disorientation she was experiencing were only heightening the anxiety she had before she even stepped foot into the evening's festivities. 

"Shit," Van exhaled. "We're gonna go find Shauna, or Jackie or just- just somebody, to get you home okay?" She reassured, pulling her jacket sleeve over her fingertips to wipe the tears off of the girl's ghostly face. " I promise, but you've gotta breathe for a sec. Did you take anything tonight, blondie?"

a/n: hi my angels! apologies for the delay updating, college finals season whooped my tail, truthfully! but i made it out on the other side alive and well, and cannot wait to start further updating this little fic of mine!

[starberrybrunch]

new! first! real! chapter! of! like! an! angel! out! now! ask me all the things, read, comment, do whatever your heart desires princess!

[starberrybrunch]

Like an Angel, 01

Friday, May 17th... 1996

"It's just a party."

"I don't know," Shauna responded with a sense of wavering behind her voice, checking out the look of the jean skirt she'd slipped on in her reflection. "It feels weird to just go like...nothing happened."

The three friends sat upstairs in the loft space Shauna had created into a cozy enough bedroom area. Lava lamps and low lighting shed warmth across the knick-knacks and framed photographs decorating every surface. Film photographs of the trio were stuck to the mirror of her vanity, bright smiles from Jackie and Shauna's recent soccer matches with a cheer-uniform clad Gracelyn in the middle of them- cheeks painted with yellow and blue hearts.

Teasing the back of her honey-blonde hair gingerly, Jackie kept her gaze forward, looking into herself. "It's not like skipping a party's gonna un-fuck Alli's leg."

Gracelyn sat on the floor near Shauna's messy bed, reluctantly touching up her makeup in the reflection of an antique full-body mirror. "Jackie, a little more sensitivity could go a long way with that," she prodded, lipgloss applicator in hand. "If Shauna feels weird too then maybe we shouldn't go tonight, we've got an early plane anyway-"

"Besides," Jackie interrupted, turning in her cushioned seat to look at her slightly younger twin. "It's tradition."

In Jackie's keen tone, was an unspoken ask... to not fight her on this.

Yet the visceral image of the bones poking out from the flesh of the underclassman's knee was still too fresh for comfort in her mind, jutting out in a sea of flesh. The blonde nearly winced at the resurgence of her previous state of queasiness.

Earlier in the day, when the afternoon sun was still high and beaming, she'd been sitting in the bleachers after her practice and waiting to ride home with Jackie and Shauna, when the scene unfolded. From the short distance, she'd heard the younger girl's screams without question, clutching her leg to her chest in hysterics. With one wrong move, the girl's soccer career was likely over.

The blonde in question let out a short breath, a bit huffy with her irritation. Gracelyn knew that despite her proximity to the two girls, she was the third in the friendship. Not the first or second, but the third. She'd be a bit on the nose to say her (minutely) older sister was domineering over Shauna as an individual, but she wouldn't be wrong to say that she was certainly...steered, by the wide-eyed girl's opinions. Where Jackie Taylor went, Shauna often followed, that much was undeniable. And where the two traveled, normally Gracelyn was trailing behind, not having much of her own in genuine friendships on her squad in the nature Jackie did.

"You know," Jackie lured, making herself comfortable sprawled over Shauna's messy bed, more of a glorified blanket nest than a properly made-up thing. "Randy's gonna be at the party tonight."

Shauna practically ignored her, continuing to peel through her outfits and pulling a sweater overtop of her blouse. She looked down to Gracelyn on the floor, putting her hands out in a way of theatrically requesting feedback. "Thoughts?"

The blonde looked up innocently to the tall girl standing before her, unable to resist the wrinkle in her nose at the flannel she'd selected. "Not my favorite, Ships. What about that blue one, from our awards brunch?"

Despite being twins, Gracelyn always knew that Jackie was the alpha sibling. She laid the precedent for everything the pair did. When Jackie started acing math classes, Gracelyn started tutoring for that ever so tricky 8th grade geometry. When Jackie volunteered at the nursing home, Gracelyn took double shifts at the soup kitchen. When Jackie started playing soccer, Gracelyn picked up a set of pom poms. When Jackie found a best friend in Shauna Shipman, soon did Gracelyn.

"Lynnie not," Jackie drawled, continuing to focus on the elephant so misplaced in conversation he wasn't on the property of the Shipman residence, let alone in the room alongside them. "He asked Jeff to ask me if you were gonna be there-"

"Randy?" Shauna questioned, peeling off the flannel the third girl had shut down, "Seriously?"

"I just thought you'd wanna know someone asked about you."

A hanger shoved on the rack produced a little clinking sound with the force of it.

Glancing upwards to her sister, Gracelyn was sending a pleading gaze toward her to let it rest. The Shauna and Randy thing was just... not something that needed to happen. "Jacks-"

A sense of defensiveness pricked the blonde girl's chest at Jackie's evident pushiness. Intentional or not, she could feel the way Shauna just shut off in the moment. Ever the chronic observer, she could practically feel the tenseness in her friend's physique. In her mind, she pondered how many times, behind closed doors on their rides to school, at practices the cheerleader wasn't privy to, or hell, in conversations with Jeff and Randy- this had come up.

Shauna abandoned another top to the floor of her closet, agitation clearly in the air.

"Shauna just, wear the red dress I gave you! The boob dress-"

"Maybe I don't wanna wear the red dress-" The doe-eyed girl turned, shoulders up with tension in her posture. The blonde sitting near her feet reached for the top that had slid to the ground at the moment, seeking the distraction of folding the fabric neatly.

The cotton fabric of the button-down was soft under her manicured fingertips, slightly pilling from its undoubted age and durations of washing. The youngest Taylor girl couldn't fixate enough on anything but the argument brewing and occurring now in the attic space, a little lurch settling in her stomach.

"-And I sure as hell don't wanna hook up with fucking Randy Walsh"

'Should I bring Ships a steamer?' she thought to herself, noticing the deep wrinkles in the sleeves nearing the cuffs. Ever avoidant of conflict, she sought to just entirely avoid the palpable discomfort in the atmosphere, despite the way it made her want to curl up underneath the blankets covering Shauna's mattress until she disappeared.

"Jesus, what crawled up your ass?" Jackie looked up, her eyebrows furrowed, clearly surprised by her best friend's reaction. Her younger sister looked at her with further confusion. Faltering in her speech, a rare occurrence in front of her best friend, "Wear what you want."

"Thanks," Shauna huffed, feeling a lack of energy to explain why she wasn't exactly pining over Randy Walsh, of all potential suitors.

Gracelyn extended her hand upwards, bearing a peace offering found in the pristinely folded garment.

If you looked at her sister's friendship with the Shipman girl, you'd see the proximity, the closeness, and think they must know each other inside and out, but sometimes Gracelyn found herself thinking the opposite. Shauna was in historical journals, seeking information about things around her, watching the stars at night. She was warmth and maturity, an intellectual-

Randy was...bound to be paying alimony by age 47.

Taking the shirt from the blonde's delicate hands, Shauna felt herself microscopically soften from the moment of conflict as the edge of her hand grazed against Gracelyn's. Pulling away, she returned to her closet, shuffling hangers in a desperate attempt to distract herself-

"You're probably right, about Randy anyway... I once saw him get outsmarted by an escalator."

Randy had also been found outside the girl's locker room after the squad met to practice for the incoming pep rally last week. Conveniently just 'caught in the wrong place,' while girls were in and out of the showers. In the few times they'd interacted since becoming a couple, Jeff didn't seem too bad for Jackie. He was nice enough to her older sister, if not just a bit aloof to things going on.

Feeling herself giggle weakly, the blonde chimed into her twin's remark. "I don't know that he can read past a seventh-grade level, Ships. I think the bar can be set a bit higher."

a/n: hi my lovelies, i had to split this and the party up because i think this 1k-1.5k word mark is going to be my sweet spot for chapters!! i cannot wait for next chapter 👀 this is my first yellowjackets fic and first time writing in about 4-5 years for fanfic and i am very pleased to be back in a new fandom, new account, all the sparkly things ✨ !!

[starberrybrunch]

Like an Angel, 00 🪽

the first part of my first fic in actually 4-5 years, gnawing at the bars of my enclosure and throwing up! also on wattpad under my same user <33 she's gonna be a slowburn but will end up being fluff later i promise!

“Do you think you’re going to be able to get him in within the next two weeks? Piano lessons pick up after school next month and we’re just jam packed.”

In the sterile light of a quietly humming dental office, the tapping of fingers against the front counter persisted with the annoyance of Mrs. Lawson being tasked with yet again, the ultimate inconvenience of her son’s problematic mouth, where ever could she be tasked with finding a miraculous method to fit in another appointment between weekend trips, soccer practice, gymnastics for her oldest- and the list goes on. 

The little click click clicking of the acrylics against the crisp counter, harmonizing with the numbing buzzing sound of drill work throughout the back half of the office felt like easing white noise to Gracelyn behind the desk. The sound was taxing to her coworkers, often bringing earbuds and playing music throughout the lobby to drown out the audibles- but that was just a part of there that the woman carried in her chest… the silence amidst so much living. 

“Absolutely,” the woman responded, already clicking into scheduling tabs for the following week, “If 2:45 works again can we put him down for Wednesday? Cleaning and giving the little guy a check up,” she asked, despite knowing already that this was the absolute ideal appointment time.

There was a near science to a job like this, at least according to Grace. The hardest part of becoming a dental hygienist wasn;t even the damn degree, but the social exercising of it all. Bending over backwards for a kid with broken braces, parents blaming you for a cavity in someone else’s mouth, a bill too high that you didn’t create. There was a certain privilege, she knew, with being so acutely aware of the people and things happening around you. The average desk worker, stuck in a dull lobby on a sunny afternoon, probably wouldn’t care so much for profiling the availability of a random client in this way. But Gracelyn found comfort in these details, knowing things so intimately about others that she didn’t leave space to think of herself. 

Having settled the Lawson’s tooth related desires for the time being with three copies of a date card, a follow up email, and a few pirate stickers for the small child heading out the door with his mother- the blonde sank comfortably into her seat for the moment. Crown and Co. Dental was dead, to be frank. The office lobby had slowed from the early morning rush of retired folks coming in for cleanings and the typical consultations. 

With a moment to spare, Gracelyn picked up the minimal stack of today’s mail to sort. She thumbed meagerly through a few brochures- local fundraisers, real estate agents self advertising printables–

And an x-ray.

A patient x-ray from earlier in the day, panoramic, from a check up prior to scheduling a wisdom teeth removal, with aggressive, jagged white lines obscuring the image of the teeth and gums. 

A scratchy, barbed carving into the film of a woman’s torso. Impaled by a longer stroke, with a curved hook protruding from the lower lines of the figure. 

With a hitch in her throat, an unswallowable bump of something she couldn’t quite name- even some near thirty years later, Gracelyn felt the prick of a chill down her spine. She rubbed a hand against the soft material of her scrub pants, hoping the pastel blue fabric didn’t give way to the nervous sweat she was frantically trying to wipe away. “Get it together, nobody knows,” she exhaled, unsure of the impulse to console herself in an empty lobby. “Shredder, shredding it- it’s not even in my hands right now-”

Cutting off her own self monologue, a buzzing sounded like a symphony of anxiety sitting to be approached on her desk surface. It felt off putting to Grace to feel so disturbed by something so meager as she picked up the device, swiping to take a call from an unknown number.

Giving way to a shaky breath, in a desperate attempt at some type of composure, she brought the phone close. “Hello?”

“Hey, Taylor.”

💎 more to come soon!

[starberrybrunch]

Gracelynn “Gracie” Marie Taylor | “The hard part of being a star is only getting to shine when the sun’s gone away.”

☆☆☆ i really didn’t think the teenage soccer players turned c*nn*b*l*st*c cult pipeline program i started watching during college snow days was going to be what pulled me out of a 4.5 year writing hiatus- but here we are!! truth be told y’all i’ve been lurking in the van palmer reader fics and it gave me an itch to ✨write✨

pre-crash 🪽 knowledge

portrayed by dianna agron

☁️ Gracelyn “Gracie” Taylor, living infamously to strive for the same level of belovedness as her twin sister, Jackie. Cheer captain, top of her graduating class, volunteering on the weekends- but nothing could quite fill that sense of empty on the inside. the void that you aren’t really supposed to talk about with anyone that’s not your own train of thought alone in bed at night or in the shower. the kind you pretend doesn’t consume you.

☁️ I mean sure, Gracie’s always had Jackie- they were twin’s for God’s sake, it’s almost like they were destined to exist together. Moon and Sun, Bee and Butterfly, all those things, they’d only ever know life living in comparison to the other. Gracie lacked so much of what Jackie had, the jocky boyfriend, the team of adoring friends- and it was a constant pressure sitting in the pit of her stomach through every match cheering her on, every ride home from another Yellowjackets party- even boarding that plane to nationals for emotional support.

more to come soon……

[starberrybrunch]

!!!