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shaanks · 4 months

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I wrote something. Lmfao. It was initially just meant to kind of expand on my text post from earlier, but it turned into a little ficlet so I figured I'd share it. Why not, right?

fem!oc x Eustass Kid. sfw, cw: memory loss, unreality. (everything will be tagged in the actual tags section for blacklisting purposes)

word count - 2392

genres: hurt/comfort, horror if you squint, fluff towards the end, modern AU for the aesthetic lmfao.

There was a sound like an explosion, the blare of a car horn wailing over screaming metal, the scent of rubber hot and acrid in the air. In the light of the vending machine, Av jumped, whirling around, air catching in her throat only to find—nothing.

The street behind her was empty, devoid of everything but the blinking yellow of a streetlight, and the gentle pattering of rain. The asphalt was pristine, the clean lines slick with rain shone gold in the intermittent light, the sidewalk empty of trash, of age, of anything that might suggest human interaction.

Av craned her neck, head half-turned away from the bright white glow of the machine, looking up at the apartments around her. Neat, identical rows, 10 across, 10 high. All of the windows were darkened, the curtains drawn; each balcony held one or two suggestions of an occupant—a hanging plant here, a chair there, the peek of a bike seat or a laundry line extended across the space, but it was impersonal. Nondescript. A facsimile of habitation, without any indication of personhood, of decision, of individuality.

She looked down, frowning at her shoes, the light of the vending machine ever-present in her periphery. Her sneakers, at least, looked old. Well-worn, if a little plain, the white soles marked with dirt and use. She could see that the shoelaces were wet from the rain, could feel the water soaking through the threadbare canvas, her fingertips grasping at her jacket sleeves in absent concern. That was real. She felt real. Beneath her the ground felt solid, her face felt cool and damp in the slight breeze.

But what had made that sound? Another glance behind her confirmed the space to be empty still, and she hadn’t heard anything else. No voices raised in alarm, no distant car alarms blared to life, jostled by the impact—or what she had assumed must have been one. The night seemed undisturbed, save for the pounding of her heartbeat, just a little too loud in her ears.

Worrying at her lip, she turned back towards the glass display case, eyes flickering along the rows of drinks for sale. Black coffee with sugar, black coffee with no sugar, coffee with cream, with sweet cream. Six different energy drinks, a glass bottle of 7-UP that looked like it was from 30 years ago, and a solitary bottle of unlabeled water.

Surely that sound had been important, hadn’t it? It had been real enough to make her ears ring, to spike adrenaline through her like a live-wire.

Black coffee with sugar, black coffee with no sugar, coffee with cream—

Av frowned deeper, digging around in her pocket for the soft pack of cigarettes and her lighter. She was forgetting something, she knew she was, something that fluttered infuriatingly around the edges of her mind like a disoriented moth. She slotted the cigarette between her lips, the paper filter sticking slightly from the damp, the flame of the lighter momentarily adding a heat and warmth to the night that felt almost alien.

Smoke filled her lungs, hot and acrid like burnt rubber.

Six different energy drinks, a glass bottle of 7-UP that looked like it was from 30 years ago—

Inhale, exhale, plumes of breath and smoke that rose from her lips towards the dreary, impenetrable darkness of the sky above her, towards clouds that roiled thick and heavy with rain and nothing else. Surely, she thought, nothing else, although part of her knew that even when she’d tilted her head up to examine the apartment building, she’d been careful not to look any higher.

The worn rubber of her sneakers tap tap tapped against the sidewalk, making small wet spattering sounds as the movement displaced a puddle, and still she stood, smoking, making no decisions.

‘I should be cold,’ she thought, exhaling again, flicking ashes onto the street in a move that felt almost spiteful against the unnatural perfection upon which she stood. ‘How long have I been out here? What time is it?’

Her body shook a little, though she felt no colder than she had moments ago. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, her voice stopped in her throat—by disuse, perhaps. Or by fear.

The sound of sizzling brought her attention momentarily to the present, as a fat droplet of water fell, extinguishing her cigarette halfway through. Av took it from between her lips and stared at it. It felt...cruel. Intentional, perhaps. Irrationally, she wondered whether the street itself hadn’t responded to the slight bit of ash by extinguishing its source. Something about that wording made her shiver again, and she glanced around for a trash can, somewhere appropriate to throw it away, but of course, the street was devoid of any such thing.

A desire welled up inside her to simply throw it on the ground, to grind the ash and paper and unused tobacco into the sidewalk just to see what would happen...but in the end she thought better of it, and tucked it into her pocket instead. Her clothes would probably stink, but that was okay, she could just hang them out to dry.

Hang them out to dry. Out to dry.

Black coffee with sugar, black coffee with no sugar—

Did she have a clothes line? A balcony? She couldn’t remember for some reason. Had she even locked the door on her way out?

Av glanced around, the bright blue-white of the vending machine blinding in her periphery. Did she live on this street? Had she walked far to get here?

Was one of these nondescript apartments hers?

—the blare of a car horn wailing over screaming metal, six different energy drinks, a glass bottle of 7-UP that looked like it was from 30 years ago—

The sound was deafening, the smell of coffee like cigarette smoke like burned rubber like asphalt like hot metal stinging her nose and she squeezed her eyes shut, tepid fingertips curling into fists over her ears, she wanted to scream, to run, but she couldn’t remember where she lived, where to go, the sky pressed down on the wet asphalt and the white-blue burned out the gold of the street light and the darkness was bright bright bright through her eyelids and—

“You okay?”

Av yelped, her voice tearing free of a throat that felt like musty old paper, as she whipped around towards the sound. The voice.

There was a man standing about ten feet away from her, the campus buildings behind him looking ghostly and pallid in the blue-white of the vending machine light. Av blinked, the ghosts of a car horn, of a flashing yellow light, of melted rubber and blank apartments and a roiling dark sky fading from her mind like a half-remembered dream.

They were at school, she thought, the words wafting over her mind like a cool breeze, like rain. School. University? He was an adult, at least, and she felt like she must be one.

The man had retreated several steps at her startled sound, and he raised his hands slightly in placation before tugging at the straps of his backpack, pulling them tight in a motion that seemed too absent to have been intentional. He was nervous?

‘Most people get nervous when strange women linger by vending machines and scream when you address them, I’d wager,’ she thought, sighing with something between exasperation and relief.

The sound was normal enough to lower the man’s hackles. He was awfully tall, and seemed aware of it, ducking his head slightly and squinting into the light of the vending machines to see her better. Golden-orange eyes flickered in the light like traffic lights, on and off, on and off as he took a tentative step towards her. Calculating, like he was trying to make himself seem less threatening, like he didn’t want to spook her further.

It had been too long since he’d spoken to her, too long that she’d just been staring at him with distant, distracted eyes, but the startled noise had done little to awaken her actual voice. It was an effort, like raising an anchor from the bottom of the sea, to answer him, the words sounding willowy and thin in her ears.

“Ah yeah—sorry. Long day,” Av rasped softly, gesturing around. The big guy grinned a little, droplets of water falling from thick, red hair, and she found herself frowning again.

“Figured,” He said, tilting his head slightly, watching her expression carefully before continuing, “stopped by chem to bring you lunch and they said you didn’t show. S’not like you,” He paused, tilting his head the other way, and she felt her heart begin to race.

She knew him. They had classes together, he was bringing her lunch. Friend? Brother? Boyfriend? She felt her cheeks heat up at that last, glancing over him, and decided perhaps that must be the case. He’d closed the distance at some point when she’d been digging through her memory for clues, and she almost jumped when he smudged a thumb over her cheek, running a raindrop across the blush. Would have jumped, in fact, if the motion hadn’t seemed so tender, so intimately familiar.

“I don’t remember why I’m out here, Kid,” his name fell from her lips without thinking, more muscle memory than conscious thought, that willowy quality of her voice accompanied by embarrassment, by a fear that made her feel small.

He didn’t answer her for a long moment, those strange golden-hued eyes flickering intently over her expression. If he felt anything beyond concern, he gave no indication of it, instead lifting his hand from her cheek to ruffle it through her hair. Eustass Kid was warm. She sighed into the contact. Maybe she had been cold before. Maybe there just hadn’t been enough contrast to notice.

Eustass Kid. Black coffee no sugar. Black coffee with sugar. Black coffee with c—

“Hey hey,” he finally said, pushing her hair back from her forehead, tipping her head up to look at him in the process. The sky behind him loomed, too dark, too thick with clouds, wrong in a way that she couldn’t settle upon.

They were at university. She was taking a chemistry class. This was her boyfriend.

Six different energy drinks, a 7-UP b—

Her eyes settled back on his, her hand moving to grasp at his shirt and she breathed. Breathed.

Kid seemed to mull over his words, rolling them around in his mouth as he tried to find the right order, the right tone. He opened his mouth, thought better of it, closed it again, and then sighed softly, running his thumb over her forehead now, in an arc up into her hair.

“Doc said this was gonna be a shitty day. This time of year’s probably gonna suck for a while.” His voice sounded rough too, she noted, his expression pinching into a grimace around the words he seemed reluctant to say.

A scar, still angry and red and new, dipped jagged over his eye, down onto his cheek, spilling like red paint into her vision. How had she not seen that before? Had it always been there? She raised her hand from his shirt, fingertips ghosting up towards his face. He made no move to stop her, just watched until her hand was close enough to lean into, his skin warm against her palm.

There was a sound like an explosion, the blare of a car horn wailing over screaming metal—

Av’s face crumpled as she stroked her thumb over the scar.

“Because of the accident.” she whispered, her voice soft and wet like pattering rain.

“Yeah,” he kissed her palm. She nodded.

She still couldn’t remember much about the street, about the car that had swerved into them, about the hours and days in the hospital. Just the sound of the car horn, the way the tires had screeched and bled acrid smoke into the night air, the way not one light had turned on in the balconies overhead.

The doctors had said that memory loss was common in cases like this, with head injuries, with sudden traumatic events. The symptoms would fade, she’d been assured. Routines would help. Familiar scenery. A return to normalcy. All these things would speed her recovery. And yet, as with everything else, she still couldn’t quite remember how long they said it would take.

Her therapist had suggested grounding exercises for when she got lost, or her mind began to race, but the only thing she seemed capable of remembering with any consistency was the stupid vending machine outside of the dorms.

Kid followed her gaze to the faded offerings behind the glass, expression twisting into something half amused as he knocked against it with his knuckle, releasing her head to do so.

“S’funny, you’d think they’d restock the fucking thing eventually,” he said, the gravel of his voice low, thoughtful. “Hasn’t had anything in it since we’ve been here except—”

“A solitary bottle of unlabeled water,” Av supplied, grimacing a little at how practiced and robotic it sounded, but Kid just laughed.

“Yeah, that. Couldn’t even spring for some fuckin Dasani,” he muttered, fumbling in his pocket for a second before retrieving his wallet. He fished out a crumpled dollar bill and fed it into the old machine, fighting with it for a moment before it finally accepted the offering. The sound it made when he hit the button was like grinding metal and she tensed at the sound; wordlessly, he pulled her against his large frame, and this time when she breathed there was no hint of burning rubber or wet asphalt. He plucked the water bottle from the basin when the thing finally decided to relinquish it, and pressed it into her hands with a flourish.

“Bone apple teeth,” Kid intoned, grinning as if to show off his, and it was so absurd in that moment that she laughed, breath pluming up towards the sky. His grinned widened, clearly pleased that the joke had landed—relieved to hear the warmth in that sound.

“C’mon,” he squeezed her, turning her away from the blue-white light of the vending machine, towards the comforting darkness of the night. “Let’s go, it’s fuckin freezing out.”

Av, fingers blissfully cool around the water bottle, smiled back. “Yeah.”

#av writes #cw memory loss #cw unreality #cw car accident #oc x canon #oc x eustass kid #OP #Eustass Kid #yes my OC's name is Av but she's had that name for 15ish years #and I only started going by it like 8 years ago #long story #it wasn't even really supposed to BE anything #but alas all roads in my brain lead to Kid these days #so ya know #if you actually read this mwah mwah I kiss you #if not I totally get that idek what it is

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