open post: averageness

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's first clue that it hadn't been a dream was that she'd woken up alone in her room.

Nowadays, she and Gideon have been sharing a room, so that Tally can protect her from ever finding a body alone again--and maybe conspicuously leave out some clothes that fit Gideon but aren't, like, ratty black pants. That day, though, she'd woken in an empty room, gasping from something that felt like a nightmare, but somehow more vivid than real life.

Without even getting dressed, she'd run for the woods to confirm what had happened. Horror had flooded her when she found the knife-mark, exactly where she remembered throwing it yesterday. It was true. She'd been Special. She'd been awful. She'd seen and felt the world with more harsh clarity than she'd ever thought possible. She'd hit Gideon.

Tally had collapsed onto the stump, gripping her own arms to make sure her familiar, average body was still there.

Over the next few days, Tally doesn't sleep well, and people getting swapped out for a second time doesn't help. People might find her wandering the mansion like a zombie, or in one of the kitchens, contemplating getting drunk. She's not as put together as usual, either, but of course on her even bedhead and sweats look beautiful.

Comments

[tallyyoungblood]

"I wasn't jealous!" Tally protests. "Well, maybe a little, but David pursued me." A thousand old mental arguments with Shay rise up within her, but she squashes them down. "He told me I was beautiful, even though I was ugly. He gave me gloves to protect my hands, which was a big deal in the Smoke, since you had to barter for stuff there. Anyway, Shay got mad at me, partly because I told her that I had a crush back in the city to cover for my tracker, because it was a heart-shaped locket. She was like, how come you're stealing my boyfriend when you have another crush?" Tally laughs bitterly. "I told David that's what the tracker was, too, and threw it in the fire to show him that I wanted to be with him, not go back. And I meant it."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon sobers, her smirk fading. She likes Tally's normal laugh way better than this one. "What went wrong?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Turns out throwing a tracker into a fire is a great way to set it off. When I woke up the whole Smoke was crawling with Specials. Everyone but me and David got arrested." Tally closes her eyes, remembering how all the Smokies had left their shoes for her when they saw her escaping barefoot. "They killed some people, too. This crumbly guy called the Boss, and David's dad. Shay didn't get killed, but... they turned her pretty. After she'd been the first person I ever knew who liked her real face." Tally's voice wobbles."By the time David and I showed up to break her out, it was too late. She wasn't even mad at me, which was the worst part. They made her not care. She wasn't her any more. And it's my fault."

[ninth_cavalier]

"So, okay. You agreed to betray your friend, in exchange for some scientist bitch not withholding the only thing you'd been taught made life livable, and then when it came down to it you didn't even do the betrayal, and it only went wrong because they're constantly foisting technology on you without explaining how any of it works, because they, like, gatekeep the fuck out of all knowledge, including the part about giving everyone brain lesions."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally smiles weakly, both at "scientist bitch" and how generously Gideon is interpreting the story.

"Things would have been different if I'd asked Maddy and Az for help," she points out. "They were really smart--they were doctors and reversed their own operations--so they definitely would have known what to do with the bug. I doomed the Smoke because I was too ashamed to admit Dr. Cable manipulated me. That's part of why I volunteered to turn myself in to test the cure. I had to make it up to Maddy and David for getting Az killed. Plus, if the cure worked, I could get it to Shay."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon blows out a breath. She feels a little guilty—maybe there is something to Tally's theories about big shiny eyes and evolutionary protection instincts or whatever, but she's kind of been thinking about Tally as a little naive. Definitely not dumb, or incapable, but she hadn't really grasped the breadth of what Tally had been through before she got here. Seeing it all laid out like this is... a lot. If they're comparing—which they're not—Gideon might've seen more blood, but Tally's been way more places and seen way more things and, arguably, done way more to change her own circumstances. "Been underestimating you, Whirlybird. I'm not the only one who's fucking crazy."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally surprises herself by laughing. Gideon actually looks impressed, and she's not a pretty member of the Crims, impressed because they would be impressed by anything, like littlies transfixed by safety fireworks. At once her mood lifts by several degrees.

"I may be pretty, but my past is totally ugly, Gideon-la." She gives her a real smile. "Anyways, this is the real newsfeed download, thanks to Shay-la. Get this: the Smokies did get me the cure, but since I split it Zane, it didn't do anything to me. He had the active pill--mine would have only stopped the medical nanos after they fixed the lesions. I'm curing myself."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon blinks. "Gonna be honest with you, I totally forgot you took a pill at all." She raises her hands. "In my defense, you told me the day we swapped bodies around, and there was a shit-ton going on. But I also guess, like--you're the one figuring out all this shit about adrenaline, and cold, and coffee. Obviously you're curing yourself. Who else would be doing it?"

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally rolls her eyes. "Well, I thought it was the pill. I don't come from Bone Magic City, so I kind of took a scientist's word for it. But this explains why it didn't just cure me permanently, and I still wake up all pretty sometimes."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah, that checks out. You have to totally retrain your brain--carve new neutral pathways or whatever, I dunno, I'm not a brain nerd." Gideon leans back in her chair. "That's super cool, though. And hey, Tally?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Yeah?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon smirks at her, as wide and ridiculous as she can. "I'll take you to Bone Magic City any time you like."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally bursts into laughter. "Gideon!" She grins back and smacks Gideon's arm. Her heart swells with fondness. Trust Gideon to break her out of being so utterly self-serious.

[ninth_cavalier]

"C'mere." Gideon hooks a leg around the leg of Tally's chair and pulls it closer to hers.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally goes, her tattoo jumping to life. They've only been apart a few days, but it's been too long. She sort of wishes she were wearing something better than sweats, but then remembers that Gideon has approximately two and a half outfits, and relaxes.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon hadn't really had a plan beyond getting her closer, but she sees the whirling start up above her eyebrow and grins, leaning in to press a kiss to Tally's tattoo.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally smiles too, scooting her chair the last few centimeters so that she can lean against Gideon's shoulder. It's kind of hard, since she's a little taller than Gideon, but she's determined to do it anyway.

"So, yeah. That's how I ruined Shay's life. And I guess she ruins mine too, by turning me Special. It's perfect, really. That way she can get her revenge and also keep me close."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon snorts, nuzzling at her cheek. "I couldn't be happier for her."

[tallyyoungblood]

"I have no idea what's going to happen to her. I guess, if I go back to my world..." Tally picks up one of Gideon's hands and plays with it, feeling the callouses and interlacing Gideon's fingers with hers. "If it's at the same time I left, I can try to stop it. Lock all the knives away, and stuff. I don't think the way we got together was especially... um... healthy."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah, no kidding," says Gideon. Tally's hands are starting to callous up, too—even supernaturally soft and moisturized skin is still skin, and reacts to repetitive friction like all skin does. It's nice—like an outer sign of all the work Tally's putting in to fixing up the shit inside her skull, too. "I think probably telling her what you know about what might happen would maybe change stuff, too, right?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"If she believes me," Tally says. "She never believes me when I try to tell her that I'm not hurting her on purpose. But you believe me, right? If I had any control over the other Tally, I wouldn't have done any of that."

[ninth_cavalier]

Yeah, there goes all of Gideon's lingering affection for Shay. She frowns. "She thinks you hurt her on purpose?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"I mean, yeah. She thinks I stole David because I'm selfish and wanted attention from the bubbliest guy in the Smoke, even if my friend liked him. And in my memories from being Special, she told me I should have tried to share the cure with her instead of Zane--never mind that we had only seconds to take it because the Specials were about to find us. She was like, you just shared it with him because he's the leader of the Crims. I think she thinks I'm some kind of popularity-chasing monster. She's not wrong that I want to belong," she says quietly. "That was the whole point of being pretty, that I would be a part of something and never worry about being alone again. But I didn't want to hurt her to do it. It just happened that way."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah, sounds like she needs to get the fuck over herself. It's almost like you make decisions based on criteria that aren't just about whether or not she'll get her feelings hurt."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally snorts. "Yeah, you know, just maybe." It feels good to be talking about it like this, to take Shay off the tower she'd been perched atop in Tally's mind, if only for a moment. "I guess it makes more sense why she was so jealous now, though. I don't think she knew how to show me that she... um... wanted me."