📍 The Bongalow 📅 11 January 1981

I posted 486 times in 2021

34 posts created (7%)

452 posts reblogged (93%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 13.3 posts.

I added 428 tags in 2021

#c: dawn - 120 posts

#c: clem - 85 posts

#c: ella - 72 posts

#c: marlene - 28 posts

#c: nash - 27 posts

#c: alice - 23 posts

#c: kingsley - 22 posts

#c: danny - 18 posts

#c7: dawn - 17 posts

#c10: clem - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 110 characters

The word hit Dawn and she was glad she was sitting, so that she did not stumble backwards. Not for fear, but simply the weight of it all. And if that was how she felt, she couldn’t even fathom what D.W. would be going through. To stumble backwards, even in shock, would have given D.W. the impression that Dawn would never want her to have.

As her eyes scanned D.W.’s, there were no doubts here that her friend was being completely truthful. And for that, there was fear. But not for herself. Not for anyone else, but for D.W.. They’d covered werewolves in her magical creatures degree, she’d read all about the disdain, the prejudice. Worse than Dawn would ever receive as a muggleborn. She’d seen it first hand, how so many of the students turned their nose up in disgust at the topic. A topic that really shouldn’t have been covered in the class of dangerous beasts. It was unfair, looking at D.W. now, for anyone to funnel her into that category.

“Okay.” The acceptance was as soft as it were simple, for she was lost for words, a rare occurrence in the life of Dawn Withey. But what she could do – what she always knew to do – was pull D.W. back towards her. Her life was full of so much pain lately, she was more than okay with taking more on, if only to lighten it for D.W. 

The scalding water still poured on them from above, and now Dawn was glad for it, as it washed away her tears, swirling them down into the drain. The words that left her lips were ones that, in the past, she knew would cause D.W. to cringe away, to make some joke at her expense. But now they felt crucial. “I love you.” 

Holding D.W. tight, whispering those words, that was a promise. A promise that she wasn’t going anywhere. That she wasn’t scared of her, or disgusted by her. For them, nothing would change. Like a good captain, she would be there when she was called, and she would be there even when she wasn’t. 

.

Nothing could take the weight of the bleakness her future held from D.W.’s shoulders, but hearing those words she had turned her nose up to at so many times in her life, allowing herself to be seen and held and ugly and loved anyway, helped to distribute that impossible weight more evenly. It was still too heavy to hold, but she felt she could crawl with it now. 

D.W. mourned in her friend’s embrace, every new realization of how her life would never again be the same bringing with it a fresh wave of pain. D.W. wrung it from her body, she bled herself of it and watched the tears and snot that came with it circle down the drain. 

She would never be okay again, but nor would she ever have to be alone through it. “Thank you,” she said at last. It was for tonight, and it was for every night Dawn had taken another, and another, and another, and another chance on D.W. 

Whatever it was must have been bad. Bad was an understatement, even, given D.W.’s state. The way she shook, the tears still wracking her body. Dawn still held on tight. “You got –” Dawn frowned. Werewolf didn’t even cross her mind, that’s how out of the realm of possibility it seemed. “Bit by what?”

.

In a flash of coherence from her Post-Moon Discomfiture D.W. considered taking this question as a sign to turn around, come back from whence she came, say literally any word other than the true one. But if she did that, she forsook every step forward she’d taken in the last three years. “I was walking Sabra.” Oh, Sabra. Her sweet, lost companion. As if D.W.’s heart needed to ache more. Roughly she snorted, wiped the snot from under her nose on Dawn’s jacket sleeve. “I don’t know where it came from—” She couldn’t. 

Say it, she urged herself. Out loud. Say it. 

“Werewolf.”

As D.W. fell into her, Dawn wrapped her arms around her friend as tightly as she could, D.W.’s head tucked under her chin. Sick. Dawn didn’t even want to consider what that meant – the possibility of losing someone else. The relief she felt at D.W’s second statement twisted uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. Because whatever it was was causing a world of pain. A world of pain D.W. would have to live with. “It’s okay.” It had to be. She brought one hand up lightly to rest in D.W’s hair, still holding her close. She was there. “Whatever it is, I’m here.”

.

Would she still say that if she knew? D.W. had spent all her life trying to convince those around her she was an unlovable, dangerous monster. Now that she really was one, she was afraid she'd succeed in getting her wish. A long, faraway wish a different D.W. had made. Maybe it had only just now reached the moon's ears, who granted the expired request in the most fitting way she saw how.

Too little too late.

What was snot and what was water was no longer clear on D.W.'s face. She told Dawn or she didn't. Either she trusted her friend—who she had pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed away so many times, and who had never budged or given up in all that pushing—or she didn't.

If D.W. had learned one lesson in her life, it was that you had to trust people. You had to, or you would be alone. She didn't want to be alone anymore; she hadn't for a long time now, but was still getting used to that.

"I got bit." How simple. How light. How quiet, the way the words caught in the shower steam and floated up, up, up.

If D.W. moments before had been a concerning shock, the image of her now was enough to break Dawn’s already sensitive heart. D.W. had always appeared so strong, so defiant. A rock in a world of chaos. But just like in nature, even a rock could be worn down if beaten enough.

There was no hesitation in the way Dawn moved to her friend, crouching down in front of her even as the water soaked through her clothes and scalded her skin. That didn’t matter now. She wanted to pull her close, but she was wary these days, wary of offering too much. And even now, in all her distress, D.W. still might not want a hug. But two hands came to rest on D.W.s arms, ready to catch her if she needed it. “I’ve got you.”

.

She leaned against Dawn with the desperation of a battered sailor hugging the mast in a storm as the boat pitched and rocked and roiled beneath. “I’m really sick, Dawn.” And she sounded it, too. What else could she call it? “It’s bad.” Too late, she realized how that sounded. “M’not, like, gunna kick rocks or nothing but...” But it was too heavy to carry. Her tongue was the strongest muscle in her body and even it couldn’t lift the weight of the word werewolf. 

In all their years, Dawn had never, ever, seen D.W. like this. Not even after her sister. “Pretty hot. Scalding, if you forget to put on the cold.” She paused for a moment, eyes scanning D.W’s face. “We’ve got baths in there too,” she suggested softly. If D.W. was chasing warmth, then warmth Dawn would give.

.

D.W. was grateful that the questions she knew inevitably had to come now had been held back for even a moment longer. She didn’t know how she would—or how she could—answer them when they did come eventually. It made her stomach roll.

“S-s-s-shower’s fine,” she grit out between aching teeth, forcing her feet to carry her towards the promised warmth. Five more steps, she told herself. Four. Three. She was so close, and then warmth would envelope her. It was mechanically and blindly she reached to turn the knobs. 

“It’s twenty-five a pop if you want to take some pictures, immortalize my misery.” It was a pitiful attempt at a joke from a pitiful girl. Without taking any of her (or Dawn’s, as the jacket was) clothes off, she sunk to the shower’s tile floor and lay beneath the hot rain from above hoping it would get better. It had to get better. This couldn’t be what the entire rest of her life would look like, feel like, be like.

D.W. began to sob. For the pain, for the hopelessness of her future, for the unaddressed trauma of just days prior finding a dead body she could well end up blamed for...

Naturally, not knowing what to do, she looked to her Captain. 

Dawn had been waiting for D.W. to meet her after practice for a while now. Long enough that everyone else had left and Dawn was sitting on a bench, half slumped against a wall as she scrolled mindlessly through her Hootr account. The app made her miserable, yet still she kept at it. Other peoples picture perfect lives made for a good escape. She was about to flick off a message to check if she was still coming, when a knock came on the door.

Jumping up, she made quick but small steps over to the door. It was impossible to hide the frown that came across her face at the site in front of her. Confusion, worry, concern. All almost permanent feelings, yet seeing D.W. in front of her, looking how she did, made them rise like a wave. “Oh.” She was unable to stop the small exhalation of breath. Normally, she would’ve tried to squash the reaction away, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Not when D.W. looked so unwell. “D.W. –” She was quickly turning back to her locker to pull out her jersey, coming back to her friend. “What’s – are you –” questions were useless. She held out the jacket, a soft hand coming to rest on a shaky one. “Let’s sit, yeah.”

.

Though it pained her to do so, D.W. wasted no time before throwing the jacket over her shoulders. Her skin felt like shattered porcelain beneath its heaviness. Her teeth were chattering when she asked, “H-h-h-how hot do those showers get.” It was unclear whether the jerk of her chin towards the team’s showers was intentional, or a happy accident of her vibrating jaw. 

Nash looked back at D.W. even as she told him not to. It was startling to see her go from cool to completely broken in an instant.

Nash was slowly backing away from the scene. He wasn’t sure how this would be investigated, but he felt sick thinking about the fact that his finger prints were everywhere. He had picked up the order that was earmarked for him. However, there was no way that this could come back to them, could it? Even if it did, they were completely innocent bystanders. 

Nash looked at D.W., her hands gripping onto him tightly. He nodded his head frantically, quick to agree. “Of course, yeah, nothing,” he said. There was something incredibly off putting about the sincerity in her voice, the way she begged him. D.W. always so aloof. It made the gravity of what they encountered that much more severe, both of them shaking to their very core. 

“I promise.”

.

It was all she needed to hear. With one final skittering glance around to make sure she hadn’t left anything, D.W. apparated on the spot to the farthest place from here she could think to make herself seen at, fighting off her panic all the while. 

And just before the full moon, too. 

D.W. hadn’t known it was possible to feel this way. Over the weekend she had been broken and stretched and contorted into shapes that now appeared as bruises all along her sallow, tender skin. She covered them with layers upon layers of clothes, and even still could not find a moment’s warmth. Her teeth were chattering together, feeling as though they could shatter, as she waited for Dawn to answer her knocks on the locker room door. D.W. looked terrible, but she felt worse.

Nash wondered if it was a cruel joke on D.W.’s part. He didn’t even bother to look at first, keeping his gaze on her. Curiosity overcame him, though, and he turned his head with D.W. stepping back he had a clear view of what lay beyond. He suddenly felt cold, in an instant the mood entirely shifting. 

There wasn’t just a mangled corpse, either. In large, red letters a warning had been scrawled on the office walls: Magic won’t save you now. Worse still, it looked wet and he was pretty sure he knew what had been used to write it.

He looked back at his companion, feeling like he was going to be sick. “We have to get out of here.” 

.

D.W. couldn’t have agreed more, except when she opened her mouth to say as much no sound came out. She was frozen there, eyes locked on the discarded meat-sack that had once been—if she strained her eyes she could almost see the nametag in the dark—well, it didn’t matter now anyway. 

Panic grabbed hold of her mind and shook. It was with acute awareness that she saw how this crime would come to a close if she wasn’t out of here, and fast. A newly turned werewolf with a slip of prescription that puts her at the scene of the crime on the day of the crime?! It headlines wrote themselves. It wouldn’t matter what evidence there was to her innocence in his murder: she was guilty of being a werewolf now, and that was enough. 

“Oh shit.” She started to cry. “Oh fuck. Fuck fuck—don’t look at me when I’m crying, asshole. Shit.” D.W. pounded a fist against her own forehead to snap herself out of it. “Yeah alright.” She gave one long sniff to suck her tears back up. 

Nash glanced over at where D.W. stood in the doorway. “Er, no,” said Nash almost affronted that she would ask him that. As if he looked like someone capable of murdering someone. He cautiously moved toward her, dumbly asking, “Why d’you ask?”

.

“Okay, cool. Cool. Coolcoolcoolcool. Uh, no reason.” D.W. took a step back, trying to remain calm. “It’s just. Someone’s definitely been murdered in there. Like...” The color began to drain from her face. “Brutally.”

“I think you telling me what you’re doing kind of negates any kind of plausible deniability,” he pointed out. Of course, he supposed he could leave and avoid being a witness, but truth be told Nash was enjoying the thrill of it all. He wasn’t prone to doing things like this. Then again, he had already committed himself to attending a few anti-magic meetings. Perhaps, it wouldn’t hurt to get a few more adrenaline rushes in before graduation. 

He did make sure to move his fingers across his mouth in a zipping motion, promising his silence to her. 

.

D.W. kicked in through the door’s lock, only to stand dumbly in the doorframe, trying to make sense of what she saw inside. “Uh, Hero?” she called over her shoulder. “You, uh, you didn’t murder anyone before I got here, did you?”

“You know, you might be the coolest person I know,” said Nash. In all fairness, Nash’s own standards for what constituted cool were likely very different and much lower than most people’s. 

.

“Yeah.” She nodded sagely. “I get that a lot.” She didn’t. 

Bloodshot eyes darted to the clock that hung above the door. Ten minutes they’d been in the place without so much as a peep from an employee. That either meant it was time for them to get the hell out before that could change, or time to really commit to some thievery. 

“Busy social life?” Nash asked. It felt like everyone had things to be doing nowadays. He wondered if he ought to not have more things filling up his time. It was a brief moment, however, as he shook his head knowing he would be miserable if he had too much to do.

.

“Nah.” D.W. looked down at the ground, following the lines of the floor with her eyes. “Probation.” Technically, this was a lie. But it didn’t feel like one to her. D.W. had been on probation before, being caged by the timetable of the Ministry. Had she really come so far only to be right back where she started, even if for reasons now out of her control?

“Number three,” said Nash with a grin, holding up three fingers. “I can lend you the next few of the series. Also, convention should be coming up next year, so if you’re interested in going some place where you can dress like Harley Quinn and not look out of place…” 

.

Not No. 5 then, good. “I’ll have to check my calendar,” she said flippantly, except she realized after she said it that it was true. Now, part of each month, she’d lose her freedom to do things like that. She tried not to look sad about it, and was probably pretty successful, having a considerable amount of practice with it.