i don't want no scrubs

🏝️

“Put out first or claimed last? This might be all that’s left,” Maddie offered, though it was clear from the slight downturn of the corners of her lips that she wasn’t all that thrilled about missing out on the cheese pizzas and being stuck with anchovies, “-which sucks, cos it doesn’t even matter if you pull ‘em off, they’ve already leaked all of their salty, fishy, goop all over the cheese,” it seemed she was speaking from experience.

Pilar sighed, shutting the box with resignation at Maddie’s words. “There might be more put out at some point. But yes, this -” she gestured at the lackluster pizzas with the hand not holding her plate, “- is all a wash.” She shifted her attention to get herself some coleslaw, half an eye on the rest of the options as she did so. “Do you know if the options are any better at the barbecue?” she asked offhandedly.

“Are you putting down tradition, Pilar?” Mia remarks. Sure, she doesn’t actually know if this is a tradition or a coincidence. In the slightest. But she casually flips her hair over one shoulder, feigned confidence in her words, and reaches for some slaw instead of the topic of their discussion anyway. “Everyone knows they save the best for last.” 

Pilar raised her eyebrows instead of rolling her eyes like she actually wanted to do. Only fucking Mia would defend anchovy pizza. “If they always did that, we’d never get to the best,” she shot back, tone light but words blunt. She delicately twisted the box towards Mia, adopting a sweet smile. “But if you think this tradition is so important, then please, go ahead. It’s all yours,” she offered.

🌊  

Always a picky eater, potlucks were not the easiest food situation for Winnie. As she walked down the buffet table slowly, she found herself turning her nose up at everything. The chili looked too wet, the sliders looked too dry, and the pizza, god, the pizza! Not even realizing who she was standing beside, she watched as Pilar opened multiple boxes, revealing the atrocious toppings. “Uck!” She let out in almost involuntary agreement with the girl beside her. “Is anyone in th-this town normal? I knew it was weird here, but th-three anchovy pizza is a little m-much!”

At least the sound of Winnie commiserating helped Pilar’s mood. She relaxed just a little at the girl’s presence - somehow, there was less of a wall when it came to Winnie than there would be with most other people here. Perks of having mothers that got fucked over together, she supposed. “It’s, like, messed up,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose at the anchovies in question and shutting the boxes. “Whoever was in charge of this clearly dropped the ball somewhere along the line. Maybe the good stuff is underneath?”

what: complaining

where: potluck time babey

Pilar frowned as she scanned the table, manicured nail idly tapping her commemorative plate. She flicked open another box of pizza and rolled her eyes at it as someone came to stand beside her. “Why are literally all the pizzas I’m finding covered in anchovies?” she complained, half to herself and half to the lucky person who was now here to listen. “Like, there’s no way these are popular enough to be put out first.”

“Brina!” Pilar called, running to the blonde’s side so she could link their arms and complain properly. “Please tell me you’re doing stats this year. I’m pretty sure Mia is and if I have to go through that alone, she’s going to ruin math for me. I can feel it,” she said with a sigh, toeing the line of whining. She was upping the dramatics just a tad - better to distract them both from the feeling of being back on campus. It didn’t sit right for Pilar, walking around with Ethan’s conspicuous absence. And if it didn’t sit right with her, she could hazard a guess that Sabrina might be feeling some kind of way about it too. So, slightly dramatic complaints and dear Mia Montoya, who at the very least could always give her something to complain about. And, honestly, the prospect of Mia intruding on her best subject did warrant some complaint. “I’m a marketing major. I can’t just not do it if she ruins it.”

🌊

Winnie nodded, sharing Pilar’s frustration. “It’s like th-they didn’t even care,” she added, a similarly bitter tone overtaking her own voice. Of course they didn’t care, they only cared about protecting the very top. None of them cared about who they hurt along the way, just about the outcome being exactly what they wanted it to be. It was all about appearances, all about status and fake perfection. And if they had to push others down to maintain that? So be it. Didn’t it all sound so familiar? “I just wish th-there was something th-that could be done,” she admitted. 

Did it make it better or worse that Pilar was supposedly one of them? The question lingered in her mind, but she didn’t ask it of Winnie. No need to push this... whatever this was. Understanding. Alliance, maybe. Friendship, potentially. She just wasn’t sure if it would help to point out that she’d cared. She’d cared. She’d been one of them, sort of, and a president, and she’d cared. How could she not, with that kind of responsibility at her fingertips? It wasn’t like it had done anyone any good. She hadn’t even been one of them, really. Just in training wheels, waiting to join the big leagues. “Maybe there is. Depends on whose around to be held accountable.” How many council members hadn’t been revealed? She wanted to talk to Bertram Montez. She shouldn’t - she probably couldn’t, now she didn’t have strings tied to her fingertips that she could pull. But she wanted to pick him apart, even all this time later. See if he had anything to say. Strychnine and 10k. And none of the council had noticed - or they simply hadn’t cared. “The LDB is more or less dead. But I wouldn’t mind doing something. It’s the least I can do, after everything,” she said, making sure to hold the girl’s eyes. “If you need me, let me know, Winnie.”

🌊  

Winnie nodded at Pilar’s answer. She wasn’t one for giving overly sympathetic looks and pats on the back, so she didn’t. Besides, with Pilar’s tone of voice it’s pretty clear she wouldn’t want that anyway. The other girl sounded used to it, not necessarily resigned to her situation but settled into it. It sounded like it was all she’d ever known. A part of Winnie wondered, of course, if things had turned out differently at that trial all those years ago, would it have turned out differently for Pilar and her mother? For Winnie and her own mother? What could Luna have done if she wasn’t framed as an accessory to murder? Would she have stayed in Cherry? Or would she have used that LDB clout to get further ahead in life? Her mother had made the most of it, picked herself back up and made a decent life, and she seemed to be happy with it, but Winnie wondered now how much of that was an act. 

After she realized she’d been lost in thought for a while, she refocused her attention back to Pilar. “I’m sorry… about your m-mom,” she sighed. “I know it’s a stupid th-thing to say, I know you’ve probably heard it before. But after learning what we both learned, I hope you know I m-mean it. What th-they did to our m-mothers was awful. Regardless of how we feel about our m-mothers, our relationships with th-them…” Her mind flashed to all the fights she’d ever had with Luna. When she ripped apart a dress her mother tried to put her in, when she bit her mother on the arm (way older than that was even remotely acceptable), when she slammed her door in Luna’s face after her mother very politely asked if the nice boy up the block was someone she might like to date, the list went on. “What th-they did wasn’t right.”

Pilar’s smile softened into something a little more genuine. Most words and apologies about her mother she’d dismiss easily - condolences were always more formality than anything, even before she’d learnt about Velma. But Winnie understood, she thought. It meant a little more, sympathy from someone who’d also been affected by this whole stupid mess. And it was stupid - the fact that Bertram had gotten away with it was stupid. Sloppy, on the part of the LDB council. Frustratingly so. “Yes, well. I’m sorry about yours,” she replied with a sigh. She carefully boxed up all her feelings about Lourdes - all the little what ifs and maybes - and put them away for some day very far in the future. She left the feelings about the LDB where they were, though. She had an inkling they might be useful. “You’re right, of course. What they did was awful. And - well, infuriating. He gave someone 10k, and they didn’t even notice.” Bitterness seeped freely into her words. “It’s just... horrible.”

🍓

It’s not the shove that causes Mia’s jaw to tighten. It’s the idea that she’s somehow equally responsible for not looking out for Lambda Rho because she was spending time with Grace instead. She may have never voiced it… but the ideas that Mia had of sisterhood when she’d first wanted to join a sorority at the tender age of eight still held true. But today isn’t the day where Mia gushes her feelings about camaraderie. Instead, Mia’s fingers dig further into her palms until they’re at the point of drawing blood. If she’d wanted to use Blaire’s death to get the upper-hand she would have done it when she’d died. If she’d wanted to overthrow Pilar Hamilton once and for all she would have used the leverage Grace had inadvertently given her in The Cherry Bomb. She’s never been an advocate of physical violence. Mia fights with her words. That is, until Pilar mentions Mia’s aunt and her nails finally leave her palm as she throws up her opened palm to Pilar’s cheek. “I am not my aunt.” she seethes as the lack of a true conversation with Mariana Montoya following the trial finally takes its toll. “I knew nothing. Not about her, not about the LDB, not about Cherry when I came here, not about Grace, not about any of it! And I’m sick of feeling like I’m I’m completely hopeless because my president doesn’t keep me in the loop. It should’ve been me as president to start with and it should be me now.” 

Pilar takes the slap and throws back one of her own without thinking. Fair is fair, and all that. She shouldn’t have, she knows. But fair is fair. The truth is, Pilar doesn’t care about Mariana Montoya. She isn’t even sure if she cares about what Mia’s doing. Why couldn’t they just fucking get along, for the good of the sorority? Pilar had tried, at least. She shouldn’t have to worry about how her Vice President will twist everything she does or doesn’t do into a knife to stab her in the back with. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? You should’ve been president,” she spits. She’s angry, and she’s upset and she needs to fucking lock it down. She needs a second to herself to reorder the parts that are angry and upset with Mia and the parts that are angry and upset at everything else that’s happened. “And I’m the one who only cares about myself. Sure, Mia. Do what you want, you’ve never respected the vote to put me in charge anyway,” she says with a scoff before beginning to walk past Mia and away. She makes sure to shoulder check her on the way, because she’s feeling petty.

🍓

The hand on her cheek is tender but Mia knows it doesn’t come from a place of care. She’s being treated like a child. The heat rises to her cheeks with her humiliation. Many months from now, Mia will blame her reaction on the tension that had been building in her shoulders for months. But as her face sours to match the look in her eyes, as her manicured nails dig tightly into her palms in an attempt to hold back her anger, it’s clear that this hadn’t been part of Mia’s idea when she’d spent all that time in the library that morning printing out her signs. Because as she stands on Main Street, with Pilar cooing sickly words to her for their small audience, something inside Mia snaps. 

 “Don’t pretend like you’ve ever looked out for me for one second, Hamilton! The only person you’re interested in looking out for is yourself,” Mia shouts. Kids in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Mia. “… Just like your darling mother was trying to do when she got thrown under the bus by her slimeball boyfriend! If you were really looking out for the girls of Lambda Rho you would have taken better care of Blaire when she joined your ‘private club’ because all I’ve seen for your involvement is two Lambda Rho sisters either dead or fatally injured, two newer Lambdas allowed to be thrown into the midst of a murder investigation and potentially ruin the house name for good, and you want to say all that was for extra resources and connections?! I’m not buying it! Unless the extra resources you meant included the knife used to fucking stab Sabrina!” She reaches up in an attempt to knock Pilar’s hand off her face with a quick swipe. “And take your hands off me!” 

Pilar won’t lie to herself - there’s a sick satisfaction at watching Mia snap. It’s almost visceral, almost reassuring. Since even before everything came out, since the moment Ethan revealed he’d been keeping something from her, since Sabrina was stabbed, since Blaire died, so much as felt out of her control. The Candy Girl - Grace, fucking Grace - dragging her along like a puppet on a string, with good old Bertie and Ethan giving a few tugs for good measure. And then when it had all come out, she hadn’t even been there. No control, no influence. Just left with too many questions that could never be answered. So knowing that she can still do something, she can affect someone like Mia is fucking satisfying. 

Unfortunately, because it’s Mia, she has to ruin it by mentioning Blaire and Sabrina and getting a little too close to the things Pilar can’t stop thinking about. Because she does think that Lambda Rho is her responsibility, just like the LDB is - or was. “Don’t,” Pilar spits, an edge of ice to the word, flexing the fingers on the hand Mia knocks away. “Where’s your culpability, Vice President?” and because she wants to do something tangible, because Mia’s broken the seal and made the first move by swiping at that hand on her cheek, Pilar accompanies the words with a light shove. “I have dedicated years of my life to doing everything I possibly can for my sisters, and you’re out here taking the first opportunity to use a tragedy - Blaire’s death - for, what? Sorority politics? An election that hasn’t even started?” The words are more genuine, and she makes sure the indignation and disapproval coats them. It’s ironic, really - Mia accuses her of only looking out for herself, and she’s been doing everything she can to focus on anything but herself. She’s sure not fucking campaigning. “I was trying. You were busy braiding the Candy Girl’s hair.” She knows something must crack through on trying. Something only Mia is really close enough to glimpse. Something a little anguished. But it’s gone just as quick, hidden behind a single bark of disbelieving laughter and one last, sad, statement. “You know, the saying isn’t supposed to be ‘like aunt, like niece’ but you always do make do with what you have.”

🍓

Sure, she’d had a crush on a murderer and thought Grace was the only person in Cherry who truly understood her… but who hadn’t made mistakes in their love life? “Grace was…” Her back stiffens a little, jaw tightening. “I didn’t know about Grace.” She settles on. “I’m, like, just trying to get to the truth here for the benefit of the legacy of the Lambda Rho name! No speculating or taking advantage!” Except they both knew she was. Ultimately, there’s an air of jealousy in Mia’s voice that’s been lying dormant for months just waiting to rear its head. Why hadn’t she been invited to the LDB? Sure, it seemed more hassle than what it was worth - but a society for CCU’s best? The ones who were going places? The fact she’d found out her aunt had an invite and she hadn’t received a thing? She’d never admit it but it’d definitely put a chip in her Ivy League reject confidence. Mia was going places and if she had to prove it by fighting tooth and nail she would! “Unless you… like… didn’t run a secret society that drugged people against their will as a hazing ritual and, like, have at least three murderers as members at one point or another,” she cocks her head innocuously but the look in her eye is practically feral. “Because if I’m mistaken and you didn’t do that, I’ll happily take my sign down… and the copies I made.” 

“Of course you didn’t. I’m just saying, love. Who knows what people might think if you keep fixating on what she did,” Pilar says, the pet name and sympathy dripping off her tongue like honey. Pilar has something like a shark in her, she knows, and she’s half convinced it comes from her mother. She knew, reading Lourdes’ words during that mock trial, the same way she knows the blood running through her veins, that she was as carefully constructed as Pilar. And who knows how they’d compare, really, but now that she’s forced to feel things about Lourdes, Pilar can’t help weaving what little she knows of her into her masks and carefully chosen words. Pet names have never really been Pilar’s thing, but they seemed to be her mother’s, so why not see how they feel? She places a hand gently on Mia’s shoulder in an apparently comforting gesture, mostly just to make her squirm. She knows, as she’s sure her mother knew, that things like this are all about power and control. And power is so often about appearances. So when Pilar ducks her head like she’s trying to get a better look at Mia’s face, she makes sure to soften her expression like there’s something she can see there that just breaks her heart. It’s all a performance, a masquerade, and Pilar has been dancing like this for years. “Oh, Mia... Look at you.” Voice oh so gentle. And because it’s Mia fucking Montoya, Pilar moves her hand to Mia’s cheek. Just to see what she’ll do about it. Just to see if it’ll push that look in her eye a little further. Pilar kind of hopes it does. If only so she has an excuse to do something back. “I was part of a private club, sure,” she continues, all sympathy, sympathy, sympathy. Sickly sweet, maybe just this side of condescending. Like Mia’s a beloved little sister about to cry over something stupid. “But accusing me of drugging people? Of, what, being involved with the kind of people that took my mother from me? Look, I’m sorry if you felt excluded or left out, darling, but I really was looking out for you and all my sisters. For me, it really just meant extra resources for Lambda Rho to be the best it could, and a little more connections.”

🌊

In a sad way, it comforted Winnie to know she wasn’t the only one kept in the dark. She felt bad, of course, for Pilar. She knew how much it hurt, how confusing it was, to be given the information they had been about their mothers. She was glad, at least, she wasn’t alone in it. At home, she felt alone in it. Her father was having the same revelations, but they never spoke about it. They were two lone icebergs, floating through the sea of confusion on their own. Luna tried desperately to hold everything together, to pretend it was all normal. But they all knew it wasn’t. Something changed dramatically in their home, and Winnie didn’t know what to do about it. “I still live with her,” she admits. “And m-my father. I’m an only child, so… yeah, we’ve always been pretty close. Are you? Close… with your m-mom?” She asked carefully, slowly like Pilar did. There was an implication in the other girl’s question, but Winnie liked to be sure of things, liked to be direct. That tendency of hers certainly didn’t make the situation at home easier.

Pilar had too much self control to do more than think a quiet oh at Winnie’s answer. She was pleased to hear that Winnie and Luna’s relationship was alright, and let that show more than any more complicated feelings. She just quietly nodded along until the question was turned back on herself. 

Pilar had long perfected answering questions about her mother, often with whatever tone she felt would get her more. Sometimes something that would garner her more sympathy, sometimes something that would help someone open up, sometimes something that portrayed the whole thing as a non-issue. Up until recently, Lourdes had been a non-issue. Someone who’d existed more in the theoretical than any real connection. Now... well, complicated summed it up. All this to say, the wry smile she painted on in response to the question was one she’d practiced to perfection. “No,” she said, simple and straightforward. She gave leaving it at that the briefest consideration, but figured fair was fair. Answer for an answer. “Parents were young when they had me. Dad was committed. Lourdes wanted something different for her early twenties. She kept some minimal contact and involvement. Then one day she left town, never to be heard from again,” she stated, tone factual and distanced. Like she was telling the story of someone else’s life. She took a long sip of her drink. “Never thought much of it before. I suppose I know the reason why now.”

where: blossom records booth

Pilar frowned as she rifled idly through the options at the booth. She’d practically gone through half the CD’s and had come to the realisation that she didn’t actually know what music her dad listened to. It made figuring out what to buy for him - an impulse decision that she was now committed to - a little harder than expected. “What do dad’s listen to? Is it 70s music?” she asked offhandedly as someone approached her side. Talking to people felt like more effort ever since... well. Ever since. But she wasn’t going to start shying away from small talk and casual conversation just because of something like that. She would not become a hermit, goddammit. “I worry that anything I give him he’ll play in the waiting room at the clinic and I’d so rather listen to something released in this decade if I or any of the Lambda Rho girls get hurt.”