The Three Stages of Getting Hit by a Car: A Brief Recollection by Leah Rilke
The first stage is, of course, actually getting hit. It's the only part anyone talks about. You feel it before you see it. No time to react. Nothing to do but let it happen.
(Like when you realize you're going to be trapped on an island for three days at some Oprah-wannabe-feminist-slash-mental-health retreat and the only person you know is someone who probably couldn't pick you out from a lineup. But the plane already took off. There's nothing to do about it now.)
The second stage is the longest. It drags out and maybe you pass out for some of it, but it happens. The impact is too strong to resist and suddenly, you're in the air.
(Suddenly, you're crashing.)
It's the slowest second of your life. You can do nothing but contemplate, but all of your thoughts are out of order:
Fuck, I just got hit by a car.
What was my last meal?
My dog is going to be so pissed about getting dinner late.
I just got hit by a car.
Maybe I can get out of my math test.
I just got hit by a car, why am I thinking about that?
Holy shit I just got hit by a car.
I don't think CPR can fix this.
I think that's the north star.
(Suddenly, you're bonding with someone who never spared a glance at you in the hallways at school. You're screaming at her and you don't know why. Her blood is on your face. You need her. Fuck you need her. No, actually, she can go fuck herself. Is that Ben Folds? Oh. Hugging her feels safe. Oh. I only smile when she's around. Oh. I want her. Fuck.)
Finally, there's the second hit. Your body makes contact with the ground and the sound it makes will haunt you for life. In some ways, it's worse; your body aches and it hurts to breathe. (Your life changes. Your mind changes. Everything revolves around her her her.) And in some fucked up way, it's better. (It's Fatin.) Because you hit the asphalt and everything hurts but adrenaline is pumping through your veins and holy shit you just survived a car crash (a broken heart, a deserted island, an encounter with your psychotic kidnapper). You can't move, but you're breathing.
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sawamura daichi i’m so sorry for making ur life utter shit
i mean like everyone’s life in shit but i’m doing daichi’s chapter first since he’s lowkey highkey the main character so sorry sawamura daichi please accept my apology
so i’m rereading spc currently for the purposes of rewriting / editing and i made my OWN GODDAMN SELF sad like!!!! no wtf i’m supposed to be IMMUNE nO
been thinking about the wilds and how after they get rescued all of their belongings get taken into evidence so on the last day before they get separated, they come up with a heist plan to get some prized possessions back:
Fatin brags about being the mastermind behind it all, and maybe it was her idea but Dot, Shelby, and Rachel are the ones to actually come up with the plan
Martha distracts the guards. Since she's so innocent looking, it works
Nora interferes with the security footage for that night
Toni and Rachel act as lookouts. Toni actually does end up knocking a guard out with a punch or two (not because he was going to find them - he was just being an infantilizing piece of shit)
Fatin flirts with the main guard while Leah swipes the key from him
Dot, Shelby, and Leah sneak in and grab the stuff from the evidence locker.
They don't destroy anything, but Fatin's file now has "DOT'S BITCH" scrawled on the front
Their collection of stolen stuff includes (but is not limited to): the lighter, cocktail glass, "retired" sash, some dawn of eve merch (to burn), and most importantly Marcus
Nobody notices anything off until weeks later and by then they're already on opposite sides of the country
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no smut, just mentions of it and a lot of swearing. a little bit of Fatin being angsty and a lot of her refusing to acknowledge that she likes Leah
1.4k words, canon compliant, takes place post season two in the bunker, in bullet form for some reason and mostly dialogue
Fatin wakes up, like most days, in a shitty mood.
Usually, knowing Leah is within arms reach helps. She's just on the other side of the bed. Her back is pressed into Fatin’s right now, actually. However, today is too terrible of a day to change Fatin’s disposition.
She tries to hide it, but Leah catches on by breakfast. When she confronts her about it, Fatin just storms off.
Of course Leah follows.
There aren't many places to go, so they end up back in their room. Leah tries to get Fatin to open up. Maybe Fatin tells her, maybe not.
(She probably will because she's Fatin and it's Leah, but maybe not right away.)
Either way, Leah asks how she can help and it goes something like:
"There's nothing you can do. It's fine. I'm fine."
"What did you used to do before? Back in The Bay."
"I'd fine someone to fuck my brains out so I wouldn't have to think. Y'know angry sex really-"
"I don't need the details."
Leah's quick to cut her off, but she takes the time to think before speaking up again.
"What about Kirin or the guys here? You can fuck them now if you want."
"Hell no."
"Okay, fine... What about while we were on the island? What’d you do then?"
Fatin doesn't even hesitate with her reply, "I tried to fuck any of you."
"What? You were being serious?"
"Obviously. You're all hot as fuck and I was the hottest motherfucker there."
"I thought you were just joking."
"Why would I be joking?"
"I don't know. You're straight, right?"
Fatin laughs for the first time since she woke up. For a second, she has hope for a better day, one where she doesn't think about where she is and what she's missing back home.
Hope, as they have all grown to learn, does not last long in a place like this. And Fatin is reminded of that fairly quickly in that annoying way where she is reminded of what she's trying to forget by telling herself to forget it.
"Ha! Yeah, no. I'm not fucking straight. I fuck hot people, end of story."
Leah looks like she's having an existential crisis of her own, but it doesn't last long.
"Okay well when none of us wanted to… do that with you, what did you do when you got stressed or angry on the island? You know, besides that time you ran away because we are not going through that again."
"Nothing."
"What?"
"I just waited for it to pass."
Fatin shrugs and Leah is looking at her with that look that makes Fatin's stomach do backflips. The worried one that makes Fatin uncomfortable because she cares.
All of the girls have given her that look, honestly. Mostly Shelby and Martha and occasionally Dot back on the island when they stayed up to look after the fire together, whispering secrets under the cloak of darkness.
But none of them come close to evoking the same amount of feelings as Leah's does. Fatin tries to ignore the completely irrational reason her brain supplies for why that is.
"And that worked?" Leah asks, that same worry working its way into her body. The twitch of her eyebrow, the tight grip her fingers have on her sweater sleeves, her too stiff posture. It all sets off uneasiness in Fatin, not wanting to burden Leah with worry for her.
"Not really, but it helped."
"Did sex work better?"
"Well, yeah. Is it so bad that I want to feel good?"
"No, of course not."
They pause, for a second. The air is thick and tense. Time is going too slowly; seconds feel stretched out, like they're travelling through honey instead of air.
Leah takes a step and their moment is broken.
And suddenly, everything is too fast. Leah's fingers are on her cheek, her collarbones, her sternum. They run over her stomach and settle on her hips, gripping just enough for Fatin to forget how to breathe.
"Does the offer still stand?" Leah asks, her hot breath a lot closer to Fatin's ear than she was expecting, sending shivers down her spine. Fatin's still breathless when she responds.
"What?"
"You’ve helped me so many times both on the island and here." Leah’s hands start trailing over Fatin’s body again. "I want to return the favour."
"You don’t have to do this."
Fatin’s arms remain stiffly at her sides, despite her desperately wanting them anywhere else. It's Leah, though, and Fatin cannot overstep any boundaries.
But Leah could always see right through her. Even now as she looks directly at Fatin, leaning in closer but not close enough.
"I want to. What were your words? You’re the hottest motherfucker here."
"You really don't have to." That stops Leah. She leans back and takes her hands off of Fatin, hovering just over her clothes. Fatin has to resist the urge to whine.
What the fuck is this girl doing to her?
"If you don't want to, we won’t. I just want to make you feel good. If talking makes you happy, we can do that. If you’d rather go for a walk then we can do that too. But if this is what makes you happy..." Leah's hand slips under her shirt. "Then we can do this."
"You really want to?"
"Of course. As long as you do."
Fatin's brain is telling her to say no. It's giving her a long and logical pros and cons list:
Pro: she gets laid.
Con: everything else.
But her dumbass heart is begging her to say yes. It's beating hard against her ribcage, begging to be let out so that it can break itself into pieces once this is all over.
We all know how this goes.
"Okay."
"Okay...?"
"Let's do it."
So they fuck and it's great and Fatin makes sure to tell Leah that.
"That was fucking incredible! Holy shit, thank you!" Leah rolls her eyes and Fatin would hate how endearing she would have found it if she wasn't so caught up in finally, finally, having an orgasm. "When you did that thing with your fingers – Fuck, you have to teach me that next time!"
Fatin shuts her mouth the second she realizes what she said. What she implied.
Leah, however, doesn't even seem fazed. She gets up and starts putting on a shirt, her reply coming through fabric.
"Okay. We’re done here."
She gathers her clothes while Fatin leans against her elbows to half sit up and better admire Leah from the bed. Neither of them say anything about the fact that she's wearing Fatin's shirt instead of her own.
Leah's fully dressed and halfway to the door when she stops and turns to Fatin.
"It doesn’t have to mean anything, but if you ever want my help again then I’m always here for you," Leah says, calmly.
Fatin nods, trying to project that same calmness but inside both her brain and heart agree for once as they break down together.
I told you so, her brain says.
I know, her heart replies, but it was worth it.
And her brain can't even pretend to argue with that.
"Yeah, thanks. Same to you," is what Fatin actually says.
Leah's mouth twitches into a smile. She hovers, for a moment, before taking a step and placing a gentle hand on Fatin's cheek. She stops half a metre away and leans in. They make eye contact and Fatin thinks of all the time she spent staring at the colours of the sky on the island, yet none of those blues could compare to what she's looking at now. Leah pulls Fatin towards her – slowly, carefully – and places a soft kiss on her forehead. She lingers for a second, then another, and a few more.
When she leaves, it's without a word nor a look back. Fatin stays in her spot, too overwhelmed to move. She could stay there for hours, days even –
"Hey, Leah said you’d be in here and- HOLY SHIT WHY ARE YOU NAKED?"
And with that interruption from her best friend, Fatin comes back to the real world –
(or the isolated, fucked up, fantasy, bullshit world Gretchen built for them, at least.)
– and Fatin breaks down.
full disclosure, this was technically written as a prequel to the pilot fic, but it's a very loose connection and you can barely tell so whatever it's a solo thing
(not leatin focused at all until the end and not even a fanfic really - more of a rambling, but i've had this in my drafts for over half a year so enjoy)
thinking about dot and fatin and what they'd be like if they met at school instead of on the island.
yeah they're fast friends on the island because they are quite literally trapped and have nothing to do/ no one else to talk to but if they met through "normal" circumstances, they probably would have a slow burn friendship.
see: when they meet for the first time and they probably don't think much of it. dot probably assumes she's just another one of those girls and fatin probably doesn't even remember dot.
cut to them starting to talk more and not hating the other's presence immediately but then also being super apprehensive about it because they both think they're better off alone. fatin's too busy with the cello and dot's too busy with her dad. but they also both really enjoy each other's presence so they gaslight themselves into thinking that they don't and that they're better off without one another.
even then they still seek each other out. it's small stuff at first, like partnering up in class and sitting together at assemblies. then it happens so frequently that they can't deny it anymore and realize how much they want each other in their lives.
they're still scared because they don't think the other one wants that so they do regular friend things but still refuse to acknowledge that they're more than just school acquaintances: dot eats lunch in the music room while fatin practices and fatin acts as a lookout while dot does her rounds. sometimes they'll even do something outside of school, albeit briefly like driving each other home or that one time they ran into each other at the mall and walked around for a bit.
eventually something big happens, probably similar to their canon backstories, and everything changes.
then they're forced to confront the fact that they aren't alone and they've always had a friend there for them and surprise surprise, they don't hate it. it actually feels nice to know that someone else has your back.
so they develop this understanding that they're friends, best friends maybe, even if they'll never acknowledge it and even though it took them so long to get there. they learn how to have and be a friend together and it's not perfect, but it works. they take care of each other and they finally let themselves get taken care of too. they finally let someone else in.
and it's good for a while - they have each other and that's all they really need. then fatin meets leah and everything changes and dot doesn't know what to do.
dot struggles a lot when leah and fatin first gets together - it's a hard and sudden adjustment. of course dot knows that she doesn't need to be with fatin so often, but everything was good how they were before and maybe it doesn't feel as good as it used to. and if it doesn't feel as good now, maybe it's bound to get worse. everything in her life gets worse so it was inevitable that this would too.
she's still scared though - she doesn't want to lose fatin after they just became friends.
of course she doesn't lose fatin, but the shift of going from fatin's number one and the only person fatin would open up to and then suddenly having to share that...
it's hard, so she probably pushes fatin away - it's what fatin would want. dot was a temporary fill until fatin found her one and only and now she has. dot isn't needed anymore.
of course fatin notices and calls bullshit immediately. it'd probably take a bit of adapting but they'll get there eventually. because they're dot and fatin, as close to platonic soulmates as it gets.
this was supposed to be a fic but it's been sitting idly for a while now. i like it enough though, so this is what i settled on instead
what the girls would play:
fatin - cello (obviously)
dot - percussion (she likes the timpani the most but is forced to play xylophone/ vibraphone because everyone else is shit at it (she is also shit at it, but she is the least shit))
shelby - bassoon (she played the oboe for a bit and clarinet before that. she likes switching instruments after getting good at one. the bassoon is recent - only a couple weeks into playing)
nora - violin (second chair. could've made first but hates the thought of possibly getting a solo. also wanted rachel to have it)
rachel - violin (first chair. what can i say, she works hard. she has pretty shitty ears in terms of pitch though and fatin loves to make fun of her because of it)
toni - trumpet (cannot do theory to save her life, but is surprisingly good at the instrument. also yells at all the guys in the brass section when they take their idgaf attitudes too far)
martha - flute (likes the whimsical feel, tried piccolo once and absolutely hated it. somehow she's always in tune)
leah - is not supposed to be here (she got kicked out of all the other arts but still needs an art credit. she sucks at music but ended up here anyways)
