Chapter Text
M: bea
She didn’t really need a reply right this second.
M: beabea
After all, it was late. Nothing but moonlight out her window and a broken streetlight. It would have been the sort of thing you drew to get into an artsy college if all the other street lights weren’t also visibly working just fine. Kind of ruined the somber mood.
M: just lemme know if youre up
Really though, it didn’t matter all that much. Mae’s legs were indeed hanging off the edge of her bed, and they were indeed bouncing impatiently against the floor, but that’s fine. She did that all the time mostly.
There just wasn’t anything else to do really. After the thrill of beating Demontower, it kinda lost its charm. Well there was always- oh there she was.
B: What?
Mae briefly checked outside her window. Yep, it was still there.
M: theres a black cat in my backyard
There was a slight pause, and the bouncing of Mae’s knee returned. In the meantime, she dragged herself over to the window and pressed her face up against the glass again whilst Bea wrote her reply.
B: Cool.
B: Go to sleep.
M: o wait no theres an open pasta container on the ground from our trash
M: maybe it was a raccoon
B: You’re not sure?
M: i didnt get a good look
M: actually theres always garfield so maybe cats can like pasta?
B: Sure.
B: Go to sleep.
M: like garfield was a tabby right? so maube black cats like rigatoni???
B: Sleep, Mae.
Okay well Bea wasn’t really helping at all. Mae checked out the window once more, looking for any sign of the catcoon.
Nah, it wouldn’t come back until they threw out something with cheese.
M: what are you wearing
B: Mae.
B: It’s two in the morning.
Mae glanced at her computer’s clock. 2:18, so really it was closer to the 2:30 range.
M: so pajamas or what?
B: Brand new t-shirt with the word “Sleep” on it.
M: hot
B: I’m muting the laptop and going back to sleep now.
M: oh come on
Mae finally focused herself down in front of the laptop, leg bouncing again.
M: beabea
M: i cant sleep
And then there was that usual Bea uncomfortably long wait. The kind she gave off when she was being a grump who didn’t want to care. She was bad at not caring.
B: Fine. What’s up?
M: i dunno. just all like
B: Antsy?
M: i was gonna say hyper
M: thinking about gregg and angus
There was a short pause before Bea’s next message came in, during which time Mae hopped up from bed and began pulling her boots on. When the beep of a message sounded, she rushed back over to check the screen.
B: I know. Me too.
B: Just try to get some sleep. You can talk to them about it in the morning.
M: it is the morning
B: I’m going back to sleep now.
M: hey can i come over?
B: Seriously?
B: Remember when I said it’s 2 in the morning?
M: come on, ill be real quiet
Another pause. She couldn’t resist this though. Mae could totally turn up the charm if she needed to.
B: Promise to go to sleep?
M: sure whatever
B: Fine.
Well that was disappointing. Whatever, doesn’t matter, she could save turning up the charm for later. She was a charm machine like that, an unlimited well of… okay whatever, focus.
Mae shut her laptop, threw on her coat, and made her way downstairs. Didn’t feel like putting on a whole new set of clothes. Besides, she hadn’t slept so technically it wasn’t tomorrow yet, so… same clothes.
Not that this was something she needed to justify to herself, but- hold that thought.
Mae stopped on the second floor, double taking on their bird cage. Hm.
She slowly reached up and lifted the sheet from over it. She peered inside and gave the cage a nudge. The bird within remained still. But like… it was still on its little perch, so…
Do birds just stay upright when they die? Mae had heard that’s how horses were sometimes. Either horses or like, hippos, and she was pretty certain it wasn’t hippos. Where did that thought even come from? She nudged the cage again and the bird within gave a brief flutter this time. Okay, good, not dead. Maybe it’s bones were just getting all old and creaky after all these years.
“How are you still alive?” Mae whispered to it. The bird gave no indication that it had heard her, and so Mae narrowed her eyes into an accusing glare. Rude. “You’re gonna die one day. I’m gonna eat you” She hissed. “In either order”
Okay okay whatever. Mae made her way down to the ground floor, hopping over that one creaky step as she did. This house was so much different when all the lights were out like this. She could see herself living in a place like this though, it suited her. Well she did live in it already, so...
Focus, focus. She shut the door gently behind her on the way out. Huh. This kinda felt like being a teenager again, sneaking out of the house on a school night. She really should’ve done that back when she was a teen, but Mom was never too picky about her going out. Missed opportunities.
“If I ever have a kid, I need to ground them so they can disobey me” Mae mumbled to herself, heading up the hillside.
Actually now that she was outside, her coat felt like… excessively warm. It was one of those days where the weather just didn’t want to be consistent, and it was all way too warm for January.
That usually meant it’d be crazy cold again in like a day or two. Mother Nature was weird like that.
Okay, climbed up on this guy’s porch, back up to get a running start…
A quick series of jumps later and Mae was balancing, arms outstretched, along the power line heading uphill. Maybe Mother Nature was looking out for her specifically. She hadn’t been able to do this in a while what with all the ice.
Auntie Nature. Mae could get behind that.
She shifted her weight, the wire leaned sharply to the side, and Mae hopped up onto Bea’s windowsill whilst ignoring the big statue staring at her while she did it. She didn’t need to take judgements from a statue.
One quick knock on the glass later… nothing happened.
But on the contrary, the second time she did it nothing happened again. See, this is why those romance movies were stupid. Throwing pebbles could never work. Maybe a fist-sized rock. You just had to be careful it wasn’t any bigger than that, or… well, the obvious happened.
The third time, she banged on the glass and as she was doing so the curtain inside was swung open with a very displeased looking girlfriend inside muttering something to herself as she unlocked the window.
“You knew I was coming!” Mae chastised her, slipping inside.
Normally she’d be thinking how depressing this room was, but it was actually significantly nicer looking now that Bea had had a month to like… actually put a little effort into unpacking. Just a little though.
“I dozed off, it’s late, get off my back” Bea groaned, rubbing her eyes. “And I thought you’d be using the door like a normal person”
“I didn’t want to wake up your dad. I don’t think he likes me”
“Can’t possibly imagine why” Bea snarked. Without another word, she locked the window again and headed back over to bed, immediately laying down.
Huh. She’d lied about the shirt. Same old boring pajamas
Mae took just a moment to check if Bea’s record player was running. Not tonight at least, which meant she didn’t have to reset it, and so she tossed her jacket off onto the floor, pulled her boots off, and climbed in.
A good ol’ sleepover. Mae grinned to herself, letting her head hit the pillow. Hadn’t had one of these in years. Well like, before she’d gotten back from college anyway. “So, like-”
“Sleep” Bea hissed sharply, turned away from Mae and towards the wall.
“Right right” Mae nodded along.
Well okay now this was kind of lame. She twiddled her fingers, her ear gave a few twitches, and…
Yeah, this was boring. She could try to sleep, but it wasn’t going to work.
Mae looked over and whispered a quick “Hey”
Bea meanwhile pretended to be asleep. She would have been a good faker if not for the lack of snoring. Mae was pretty sure she didn’t even know she did it. Definitely no sleeping beauty, but Mae’s dad was still worse.
“How far away is Bright Harbor?” Mae whispered again.
Bea remained silent a few moments more, then sighed aloud and mumbled “Three hours drive”
“That’s not too bad is it?” Mae asked.
Bea shrugged. “When you’re not the one driving. Go to sleep”
“I can’t. I used to get like this the night before field trips too”
Bea sighed and turned on her back, staring up at the ceiling along with Mae. “I couldn’t sleep back before I moved here”
Oh damn. That was probably a medical thing. “Like, at all?”
“I mean the night before I moved here. I slept before that” Bea clarified, hearing the pure surprise in Mae’s voice.
“Oh”
Probably could’ve figured that out.
Mae quietly thought back, and began mumbling out “I once had a fever of like, a hundred and four and I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing stuff that wasn’t there. My grandma drove me to the hospital and I threw up in a cup”
“That’s…” Bea trailed off. What do you even say to something like that? “What was wrong with you?”
Mae shrugged. “I dunno, I was really little. I just remember throwing up in the cup. It was like one of those paper cups from water coolers. I think we were still in the waiting room when I did”
Bea spoke up, cutting her off “I think I’m okay with not hearing the rest of this story”
And so the two fell quiet. “Right. Sorry” Mae whispered back. She went back to drumming her fingers on her stomach and looking around the ceiling for anything of interest.
Heh. The ceiling light kinda looked like a boob.
Mae reached over to nudge Bea, and judging by the sudden sudden intake of breath she probably just woke her up from dozing off again. “Hey, when you said before you moved here, did you mean Possum Springs or this apartment?”
Bea took a deep breath, rubbing her eye again. “Both” she mumbled. “Mae, seriously. You promised you’d sleep”
“I can’t. I’m all like-”
“Try, Mae” Bea harshly cut her off, rolling onto her side again to face away once more. “Shut your eyes and try”
Instead, Mae rolled them. “Fine, whatever”
Then she obediently settled in and shut her eyes. Didn’t matter, this wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t go to sleep even when she wanted to, and right now she didn’t, so it was like… double no sleeping. Doublesomnia. That was probably a medical term.
Mae waited a few moments more, thinking mostly about… well, nothing. There was Gregg and Angus, there was that record player she kinda wanted to turn on, there was just sleeping in general. Maybe space dragon, that’d be a good idea. She could think about how to draw one. What even was a space dragon? She figured it was just a dragon in a space helmet but dragons were magical. They definitely didn’t need helmets. That being the case, a lot of dragons probably died in bike riding accidents.
Okay, this is stupid.
Mae opened her eyes, ready to complain, and found morning sunlight streaming in through the windows.
She sat up, looked around the room, and spied Bea’s alarm clock off sitting on top of one of the cardboard boxes, saying four hours had passed. Then a glance to her side, and Bea was there, slumbering away with that gentle light snoring of hers.
Huh.
Mae laid back down for now, scooching over to Bea’s side. Okay. Maybe this girl had some nice ideas. Mae leaned In and shut her eyes again for the time being.