Work Text:
This story, Maeve thinks, is about what happens when everything goes to shit. (this story is her whole life, maybe) It has a lot of potential titles: When Your Mom Keeps Fucking Everything Up But You Still Kinda Love Her, How To Not Cry At School When The Guy You’re Obviously In Love With Just Told Everyone You’re A Terrible Person In Front Of Everyone At A Party Last Night, Will You Ever See Your Sister Again Or Is She Going To Hate You Now, Good At School But Everything Else Sucks, Get Your Headmaster To Let You Into School Through Blackmail, So You Tried To Get This Guy To Break Up With His Girlfriend But Feel Bad About It, and most recently, What To Do When Your Nice-Guy-Next-Door Neighbor Turns Out To Be A Manipulative Lying Dick.
The thing is, she’s not stupid. Like, at all. (this is how she knows to call child protective services, this is how she helps win with the Quiz Heads, this is how she knows Otis has a metric ton of trauma to work through) (there is no explanation for why she’s still in love with him though) The thing about Otis, at least, is that he’s honest. With her. She can’t say that for most of the other people in her life. She finds out about the Isaac-being-a-dick thing pretty quickly, Otis texts her to ask if she got his message, she says what message, and puts two and two together pretty quickly. It hurts, hurts more than she thought it would, because he was supposed to be someone she can trust, but when she slams the trailer door in his face, it doesn’t feel as terrible as it could. This, at least, is uncomplicated. And then it all comes back to Otis. Otis, who yeah, has let her down, except that it’s not really like that, because he’s the farthest thing from a mystery, she can read him like a book, always has been able to, every emotion he’s ever felt is clearly visible on his face, and yes he’s let her down, but he’s also constantly surprising her, constantly making things better. She can’t explain it, not really, not how even with the terrible things he said at the party (but god knows she’s seen a lot of people do stupid shit when they’re drunk) and how angry she’s ben at him, but Maeve doesn’t expect people to be perfect. She never has. She just wants them to try. (she’s a mess and Otis is too, but they’ve always known that about each other, and she thinks they’re getting better, slowly, growing up is just hard especially when your parents don’t really care enough to stick around in one way or another.) She will try to logic it out, think it through, but all Maeve can ever really come up with is that he feels like home.
After slamming the door in neighbor-lying-dickhead’s face she texts Otis, something about sorry, it got deleted what did you say and he doesn’t reply, but in ten minutes he’s knocking on her door and if he has big romantic speech plans they are quickly forgotten when he sees the desolation on her face. (because he can read her too, maybe not as well as she sees him, but better than anyone has in a while) and he shuts the door behind him, walks over to the couch, holds out his arms, and she throws herself at him before either of them can fully sit down. She cries into his shirt for what feels like minutes and months as he rubs slow circles across her back and eventually she stops and just presses her face further into his chest, feeling warm and safe, surrounded by the distinctly Otis smell that somehow makes everything better and when her breathing finally evens out he kisses her on the head and she curls into his side. (he is holding her together so that, for once, she doesn’t have to keep herself form crumbling alone and it feels nicer than she’d care to admit) Whispered words fill the trailer, careful not the wake the ghosts of iterations of family that have been here before, all too briefly, words like I’m sorry and me too and can we just forgive each other until the past doesn’t bite at them in the same way and then she asks what was in the message and he tells her (iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou also I went to see my dad and I'm really trying to be less awful about everything) and for a moment she just sits there, staring at him and breathing and before she has to make any kind of decision he pulls her to her feet, tugging them both out of the trailer and up, away from the part, until they’re on the field just looking at each other. He tugs his jacket around them both and she looks at the stars and they stand there for a momentary eternity, just gazing up.
There aren’t any answers in the heavens, but he whispers that the stars are almost as beautiful and strong as she is and that’s when Maeve finally leans over to kiss him and it’s everything either could have hoped. (because it makes sense, everything that’s happened, the confusion and the anger and Jackson and Ola and everything all so they could finally get to this moment.) (they belong to each other, somewhere, deep down, have when they first met and needed each other without knowing why exactly) They walk back to her trailer and he’s about to leave when her body starts to crumple again and she looks lost which isn’t how Maeve is supposed to look, that’s his job, she already knows everything, and maybe all this is, is that they need each other. That they will be trading roles forever, but still fit just right. He stays, and she sleeps curled up next to him on the couch because the bed smells like her family and is so full of goneness that she can’t quite breath but he lays his sweater across her shoulders and runs his fingers though her hair and they stay like that, wrapped up in each other, all night long.
After that, nothing is magically better. A single person cannot fix problems like that, but, at least she does not have to lie to one of her favorite people all the time. At least she can text him, and he texts back, and he kisses her after class and she kisses him behind the school, and Aimee grins at her across the room and Ola nods when they walk past each other in the hall and Ms. Sands beams at her during class and she writes and reads and giggles with Aimee and melts into Otis and everything still sucks sometimes, but she is not alone. (turns out, she is never alone again, sometimes the only direction you can go is really just up) He sees stories in her smile and she hears sonnets in his laugh and even if getting there is messy, some things just work.
Years later, he will still wrap her in his arms like he does now, her arms will slide around his waist and they will breathe in the realness of each other and the stars will still glimmer overhead and they are together and it is good.