Work Text:
The air is thick with the impending afternoon storm when Carolina goes for her run. It's the storm the customers have been talking about for days, in their idle coffee shop chatter. They always want to talk about the weather.
And the weather is bearing down on her now, heavy and humid. The weather is trying to break her stride. Her throat feels raw and her joints ache, and she hates it, the way her body betrays her. She hates that the way her head burns has nothing to do with the August heat, that the sidewalk slips and sways, that she's barely making her lowest time, that she's failing, that she's trying so hard.
Afterward, at home, she sits on the edge of the bathtub in her jogging clothes, fighting nausea as the shower pours down against the curtain at her back. She feels a faint flash of pride at how she climbed the stairs up to the apartment despite the numbness in her legs – followed swiftly by anger, by disgust at how she's sitting here now, unable to get herself into the shower without ten minutes to recover. She should be better by now. It's pathetic.
Niner would dislike that line of thought. Niner says, sometimes – when they have their Talks – she says careful things in careful tones about "moving forward" and "feeling safe." Carolina has learned to nod along. It makes it easier.
But it's irrelevant. Carolina has always moved forward. Carolina has never felt safe.
*
She showers. Her legs shake. The water insulates her against the background noise of the apartment building. She closes her eyes for a moment, and breathes slow.
York found a meditation app the other day. He says it's to focus you and make you better. He says he only showed it to her because maybe it could help with running. He's a bad liar, and that's a relief.
Her head is still burning after the water runs cold, so she gets out. There's a thermometer in the half-open medicine cabinet, behind the mirror, and she glances at it as she towels her hair dry. It's lying beside a very large, very old bottle of tylenol and a broken eyeliner pencil. An escapee from Niner's well-stocked first aid box. Carolina stares at it for a moment. Can't remember why she's staring. Moves on. Work in twenty minutes. It will take her four minutes to walk there. Work in sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes.
It takes three minutes to get dressed. It takes two minutes to do her makeup – the bare minimum today. Another minute to brush out her hair and put it up. A messy bun, a few strands deliberately allowed to fall from the hair tie. Two more minutes to redo the bun three more times. She has trouble with organized mess. She is working on it.
There are eight minutes left and she doesn't know what to do with them. The floor is sliding gently back and forth, so she braces her legs and holds onto the wall and makes her way slowly to the door. She misses the handle twice.
Seven minutes.
*
Someone asks for an iced cappuccino. Carolina levels a long stare at him, this kid with blond-streaked hair and knitted brows and a college sweatshirt. It's hard to focus on anything so Carolina focuses in on the blond streaks. They're too light, she thinks. They should be darker. Focus. Focus, what did she ask for?
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Carolina repeats, in the fake polite voice that Connie, of all people, had to teach her. Connie is currently grinding the coffee for tomorrow, lounging lazily in the back corner of the store where the grinders sit and wait to be fed.
"An...iced cappuccino?" repeats the college kid, hesitantly.
Carolina stares. Carolina focuses. Carolina speaks. "Hot foam sitting on ice."
"What?"
"You want hot foam, sitting on ice."
"Um," says the guy. "Maybe? I don't. Really know. How coffee works."
"Poorly," Carolina says, and her throat is dry, and the floor continues to spin at a gentle pace, and she grips tight to the counter and closes her eyes. Outside, there's a rumble of thunder.
She breathes and thinks she feels the rain. Focus. Focus. Focus, you're working, you're at work, you –
"Hey, are you okay?" iced cappuccino kid asks, sounding too close and too worried.
Carolina's eyes open, and she feels the tile floor, cool under her sweating palms. It makes sense that she's on the ground now. It makes sense. She's not sure how. But she's sure it does.
Somehow Connie is there already, ushering the iced cappuccino kid away. There's a conversation happening but all Carolina hears is "sorry for the inconvenience" and something about a gift card. The thunder rumbles again and Carolina can feel it beneath her ribs. She doubles over and retches up clear bile just a few inches from the syrup shelf and time skips and Connie is there again, with a cool cloth and calm words that are too far and twisting away from Carolina. Somehow she is standing, supported, walking to the back of the store. She is sitting on an armchair. Connie is turning the open sign off and calling someone on Carolina's phone.
Carolina tries to stand again. Her legs just twitch. She can hear the rain. She can feel it on her skin. Her eyes close. They keep doing this, and she never asked them to. They keep doing this. On the phone Connie says, "You should probably come get her," and Carolina's chest starts to ache.
*
It's York who comes to get her, and this is new. She's shivering in the armchair by the time he arrives, because the room's gone cold and damp, and he is pale and soaked to the bone, his hair flat against his skull. It's dripping, his hair. Water trickles down his forehead, down his neck. He leans down to look at her and he's babbling something and he's always babbling something and he's maybe asking her a question but Carolina doesn't answer. She reaches up and touches the back of his neck, wipes at a rivulet with her thumb. York stops talking just like that, stops moving entirely, and she thinks she could hold him here, she could hold him just like this for a long time.
"Carolina," he says, finally. His voice is warm and worried and he says her name like it's new. He always does. It's been ages, it's been months.
Her hand drops from his neck. "I'm fine," she says, and smiles to prove it. Her lips feel strange, sort of numb.
"Nah, man, you're kinda sick," York says, and his lips form a smile back, pure reaction. "You're kinda, uh, super sick. A lot sick. I think we gotta go home."
Home is a word with too many meanings, and Carolina wants to let go of them all.
"I have work," she says, and starts to stand.
"You definitely don't," Connie replies, staring down at her disapprovingly. It's an interesting sight. Rare. Carolina stares back for maybe too long, squinting and tilting her head because of how inconsiderately wobbly Connie's face is. Then she tries to stand again, brushing York's hand away, ignoring his "hey, hey, wait—" and stumbling forward and banging her knee on the newspaper-laden end table. She straightens without his help.
"My shift's not over," she says. Her lips feel numb. The floor is still moving, so she sways with it just a little, to keep her balance.
"It definitely is," Connie says calmly. Carolina starts to argue and then something twists in her stomach and she doubles over, clutching at the table and retching like something beneath her ribs is trying to crawl up her throat. The newspaper crumples under her fingers. She feels the cool cloth again at the back of her neck, opens her eyes to see York peering at her in clear concern. Worry doesn't work for him, and she wants to tell him that.
"I ran this morning," she says, instead, her voice cracking oddly.
"Of course you did," Connie mutters, somewhere behind her.
"So I can –"
"Nah, man, it's all right," York interrupts swiftly, sitting down beside her on the floor. "It's all right, you guys closed early today anyway. For, uh, the holiday."
Carolina squints at him. He's a terrible liar, the worst. She opens her mouth to reply.
"Go," Connie interrupts, with as much sternness as Carolina's ever heard from her. "We're closed. Stop puking on the floors."
"Welp, can't argue with that," York says cheerfully, and suddenly he's helping her up and they're marching out the door and she wants to turn back around but her legs are shaking too much.
"My phone," Carolina mutters. The rain is a relief too, cool and quiet. She wants to sit down on the sidewalk, but her jeep appears out of nowhere and somehow York is already helping her into the passenger seat. It's wet. The top is down. She forgot to put the top up.
"Got it," York replies, still in that cheery tone. "All phones accounted for." He tosses her a salute and hops into the driver's seat. Actually hops.
"You don't have a license," Carolina says, in a sudden flash of clarity.
"Nope," York agrees.
Carolina goes quiet for a moment. The rain's letting up, but it's still pooling just a little at her ankles, and she's going to have to fix this, she's going to have to...she's going to have to fix...something. "You're not even like a real person," she adds thoughtfully.
"I mean, if you think about it, maybe nothing's real," York answers, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as they wait at a stoplight. It takes longer to drive than to walk, sometimes, but he...he's driving, and he...
"Nothing's real," Carolina repeats, firmly.
"Maybe," York nods. "You never know."
This is a good answer. This is the right answer. Carolina nods back.
"The sun," she says.
"That's true," York replies.
"It'll dry everything."
"Sure will."
"So it's okay."
"Sure is. It's all okay, really. Probably. Even if it's not real, y'know?"
"I know," she says, and closes her eyes again. He's a terrible liar, so she knows it's true.