Work Text:
Ocean’s mind was reeling. Half-formed thoughts were whirring and spinning cogs unimaginably fast in her brain. Her head hurt with the force of them all. She was usually so good at coming up with solutions and ideas for things; she was always commended by her teachers for having such a brilliant mind.
But now, her head just pounded with crummy ideas that didn’t make any sense, and she couldn’t think straight at all. With a loud groan, she paused her endless pacing in front of the wall and let her head fall against it with a faint bang. Then she remembered how low her pain tolerance was and just opted to whimpering and sliding down the wall and trying to bury herself in the cold, hard tile of the floor.
Which didn’t work, and she was very aware that it wouldn’t work, thank you very much. But again, her brain was not braining and it was not her fault.
“Calm down before you pop a blood vessel,” Noel’s voice called from across the room. Ocean didn’t have the energy to form a retort – she just made a sound somewhere in between a sob and a seagull screech. She heard Mischa snort.
“Hey, Ocean?” a softer voice asked quietly, much closer to her. Ocean didn’t even bother to look up at her best friend.
“What?” she mumbled.
“What’re you thinking about?” Constance asked meekly, the twinge of a hesitant smile leaking through her concern. Ocean just pouted and opened her eyes, tilting her head to look up at her.
“How to get home,” she said, voice far too quiet and small. Constance’s brow furrowed and she looked a little taken aback, but the look was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived. She smiled and put a hand on Ocean’s back, rubbing small, soothing circles against the back of her school blouse.
“Okay. That’s— okay,” she started. “Well, how about we take a rain-check on that issue for a little while and go relax for a bit?”
Ocean appreciated the sentiment, she really did. But she also hated it. With a passion.
“Are you kidding?” she said, a little too loudly. But she took a moment to breathe and reeled herself back in. “Sorry, it’s just—”
“No, I know,” Constance interrupted, downcast eyes shining a little as she dipped her head. “Sorry.”
“No,” Ocean whined, bashing her forehead with her palm. Idiot. “No, don’t say that stupid word. You haven’t done anything wrong!”
Constance looked up, and Ocean looked down. She felt her lip wobble as she looked at her shiny shoes, the glint of fresh polish dimming with every passing day in this god damn warehouse. When she spoke again, her voice wobbled. It was barely a whisper.
“I’m just scared. I want to go home.”
There was a beat of silence. Nothing could be heard except Ricky’s accordion echoing softly around the room, accompanied by the occasional unholy squeak of Jane trying to figure out how to blow into a recorder. Ocean was afraid that that was the end of the conversation. Maybe Constance had finally decided she couldn’t be bothered to deal with Ocean’s shit anymore and had left to go play cards with Mischa or gossip with Noel, or actually teach Jane how to play her recorder.
But after another moment’s silence, a warm hand hooked under her arm and quickly hauled her up to her feet. Ocean stumbled and stared at Constance, who had a little determined crinkle to her nose and a focused glint in her eyes.
“Come on,” she said, with more assertiveness that Ocean had ever heard from the girl as she began dragging Ocean away from the wall. Ocean blinked and followed - not that she could have really escaped Constance’s steel grip.
When Constance came to the corner where Jane was sat with Ricky, she swiftly bent down, linked her arm with hers and dragged her to her feet too. Ricky stopped playing and stared at them, while Jane just hummed confusedly, beady eyes wide.
“We’re going to go have a girl’s day out,” Constance declared, making her way to the open doors behind the stage which led to the rest of the warehouse. Ocean and Jane both looked at each other, for once both equally as dumbfounded as the other.
“Ooh, can I come?”
“You are not girl, Poet.”
“Monique is a girl—”
“Oh! Actually, Noel,” Constance added with a little jump, whirling to look over her shoulder. “Could we borrow that dress? We’re going to need it for something.”
Around ten minutes later, and Ocean was stood in the middle of a dimly lit room filled with boxes upon boxes of clothes and costumes and masks. She stared around at the overflowing crates and threadbare, colourful items as Constance tugged out a box and began rummaging through it.
“What are we doing here?” Jane’s echoing, melodic voice asked. Constance grunted as she tugged out a particularly large clown shoe before tossing it over her shoulder.
“We are going clothes shopping,” she said simply. Ocean shook her head, more confused than ever.
“Constance, what are you talking about?” she asked, walking over to peer into the box. “When did you even find this place?”
“Oh, last time we went exploring and we split off into pairs, remember? Me and Ricky found this room and decided to keep it in mind for when our uniforms start to stink too bad.”
“Right…” Ocean said slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose and trying desperately to prevent the irritated spike to her voice from becoming too prominent. Whatever the hell this was, she knew Constance was… trying to be helpful, in her own odd way. How this was supposed to help her figure out how to get back to real life, she had no clue.
“This is nice,” Jane said. Ocean turned to see her holding up a frilly, neon green dress with big, red flowers down the centre and an ugly sash running over one shoulder that read “FLOWER POWER” in big bold lettering. Ocean’s nose instinctively nose scrunched up. That was not nice – it looked like something a clown would wear.
“Okay… so we are here to get new clothes,” Ocean said, more to herself than to anyone else in the room. Constance nodded eagerly.
“And then we’re going to put on a fashion show!” she cried, beaming. Ocean stared at her.
“Huh?”
“You know,” she said, taking Ocean’s hands and giving them a squeeze. “Like the old fashion shows we used to put on as kids in my mom’s room! When she’d let us try on all her old dresses.”
Ocean noticed the tiny tremor to her voice at the mention of her mother and frowned.
“And how is this supposed to get us home?”
“I don’t think that is what Constance is trying to do,” Jane said, voice much closer now. Ocean jumped and turned to face her. Jane’s head was cocked and she was gazing at Constance. “You are trying to distract Ocean.”
It wasn’t really a question. Ocean’s eyes widened a little and she turned to her best friend. Constance nodded sheepishly, fiddling with her skirt.
“I thought it could be fun,” she admitted, voice muffled.
If this were a couple of weeks or months or however-long-it-had-been-since-she-was-alive ago, Ocean probably would have scoffed and berated Constance for trying to indoctrinate Ocean into her lazy, unproductive schemes. She would have found the idea of a distraction ludicrous, and declare that she was leaving to and get some actual work done.
But now? As she looked around at the piles and piles of clothes towering over her, all a lot uglier than Constance’s mother’s wardrobe, she found a small smile pulling at her lips. She took Constance’s hand again and sighed. The idea of a distraction didn’t actually sound too bad.
“Well, we’d better get to work finding some,” she said, giving her friend’s hand a squeeze before stepping back, rubbing her hands together and looking around the room with a newfound spring in her step and her old bossy tone back full force. “If everything in here is all as ugly as that dress Jane found, we have some work to do getting one of these outfits to actually look decent."
Jane frowned at the green dress still tucked under her arm. Constance smiled and whispered a quick, “I think it’s pretty”. Ocean pretended she didn’t hear that as she strolled off toward a box with ribbons flowing from the top.
“We don’t need to do introductions— this is just silly now.”
“And now, introducing…” Constance boomed, holding an imaginary microphone to her mouth as she addressed the room of Jane, who sat cross legged on the floor as she waited, quietly tapping her hands against her shoes in happy anticipation.
Ocean felt the tips of her ears burn pink out of embarrassment as she walked out from behind a box. She had absolutely refused to go near any of the horrific carnival costumes that the warehouse had to offer, so Constance had managed to shove her into Noel’s Monique dress instead. They had found a baggy, pink cardigan with big white buttons, and some knee length socks with white and light grey stripes.
The dress was a little big for Ocean, but the cardigan hung comfortable around her shoulders and the socks allowed her the modesty she had demanded since she would “never wear something that Noel deemed suitable, because what Noel deemed suitable looked like sexy Hell spawn – and not in a good way!”.
“Ocean Rosenberg!” Constance announced after a big drum roll.
Overall, she honestly didn’t hate it. It was definitely more comfortable than her trusty old uniform, she had to admit. But the happy little claps she received from Jane and the supportive compliments and cheers from Constance were making her want to shrivel up and cry on the floor – but maybe in a good way.
Still, she crossed her arms and huffed, going to sit down with Jane as they waited for Constance to change. Jane gave her a little smile.
“You look very nice, Ocean.”
“Thank you,” Ocean nodded curtly, trying to hide the grin trying to bubble its way to the surface. Maybe this was a little bit fun.
“Next up, we have Constance Blackwood!”
Ocean watched as Constance emerged from behind the box, and her jaw fell open.
She wore some brightly coloured overalls, striped with bold blues and pinks and yellows, and had a simple white top on underneath. She had tied all sorts of rainbow ribbons into her curly hair, and topped it all off with the big clown shoes she had discarded earlier.
Aside from the poor choice in footwear, she somehow managed to make the odd combination of clown-clothes work. Ocean beamed and clapped along with Jane. Constance actually looked really pretty – she didn’t realise how nice her best friend looked in colourful clothes. Ocean was so used to just seeing her in uniform that she forgot how lovely she looked in any other attire.
Constance was smiling so widely Ocean thought her cheeks might burst, but she skipped over and sat down beside the other two. Ocean basically squealed and threw her arms around her best friend, resting her head on her shoulder.
“You look so pretty!”
“Aw, thank you, Ocean,” Constance laughed, hugging her back. She went quiet as Jane stood up and glided over to the boxes to change.
“Are you, um…” Constance trailed off. Ocean pulled away to look at her. “Are you feeling better?”
Ocean blinked. She thought about it for a second. The task of “finding a way out of death” hadn’t actually crossed her mind at all in the past hour or so. Of course, now she was thinking about it and her gut dropped a little, but she shook her head and ignored it. Because she was feeling better.
“I am, yeah,” she said quietly, smiling as she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Constance’s. “Thanks,” she added quietly, a little gingerly.
Constance just grinned.
That might have been the first time Ocean had ever really thanked her for anything.
“And finally, we have Jane Savanah Doe!”
Jane stepped out from behind the crates. Ocean nearly choked on air, horrified.
That same atrocious, green dress seemed to blow her up like a balloon – she hadn’t realised how puffy and big it was when it was tucked under Jane’s arm. With it, she wore some awful neon yellow tights with electric blue spots, and had tied pink ribbons around her hair in an attempt to copy Constance. But she had failed. Miserably. They hung limply around her pale curls, one of them already dangling dangerously close to the floor as it slid further and further out of her hair.
And worst of all, she had somehow managed to find a matching dress to fit her headless doll, who was draped in awful green velvet, tiny body swamped.
The second-hand embarrassment Ocean felt was big.
But Constance still clapped and cheered like she was the most fashionable model on planet Earth.
“Jane! You look so cute!”
Jane beamed and took a jerky little bow, black eyes shining. Ocean frowned – it was the happiest she had ever seen the doll-girl. Yet, just clapping and offering fake compliments was what had done it?
She glanced at Constance, still grinning. And she started clapping, too.
Maybe they were stuck here. Maybe there was no getting home. And if that were the case, and she would be spending the rest of eternity with her new friends, maybe she would have to get used to these sorts of things.
“You look amazing!” she lied through her teeth. Constance laughed and elbowed her as Jane twirled, but Ocean didn’t miss the proud smile sent her way from her best friend.
Despite herself, Ocean laughed and beamed.
EXTRA:
“They’ve been gone for hours. Do you think they got lost of something?” Ricky asked, glancing nervously at the door. Noel shrugged.
“I’m sure they’ll be okay. There can’t be that many rooms in this place. Even if they are lost, all we have to do is shout down the hall.”
“Why did they leave again?” Mischa asked.
“A girl’s day out or something.”
“We’re back!” Ocean sung, bursting through the door, an unusually wide smile on her face. Noel gawked, appalled. Why the hell was she so happy? And what the hell was she wearing?
“Is that Monique’s dress?”
“Maybe,” she trilled as she skipped over. “And we bought a surprise!”
The three boys looked at the door. Sure enough, Jane and Constance walked in carrying the most atrocious collection of clothes Noel had ever laid eyes on.
“No,” he deadpanned.
“Dope!” Mischa yelled, leaping to his feet and running up to Constance to snatch a bright orange afro wig and shove it over his head.
“A change of clothes might be nice,” Ricky said as he subtly sniffed at his uniform and made a face, before standing to examine a massive bowtie that Jane held out to him.
Ocean grinned devilishly at Noel. Noel shook his head.
“Never in a million years.”