Work Text:
The drumming never fucking stops.
It seeps through the walls, a constant pounding reminder that Coco exists. That Coco gets to take up space. That Coco gets to be loud. That Coco is in the family. It’s always like this. Coco gets whatever she wants and Maya is the one who has to endure it.
Maya presses her face into the plush fabric of her blobfish, gripping it tight. It’s soft, but not the right kind of soft. Not warm, not alive. Not…not Noga…
Noga, who used to curl up beside her. Noga, who purred against her chest on nights when she felt too lonely, too cold. Noga, who loved her just for being there. Gone.
"All because of her..."
She squeezes her eyes shut, but the memory claws (haha get it?) its way back. The day her parents told her Noga had to go. The way they barely looked at her, like she was a little child throwing a tantrum instead of a little girl losing her best and only friend.
"Coco is allergic, Maya, we don’t have a choice."
There was always a choice…they just never picked her…
The drumming is louder now.
Coco gets a drum set. Coco gets friends. Coco gets attention. Coco gets love. The Princess, the Wunder Girl, the Cute one, get’s everything she wants…and Maya? Maya gets…gets...nothing.
Maya grips the blobfish tighter, but it doesn’t purr. It doesn’t nuzzle against her hand. It doesn’t make the loneliness go away. It doesn't love her.
“…I miss Noga.”
The words slip out before she can stop them, shaky and barely above a whisper.
And then like a slow moving avalanche, a thought creeped in, the one she’s been avoiding, the one that feels too ugly to say out loud.
Coco took Noga from me.
Coco has never lost anything. Not like Maya has. Not like Maya does, over and over again until there’s nothing left.
Maybe Coco deserves to know what that feels like, to have no one…nothing at all.