Chapter Text
Leah has thought that she was insane since she was twelve years old.
Or more accurately; that’s when the rest of the world found out. The second Sullivan settled, after all the crying and sobbing, after her mind raced endlessly for hours because she just couldn’t let it go…When her daemon swirled in golden dust for the last time till they died to settle into her last form; Her parents had known. Every person who caught sight of Sullivan would know for the rest of their lives.
She sometimes racked her brain, but the source of her anxiety, the thing she’d been agonizing over, had vanished from her memory completely. It had made her cry and pick at her fingernails and eyebrows, made Sullivan chew on her paws, but now she can’t remember what she’d been so upset over. Her daemon settling overshadowed everything about that time in her life. The hushed conversations that her parents had behind closed doors, the kids that stopped talking to her at school, and the endless looks from everyone around her took over her overworking mind.
It was almost funny, looking back. She’d pushed it all down, deep, deep in her chest, and ignored the monster that she was. That they were.
Leah Rilke had always been insane. It just took her until the Island to accept it.
Leah clutches her worn book, her gaze fixed on the window, and ignored the other girls like she’s ignored everything else.
Luckily, she and Fatin had gotten there first. That Fatin, out of everyone in the world, is here almost makes Leah feel an actual emotion for the first time in months. Fatin and her songbird daemon take the front seat, her daemon small enough that he simply sits on Fatin’s shoulder or the back of the chair. The other girl is still putting on makeup, which isn’t surprising, as from what Leah has seen around school, that’s all she does.
She immediately goes to the back and sits in the last row, taking the window seat while Sullivan hops into the seat next to her, curling into a tight, round ball of fur and fangs. She barely cares to cover Sullivan with a blanket, but she does. There will be no hiding her once the plane lands, of course, but Leah’s goal is to avoid everyone for as long as possible and her daemon’s form almost always makes someone approach her.
Her usually busy mind was now a dim, dark void, her thoughts slipping away like shadows into nothingness; the silence was deafening. It’s better, in her meager opinion, than the upswing of manic energy that comes and goes. There are a couple of spare thoughts that tumble through her head; just how expensive this little trip was if Fatin of all people was coming along, how annoyed she was with her parents, that her knee ached when the plane took off.
She doesn’t even bother looking at the blonde girl when she tries to do some stupid ice breaker game. Sullivan is a large ball next to her and the only thing visible from under the blanket was her large brown muzzle that blared the smallest hint of fang at the idea of interacting with the rest of them.
They’re left alone.
Some therapists have told Leah that she and Sullivan have a stronger than normal bond.
Her parents had thrown her into therapy the second that Sullivan settled. She wasn’t sure if they worried before that or if they figured they better get ahead of whatever was wrong with her, as there hadn't been a question on If she was insane so much as figuring out what kind of insane she was. All the professionals threw around different ideas and none of them agreed with each other.
But they did all mostly agree on that; Leah and Sullivan were…. Strange.
Normal people talked to their daemons. Yes, they felt things through the bond, but they still had to talk to each other because daemons and their humans didn’t just know what each other thoughts all the time. They had to discuss, bicker, argue, and reassure because no one was ever truly alone in this world, not truly, because their daemon was always there.
Leah has rarely felt that need because to her, Sullivan is simply another limb. She feels hyper aware of where she is, how she feels and what her thoughts were. She knows what will make Sullivan huff, what makes her growl, what she feels about the people in their lives. They don't disagree or argue, but neither do they bicker or reassure.
They do speak to each other, but it’s not regular. Their bond is just so strong that there’s little need. It freaked out a few therapists who got them when Leah’s mind was running the fastest because there's a point where the beings called Leah and Sullivan lose their boundaries. Thoughts, feelings, emotions…. All blurred. They talked together, completed each other’s sentences.
It almost sounded nice on paper. But It also meant that when they finally disagreed, it ripped them apart.
An excruciating pain clawed at her chest and shattered Leah's unconscious, feeling like her very essence was being violently extracted.
She blinks sea salt out of her eyes and has two seconds before her world changes forever.
“Leah!”
“Sullivan?” She hasn’t heard Sullivan speak in months and she twists on her makeshift raft, trying to get closer to her before that icy grip of death kills them both. There’s a slashing nearby and the pain slowly fades.
Sullivan is an excellent swimmer, better than Leah, who was awkward at everything that didn’t involve writing, and before Leah can understand what’s happening, her daemon is next to the raft. She reaches out to hold that wet furred head close as they bob in the water as Leah’s sobs and Sullivan’s high-pitched whines overlap over each other, echoing and answering, word less.
But there’s a phone ringing from a hot pink suitcase and without word or true thought, they both go for it. In Leah’s desperation, she loses it to the water and it falls so quickly to the blackness below that Sullivan isn’t able to catch it in her teeth either.
More importantly; there's a girl barely conscious. Leah can only barely remember her from the plane; a bright sunny voice so loud that it had made Sullivan’s ear twitch.
The bruise on her stomach makes Leah’s own stomach drop, but she tries to reassure the girl. She’ll be fine, they’ll both be fine because there’s an island off in the distance. The distance seems massive but swimming there is all she has.
Leah spends a second looking for the girl's daemon, not wanting to put any more discomfort on the poor thing by stretching her bond, until she sees the pug that curled up behind the girl’s knee. The daemon isn’t any more aware than the human but he isn’t bleeding Dust and at this point that’s the most Leah can hope for so she takes her cardigan off, ties one sleeve around the girl's wrist and Sullivan takes the other in her fanged mouth.
They started swimming, the scent of salt sharp in the air with only the sounds of their limps and waves around them.
Jeff had found just the right balance about Sullivan during that fateful car ride.
He hadn’t ignored her in the back seat, but he hadn’t pressed Leah about her either. Both were the normal responses. Leah was used to fear, used to distrust, pity, and all other negative emotions. It was almost kindergarten level etiquette to not judge a person on just what their daemon’s form was, but everyone knew better. Everyone passed judgment on one another. Appearances, wealth, knowledge, who else you knew; of fucking course daemons were judged.
His daemon was a fox with shiny red fur and dark clever eyes that sits in his lap with a content little ball. She decides right then and there that she wouldn’t judge him like so many others probably have for having what people think is a trickster daemon. Not when he says all the right things, not when he smiles so warmly, not when Leah feels so seen.
Leah feels Sullivan’s displeasure when she invites Jeff out to eat, but she does nothing more than meet Leah’s eyes in the rear-view mirror and twitch her ear. She knows it’s a stupid crush and that he’s so much older than her, but she wants.
She just… wants .
It’s a fucking whirlwind on that beach.
There’s screaming, shouting, the growls of daemons, the feeling of wet sand under her hands, the echo of Sullivan’s own discomfort of her sea water soaked fur and the overwhelming fear that lingering in the air.
Her mind is racing, but her body is just so tired. There’s only so much that adrenaline can do to keep her standing and when the other girls crowd around the one that Leah has dragged to shore, she slumps into the wet, salty sand. Sullivan is panting next to her ear, long pink tongue hanging loose from a fanged mouth, and Leah knows that she’s watching the others with her almost black eyes.
Leah's own blue eyes, wide and unblinking, were fixed on the indifferent sky, her racing heart drowning out the chaos behind her.
(She doesn’t find it strange when they all raise their hands about knowing CPR. Not at the time. Nor does the fact that none of them remember the actual plane crash or that they all lost consciousness with no apparent cause.
That came later.)
She doesn’t know how long she’s asleep.
Her entire body is sore in a way it’s never been before. Leah has never been the most athletic person in the world and she’s never swum so far in her life. It’s a blur, that swim. She doesn't know the distance or time, only the burning in her eyes and the desperate, frantic feeling that claws at her memory.
Leah wakes to a cold clammy hand on her own.
Jeanette’s hand. Leah faintly remembers her name being tossed around the group before Leah’s body had given out. She isn’t sure if one of the girls dragged her farther up into the grass or if Sullivan had, as her daemon sometimes stayed awake longer than Leah did, but she awakes to Jeanette’s small smile and her pug daemon’s gentle nuzzle to Sullivan’s thick neck.
“You’re awake!”
She blinks salt from her eyes. “You made it?”
And maybe it was rude or something to phrase that as a question but the last thing Leah remembered was the desperation of the girls over an unconscious Jeanette but now she’s sitting here, bright smile dimmer than it was on the plane but at least moving and eyes clear.
The hug is unexpected. Leah doesn’t come from a touchy feel-ly kind of family and her parents have been giving her distance ever since she’d snapped at them a few days after the car incident for hovering. Ian hasn’t touched her since that stupid night when they’d been camping.
“I’m sorry,” Jeanette says. It’s soft and feels like it’s not for Leah, even though it’s spoken into her ear.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Leah says. She’s confused, but maybe this is one of those times that people say sorry just because. She certainly doesn’t know what to say when a plane goes down.
But Jeanette doesn’t give a normal response and hugs Leah harder, the pug at her side pressing his face deep into the longer stripe of fur that runs along Sullivan’s spine.
“No, you don’t understand. I’m… so sorry.”
(It takes another fifty days before Leah understands exactly what ‘Jeanette’ was apologizing for.)
Leah hadn’t paid attention to the girls on the plane, but she’s sure as hell paying attention now.
There’s Jeanette and her still unnamed pug daemon who sit a little off to the back. She’s quiet, more quiet than Leah would have expected from someone who was so loud on the plane, but these are weird ass times. She winces every once in a while and Leah can tell she’s in pain, but there’s nothing more they can do about it so Leah just lets it go.
There’s Toni and Martha who sit almost on top of each other. Toni’s daemon is a large dog named Oliver that’s some kind of mixed breed with short white and black fur, wide shoulders and thick muscles. He’s got more than a couple scars on his face and body, but seems perfectly content to allow Martha’s daemon, a white and brown ferret named Edric, to climb all over him. Leah even sees Oliver carefully nuzzle and lick him a few times, despite how pissy Toni is acting.
Dot, sitting alone on some rocks, is a voice of common sense and has the largest daemon out of everyone here in terms of size, thanks to Lavi being an absolutely massive fluffy white dog. Leah thinks he’s a sheep dog of some kind but isn’t exactly sure since she never studied all the dog breeds and their meanings like so many others did. Either way, Lavi is only bigger than Sullivan because of his fur — Sullivan is more dense and muscular by far.
The other Texan is… much more annoying than Dot. Leah doesn’t have much exposure to religion, neither side of her family practices much of anything, let alone the intense ‘ Jesus will provide!’ thing that Shelby has going on. It’s a little grating, though Toni clearly finds it more annoying than the rest of them. Shelby’s daemon Amos is a lively blue jay that hops from Shelby’s shoulder to hover around the other daemons, trying to perk them up. He avoids Oliver after the daemon gives him a light snap of his jaw, but Edric occasionally reaches up to nuzzle him.
The twins are, well, they’re very different from each other. Nora stands near her sister, but her eyes stay firmly on the ground, while holding her tabby cat daemon named Blake, who watches the commotion with clever eyes. Rachel, however, paces and gestures, trying to take control of this whole fucked up affair, while her daemon, a large weasel looking animal called Noah, sits curled on her shoulders, looking out at the sea.
And then there’s Fatin.
It’s jarring to see her here, and she’s feels more out of place more than any of them could be on a random fucking island in the middle of the ocean after a plane crash. Her hands are shaking and Leah doesn’t think it’s purely from the chill of the ocean air on wet clothes. It was bizarre; seeing a girl usually so polished and controlled now disarrayed, her clothes rumpled, her hair askew—a shocking contrast. Fatin Jadmani doesn’t leave her home without putting on more makeup than Leah ever cared to look at, with clothes more expensive than ten normal people’s wardrobe put together, without looking like she wants people to look at her.
Maybe at some point in her life she would have been more happy in seeing Fatin Jadmani without all of that, at witnessing Ian's "most basic girl" from school, stripped bare of her usual facade and revealing Fatin as just another frightened girl among many on the beach.
But while Leah thinks Fatin is all kinds of annoying and fake; there’s absolutely nothing pleasant about this moment. Nasir, a love bird that Leah’s used to see riding on Fatin’s phone as she FaceTimes her friends or on her backpack, and always whistling, sits silently on Fatin’s shoulder almost under her ear.
Leah watches and knows with no doubt that the others are judging each other, figuring out who exactly they’re stuck with. Do they think Dot, Toni and Jeanette are loyal, lovable, if not bright girls because of their dog daemons? How about Nora’s daemon? Does she stand off to the side because she wants to or because she’s used to believing she’s stand off-ish before even talking to her?
None of the other daemons approach Sullivan.
Why would they? Leah’s daemon is the only female daemon, the one that has barely spoken and who hasn’t spoken to Leah at all. Sullivan is the only true predator here and is the one whose form means violent insanely.
Leah watches, her hand idly stroking Sullivan’s head as she rests in her lap, and wonders what the others think about being trapped on an island with a girl who has a hyena daemon.
“This is a bad idea.” Sullivan’s so rarely used voice was rougher than must female daemon’s. Rough, like she was growling through her words because no matter how much they pretended otherwise; she was a beast.
They haven’t spoken about Jeff. They don’t speak about much of anything usually, but Leah knows Sullivan doesn’t fully approve of this. The daemon knows why Leah is doing it of course. The bond sings and hums whenever Leah gets a playful text, and when Leah says something that makes him laugh.
Leah is a solitary person by nature, but this feels… good. He was her every waking thought, her every secret longing, a constant ache in her heart. It feels like the love in those overly-written novels; dramatic, all-consuming, a tangible ache in the chest. It’s a dream, and a fantasy come to life.
But Sullivan doesn’t fully approve because Leah has never been one to lie, not about important things, not about things that matter and most definitely not about herself. There’s only so much one can lie about themselves whenever people take one look at their daemon and assume everything else from there.
“It’s just my birthday,” Leah responds.
Because Jeff loves her and wants her, and Leah will not let him go. She won’t let this bright and warm thing she knows to be love slip through her fingers.
Sullivan’s dark eyes catch her own in the mirror. “This will not end well, Leah. You know that. And when it goes bad…”
Sullivan lets the sentence linger, the warning clear from the intense foreboding that sits in her chest like tar from their bond, but Leah says nothing and returns to her phone, waiting for the response she hopes for.
That same feeling is rotting in her chest as Rachel asks them to think of someone to call. Leah doesn’t bother reaching for the phone. There’s only one number she has memorized and the idea of trying to call him at all, let alone in front of all these people, even in this situation, is horrific and embarrassing to a degree that freezes her still.
She’s not the only one that doesn’t reach for the phone. Dot passes up her chance, Toni considers Martha’s opportunity as a shared one between the two of them and Jeanette, still quiet, says nothing.
Sullivan is the one that notices Jeanette’s stumbling back away from the bickering group, and that pinch of worry makes Leah turn her head and quickly follow her.
Jeanette only makes it a dozen steps before she drops to her knees, then hits the ground, her daemon following her within seconds. Before Leah can do more than turn her over, the blood dripping from her lips making her hands shake, her daemon swirls in a cloud of Dust.
Leah has never seen someone die before. She’s read about it, how the characters see daemons fade into nothingness, she’s seen it portrayed in movies with CGI or horrible special effects in older films. Seeing it in person leaves her shocked still and Sullivan whimpers as Dust twists and swirls where Jeanette’s daemon was just laying, fading into nothingness.
She doesn’t bother checking for a heartbeat and can’t do more than just look into this girl’s dim eyes.
“Guys!” Leah says around numb lips, “Guys, she’s… she’s dead.”
They sit around a fire that Dot managed to lite after their makeshift funeral for Jeanette.
No one wants to sleep, or maybe they can’t. The sound of the ocean is supposed to be soothing, but it’s making her blood itch and while Leah hasn’t quite hit that point where her mind races so much she can’t think straight, it’s certainly fucking loud. Sullivan’s annoyance over her nose being assaulted by the smell of salt and sea and her fur feeling bogged down by sea water is echoing. Leah being made cold as shit by the sea breeze is only somewhat lessened by Sullivan’s thick fur covered frame.
Toni and Dot are making the most of their daemon’s body heat as well, but the rest of the girls are more out of luck.
Rachel is confident that help is coming quickly, which Leah is skeptical about because she’s a pessimist at heart while Shelby is confident because of … Jesus and vibes, which Leah is even more skeptical about for maybe more local reasons.
Eventually Fatin seems to realize that she’s being an asshole about not sharing her clothes, because of course Fatin’s parents got her a ridiculously expensive suitcase, and starts handing out jackets.
(Why Fatin brought jackets to a beach getaway is left unanswered for about sixty or so more days.)
Shelby starts up a game of Never Have I Ever in honor of Jeanette and Leah can’t bring herself to not take part. The mini bottle of liquor is honestly not the worst thing she’s drunk, high school parties had terrible drink choices as a standard, but the reminder of just how she had ‘vaginal penetrative intercourse’ is a far harsher sting.
(Leah is occupied by the fact she’s never heard sex described so cringy since health class in the sixth grade to notice but Sullivan catches the slightly impressed look Fatin gives them, which means Leah feels Sullivan’s mixed feelings about it. Maybe in a different situation Leah would have been impressed with herself too.)
The tension lessons from there. Fatin admits to having a threesome, unsurprisingly for her really, and Toni has apparently thrown her own piss at someone. Leah takes less drinks than most of the others besides Shelby and Martha while Fatin drinks at almost every sex prompt and Toni at anything even close to violence.
Eventually, everyone taps out. Martha falls asleep first with Edric curled up on top of Oliver’s back. Toni stays awake longer, her body defensive, but soon curls up around Martha in a cuddle that looks warm and loving. Rachel and Nora go to sleep close to each other but apart, no piece of their bodies touching.
Leah walks away around then, just far enough that the girl’s conversation is audible but their words unknowable. Every once in a while there’s an up pitch in giggling or a word is spoken loud enough that Leah can make it out, but mostly it’s just her with Sullivan’s head in her lap and the sound of the ocean.
Out here with no light pollution to dim them, the stars shine with incredible brightness. The lack of noise is strange too. She never realized how much noise surrounded her until it was gone; no car engines, no planes, no gentle hum of electricity. It’s nice. It’s terrifying.
Then, out of nowhere, Fatin appears. Nasir sits on her shoulder, his bright green and yellow feathers clashing horribly against Fatin’s fuzzy pink jacket.
Leah doesn’t know why Fatin approaches her that night. Just that it’s the first genuine conversation they’ve ever had and that it’s nice.
It’s… more than nice.
Towards the end Nasir even ventured into hopping Sullivan’s back, the love bird making her chuff in amusement when he chipped a little joke into her ear.
(When she first tells this next part for the first time to anyone; she lies.
In about fifty days, give or take the quarantine, she’ll say she got choked up at the mere sound of his voice, so much that she couldn’t bring herself to get out an actual word. She’ll let the men in front of her look at her in pity and she’ll go all out, pushing it even more. Demanding to know if he cared enough to do anything to reach out. She’ll cry realistic tears, Sullivan will whimper under her hiding place under Leah’s chair; the picture of a dumb little girl who was foolish enough to believe a grown man would ever want her.
And they believed every word because they knew Leah Rilke was insane.
The truth was still painful enough that she’d kept it a secret. That part was true. She’d buried it deep, deep down, where only Sullivan could reach. It rotted at her, day after day after day, and made the beginning of the Island that much harder. That rot made her lash out, made her mean and cold.)
Leah only had one number memorized. Only one.
The phone rings, unlike the dead dial tone that Dot’s had earlier. For a long moment, she doesn’t know if he’ll answer. It’s an unknown number late at night, even if he was in another time zone.
But it does and she only gets a single word out.
“Jeff—“ she’s choked up for so many reasons. Yes, Jeff has broken up with her because she was stupid enough to lie to him but he loved her, he’d had , and she was tired and scared and so utterly alone.
“Leah?
She holds back a sob, because she just wants that love back and it’s been months since she’s heard his voice, “Jeff, please I—“
But Jeff’s voice is hard in the same way it was that horrible day in his car. None of that awkward charm he’d shown her on those few rare dates they’d had. It’s all hard jagged edges, no warmth or care or love.
“Are you out of your mind?” He whispered, hissed really, into the phone. “Are you trying to get me, get us both , in trouble? I told you to stop calling me for a damn reason and now you’re calling from an unknown number just so I’ll pick up? That’s really fucked up, Leah.”
She shakes her head, reaching up to grab at her hair, nails biting at her scalp, “No, no, please I need your help—“
“I don’t want to hear it,” he says over her pleading and crying. “I don’t know who the hell knew about us, but I’m not taking second chances. Get someone else to help you, I’m done. Do you understand me? We’re done.”
And he hangs up.
Leah is left there in the chilly night. There’s a ringing in her ears and it’s only when Sullivan nips at her limp hand that she realizes where she is, what just happened. But before she can try another number or race the phone to the girls; the phone dims and dies.
(That's why her lie is so convincing. Love and heartbreak can be so similar to each other.It was horrifying, heartbreakingly real because she’d once really wanted to know if he ever cared about her at all.
The truth was though, that she’d gotten her answer that night when the man she loved wouldn’t even entertain her pleas for help. Wouldn’t even ask why she was crying even though she hasn’t tried to contact him for such a long time until that moment.
She just buried it and eventually it would burn her inside out alongside everything else.)
Leah screams into Sullivan’s furred shoulder.
It’s the shame of her naïve belief that he loved her that kept her silent. She couldn't bring herself to explain to anyone why help wasn't forthcoming and that it was all her fault for ever thinking otherwise.