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In a rare moment of introspection, it occurs to Taunie that she might have a thing for dominant women. She had a crush on Griselle as a kid, and now, she’s never found Iris more attractive than when her friend is taking control of Taunie’s life.
They could easily codify this arrangement of theirs into something that far smarter people have designated a name for. Taunie’s looked up the spreadsheets for it. She’s looked up a lot of things, now that she can do so from her own private device. Things that she wouldn’t have looked up on the rickety desktop downstairs, or on any sort of public device.
Including, for no particular reason, ways to initiate intimacy with trans women. She’s just being a good friend and ally, that’s all. No ulterior motives. She’s never had a transgender friend before. Never done a lot of things before.
But if you say it out loud, it all comes crashing down. Taunie knows that better than anyone. And so, she doesn’t say anything. Just continues pretending to sleep, right next to Iris, close enough to touch.
Taunie is thinking she might be a lesbian, because if she thinks too much about what happened today, she’s going to lose it. She’s going to scream and lose time and inconvenience those around her. And that just won’t do, now will it?
She should, allegedly, talk about it. That’s what everyone says you’re supposed to do. But Taunie only falls apart like a weepy drunk and takes ages to put herself back together, and she has to keep the hotel running. Has to take care of Floette. So she doesn’t have time to talk about it.
It’s really surprising that Iris managed to sleep. She must have been exhausted after the exertion of today. Taunie wasn’t… in a state to understand most of it. But she saw the scaffolding afterwards. And she knows Iris sleeps with three pillows, minimum, takes sleeping pills, drinks tea before bed, and still has perpetual eyebags.
How come she’s sleepy and we’re not?
No. Shut up shut up shut up! Taunie bites down on her tongue, then her hand, opening up the thorny scabs beneath her bandages. Shit, shit, this can’t be happening, why won’t these damn voices go away?
“Shut up, Ange,” she mutters, crawling out from the bed, her sanity dripping away. “Shut up, Floette, shut up, shut up, it’s just me, it’s just…”
Taunie shambles and crawls her way into the bathroom, moving like some amorphous blob unfortunately saddled with bones. She takes a moment to be thankful that Iris is such a neat, tidy person, or else this trip would be a lot more miserable. There’s a nice little niche, between the tub and the sink, where she can squeeze herself in to have a quick mental breakdown before she resumes normal activities.
The breakdown is fine. It feels good, cathartic even. Convincing herself to get it together is harder still, because there’s this bratty little voice asking why the fuck do they even bother. It pisses Taunie off, it scares her, it makes her feel things she doesn’t want to feel.
Thing is, Taunie’s good at breaking in little ways, in private. But she’d rather leave herself shattered on the floor, moping. It’s only because Iris is so neat and clean and Taunie doesn’t want to spoil it that she picks herself up afterwards. She finds tarps to collapse on to make the cleanup easier, but it’s getting harder and harder, the threads holding her together are growing so weak.
So she sobs and she bleeds and she relapses into something she said she wouldn’t do, something she’s not going to look at, because if she’s careful enough, she can make it look like it was Ange’s doing. She just needs the release of tension, that’s all. But the first wound makes her feel so disgusted with herself, she tosses the razor in the trash and curls up to hyperventilate in private. She’ll buy Iris a new set. Just add it to the list of her debts. And now she feels like she’s committed some sort of transphobic sin, even though she’s only trying to get rid of the awful urges to hurt herself.
“Taunie?” There she is— standing there in the dim light, blocking the only escape route. “What are you doing?”
Taunie laughs. It’s scary how easily she can gather up the tarp when someone’s watching. Like someone else is doing it. “Ah, sorry— did I wake you? I just wanted to check my bandages.”
“No, I woke up on my own. You’ll get used to it; I’m not very good at sleeping.” Iris flicks on the butterfree night light, coming inside and sitting on the edge of the bathtub. “...are you okay?”
“Yeah, of course! Just bleeding a little— I didn’t want to do it on the bed, so—”
“I’m not.” Iris looks haunted, dark circles deeper than ever. “I… I had a dream that he was still here. I woke up so confused, I had to… check my phone, for evidence.”
Oh. Taunie really, really doesn’t know how to handle this. She doesn’t have the emotional capacity for this. She’s been trying to avoid this. The gauze on her hands is bleeding, and she makes a fist just for the pain to push this awful numb feeling out. This is way too familiar.
“Taunie?”
“I’m fine,” she insists, and that’s what she said to the EMT all those years ago in Alola but she can’t think about it, can’t let the pain grow large enough to consume her—
“And I told you, I’m not. I— I don’t think you are, either, Taunie, please talk to me,” she pleads.
Nothing. The bubble pops, and Taunie feels nothing. Just… apathy. Something happened that she doesn’t know and doesn’t care about.
“Look, if you don’t want me… here, if you don’t want me— I can leave, I’m trying to help you but I’m really lost and I need some kind of direction here,” Iris says, voice cracking. “Like, we don’t have to figure this whole situationship out now, but… are you mad at me? You keep shutting me out, and I don’t mind helping, I don’t mind taking care of you, but I need you to give me something here.”
That’s enough to pierce the haze. The message is clear. Taunie has to talk about her feelings, or Iris is going to walk out feeling hurt and rejected. Fuck. She hates this. She hates how selfish she is, that she’s more concerned about being left alone than her friend’s feelings.
“You know how I’m always running around, doing errands?” Taunie says hesitantly. Okay. No crying so far. Iris is nodding. “If I stop. I. I get… bad.”
“Bad,” Iris echoes. “How?”
“I— I start shaking, I can’t— my thoughts get too loud—” She’s rocking, trying to soothe herself. “I lose time.”
“Okay,” Iris says. She’s looking off to the side, at something out of view, while Taunie’s vision is rapidly tunneling.
“Okay?”
“Mm.” She lowers herself to the ground, knees pulled up to her chest. “I get it. I really do, I’ve had… I mean, I kind of hesitate to call it an anxiety disorder, but that’s probably what it is. But it’s gotten better now that I try things and— I know I’m an absolute mess of a person, but… I’m trying, and you’re just… pushing it all down.”
Panic floods through Taunie, so bad she wants to vomit. “Please don’t go, please, I— I’m sorry, I’ll do better, don’t leave me alone—”
“Wh— no, I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did, everyone leaves, everyone, they all left me alone and mom was just—” the words spill out of her mouth with only a vague awareness of it happening. “Don’t go, please, I can’t do this, I can’t take it if they leave me again, I know I’m not a very good kid but I’ll—”
Oh. Iris is grabbing her. Arms wrapped around her, knee digging into her thigh, it’s a little uncomfortable but it feels nice. Taunie is hugging her back with a detached feeling, watching her fingers white-knuckle her friend’s back.
Do friends hold each other like this?
“I’m not leaving you over this,” Iris says, voice wavering. “Please, don’t think so little of me. I— I just can’t grieve alone. And I don’t want you to, either. What happened was really, really fucked up.”
“It… yeah.” Taunie looks down at her bandages, so she can pretend they’re only talking about what physically happened. “It was. I should see if I can get to the hospital tomorrow. Not that you’re not good with this stuff already, but…”
“No, that’s good.” Iris shifts to a more comfortable position, half hug and half sitting on Taunie’s lap. “I’ve been thinking. I can’t do this alone, so… I’m heading home for a while. And I want you to come with me. Sort things out, you know.”
“I don’t know where to start,” Taunie admits. There’s so much, even thinking it overwhelms her.
“Let’s start with dinner,” Iris says, “Because it’s really fucked up that all of this happened and we haven’t even eaten and— and he was—”
Az was going to make them dinner. He promised them a dinner to look forward to, he set out his cookbook and utensils, and then he died. He had the page open to sweet potato casserole, a worn out index card with green beans on the side, and bread proofing on the stove. But now the dough is spilling over and the milk he’d set out is going sour.
“Let’s just find some cheap garbage,” Taunie says, sniffling. “Shitty fast food. If I have to go into the kitchen I’m going to fucking lose it, Iris, I really am.”
“Yeah. yeah, me too.”