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It wasn’t meant to happen this way. It wasn’t meant to… go this wrong. It tortured Mae that, once again, she had fucked up. The bullet wound imprinted on the right side of her temple had been stitched up but constantly throbbed as a teasing little reminder of what had just unfolded at her hand. After what felt like three centuries of drifting in and out of consciousness, catching slivers of concerned conversations bouncing between Dr Hank, Mom and Dad, and wriggling in an uncomfortable hospital bed, Mae finally awoke. As soon as she was able to force (and keep) down a disgusting hospital ready meal and respond, ‘yes doctor’, ‘no doctor’, ‘not now doctor’ at whatever consultant flitted into the room, she was sent home. As soon as she was sent home, Mae went to see the people who mattered to her most.
Her friends. Bea. God, Bea - Mae missed her face, the drawling tone of her voice, her slow smirks and smoky breaths. Mae missed the feeling of butterflies fighting in her stomach listening to Bea laugh. Mae missed Bea more than she’d missed the others, and nothing - not even a near-fatal head wound - could stop her from seeing the crocodile.
That didn’t mean Bea was happy to see her, though. Mae dragged herself to Gregg and Angus’ apartment in the hope that Gregg and Angus would be happy, Bea would lift her into a crushing hug, and the continuous ache in her skull would be forgotten. No.
“What are you doing here!” Bea near-snarled, though concern and worry dampened the sting to her voice. “Mae, please don’t tell me you walked here alone like that.”
“I- I had to see you…” Mae murmured, her teeth chattering, her body suddenly weak. She flinched back when Bea talked, trembling on the freezing doorstep.
Bea blinked for a long moment and then sighed, shifting away to allow Mae to walk in. “Alright.” she murmured, watching the injured cat on high-alert in case something happened. The reptile glanced down the warm hallway where Gregg, Angus and Germ were huddled in the living room. “It’s Mae.” She called.
By now, the cat was inside, leaning desperately onto Bea. One paw clung to the back of Bea’s dress for support. Bea barely registered it, her own scaly claw coming to the small of the cat’s back to keep her steady.
She guided the injured twenty-year-old into the warm living room - upon doing so, Mae was met with an excited, “Maaaaaeeeee!” from Gregg. He hand-flapped a little, his happiness blooming out over his face. The grin unmoving, he added, “You look like shit! What are you doing here?”
“Had to see you.” Mae repeated simply. She trembled in her spot but didn’t quite move from Bea’s side, sleepily watching everyone move and… do. That was all everybody did. Moved around and did things. Germ was huddled on the floor, back against the couch, punching buttons on a gaming controller. Bea had wormed her way to the couch - holy shit, when did that happen - and was chattering softly at Gregg. Angus was… where was Angus?
“Where’s Angus?” Mae mumbled. She hugged herself protectively now that Bea wasn’t there.
Angus was in the kitchen, according to Gregg. The feline shuffled her way into the kitchen, picking up on a sweet lingering scent halfway there. It made her stomach lurch and, teetering at the kitchen doorway, she hesitated on whether to go in or not. Everything was so…. Claustrophobic. Suffocating. The smell of the brownies. The orange of the walls.
“Hey, Mae.” Angus said in a low growl, turning to face the sick cat. “Making brownies. Want one?”
God. Mae’s stomach lurched again and the insides of her mouth - right in her cheeks - went sour. She shook her head.
“Mmmmm no, no no.” She hurriedly spoke. “Thanks for the offer though, big guy.” She hesitated again, a comfortable silence growing between the pair. “D’you mind if I hit the sack?”
“Go for it. You can sleep with Gregg tonight.” Angus confirmed.
It didn’t take long for Mae to realise that neither Angus nor Gregg would be budged on the matter, so sleeping with Gregg it was. Admittedly, sleeping with the hyper vulpine was a little awkward. Mae curled herself up on the couch and drowsily watched the blazing lightbulb, as Gregg wordlessly got into pyjamas. She squeezed her eyes shut before the light was even off and kept them that way - squeezed so tight it hurt. She couldn’t, not on the first night out of hospital, be dissociative. Perhaps it was her eyes playing tricks on her, or her head reminding her that Possum Springs wasn’t the safe habitat she once thought, but even just this evening things were starting to look… formless. Like shapes. Dumb things, stupid things - like the little wooden figurine with its stupid face that Angus kept on the coffee table. It spied on her all day long, scrutinised her, its mouth a constant ‘o’ shape, its eyes wide o’s of shock. Sometimes she looked at it, and it melted. Its stupidly long face and dumb ‘o’ mouth drooped and dribbled into a puddle on the table. Then Gregg or Bea or Germ or Angus spoke and took her away from the situation, and when Mae took one peep at o-face, he was back to his stupid, shocked self. Mae couldn’t tell Gregg any of this. She couldn’t tell anyone any of this! Not when she could barely explain it to her own brain. It was just…. just a thing, and it was her thing, not their thing. So, it was a little awkward to sleep with Gregg. Thankfully - somehow - Mae managed to rest through the night. She awoke when her friends did, and did the things her friends did, and o-face didn’t melt onto the table again, not even when Mae gave it a fierce swipe. Until it was night time again. Mae didn’t want to go home.
That night, Mae was adamant that Gregg rested with Angus. She huddled on the couch and hugged her knees, looking shakily at her friends. Her gaze was unfocused and she still looked pale and pasty. The pounding in her head was back, and it seemed to be so loud and thunderous that it drowned out her words. The cat yowled to the group, not entirely grasping what she was saying. “C’n sleep on my own t’night.” She proposed drowsily.
The room, somehow, fell more silent than it was before.
“No.” Bea said, after a steady two minutes of shock had passed. “No way, Mae Borowski, are you sleeping alone.”
“Yeah.” Gregg agreed uneasily, “That was… a pretty bad injury, dude. You look like death, still. Someone needs to stay with you until you look like… not like a zombie.”
“Thanks.” Mae grunted. “Stayed wif’oo las’nigh.” The small feline complained, pointing a trembling paw at Gregg. “Can’t again…”
Her eyes were wide and concerned. She had seen, in the dead of night, the exhausted look on Gregg’s face as he gave her a sad smile. “You c’n go rest wi’ Angus.” Mae pressed, her eyelids heavy and almost closed. Her head was throbbing and her surroundings and friends blurred into one, but she didn’t want to admit that to Gregg or the others. They didn’t need to worry.
“No, Mae..” Gregg murmured. “Plenty of time to cuddle with Angus. Wanna rest with you, s’okay.”
It went quiet.
“I’ll sleep with you, Mae. Tonight.” Bea said smoothly, cutting in before Gregg could protest even further. Mae froze, blushing slightly. Her mouth opened and closed in protest, but she couldn’t find any words. It was definitely her head pounding, though. Nothing else.
“Great, then it’s settled!” Gregg beamed into the silence. “Me and Angus in our room, Mae and Bea on the couch.”
As Mae soon realised, sleeping with Bea was a lot different to sleeping with Gregg.
Gregg top-to-tailed on the couch, pushing cold feet and sharp claws against Mae’s paws. He snuffled and snored his way through sleep, occasionally kicking his feet out. Plus, it just… it felt so different. Mae felt comfortable when she cuddled up on the couch with Gregg, even if she didn’t know how to explain her… her brain thing, to him.
Cuddling up to Bea somehow ignited a fire in Mae’s belly that wouldn’t die down. A fire that made her feel embarrassed and fumble and say more dumb shit than usual. On the other hand, explaining… the brain thing… wasn’t as tricky. Bea understood.
That, of course, didn’t mean Bea was great to share a bed with. First off, her feet were even colder than Gregg’s, made somehow worse by the cool, smooth scales that covered them. Mae was forced to bunch up her paws tightly. Secondly, Bea was a sleep-talker, and she mumbled out random drowsy words just as Mae fell asleep. Both girls were cuddled on the couch, half asleep after at least a hour and a half of waking one another up. The two spent a lot of their time looking between one another to the TV which was blurting soft colour into the darkness. There was a late night showing of Garbo and Malloy, but in Mae’s eyes, they just looked like dull colourful blurs. Bea was a colourful blur to Mae too, but Mae could feel that she was real so it was okay.
“Y’ur feet ‘r cold…” Mae complained, frowning sleepily.
“I’m a reptile, that’s pretty much our thing.” Bea murmured. “Am I squishing you?” She asked. Her voice was soft and concerned, a total difference to the sharp-edged attitude that the reptile usually spat out all over Possum Springs.
“Little bit.” Mae admitted. Bea shifted slightly, curling up into herself into a ball with a murmured, ‘there’.
Mae did the same, wrapping her tail around herself. Now that Bea wasn’t there, and the cold gentle touch of her feet had gone, worry swirled like a sick spiral in Mae’s stomach. The sick spiral got worse when Mae realised what it was, and tried desperately to hold it off, to shut it down. She laid there for a short few minutes that seemed to freeze and continue forever. Long after Bea had finally drifted off to sleep, Mae was wide awake, staring at the dissolved and melting ceiling.
Oh God. Oh God. Was Bea real..? Mae was real… Mae knew she was real… but Bea… The feline peeped up from her duvet, her almond eyes wide with fear. Shapes, Bea was shapes, all hard-edged hexagons and octagons and blue hues. It wasn’t just Bea. It was everything. The ceiling. The duvet. Even cheesy old Garbo and Malloy morphed into ugly looking marshmallow-caricatures of themselves. Only Mae was real. Only Mae was real and her world was dying. She twisted and turned fearfully on the squeaky couch, looking for something that was real, something that proved she wasn’t so alone. Her moving awoke the crocodile laying at the foot of the couch, who tiredly propped herself up and squinted over. Mae understood that… Bea - was it Bea? - was looking at her, but then her head started pounding harder and harder so that when Bea spoke to her it was drowned out by the vicious roars in her head.
“Mae… are you alright? Can’t you sleep?” Bea said softly.
Mae continued to stare, her pupils wide with fear. She held the duvet tighter over her head and whimpered, feeling her entire body shaking. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Maybe. Maybe if she didn’t look, didn’t give in, the thoughts wouldn’t come. But they did and they already were and— oh God — she didn’t want to hurt Bea…
There was a sudden shift in the bedsheets. Mae felt something next to her. Every cell in her body screamed at her to turn around, to turn around and scratch and claw at her because it was okay - that wasn’t Bea. That was just… shapes, just hard edged shapes and nothingness. But something else sated the urge.
Bea removed the blanket.
Mae yowled at her.
To Mae’s ears, she sounded threatening and evil, every pin-pointed strand of her fur on end. To Bea, Mae simply sounded like a fragile, small kitten. The yowl petered out as Bea slid one scaly arm protectively around the tiny cat. Bea could physically feel Mae sigh with relief at this moment, and squeezed slightly tighter, urging her to cuddle in.
“You’re real..” Mae mumbled sleepily. She had never felt more glad for the sensation of cool leathery skin pressed against her fur. Bea’s face was still fragmented. All shapes, no volume - like a 3D puzzle. But she was real.
“Of course I’m real. I’m always real.” The shapes murmured. Then the shapes nuzzled Mae, and warm breaths whistled from the snout, tickling Mae’s fur.
There was no doubt to Mae that Bea wasn’t real in this moment. Everything else was still shapes and fragments, still colourful nothings, but Bea was okay. Bea was real, living and breathing, and that thought comforted Mae enough to carry her into sleep.
~
A growing knot of anxiety deep in Mae’s belly had her wide awake early the next morning. She exploded into wakefulness with a gasp, terrified of everything being so… shapeless.
So… empty. So… dead.
But - thank God - everything seemed to have calmed and shifted back to normal. Early morning sunlight filtered slowly through the blinds, slots of warm sun hiding in Mae’s fur. The playful warmth almost eased Mae back to sleep again before another explosive thought sent her back to full consciousness.
Bea!
Mae looked around frantic for a moment before realising - with a fluttering in her heart - that the cold couch cushion she was snuggled up against (and wondering why Angus and Gregg didn’t pay for heating) was Bea. Mae sleepily looked to the calmly sleeping crocodile snuggled against her. The sunlight had caught itself between Bea’s scales, golden and twinkling. She softly hummed in her sleep and wriggled when Mae did so they stayed closely cuddled up as dawn broke over Possum Springs. And as dawn broke, the sun rose to its highest point, and Mae’s eyelids grew heavy with sleep again, the feline couldn’t help but think;
She was so happy to be here. Home. Where she belonged. She was absolutely exhilarated to be surrounded by her friends and family again. But most of all, she was near intoxicated that she had Bea in her life. Even when the disassociation crept in and the world drained and drooped to shattered and dead fragments of… stuff, there was something. Mae was something, Bea was something… and Mae’s world was more alive than ever before.