kitchimaera

[kitchimaera]

Chapter One

Fragile knew she was dreaming, in fact, she'd known for a while now as she sat at a comically high counter; her dirty, bare feet swinging a good many inches above the gold bar footrest. The smell of something sweet covering the faint smell of rotting meat finally fading in intensity. Chin resting on her arms, bandaged and bleeding yet no one had questioned it when she'd first walked in. She'd gathered that it was normal, or maybe the red simply faded in the odd red lighting of the place. The sign out front read in equally red neon; "Westovhere Diner" but the W kept blinking out every 60 seconds. At this point, Fragile wasn't sure if she was west or east of "here". "You're gonna forget how if you keep this up." He spoke softly from the seat she had turned chin from. "I'd almost forgotten you were even sitting there." She chimed in response, her tone dry. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" "Don't be cruel." This time Fragile didn't respond, she didn't feel the need to. It was the same dream every night as always, only the special changed at this point. Tonight was three fingers of cheap vodka watered down and day-old pizza; the dinner she'd had for the last three nights. Cheeky. "I'm serious." Finally, she slowly drug her chin back across her arm as she glared up into Not-Flynn's darker-than-black eyes. Another sense of object permanence; Flynn-style chastising she couldn't escape. Fragile continued to try to glare a hole into his head as he shifted his glass of whiskey from side to side.

"I didn't ask for this, and you know that," she said flatly before sitting back up. "I would love to dream about ponies or absolutely nothing yet here I am, and here are you." "You need to take some responsibility, Fragile." Flynn met her glare with one of his own, growling her name for emphasis but she only rolled her eyes in response. She didn't fear him, he should have known better at this point.

"Right, right." She brought the wall back up as she swung her legs out before hopping down from the stool. "Because I would definitely choose to dream about running through a building on fire in my bare-feet. My masochism knows no bounds." One of the faceless denizens of the diner grumbled as she passed by causing a disturbance with her raised tone. That... that was new. Flynn and Fragile locked eyes as she froze mid-stride, time fell out of its steady broken record loop as the jukebox distorted signaling Fragile's variance. Seconds passed back and forth, slowly the faceless settled back into its comfortable loop of reading the Hellsmouth Grapevine with a forgotten cold coffee on the tabletop. "You better watch yourself, girlie." Roland's rich accent rolled across the space, a balm to Fragile's nerves as she peeled her eyes away from Flynn who looked on the verge of a stroke. "You're too unstable to be making those kinds of waves, we talked about this you two." "You can thank not-Flynn's excellent insight into my dreamscape, and his sage advice." Fragile fell into a squat as her knees finally unlocked and she folded. "I thought this was a safe place." It would take a moment for her color to return, she didn't need a mirror to know that much. "He is right and you know it." Roland chuckled with a flash of gold fangs behind his lipstick-lined mouth. "Don't shoot the messenger, you'd do good to listen to him." "He is me." Roland and Flynn exchanged a look that didn't quite miss Fragile's notice. "What?" She narrowed her eyes as she reapproached the counter, her eyes assessing the situation between the two men. They both had excellent poker faces and she absolutely despised the fact. "I hate both of you I just need you to know that." Fragile flipped them both a bitter bird before turning on her heel. "Now I am too angry to wake up so fuck you both for that, this I blame you for." She heard Flynn scramble from his stool behind her but the bell of the diner door had already rung. In a sharp inhale, she was gone beyond the veil once again.

It'd felt like hours but finally Fragile escaped her dreamscape, head yanked back as her body convulsed away from her desk where she'd fallen asleep. Grey light crept from behind her black-out curtains as she greedily drank from one of several water bottles that littered her desk. He wasn't wrong, it was getting more difficult to wake up but not for the reasons he thought he knew. She was getting stronger, not weaker. It wasn't that she couldn't remember how to wake up, more that she didn't want to. She liked dreaming lately. Almost as if on cue, Alyss' unique ringtone loudly vibrated in her skull as her sister's picture glowed on her cell phone's screen. Hesitating, Fragile finally picked up after steeling herself. "Hi." "HI? Hi. Wow, okay so you completely forgot then." "Uh? I guess so... wait, wait let me try and remember." Silence, so Alyss wasn't completely pissed at her that was good she was probably with Cady or Remi. Then it hit her, she was supposed to pick her up from the airport at 2:00 PM, and it was 4:00 PM. "Shit." Fragile could hear a car-full of Remi and Cady laughing in the background. Face bright red, Fragile put her fist to her forehead as she sighed with disappointment and relief. "It's okay, Gilly. I love you, I'll be home around 7PM, okay?" Alyss soothed her, she was a saint and a half. "Make something delicious, please. Then I'll forgive you fully." "Done. I had my uh... nap." "Good, need anything?" "No, have fun. Tell the gays that I love them." Remi and Cady both chimed in then; "We love you too seeesteeeerr." This made Fragile smile. Ending the call, Fragile put the phone down on her desk as she stared at the same spot on the wall for fifteen minutes before she grabbed her disposable vape and filled her room with a small cloud. The tears were quiet ones as she self-medicated, slowly reminding herself that the dreams were not real. Those wounds were not real. The horors were not real. Not-Flynn and Roland were not real. "I'm in control."