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rorykillmore · 6 years

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okay i wanted to sneak in before dinner and post this next gift for @larkspear in case they needed something nice after getting back for the movies. they requested some post-denny au stuff for heather and veronica and i was tHRILLED bc post-denny aus are some of my favorite things to do (as evidenced by the fact that i tend to go on and on about them whenever i get the chance to write them). we’ve talked before about the cast going back to madeline’s world with her so that’s what i went with. DOUBLE the discourse.

so spear, i hope you’re having a great christmas because you more than deserve it. i know you’ve had a lot to work through this year and i’m glad you’ve had the space to get support and validation, and equally grateful that you’ve given those things to me whenever i’ve needed them. i feel like i can talk to you about p. much anything without worrying about being judged and like i was saying to jay... that’s pretty rare for me, and you really have become one of my best friends over this past year (thank GOD for homecoming!). anyway thank you so much for the memestreams and entertaining dctv liveblogs and wonderful rp dynamics -- and just being such a considerate and giving friend in general. nighttrap has done a lot to put me in a bit of a healthier place this year and i’ll always be grateful to you guys.

“If we’re tagging along with you guys while you fucking elope, we’d better be going somewhere nice.”

In all actuality, Heather is a bit less sure of this ‘let’s just say fuck everything and hop through a rift to another world’ idea than she pretends to be. It’s easy to act confident, angrily confident because what the fuck do they owe their world anyway, where Heather herself is dead and Veronica is dogged by maybe-not-so-metaphorical ghosts and all anyone’s ever done is screw them over, anyway.

Still. She’s not entirely sure how many times anyone has actually done anything like this before. It might be against some kind of weird, unspoken rifter code (but fuck that, too).

She tries not to be a little surprised when they mention their plan to the other Heathers, and Duke and McNamara decide they actually want to come along. Maybe Mac she can understand -- but somehow, even after all this time, she wasn’t expecting Duke to hate the idea of going back to Westerburg so vehemently.

They’ve all lost a lot, Heather supposes.

It’s just over a month ‘til graduation, so they all agree to wait until after then to try. Maybe it’s symbolic, or some shit. Mostly, it means that wherever they end up, they don’t have to do high school all over again.

“You think we should try Madeline’s world?” Heather muses dubiously when Veronica makes her suggestion.

Veronica shrugs, focusing on her locker -- they’re in the midst of end-of-the-year clean out. “Seems like our best bet. I mean, we know people there, and at least it sounds... relatively normal.”

She’s got a point, but Heather decides to be obnoxious just for the sake of it. She scrunches up her nose. “But what if everyone there’s... like her?”

Veronica nudges her pointedly for her trouble, and she tries not to laugh.

“Isn’t she from California?” Behind them, Heather Duke is practically audibly rolling her eyes. “If we’re tagging along with you guys while you fucking elope, we’d better be going somewhere nice.”

Heather resists the urge to snipe back at her for the ‘eloping’ jab. She hates that it’s actually kind of funny.

“Is it okay if I ask Rachel to come with us?” Heather Mac asks, a bit apprehensively. “She -- I don’t think she has anything very nice to go home to.”

Heather glances at Veronica, who nods carefully and says, “Okay, but don’t tell anyone else about this. Madeline says her friend can probably help us with all the... legal documentation and stuff, but the more people we bring through to literally show up out of thin air, the harder it’s gonna be.”

“I can’t believe we need someone to fake papers for us.” Heather turns to the others, smirking, as Veronica shuts her locker. “This is so illegal.”

“Unless Madeline’s world is a lot weirder than we’re assuming, I kind of doubt there’s any specific law against hopping through a rift and pretending we’ve lived there all our lives...” Veronica points out, but it’s a lost cause -- McNamara looks vaguely worried, and Duke is already snickering. Heather rolls her eyes, but can’t help but smile as she takes Veronica by the hand and starts for the exit.

They’ll never have to see Clairbourne again. It’s a relief, and just a little bit sad.

Monterey is definitely a different scene than Sherwood and Beacon Heights both. If anything, it’s more Heather’s scene -- more chic, less cutesy, and there’s something about the air that she likes. She’s always loved the ocean, but she’s never lived near one her entire life (Ohio’s just about as far away from that as you can get).

On the surface, it’s not all that different from the last world they were in, in that it’s basically the same time period and geography. There’s just... less weird shit. Heather’s hardly going to miss the rifts or the fucking clowns in the slightest, but some of the other stuff? Seeing Finley and Casimir every day on their way to school, hearing about Ratchet’s latest superhero bullshit on the news, the underclassmen friends she made at Clairbourne? Maybe.

Still, the moment they arrive, that worry she knows has been weighing them all down - the ‘one of us could get pulled back to our world at any moment, and not all of us would survive that’ one - is gone. That alone, Heather thinks, makes all of this worthwhile.

“Celeste would probably think I’m completely nuts if she hadn’t been in that other world too, for a little while,” Madeline mutters to them when she returns to where she left them at a little cafe near the beach. Heather kind of thinks Madeline’s nuts anyway, but for once she bites her tongue. “But it’s all arranged. You’re college students studying abroad, or -- you will be in the fall. We just need to work out where you’re staying.”

It makes sense to have Veronica stay with Madeline, since they’re already close. Heather might’ve preferred to be nearby - she’s so used to rooming with Veronica at this point, after all - but Madeline’s house, while big, is hectic enough on its own with her own teenage daughter spending half her time there (and a younger daughter and husband to boot).

So Heather goes with one of Madeline’s best friends, Celeste. It’s a logical fit because Celeste is an attorney, and Heather is planning on going to school for pre-law.

Logical it might be, but the arrangement doesn’t make sense to her in so many other ways.

Celeste lives alone with two little boys who are energetic and mischievous enough to drive Heather up a wall if she spends too much time around them. Her husband, apparently, died pretty recently -- it’s got the whole community shaken up, and Heather doesn’t like to ask many questions about it. By now she knows a sensitive subject when she sees one.

Especially since there are certain things about Celeste that remind her of -- well.

They bond, eventually. It just takes a little while -- until Heather decides that Celeste is soft but... steely in a way not many people would probably recognize.

Just like Madeline and Celeste, Veronica and Heather see each other often -- which is good, because now Veronica is not only Heather’s best friend, but someone she’s supposed to be figuring out a dating life with (still feels like a minefield, at times, but a minefield that’s worth every tentative step). Veronica seems... like she’s happy where she is. Or -- like she could be, one day. She helps out at Madeline’s community theater and bonds with Abigail and Chloe, and more and more these days, Heather thinks she’s starting to look less overshadowed.

Mac ends up with Madeline and Celeste’s third best friend, Jane, which is an arrangement Heather herself is dubious of at first (because Jane is what -- six or seven years older than them, at most, in spite of the fact that she has a little boy the same age as Chloe and the twins). But they seem to get along. Jane is chill enough to temper some of McNamara’s... McNamara-ness, and the relative simplicity of their day to day life seems to be something she takes to pretty well.

Duke’s staying with... well, actually, Heather’s not sure what anybody around here considers Renata Klein besides ‘an actual force of nature’. ‘Friend’ is probably accurate for all that she seems fiercely loyal to the others, in spite of how often her and Madeline seem to clash. In some ways, Heather can kind of see the similarities between her and Duke -- and she begrudgingly means that as a compliment. Still, sometimes too many similarities aren’t a good thing.

She’s wrong about that, too. If anything, they only make each other more unstoppable, and Amabella gets a kind of foster big sister who no bully of any age wants to mess with.

Rachel and Bonnie are basically the same artsy, serene person, as far as Heather can tell, so it makes sense that they end up together. Both effectively separated from The Discourse (as she and Veronica privately like to call it). Heather would envy her, except she herself has taken to this whole new life a little too well (and when has she ever gone out of her way to avoid conflict?).

It feels nice, on the days she allows it to. Instead of a clique, layered with power plays and subtle sabotage, they fall into sort of mirroring the circular structure of Madeline and her friends. Bound by -- well, what they’ve all been through, or whatever. Something stronger than Heather can put into words, even if she’d admit to it.

Maybe this, she thinks, is something she can trust to last.

“So, Renata’s organizing a fundraiser,” Madeline gripes one day while they’re out at the beach. They spend a lot of time there, these days -- all of them do, in varying combos, though today it’s just her, Celeste, Heather, Veronica, and Chloe and the twins.

Celeste lowers her sunglasses a fraction, so that her interest in Madeline’s gossip almost seems polite. It’s a skill that might be useful to learn, Heather thinks. “Another one?”

“Well, I don’t think anyone wants a repeat of -- last year.” Madeline finishes the statement kind of awkwardly, and Heather can’t help but exchange a brief glance with Veronica. The infamous Trivia Night. They both know Celeste’s husband died there, which is touchy enough by itself, but since it isn’t exactly the kind of thing either of them want to ask the women involved about, they have to rely on rumors instead.

And some of those rumors are wild.

“They’re talking about holding it on the beach, actually. Some kind of cookout thing?” Madeline continues. “And -- a talent show.”

“Oh dear.” Celeste sounds amused and doesn’t bother to match Madeline’s scandalized whisper. Until she sees the way Madeline’s looking at her. “ -- You don’t mean -- we don’t have to participate, do we?”

Heather sits bolt upright from where she’s sunning herself. She watches Veronica’s half-smile drop.

“Well, I don’t see how we can get out of it. We’re her friends, how is it going to look if we don’t back her?”

“Hold on a hot second,” Heather can’t help cutting in. “Do we have to participate?”

Madeline pauses, blinking at her. “-- Oh, no. Of course not!” She smiles in a way Heather doesn’t entirely trust. “Well, I mean...”

“What?” Veronica asks suspiciously.

“It’s just, since Renata’s running the whole thing, I’m sure Heather’s going to be involved. Heather Duke, that is. I thought you girls might enjoy some... friendly competition.”

She’s definitely looking directly at Heather, now, and Heather feels her own eyes narrow. She and Duke are friends now - better friends than they ever were back at Westerburg - but hell if she doesn’t feel that familiar, unshakable urge to be the best rising up in her again. She hates that Madeline is right.

Veronica seems to have come to the same conclusion, because right at that moment she grabs Heather by the wrist. “We’ll think about it!” she says, rising and half-pulling Heather up with her. “Wanna go for a walk, Heather?”

“What?” It’s so abrupt that Heather doesn’t quite register the meaningful look Veronica is giving her at first -- she’s too busy griping about being tugged around, and brushing the sand off her. Then she clears her throat. “Uh -- I guess. Whatever. We’ll be back.”

Madeline and Celeste nod understandingly, though they don’t seem particularly fooled -- but Heather’s happy to ignore that for the moment as she trudges past the kids (in the midst of building a very lopsided sandcastle) and after Veronica.

“Did you seriously just do that?” she demands once they’re far enough away from the others.

Veronica gives her an innocent look. “Do what?”

“Run an -- intervention before I could agree to the talent show thing!”

“Heather, that’s not what running an intervention is.”

“Whatever. You intervened.”

“Well... you were gonna sign up for a talent show just to one up Duke.” Veronica sideglances her with the very specific purpose of giving her a Look. Which is totally unfair, Heather reasons, because Veronica doesn’t know for a fact that --

“Holy shit.” Reason finally catches up to her thoughts. “You’re right. You saved my life.”

Veronica looks almost smug now. “Thaaat’s more like it.”

Heather could give her a nudge or kick some sand at her for that, but instead she takes the much more underhanded route of sidling up close and linking their arms. Veronica tries to roll her eyes, but she softens just a little.

The perfect time for Heather to push her luck.

“So that’s a ‘no’ to the Jingle Bell Rock number I was already choreographing in my head.”

Just as planned, Veronica fails to stifle a laugh. “It’s fucking spring.”

“And?” Heather asks. “Are you telling me these people wouldn’t appreciate the Mean Girls reference regardless?”

They’ve both seen enough of modern high schools, by now, to get Heather’s point across. Veronica sucks the inside of her cheek briefly. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

“No, you can’t.” Heather leans into her a little. “Especially since you’d look damn good in red.”

She doesn’t even try to hide the fact that she thinks her own joke (well, half-joke) is funny, which makes Veronica roll her eyes -- but she’s also blushing a little. She looks away, and at first Heather thinks she’s pretending to ignore her, but then she notices that Veronica’s gaze has drifted out to the ocean.

“I’m... glad we decided to come here,” she says suddenly, and just like that, the situation’s a whole lot less funny. Heather slows up a little.

“It was a good idea,” she admits, feeling as though she should say something more. Veronica, unfortunately, has a talent for making her uncharacteristically sappy, but that doesn’t mean she’s always good at saying sappy things. “...I’m glad you don’t ever have to go back home.”

The same goes for Duke and McNamara, really. Heather knows - or at least thinks - that they’d all be okay in the end. But she also knows there are some things people are better off not going back to.

“Yeah. Well,” Veronica says after a moment of silence, turning back to her. Heather loses track of whatever she was going to say at the affectionate, suddenly vulnerable way she looks at her. She thinks she knows what Veronica’s going to say before she says it. “This is home, now.”

And it is.

#fic #larkspear #christmas gifts #honestly big little lies/heathers was the disastrous combination that was meant to be #this is full of a lot of like... worldbuilding? au building #so i hope that worked

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