Next century, what'd I tell ya?

I'm kinda running low on motivation here, so I'll keep the book up for the sake of the existing chapters, but I'll only be adding new ones when I'm really in the mood to write them. C'est la vie, lovely readers.

TW for something akin to the beginnings of a panic attack.

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~ Y/N's PoV ~

The last day of the Shakespeare festival was one of many deaths. Macduffs stabbing Macbeths, ever-tragic Romeos and Juliets weeping over one another, and even a very dedicated Horatio clinging to his (familiar, blonde, unsettling) dying prince among a smattering of other actors playing dead. Fluff and romance was for day one, and now it was time to bring in the tragedy.

I felt decidedly out of place.

My mask served to hide my flinch whenever I passed a scene that relied heavily on fake blood, though it didn't stop the color and animation from slowly seeping out of my vision.

"Hey!" called a familiar voice, snapping me out of my reverie.

I turned, grinning, to the blue-haired menace I had come to enjoy the presence of. She quirked the corner of her mouth up in what I had learned was an expression of genuine happiness.

"You're a long way from the forest," Coraline remarked, eyeing me curiously.

"There aren't people being stabbed or poisoned in the forest. What fun is that?"

She huffed a laugh and grabbed my hand, weaving her way past the small crowds of audience members and characters, headed toward the trailhead into the woods.

"Yeah, but a fairy doesn't belong in the city," she said, rolling her eyes like I was missing something obvious.

"Oh? Then tell me, dear maiden, where do I belong?"

She pulled me ahead to a clearing in the trees where the path widened, gesturing with her free arm to the general nature surrounding us.

"You belong here." Then, quieter, "With me."

Since I considered myself a decent person, and the quiet uncertainty on her face was more than I could handle, I gave her an easy smile.

"It's just as well. You're more fun than those tragedy junkies anyway."

I did not miss the dusting of pink that made its way across her cheeks. It made me feel inexplicably better, and for once, I didn't chide myself for it. I could get used to this.

Coraline laughed, another thing I allowed myself to enjoy. "You really think of the other characters that way?"

"Well," I mused, "my other characters are blundering idiots. It's a love story, so I suppose they have to be..." I heaved a very dramatic sigh and threw my arms in the air. "But come on! Just because all the humor in the play is based on misunderstandings and double-entandres does not mean that no one's allowed to have two brain cells to rub together!"

With another stage-worthy sigh, I flopped at the base of a tree and stretched a hand up at my audience. "Alas, tis not to be."

She wrinkled her nose in faux-disgust. "Actors are weird."

"Not half as weird as you, poison oak."

I realized my slip a second too late. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, looking dedicatedly at the ground.

Coraline did not move.

Slowly, I met her purple eyes. Slowly, I breathed out. Slowly, I began to hope I would not die in this forest at the hand of my unrequited crush.

Cru- wait, no, unpack that later.

"Y/N?"

I pulled off my mask and waved meekly. "Hi."

And then she shoved me onto the ground. What a charmer.

I did not stick around to hear any of her screeching after the initial "WHAT THE HECK, Y/N!" and scrambled to my feet. I bolted, mind reeling to give me a helpful internal dialogue of: she's found out, she hates me more, she'll never like me, I can't fix this- and so on.

I ran back into town, past the Macduffs and Macbeths, past the weeping Romeos and Juliets, past the Hamlet who gave me a knowing smile, and into the familiar safety of the Detriot Costume Emporium.

When the little gold bell on the door had quieted, my breath following suit, I slid down the door and rested my head on my knees.

A moment of silence. Then-

"Why, Y/N, what in the heck're you doin' inside? It's the last day, hun, go out and bawl your little actor heart out over a lover! Oh, your brother always said you'd go all the way to the big screen!"

Instead of brightening my mood, Mrs. D's presence only made me lift my head and glare. I indulged the bubble of anger growing in my chest. "My brother," I snarled, "is dead."

Mrs. D deflated, looking down at me with newly saddened eyes. "Hun, are you alright? You don't ever talk like that-"

"You can't tell me what I talk like!" I snapped, standing to point an accusing finger at her. "I talk in all kinds of ways, you don't know which is which! You don't know how I work! I'm not one of your husband's stupid crapshoots!"

I barely heard her appalled gasp over the pounding of my heart in my ears and the floorboards complaining under my feet as I fleed (again) upstairs. I slammed the door to my broom closet of a room and sat on the floor against my bed, finally letting the tears run down my face.

I jammed my earbuds into my ears to block out the static threatening to overwhelm me, picking a song at random and trying to calm my breathing.

As soon as the drums started for I Love Rock and Roll, I threw the whole bundle of cords across the room. Finally resorting to my least-dignified way of dealing with life, I laid down and rolled under my bed. It was dusty and cold but it felt safe.

Almost as safe as big brother's hugs, my brain supplied kindly.

Since I was already crying, I allowed myself to dive into the deep emotional well that housed my memories of my old home. I let myself remember talking with my brother's best friend Tony, and laughing with everyone's collective sibling Baby John, and doing stupid, semi-legal schemes with Ice and A-Rab and Action and Mouthpiece and Tiger and everyone I'd been trying too hard not to miss.

I replayed my mental recording of my brother's wonky grin, the way he'd say, "C'mere, Broadway," and ruffle my hair. "I ain't never gonna leave ya," he'd promise in our rare moments of sincere affection. "You's always gonna have me."

Then the tension in the air so thick I could've cut it with his switchblade, and that switchblade drawing shark blood, and my brother not moving from where he lay on the ground. Baby John crying, A-Rab seething, Ice keeping everyone cool, and then running off to Mrs. D and never looking back.

What a coward, said my brain.

"Shut up," I replied.

You left her in the forest just like you left him on the concrete.

"Shut up!"

It's time you faced the facts, Y/N.

"Shut up, shut up, shut UP!"

My legs failed out with my yell, and I heard something skid across the floor. My brain having heeded my warning and lost concentration from curiosity, I rolled out from under the bed and peeked over the foot.

I picked up the object. Yarn, canvas, buttons.

"...Hello, tiny me."

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I have a plan and it's- hooo boy, I'm excited.

So anyway, have an update. Quarantine, it would seem, has not improved my procrastination. Alas.