Ship name: Adothy

I got ten toes down, I must be floating
My emotions like in and out, now I ain't got no feel
They talk a lot, talk a lot about us in a bad light
My heart is an angel, twisted and tangled

∞

"Hey hey Timmy-Tims," are the words that draw Tim out of his detective reverie. Bambi is coming towards him, to her seat beside his in their Macroeconomics class.

"Oh, hey," he responds, straightening up and hearing his back crack. Bambi gives him a disgusted look before she settles herself down, slipping her bag off of her shoulder.

"Didn't sleep again, huh? Have you had twenty-two coffees this morning as well?"

Tim groans, "Just the twenty. I was up all night-...studying."

"I tried, I tried. Every time I opened my textbook I just had to check all of my accounts as well. Then Adelaide's birthday present arrived in the mail and I spent about an hour trying to wrap it before I got my dad to do it," she laughs.

Oh, Tim thinks, that's right.

"Adelaide's birthday...right...when's that again?" Tim asks, sounding confused.

"October 25th, dork. Remember? We're going to have a Halloween party."

He barely manages to wrangle the memory to mind. It was a group lunch conversation. Neither he nor Adelaide were paying attention. He was trying to stay awake and she was trying to make it look like she was eating.

"Right."

Bambi frowns at him, just as the teacher walks in. The entire time Mr Ducane is speaking he can feel his partner's glance flick over to him several times. She's worried. She can see it.

"Amber, please pay attention," Ducane says. Bambi refocuses, but Tim can only imagine the plots she is building in her head.

Surely enough when they are given freedom to talk among themselves she springs questions onto Tim like a wild cat.

What did you do? What did she do? Are you two okay? Did you fight? Did you make up yet?

"We're fine, I'm just tired Bambi, really. We're fine, I promise," Tim says. He'd like to think he didn't have anything to prove to Bambi, but that would be a lie.

Despite her coldness and something wrong in her that only Tim seems to see, Bambi is very important to Adelaide. Furthermore, she's very important for Adelaide as well.

"Any ideas on what to get her?" Bambi asks, opening her laptop. Tim's not surprised she changes so quickly.

"I haven't really given it much thought. I'd rather get her something she needs than something she wants. You?" Tim responds.

Bambi excitedly spins around her macbook to present the image of a several pairs of rose-gold ballet slippers.

"I thought she could use them for her big dance performances! You know how lovely she looks in rose gold. I want to try and get her into some lighter colours."

Tim is reminded again that Bambi is important for Adelaide to have. Bambi doesn't look at her as a prim, perfect princess. Rather, she looks at her like her lame best friend.

"Good luck, her favourite colours consist of black, dark black, light black, dark blue and the occasional grey," Tim says. It was supposed to sound jokey-joke, but instead comes out more serious.

Bambi pretends to not notice.

Tim loves her. He does, he swears, he loves Adelaide.

The Adelaide that laughed and smiled and tried her best because it was fun, not because the end result had to be...perfect.

◊

◊

"No no, like this," Sofia Jackson says, looking at Adelaide in the mirror. Adelaide watches as her mother adjusts the braid on the side of her head.

"There, perfect," the Colombian woman says, admiring her daughter's practice-costume. Flawless Sugar Skull mask makeup, spiderweb lips, not a strand of hair out of place and a sleek, black skeleton suit.

"Mama, please go up to the top floor? My friends are here," Adelaide murmurs, not wanting anyone to think she needed her mom's help with anything. How awkward.

"Sorry," Sofia says lightly with a little shrug, and Adelaide can see how much she doesn't mean it. Heavy heels click clack out of the upstairs bathroom.

The fifteen-year-old turns her head slightly, observing her left eye and cheekbone, coated with intricate paint. The design is pretty and suits her, not a line un-matching to the sum of its parts.

Slowly, she faces the other way, looking at the paint on the right side. Violet eyes move over the pattern, observing every little detail...until she finds a mishap.

One of the deep, curving lines is a little too deep and a little too wide. The longer Adelaide stares at it the worse it seems to be. It grows, in her mind, widening until is takes up her entire cheek.

When she faces forward, everything is off balance.

The left side is perfect, but the right has such a large blemish that the entire thing is collapsing upon her.

All of the distress and the irritation at that one mistake builds in her heart, sending a loud thrumming in her ears that blocks out the sound of footsteps approaching the bathroom.

Her exfoliation sponge, rough-edged and round, is already under the running water. She hits her hand on the sharp edge of the water tap but doesn't even notice, too focused on getting rid of the mistake.

With one hand pulling her skin even more taught than it already is, the other starts viciously scrubbing over the mask, destroying the delicate lines that she, Bambi and her mother had worked so hard on downstairs.

It hurts, such a rough surface and a hard force against soft skin, flawless. 

Only when Tim's hand lurches out, gripping a dainty wrist with enough force to stop the vicious motions does she snap out of it.

Adelaide freezes, her breathing halting as well. The frantic action had knocked her hair out of place, curtaining her cheeks and only just hiding the wide-eyed expression on her face of fear and anguish.

It takes a total of 1.7 seconds for her to gain her composure, donning a cute smile and evening her breath out so that when she looks up at Tim, she seems as sane as possible.

"It was irritating my face. I think I'm allergic," she reasons, voice as calm as a clam.

Tim's eyes are still wide, his fingers are still curled around her arm and he still looks afraid.

"Adelaide..."

She pushes his hold away, trying to make it look playful. 

"I'm fine," her laugh is too high and too quick. 

{Rehab, we unstable // Love me from every angle}

Tim watches as she calmly, with shaking hands, ties her hair back up into a ponytail. She shakes her head gently, clears her throat, then reaches for the sponge again.

Just before she can touch it, Tim quickly beats her there, taking the exfoliator in hand.

"Look at me," he murmurs softly.  

For a second it seems like she may not. Her eyes shut and her head tips back for a moment, as if she were praying for Tim to just go away. Moments of tense silence pass, before slowly, Adelaide turns on her heels, shoulders slumped like a child, to face Tim.

Gently, the teen reaches up and brushes away the hairs that are in her eyes and sticking to the paint. The whole time, she stares at the wall behind him.

When lilac eyes finally flicker to Tim's form, he's gently pressing the sponge against her face, on the edge of the untouched paint.

"You shouldn't be so rough. Your skin is pretty delicate, you know?" He says, softly ebbing away at the art against her skin. Adelaide thinks of biting back with a silly remark. You're delicate, she wants to snap. Whilst a sting, it's pointless.

Tim very gently wipes away the paint layers one at a time. Where Adelaide abused her own skin is red, blotchy. It looks painful.

"You just have to be patient with it," he lies to her, hoping she's convinced that he hasn't realised what's going on in her head.

"I know," she murmurs.

Neither of them say anything as Tim gets to the bottom half of her face. He rinses the sponge, once, then returns to the same calm circling motion.

"It looked nice. Bambi worked hard," he makes it sound like an offhand comment, but it's a test. She doesn't show remorse for destroying her best friend's hard work.

For a moment, Adelaide actually looks mad. 

"There was a flaw," she says, and the fragility breaks Tim's heart.

The words 'nothing/nobody is perfect' nearly edge over the tip of his tongue. The teen keeps it in check though, moving down to her jaw line.

"Are you going to keep this look for your party?"

When she doesn't say anything, or make any motion, he realises that's the end of that. Of all the halloween talk. That is, until they get downstairs.

One last spot and he's done, stepping back to looking as his red-raw-faced girlfriend. There is a patch of violent scarlet over the place of her own handiwork but the rest of her face is its usual colour.

Tim watches as she reaches up without looking, grabs a white bottle and flips the cap open. She squeezes a dime-sized portion into her hand, turns to the mirror and gently applies it to her skin.

Moisturiser, Tim guesses.

He reaches around her and surprisingly she doesn't flinch. She lets him rinse and squeeze the sponge, before placing it in the small glass plate where it belongs.

Without a word he hands her the brush that lay on the floor, which she uses to fix her hair before retying it.

"Do you want everyone to leave?" He asks when she's done, turning to the mirror to flatten out the non-existent creases in her black top.

"Of course not," she says nonchalantly, back to her usual self, "having everyone here is the perfect afternoon.

When she says that, its almost in mocking. Tim hears it and feels the tone deep in his heart. A cold jab that is both a wake-up call and a knock out.

Now, she's just playing with him.

Her dainty hand takes his and leads him out of the bathroom and down the hallway. They end up back in the spotlight that shines on their charade of flawlessness.

Is this what they are now? She does her best to be perfect with the full knowledge that if she stuffs up Tim will be there to pick up the pieces?

It's an angry thought of his, that he manages to hide from their friends who are in the living room throwing feather boas and masks at each other.

Even when Brett jumps out dressed as Batman he's hardly phased, too busy staring at the back of his girlfriend's unsmiling head and wondering what in the world is going on in there?

∞
Tell me that you can when you're able
Shut me down when I'm fatal
I want you and I need you and I got you
And I'm gonna have you if I say so