Who: Parvati and Michael Where: Michael's flat When: 3am Sunday morning after having a nightmare Saturday night What: Started as a post-nightmare narrative, and resulted in Vati going to Michael's for comfort Rating: High-ish (not graphic, but def adult) Status: Complete
Parvati had woken in the middle of the night from a nightmare, restless. Too restless to try sleeping again without potions, but she was out of dreamless sleep and she shouldn't take more pain potions for a few hours at least. She almost did, but... well. She'd been down that road. She knew how easy it was to take too much, especially when she barely cared if she did. But Parvati had come farther than that since her last "accidental" overdose. She knew she didn't want to die. She was just... angry. Or sad. Which meant she needed something to keep her occupied, and so she'd dragged her school trunk into her living room and started spreading its contents over her floor.
Most of Parvati's time lately had been spent working, drinking, or seeking distractions through the journals or her new friends. Sometimes it worked. People like Ronnie and Michael and Terry and hell, even Zach had entertained her on a number of occasions the last few days. But the last few times she'd opened her journal, she'd just found herself flipping back through the arguments she and Lavender had been having and wondering if Lavender might actually have meant what she'd said. She was done. Parvati was too twisted for her now.
In a way, it was satisfying. It felt like confirmation of some of Parvati's darker thoughts that she wasn't worth loving anymore. She'd effectively pushed away her best friend and her sister and her parents. What did that say about her? What kind of person could so easily alienate the people around her just by being herself? Parvati felt her chest tighten at her mind too easily populated itself with answers to that question, with words that described all the things that were wrong with her.
It was probably better, anyway. Lavender was a bit like Padma. Both of them were still hopeful and productive and kind, and someone like Parvati would just ruin them if they gave her the chance. Parvati got it. It was why she'd pushed Padma away so hard. Really, it would just be selfish to want for Lavender to keep putting up with her. Really, Vati had just been too weak and lonely to cut Lavender free before this.
But now, Vati had friends who didn't wish she was different all the time, who were bitter and broken themselves. That made it easier, Vati supposed, to lose one of the good things left in her life. Her oldest friend other than her sister.
So then, why was Parvati sitting on her living room floor in the middle of the night looking through her school trunk and feeling so bloody sick at every reminder that she didn't used to be this fucked up? The collection of notes she'd passed back and forth through classes with Lavender were covered in exclamation points and hearts and doodles, and Vati wished she could be that girl again. That girl had laughed a lot more, had smiled without sneering. That girl had parents who wanted her to be something, someone. That girl had people she could go to when she had nightmares.
Many of her nightmares (tonight's included), she couldn't quite tell if they came from the trauma of the past, from her own fucked up head in the present, or from a dark and tortured Sight of the future. That was her biggest fear, really. That Parvati would See her nightmares come true. She had visions, sometimes. Not too often unprovoked, when she wasn't trying to use her Sight, because the pain potions clouded her Sight some. But she still had them, sometimes, and that was a longstanding fear she couldn't rationalize away. She'd always had nightmares, even before the war. They were more vivid now, more detailed, more bloody, now, but she'd had them even as a child. Back then, before her injury had changed Parvati, Parvati used to sneak into Padma's bed at home, and sometimes Lavender's bed at school, and take comfort. She didn't have that now. She didn't have Lavender to distract her from her fears with silliness, or Padma to assuage them with first logic and then spells, if needed.
And it was needed. Tonight's nightmare had been... even just thinking about it enough to try and squash the memory of it sent Parvati's anxiety spiking, but she couldn't--wouldn't--go to Lavender or Padma. The school trunk wasn't enough of a distraction. Without really even thinking about it, barefoot and wearing only a black silk pyjama shirt and a pair of grey leggings with a hole in one knee, Parvati stepped out of her flat.
As soon as the door closed behind her, her mind started running through options. Theo was on this floor, but that was a terrible idea. Terry was a few doors up, but he was a dad and his kid might be there. Ronnie was down one floor, but she might have to work early. Michael was up one floor, and he had a break after his exams, didn't he? Parvati pressed the "up" button on the elevator.
***
When Parvati got to Michael's door, she knocked quietly but quickly so she didn't have time to change her mind. Her heart was still pounding fast in her throat and all she could think about was how he'd sat with her in the bathroom at that pool and rubbed her skin, scarred and all, until she'd calmed down. That was what she needed, and she just tried not to shake as she waited with haunted eyes to see if he would answer.
Impatient, feeling the crawling panic and fear all over her, she knocked again, just a little louder.