We Used To Be

Chapter 8

A/N: I’m so lazy lmao I left this till last minute again. I’ve started getting my exam results back and they’re alright :) Sorry it was such a long wait until we got that many actual Chery Toni interactions but I was more interested in exploring Toni’s life at the start and setting the scene. I wanted to show (unlike the show) that Toni actually has a life outside of Cheryl and also I really wanted this to be a proper slow burn not just 2 chapters in and their dating - though I may have made this a bit too slow burny. I’ve realised this and when re-writing the plan I have incorporated a lot more choni so stay tuned! Also the Serpent named ‘young’ is actually canon but his name was never revealed. On the Archiverse Wiki page they call him ‘Young Serpent’ and I like to use canon characters but I used all the younger ones other than him so I didn’t really have a choice but just know that was the serpent I’m referring to. (I could have used Joaquin but he’s dead so I didn’t want to.) I’m literally so annoyed, I just realised I’m not going to reach 25k words this Chapter! Also I’m not sure if I used some exclusively British language in this so if I did sorry about that! I feel like there’s too much dialogue in this, sorry about that :/ I’m not great at storytelling - better at descriptive stuff. Also I’m really tired. Not me making this Chapter extra long so it would hit 25k words, we're officially halfway through folks!

Toni sat on her bed writing and rewriting a message to the one and only Cheryl Blossom. I mean Cheryl didn’t even tell her that Nana Rose was sick, was it even Toni’s place to ask? To be fair, Nana Rose was almost like a parent figure for a big part of Toni’s life and she did really care so it wasn’t completely out of the question. Toni sighed and went back to typing. 

Hey Cher, how are you?

No, too vague.

Cheryl is your Nana ok?

No, too forward.

Hey Cheryl I heard about your nana. Is everything ok? 

Yeah ok that could work. 

Toni slowly typed out the message, wanting to sound casual but not like she didn’t care and totally didn’t sit there hovering over the send button for five minutes straight. 

Cheryl Blossom: 

hey cheryl i heard about your nana

is everything ok?

Toni quickly pressed send and immediately took a sigh of relief and threw her phone across the room, she did not need to be so stressed she was just texting Cheryl: an old friend. Just an old friend. A friend. They used to text all the time. It wasn't a big deal. Totally not a big deal. Well that’s what Toni was trying to convince herself until her phone buzzed with the unique sound she had set Cheryl’s number years and years ago. It was her singing that god awful Cherry Bomb song in a British accent but it made her heart almost jumped out of her skin, memories of the sound coming back. She definitely hadn’t expected Cheryl to answer so quickly. 

hey tt 

Omg Toni had almost forgotten about that nickname. 

we’re doing ok, nana got a nasty bug
nothing major as far as we’re concerned 

oh ok thats good
im glad shes alright

Toni assumed that would be the end of the conversation, there wasn’t much to say - or so she thought. 

i assume you heard me and miranda at the store

yeah sorry i didnt mean to pry