café saturn (brewed with love)

chapter five: brown sugar

• chapter five •

mouse

possible allergies (tws) to this chapter (another heavy one, sorry): past child abuse in the forms of neglect and physical/verbal abuse (starts at "Because how could they even begin?" and ends at "Kaia's voice was like a blanket over their thoughts"), implied past transphobia and internalized past transphobia, mentions of gender dysphoria (starts at "And then there was the tension leading up to the story." and ends at "Particularly from themself."), dissociation and a dissociative panic attack (starts at "Kaia's voice was like a blanket over their thoughts" and ends at "'Want me to start up the Wii?'"). i'm sorry i know it's a lot <3 please lmk if i miss anything!

Shit.

Mouse leaned all their weight against their kitchen countertop, shoving their head in their hands, mentally running through all the curse words they knew at a concerningly fast rate.

Why did they get themself into situations? What was it about them that decided, "yeah, of course, I should do this thing that I absolutely do not want to do. I can totally make myself stress over nothing for the benefit of others. That seems like a wonderful idea"?

This time, it was Kaia. Kaia and her Creative Nonfiction assignment. Kaia who needed Mouse to pretend like they didn't hate every single shred of this town and their past in order to give her a good story.

You could always lie, a little voice in their head whispered. Come up with something pleasant and pass it off as reality. Knowing Kaia, she'd probably find a way to write a convincing story out of whatever bullshit they gave her.

But Drew would know.

And as much as they wished they could just make it all up, they could only picture Drew's disappointed face.

He was the only person they had never wanted to let down.

"Fuuuuuck," they groaned, pressing the palms of their hands into their eyes. "This is such bullshit."

Because they had never liked this town. "Home" had never been a place—not a house, not a street, not a little town in the middle of nowhere.

(Well, there had been that one night, barely a flicker in the timeline of Mouse's life, but that was personal. Like, really personal. Like, one of those life-changing moments that Mouse kept closely guarded in the chambers of their memory, one of the few things they never wanted to forget.)

And they couldn't tell Kaia about that. They were...friends? Was that the word for it? Acquaintances? And, yes, it would definitely help them get to know each other better, and it would save Mouse from all the struggles of trying to find a better story, but was it worth exposing so much of themself? All the most important people in Mouse's life—meaning Drew—already knew the story, and that was because he was there when it happened.

But it was a story.

And right now, that was the only thing they had going for them.

They sighed—maybe a little melodramatically—and slumped against the kitchen cabinet, sliding their back down the drawer with a screech of skin against polished wood. They curled their phone into one hand, pressing it against their chest.

They hated committing to things.

Mouse whispered another "Fuck, I hate this," to themself for good measure, and opened a text thread with Kaia. After spending an embarrassingly long time trying to craft an appropriate message, they pressed send and shut off their phone, refusing to look at it again.