Lovers POV
Crap crap crap crap crappity crap crap
Lover was in sooooooooooo much trouble, there was no way rep could ever find out that she had a crush on her it would be way too embarrassing and awkward and rep was more or less straight and even if she wasn't there was no way she would ever like lover and oh god this was so embarrassing wtf must rep think of her now with her head on her chest? Oh god oh god oh flipping false god
Lover sat bolt upright and shifted away from rep on the couch so much so that she was practically sitting on a snuffling 1989 who kept wiping her ocean blue eyes with the sleeves of her cardigan
Lover jumped up, muttering something about more popcorn when rep caught her arm and asked where she was going and completely ignored red when she asked if she could get a refill too and she all but sprinted out of the cinema
She ran to the kitchen fell backwards onto the wall where the girls had marked their heights and sank to the floor and started shaking
She had always had an idea that she wasn't completely straight but it had only just hit her that that meant she was going to have crushes on girls and suddenly everything felt all too real and a part of herself that she thought she was ok with suddenly felt alien to her. She knew it wasn't wrong, 1989 and midnights were some of her closest friends and she spent a lot of her time at gay pride parades, but she'd always been there as a supportive straight friend and now it occurred to her that maybe she'd had a crush on reputation for a long time, what would it mean for their friendship? And even scarier, what if reputation felt the same, what then? Should she try and find out? What if they started dating and ended up like 1989 and midnights. '9 couldn't stop sobbing and midnights hadn't even showed up to the movie night even though the devil wears prada was one of her all time favourites. What if rep and lovers breakup completely wrecked the dynamics in the house, lover liked it there she couldn't leave
But then maybe she was getting ahead of herself, there was no sense in crying over the implications of a breakup with a girlfriend she hadn't even confessed to yet, or even knew if she liked her back, which, now that lover was more grounded to reality, she realised was probably highly unlikely
Lover slowed her breathing rate right down and turned to stroke fionuala who had just come in from the heart shaped cat flap and was curled up at her side, lover tried to match her breathes with fio's and was comforted by the cat's soft purr and gentle warmth
Reps POV
Rep could feel fearless' eyes on her from the opposite sofa but she pointedly did not meet her friend's gaze, she knew it would be filled with questions over what rep had done to get lover to leave so fast but rep was still trying to figure that out herself
Her heart sank as she realised that maybe playing with lovers braids had been a step too far, maybe she'd crossed some kind of line in friendship, she couldn't help it, lovers pink tipped french braids were just too cute and the smaller girl was just so precious to rep and she had been so physically close to her that it was all rep could do to remember that she wasn't actually her girlfriend.
Maybe she'd made her affection too obvious and freaked lover out, maybe she'd realised that rep liked her as more than a friend and was so disgusted by it that she couldn't even look at her anymore
The idea of not even being friends with lover hurt rep even more than lover not knowing how she felt. Being so close to lover and not being able to confess had been a kind of sweet torture, living in the balance there was always the possibility that just maybe one day lover would reciprocate her feelings, but if they weren't even friends, if rep had to share a house with her but no longer be the one who made her laugh, or know all the lyrics of her favourite song of the week or be the only person to know the combination to the safe where lover kept her candy it would probably kill her
But then maybe it wasn't that at all, maybe lover had just felt sick, rep would never forgive herself if loved was throwing up or bleeding out or dying and she hadn't gone to check up on her because she was so selfish as to think that everything in lovers life revolved around her
So she got up and told red she would fill up her popcorn bucket for her and handed 1989 a fresh box of tissues and her blanket as she passed the sobbing girl who took them gratefully
She closed the door to the cinema room gently behind her and stated still for a minute so that she could listen to the voice of the girl she loved singing softly to her purring cat about video games and sleeping in tents
She stood silently in the doorway of the kitchen for a minute, lover didn't notice her, and then she broke the silence
'Hey, you ok?' Her voice was calm and caring but hearing it something hardened inside lover and she realised that she couldn't hurt this beautiful girl so she was going to have to distance herself
'Yeah I'm fine, go back and finish the movie'
'You're not fine love tell me what's wrong'
'No I'm fine and fio's fine and even if we weren't we wouldn't need your help so just get your popcorn and leave us alone. Please.'
No matter how in love rep was, being spoken to like that by someone she cared so much about cut her straight to the bone and instantly her walls went up
'Fine' she spat 'there's no need to be so rude, I only wanted to see if you were ok, but if little miss perfectly fine doesn't need me then that's fine, I'll go, you can have fun crying on the floor' she would have added that by shutting rep out, lover was hurting fio but she knew the idea of hurting her cat would destroy lover and regardless of how hurt she was, reputation was still in love
She spun on her heel and slammed the door of the kitchen behind her, she couldn't face going back into the cinema room and feeling fearless and folklores stares, so she went back upstairs, first she snuck into midnight's room, her friend was passed out on her bed in her pants and bra with an empty bottle of vodka in her hand.
Rep didn't even want to know how she had ended up like that so she snatched a bottle of red wine from midnights alcohol drawer and left
Her next stop was lovers room where she took a Polaroid of her and lover arm in arm at a festival last summer, their face paint matching, both of them bejeweled and smiling into the sunshine for debut's camera
She closed the door on the flamingo pink room she had loved to spend so much time in and went up one more flight of stairs to collapse into the monochrome world of her own bedroom, she poured wine into the only drinking vessel she had at hand, a cheap trophy cup she had won a year ago for skateboarding and lifted it in a mournful cheers to folklores smoky grey cat Betty, who had just skunk into reps room behind her
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Chosen Family🫶
FanfictionTaylor swifts albums as people who live together in a house Really just my retelling of their lives Lovertation 198nights Debtless
