All The Colors In One | FILLIE

nine - kind gesture

song - When It Don't Come Easy by Sleeping At Last

~"But if you break down
I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I'll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don't come easy"~

She had been stared at her for years, always feeling the curious and sympathetic eyes of her family and friends on her back. The hallways were filled with whispers as soon as she had set foot in the school, looks thrown her way that made Finn tense up beside her. After experiencing it for so long, she would have expected to be used to it by now. But she still felt like a freak show, never prepared for the feelings that made her skin crawl as others watched her nervously. It was almost like they expected her to scream and cry on demand, as if she was made out shattered glass that threatened to break. After being treated like she was broken for so long, she couldn't stop the sudden instincts that convinced her to push everyone around her away, to prove that she didn't need to depend on those around her. Perhaps that is what drove her to pushing Finn away more than anyone else, the boy that looked at her as if he wanted to sew together the ripped seams in her soul. He wanted to coat her in his sunshine so that she wasn't left out in the shade, but part of her tried so hard to dim his inner light. Maybe she just wanted to convince herself that she didn't need saving. 

Finn couldn't stop the clench in his jaw as they walked down the hallways, people staring as if Millie was in a museum. He wanted to snap at them, to remind them that she wasn't an object stuck in a viewing gallery, that she was a person. Instead he gritted his teeth and huffed under his breath, warning them to mind their own business with his sharp glare. Millie noticed his stiff posture, looking down involuntarily as if she could sink down into the floor, away from the prying eyes that she couldn't even see. 

"Don't get angry" she mumbled under her breath. 

Finn blew out a ragged breath. "They should stop staring, you aren't some fucking museum exhibit. People have no consideration, for fucks sake."

"Finn" she warned, "it's fine."

"You never hesitate to snap at me, to tell me that I should stop feeling sorry for you" he sent her a cold look, "why don't you ever have the guts to speak up to strangers?"

"What would it do, Finn?" she paused for a moment, raising her eyebrows. 

He looked at the floor stubbornly. 

"You know exactly what it would do" she taunted. "Nothing."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"Millie, for fucks sake-"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes. "God, I hate you."

"No, you don't" she almost smiled for a moment. 

There was something that scared her underneath everything, the idea that she was getting too comfortable around him. He had seen her reduced to tears, shaking on the floor as if the entire world was collapsing around her and trapping her inside. He had taken every ounce of verbal abuse that she had spat at him, wincing at her words but hardly arguing in return. Sometimes the silence between them felt like more than just silence, it almost felt like some kind of understanding. The notion that they did not always need words to explain how they were feeling, as if she could sigh under her breath and Finn would just get it. He was always willing to stick around and she got the impression that it was not because he had pledged to help her. He had always been given the option to leave, to give up on her when she tricked him, to run far away from the spiteful girl that he had been introduced to. Maybe some part of her was scared because she didn't understand why he wanted to stay.