AnimeCon Harem 14: Life of Brian pt 3 (Patreon)

   Stephanie wanted to fold over, hugging her knees, and have a messy, sobbing breakdown.

   The guilt and frustration roiling off of Kelly was so heavy it might as well have been distorting the air between them, and the way Emily was trapped within the suffocating confines of anger on one side and fear on the other made Stephanie feel sick. There were her own feelings to contend with as well, and they simply weren’t anything she could handle. A headwind of disaster and despair were howling, and the pink flame within her was scarcely able to cling to existence at all.

   I’m, Stephanie choked on her own rising tears again. I’m in SO far over my head…

   As much as she hated to admit it, it was Chloe of all people enabling her to even hold on. Chloe—no, Christine—no longer cast a painful blitz of silver noise all around her. Instead it was a solemn silvery silence, where the extraneous emotions of the others were divided away from her and Stephanie was only able to focus inward, on how she felt about all of this.

   Wh-which still isn’t GREAT, Stephanie sniffled, wanting to let out a bitter laugh. But, it’s—it’s not as crushing. Not as overwhelming. I can… I can do this. Somehow. I don’t even know how. But I HAVE TO.

   Inside the radius of whatever mirror thing Christine was projecting, the panic attack that threatened to tear Stephanie apart was blunted, subdued. She was still anxious—God, was she anxious—but dealing with only her own grief and sorrow in these circumstances was… manageable. Stephanie hated that she didn’t have the strength to calm the boil of rage and freeze of fear Emily was caught between, and it was terrible that she wasn’t able to throw herself against the weight of regret and recrimination crushing down upon Kelly. They needed her help, she knew intimately how much they needed her strength right now, and it was horrifying to acknowledge that she simply wasn’t capable enough.

   Not without Brian, Stephanie wept into her arm. Without him I, I, I just CAN’T. I’m so… LOST.

   She knew she needed to think. They were counting on her to make decisions, considerations, to reach into this bewildering situational mess of MAGIC and PERSONAL LOSS and pull out enough pieces to cobble into a plan of action. Stephanie simply didn’t know if she could; not with the flame inside of her floundering and fluttering as if about to extinguish. Brian was hurt, and that was all she could think about. The other myriad issues she found herself completely numb to. Mind-control rapist creeps that might show up. An actual vampire. The spiralling kaleidoscope of hundreds, maybe thousands of other potential future groups of themselves, fighting back and forth to contest these very moments they were now experiencing.

   It was altogether too much to process.

   Stephanie spent almost fifteen minutes hunched over in a waiting room seat, cradling her head before she took a deep breath and stood up and walked over to rejoin the group. For a brief moment as Kelly and Emily looked up at her, the torrent of their broadcasting emotions was too much for her to bear—a gut punch, a knife twist, a careening disorienting mess of empathic motion like a car wreck. With a pang of shame, Stephanie stepped into the relative safety of the emotional dead spot that persisted around Christine.

   “Kelly, Emily,” Stephanie looked them each in the eyes. “You’re taking my debit card and booking a room at the Westerlin. It’s cheaper than the Sherriott, there should be lots of room openings now that AnimeCon is over, and—and I’m not accepting no for an answer. I-I don’t want you using the money Brian gave you. Save that.”

   “Well,” Kelly grit her teeth. “Okay.”

   “Kelly, after contacting whoever can heal for us—you’re going to bed, and then I want you to go to your job tomorrow,” Stephanie instructed. “The Dollarydoos shift you told us about, the shift you said you were um, going to bail on. I want you to go. Brian’s plan was that he would support you—we, we can’t go with that for now, and we’ll need income. Our um—us, our group will. Please go and show up at whatever work shifts you have, for however many days at the hotel you need, while you ask them and try to get transferred to that other store, over where Brian and Emily live.”

   “I… can do that,” Kelly said with a frown. “But—”

   “Let me finish, please,” Stephanie stopped her. “Emily? I need you to contact Brian’s work about what’s happened, like the officer said. If you can, I'd like you to stay with Kelly here in the city until Brian’s okay to leave the hospital. You, to um, to try to support each other. Through this.”

   “Got it,” Emily nodded. “Yeah, for sure.”

   “Christine—” Stephanie bowed her head.

   The silver-haired girl wore the face of the first person Stephanie had hated, truly, honestly hated, and it was difficult to reconcile that. Maybe it always would be. Even now just looking at her, some niggling voice in the back of Stephanie’s mind was outraged at the pure beautiful silver of Christine’s hair, because it felt unearned. Because Chloe despised all of them, and even if Chloe was some broken specter that—for now—was no longer haunting Christine, the fact of everything she had done, all of the efforts to ruin everything made it impossible for Stephanie to feel ambivalent. She simply was unable to forgive Christine right now.

   Which made all of this more difficult, because they couldn’t do this without her.

   “Please,” Stephanie croaked out. “There’s no one else we can turn to, you’re the only one that can help us. I need—we need—you to stay with Brian tonight, or however long it is, until… the bad guys show up. We need you to protect him, please. Please. And, and I guess—if you can, scare off the bad guys. If you can, if you’re able. Can you do that?”

   “I… guess?” Christine still managed to look bewildered. “You guys said you’ll help me not uh, not die and turn into some bloodsucking revenant?”

   “We will,” Stephanie promised.

   “Then—okay,” Christine shrugged, giving them a helpless look. “At this point—what else can I even do? Is it like I have a choice?”

   “I don’t like leaving her with him,” Emily scowled, crossing her arms. “Too much temptation, too much can go wrong.”

   “She’s going to protect him,” Stephanie was resolute. “We need her to, sh-she’s the only one who can, I think, and—and Emily if you’re ever going to trust her, I think there needs to be some chance like this for her to prove herself.”

   “I—I just, I can’t let anything happen to Brian,” Emily stammered. “Chloe—I mean, Christine, whatever—if anything happens to him. All bets are off. I won’t be held responsible for whatever I wind up doing. I’ll seriously, I’ll—I don’t know how, but I will kill you if anything happens to—”

   “Kelly?” Stephanie asked. “Do we know how long she has before her um, her compulsion to feed reaches dangerous levels?”

   “No, not a clue,” Kelly gave her a helpless wince. “For Rebecca, it was like, two days maybe, but also Chloe isn’t Rebecca. I think Rebecca has a lot more uh, resolve than—”

   “Not Chloe, Christine,” Stephanie corrected Kelly, turning to Christine. “Right? You’re Christine?”

   “I guess?” Christine gave them each an uncertain look. “Yeah.”

   “What do we do if she fucks this up,” Emily gesticulated towards Christine without looking at her. “What is there even left to do, if that happens?!”

   “That’s not going to happen,” Stephanie said. “But, even if it does—if it does, then you can be in charge and we’ll do everything we can to help fix everything.”

   “What are you going to be doing?” Kelly asked, staring at Stephanie.

   “I-I am going back to my university with Megan,” Stephanie choked up for a moment. “I have shifts at the library there, so, so I can help send more money if—”

   “I have money,” Christine said. “I have a lot of money. From when, I. I mean, Chloe was uh. She was lying to both Brian and my dad—both of them were paying for all of the bills there. My account’s basically, um, it’s pretty flush. And this is my fault, or a lot of this is, so—so, I can help pay for medical stuff, or hotel rooms or, or whatever is needed?”

   “Both of them were paying all of your bills?!” Emily seethed. “You mean like—”

   “I, well, I told my dad that Brian couldn’t find work, that we were struggling and couldn’t pay rent,” Christine grimaced. “So, my dad was sending money to help us cover everything. A lot of money. Except, Brian was working—Brian was already covering rent and then also my stuff—my phone and all my bills. So, ah—”

   “Fucking yeah, because of course he was!” Emily snarled. “You fucking piece of shi—”

   “Then, then please, if you can cover the Westerlin room for Kelly and Emily,” Stephanie interrupted. “If you’re willing to, that would be great. I’m still going back with Megan. I’m going to talk to my advisor, an-and either transfer my credits to the college nearby where Brian lives if I can, or if not I’ll just—I’ll drop out. Packing up my dorm either way. If there isn’t room living with Brian or if that’s not comfortable, I’ll, I’ll get an apartment as close as I can. I’ll find a new job.”

   “I… I don’t want you to go,” Kelly admitted in a small voice. “Stay with us?”

   “I don’t want to go,” Stephanie replied. “But, I do have to. I do. I’m—I am—I am having a mental breakdown. Like, like before—before with the, with right after I uh, I decked Chloe? I’m losing it, I’m sorry. I can’t. I really can’t deal with all of this, from all of you, all at once. Standing right, um when I stand right next to her, Christine’s thing, it makes everything quiet. So that it’s just me, and not—everyone. But, I—I—I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

   “So, her mirror power thing is a no-zone,” Emily glared at Christine. “That’s… useful. To know. We should probably keep Kelly way clear of her then, though. So Christine’s silver shit isn’t jamming the send transmission stuff or anything. In case a future us tries to send an emergency warning, or something. Interference. We uh, we are standing right next to a girl who’s turning into a vampire.”

   “Okay, I—I do understand,” Kelly nodded at Stephanie, eyes going wet. “I—yeah, I shouldn’t have ever asked that. Wasn’t fair of me.”

   “I’m sorry,” Stephanie burst into tears. “I’m so sorry—”

   “So then—I maybe have, what, days before I turn into some kind of deranged killer?” Christine asked with a dark chuckle. “Hours? What are we doing about that?! I, I—”

   “Kelly?” Stephanie prompted, wiping her face. “What—what can we do about Christine?”

   “Um,” Kelly swallowed and smeared her own tears across the back of her hand. “I have—well. Ideas. If she’s meeting the Masters in person, if she’s going to fend them off, we’ll basically have to… bluff? We can get her a change of clothes. All my stuff’s in the car. Emily, we’ll need your help thinking up… I don’t know, something. Stuff for her to say. I can do it, but I think—I think it needs to be a step up past my kind of bullshit and into your kind of bullshit. Anime bullshit.”

   “But we—why do we even have to bluff?” Emily blustered, crossing her arms. “If 'Christine' is all superhuman, and if her mirror thing is already anti-magic—”

   “Chloe can’t be there guarding forever,” Kelly shrugged. “She becomes a threat to Brian the longer her actual blood thing goes on. Not just to Brian—to everyone. The rest of us are super vulnerable if the Masters decide to start poking around, too. No matter what we even do, it’ll basically be a bluff.”

   “Okay,” Emily grit her teeth. “Fine.”

   “If Christine can spook them off, then I can give the all-clear to healer peoples,” Kelly said with finality. “So—so, that’s a plan. Then, we have Brian back. Steph, if you can… if you can hold on for however long that takes, Brian will be back and everything, most everything will be fixed. You don’t have to leave.”

   “I—” Stephanie wavered at the terrible temptation of that. “I can’t. I really can’t.”

   “You can’t?” Kelly looked crestfallen.

   “I’m sorry,” Stephanie shook her head. “I’m really, really sorry. I can’t. This is, all of this is messing me up. The good and the bad. Everything. I need some time, I’d already planned on, um, like I said before, I needed some space from everyone. From all of this. To figure out where I am exactly, what I feel, what—who I even am after this. Too much has happened. Th-this feels like months or years of life-altering events have happened for me, and it’s, it’s just been a single weekend! I love you, I love all of you, I know I do, I know that is not going to change, but I also don’t know who I am or what’s going on anymore, and I, I need to. To know, to um, to figure that out again. I need some time.”

   “Okay,” Kelly said in defeat, hardening her features. “Just. Can I, can we—like, can I still call you?”

   “Yes,” Stephanie blurted out. “Of course you can! Every day. Every night. Please—you have to. I’ll need to—I need you. I love you. I will need to hear your voice. And yours, Emily. Brian, as soon as he can. I’ll need to talk, I’ll need to see all of you, to video talk—I need a little space, not—not to cut everything off, not a huge amount of space. Not that much. I-I’m not explaining it well.”

   “Then,” Kelly bit her lip. “Okay. If Rebecca’s onboard, if things all go well—we’ll have Brian magically healed up, then we’ll fix Chloe. Christine. Whatever. So. This isn’t goodbye.”

   “Definitely not goodbye,” Stephanie tried to muster a smile. “I love you.”

   “I love you,” Kelly said. “I promise we’ll get all of this taken care of. I’ll go to my shitty job that I hate tomorrow. We’ll—we’ll get through this.”

   “Did I…” Stephanie trailed off. “Back then, at the convention—did I push too hard? Trying to set you up with Brian. I know it might just, it might be me just being paranoid, or, or worrying too much, but I feel like everything started going wrong, all at once, after—”

   “No, you were right,” Kelly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Stephanie. “You were right about me and him. I need him—I love him. It’s just hard for me to settle my mind around it and admit it. My me problems want to keep getting in the way. But, I do love him.”

   “You mean it?” Stephanie asked with another sniffle.

   “Yeah,” Kelly sighed. “It’s just—I can maybe—there’s these little tiny vulnerable parts of me that I hate, that I just can’t bear for anyone to see, so I thought—I thought. I don’t know what I thought. But, then he was there, and I—it was okay. He made everything okay. My whole being super reluctant was just, I don’t know. Me having this wound, this stupid childish scraped knee of old trauma bullshit, and just flinching back from him whenever he made his move to clean it up and band-aid it all over. When he was there with me, we connected, and—it made everything okay. Everything. I am in love with him, you were right.”

   “Okay,” Stephanie whispered in relief. “Emily?”

   “Yeah,” Emily grunted, stepping in to join their hug. “Yeah. S’gonna suck doing all this without you here, Pink. Sorry your charm power thing’s shitty sometimes.”

   “It’s—it’s mostly worth it,” Stephanie let out a laugh. “I’m sorry I don’t have a better handle on it yet. Next time we meet, I will. I promise.”

/// Lots of talking, still! Some may get cut for final draft, it's hard to tread the balance of "why aren't characters communicating about X when they should" and "why won't they shut up about X" for a well-paced read that doesn't feel off kilter.  Just happy to have running water and non-nightmare temperatures and be back to steady writing! I feel the stress melting off of me.