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English
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Rare Femslash Exchange 2022
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Published:
2023-02-18
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1,277
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
12
Kudos:
121
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6
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1,207

second garden

Summary:

Take revenge once, shame on the people who deserved it. Take revenge twice, shame on... The person who definitely deserved it, again.

Notes:

Happy RFSE!

Work Text:

The unspoken understanding goes like this: social hierarchy in high-school does not necessarily translate to college, and one has to try just as hard to get things going her way. That rings true in general, and it would’ve rung true if Drea wasn’t Drea freakin’ Torres. 

Her smiles are wide, her feet move fast, she speaks enough in class to be smart but not a nerd — a fine balance — and, most of all, she approaches people who she’s researched before. In keggers, in raves, in parties; it doesn’t matter. She’s going to be fun and studious and well-liked, and it is not up to anyone else to offer their opinion as to whether any of those can happen. Best of all, with Eleanor around, she gets to act herself. There’s simply nothing better than being a crazy bitch with someone who’s just as much of a crazy bitch.

“Okay,” Drea says, “turn around.”

Eleanor executes a pirouette. “How do I look?”

“Sleazy.” Drea grins. 

Eleanor lifts a shoulder, bats her eyelashes in as exaggerated a manner as she can. She's horrible, Drea thinks fondly.

Motor oil on a dark gray hoodie — light enough to show, dark enough to pass it as Eleanor simply not having noticed it as she was pulling it on — unironed sweatpants, the world’s ugliest scrubbed with charcoal Nike shoes, and Eleanor is off to the races. 

Drea presses the small capsule. One, two, three eye-drops, into her eyes they go. She slaps her own cheeks a few times, sets a timer for five minutes as she runs around her car, makes sure to create the perfect flush. “Okay,” she says, again, “now chase me.”

 

 

“Help,” she cries as she barges into the gas station. She has her hand on her face and focuses on blinking rapidly and sniffling, and she wishes she had a camera to record her own face, because damn if she isn’t good. Eat your heart out, theatre club.

David from Organic Chemistry who is also failing English Lit 101 runs to her, as expected. “Drea?”

Drea throws herself at him, breath short, quick. The eye-drop tears soak the fabric of his shirt, which, huh. It smells like lavender. “I think I’m being followed,” she whispers between an uneven rhythm of inhale-exhales.

He pats her back comfortingly, if awkwardly. “By who?” Drea shakes her head. “Drea?” He tries again.

“I don’t know, but I recognise her,” she says. “I think it’s a her. She was— Oh my God.” She gasps, fingers twisting in their tight grip. “I know where I know her from. She’s in the musical troupe.” Another gasp, followed by a sniffle. “My club took over the room they were using. But how could this be? We work on important topics— We’re raising awareness on mental illness—”

David looks uncomfortable but willing to console as he nods along. Drea gasps. “That’s her,” she whispers to David, remembers to add another sniffle. “Her family knows half the professors, she’s threatening to have me fail my classes— Oh, David.” She sobs. “My scholarship!”

The door opens right as she says that, Eleanor’s hooded figure walking in. Perfect timing: David is starting to look mildly angry, fancying himself a fighter for the underdog. Eleanor moves lazily, confidently, shoulders squared back to show off her full height. Revenge mommy taught you well. Drea’s inner voice is all smiles. Drea remembers to gasp one last time over her shoulder as she turns to run for the storage room, pocket three bills of twenty heavier. Thank you, dear David, for carrying cash.

 

 

That is the first time.

Drea does not hear what she tells him. She does not come oversee Eleanor the next three times she does her visits — and isn’t that the greatest show of trust? 

When she peeks, the fourth time, Eleanor is leaning on the counter, waving a fry excitedly at David’s face. “—So, as you can see, the future of this troupe is very important to the school. We’re allied with the el-jibbity” —she’s stretching out every one of the letters of that acronym, like she has no idea what kind of club it is that she's talking about. Too on the nose, Eleanor— “people. That’s what they’re called, right?”  He’s nodding frantically, then shaking his head as she grabs another one. “It is a very important cause, Drew. No, shush,” she tells him when he tries to interrupt, shoves the Big Mac in his mouth, “Eat this. No, nope. Let me talk. I care very deeply for this.”

 

 

“I think he finally thinks I’m crazy,” Eleanor says, later, kissing her cheek with lips chapped from the cold.

“Good!” Drea grins, equally cold from her evening run. Then frowns. “Do you think we’re discouraging acts of goodwill?”

“Do you care?”

“Well,” Drea starts. “No.”

“Why did I have to be the crazy one, anyway? I can’t always be the inside man.”

“The optics, Eleanor. Think of the optics.” A beat of silence. “And the lack of consequences for you. Also, you’re taller, and blonde. You pull off Regina George.”

“Huh.” Eleanor drops herself on the bed. “I have Reginenergy?”

“That does not work as well as Glennergy did.” When Eleanor doesn’t reply, Drea climbs over her. “Hey, look. Just ride the freeway of being hot and crazy, baby. You’re doing it for me!”

Eleanor pulls the sleeves of Drea’s track jacket up towards her elbows, traces patterns on the inside of her forearms. "Yeah.”

 

 

She catches Eleanor stapling heart cutouts to a piece of printer paper. Eleanor catches her gaze and grins. “Obsession letter. Like a love letter, but better.” That is the seventh time, Drea thinks, but she trusts Eleanor to convince him she’s got a screw or two loose the way she convinced her she’d been harmless, so she’s not really counting. Around the eleventh time, they get up at five A.M. to paint Eleanor’s toe prints right outside the door, complete with glints of dirt from the asphalt.

 

 

Eleanor is waiting on the hallway by the showers on Monday, leaning against the wall, wearing the outfit Drea had picked for her in the morning — button up shirt adorned with a tiny floral pattern, skirt multi-layered but thin enough to capture each flash of light through it — instead of what Drea has dubbed in her head as her crunchy incel gear.

“Hey.” Drea greets. “Something wrong?”

“I want to peel his skin like a banana.”

Well, nice deadpan voice. Drea almost asks, Who? Before— Ohhhh. “You’re not serious.”

Eleanor laughs. “No, I’m not fucking serious.”

Drea thinks there’s an eerie sense of déjà vu in the atmosphere. She crosses her arms. “Why?”

“No reason, actually. It just stopped being fun. I think we accomplished our goal long ago. Except,” she says, pauses. Drea listens to her steady breathing, stiff, waiting. “Except,” Eleanor starts again, slowly, “I do not know our goal.”

Drea blinks. “To be certain he’s never going to approach me, ever again. Because I’m surrounded by crazy people intent on revenge.” Obviously. Keep up, Eleanor.

“Sure, but, what did he do?”

She uncrosses her arms. “The worst possible thing,” Drea tells her. “He stole not one, not two, but three fries from my comfort meal. Three. Fries.”

Eleanor looks contemplative for about a second, like she’s assessing the final slope. “He deserved worse than Regina George,” she says, finally. 

You’re perfect, Drea thinks, just about ready to eat Eleanor’s face. She doesn’t say it, but Eleanor probably understands anyway. Maybe she’ll write ‘petty revenge partners 4 life’ in sharpie in a public bathroom stall, complete with a heart around it, just to let it out.