It's a little relaxing to not go running and just relax inside. The extra sleep helps— you'd even fallen asleep early last night, nearly collapsing atop Victoria's books when the codeine had fully kicked in. You do kind of miss the feeling of losing yourself in the motion, but taking a break from it for a few days isn't so bad.
You sip slowly at your coffee, moving over to where you'd left your phone on charge on the counter. Unfortunately, you only have the one power outlet in your room, and you need it for a desk lamp so you don't have to leave your bedroom light on all night. You don't like leaving your phone out where people can see it, but it's only Dad, so you should be fine. He won't violate your privacy by reading any of your texts, you're pretty sure.
Madison has sent you a text— a cheery "Good morning!!!! <3". There's a little box beside it, which you're pretty sure is meant to have one of those little pictures in it. Unfortunately, your phone isn't fancy enough to display them. You send her a text back— "Good morning, Madison
See you at school!"— and fire off one to Victoria as well— "Morning, Victoria! Hope you're having a good day!
". Your phone chimes quickly after that, another text from Madison showing a handful of little empty boxes in it. Damn. You'll have to ask her what she was sending you at school.
It takes Victoria a while longer to text you back— she's probably in the shower, or maybe heading to school— but when she does, your eyes narrow at the content of the text. "i am. u?"
You dart your fingers over your phone, trying your best to send a message back as quickly as you can while sipping at your coffee. "I'm not doing much. Just trying to figure out how to punish a girl who won't text me properly." Once you've finished sending the text, you reluctantly pull two pills out of the pill bottle and tuck the bottle away in your pocket afterwards.
Two pills and half a cup of coffee later, your phone buzzes again. "have u considered spanking her??"
And, well. Isn't that a pleasant image. If only. You tap out another response before heading to your room to get your schoolbag— "Somehow, I don't think that will have much effect."— and don't have time to look at your phone again until you're rushing out the frunt door, just as you hear the shower shut off. You glance down at your phone, noting the text Victoria has replied with.
"
"
You scowl down at it. Damn it, she shouldn't tease you just because she's got an invulnerable forcefield. Although, actually— come to think of it, how does her forcefield even work? She's clearly able to feel it when you fondle her, and she does seem to get hot and cold, so it's not like she can't feel anything, but she isn't hurt at all when people shoot her or try to stab her. Maybe she can control it? Honestly, you don't know. Damn. It's actually kind of a shame, because the idea of spanking someone that much stronger than you really appeals to you, too. Or, no. The idea of someone as strong as Victoria submitting to you to the extent that they will just lie down and take whatever punishment you dole out to them, that appeals to you.
And you really need to stop thinking about this now. The bus is approaching, and you don't want to work yourself up into a state before you even get to school. Normally, you prefer actually having one of your girls in your arms before you get yourself wet. But damn, that image is a really nice mental image.
Instead, you try to distract yourself.
Honestly, using your power on Monday hadn't affected you as badly as you'd kind of feared it might. Most of the time, when you use your power on someone like that, you can't help but come to care about them, at least a little— you're not sure it's possible to come to know someone intimately and not care about them at least a little. But using your power on that many people, so many times, that shallowly— you don't think you could pull any one particular person out, from memory.
No, what you'd felt was something more general than that. All you'd really been able to feel was the air of hopelessness, of frustration and low-burning despair, that runs through Winslow. It's not something you can ignore, not by any means, but it doesn't exactly fill you with a deep-seated desire to right any wrongs.
And maybe it makes you a bad person, but you're a little bit glad about that. It's exhausting to invest yourself in so many things. You're already trying to keep your own mood up, to make Madison as happy as she can get, to keep Sophia intrigued by you, to keep Victoria excited, to deal with Emma, to go to the clinic, to get up early enough to go to your job. All of it is voluntary, but at the same time, it's stuff you actually care about. Does it make you a bad person to not want to feel obligated to save Winslow?
Objectively, probably yes. You can't bring yourself to feel bad about it, though.
You can't pretend you want to turn a blind eye to it all, though. Which is a confusing feeling. You don't feel obligated to help Winslow, which makes you want to do something about it. Feelings are weird.
You pass time by thinking about the situation there, and very deliberately not about punishing a red-faced Victoria for her grammatical missteps. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to distract yourself from the topic, anyway.
Most of the roads in Brockton Bay aren't of very high quality— the town is a lot bigger than it seems, and there's a lot of roads in it. Over the years, few people have given it much thought— there are issues that are so much bigger, so much more important than the state of the roads around. The 'important' roads, the ones tourists travel down— so, mostly the Downtown roads, and those directly around the Leviathan memorial and leading from it— are consistently maintained, but the ones around your house pretty much only get repaired when the potholes get large enough to cause actual safety hazards.
The bus bounces as it heads to school. Ordinarily you just ignore it— you've had fifteen years to get used to the roads, after all— but it's harder when you already have a headache pounding away in your skull. Every time the bus dips and sways as its goes over a pothole, you have to close your eyes to fight back a soft throb of pain.
It feels a little odd to welcome the sight of Winslow, but as terrible as your school is, at least it's not a vehicle travelling on the streets of Brockton Bay.
Not that it's much better for your headache inside the school. The low but omnipresent sound of students chattering brings the pounding back to the forefront of your mind, and students jostling you in the halls is, unsurprisingly, even more unpleasant now. At least the sight of Madison standing by your locker, waiting for you, brings you some relief. There's no better cure for a headache than some time with your girls, in your opinion.
School on Wednesday passes by in a soft and frustrating mix of this constant soft pounding in your head and the warm, sweet presences of Madison and Sophia. It leaves you with mixed feelings when the bell rings after the last period for the day.
It wasn't a particularly productive Wednesday, unless you count huddling against Madison during lunch as being productive (which honestly it kind of is, if you squint really hard and ignore what the word 'productive' actually means), but you did at least get Sophia's number today. You feel kind of bad for forgetting on Monday and Tuesday, but you see her a lot less than you do Madison, and in your defence, you do have a headache. After you'd managed to wheedle Amy's number out of her— well, that's four numbers, now.
You're feeling kind of miserable by the time you eventually get home. Once you trudge inside, you move to the kitchen and turn the coffee maker on again, setting your bag down on the counter and taking the bottle of pills Amy had given you out so you can stare morosely at them. Honestly, do these do anything at all?
You feel a little better once you have some coffee in you, or maybe it's just that things aren't so noisy in here. Either way, you consider beating a retreat back to your room for a moment, then decide against it. Honestly, you're not really in the mood for studying or anything. You're pretty sure you could legitimately skip studying for the rest of the year and not miss anything— well, okay, that's maybe a bit arrogant, but you're months ahead of class. You can skip a day.
Instead, you head to your room and grab Victoria's books and a blanket, then head back out to the living room and switch the TV on. The volume is already low, since Dad tends to keep it low, but you turn it down a little lower as you climb on the couch beside Dad's armchair, arrange a cushion behind your head, and get to reading.
The books aren't... really the greatest, but they're not the worst, either. You can't say that you lose yourself in them, but it's not an unpleasant way to pass your time. And you can be pretty confident in saying that you think you prefer Victoria's taste in books to Madison's, anyway. Not that you're impinging on Madison's tastes, or anything— Victoria's just align with yours better.
You idly consider asking Amy for a recommendation. You've had a couple of talks with her about literature now, and she's proven to know a lot about the topic, more than even Victoria. Maybe she could recommend you something worth reading. And it'd give you extra teasing material, pretty much no matter what she picks.
At one point, you have to get up to turn the living room light on as the sky outside darkens, not long after you get home. The light from the TV isn't consistent enough for you to read with, and you're pretty sure that you shouldn't be straining your eyes anyway. You already need glasses. What are you going to do if you damage your eyes further?
Things go along pleasantly enough until Dad gets home, a little after six thirty. You absently note the sound of the front door opening and closing, then the sound of footsteps trudging through the house until they get to the living room, where they pause. You don't look up— you're fairly sure that if whoever it was had any malicious intent, your power would tell you, even if it makes your headache worse.
"Taylor?" He walks into the room, allowing you to see him without having to sit up. "Are you feeling okay?"
You half-shrug, buried in your cocoon of a blanket. "I'm fine, Dad." You meant that to sound persuasive, but it comes out more pathetic than anything. "Just a bit of a headache."
"You had a headache this morning too, didn't you? And yesterday." He moves close to the lounge and bends down to examine you. "Did it bother you during school?"
You shake your head. "No, it was fine," you lie. If you tell him yes, you're pretty sure you won't be going into school tomorrow— and as bad as your headache is, you do have things you need to do there. And besides, it's slowly getting better, so that's fine, isn't it? "I just didn't really feel up to studying after tutoring Madison today. It's pretty loud at school recently."
He nods slowly, giving you another worried look. "Okay," he says after a long moment. "But look, why don't you let me handle dinner tonight? I think I have some aspirin in my room, too-"
"I have some painkillers already." You cut him off, giving him a weak smile. "Amy gave me some stronger ones while I was at the clinic yesterday, but they're making me feel a little bit tired. You don't need to worry about it."
"I always need to worry when you're not feeling well, Taylor." He reaches forward with his hand, as though to ruffle your hair, but quickly reconsiders. Probably for the better. "You just get some rest. If the noise at school keeps being this bad, let me know and I'll go speak to the principal. Okay?"
You nod weakly. A part of you rebels, but you're too tired to try to argue with him at the moment. "Yeah, okay, Dad," you agree instead. "Thanks."
He smiles. "Any time, Taylor."
At some point after that, you must have drifted off, because you wake up the next day by unceremoniously falling off the couch onto your face. Ow. It's not the most pleasant way to start the day. It does help you figure out that your headache... had probably faded somewhat before you fell on your face, though, so there's that.
You sit up on your knees, pouting blearily at nothing in particular. At least nobody is around to see your undignified crash to the ground.
You're not sure how long you would have sat there feeling sorry for yourself if you didn't happen to catch a glimpse of a bowl of soup on the coffee table in front of you, a steel-handled spoon sticking out of it. Your stomach rumbles loudly at the sight, so you move over and try to take a bite, and— yeah, okay, you must have been asleep for a while, because this is stone cold.
As you pick it up and get up to head off towards the kitchen, you grab your cellphone in your other hand. The brightness of the screen illuminates your way as you make your way through the house at— huh, twenty to six in the morning. You're not sure what time you must have fallen asleep last night, but you feel refreshed. Probably before seven thirty, if Dad hadn't even finished cooking dinner. It's been a while since you slept for that long.
Some people complain about how loud hallways squeak at night, but nobody ever talks about how loud the buttons of a microwave sound as you press them. It's loud enough to make you wince, and you don't dare try to walk away as the bowl spins around within it. You pull it out a couple of seconds early so that it doesn't wake the whole neighbourhood up, then begin eating it.
Another lazy morning, then. You're not going to complain. You take your time getting ready for school— showering, getting your clothing together, and all that stuff.
By the time eight o'clock rolls around and it's about time for you to head off to school, your headache has started to fade again. It's still not gone, and it's still a distraction, but it's not so... so pressing, now. You're not sure if the codeine is actually helping, but you're also not sure it's not.
You've never had a headache this bad, and certainly not one caused by overextending a superpower. Do they always fade this slowly, or this this quickly for a headache this bad? You don't recall Dad's headaches ever lasting this long, but different causes might lead to different symptoms.
You do make sure to send Victoria an apology for not asking her to come over yesterday, though. You're disappointed that you couldn't, but there's no way you would have been a good host— and you're pretty sure that dropping a date with her boyfriend to come be your pillow would have been a bad idea, no matter how sweet you think the idea is.
