Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I woke up slowly. Very, very slowly. The bright lights should have helped, but they just seemed to make the process more painful.

I vaguely noted a beeping coming from my left and quieted chatter and white noise to my right. My whole body felt heavy and warm, despite the very light and blanket above me. I had so many dull and aching yet sharp areas that went from skin deep to muscle deep. Moving not only seemed exhausting, but also painful. My head ached horribly and thoughts seemed to go by as quickly as a sloth could run, yet I still had difficulty noticing and identifying them as my own and not some strange spell placed on me.

I opened my eyes only to squint again at the bright lights that only intensified my migraine.

“Oh my god,” a deep voice said that was so familiar, it was annoying that I couldn't remember who it belonged to, “she's awake.”

The room around me tipped like a spinning see-saw and I was in the center. My eyes crossed in an effort to focus on the blank white wall and my stomach flipped as bile formed in my throat. The vertigo passed, leaving me just as dazed and confused as before but less tired.

I momentarily thought about turning my head to the side to see who was with me, but decided otherwise as it would use too much energy and I knew I would find out who he was anyway. Just trudging through my thoughts was exhausting, I highly doubted that my muscles worked very well.

“I'm going to call a nurse,” another familiar voice said, only this time, it was a high pitched girl’s voice. She reached over me, revealing black hair but nothing else as it veiled her face from my view. She grabbed something and a clicking sound was made before she retreated back to my left.

It was only at this moment that I actually processed that I was in the hospital. Panic struck me as fast as my lethargic body could allow. I suddenly became antsy as I tried to remember the last thing that happened,but all I could remember was going to sleep in my own bed after a normal day. Did someone kidnap me and do something with my body? Did something happen that night where I attempted suicide again and don't remember it? They thought I was doing so much better. Tears gathered in my eyes and I trembled slightly. Vertigo washed over me like a wave, but struck less intense as last time. I didn't have the energy to hold back tears and a single dribble of water made its way to pool under my eyelid.

“Hey… honey,” the girl said as if she were trying to console me, though she sounded spooked, “you're going to be alright.” The words were shallow and meant nothing but still made me feel more safe and warm.

When I looked over to the woman and her face was even more familiar than her voice, but my lethargic brain annoyingly still couldn't place who she was. Her round face coated in a layer of makeup done by a person who obviously knew her stuff. I had a feeling that I knew her through indirectly, I just couldn't place who she was. The inconvenience only increases my antsiness and created a clawing feeling in my chest.

Someone knocked on the door, tearing me away from my thoughts, and a woman walked in and stood directly in front of me so I could see her. Through my half lidded, cloudy eyes, I could tell that she was a Latino woman with beautiful long, dark hair. “Hello,” she said, “I'm Mia, your nurse for today.” She paused waiting for a response.

My jaw was heavy and my tongue felt foreign in my mouth, but I managed to croak out a “hi.”

She smiled and asked, “how are you feeling?”

“V’ry w’rm,” my words slurred together despite all my energy going towards moving my tongue, “I‘ve hea’ache.”

“Well I'm glad to hear you're warm,” she generated a pill from behind her clipboard, “I was kind of expecting the headache so I brought you a Tylenol.”

I tried to pull my hands up, but found the blanket was in the way. The blanket, as I believed it was, wasn't really a blanket. It was a big, plastic blow-up floatie over a sheet. Maneuvering my arm to get the pill, I found out that the big floatie-looking thing was the source of my warmth and retreated my hand and whined like a child, “too cold.” This time, it was easier to speak.

She chuckled and grabbed a plastic cup with a bendy straw in the side of it and brought the Tylenol closer to me. I pulled my arm out just far enough out to grab the Tylenol and popped it in my mouth quickly, so I could bring my arms back into the warm oasis. I took a quick sip from the straw hovering near my lips to wash down the pill. 

The nurse smiled sweetly, “this is Arin and Suzy. They found you and brought you here. They just wanted to make sure you were safe and with your family.”

Then I remembered, that was Suzy Berhow and Arin Hanson from YouTube. I realized I should have been excited but I was too exhausted to even think about the chance that would happen. I swayed my head to give them a smile of thanks, causing a wave of dizziness to rush over me. 

“Now, I just have a few questions for you,” she said, “nothing too much, just basic questions. We have some officers here to ask you some more questions, figure out what happened, and get you to your family as soon as possible.”

I nodded and added a precautionary, “I don't remember,” to state my lack of memory. 

“That's fine,” she said sweetly, “I wouldn't be surprised with that concussion. We'll figure it out. It’s just easy questions with me. Can you tell me your name?”

“Athena Baucum,” I answered and then spelled it out.

She went on to ask similar questions that were easily answered and then made sure I was feeling alright. She took off the warm plastic blanket that was apparently called a Bair Hugger and in return loaded me up in sheets.

She filled me in on what happened. Apparently I had a grade 3 concussion hemorrhage. I'd lost over 30 liters of blood. Arin and Suzy found me in a secluded area in some park and called the cops and ambulance. I wanted to sink into my skin and never come back. How could this have happened? 

As I thought that, Nurse Mia asked me if I had a record of self harming. I sunk into sheets and answered a timid "yes." She asked if it was possible that I attempted suicide via blood loss, and I answered a much more hesitant "maybe." 

She gave a curt nod and said that she'd bring in food and get the officers. 

Chapter Text

Mia left the room, leaving Arin, Suzy, and I in a silence that probably wasn't tense for anyone else but I felt obligated to break. I didn't quite know what to say, so I said what first came to mind. 

“Sorry,” I covered my eyes from the light, though the pain killer was taking effect, “I don't know what happened.” 

My dad would have gotten onto me for apologizing for something like this; apologizing never made me feel any better and always seemed to inflate the issue in my head. The action was dramatic and the words made it seem like I was looking for attention, looking for people to look at and pity me. Yet the disgusting feeling of the word ‘sorry’ always seem to claw its way out of my mouth with the promise to make me feel better, only to turn right back around and choke back reason and force tears and emotion through with its grimy, spindly talons. 

It wasn't that I was against emotion—in fact I'd rather be around a person that was overly emotional than complete devoid of emotion—it was just feeling that emotion, that vulnerability that went with it, that was beyond unbearable. 

“Don't say that,” Suzy’s smile was sad, yet sympathetic, completely unaware of the mini crisis going on in my head; I was positive that if she knew what was going on in my head, she'd think I were insane. I was having a breakdown over apologizing. 

“You said your name is Athena? That's a pretty name.” Her voice rose a pitch as she was trying to be polite. 

She was very obviously trying to distract me from the whole ordeal, but I played along. “Thank you,” I said, then added so she could make conversation, “it was my dad's idea.” 

As soon as I had said it, I wanted to take it back. It was such a stupid thing to say. How could she build off of that? 

“Do you like it?” 

I was caught off guard by the question. No one had really asked if I liked my name. It was a really strange question and I guess it did its job of taking my mind off of the true issue at hand, if only by a little bit. “Yeah, I guess so. I've gotten a few funny stories from it.” 

“That's good.” 

Arin sat forward from his slumped position, drawing attention to himself so he could speak. “How are you feeling?” he asked, then pointed to his head, “like in here, not physically.”

“Well,” I laughed humorlessly and took a deep breath to will away the tears, “I was found on the opposite side of the country out of the blue by two Youtubers. Next thing I know my family will have also disappeared magically and I'm actually a character in some shitty fanfiction.” 

I instantly regretted saying that, I knew it was a bad idea before, but realizing just how much it sounded like I was looking for attention, how pleadingly selfish it sounded, I wanted to jerk my head back into the wall and concuss myself all over again. Maybe then I wouldn't have to deal with this. 

Arin and Suzy’s faces had the reaction I was dreading, somber and pitying faces. It was worse than if they had gotten angry; after all, I had been an ass and it would be expected that they get upset. 

“Sorry,” I croaked out the word that left a sour taste in my mouth. “I just want to see my family,” I said much more watery than appreciated with the tone rising with each sylabol. 

Arin slid off his chair and onto his knees to get closer to me. I found myself inching away from him; ironic because I always believed that if I had the chance to meet him, I'd have the big fan eyes staring up at him. 

“Look,” he said, trying to look me in the eye, despite my eyes refusing to meet his, “we're going to make sure that you're safe before we leave you. We won't just abandon you.”

At this, I forced myself to look him in the eyes and nodded. I didn't know if he'd actually follow through with such a promise, but I felt that I should at least act like I trusted him. 

Chapter Text

Someone knocked firmly on the door and Arin moved away from my bed and sat back on his chair, “come in.”

Two police officers entered, one a dark skinned man and the other a woman with frizzy blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“Hello, I'm officer Miranda and this is officer Mitchell,” the woman said, “we're just going to ask a few questions. Do you want Mr. and Mrs. Hanson to leave?”

I was quick to shake my head—they were familiar and everything else was not—though my head started to spin from the quick movements and I had to take a few seconds to ground myself. “Can they stay?” Both Suzy and Arin looked surprised at my question.

“Of course,” said Officer Mitchell, pulling out a device to show me, “now, everything you say is going to be recorded here just in case.” I nodded.

They began by asking similar questions as Mia, my address and such, and called my parents. They didn't pick up. They called two more times just to make sure. A slow sinking feeling made its way into my stomach and dread seeped into my bones. I gave them the number of my neighbors, who picked up on the third ring. Everyone except the officers were on the edge of their seat. My eyes fell out of focus as my head spun for a moment.

“Hello,” Officer Mitchell said, “this is the Glendale, California police department. Is this Amy or Chris Crocker?”… “Are you at home?”… “Do you know if the Baucum’s are at home, I have their daughter here and I just wanted to bring her back home.”… “Can you connect me to them, please?”… “Yes, thank you very much.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and smiled warmly at me, “she says that your cars are in the driveway.”

Fear should have lifted from my shoulders, but something still felt wrong. My dad was always on his phone, and when he wasn't, it was either right next to him or in his pocket. He'd pick up.

Amy began talking again and Officer Mitchell hummed, “yes, thank you for your time. Sorry for bothering you,” he hung up, “they weren't home. We'll have to call them later.”

My stomach sank but I nodded, causing my head to go into yet another bout of dizziness. 

Chapter Text

Three days went by and no one ever picked up. We tried to contact someone, anyone in my family but it seemed as if they'd disappeared into thin air. After researching, the only people they found were my biological grandfathers; one having disowned me for being a lesbian, one being a major drug addict, and one being 96. I found solstice in the finding of the last two. They called for a search for my family and it got to the news. Nothing ever came up. None of my relatives got to work, my cousins didn't get to school, no irregularities in their bank checks and deposits except for the sudden lack of use. It was actually a big deal and the internet was all over it. 

I'd told my doctor about the vertigo and I was diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo or BPPV, which basically meant that there was something wrong with my left ear after the concussion. The vertigo didn't subside despite physical therapy. 

To say I was antsy would be an understatement. I wanted to cave in a wall. I wanted to shatter the window looking out into the unfamiliar desert landscape and dive headfirst to wherever my family was. I probably would have done that if the windows didn't seem thick and I wasn't so weak from blood loss. It didn't help that lying down made my vertigo worse, preventing me from sleeping. 

I was supposed to be released that night, meaning they had to find me a foster home. My parents had gotten a fostering license when I was in sixth grade so I knew the system but that didn't ease any fears, I was still going to live in a stranger's house with strange house rules and it would all be strange. It was finally getting to me that I'd probably never see my family again. Though, Suzy and Arin had stuck with their promise of not leaving me and visited me before and after work, I had a feeling that it'd become difficult after it wasn't a hospital and instead a person's house. 

Arin had gifted me with a sketchbook to fill up the seemingly endless amount of nothing during the three days. I'd stippled more than I ever had in my life, practiced anatomy, finally figured out hands, and nearly filled the sketchbook. 

I was in the midst of drawing an angsty, emo recreation of Raphael Sanzio de Urbino's Transfiguration when someone knocked on the door. I quickly flipped the sketchpad closed before telling them to enter. I was sat on the bed with my legs crossed over the covers and a blanket that Suzy brought from their house strewn over my shoulders. When I looked up, I'd expected to see Arin, Suzy, or a nurse, but instead I was greeted with the sheepish grin of a messy haired Lankie McLankster named Dan. Then in came Arin and Suzy. 

“Hi,” the word came out almost as a question but still gave them a wave. 

The three of them gave a chorus of hellos and Dan introduced himself to me before all sitting down in the three chairs. Dan settled himself in the good recliner chair closest to the hospital bed. 

“How's your day been?” Suzy asked. I'd always thought watching the Game Grumps that she acted like a mom, but being a kid in her presence only made me think even more. 

“Well mom,” I mocked and cracked a forced smirk to get some laughs but then went onto the real stuff, “vertigo hasn't gone down, no leads, and still cold. But other than that, I finished let in an LA Times person to interview me, finished a stipple only drawing, and paced a bit before almost falling and haven't left my bed since. That's the full overview of my day minus the normal stuff.”

“You let a reporter come in?” Arin smiled. “That's awesome,” he went in for a fist bump. 

I nodded and gave a hum after returning the fist bump. I'd decided that if I wanted the most help possible, I'd have to get the support of the people, no matter how hard the questions would be. I knew that the questions would have to be hard because I wanted the public to understand as much as they could. 

“So… how was your day,” I asked hoping to get out why Dan was brought over. 

“Well, me and Dan were talking, you see, and…” Arin paused dramatically and motioned for Dan to finish what he was saying. 

Dan laughed awkwardly, “well, about a year ago I decided that I wanted to foster kids and I went through the licensing process and training, everything, but the training kinda freaked me out so I just never fostered. I realize everything is different right now but we know you've known who we are for a while. Right?”

I hummed and nodded, silently hoping and maybe even dreading what I thought he was going for. 

“Do you want me to foster you until we find your family?”

Fear welled up in my chest despite expecting the question. I didn’t know why I was afraid. Maybe I didn’t believe that he truly understood how much taking on the responsibility of a child would impact his life. Maybe I didn’t want a replacement family. Though I knew the answer I wanted to give so I gave it.

“Yes, thank you,” I subconsciously tried to sound relieved for reasons I couldn't place, “I was told a social worker would come around three-ish. Can you request to foster someone?”

“Probably, I mean I can't see why not.”

Chapter Text

Dan decided to stay until the social worker came. I didn't know if I liked the idea or not. On one side things would be a lot less boring with him there and I wouldn't be drowning in my thoughts. Still, I had to socialize, which was becoming increasingly harder with each passing day, despite my concussion healing much quicker than it supposedly should have. Emotions were getting harder and harder every day and I was at the brink of giving up, thinking about ending it regularly. But also because it was Dan. I felt like I was invading his personal life because I was a fan. I'd felt the same way with Arin and Suzy but was too scared to bring it up because I knew they'd just push the idea down.

There had also been absolutely no leads as to what happened to my family. At that point, I believed my family was never going to come back. They disappeared out of nowhere and long enough that I’d have to get a social worker. The very thought that I'd never see my family again made me want to vomit. Everything I did reminded me of my parents, of my sisters, of my aunts and uncles, of my cousins. I didn’t realize that the thought was so pressing in my mind until then. I realized I needed to get it out. Get that thing thing that had been silently plaguing me.

“I don't think they're coming back,” I said after a nurse had come in and we'd been left in a moment of silence.

“Hm?” Dan asked, not keyed into what I was talking about because of the suddenness.

“My family. They're gone and I don't think they're going to reappear one day out of the blue.”

“Well then where do you think they went?” A twinge of annoyance swept through me before realizing that it wasn't meant to be a joke.

“I don't know. At this point I'm willing to think they slipped into another dimension or aliens abducted them. I've had a hell of a lot of time to think so I've come up with some crazy ideas,” I chuckled darkly, “I also recently read Dracula so maybe some weird American Horror Story form of vampire took them away to their layer and I got away and that's where the cuts came from.”

He laughed a little, which I didn't expect, making me jump. I managed to giggle in return because that's what was expected of me, though I was near positive that it came out sounding forced.

We sat in silence for another minute or so until I spoke up yet again, “I really don't think they're coming back. They're gone and I've been left here in whatever this shitty situation is.” I trembled as tears began to sting at the back of my eyes and my heart rate sped up at a hummingbird’s pace. “They're gone.”

“H-hey,” he stammered when he saw my tears, “you don't know that they're gone.”

“But you don't know that either,” I looked down emotionless, but my voice still had the slight gurgle of repressed tears.

He breathed in through his nose and looked me dead in the eyes, “no matter what, you're going to make it.”

I looked away, desperate to change the subject that I'd brought up. I thought about how if my prediction was true, I didn't want to make it. I wiped eyes in an attempt to dry them but I ended up just smeared the water around my whole face. I didn't want to make it and it scared me how much I was fine with that idea. Without my family, I didn't know who I was.

Once the floodgates opened, they didn't close. Tears poured mercilessly from my eyes, uncaring that Dan was right there. He shifted in his chair, wincing at the tears and slid down until he was kneeling on the ground by my bed.

“Hey, don't cry, we'll figure this out. Do you need a hug?” he said his words carefully, ready for me to break, but held his arms open.

I didn't want a hug. The mere thought of touch seemed repulsive at the moment if it weren't my parent's. But despite myself, I nodded. Though once his lanky arms wrapped around my whole frame, firmly secured to the warm safety of human touch, did I realize I needed to be held. I leaned deep into the touch and felt disgusted at myself for enjoying the embrace of a man that might as well be a stranger, but that was greatly overpowered by the relief of finally having the small comfort of human touch in such a time. The only touch I'd gotten were from nurses re-bandaging the cuts I could have sworn were self-inflicted.

“I'm sorry,” I burst into another wave of tears through waves of vertigo from the change in position, unknowing why I was saying the vulgar pair of words again.

He awkwardly rubbed my back, “don't be.”

I lifted my arms up just slightly to return the hug and placed them on his sides. We stayed like that for a while but my back started to knot from the uncomfortable position and I slinked away. I didn't deserve to be in this position with Dan, I was a fan of his and I was going to be living in his house. It didn't feel right.

“I have something to tell you,” Dan said to divert my attention. I nodded. His voice was a little hesitant and I nervously scratched at my bandages out of anticipation. “Because I am single, and I basically have two full time jobs, things might get a little… hectic? I don't know, you'd go to the school that's close to the Grump office so you wouldn't be very alone.”

“I'm an introvert in my own way, but Jesus, with how nervous you were acting, I thought you were going to come out or something."

He laughed wholeheartedly, giving me a small twinge of joy and pride, “not yet.”

This was my que to laugh again but all that came out was a lasting chuckle, “no polygrumps?”

“Not yet,” he joked.

“Damn,” I let out one last chuckle before plastering on a smile and let him finish his fit of giggles.

A soft knock disturbed the small moment of happiness for Dan that I had created. A nurse entered and introduced himself. He checked my vitals and reminded me that the social worker would arrive in fifteen minutes.

This was going to one hell of a ride.

Chapter Text

A soft knock on the door pulled us out of silence. A dark skinned lady with braids and a pencil skirt entered. We greeted her and she introduced herself. 

“Hello, I'm Tonya, your social worker,” she said, her bright red lipstick against bleached white teeth hypnotizing me. 

“Hello, I'm Athena,” I said, even though I knew she probably knew my name. 

She looked between Dan and I for a moment, most likely not expecting another person to be in the room, before motioning toward him, “Who's this?”

Dan sat up a little straighter and held out a hand for the social worker to shake, “I'm Daniel Avidan and I'm close friends with the man that found Athena. I have a fostering degree and wanted to know if I could request fostering her.”

The strategicness of his word placement and the formality in his voice made me want to dose off and go off into my own self deprecating world, though I knew how important and life changing this conversation was and willed myself to focus. Focus and stay present. 

“Alright,” Tonya said as if she were expecting him to say that, slightly throwing me off guard from her previous confusion, “so you technically can request to foster someone, although it's not necessarily a one hundred percent chance you will foster her. I'll have to go through your records and evaluate Athena. Although if you two do make a good match, it'll make my job a little easier.”

I liked the idea of making something easy for another person, but I still chewed on the inside of my mouth. While this was going better than I expected already, there should was also explaining how I knew Dan. “So, I also want to explain how Dan and I know each other,” I was nervous and still nibbling on the inside of my cheek but managed to get the correct order for ‘Dan and I,’ which I was moderately proud of. My dad and grandma would've been proud, but I shoved that aside so I wouldn't break out in tears. 

“Of course.”

“Alright, so this is going to sound kinda crazy and you might not match us after this,” she looked at me weirdly but I just continued as quick as possible, “Dan has a band and is a YouTube personality for a living. I'm kinda one of his fans but Dan was the one to bring up him fostering. He said because everything's going to be different now and being with someone no so strange to me could be helpful.”

“Jesus, you made it seem like something really bad happened between us with the ‘you might not match us after this.’”

“Yeah,” I laughed in an attempt not to deadpan, “I realized that while saying it.”

“Well, just letting you know,” Tonya smiled encouragingly, “that won't change my decision of whether or not to match you.”

I nodded but had to closed my eyes as vertigo washed over me, though they crossed under my eyelids and I had to use my arm to hold myself up from falling off the bed. My heart rate rose a little and the gross feeling in my stomach from losing my family grew a little from the nausea. When the feeling passed and my eyes uncrossed and focused on the two people looking at me in confusion and slight fear, my face heated up. 

“Sorry, busy being possessed by demons here,” I said in attempt to relieve the tension and then added, “it's just a bad bout of vertigo.”

They nodded in acceptance and we continued on with only mild moments of vertigo. Tonya asked Dan to leave to room so she could ask me some questions about my previous home situation, mental health history, and how I reacted to stress. Once she was done, she told me she'd pull up Dan's records and step outside to question him. 

When they came back, they were both smiling. Tonya brushed a stray braid away from her face, “I'm happy to say you can go home with Dan.”

A grin broke out across my face but no happy emotions came from it. Instead, I felt disgusting, like I was forcing myself into his personal life. I knew I should have been happy, hell I was living the fangirl’s dream, but that only made the feeling worse. What if I was only doing this because I was a fan of his? Fuck it, I practically knew I was only agreeing to this because I knew Dan. I wouldn't have agreed to live in any strange man's house alone. I wanted to cry from the pure anger I felt with myself but clawed through it. 

“Sweet.”

Chapter Text

After all the paperwork was done, I was discharged from the hospital with the promise that all the bills were paid for. I was given a prescription for all my previous medication to be filled at Dan's pharmacy and I was assigned a therapist. Before I knew it, I was in a small black Toyota that belonged to Dan on my way to CVS to pick up my prescriptions. 

He had obviously picked up his car before coming to the hospital because while the car had nothing in it, there was dirt on the floor. I sat uncomfortably in the strange car that I realized I'd soon be riding in a lot. 

The rocking of the car was making my vertigo worse and for the first time in my life, I had to put my head out the window to keep from vomiting. I'd never gotten motion sick in my life until then. 

“Hey,” Dan glanced worriedly at me, “if you want, we can go home first and let you get settled. It’s a shorter drive.”

I considered it a moment but couldn't bring myself to care that it'd be inconvenient for him, “yeah, I think that'd be nice.”

The car took a turn and my stomach took another lurch as my head tried to fight against the turn.

Although, I noticed we had turned into a neighborhood of apartments and internally sighed in relief before realizing what this meant. I was about to enter an unfamiliar house with this person I'd just met and live there. He pulled into a parking space and I finally left the car, though I wasn't sure if I'd rather be car sick or confront my doom at that point. 

I hopped out of the Toyota a little too fast and my head began to spin again, the only thing about this experience that was moderately familiar. I looked at the looming brick building, part of which would soon be my home. 

“You good?” Dan asked. 

“Yeah, just the vertigo,” while that wasn't necessarily the truth, it also wasn't a full lie, so I felt better saying that than any other excuse that came to mind. 

“Alright, our apartment is number 105. To the right.” 

I nodded and shakily followed behind Dan until he stopped at a door and shoved a key into the keyhole. The door opened to reveal a living room with white walls and dark furniture. It had been cleaned for my arrival. 

Dan walked in and extended his arm out in a dramatic reveal of his home, “welcome to my humble abode.”

He gave me a thorough tour of his house, even taking the time to show me where the silverware was, as I was very thankful for. It smelled of mint and lavender incense and slightly of something he'd cooked earlier that day. The house was set up pretty traditionally: a living room with the kitchen and dining room connected to it and a hallway with two bedrooms and a bathroom at the end. Dan's bedroom was also dark colored themed, while the guest bedroom–now my bedroom–was a bright, yellow and beige colored. Certainly not my style but I figured if it was a permanent stay, God forbid, I could decorate it to my own aesthetic preferences. 

“My family wants to facetime you, if that isn't too much at the moment,” yes, my replacement family, “it's four o'clock, they'd be off work. All except my brother-in-law.”

I nodded, though I'd much rather be facetiming my own family; or better yet, not be in this situation at all. “Yeah, could I just settle in a bit?”

“Of course. If you want, we could go shopping soon for clothes and things for your room. Get you out of that outfit?”

He motioned toward me. Suzy and Arin had been kind enough to wash the clothes I was found in: a pair of jeans and a tan t-shirt that said “BARCAMP” that I got from a coding camp. After two washes, the bloodstained still hadn't come out. 

“Yeah, we could do that soon.”

Dan nodded and I wandered off to my new room. I figured that I had the right to rummage through all the drawers of the room, since it was now mine. The only thing I could search was a dresser that had a mirror attached to it and the closet. In the closet was a pile of board games and card games. Most I didn't recognize, not being the classic board games, but one stood out to me: Joking Hazard by Cyanide And Happiness. My dad had bought a copy of Joking Hazard at PensaCon one year and had it signed and doodled on by the creators. In order to make it as family friendly as possible, he'd taken out all the the sexual and exceptionally crude cards and was slowly adding them back in as we got older. 

Damn, I was tearing up over a fucking card game. 

I took a deep breath and closed the closet door. After looking through each of the drawers of the dresser, I came to the conclusion that it was empty. 

I shakily sighed and sat on the bed. It was a twin sized bed with yellow blankets neatly covering the bed, folded right before touching the pillows. The neatness the bed made me want to mess it up. As my mind decided in an angsty poetic moment: it was because my mind was too much of a mess. 

I laid vertically under the covers to gauge how comfortable the bed was. The bed didn't quite swallow me whole in the way I wanted it to, but I figured no bed would swallow me up like that. I concluded that I needed to eventually hoard as many blankets as I could to make the form devouring nest of my dreams. 

I rolled unceremoniously out of bed as if I were just getting up and realized that I'd be doing that a lot from now on. I'd be rolling out of this very bed every morning. But it wasn't my bed. It wasn't the bed that my parents had bought for me with their money from their jobs. I suddenly despised the bed and I had to walk out of the room to keep calm. 

“Hey Dan,” I called, “can we play Joking Hazard next time someone comes over or something? I love that game.”

Dan was sat on the couch with his phone in hand texting someone. He turned to face me and gave me one of those smiles that people fangirl over,

“that sounds awesome.”

“Oh also,” I suddenly realized something important, “could I use your phone to call my boss?”

Dan looked at me surprised, probably not expecting someone as young as me to be working. I felt a small flare of pride in knowing he thought I was probably just a waitress or check out person. 

“Of course!”

He extended his phone out to me and I paused for a moment. Technically, my dad was my boss but he was gone. I chewed on my lip, I guessed I could call Peter. I thanked the non-existent God that I memorized my coworkers numbers and dialed Peter's. 

“Hello.”

“Hi, this is Athena.”

“Oh my goodness! Hello, how are you holding up? Do you know what happened?”

“No, I have no idea what happened. Just got out of the hospital less than an hour ago. I'm going to stay in L.A. with a foster parent. I just wanted to make sure I still had the job?” 

“You definitely still have the job. We're definitely going to be struggling without your dad here so we need as many people on board until we hire another developer. I'd call Will just to tell him you're still working with us.”

“Alright.”

“Hey, also, I just want to tell you… I'm sorry. I know what it’s like to lose a parents, but I can't imagine what it’s like to lose an entire family. I'm sure of you needed some time, Will would give you free time off. Even just for the week.”

“Okay thank you. I think I'll ask him about it. Just one last thing before you go, can you give me Will’s number?”

“Of course,” he paused a moment, most likely looking it up his contacts, “it's (850)…”

I thanked him and hung up. Dan looked at me expectedly. 

“Peter thinks I should call the owner of the company,” I said, hinting more that what I did was more than the regular teenager-type job. 

I dialed his number and asked him the questions I needed to ask him. He gave me his condolences and let me off for the next two weeks. Unpaid but still off; I didn't really care about paid or unpaid, I just needed time to think. 

I handed Dan's phone back to him, “what’d you do.”

I glanced at him and attempted to say as nonchalantly as possible without sounding stuck up, “I have an internship at a small company in Florida for web development. Coding shit.”

Dan grinned in what seemed like mild confusion, “where did you learn to code and how the hell did you get that job at your age?”

“Well, my dad taught me and he was the CTO. The owner of the company, Will, was on board with this because he pays me a little more than a high school wage for a position that he could pay a professional wage for.”

“That's fucking awesome,” Dan said exasperated, though I could swear it was forced, “well, how do you feel about going shopping now?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, figuring there was no escaping going out into public, “yeah, I guess I can do that.”

Chapter Text

So this isn’t an update, but I just need people’s opinion on something. I wanted to put Ashley in this fic but recently had to cut her because some people have pointed out that’s it’s an invasion of her and Dan’s privacy. The issue is that making Dan single kinda takes some plot points out that I wanted to add in and being a person that grew up in a nuclear family, I kinda don’t know some things about how single parents would normally function.

Personally, I don’t think that writing fanfic is an invasion of privacy so long as they haven’t specifically stated they’re uncomfortable with it or the fanfic goes to far (think about the Dan and Phil fandom). I think that because my fic isn’t something smexy or negatively depicts their relationship, and instead depicts their relationship as a healthy, growing relationship from the perspective of a child, I feel like I’d be doing less harm and more fluff.

Anyway, please comment your thoughts and be nice about it. You’re more likely to change my mind when you don’t act like I’m trying to hurt people in my writing. I don’t want to hurt people, I’m just trying to express myself.

Chapter Text

That night, I laid in my new bed in a nightgown. I never wore pajamas, I just took off my pants and fell asleep, though I obviously couldn't do that anymore. The bed was way too big, it being a queen and I was used to a loft bed. The house was dead silent, no creaks of the building settling or the skitter of a pet running up and down the stairs. The faint white noise of the fan could drown out the silence enough to lull me to sleep. Not that it could stop the vertigo that pushed and pulled my head every time I managed to get close to sleep.

By midnight, tears began to silently fall as I realized how completely alone I was. After curling myself into and out of the fetal position multiple times and tossing around, I slipped out of the queen sized bed at 1:00 and walked silently to the bathroom—easy as I didn't have to dodge any creaky spots.

I closed the door as silently as possible before turning on the light and began the search. The drawers and cabinets had nothing of importance to me, just things like combs and toothbrushes. Though, the trashcan was where I hit the jackpot: the head of a discarded razor was on the top. He wouldn't even notice its absence. I smiled, giddy that I still had a familiar activity.

I made quick work of the nightgown, taking it off as to not get it bloody, and did the same with my bra. I sat down as carefully as I could, as to not disturb my wounds before carefully breaking the plastic around the blades so I wouldn't cut my fingers. I needed as little evidence as possible. Five blades fell to the tile. They looked like innocent shavings of metal, not something that you'd expect could bring as much destruction as they did.

I gingerly picked one up and positioned it along the top of my breast. With a quick swipe, the skin opened up, though barely anything came out at first. I'd found months ago that in order to get the desired amount of blood before it clotted, I had to pinch and squeeze the cut. Blood oozed out and formed into small beads, which I left to grow bigger and scab over. Next to it, I gave an experimental deeper cut, one that left a small rivulet under it. I watched it trickle down with pupils blown wide and a relieved grin on my face.

I repeated these unspoken steps multiple times. Cut, pinch, watch, cut, pinch, watch. Each cut gave a flash of pain followed by a sharp ache, sending me a sense of pleasure I could only describe as orgasmic. The pinch brought on more blood which I watched, face emotionless and thoughts filled with masochistic satisfaction.

Finally, after my breast was littered with new deep and shallow cuts, I was satisfied and feeling ready to sleep. I cleaned the cuts and flushed the evidence down the toilet.

Before leaving the bathroom, I took a double take at the mirror. My hair fell flat and greasy on my head and my face had broken out from not taking care of my basic personal hygiene. A long, jagged gash ran from my cheekbone, down my chin, and to my collarbone. It was one of the mysterious wounds from my family's disappearance and one of the ones that were deep enough to needed stitches. I'd taken off the bandages to let them air out while I was in the bathroom and allow my neck to bend down correctly. It was bright red around the edges and the cut itself a mahogany red.

I pinched my lips together grimly. It was going to scar badly, the doctors said, especially because it was on my face. I never really cared about how I looked but with this, I was going to get asked about it for the rest of my life and I wouldn't be able to explain it. I'd have to go into public just like today and be aware that there was an obvious, gigantic scar right where everyone looks.

Sighing, while I reapplied the old bandages, not bothering to take out clean ones, as I knew I'd do that in the morning.

As I walked out of the bathroom, I brushed my fingers against the wall, the feeling tickling my fingertips. Dan was still snoring softly as I tiptoed past his room. The vertigo pulled me from side to side like waves and I had to push against the wall to keep myself from falling.

Laying down didn't help the vertigo but I managed to fall asleep by 2:00.

~~~

Thankfully, Dan didn't wake me up, giving me a good eight hours of sleep, more than I'd gotten since the incident in total. Though, when I got out of bed, I was tempted to do what I normal did and stay in bed until someone forced me, but I wanted to make it look like I was somewhat put together.

Dan was making eggs and pancakes, and though I wasn't a big fan of pancakes, I wasn't going to say so. I remembered Dan saying in a Game Grumps video that pancakes were a comfort food for him and I assumed he was trying to make something comforting for me. I appreciated the effort but I could only stomach down one flat cake of doom, before saying that I didn't have much of an appetite. He could easily chalk it up to grief and depression, which was probably a factor as to why the eggs didn't seem too appetizing, either.

“So, Dan laid out carefully, “Tonya gave me a call and said that we need to meet your team today at one and have a therapy appointment at three.”

I nodded and pushed some eggs around my plate as a wave of vertigo washed over me. I didn't like the thought of having a new therapist, I'd been with the one back in Tallahassee for three years, she diagnosed me with agoraphobia, she was there when I started cutting, she knew me—she knew what my life was. I began to regret the decision to stay in California. I swallowed down the thought like a pill and let it settle and dissolve, becoming part of my thought process.

I suddenly felt the urge to vomit and made a desperate run to the bathroom. Dan, startled, called out my name and chased after me. The tile seemed colder, less inviting than the previous night as I vomited up the barely digested pancakes. Probably not knowing whether I wanted consoling or space, Dan

From the corner of my eye, I caught a silvery glint. I realized that I'd left the blades on the floor. I quickly flipped my hand on top of it, disguising it as catching my balance. While retching up the rest of the pancakes, I pocketed the razors and wiped hair from my face. I prayed that Dan didn't see them as I finally hacked up the last bit of bile.

Breathing heavily with my head pounding like a god damned person locked inside the garage, I realized the horrible retching was finally over.

“What was that?” Dan asked, half startled and half timidly humorous.

“I—” I fished for excuses that didn't put the blame on Dan, “I dunno… vertigo?”

Dan led me to the couch and I sat there with a blank look on my face, trying to hold back tears.

“Can I…” I paused looking for the correct wording but gave up once the silence went on too long, “can I use your phone or something?”

“Of course,” he answered slightly confused but left the room and came back with his phone and logged in before handed it over to me, hovering over as I pulled up chrome.

I was hesitant to begin searching with Dan breathing over me as I looked up something that meant so much to me, but decided I didn't have much personal space anymore with the media supposedly being all over this case. I sighed at the thought and typed in “Baucum family disappearance.” Dan nodded and stood up to leave the room, giving me the privacy that I wanted.

Chapter Text

To anyone that still cares about this old fic (god forbid), it is being rewritten and transferred over to my new story, Vertigo All The Way Down.