Archive of Our Own ^beta

Spring brings warmth and the pretense of a fresh beginning. They welcome it like an old friend; like a savior. They let it curl around them like a blanket and forget about the cold; forget about winter and all the sinful things it made them do. If only it were that easy to forget or to pretend.

Lottie feels more lost than ever...lost inside her own mind, lost without a compass. It's been difficult to pretend otherwise. She knows it shows.

Ever since she chose—It chose Nat to be the leader, Lottie feels the need to make herself useful in some other way, in any way, but she isn't sure what use she has now. She isn't sure of much these days. What does It want from her? What does It want from them all? She thought she knew...

But she was wrong.

“Figures I’d find you here.”

Nat's voice drifts through her thoughts and Lottie turns her head to see her standing there, on the shore. A silhouette as the sun begins to set.

“C'mon," Nat tells her, "It’s getting late. You'll catch a cold out here." She steps closer, but she isn't looking at Lottie. She's looking everywhere but at Lottie. "I don't know if you've noticed but that dress you keep on wearing...let's just say it might be time to turn it into a rag or something."

Lottie shakes her head. “This dress is all I have left of her.”

Nat’s expression softens, and darkens, all the same. Her voice is dry enough to catch fire. “She meant that much to you?”

Lottie keeps her eyes on the water. She feels it around her bare ankles. Nat is right. But she doesn't understand. Lottie needs this dress. She needs the reminder. That Laura Lee was here. That she was real. That someone truly believed Lottie. That she isn’t crazy. That it isn’t all just in her head—

"—are you listening?"

Lottie blinks out of her daze and turns to walk towards Nat. “Sorry...”

Nat sighs, pushing a hand through her hair. The roots have grown so much. “Here," she says, shoving a sweater in Lottie's hands. "Put this on."

It's Nat's sweater, Lottie realizes, and as soon as she does, something tickles the back of her throat and she coughs softly.

"See?" Nat frowns. "Come on. We got the fire started and everything.”

Lottie nods, breathing uneasily. She tries not to cough again when a petal hits the back of her teeth. She clenches her jaw.

The first time it happened, Lottie thought she might be dreaming. But it was too vivid, too painful to be anything but real.

The first time it happened, it happened all at once. She remembers the snow was beginning to melt. Barely any left, barely visible at night. She felt an unsettling chill in her bones. The first warning sign. Then all of a sudden, she felt nauseous. Sick in her stomach. Brought to her knees by that excruciating sensation: something pushing against her lungs, her ribs, her heart, and then pushing up her throat. It seemed to last an eternity. She coughed, and coughed, and coughed. Blood. And, finally...a petal. She pulled it from her throat, gagging as it came out. She watched it turn into a full-fledged flower, blooming open in the palm of her hand, all speckled with blood. Lottie almost didn’t recognize it in the dark. The color. Purple.

Heliotrope.

She doesn’t tell anyone. She’s coughing up flowers. There isn’t a logical explanation for it. And Lottie doesn't expect anyone to believe her. More than that, there's enough going on. The last thing anyone needs is to worry about her. The last thing Natalie needs is yet another burden to carry.

It’ll pass, Lottie thinks, once the flowers die inside her and stop blooming. It’ll pass.

It doesn’t. It only gets worse.

It’s painful. Every time, she curls into herself as she heaves out gasping breaths, her entire body seizing around the flowers inside of her.

It’s a pattern. It didn't take long for her to notice: why it happens.

Sometimes, just thinking of Nat is enough to get a petal to burst past her lips. It's painfully obvious the flowers have something to do with all the unspoken feelings; all the love that kept on growing within. It has nowhere to go, Lottie thinks, that must be why. It must become something else.

It takes a toll on her. Physically. She feels herself wilting from inside out.

She thinks she might die. One day, all the love will overflow, and she’ll choke on petals of heliotrope flowers and her own blood. Maybe this is how it's supposed to be: death is waiting to drag her into the abyss from where she crawled her way back before, twice, because this is meant to be her fate, after all. Fate... It's a pretty word for consequences. Fate, like fatal, like something you can’t escape, no matter how far or how fast you run. It stands to reason that one day, sooner or later, there won’t be anywhere left to go and nothing else to do but accept it; simply accept the inevitable.

Lottie only hopes she makes it until winter time. She can be useful that way. Her body won't be wasted.

For now, though, for now they have food. Plenty of it. Lottie is grateful. She knows they all are. She watches them sit around the fire, savoring every scrap of meat. Lottie tries to enjoy her share of it, too, but everything tastes like blood on her tongue. The meat. The water. The air she breathes. It’s sickening. The taste of metal doesn't leave her mouth. She wonders if it was this unpleasant for Nat, too. All those months ago, when she was drinking Lottie’s blood every morning. Lottie knows it’s not the same. It's not the same at all but still, she wonders. She always wonders. About Nat.

Lottie watches her sit beside Travis and something cold and twisted sits in her chest, coiling and tightening around her heart. There’s that sick feeling again, only different this time, stronger, worse. She wishes she could carve out everything wrong inside her, and then she’ll be fine and good again.

If only she could do that...If only it were that simple. She looks up at the moon, how it hangs above the trees, beaming brightly, moonshine in her bloodstream and on her skin. The sight of it calms her, pulls her mind away from that twisted-up feeling in her chest, planting itself and growing ugly gnarled roots.

No one has argued against the sleeping arrangements when they first discussed that. They were practical. It made sense for Lottie, Nat, and Travis to share the Antler Hut. Natalie, the chosen one. Lottie, the one who bestowed that title upon Nat. And Travis...Nat's hunting partner, and maybe more than that. Lottie isn't sure exactly what's going on between them lately but he'll always be more than just a friend to Nat. Lottie knows that much. And that's why she wishes she weren't in this position. Always next to Nat at night. Always close enough to touch. Lottie needs to be careful.

She has only seen Nat and Travis kiss once, by accident, months ago, but the image is painfully seared behind her eyelids. She sees it, sometimes, when she lays awake at night. She remembers it clearly: the look in Nat's eyes when she saw Lottie over Travis' shoulder. Lottie didn't look away, and Nat didn't stop, didn't close her eyes. She just looked right back at Lottie. It puzzled Lottie then and it puzzles her now. She'd rather not think about it.

There is a fear, though, irrational as it may be, simmering in the pit of her stomach...that she'll see something like that again.

So Lottie is careful and makes it a habit to sleep with her back turned to them every night. She didn't expect Natalie to notice.

"You know you don't have to sleep that way all the time," Nat tells her, "We're not going to do anything. We're not even—" She sighs, quietly. "You don't have to worry about that, is all I'm saying."

Lottie turns around, and whispers, "Okay."

Nat looks at her as if she's surprised, maybe that Lottie heard her at all, or listened, or actually turned around. Lottie isn't sure what to make of it.

Then Nat looks away and mutters, "Okay."

"Welcome back," Lottie says when she hears Nat enter the hut. It's funny, she thinks. That she can immediately tell it's Nat just by the sound of her footsteps. Lottie keeps her eyes down, stays focused on the 'blanket' she tried all day to fix. She only looks up when she hears Nat chuckle. "What?"

Nat shakes her head. "Nothing," she says, and smiles quietly; the kind of smile a cat gives as it stretches out, napping in the sun. "It's just, I don't know, here you are, knitting or whatever, and I just came back from hunting, so it's kind of like...I'm the husband and you're...the wife. It's stupid."

"It's not stupid," Lottie says, all too quickly; her heart pounding in her chest. She feels a faint tickle in the back of her throat and wonders if there’s a flower growing with each beat of her heart and pump of her blood. She clears her throat, but her voice sounds scratchy when she asks, "Where is Travis?"

Nat stretches, cracking her back, and letting her shirt ride up a few inches above her waist. "He's sleeping outside tonight."

For a moment, Lottie is struck, as if by lightning: something immediate and lethal. The sight of Nat as she pulls her shirt over her head, the arch of her waist, the dimples at the small of her back. Lottie feels her mouth go dry. She quickly looks away but she swallows slowly. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Well." Nat starts to laugh. "Fuck, I shouldn't be laughing." It takes her a moment to stop, enough to say, "He has diarrhea."

Lottie lets out a small breath of laughter. She tries not to, really, but it's hard to resist when Nat doesn't stop. Her laughter fills the air that Lottie is breathing, fills her sore lungs, and she struggles to breathe right against the sight of Nat's smile and her head thrown back.

But it's what Nat does next, once her laughter fades into silence, that makes Lottie's breath catch in her throat. It's the way Nat moves quietly, and sits in front of her, half-kneeling. She looks torn. She looks lost. She gently lays her head in Lottie's lap. "I'm tired...I am so fucking tired, Lottie..."

Nat sighs, and her words are heavy in the air around them. Lottie doesn’t need to ask what’s on her mind. She knows exactly what Nat means. She understands what it's like to be in that position. To always be looked at with eyes full of expectations. To be asked to give answers you don't have.

She quietly strokes Nat’s hair, and says, “I know.”

In moments like this, Lottie almost allows herself to believe there's hope.

It's foolish.

And it stings and it hurts. And she doesn’t know how to stop this feeling.

It’s awkward between them the next day. Lottie doesn't know why. There was tension before, plenty of it, but now there’s another layer. Another thing she can't decipher. She wonders, at first, if it's just her imagination, but it becomes clear that Nat is in a mood. Lottie wonders what set her off this time. Was it the fact that Travis wanted to rest? Was it the fact that Lottie agreed he should? It seemed like a good idea. Reasonable. She didn't expect Nat to be so fervently against it. She didn't expect Nat to angrily drag her along instead, but now here they are: alone, in the woods.

How can she tell Nat that she can't possibly be a good hunting partner in her current condition? Lottie can't tell her.

Nat halts and turns to look at her.

Lottie blinks. "Why did you stop?"

Nat looks up at the sky, so Lottie does too. Gray clouds are gathering in the horizon. Thunder rumbles like a threat.

It starts to rain.

“Great.” Nat sighs, the sound heavy with exasperation. She glares at Lottie, like the weather is under her control and she is doing this to upset Nat.

It's a light drizzle at first but soon enough it becomes obvious they'll both get drenched to the bone if they don't rush to find some kind of shelter.

So they wait under a tree. It's not ideal but they don't have better alternatives. And this kind of rain usually doesn't last long. She hopes so at least.

Nat leans against the trunk of that tree, arms folded across her chest. She glances over at Lottie, knitting her eyebrows together. She seems on the verge of saying something, but doesn't actually say anything. There is a drop of water that slides down and clings to the edge of her eyebrow, and without thinking twice about it, Lottie wipes it off with a graze of her thumb. For a moment, Nat seems struck. Her lips part, her eyes widening, then she quickly looks away, jerking her head in the opposite direction. "I'm going to ask you something," she says after a beat of tense silence. "And I want you to be honest."

Something flips in the pit of Lottie's stomach, drops down deep. Does Nat suspect something? Does she know? About the flowers? How she feels—

"Why did you agree with Travis?"

Lottie blinks. “Oh,” she whispers, both relieved and confused. "I thought he could use some rest and alone time after...what happened yesterday."

"Alone time with you, you mean."

Nat narrows her eyes, her eyebrows furrowed together dangerously, and Lottie is completely lost in the breathless rush of that sentence. “What?”

"Don't act like you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. You wanted to be alone with him, didn't you?"

Lottie frowns. “That's not what I meant at all.”

Nat scoffs. "Yeah, right." She takes Lottie's lack of a reply as an invitation to continue, and presses on. “What’s your fucking deal anyway?" She sets a challenge in the tilt of her jaw. A defiant stance. "You’re waiting in line or something? You think you’ll get your turn one of these days? Is that it?”

Lottie shakes her head. “I don’t understand wh—”

“Cut the bullshit, Lottie. You like him, don’t you?”

Lottie blinks, dumbfounded. “Travis? I’ve never thought of him that way.”

“Bullshit.” Nat grinds out that word through her teeth, low, but all the more thunderous. She grabs Lottie’s shirt with both fists and shoves her up against the tree.

Lottie can feel her heart pressing on her ribs like a wild animal throwing itself against the walls of its cage.

“I saw you," Nat says, "I saw the look in your eyes that day. Remember? Because I remember. You saw us kissing, and you watched. You didn't look away."

“Neither did you.”

Nat quirks an eyebrow, just one. It’s so sharp it could probably cut, if Lottie wasn’t used to taunts like this.

"So? What?" Nat insists. "If it's not about Travis, then what is it?"

Lottie swallows thickly, unable to find words. She can feel her heart pounding, blood rushing through her body, setting her alight; like the end of a cigarette, like the ones they used to share back home. Lottie licks her lips and looks at Nat’s. She swallows again, as she glances back up. She sees something change in Nat's eyes: her pupils blown wide, the sudden realization, and then she is leaning up and pressing her mouth against Lottie's.

It’s hardly a kiss at all, at first: Nat haphazard, Lottie uncertain.

“Nat,” Lottie whispers, just a quiet murmur in the space between their lips. She is feeling dizzy, breathless.

"Don't say my name like that."

"Like what?" Lottie wants to ask, but can't. Not with Nat's gaze so intensely fixed on her lips.

The question stays on her tongue as Nat's hand cups her cheek. She slips her thumb past Lottie's lips, opening her mouth, and Lottie lets her. She wants to bite down, and taste her between her teeth. She imagines Nat reaching down and pulling all the petals from the back of her throat. One by one. Set her free, or maybe just, put her out of her misery; whichever, whatever Nat wants. Lottie is willing to give. She would lay the world at Nat's feet.

Thunder rumbles, then Nat is kissing her again. She whimpers into Lottie's mouth, she presses on, clinging to her shoulders as she deepens the kiss.

Lottie slips her hands underneath Nat's shirt, reverent as they sweep up her stomach, to her chest. She’s never touched anyone like this and she doesn’t know where the confidence comes from; she only knows that she wants to swallow every little sound Nat makes. She sinks completely into that frenzied feeling, hurried and imprecise. Like a tornado. A natural disaster that flattens everything in its path. A life-ruining, all-consuming cataclysm that she can't avoid.

Lottie can feel Nat squirm, searching for friction. Desperate. Impatient. Her hand curls around Lottie’s wrist, and guides that hand down, slipping easily beneath the waistband of her pants. Lottie runs a finger along her entrance before pressing it inside. It hardly feels like pressing, with how easily Nat welcomes her in.

She slips her finger deeper inside, and she watches how Nat's mouth falls open at the sensation. She clings to Lottie's shirt, knuckles going white from how hard she’s clenching her fists. She drops her head against Lottie's shoulder, nuzzles at her jaw. Her body rolls in pulsing waves, grinding herself down against Lottie’s hand, following Lottie's rhythm, slow and unhurried, trying to make it last, trying to commit the feeling to memory.

Then she feels Nat tighten around her finger, holding her there like a vice. She feels her entire body clench up, rigid. She feels it when Nat comes; feels her shuddering, quivering limbs, feels her heave for breath, feels her moan, the sound of it vibrating through her chest. She comes when Nat comes; her mind blank, vision going fuzzy at the edges, pleasure washing over her like crashing waves, like being thrown against the rocks, like being torn to pieces.

It's quiet after that. Nat slowly backs away, breathing hard. It's just them and the falling rain.

Nat opens her mouth, closes it. She seems unsure what to say, so Lottie tells her, “It’s okay.”

Nat frowns. Her face hardens so fast it's almost dizzying. “It’s not fucking okay, Lottie! We..."

She bites her lip, and looks away. In an instant, Lottie feels her chest tighten. Her throat, too. A burning sensation. The sharp sting of rejection.

The lover who doesn’t love her back...

Lottie opens her mouth to say something, but petals come out instead, and she ends up on the ground, heaving as her stomach empties itself, her eyes screwed shut in pain. She feels Nat rub a hand between her shoulder blades. She says something that Lottie can’t hear over the white noise in her ears. She looks up at Nat with watery eyes, her vision fading fast. She's been here before. In the near grasp of death. It felt a little like standing at the edge of a cliff, before, barely hanging on, half wondering if she should let the abyss swallow her whole, or crawl her way back to life. This time, it feels like drowning, gasping for air. It feels like landing in water with a weight tied around her ankle, swimming towards the surface with that weight dragging her down. She hears Nat shout her name, but Lottie can no longer see light and doesn’t know which way is up.

This time, when she closes her eyes, she sees flowers in the shape of lungs, expanding and contracting with deep, gasping breaths.

There is someone above her when she opens her eyes.

It’s twilight. Lottie can tell from the orange glow, the fading light reflecting off Nat’s features. "You're awake. Finally." She sighs. "You're burning up."

Nat has a hand on her forehead, her thumb tracing the scar there. Lottie wants to say something, but her throat hurts, and her thoughts feel like running water, too fast and wayward for her to grasp. She can see the fatigue in the downward slope of Nat's shoulders, the bags under her eyes.

“You look tired.” She manages to whisper. Her own voice sounds alien in her ears.

Nat sighs, heavier this time, and Lottie watches as her eyebrows pinch together in a frown. “I am tired, Lottie,” she says, “It's been days. I’m tired of seeing you like this and not knowing what’s happening or what the fuck I can do to help. Just tell me. Can you tell me? What do you need?”

Lottie watches the grief pass over Nat’s face and thinks of flowers again, of the things growing in her lungs. Her heart clenches and her mouth falls open because part of her wants to tell Nat everything; she wants Nat to know about the flowers and why they are growing out of her lungs.

But it wouldn’t make a difference.

“You can’t give me what I need...”

Lottie doesn’t remember falling back asleep, nor does she know how much time has passed when she opens her eyes again.

There is someone above her again, placing a wet cloth on her forehead.

“Nat?”

“It’s Misty.” She chuckles awkwardly, and Lottie wonders if there is disappointment written on her face, because Misty immediately says, “Natalie is over there. She fell asleep not long ago. She was being so stubborn about it but—we all need sleep, don’t we?”

Lottie turns her head, just enough to catch sight of Nat. Her eyes are closed, head propped up by an arm, mouth slightly agape as soft breaths leave her. Lottie watches her until she can't anymore. Until she feels sleep dragging her down, and her eyelids become too heavy to keep open.

Lottie wakes up some time later, and it's dark inside the hut. There is only the soft glow of moonlight.

It takes a little while for her blurry vision to adjust, and when it does, she sees Nat. She is sitting in that exact same spot. Only now, she is fully awake, and staring at Lottie. She looks so small, like that, with her knees tucked close to her chest. “I don’t get you, Lottie," she says, and she pauses for a long moment; long enough to make Lottie wonder what she means. "I’ve been trying to figure you out and I just—I don’t get you."

Lottie opens her mouth, but something in her throat feels tight and the backs of her eyes are burning.

She feels like she is running out of time and there is so much she wants to say, but can't. "I'm sorry..."

Nat scoffs. "Sorry for what? What am I supposed to do with an apology? Just tell me what's going on—"

“Do you love me?” Lottie heaves out that question in one big breath. Rip off the band-aid and let the wound breathe.

Nat's eyes widen in surprise. “Wh—what? Why are you asking me that all of a sudden?”

“Just tell me.”

“I—Fuck, Lottie. You can’t just ask me that.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“It’s not a simple question at all.”

It’s like moving through sand, this conversation. Lottie can feel herself sinking in it. “I know the answer, Nat. I just…”

“Why ask if you already know the answer?” Nat huffs indignantly. "You don't know shit."

Maybe that's true. Lottie almost wants to laugh out of self-pity. How pathetic she feels.

"I don’t get you," Nat repeats. "But at the same time..." She doesn't take her eyes off Lottie as she speaks. "I look at you and you look at me, and you can feel it, too, can't you? Sometimes, it's like, I blur into you and you blur into me, and fuck, I don't know. Maybe that's love, too. Maybe it's love.”

Something lurches inside of Lottie. It snaps or settles into place. She takes in a deep breath, her first clear breath in so long.

She forces herself to sit up, and Nat is rushing to her side to help. "Hey. Take it easy—"

Lottie tips forward and kisses her. It’s sloppy and uncertain and she nearly misses Nat’s mouth. But Nat is kissing her back. So Lottie catches Nat’s face with both of her hands, cupping her cheeks as she leans in and kisses her again, and again, fueled on by a sudden need, a sudden desire to capture, to hold this moment in her hands. She can feel flowers bloom inside her chest, only this time she knows they won't suffocate. It's just love.