Dream Log: Jubilee and Amanda
Sep. 7th, 2004 10:30 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
x-jubilee.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsWho: Jubilation Lee and Amanda Sefton
Date: Tuesday 7th September 2004 10:30pm
What Happens: Amanda gets pulled into Jubilee's dream through a short term link formed by the healing she's been doing. She gets to meet a five year old version of Jubilee and is given a fun filled tour through Jubilee's past.
Amanda had been scrupulous - almost painfully so - about not overdoing the healing magic with Jubilee (why burn herself out for _her_?), but broken bones took effort and it was impossible not to feel the other girl's pain. So she'd probably pushed a little harder than she should this last session, if the headache was anything to go by. And when the nightmares started, she was sure of it - they were the standard, too-much-magic variety, which didn't make them any better, but at least she knew how to deal with them. Picturing a door, she walked through it, leaving the images of fire and dark energies and claws reaching for her behind.
Only, instead of more pleasant fantasies, she found herself somewhere completely different.
The sand had been bleached white under the full moonlight and waves touched the beach a small distance away, making it shimmer. A figure stood upon the beach, her head fallen back as she looked up at the stars. Amanda noticed the yellow jacket right away and groaned inwardly. 'Oh for fuck's sake.'
Jubilee paused, sensing someone behind her as she stood on the beach. It was that night, the one Manny had helped her remember awhile back. The first night she'd arrived in LA, too broke to afford a room anywhere. So she'd sat on the beach and watched the stars.
She waited for the person, not looking behind. This was a dream, afterall and not a nightmare. Nothing would harm her here.
'This is fuckin' ridiculous,' Amanda thought to herself as she realized what had happened. Strange's door trick had this nasty habit of sending her into other people's heads, and since she'd been doing healing magic on Lee, guess where she'd ended up? And there was no way out unless one of them woke up.
"Should have figured yer'd go for the whole poetic image shite," she said 'aloud'.
Jubilee sighed, finally realizing who it was. Since she didn't usually dream of Amanda, maybe this wasn't one of her normal dreams. But if it wasn't a normal dream, then what the hell was her brain trying to tell her by conjuring up one of the people she least liked in the world?
"You shouldn't be here." she said simply, turning around.
"Tell me somethin' I don't know." Amanda approached the other girl, taking in various, small differences between Jubilee's sleeping and waking self. The scar on her face, the collar around her neck that was a combination of leather and electronics... Oh yeah, Jubilee had Issues out the arsehole. The yellow jacket was vivid in the muted dreamscape, brilliantly real. Armour, almost. "Much as this is gunna fuck with yer head, I'm in yer dream. Me, not some image you have of me. 'S the healing spells, they form a link, an' sometimes this happens."
"Right, and I'm really the delusion Faery. What kinda proof you got,
Mandy? Cause I ain't buying the link thing. Why the hell would you heal me if there was even the possibility of that? We ain't exactly all touchy feely with each other and shit, afterall."
Amanda was really tempted to find out if she could smack Lee one in her dreams or not, but restrained herself - after all, that was how she'd gotten here, wasn't it? "An' since when were you all knowledgeable 'bout magic, Tinkerbell? Three months as a pixie don't make you an expert." She reined in her temper and went on in a slightly calmer voice. "Look, the healing weren't my idea. Strange insisted, as punishment for usin' me magic t' hurt someone in the first place. Karmic payback. An' 'cause yer got those delicate little bones that break at the drop of a hat, I've got t' do extra t' get that up an' runnin'. So I've had t' do more healin' than I would normally, an' there's a link showin' up. I've been readin' yer emotions for the past week already, y'know."
"You what?" Jubilee asked as she flinched and suddenly was gone.
Amanda felt a wrenching and was suddenly somewhere else, a loungeroom, somewhat upper class with a piano off to the side where a woman was playing. Music filled the air as she felt the image become solid around her.
"You shouldn't be here. This is a holy place, even I don't come here." A child's voice said behind her.
She turned, and saw a child of perhaps five, black hair in pigtails and dressed in pink overalls with a bear on the front. She was staring right at Amanda, her expression grave.
"We already went through that," Amanda muttered, but softened her tone. She didn't have it in her to bully a little girl, even Lee. "Yer the one drivin' this dream, kid. I can't leave unless you send me away."
She grinned, clasping Amanda's hand in hers and pulling her towards the woman who sat at the piano. "~Momma, Momma. Can Mandy play with me?~" she said in perfect Mandarin.
The woman was petite, her features delicate and refined. She smiled at the little girl. "~Jubilation, what have we told you about playing with your friends before you finish your homework?~"
Jubilee pouted. "~But Momma, she's only here for a little while. Pllleeeasse can I?~"
The older woman chuckled, shaking her head. "~Very well, Jubilation. But first, would you like to help me play?~"
Jubilee bounced on her feet happily and then crawled up onto the piano chair beside her mother, placing her fingers on the keys. She looked over at Amanda and smiled. "Momma's teaching us how to play. This is where we go when we want to be safe. Momma always kept us safe. Will you stay and listen?"
Every word, every detail, was a knife to Amanda's heart, especially after the Enchantress's spell. "Sure, kiddo. Not like I'm goin' anywhere, is it?" she said, leaning against the doorframe to watch the scene play out. It was impossible to feel any kind of animosity to the child, or her mother, no matter how much she wished for a life like this herself.
Jubilee's mother started playing and after a moment Amanda realized the song was 'Silent Night.' Jubilee joined her mother in counterpoint, a smile of complete happiness on her face. She turned to Amanda, smiling brightly. "Momma always played this at Christmas. Daddy would stand beside us and listen and I'd help Momma play."
There was a man there suddenly, watching with pride as his daughter and wife played. Jubilee beamed at her father. "Daddy, sing for me? Please?"
Jubilee's father laughed and shook his head. "~No Jubilation, I wouldn't want to assault Yue Ying's ears with my singing. Maybe she would sing for you though? ~"
Yue Ying, Jubilee's mother smiled up at her husband. "~Shen, you know full well I can't carry a tune in a bucket.~"
The scene froze and Jubilee stopped playing, sliding off the piano seat. "We don't remember this anymore. Not when we're awake. It's too painful." the child said sadly.
Jubilee walked over to Amanda and gripped her hand. "Come on, it's time to go, we don't want to remember this anymore."
Amanda was suddenly standing on a well-manicured lawn, and she recognized the room she'd just been in through the front window of the house. The man and woman she'd just seen, and a now eight year old Jubilee were walking up the path toward the door, their expressions happy as Jubilee clutched a medal in her hand.
She looked down at the five-year-old standing beside her and noticed the expression on her face. The child was scared half to death. "We shouldn't be here. We don't want to see this again." she said, her hand trembling in Amanda's grasp.
"Sometimes things happen for a reason. I think part of you does want me t' see this, otherwise we wouldn't be here," Amanda told the child, her voice sympathetic, but firm. She had a guess about what was about to happen. "I won't let anythin' happen to you, kiddo."
A look crossed the child's face and she squeezed Amanda's hand, turning back to watch. "Thank you, Mandy." she said, her voice quavering as the group approached the house.
Eight-year-old Jubilee slipped her hand out of her mother's and ran for the door where she bounced impatiently. "Dad, come on! I totally need ta get inside and tell CynJen about the medal. It'll still early enough in SoCal, so she'll be up."
Five-year-old Jubilee looked up at Amanda. "Momma wanted to take us out for dinner. But I wanted to tell Cynthia about the medal. Daddy said that we could do both and we'd go home first. It was our fault. It will always be our fault." she said, her voice a whisper of sadness and pain.
"Kiddo, if what I think's gunna happen, it weren't yer fault. They still would've been there when you got back," Amanda told the little version of Jubilee, eyes still on the scene unfolding before them.
Eight-year-old Jubilee had ceased bouncing now as her father flung open the door with a flourish. There was a muffled sound, like a dull whistle and Shen turned toward his daughter, his mouth open soundlessly. Jubilee stared at the red spot starting to spread on her father's white shirt, her eyes darting into the darkness as Yue Ying dragged her back from the door, turning around and pushing Jubilee away back down the path.
A man stepped forward from the house, his gun pointed directly at Yue Ying and squeezed the trigger. The bullet entered the back of her head, and exploded out the other side, covering Jubilee with blood, brains and small bits of skull.
'She weren't exaggerating, then,' Amanda thought as the five year old Jubilee let out a muffled scream and hid her face against Amanda's leg. The Brit reached down, absently stroking the small girl's hair, even as she watched the rest of the scene play out. The man approached the young girl, gun pointed directly at her forehead. Eight-year-old Jubilee screamed, and a neighbor's light came on. Obviously the danger was too much - the men fled back down the path, leaving Jubilee standing above the shattered remains of her family.
The little girl holding her hand was sobbing now, and Amanda knelt to pick her up. "'S all right, kiddo, it's over, it's been over a good long time."
Jubilee shook her head, tears in her eyes. "Not for us, never over for us."
***
Amanda was on the beach again, and the young Jubilee was gone, replaced by her current dream form. She looked away from Amanda, wiping at the tear tracks that streaked her face. "Still here?" she said.
"Like I said, I'm stuck here 'til one of us wakes up." Amanda gave Jubilee a long, assessing look. "So, that was it, was it? What you told me about in that email that time?"
"Mostly. Of course, then there was the fun of sitting around in a blanket with my mother's brains in my hair till the police arrived. And then the parade of psyche evals and well meaning shrinks who just wanted me to 'open up' about my feelings."
Jubilee poked at the line of half faded bruises that showed through the neck of her t-shirt. "You ain't here to hear a sob story from me though. Sorry ya got dragged into my dream. I'd like, muster the energy to be bitchy at ya and put you at ease but I just ain't carin' much right now."
"I'll survive," Amanda said wryly. She watched the waves on the shore for a few moments, and then said, her tone almost wistful. "I envy you, y'know."
Jubilee looked at her, the scar dragging downwards as she frowned.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. See, you got eight years of family. Sure it's a fuckin' horrible way t' lose 'em, but at least you got those eight years. Eight years of good memories." Amanda glanced over at Jubilee, face set and hard. "Some people don't even get that."
She thought about it for a second, about the memories she had and how much pain those caused her. "Dude, you shouldn't envy me. I know I got memories and I wouldn't trade them just to not feel the pain. But knowin' that doesn't help much sometimes, not when you gotta face what ya lost."
***
The house was different this time, although no less nice. Amanda was standing in a kitchen and she could see a man slumped forward on a table, a bottle of vodka sitting next to him on the table. "He'd lost his job. It was okay for a while but when nothin' came up and my foster mother was the one bringing in all the money. Well, guess something inside him just snapped. He started drinkin', vodka by choice."
Thirteen-year-old Jubilee now stood beside Amanda, her eyes cold and hard. Half healed bruises showed beyond the arms of her t-shirt and a small smattering of them could be seen peeking above the scoop of the neckline.
She walked forward away from Amanda and into the scene, her spot at Amanda's side now taken once again by five-year-old Jubilee. "We used to pray at night that Momma would come and keep us safe but she never came. We think it's because she's angry with us."
Amanda felt a surge of irritation - she didn't want to play "who had the crappier childhood", but she was getting tired of this magical mystery tour through the salient points of Jubilee's life. And the girl was obsessed with all the wrong that had happened to her. Did she really think letting Amanda know her stepfather had beaten her was going to make the witch any more sympathetic?
"Foster families're shitty things, kiddo," she said, trying to cushion the harshness of her tone. "Sometimes, stuff happens, things go wrong. It ain't yer fault." She looked over at the older incarnation. "This'd be why you had a go at me in the barn that time, right? I reminded you of this?"
Five-year-old Jubilee looked up at her, expression grave. "No, although it did remind her. She was sad for you, and didn't want to be." She sighed, shaking her head. "This was our fault, we didn't try hard enough."
The scene has moved on, the man now holding Jubilee's head against the sink as he points to the unwashed dishes, his face red as he yells.
"All right, enough of this 'all my fault' shite," Amanda said, her patience finally snapping. She jerked her hand out of the small girl's, feeling like a monster but doing it all the same. Girl needed a fucking reality check here. "You think this is gunna make me feel sorry for you, Lee? Make me feel bad for bein' so hard on you? Well, newsflash, you ain't the only one who's suffered, an' you ain't the only one who's had it tough. Talk t' Ange, talk t' Sarah. They'll tell you stories just as bad or worse, an' they ain't sittin' 'round pityin' 'emselves. They're tryin' t' be bigger than what happened to 'em."
Jubilee laughed, turning from her position on the beach and finally facing Amanda. "Is that what I've been doing? Pitying myself? Wow, it's all so clear now, all these years...and I'm just some snivelling kid. I don't want you feeling sorry for me, Miss Fucking Expert. I don't need you bein' soft on me. I don't need fucking anything from you at all."
A storm was forming overhead and icy spats of rain started falling. Jubilee ignored it. "Everything. Every little fucking thing that's happened to me is my fault, that's reality. You think I don't know there's other people have had it tough? Course I know it but it wasn't their fault. They get to make up for the things that were crappy in their life. I don't get to, I don't deserve to. Get the fuck out of my head, Amanda. Just leave me alone."
"Listen to yerself, Lee. Everythin's yer fault? That ain't fuckin' reality, that's you deludin' yerself. You didn't make yer foster father lose his job or start drinkin' or start beltin' you. You didn't make yer foster mum stay away. An' you sure as fuck didn't get yer parents killed!" Amanda had to raise her voice to be heard over the rising gale whipping the sea into white-capped waves. "That's a kid's logic, Tinkerbell, an' until you get it through yer thick skull that it weren't yer fault, part of you will stay five years old for the rest of yer life!" She saw Jubilee's expression darken, and she laughed, almost wildly. "An' what the fuck am I doin', givin' you fuckin' therapy? Talk t' Samson 'bout all this shite, he's the one who gets paid a hundred quid an hour for it. I'm just some poor bitch who got dragged into yer fuckin' psychotic dreams."
Waves pounded the beach, rising higher and higher on the beach as Jubilee stood in shock. A shaft of sunlight suddenly appeared, surrounding Amanda and Jubilee looked up, a ringing noise surrounding them suddenly. "Well, looks like you're in luck, Mandy. I can hear the alarm. Time to wake up."
"Well, thank fuck fo..." Amanda didn't get to finish, as the scene abruptly vanished and she was back in her own head, in her own bed... well, Manuel's bed, blinking sleepily at the light coming in through the curtains and wondering just which God of Irony she'd managed to piss off.
Date: Tuesday 7th September 2004 10:30pm
What Happens: Amanda gets pulled into Jubilee's dream through a short term link formed by the healing she's been doing. She gets to meet a five year old version of Jubilee and is given a fun filled tour through Jubilee's past.
Amanda had been scrupulous - almost painfully so - about not overdoing the healing magic with Jubilee (why burn herself out for _her_?), but broken bones took effort and it was impossible not to feel the other girl's pain. So she'd probably pushed a little harder than she should this last session, if the headache was anything to go by. And when the nightmares started, she was sure of it - they were the standard, too-much-magic variety, which didn't make them any better, but at least she knew how to deal with them. Picturing a door, she walked through it, leaving the images of fire and dark energies and claws reaching for her behind.
Only, instead of more pleasant fantasies, she found herself somewhere completely different.
The sand had been bleached white under the full moonlight and waves touched the beach a small distance away, making it shimmer. A figure stood upon the beach, her head fallen back as she looked up at the stars. Amanda noticed the yellow jacket right away and groaned inwardly. 'Oh for fuck's sake.'
Jubilee paused, sensing someone behind her as she stood on the beach. It was that night, the one Manny had helped her remember awhile back. The first night she'd arrived in LA, too broke to afford a room anywhere. So she'd sat on the beach and watched the stars.
She waited for the person, not looking behind. This was a dream, afterall and not a nightmare. Nothing would harm her here.
'This is fuckin' ridiculous,' Amanda thought to herself as she realized what had happened. Strange's door trick had this nasty habit of sending her into other people's heads, and since she'd been doing healing magic on Lee, guess where she'd ended up? And there was no way out unless one of them woke up.
"Should have figured yer'd go for the whole poetic image shite," she said 'aloud'.
Jubilee sighed, finally realizing who it was. Since she didn't usually dream of Amanda, maybe this wasn't one of her normal dreams. But if it wasn't a normal dream, then what the hell was her brain trying to tell her by conjuring up one of the people she least liked in the world?
"You shouldn't be here." she said simply, turning around.
"Tell me somethin' I don't know." Amanda approached the other girl, taking in various, small differences between Jubilee's sleeping and waking self. The scar on her face, the collar around her neck that was a combination of leather and electronics... Oh yeah, Jubilee had Issues out the arsehole. The yellow jacket was vivid in the muted dreamscape, brilliantly real. Armour, almost. "Much as this is gunna fuck with yer head, I'm in yer dream. Me, not some image you have of me. 'S the healing spells, they form a link, an' sometimes this happens."
"Right, and I'm really the delusion Faery. What kinda proof you got,
Mandy? Cause I ain't buying the link thing. Why the hell would you heal me if there was even the possibility of that? We ain't exactly all touchy feely with each other and shit, afterall."
Amanda was really tempted to find out if she could smack Lee one in her dreams or not, but restrained herself - after all, that was how she'd gotten here, wasn't it? "An' since when were you all knowledgeable 'bout magic, Tinkerbell? Three months as a pixie don't make you an expert." She reined in her temper and went on in a slightly calmer voice. "Look, the healing weren't my idea. Strange insisted, as punishment for usin' me magic t' hurt someone in the first place. Karmic payback. An' 'cause yer got those delicate little bones that break at the drop of a hat, I've got t' do extra t' get that up an' runnin'. So I've had t' do more healin' than I would normally, an' there's a link showin' up. I've been readin' yer emotions for the past week already, y'know."
"You what?" Jubilee asked as she flinched and suddenly was gone.
Amanda felt a wrenching and was suddenly somewhere else, a loungeroom, somewhat upper class with a piano off to the side where a woman was playing. Music filled the air as she felt the image become solid around her.
"You shouldn't be here. This is a holy place, even I don't come here." A child's voice said behind her.
She turned, and saw a child of perhaps five, black hair in pigtails and dressed in pink overalls with a bear on the front. She was staring right at Amanda, her expression grave.
"We already went through that," Amanda muttered, but softened her tone. She didn't have it in her to bully a little girl, even Lee. "Yer the one drivin' this dream, kid. I can't leave unless you send me away."
She grinned, clasping Amanda's hand in hers and pulling her towards the woman who sat at the piano. "~Momma, Momma. Can Mandy play with me?~" she said in perfect Mandarin.
The woman was petite, her features delicate and refined. She smiled at the little girl. "~Jubilation, what have we told you about playing with your friends before you finish your homework?~"
Jubilee pouted. "~But Momma, she's only here for a little while. Pllleeeasse can I?~"
The older woman chuckled, shaking her head. "~Very well, Jubilation. But first, would you like to help me play?~"
Jubilee bounced on her feet happily and then crawled up onto the piano chair beside her mother, placing her fingers on the keys. She looked over at Amanda and smiled. "Momma's teaching us how to play. This is where we go when we want to be safe. Momma always kept us safe. Will you stay and listen?"
Every word, every detail, was a knife to Amanda's heart, especially after the Enchantress's spell. "Sure, kiddo. Not like I'm goin' anywhere, is it?" she said, leaning against the doorframe to watch the scene play out. It was impossible to feel any kind of animosity to the child, or her mother, no matter how much she wished for a life like this herself.
Jubilee's mother started playing and after a moment Amanda realized the song was 'Silent Night.' Jubilee joined her mother in counterpoint, a smile of complete happiness on her face. She turned to Amanda, smiling brightly. "Momma always played this at Christmas. Daddy would stand beside us and listen and I'd help Momma play."
There was a man there suddenly, watching with pride as his daughter and wife played. Jubilee beamed at her father. "Daddy, sing for me? Please?"
Jubilee's father laughed and shook his head. "~No Jubilation, I wouldn't want to assault Yue Ying's ears with my singing. Maybe she would sing for you though? ~"
Yue Ying, Jubilee's mother smiled up at her husband. "~Shen, you know full well I can't carry a tune in a bucket.~"
The scene froze and Jubilee stopped playing, sliding off the piano seat. "We don't remember this anymore. Not when we're awake. It's too painful." the child said sadly.
Jubilee walked over to Amanda and gripped her hand. "Come on, it's time to go, we don't want to remember this anymore."
Amanda was suddenly standing on a well-manicured lawn, and she recognized the room she'd just been in through the front window of the house. The man and woman she'd just seen, and a now eight year old Jubilee were walking up the path toward the door, their expressions happy as Jubilee clutched a medal in her hand.
She looked down at the five-year-old standing beside her and noticed the expression on her face. The child was scared half to death. "We shouldn't be here. We don't want to see this again." she said, her hand trembling in Amanda's grasp.
"Sometimes things happen for a reason. I think part of you does want me t' see this, otherwise we wouldn't be here," Amanda told the child, her voice sympathetic, but firm. She had a guess about what was about to happen. "I won't let anythin' happen to you, kiddo."
A look crossed the child's face and she squeezed Amanda's hand, turning back to watch. "Thank you, Mandy." she said, her voice quavering as the group approached the house.
Eight-year-old Jubilee slipped her hand out of her mother's and ran for the door where she bounced impatiently. "Dad, come on! I totally need ta get inside and tell CynJen about the medal. It'll still early enough in SoCal, so she'll be up."
Five-year-old Jubilee looked up at Amanda. "Momma wanted to take us out for dinner. But I wanted to tell Cynthia about the medal. Daddy said that we could do both and we'd go home first. It was our fault. It will always be our fault." she said, her voice a whisper of sadness and pain.
"Kiddo, if what I think's gunna happen, it weren't yer fault. They still would've been there when you got back," Amanda told the little version of Jubilee, eyes still on the scene unfolding before them.
Eight-year-old Jubilee had ceased bouncing now as her father flung open the door with a flourish. There was a muffled sound, like a dull whistle and Shen turned toward his daughter, his mouth open soundlessly. Jubilee stared at the red spot starting to spread on her father's white shirt, her eyes darting into the darkness as Yue Ying dragged her back from the door, turning around and pushing Jubilee away back down the path.
A man stepped forward from the house, his gun pointed directly at Yue Ying and squeezed the trigger. The bullet entered the back of her head, and exploded out the other side, covering Jubilee with blood, brains and small bits of skull.
'She weren't exaggerating, then,' Amanda thought as the five year old Jubilee let out a muffled scream and hid her face against Amanda's leg. The Brit reached down, absently stroking the small girl's hair, even as she watched the rest of the scene play out. The man approached the young girl, gun pointed directly at her forehead. Eight-year-old Jubilee screamed, and a neighbor's light came on. Obviously the danger was too much - the men fled back down the path, leaving Jubilee standing above the shattered remains of her family.
The little girl holding her hand was sobbing now, and Amanda knelt to pick her up. "'S all right, kiddo, it's over, it's been over a good long time."
Jubilee shook her head, tears in her eyes. "Not for us, never over for us."
***
Amanda was on the beach again, and the young Jubilee was gone, replaced by her current dream form. She looked away from Amanda, wiping at the tear tracks that streaked her face. "Still here?" she said.
"Like I said, I'm stuck here 'til one of us wakes up." Amanda gave Jubilee a long, assessing look. "So, that was it, was it? What you told me about in that email that time?"
"Mostly. Of course, then there was the fun of sitting around in a blanket with my mother's brains in my hair till the police arrived. And then the parade of psyche evals and well meaning shrinks who just wanted me to 'open up' about my feelings."
Jubilee poked at the line of half faded bruises that showed through the neck of her t-shirt. "You ain't here to hear a sob story from me though. Sorry ya got dragged into my dream. I'd like, muster the energy to be bitchy at ya and put you at ease but I just ain't carin' much right now."
"I'll survive," Amanda said wryly. She watched the waves on the shore for a few moments, and then said, her tone almost wistful. "I envy you, y'know."
Jubilee looked at her, the scar dragging downwards as she frowned.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. See, you got eight years of family. Sure it's a fuckin' horrible way t' lose 'em, but at least you got those eight years. Eight years of good memories." Amanda glanced over at Jubilee, face set and hard. "Some people don't even get that."
She thought about it for a second, about the memories she had and how much pain those caused her. "Dude, you shouldn't envy me. I know I got memories and I wouldn't trade them just to not feel the pain. But knowin' that doesn't help much sometimes, not when you gotta face what ya lost."
***
The house was different this time, although no less nice. Amanda was standing in a kitchen and she could see a man slumped forward on a table, a bottle of vodka sitting next to him on the table. "He'd lost his job. It was okay for a while but when nothin' came up and my foster mother was the one bringing in all the money. Well, guess something inside him just snapped. He started drinkin', vodka by choice."
Thirteen-year-old Jubilee now stood beside Amanda, her eyes cold and hard. Half healed bruises showed beyond the arms of her t-shirt and a small smattering of them could be seen peeking above the scoop of the neckline.
She walked forward away from Amanda and into the scene, her spot at Amanda's side now taken once again by five-year-old Jubilee. "We used to pray at night that Momma would come and keep us safe but she never came. We think it's because she's angry with us."
Amanda felt a surge of irritation - she didn't want to play "who had the crappier childhood", but she was getting tired of this magical mystery tour through the salient points of Jubilee's life. And the girl was obsessed with all the wrong that had happened to her. Did she really think letting Amanda know her stepfather had beaten her was going to make the witch any more sympathetic?
"Foster families're shitty things, kiddo," she said, trying to cushion the harshness of her tone. "Sometimes, stuff happens, things go wrong. It ain't yer fault." She looked over at the older incarnation. "This'd be why you had a go at me in the barn that time, right? I reminded you of this?"
Five-year-old Jubilee looked up at her, expression grave. "No, although it did remind her. She was sad for you, and didn't want to be." She sighed, shaking her head. "This was our fault, we didn't try hard enough."
The scene has moved on, the man now holding Jubilee's head against the sink as he points to the unwashed dishes, his face red as he yells.
"All right, enough of this 'all my fault' shite," Amanda said, her patience finally snapping. She jerked her hand out of the small girl's, feeling like a monster but doing it all the same. Girl needed a fucking reality check here. "You think this is gunna make me feel sorry for you, Lee? Make me feel bad for bein' so hard on you? Well, newsflash, you ain't the only one who's suffered, an' you ain't the only one who's had it tough. Talk t' Ange, talk t' Sarah. They'll tell you stories just as bad or worse, an' they ain't sittin' 'round pityin' 'emselves. They're tryin' t' be bigger than what happened to 'em."
Jubilee laughed, turning from her position on the beach and finally facing Amanda. "Is that what I've been doing? Pitying myself? Wow, it's all so clear now, all these years...and I'm just some snivelling kid. I don't want you feeling sorry for me, Miss Fucking Expert. I don't need you bein' soft on me. I don't need fucking anything from you at all."
A storm was forming overhead and icy spats of rain started falling. Jubilee ignored it. "Everything. Every little fucking thing that's happened to me is my fault, that's reality. You think I don't know there's other people have had it tough? Course I know it but it wasn't their fault. They get to make up for the things that were crappy in their life. I don't get to, I don't deserve to. Get the fuck out of my head, Amanda. Just leave me alone."
"Listen to yerself, Lee. Everythin's yer fault? That ain't fuckin' reality, that's you deludin' yerself. You didn't make yer foster father lose his job or start drinkin' or start beltin' you. You didn't make yer foster mum stay away. An' you sure as fuck didn't get yer parents killed!" Amanda had to raise her voice to be heard over the rising gale whipping the sea into white-capped waves. "That's a kid's logic, Tinkerbell, an' until you get it through yer thick skull that it weren't yer fault, part of you will stay five years old for the rest of yer life!" She saw Jubilee's expression darken, and she laughed, almost wildly. "An' what the fuck am I doin', givin' you fuckin' therapy? Talk t' Samson 'bout all this shite, he's the one who gets paid a hundred quid an hour for it. I'm just some poor bitch who got dragged into yer fuckin' psychotic dreams."
Waves pounded the beach, rising higher and higher on the beach as Jubilee stood in shock. A shaft of sunlight suddenly appeared, surrounding Amanda and Jubilee looked up, a ringing noise surrounding them suddenly. "Well, looks like you're in luck, Mandy. I can hear the alarm. Time to wake up."
"Well, thank fuck fo..." Amanda didn't get to finish, as the scene abruptly vanished and she was back in her own head, in her own bed... well, Manuel's bed, blinking sleepily at the light coming in through the curtains and wondering just which God of Irony she'd managed to piss off.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-12 05:08 pm (UTC)