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[temujackie]

[ how melissa feels about it: bad ]

yeah.

so am i your girlfriend again or was that just bullshit to make ren look bad?

[diarists]

do you wanna be?

[temujackie]

do you want me to be?

[diarists]

i never stopped.

[temujackie]

[ the text makes her heart jump into her throat and she wants nothing more than to get swept up in that feeling, let it replace all the stress and worry and sadness of the past few days and just let things be fucking easy for once and say "okay" and just... go with it, let that be enough for a while.

but there are complications. there are always complications. ]

what about jackie?

[diarists]

[it had been true, those words -- shauna hadn't wanted any of it to stop, not even with the rifle in her hands, leveled at mel's face asking her why, why can't you just be a nice person. not when she pulled the trigger, not when she walked away smirking. never.

the complication was: shauna wanted it in a way that fed her, satiated her, crawled in her bones and made her god again. she wanted whatever she'd felt that first day mel arrived, unaware, unknowing of everything that had happened. touching her while lying had been the fullest shauna had felt in years. for jackie, it had been the same.

so, her answer:] i didn't stop wanting that either.

[unspoken: both, i want both, i don't want to ever have to choose again.]

[temujackie]

[ it's what she thought shauna would say. as long as it's too and not instead of, it doesn't hurt melissa. she knows the other girls on the team used to make fun of her, say shit about how she was a stand in for jackie, but it was easy enough to shrug the comments off because she never felt that from shauna herself. jackie was always there, obviously, unseen but never ever forgotten, not for a second. there was never going to be a universe where she wasn't somehow part of their relationship, even unspoken about. but shauna never made melissa feel like she needed to try to be jackie for her. and melissa always appreciated that. as imperfect as shauna is, she at least always let melissa be melissa.

and here, jackie is warm and whole and alive again. they can reach out and touch her. melissa's no monster. she wouldn't deny shauna the chance to do things over again with jackie, but right. better.

if shauna wants them both, she can have them. ]

back in august i told her that i would be okay with it
sharing

[ at the time, shauna had still been avoiding them, so mel hadn't made the statement specific to their situation. but of course the implication was still there, under the surface, hinted at. ]

[diarists]

[shauna is an empty, needy, insatiable pit of desire and she knows it, knows that the core of her is want want want want, all the time. she wants jackie alive and mel in her arms and nat's respect and misty's allegiance and all the rest of them to listen and obey and love her, because she's all hurt, she's all wounds, she's bleeding and dying and someday she'll bleed out and maybe nobody will give a fuck. maybe it won't matter at all.

but -- here it does. here, there's no rescue, no plane coming to spirit them away and apart. it's the wilderness remade, it's death and fear and misery with a hut built out of delusion and desire at the center, and if shauna gets to be there with them both, maybe the bleeding will stop. maybe she'll stop reaching for her heart and finding nothing left.

so:] yeah.
that's what i want.
whatever else happens, i want that.

[fuck her future and her suburban life and her husband and kid (even if the last stings, still, calliecalliecallie like a bell in her soul). shauna wants this as long as she can have it.]

[temujackie]

i want that too
you, i mean
and i like jackie

[ Jackie being into it would be amazing, but even if she's not, Mel will share Shauna with her. As long as Jackie's not not into doing that, of course. So they might have to talk about it and it might force Jackie and Shauna to put a label on something they've always kept nameless, but that doesn't need to happen, like, today. Or this month even. She's just happy right now, with this, with Shauna. ]

there is one thing though

[diarists]

okay.
cool.

[and maybe it'd be that easy, maybe one thing will be simple and uncomplicated and -- good. maybe one thing's allowed to be good.

shauna holds onto that thought tight, even when the caveat comes, bracing herself for whatever it might be--] yeah? what's the one thing?

[temujackie]

you have to share me too
i mean, i'm like, not really seeing anyone else NOW, [ thanks werewolf drama, ] but if i wanted to

oh, and if you ever talk to me again the way you did back in the village, we're done for real

haha i guess that was two things :) whoops

[diarists]

[shauna is so so sooooooooo fine with that. so fine. so fine.]

yeah. sure.
fine. just
come home to us after.
okay?

i didn't mean all that. i was just [angry, angry and hurt and incapable of articulating why, why seeing someone she loved smiling and laughing and close to someone else was such a fundamental part of who shauna was, down to her marrow. jackie and jeff are melissa and gen melissa and hannah melissa and a plane taking them back to a life shauna never wanted to return to.]

pissed off.
i do really shitty stuff when i'm pissed off.

[temujackie]

you're my #1. always :)

i know
i get it. it was a different place and you were under a lot of pressure

[ Melissa does get it. Taking over as antler queen and in a single night having to deal with intruders, a murder, Melissa getting shot, capturing the two runaways, and then figuring out what to do next. At the time she'd been so wrapped up in the idea of finally being able to go home that it hadn't occurred to her how fucked up and overwhelming that must have all been for Shauna.

It doesn't make what happened okay, but it puts it into perspective enough for Melissa to be willing to give her another chance. ]