Archive of Our Own ^beta

Vultures are holy creatures

Tending the dead

Bowing low.

Bared head

Whispers to cold flesh:

“Your old name is not your king

I rename you everything.”

- Jarod K. Anderson

It’s three days before Soyona dares to talk to Lily again.

Three days of loneliness, three days of backhanded whispers following her through the corridors, three days of sitting alone at lunch for the first time in Soyona doesn’t even know how long ago. This might be the most alone she’s ever felt.

And every time, every single time she thinks of being alone, she thinks of Lily: how she’s content to sit with Felix on the field every lunchtime, to tuck herself into the backs of classrooms and never speak, to be excluded from everything by virtue of simply being labelled weird.

But it never bothered her. Lily is much braver than Soyona after all.

Lily knows how to be alone. Soyona is just lonely. Trapped in a self-made cage of agony that she bitterly prowls up and down, her eyes sharply narrowed in rage as she squints at the corpse of her old life through the bars. Like a broken, pathetic little girl.

It’s Soyona’s mother who sees her haunted shadow through the bars of her cage, and tells her to visit Lily.

“She’s the only girl I’ve seen that makes you actually smile in a long time,” she says in Lhasa, leaning against the doorframe.

“I know, mum,” Soyona says, automatically switching to English. She sighs, flopping pathetically onto her pillow and hugs a stray cushion to her chest like a lovesick schoolgirl. “I just... I messed up.”

“Hm?” Soyona’s mother raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Soyona says in a childish, pathetic tone that reveals she really does want to. Her mother doesn’t leave her position in the doorway, waiting for Soyona to continue.

“I promised Lily I’d keep a secret. About— about her. But then I told the three people who bully Lily the most. Loudly.” Soyona recalls the memory, and buries her face in the cushion, groaning.

“Is this the incident the school phoned home about?”

“Yeah.” Shame makes Soyona’s cheeks flush, and she shoves the pillow off her face, the heat of it having become stifling.

“You never did tell me the whole story,” she says expectantly.

So Soyona tells it all. How sick she is of people like Tanya and Alisha and Ellie making everyone else’s lives miserable. How much it hurt to listen to them talking about Lily that way. How she finally snapped and screamed at them, and how it all escalated so much faster than she ever meant it to.

Her mother hums, a note of... approval? Pride? in her tone. “The school didn’t tell me Tanya called Lily a slur. Just that you ‘lashed out’.”

Soyona rolls over to see her mother’s lip curled with disdain, anger boiling dangerously in her eyes. She recoils, terror spiking through her heart, before she realises: her mother is not angry at her. She’s angry at the school. A peculiar warmth races through Soyona’s heart, tugging the corners of her lips into a smile.

She reins in her rage, and says, calmly, in Lhasa, “It sounds to me like you just made a mistake in the heat of the moment. Yes, you caused hurt, and you should apologise. But you didn’t mean to. Lily will understand that.”

“Thanks, mum.” Soyona gets up, and wraps her arms around her mother, holding tight.

She squeezes back, and whispers, “anytime, nyingdu-la.”

So that’s how Soyona ends up in front of the giant red-brick Victorian where Lily lives, looking at the ivy crawling up the house in a way that should be spooky but isn’t, and trying to summon the courage to call Lily to let her know she’s there.

She never knocks on the door; Lily’s mother Verena has severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, and noise — even small amounts — can be enough to trigger a flare up. Soyona still doesn’t entirely understand it, but Lily does, and that’s more than enough for Soyona to trust her entirely.

But calling means hearing Lily’s voice. Speaking to her. Risking the gut-wrenching beep of Lily taking one look at the number on her brick phone screen and ending the call.

However... it could mean forgiveness. It could mean redemption. It could mean seeing Lily smile after three agonising days apart — the longest and worst days of Soyona’s life she can remember.

That alone is enough to make Soyona dial Lily’s number.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Three rings.

Soyona was always careful not to fall ill with it. Love is a sickness that does nothing but distract her from what really mattered: a vague goal of success she never bothered to define, that she just knew she had to get. She took all the precautions, and it infected her anyway: poisoning her with stomachaches when she thinks about her, tachycardia when she’s near, and cravings for the mere cadence of her voice. That desperation is thoroughly unbecoming of someone like her. She’s Soyona Santos. Her name (well, until recently) casts a shadow of dread through the heart of anyone at Jurassic Secondary who hears it. The click of the heels she isn’t technically allowed to wear clacking through the corridors makes the younger students scramble. She is feared. She is dreaded. She is—

“Soyona?”

Soyona almost drops the phone. “Lily?”

She gasps softly, the sound like static through the receiver. “It’s... are you outside?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m— I’m here, Lily.” God, she sounds pathetic, clinging onto her phone with both hands. “Do you... want to talk?”

Lily is silent, and for a moment, Soyona fears the absolute worst. She definitely hates her. She never wants to even see her again. She’s going to hang up now, and Soyona will have no one. She’ll no longer be feared, just pitied. People won’t cower at the sound of her approaching, won’t marvel at her perfect, blonde waves. She’ll be nothing.

Then, a soft, “Yes. I do,” floats from the phone, and Soyona’s heart relaxes in relief so violently it hurts her chest.

“Oh— okay. May I come in?”

“Okay.”

Lily hangs up the call, and Soyona stares at the door, waiting.

The door clicking open makes Soyona actually flinch, like a shitty horror movie jumpscare. Lily stares, a myriad of shock and sadness swirling through her crystal-blue eyes, and humiliation makes Soyona’s cheeks flush in a way she can’t ever remember feeling before.

“Hey. Lily.”

“Soybe— Soyona.”

Soyona’s heart skips, and she doesn’t know what felt worse: hearing a beat of Lily’s beloved nickname for her, or knowing she chose not to say it.

“May I come in?”

Lily steps aside, pointing with her head to the lounge, and Soyona sheepishly follows. She perches on the edge of the sofa: it’s soft and reclines back; one of the many adaptations the house has to accommodate Verena.

(Plus, Soyona recalls with a smile, it’s nice to snuggle on while she and Lily are watching a movie. It’s nice to slip an arm around her and guide her face towards her own with merely a brush of her fingers and kiss each other until love turns to feverish desperation. But thinking of good times only makes the present sting more.)

“So.” Soyona drums her hands on her knees. Lily stares at her, expectant, eyes piercing straight through to her soul. Soyona’s arms prickle.

There’s so much she could say. So much she wants to say. So much that’s been burning the edge of her tongue until it chapped away at her lips and made the thought of kissing Lily hurt like a knife in her shoulder.

All that comes out is a stiff, stilted, painfully awkward, “How are you?”

“Okay. Busy with school.” Like everything Lily says, it’s short, efficient, not using any more words than she has to.

“That’s— good, I suppose.” Soyona forces a smile, and immediately feels horrible, because when has she ever had to force a smile around Lily?

Bite the bullet, Santos! She screams in her head. It won’t get any easier if she leaves it. Say it say it say i—

“I’m... sorry.”

And, like poking a hole in a dam, apologies burst forth, hurrying out of Soyona’s mouth with violent desperation. “I should never have said that, and I’m so sorry, and I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me, and I get it if it takes a while but I need you so much and—”

“Stop.” Lily’s voice is quiet, commanding, yet it booms through Soyona’s head, louder than anything she’s ever heard. Soyona’s cheeks flush hotly, embarrassment pricking a needle into every millimeter of her skin. How unbecoming of her. How unbecoming to be 

Lily’s always had that effect on her. She unravels her with one word, she crumbles her with one touch, and Soyona would let it happen until she turns to dust and nothing, because Lily... She is her everything.

So, she hangs onto every breath in every syllable in every word, as Lily quietly speaks.

“I’m upset that you told everyone. My anxiety in school is worse.” Guilt punches right through the centre of Soyona’s chest, leaving nothing but a gaping, yawning cavity where the ghost of her heart tries to beat in its destroyed place. “But I know you didn’t mean to. I don’t blame you. People in our school are just horrible.”

“Except you.” The words slip from Soyona’s lips. “You’re my favourite out of everyone there.”

“And you mine.” Lily finally — finally looks up at Soyona, warmth beaming from her crystal eyes.

Silence sways between them, like waves rocking them on a ship.

“I... forgive you,” Lily says eventually.

Crystals seem fragile and breakable, but they are strong. They capture the light like they own it, and sharp enough, they cut straight through skin like knives. The evidence of Lily’s resilience shines in her eyes.

So Soyona bolts forward, wrapping Lily in her arms like her strength can flow into her too.

Lily squeezes back, drawing in a breath of Soyona’s shoulder. “I missed your smell.”

Soyona buries her nose in Lily’s hair: dogs and cleaning spray and strength. She could get drunk on that smell alone. “I missed yours. And your smile. And your eyes. And talking to you.”

Lily doesn’t reply, only squeezing her tighter. The touch says what words can’t, with far more feeling than Soyona ever could’ve felt from mere vibrations in the air. Those only touch her eardrums. This touches her skin and body and heart, in ways nothing ever has, and nothing ever will again.

Together they half-step, half-fall onto the bed, their arms still around each other, and Soyona lets out a quiet, startled giggle — possibly the most unbecoming thing she’s done all day, because Soyona Santos does not giggle for anything. (No, she only peels back her perfect skin and lets the cracks show for her everything.) Lily loosens her grip on Soyona, unfurling herself so her forehead is almost pressed against hers.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And then they both laugh and, dammit, giggle, like the schoolgirls the world never let them be, sharing secrets at a sleepover with the covers tucked over their heads.

They shift around, Lily propping herself on her arm, her cheek squished on the fingers of her other hand, and Soyona mirrors her position.

“How have you been?” Soyona eventually asks, knowing Lily doesn’t usually initiate conversation. “It’s been forever.”

“Three days, Soybean.”

“It felt like forever.”

Lily laughs, soft, coating the room in a dusting of light gold. “I’ve been okay.”

“And Verena?”

“She’s okay, too. I’ve been taking care of her.”

“But you haven’t had anyone taking care of you,” Soyona says sadly.

Lily kisses Soyona on the tip of her nose. “I do now.”

“Aw, c’mere!” Soyona bundles Lily back into her arms, tugging her close until she can almost feel Lily’s ribs pressing against hers, the sharp jut of her hips against Soyona’s thigh.

“How have you been?” Lily asks into Soyona’s collarbone.

“Other than missing you, I’ve been—” Soyona stops short. Because she hasn’t been okay, has she? Her carcass has been left to rot in the blazing, scorching sun of secondary school. Not even the vultures want her now.

“You can tell me, Soyona.”

The use of her name — those three syllables forever tied to Lily’s tune for them — sends shivers zipping down her spine, jolting her enough to make the word “no” fall from her lips.

Lily looks confused, so Soyona clarifies, “No, I haven’t been good. I’ve been—” a sob bubbles in her throat, and she chokes it down, coughing painfully from the horizontal position they’re in. “Lily, everyone hates me now.”

“They don’t matter,” Lily whispers softly, her words punctuated by the movement of her lips and tongue against her mouth. Soyona’s skin prickles. “Who cares what they think?”

“I’m not like you, Lily.” Soyona sighs. “I’m not brave. I can’t just ignore what people think of me.”

“If I can do it, I’m sure you can,” Lily says, and Soyona lets out a soft laugh.

“It’s just... I don’t know who I am now that I’m not...”

“You never changed,” Lily says. “You just stopped hiding. So who do you think you are now?”

“I’m...” Soyona’s eyes sink down to the duvet between them. “I guess I’m kind — or I try to be. I like dinosaurs. I’m secretly a bit of a nerd.”

“You’re ruthless,” Lily adds. “You won’t stop until you get what you want. I admire that about you.”

“I’m a whole person without those mean bitches I hung out with,” Soyona says with a laugh.

“Exactly!” Lily says proudly. “You’re someone. You’re amazing in every way. And...” Lily’s cheeks flush red. “You’re my everything.”

Soyona snuggles closer, burying herself in Lily’s warmth. “And you’re mine.”