Chapter Text
It's been a few years since she left slugterra. She's sure that they're fine down there, it's not like she left them completely without a Shane, but every so often she thinks about it. Not too often- She's in her 20s now, with bills to pay and extended family to avoid- but sometimes she can't help it when her old life crosses her mind. The separation between Eli Shane the figure and her own personal surface life is probably the only reason she can stomach hearing her deadname when the pharmacist calls it out for her to pick up her meds. She can't be bothered to get her name changed, too much paperwork, but Selene likes to imagine she's stepping into her old shoes for a moment anyway.
Nobody on the surface knows who Eli Shane is, the people sitting next to her in the stuffy chemist's office have no clue what that name means, so for a moment she lets herself pretend she's somehow 15 again. And then the pharmacist calls her again, and she stands up, gets her meds, and goes home. The public transport to her apartment is bad, so the trip's a few hours, but it's better that than a psych ward stay.
In the evenings, she goes to work, cash in hand where she can. She prefers it, the tactile feeling of earning a wage. It's usually security gigs, or selling tickets to small shows for bands she hasn't heard before and won't ever hear again, but it's satisfying work. It keeps her out of her head, at least.
It's a quiet life, with no real friends on the surface even after all these years. She doesn't put in the effort to know people beyond acquaintances, and she moves towns every six months or so anyway. Keeps it from getting stale. Keeps the fear from catching up to her.
Selene doesn't regret leaving slugterra so long as she doesn't think about why she left, so she doesn't let herself think at all. When work doesn't need her to pass tox screenings, she smokes weed until she greens out, or binge watches tv shows she used to watch with her dad. Sometimes, if she's broke, or if she really has to take a fancier security job, she'll spend her nights playing guitar instead, the one thing she managed to break into Jimmo's old place to steal before the rest of her family got to it.
She plays the songs her dad taught her, but only sings when she's sure the people in the apartment under hers aren't home. She doesn't like her voice, but eventually she knows the words will force their way out of her, like they've got nowhere else to go.
It's like that today, midday winter sun beating down on her as she jolts awake. She can't remember the nightmare, but it claws at her heels regardless. The benefit of being a night shift worker is that everyone else is at work when she gets woken up like this, so at least she can let herself scream into her pillow.
She doesn't bother trying to go back to sleep. She knows from experience it won't work, no matter how many sleeping pills she takes. Her hands shake as she opens the guitar case, her eyes still barely open. She'd been up until 4 in the morning with work, then another hour's walk home. She hadn't had enough sleep, and it's obvious, notes she could usually play blind scrambled and messy. The movement of the strings beneath her fingers is soothing enough, pulling her out of the depths of her head.
She leans over to her bedside table, popping some painkillers and her antidepressants. She knows she's taking them too early, but she doesn't really care. She takes them dry, and only retches twice. She doesn't throw them back up, so that's an achievement.
Her voice still hasn't woken up enough to sing, so Selene puts the guitar back where it belongs, and drags herself out of bed. She goes to the bathroom, stepping into a boiling shower still in her clothes. She doesn't have the energy to take them off, the thought of confronting what lies beneath much too much for her on only a few hours of sleep. She can sort of guess what her nightmare was about by tracing where the queasiness in her stomach settles, nestling itself right into her ribs. It was about her dad again, she thinks. It's better than the Jimmo nightmares. Or the Blakk nightmares. Her dad nightmares she's been having since she was 13, so they're at least a familiar evil.
It's only when she nearly passes out that she steps out of the shower, wrapping a towel around her waist while she picks over leftovers in the fridge to make herself breakfast. She does miss slugterran food, in hindsight. If she ever went back, she'd take surface spices with her, and she'd bet any money that she'd be a better cook than Pronto.
Her microwave makes an unpleasant noise, and she realizes she forgot to take food out of the foil. Yeah, she thinks, as she frantically opens the door, praying there won't be a fire, definitely a better cook.
The food- and her microwave- is fine, but her ego is bruised, so she almost wants to just throw away the evidence and go buy herself something, but she's broke this week, not having had enough shifts at work, so she settles with scowling the whole time she's eating. It's exhausting, to wake up like this as often as she does.
Time slips through her fingers, and the next time she looks up, the clock on the microwave says it's three in the afternoon. She's not sure if she dozed off sitting up, or if she'd just... zoned out, again. Like she usually does, when left alone. Normally she'd force herself to go out, when she gets like this, but she can't help but feel like maybe she deserves it, as she runs her fingers along the thin white scar across her neck.
She pulls her hands away, holding them in her lap. She tries not to look at them often, the scars and other marks reminders of her failures. She wears gloves, most of the time, even in summer. The only time she takes them off is sleep- or to play the guitar. But she'd forgotten to put them back on, and she could see clear as day the dark water marks across her hands, splotchy like vitiligo.
It makes her sick, and she feels herself slipping again, but then her phone rings from the other room. She has to answer it. It's probably important. Her lease is up soon, it might be one of the apartments she'd applied for. Or it could be another job offer.
The phone rings out before she makes it to her room. It's the front desk of the building she lives in. Her intercom has been broken since before she moved in, so if there's packages they usually just ring her. But she hasn't bought anything that would be a package lately, so part of her wants to just say it'd be a wrong number, and ignore it.
Instead, she calls them back.
“Hey. This is Selene. You.. rung me.” Her voice sounds like shit.
“Oh! Eli-” She flinches. Most of the desk staff are great, but a few of them are assholes. At least it's not exclusively calling her sir. “-Yeah, we've got someone here saying you were supposed to let them in?”
She pauses. The receptionist can't see her raised eyebrow, so she forces herself to speak. “I... Didn't think I was having guests today?” She hesitates. “I might've just forgot, I guess. Uh-”
Selene looks around her apartment. It's a mess, but anyone who she's invited over is warned in advance. She assumes it's probably Penny visiting her, one of her usual coworkers for ticketing gigs. The two of them would smoke together sometimes. But she's pretty sure the next meeting was supposed to be at Penny's place, unless she's zoned out through that too. She realizes she's been quiet too long.
“Just send them up.” She says, then ends the call as soon as the receptionist acknowledges she's heard her.
She doesn't bother to tidy up, other than shoving her guitar case under her bed. When there's knocking at her apartment door, she pauses. It's not the way Penny knocks, but she swears she's heard it before. She forces herself not to spiral on the details, and cracks open the door.
Selene doesn't recognize who she's seeing, at first. And then she does, because she's pretty sure she'd recognize his eyes anywhere, and he's staring at her like he's not sure she's real, and then she's slamming the door in his face, because what else can she do?
What the hell else can she do when Twist is standing at her door like a ghost come alive?