runs in the family

Barbie ignored the indignant thumping of her downstairs neighbors when she slammed her door shut. She couldn’t be fucked with courtesy on the best of days so she wasn't sure what they thought they were accomplishing. Curling up in bed was a small comfort when Barbie’s ribcage still felt too small for her lungs.

She was well within her fucking right to hate him. He manhandled her to rehab and ditched her. He didn’t visit. He burned Fizz alive. He killed ma. He fucking killed ma, a mantra Barbie had taken up for the past, what, fifteen years? She knew this to be true, and yet. When she rejected his offer to catch up, all she could see in his face was ma’s big doe eyes, and all she could think was how much she felt like Cash. 

Punching her pillow, Barbie got out of bed when it was clear sleep wouldn’t come. H-eight made it so easy to get whisked away by sleep. Or it did when her system was still affected, something she hadn’t been able to experience for a while. Maybe her time in rehab had been long enough to lower her tolerance. 

Instead of calling up her plug, Barbie made herself some ramen. She methodically stabbed a fork into the noodles. It’d be nice if they were her brain meats. Her phone only had a handful of contacts. Cash. Fizzarolli. Verosika. Blitzo. 

Her fingers itched to pull it out and call up Verosika; somehow this was a more potent need than her passive craving for H-eight. Verosika was a prickly thing, and loved to poke and prod at insecurities until she struck gold, and beat that dead horse until her sharp words lost meaning. It was a talent, but she was talented in other ways.

(Like when they fucked, she somehow knew when Barbie needed tenderness. When she slowed her thrusts and teased at her clit until Barbie spasmed around her cock, all the while breathing out praises, calling her ‘my good girl,’ even though it wasn’t true.)

If Verosika was up for it, it’d be so easy to set up a meeting and forget everything. It wouldn’t hurt the same way digging up the past did, but. Well. It was a bit too late to avoid pain, wasn’t it. As usual, Blitzo couldn’t let her forget, refused to let her sink into oblivion for long. She grabbed her phone and pulled up his contact. 

As soon as he picked up, Barbie said in a controlled voice, “You’re paying for lunch.” 

She couldn’t block out his (pathetically, honestly) jubilant response even after hanging up.