molt: (hs | blood flowers)
the monster without a name. ([personal profile] molt) wrote in [community profile] milkcrisis2011-11-06 01:05 am

red dress.

THE LIST OF CONTINGENCIES ENDED WITH YOU. homestuck, the handmaid + her hair. fragmentary, out of order, and the numbering is ridiculous. content warning for suicidal ideation, vague mentions of suicide attempts, some disturbing imagery.


93i0p9u4.

Being a scourge upon troll civilization is busy, rewarding work, if a little lonely. She rarely has time to care for herself, as ridiculous as that seems considering her abilities.

Regardless, she makes sure to wash the blood out of her hair every once in a while.

02.

The first time she takes scissors to her hair, she does it with vindictive pleasure: she knows it will bother him for days, weeks on end. Oh, he can posture, tell her he knows what she plans to do every time, and won’t she change her mind? No, she won’t—she’s too predictable, of course. Of course.

It feels cathartic in a way that even managing to get away from him for a moment or two has never been. She is old enough to know that there will not be permanent escape until the time is right, which never stops her from trying, but these little acts of resistance can make a difference, too. And they do.

Released, her hair reaches down to just above her knees. She can look at it objectively—it is beautiful hair: full, dark and healthy with shine. It also fills her with a violent, choking anger. She feels it might crawl out of her, somehow, and greet her, black bile dripping down its form. She would welcome it.

If it were any other day, she might stew in this, curl her hands into useless fists and feel the sting of claws breaking skin. She would curl her lip when he came to check on her only to make concerned sounds over the small wounds. Today, she has something else. She has scissors.

It never crosses her mind to misuse them. ( A lie. She has learned to deal in those. It crosses her mind, briefly, but that's not why she asked for them.)

She doesn’t use the mirror while she’s cutting, just attacks her hair at random with no small amount of joy. She does catch a glimpse of herself as she leaves the bathroom. It looks entirely ridiculous, messy and at odds with her tidy uniform. It pleases her. Makes her happy, even. She closes the door after a last glance at all the hair she’s rid herself of, lying in clumps on the floor, and smiles faintly.

Barbaric, he will tell her when he’s seen it. Simply awful, as he brushes her short hair with slightly more force than necessary. It's always nice to upset him.

This is when she decides that no one but her will be allowed to touch her hair.


00.

He tells her, once, that he will always give her the means to care for her hair, and if she decides to be particularly difficult, he will make sure to care for it himself.

“It is, after all, one of your best features,” he confides.

He tucks a few strands of hair behind her ears, and leans back to (presumably, it's hard to tell) admire his work. She thinks, idly, that she hates him, which is hardly a new concept. What is new is the spike of hatred she feels for her own hair, as though it has somehow betrayed her.

She begins to think on it then.


11?98843002?(?6.

Her Imperious Condescension has a temper, she finds out. The Handmaid prostrates herself before her ruler, her dress freshly cleaned. She keeps a tight grip over her wands.

Perhaps one of the Imperial gifts is to see through bullshit, because the first hit comes not long after. The Condesce is not very patient either, it seems. Admittedly, the Handmaid is a little thankful.

She is very glad she thought to cut her hair one last time before she came here.


01.

“A pair of scissors.” There is a standing offer. Anything she wants, she can say, and he will provide it. Except, of course, what she wants most.

His voice is coloured with amusement. “And what, pray tell, do you intend to do with the scissors I’m meant to give you?" A slight pause, not nearly long enough for her to formulate a response. She doesn't try. "No, don’t answer. I know.”

She doesn't look at him, only nibbles on a tea biscuit

“You might reconsider, my dear,” he offers, resting the area where his chin would be on his joined hands. “You do have the most beautiful hair.”

“Your elbows are on the table,” she points out gently.

“Ah, yes.” He moves them off. “Thank you most kindly.”

She pours herself more tea.

The scissors appear on her dresser exactly a week later.


03.

It grows back, which makes sense. She understands that as time passes, there are changes to her body. She knows this, not only like one knows that which is learned from a book, but like she knows to breathe. Instinctively.

Still. She can’t help the unhappiness she feels when she has to begin tying it up again. It stays up, mostly, but some pieces escape, and that is some consolation.


04.

She gets out, and he finds her. That’s the way it goes. Only this time, it’s not him at all.

She looks up at her true master, who has always been here. Who is here and will always be here. She understands she never really had a chance.

She feels angrier than she has ever been. It's a condition that lasts until her death.


08.

The day he finally sends her on her way, after years of training, she cuts her hair again. She has done it many times by now, over the years, but this feels momentous, weightier somehow. This time, she leaves herself a reminder of how long it once was: two strands that brush along the back of her thighs when she walks. She curls those about her horns, and cuts around them.

Her master sneers when he sees her (she hasn’t quite worked out how that is possible, considering), lets out that dreadful excuse for a laugh.

She lets it go on for a while, then murmurs, “yes, master," quite agreeably. That shuts him right up. Rudeness, he expects—fighting, and threats of hurting herself, those are the norm—but deference on her part always makes him pause.

She knows now, what they will call her. What she must do, who she must meet, and the way she dies. And she has learned how to make her master’s mouth metaphorically, if not literally, snap closed. It's something, though not a day goes by when she doesn't feel close to exploding with anger and hatred.

She gathers the few possessions she will need to take along, and looks back at him one last time, takes in the macabre grin, and the grisly make-up. The two long strands of hair snap around her as she turns away.





PYROTECHNIC DEVICES. dc comics. steph/jordanna, jordanna finds out about batgirl. this is...honestly kind of a WIP? but i have been wanting to write it forever. one day i might even incorporate how they got together, who knows.


Jordanna starts trying to push her off after roughly thirty seconds.

“C’mon, idiot, get off!”

“I know you might not have noticed, but I just did,” Steph says, and offers her a goofy smile. She puts her head back down on Jordanna’s stomach.

Jordanna’s lips twitch, and Steph thinks she might actually get a smile out of her this time, but then the corners of Jordanna’s mouth turn down. She looks pretty mad.

“Don’t be gross,” she hisses.

Steph closes her eyes and slowly moves to rub her sweaty face along Jordanna’s arm. When she opens them, it’s only to see Jordanna sneering down at her, reaching for a pillow with her other arm.

“I said, OFF!”

It turns out Jordanna is really good with a pillow. Steph ends up on the floor, on her back, breathing hard, which is probably why she doesn’t notice Jordanna going to her closet. She scrambles up when she hears the door opening, and stumbles in her closet’s general direction, but Jordanna has noticed already.

“What the hell is this?” Jordanna is holding up a Batgirl uniform, one of the newer ones, making a sour face at it, like her sartorial sensibilities are insulted. She probably doesn’t like the eggplant detailing. Steph had thought now that her mom knew, it would be safe to keep around, but she was wrong. She’s kinda used to that feeling, but this seems like it could be a really big mess.

“Um,” she says. Yes, Steph, good job. Super eloquent and totally useful for moving the conversation away from vigilantism.

“Are you one of those freaks that like, pretends to be a superhero and goes to conventions and shit?”

That is possibly the greatest out she could have been given, which is probably why she fumbles it. “Uh, yeah! Yes, that’s exactly it. That’s me, Steph Brown, embarrassing Batgirl enthusiast!”

Jordanna makes an unconvinced snorting sound, says, “You’re lying.”

“Huh?”

Jordanna narrows her eyes at the suit, and turns to look at Steph. She does that a few times.

Then, “Are you Batgirl?”

Steph is pretty sure people are not supposed to figure it out that fast. How come this stuff never happens to anyone else? Like, she’s pretty sure no one has figured Superboy out, and all he does is put on a checkered shirt and some glasses. He’s never even worn a mask.

She can’t believe this is actually happening to her. She’s standing in front of her closet, naked, after going down on Jordanna and having a pretty one-sided pillow fight with her, and Jordanna is holding her uniform, asking if she’s Batgirl.

“You are,” says Jordanna, and if Steph didn’t know better, she’d say her voice has gone a little awed. Steph’s taken too long to answer, though, and now she has to make a decision.

“Yeah,” Steph says. “I kind of am.” She hopes it’s the right one.

Jordanna throws the suit back into the closet. “You broke into my apartment once,” she says, kicking the door closed. She comes to stand in front of Steph again, eyebrows raised.

“Um, yeah,” Steph says. “About that, I...”

“Whatever,” Jordanna says, waving her hand, and walks towards the bed. Steph’s eyes follow the line of her back, the sway of her hips. “Like I’d expect anything else.”

She lets herself fall back on the bed, and throws an arm over her eyes. Steph takes a step towards the bed, hesitates.

Jordanna lifts her arm away and gives her one of her very effective, what, are you dumb? looks. “Come on, then, weirdo.”

Steph grins, and backs up a little, stretching her leg behind her so she has some impulse. Jordanna says, “Wait, what are you—?”

She launches herself at the bed. Jordanna shrieks and grabs her arms, and Steph uses the leverage to bury her face in her neck. Jordanna makes an annoyed sound, but Steph could swear she feels the brief press of her lips against her hair.






Steph remembers how nice it felt when Tim and she finally both knew each other’s secret identities—though he’d known hers first, of course, but it’s all so tied up in how much they’ve hurt each other over the years that most of the time she just doesn’t want to think about it. This is so much nicer. It doesn’t actually come up a lot, it’s just something they both know and when it’s safe, Steph can now jokingly ask Jordanna how it feels to make out with Batgirl. The first time, Jordanna goes, “Who?” and Steph slaps her arm.

Jordanna smirks at her, says, “Eh, it’s alright, I guess.”

She hasn’t had to tell her that keeping it a secret is important—Jordanna is very smart, even if the thing people remember most about her is that she’s mean, and she knows how important the ‘secret’ part of the ‘secret identity’ thing is. Jordanna says it’s probably from having to deal with Francisco, and his family.






Slow nights get to be kind of boring, and she usually gets lazier when they happen. It’s like, why even get hyped up when the most she’s gonna do is stop a few muggings? She’s done that, plus got some intel on an arms exchange going down in a week, so this is about the time she sits down on the edge of a building for a break and a snack.

She’s settled in pretty good when she hears the whistle. At first, she’s pretty sure she’s heard wrong, because she knows that whistle and why would Jordanna—be standing at the bottom of a building, head cocked and hands on her hips.

“Yo, Batgirl,” she hollers. “Yeah, you. Get down here.”

Steph feels like her heart is gonna beat out of her chest. When she gets down to the ground floor, the first thing she does is pull Jordanna into a shadowed area just beside the entrance. An old couple goes into the building, and Steph smiles and waves at them. They watch them go past.

“What are you doing here?”

Jordanna snorts, and fixes Steph with a moody stare. “What, I need an excuse?”

“Um, no, it’s just—”

“Get it out!”

“...I just don’t want to see you get hurt! I mean, this is kind of...if someone sees us hanging out, you know, they might use you to get to me or—”

Jordanna waves aways Steph’s worries. “Damn, this isn’t a movie. I’ve been doing fine by myself, you know? Even before I met you, Batgirl. I know this city, too.”

Steph bites her lip.

“I got pepper spray in my bag, okay? And some brass knuckles.”

Steph bursts into laughter, then covers her mouth. She doesn’t want anyone coming out to shush them.

Jordanna is tapping her foot.

“It’s just,” Steph says. “I’m sorry, you would have brass knuckles, you hardass.”

“You know it,” Jordanna says, and gives Steph a small grin. It makes her chest feel kind of tight.

“Anyway, I thought it would be nice to hang out with my vigilante girlfriend for a bit, or whatever. ‘Cause I know what you do at school, and you’re pretty bad at it, so I wanted to check out what you do at night. Maybe you’re not so bad at it.” Jordanna says all that looking off to the side, at the wall. It’s a pretty plain wall, so Steph doubts she’s fascinated by it or something.

“Yeah,” Steph says. “I”m pretty okay at it, actually!”

“Yeah? So are you gonna let me come to work with you, or what?”

“Batman might kill me...”

Steph imagines if she were still plugged in with Babs all the time, this is where she’d chime in to say that Batman won’t have anything left if she gets there first.

“You do know him, then?”

“Yeah, he’s kind of a jerk. Or, well, the old one is.”

“There’s a new one?”

Steph honest-to-god could slap her forehead for that one. Yeah, go ahead, tell the civilian girlfriend all the family secrets. Put her in more danger. Then she kind of back-pedals. Repeats that to herself. Ew. She sounds like Tim. She glances at Jordanna, who looks back, fierce and independent and incredibly willing to hand people’s asses to them wrapped in a pretty bow.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Come on, I’ll tell you all about it.”

She grabs Jordanna by the hand, and they go into the elevator.

“What, you’re not gonna give me a ride on one of your Bat-swing-thingies?”

“I’m not Spider-man, Jordanna!”

“Whatever, boring.” Jordanna rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling that really tiny, soft smile again. Steph squeezes her hand. Jordanna elbows Steph.