⌚ 4:36 AM

El should have noticed.

When she is thrusted from her own dreams with a violent scream from above her, it dawns on her. Grace hasn't let out a peep about her mom for the past few days. Now, she's muttering utter nonsense, words melding together, "Nonono please mom please please mom don't anything I'll please nono mom..." And her breaths are short and ragged and it scares El.

Then, a loud thud. A groan. More wailing.

El feels compelled to rise, all the sleepiness drained from her when she sees Grace on the floor in the semi-dark. The strawberry blonde has her eyes squeezed shut and she's quivering like a fucking leaf and she's pale as snow and she's covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Panic paired with adrenaline boils in El's blood. Grace hasn't acknowledged El in so long. Should she - ?

She should. "G-grace?" El whispers, crouching beside Grace.

Grace doesn't budge, still shaking, wailing, asleep, despite falling five feet. "Please I'll no please..."

"Grace," El says louder.

"Don't don't no don't no..."

El bites her lip. "Grace?" The pathetic statement comes out as a scared question. "Grace." The sound of her own voice shocks her. She brings her hand down slowly, and she feels her heart drumming violently against her ribcage as she touches Grace's arm ever so slightly.

El has barely made contact when Grace jolts awake, stormy eyes wide as saucers. She gasps, but it's strangled as she's still trembling. Her breaths are too sporadic to be considered normal - Grace is hyperventilating.

And honestly, the spectacle shocks El. This is the weakest she's ever seen Grace Upland. All those times she's cried in her sleep combined wouldn't compare to her now. El gulps, now unaware of what to do.

Grace seems to forget that she's meant to be giving El the cold shoulder. A panic attack does that to a person, El guesses. Tears trickle out of Grace's eyes, huge droplets that leave tracks on her round cheeks. "E-el?" Grace croaks out. The sound of her name coming from those lips warms El's insides but there's no time for that.

"What do I do?" El mutters. Her mother used to have panic attacks, and she'd push a ten year old El out of her room, begging for silence and time. El chews on the inside of her cheek. Her mother never had it this bad. Grace is practically writhing on the hardwood floor of the cabin, her chest caving in on itself, sweating profusely. "Should I - should I go? Leave you alone?"

Leave me alone, El's mother would beg. Please. So El would. It would take anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours for her mother to calm down, and she'd then bring El out for ice cream, all smiles and cheery voice.

"No," Grace is saying now. "N-no. Stay." She sniffs, bringing a shaky hand up to her nose. "P-please."

El doesn't know what she's meant to do. Grace is a mess. It's as if she isn't meant to see her like this. What happened to the confident, queenly, majestic woman? Why is this quivering, vulnerable mess at El's cold feet?

"Okay," El says. She'll stay.

Grace twitches her head. A nod? She purses her lips and tries to lift herself from the hardwood, only to have her weak arms give in beneath her and let her fall back to the floor. Whimpering, Grace lays on her side, hugging her legs to her torso. Her breaths still can be likened to a sputtering engine - like the engine of El's shitty car.

El has never felt so useless, just watching Grace lie there, gasping for air and crying. She knows she should do something. But what is that something? Hold Grace in her arms? Massage her? Tell her a bedtime story? El doesn't have any experience with panic attacks aside from her mother's old spells and if it isn't obvious enough, Lisa Thropp and Grace Upland are very different people. El can't stand only sitting there with nothing to do.

"Just," El feels the awkwardness settle around them, "calm down, okay?" Yes, how oh so helpful of her.

Grace hums, turning now so she's facing El. Her breaths slow slightly. She tries to smile, but a grimace is what it comes out as. Grace looks utterly helpless like this and El can't stand it. Her nose is wet, suddenly, and she realizes she's crying too. Fuck.

She wipes at her eyes. "Do you need anything?" El asks, shocked at how even her voice sounds. "Water? An inhaler? I swear to god I brought my old inhaler but it's expired and - " El's words die in her throat when she looks back at Grace to see that the pink nightgown-clad girl is sat up now.

"I-I'm fine," Grace says. Even she doesn't seem to believe her own words. But she's shaking less. Color has slowly gone back to her cheeks. The sunlight beginning to come in through the window makes her glow.

"Good," El says lamely. Her knee is four inches away from Grace's foot. That's the closest they've been to each other in days. El tries not to let it get to her head.

"This h-happens a lot," Grace explains. "I-I stop g-getting the dreams for - for awhile and then - and then I...I - " She starts trembling again.

"Grace," El says, letting a small, reassuring smile tug at her lips. "Shut up."

Grace shoots her a dirty look - well, she tries to. "Maybe s-some water would h-help," she admits.

El nods, and rises immediately, somehow relieved at the distance she's able to put between them. She busies herself with taking the (pink) cup Grace usually uses to rinse her mouth out, and filling it with the cold water of the bathroom sink. Her own hands are shaking slightly, and her heart is pounding in her ears, and she can't wipe the tiny smile off her face.

"Here." El hands Grace the cup.

Grace takes it gratefully, gulping the water down like she'd do with beer or marshmallow vodka. Her tense shoulders loosen. Her chest doesn't heave as extremely. Her arms have stopped quivering. "Thanks," she says when she's put the cup down.

"You okay now?" El doesn't mean to sound impatient but it sure does sound that way. It's just that she's kind of scared right now. That's it.

"I - I think so." Grace sighs. Playing with the hem of her nightgown, she says, "I'm sorry."

El wants to fling herself into the lake. "F-for what?" For fuck's sake, she shouldn't be nervous. This is just Grace. Her on-and-off enemy, apparently. The girl she has a so-called huge flaming lesbian crush on. The one who was having a fucking panic attack a few minutes ago.

"For putting you through this." Grace means the whole panic attack ordeal, but El can sense that she implies more than that.

El just jerks her head, praying to whoever will listen that her face isn't as red as she thinks it is. "That's okay."

Grace heaves a heavy sigh - still slightly shaky. "Can we talk?"

Yes. Please. "Don't you need to rest or something? Get you to the infirmary - ?"

"No, not really. I'm used to it. I've had panic - uh, this sort of thing happen before."

"I never pegged you as the sort." El, please for the love of god, stop sounding so damn terrified.

"Mm." Grace purses her lips. "So can we? Talk?"

El hopes she just imagines her heart falling into her stomach. "Yeah. Okay. Sure."

"I'm sorry," Grace says again.

"That's fi - "

Grace puts a hand up. "Don't." She scoots closer to El and with every inch she's closing between them, the more El can't find air to take in. "I'm sorry...for being a bitch."

El tries to recall why she was so furious at Grace. She was ignored, hated, she felt like she meant nothing to someone who meant a whole lot to her. That made her furious. Now, she tries to find that hot fury, only to end up with a heavy feeling in her chest that resembles confusion. Seeing Grace on the floor only a few minutes ago, like she was a whole other person, that's what snapped El out of the fury. She's tired of holding grudges. It's draining and pathetic and El is so over that.

"That was really immature of me," Grace continues. Her words are slow, heavy; this is hard for her. "I guess I just thought you felt the same way," she gulps, "but you didn't. So I got angry. Shit." Tears form in her tired grey eyes - she rubs at them. "Ah, yeah. I ruined our friendship with stupid feelings and now everything sucks and I miss you, El. I really...miss you. I was stupid to cut you off. We should've talked."

El's chest swells. She never thought she'd hear the words come out of Grace's mouth. "So we were friends." She grins stupidly wide.

Grace rolls her eyes and El is relieved at the normalcy it comes with. "Duh."

"Thanks," El says. "I'm sorry." Grace opens her mouth to protest but El shoots her a look. "I was angry at you, too. And I was so fucking confused. I mean, that came with being drunk - "

"Sorry." Grace blushes, looking flustered as hell. El wants to bathe in that sight forever. The constant apologies spilling from Grace's mouth are glorious. "For, uh, getting you drunk."

"That's fine. I got myself drunk. But, yeah, there. Confused. Because I care about you, so much, Grace." El swallows the lump forming in her throat. "Then you - you kissed me. And I realized...I care about you in that way."

Grace's jaw hangs open. "You - you what?"

"I care about you," El repeats, feeling a pull towards Grace and now they're six inches from each other. "You ruined me when you ignored me, you know that?"

"I'm sor - " Grace breathes, leaning forward even more.

"Don't." El eyes Grace's lips briefly, pink and plump and so so close.

"Damn it, El, why didn't you tell me?" Grace raises an eyebrow.

"You were ignoring me."

"I already said I'm - "

"I know."

"Truce, then?"

"Mm."

El's nose brushes against Grace's and she flinches at how cold Grace's tiny nose is.

"What the fuck are we?" Grace finally gets rid of the anxiety in her voice and old cocky, bashful Grace is back. El misses her, misses this passion she hasn't seen for days.

"Friends," El says, a sureness present that she never had before. "But with, like, kissing and stuff."

"Kissing?" Grace asks, her breath fanning El's lips. "We don't have a very good history with that."

"How about you shut up," El says, cautiously taking Grace's cheek in her palm, "and we try that again?"

"Smooth, El. Real smooth."

El isn't the only thing that's smooth, she discovers, when she dips her head down to catch Grace's lips in hers. Her heart screams "final-fucking-ly!" and she grins against Grace's soft lips, pressing pressing pressing. Grace snakes her arms around El's long neck and the latter shudders at the feel of her still-damp-from-sweat skin. The kiss is slow, unlike their first - fast and hot - but instead, like both parties are still testing their boundaries, marking their territory. El opens her mouth against Grace's and she gasps at the feeling of Grace's tongue and she's a goner.

And El wants to yell in frustration because, really? How did she want to skip out on this the first time? All the softness and curves and strawberry scent? How did she want to skip out on Grace Upland?

Grace breaks away briefly, and El finds herself leaning into the empty space, chasing after her lips. "The floor's cold," she says, smirking.

"Of course it is." El rolls her eyes but she's grinning and her lips are tingling and she's finding it hard to breathe. She sits on her mattress, Grace in front of her and El twirls a lock of that silky hair between her fingers. Grace takes her face in her hands. "Is the bed adequate enough, your majesty?"

Grace snorts - it's meant to be unattractive but hell, if El isn't even more turned on.

"Yeah, yeah," El retorts and she goes in for another kiss.

And another.

And another.

And another.

⌚ 7:17 AM

El stares at her own fingers laced with Grace's. She pops a slightly burnt mini-pancake into her mouth. El doesn't know what she likes more - the taste of the butter and maple syrup mixing upon her tongue or the warmth of Grace who is finally seated beside her at the counselors' table in the Campfeteria.

Grace's short, pale fingers alternate with El's slender, dark ones and El is reminded of the poster that used to be in her sixth grade classroom. A white person's hand and a black person's grasping each other, with the words, "Friendship overcomes anything" under the image. El has always found that incredibly dumb. One person's skin is darker than the other's - what's there to overcome?

Earlier this morning, right before El was supposed to rip Grace's nightgown off her, the damn horn had blasted and El had wanted to burn the thing. They'd had to break away, Grace's smooth fingers trailing across El's jaw as she'd let go of her. El squeezes at those fingers now, memorizing every crease and fold and dip they hold.

"You okay?" Grace mutters. She takes a bite of the strawberry in her other hand. It's hard to eat with just a hand each, but both are managing.

El squeaks softly.

"It's a miracle!" Isaac declares as he sets his tray down, sitting directly across Grace.

El immediately yanks her hand from Grace's.

Finn sits beside him, grinning the widest El has ever seen him grin. "Hello." He winks. Amazingly, El feels almost nothing towards that awfully cute action. Maybe a bit of irritation because he shouldn't be looking that damn amused.

Will and Louise are next, the former sitting at El's right, his arm slung around the latter's.

"I'm choking on all the sexual tension in the air." Isaac makes a gagging sound.

Grace rolls her eyes. "Do I smell jealousy?"

Jason pulls Luke's chair out for him. "Nah," he pipes up. "That's his horrible cologne."

Isaac grumbles something about how his cologne cost "fifty fucking dollars".

Mari pinches Grace's cheek before she settles into the seat next to her, and Sky in the last one down the line. "Hey there, lovebirds," she sings.

El concentrates on getting her next mini-pancake down. She doesn't look up for fear that the other counselors will notice the blush on her cheeks.

"Hey," Finn mutters to her once all the others are chattering away about who cares what. "Finally sorted everything out, huh?"

El glances at Grace, who is animatedly chatting with Sky and Mari about the new blush she's been eyeing from a Vogue magazine - probably the same one she had used to kill the spider the other morning. Grace looks the brightest she's been in days and El is pleased to think that maybe she's the reason why that's so.

"Yeah," El replies. "I guess."

"Good," Finn says, smiling. "It was getting boring, anyway. Like for how long could you two be at each other's damn throats?"

"I'll be at your throat if you don't shut up, Finn, darling," Grace tells him, turning away from the blush conversation briefly. She smiles sweetly at him; too sweetly. "Watch it."

Finn raises his eyebrows amusedly and chews on a mini-pancake. "Sure thing, ma'am." He looks at El like, good luck.

El takes Grace's wrist in her hand and Grace stiffens only briefly before smiling warmly at El. El nods back and figures she won't need good luck. She's clearly had more than enough of that.

⌚ 3:55 PM

El can't find it in herself to be angry that her cabin lost at paintball. She's covered in every color that has ever existed, sticky paint in every crease and crevice on her body, hair dripping with the stuff but she's got this huge grin that's nearly tearing her cheeks apart.

Lionel has just left them, after congratulating Cabin H on their win (like seriously, they dominated. Cabin A couldn't stand a chance). That still has El kind of ashamed because shit, they have only two days left to bring it home and they can't afford to lose now. She does realize that, it's just she has a perpetual smile on her face.

"Good job, guys!" El cheers, directing her grin at the boys.

"Who are you and what have you done with El?" Luke asks, full of sarcastic worry. El can only picture his half-naked body pushed against Jason's, kissing him fiercely. She shudders.

El narrows her eyes at him, pointing her now empty paintball gun at his lower region. "Mind repeating that question, Luke?"

Luke throws an arm around her. "There she is."

El elbows him in the ribcage. "That's right," she says sternly. Dropping the act, she says into his ear, "By the way, sorry for the thing that happened last night."

"We're used to it," Luke says, a lopsided smile on his face.

"People walking into you while making out?"

"Sometimes while doing even more."

El wrinkles her nose. "Okay. Ew," she tells Luke as he laughs haughtily.

"Come on, not like you and Grace - "

"Jesus," she clamps a hand over his mouth, "shut up."

Then, to her own cabin she says, "C'mon, ladies, let's get you back to your cabin!"

With a half-assed goodbye to Luke (he deserves it, the little shit...she's kidding, of course), El leads Cabin A back to through the woods to their cabin. She walks with no body part touching the other - the feeling of paint in her crotch really isn't doing much good for her. Sure, it isn't as horrible as poison ivy, but it certainly isn't pleasant.

Bianca skips ahead to walk in-step with El. The twelve year old looks comical, with her face half-purple and half-yellow, her shaggy pixie cut soaked in a brownish green, and a place on her chest bright red. "So I saw you and Grace holding hands awhile ago..."

El, for the first time, is thankful for the amount of blue paint caking her cheeks. "Really?"

"Yep," Bianca says, nudging El slightly. "D'you make up?"

El hops over a huge root. "Oh, Bianca. We made out."

"Shit."

"Language."

"Whatever."

El rolls her eyes, and sighs in relief when she catches sight of Cabin A - the structure, that is - through the trees and brushes. She quickens her pace a bit, which is hard to do when she has paint all up in her private place. Seriously, who shot her down there?

Bianca wipes at the space between her eyebrows, smudging the purple and yellow to create a hideous brown. "Well, you do seem happy," she admits.

"Do I?" El does feel happy. Happier than she's been in a long while. It's weird, but welcome.

Bianca nods and nearly trips over a rock. "It's obvious. You didn't care that we lost today."

"I cared," El objects. "I just didn't...mind."

"Right."

El is tempted to push Bianca into a tree. "Where's your respect, camper?"

"Jeez, if I knew you'd be this tyrannical - "

"Excuse me?"

"Seriously, El?"

"Counselor El."

"As if."

El opens the door of the cabin and ushers the campers in, telling them to clean up. She beams at Bianca, because fine, even if she isn't all about the favoritism thing, Bianca has to be the camper she values the closest to her. "Since you care so much about us winning, how about you make sure you don't get shot within the first two seconds of a paintball match?" She hears Laura, soap and a towel in hand, snicker on her way out and El imagines that under all that paint, Bianca's face is a flushed pink.

"Will do, Counselor El," Bianca bites back.

"That's what I like to hear."

⌚ 9:05 PM

When El enters her and Grace's cabin, she finds Grace seated on the bottom bunk, two bottles of beer in one hand, a bottle opener in the other.

"Is it just me or is this a severe case of déjà vu?" El asks coyly, referring to that night a week ago, when Grace had greeted her with marshmallow vodka and they'd both gotten absolutely piss-drunk.

"Shut up," Grace says, tossing her one of the beer bottles. "Let's go."

Grace swings her legs to the side of the bed and only now does El notice she's wearing one of El's designated-for-pajamas-overly-large tee shirts, this one with "HOME IS WHERE THE PANTS AREN'T" plastered across the front in big, bold letters. It suits her, strangely. Then again, everything suits Grace Upland. She makes everything suit her.

"Who said you could borrow that, by the way?" El asks her, holding her arm out so Grace can't get out.

"What, this?" Grace points at the huge thing hanging off her body. "I did."

"Who else would I expect?" El shakes her head.

Grace's lips curl into a venomous smirk. "Exactly," she says, poking at El's shoulder with every syllable.

El ignores the simultaneous warmth that spreads beneath her skin at Grace's touch and the shivers it sends down her spine. "Let me change, at least." The pants she has on now have a huge red splotch on the butt because Brittany thought lugging a red paintball at her ass would be hilarious.

Grace huffs. "Okay." She takes El's beer from her and steps back.

El looks through the array of tee shirts she has and finally chooses a grey one featuring a faded can of Coke - it used to be her father's, when he was slightly overweight. She changes in the bathroom, because even if Grace probably wouldn't mind seeing her in her underwear, El would mind. It just unsettles her, how her ribs can pretty much be used as a corrugated washboard.

When she's done, she lets her hair out of its tight ponytail. El shuts the lights on her way out of the bathroom and taking the beer from Grace, she lets the blonde take her by the wrist and lead the way. El tries not to lose her footing as Grace pulls her in the darkness of the woods, with barely any light from the moon illuminating the path. Still, the light is enough for El to observe the way Grace's hair sways back and forth, silky waves dancing, well, gracefully.

(El would like to sincerely apologize for that.)

She tries to drink in this moment - running through the woods, the sticky heat of the night wrapping around her, the feeling of Grace's hand grasping onto her wrist. Not an extravagant moment, but a nice one. A very nice one that El would like to remember for a long time.

Grace stops eventually, leading El to a spot by the lake she's never really been at before. A huge, unidentifiable tree stands just a few feet from the edge of the lake, with a root big enough for the two girls to lean against. Grace sits herself down and when El does the same, she rests her head comfortably at the crook of El's neck. She pops the beers open and they chug down a bit, El surprised at how easily the bitter, fiery liquid goes down this time around.

"What's this all about?" El whispers. With a night as calm as this, El only finds it appropriate to whisper.

"I just felt like it," Grace replies, then sips a bit more of her beer. "I thought it would be romantic or some shit."

El tries not to linger too much on that word. Romantic. Grace's nonchalant tone is enough proof that there's no real weight on those three syllables. At least, not yet. "This is your idea of romance?"

Grace looks up at El. "Well, yeah. Every cliché camp movie has this sort of scene, right?"

"Minus the beer."

"I like alcohol, okay."

"That's been blatantly obvious."

"Okay, sassafras." Grace lifts her head from El's shoulder and already El is missing her warmth and that sweet scent. Shit, Bianca was right - she is whipped. "You don't need to be a spoilsport."

Spoilsport. El hides her smile by taking another sip of beer. "Sorry."

Grace's expression softens, all of a sudden. She cautiously takes El's free hand in her own - it's cold. Earnestly gazing at El, she asks, "Why aren't you still mad at me?" Grace sounds so scared, so painfully curious, that El has a frown painted on her mouth.

"What?"

"I know you, El," Grace says, and El finds it frightening that she actually does. "You don't forgive people just like that." She snaps her fingers.

"That was a mistake," El replies. "Grudges are fucking exhausting. And I can't stay mad at you...I'm kinda scared that's a thing that you do."

Grace smiles, satisfied at her reply. "Good. That's good. I'm glad that I scare you."

"You don't scare me, though. Well, I mean, sometimes, but not in this case. I literally can't find it in myself to stay mad at you and that's scary."

"Wow."

El gulps. Is she taking this too seriously? Sometimes, being a Psychology major really bothers her. "Yeah."

"Then that is good," Grace says. She grins at El and downs the last of her beer.

El does the same and for a moment, they are silent. El savors the warmth the beer brings her, and then the warmth that Grace radiates. She tries to gulp the uneasiness she has along with the foamy amber liquid. "So..." she trails off, thinking of something to lighten the mood. "Camp's ending."

Way to lighten the mood.

"It is," Grace says, taking El's empty beer bottle and setting it down by her feet beside her own empty beer. "That's sad."

"I'm just...not ready for it to end."

"Me neither." Grace glances at El, a slight pink flush blooming on her cheeks - El is luck to catch it under the silver rays of the moon. "I'm gonna miss this. I'm gonna miss - " Grace stops abruptly, swallowing.

El likes to hope that last word is you. "Same here." She sighs. "I'm gonna miss Cabin A."

"You hated them."

"I hated you." El bites her lip. "Shit. Sorry."

Grace, luckily, chuckles. "Well now, you don't hate either of us."

"Camp's ending," El repeats in a daze. "Fuck."

"Hey," Grace rests a hand on El's shoulder, "don't worry about it, okay? It sucks but we know it had to stop eventually. Camp was great and all but think about college. Time away from this place - we'll be doing what we love. No poison ivy or stupid horns, right?"

El doesn't say that camp has quickly turned into what she loves doing. She complains about it a lot, but she can't bear stepping out of the grounds of Camp Ashwood. El gives Grace a smile (it feels more like a grimace, to be honest). "Right. I'm being a spoilsport, huh?"

"Don't wear the word out, Elizabeth."

"Don't call me that."

"I like it, though."

"I don't."

"Why not, Elizabeth?"

"Stop."

"Make me."

El's mouth goes dry. She licks her chapped lips because that was very attractive. The air is heavy around them both, tension making the air almost tangible. El feels her armpits dampen, which is not attractive at all so she better lighten the damn mood before she gets damp somewhere else. She tries again. "You converted Isaac, huh?"

This time, it works.

"I did," Grace says proudly. "I deserve a fucking medal."

What El really adores is how quickly she and Grace have fallen back into normalcy. Sure, she saw Grace at her most vulnerable point a few hours ago. Still, they're acting like it never happened and El isn't positive that that's a good idea, but she doesn't mind dropping it for now. And sure, they're sitting way too close to each other to consider the distance platonic, but they're still talking like they're at each other's throats. It's like a breath of fresh air after days of grey smog that came with them ignoring each other. "Congratulations, Grace. You've done the impossible."

"Thank you, thank you."

El rolls her eyes. "And thanks for giving me the heads up that you were putting our plan into action without me."

Grace is absolutely still. "I, uh - "

"I'm kidding." El smirks. "You did good."

Grace pushes El, but the latter loses her balance, which causes the both of them to end up on the damp ground. "I hate you," Grace whispers, strawberry blonde tendrils framing her face as she looks down at El while having her pinned down beneath her.

"Do you really, though?" El hisses, propping herself up on her elbows so her nose grazes Grace's.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Prove it."

Grace's eyes are piercing silver and El likes to think that if Finn is Apollo, Grace is certainly Artemis with her moons for irises and pale skin. "Nah. Not worth the effort," Grace says, getting off El.

"Fuck," El says under her breath. Her chest is heaving and she must look pretty flustered because she sure does feel that way.

Grace rises and holds a hand out for El, so the girl on the floor takes it. "Have I ever told you," El huffs, "how frustratingly hot you are?"

"No." Grace grins, pulling El up so the girl is stood beside her. "But I do appreciate the honesty."

"It's not like you don't already know that."

"Oh, I do. It's just nice to hear it from you."

"You're hot." El can't believe she's doing this.

"Thank you."

"Especially in my shirt." What just came over her? What has been coming over her?

"I like to think so."

"I am very turned on at the moment." Whatever it, is, El likes how it makes her feel all fiery and tingly.

"Taking that as a compliment."

"I'm going to kiss you now." Whipped.

"What - oof."

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a/n: i have no words (except tiana + charlotte = el + grace fight me) but i'm sure y'all do so please comment :-)