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o-kaythislooksbad · 7 months

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@ailesswhumptober day 16: amputation / chronic pain / hospital

"the person who is breathing is me," rita mutters, not believing a single word as they stumble across her tongue and fall out of her mouth. an invisible weight rests on top of her chest while phantom insects crawl through her veins, but these are minor discomforts compared to the ones wracking the rest of her body. the vague forms of her legs are tense, cramped and locked in place. her neck is numb, and her spine spasms as rita struggles to respire. there is nothing but pins and needles where her arms should be; she has no awareness at all of her hands or feet.

she is an actress, god damn it. if she can personally convince the academy to nominate her for awards, she can convince herself to breathe and regain her composure. "the person who is breathing is me," rita repeats, and this time they flow out of her mouth like a river. her throat is barely more than a collection of sores, but at least it is functioning.

today, it only takes her five minutes and dozens of affirmations to pull herself together and get out of bed. glancing in the mirror, there is nothing obviously wrong with rita's human form. her skin is clear and flawless, and not a single hair is out of place on her head, and that is all that matters to everyone else. it used to be all the she cared about, as well - after all, she is the rita farr, starlet of stage and silver screen, and she has a public image to maintain.

beneath the surface, however, things are far from all right. it is difficult to focus on keeping her reputation favorable when it takes an immense amount of concentration to hold everything in place, and she has spent more than half a century just barely holding on to the threads that keep her alive. she can feel the tension in every nerve, every cell, every element of her bones and organs and muscles and tissues, every fibre and molecule of her being; they're all loose, hardly in their intended shapes and slightly to the side of where they're meant to be, and if she can't get everything to properly align, she'll become a hideous, writhing mess of flesh.

the blob may be disgusting, but there's a thin silver lining which hides in its viscous mass. being in that hideous form provides a rush of relief unlike anything she's ever felt before. it's a temporary high that rita doesn't allow herself to fully enjoy; there's always an underlying current of guilt or shame preventing her from experiencing her body without the constant, familiar pressure and pain coursing through it.

vic's fast-paced workout music from the front lawn pulls rita away from her little pity party. she focuses on staying as she is while getting dressed, choosing pieces that won't be dearly missed in the event of rory or cliff making a mess during breakfast. if mel's laughter and clara's exasperated tone is anything to go by, then cliff has already started his 'grandpappy's good morning routine' of spinning the kid around like they're on a race track, which almost guarantees at least one of them being sick, or at least cranky and more uncoordinated than usual.

rita sighs as she takes one last look in the mirror before heading downstairs. to her surprise, the reflected smile isn't the picture-perfect look that she usually wears when she has to face the public. today, at least for the moment, her lips are curled slightly upwards, and the aches in her cheeks are not creases of discomfort but dimples of joy.

rita straightens up, smooths out minuscule wrinkles from her clothes, then turns away from the mirror and opens her door. "human or blob, or anything in between," rita says, tilting her head up "that person is me. that person is me, and she is ready to face the day."

#word stuff #ailesswhumptober2023 #fanfic #rita farr

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