Into The Warmth

Summary: Set after the events of the book. Meghan doesn’t feel old enough to take on the responsibility for someone else, but Lannie needs someone to take her in hand, to give her consequences, and someone who actually cares about her
Warning(s): Spanking of a teenager (15 years old) by another teenager (also 15 years old); spoilers for the Point Horror book Freeze Tag; AU; references to a neglectful childhood; references to canon character death
Author’s Note: Written for the rare-pair-challenge over on the Discipline Fic Discord. Basically two characters who are rarely (if ever) shown in a disciplinary dynamic

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By the time Meghan took Lannie into her house and had her settled in the living room, on the couch, hands wrapped around a mug of hot cocoa, the smaller teen’s shivering had stopped. She was hunched over, staring into the mug, inhaling the steam. Then, she raised her eyes to Meghan’s face. “Why did you save me?” Her voice was as whispery as it always was, but was there a faint hitch to her words? The family she’d wanted so much to be a part of, that she’d wanted so much to accept her, had just tried to kill her. They would have succeeded, if Meghan hadn’t acted. If she’d done what her friends wanted and left Lannie there to die.

“Because it would have been wrong to leave you there.” Meghan lowered herself slowly onto the couch next to Lannie. She looked at the other teenager; at the slight, wispy form. The fact that Lannie didn’t appear to have grown up. But she must have. Freezing someone was one thing, but staying the same age for years…that was something else entirely. “You can’t fight evil by being evil yourself,” she added.

“I would have left you in the cold.”

“I know.” Because Lannie had done that. Meghan remembered being frozen, unable to blink. Unable to breathe. She hadn’t felt scared at the time, because she hadn’t felt anything. She wasn’t scared now, though. She’d faced the worst already and survived.

She wouldn’t let it change her. Not like the Trevor family had been changed. Tuesday, Brown, West. They’d been infected by Lannie’s evil.

No. It wasn’t evil. From everything Meghan had learned and seen, from everything everyone else had told her…she knew that it wasn’t evil that drove Lannie, but a deep sense of loneliness. She’d seen what others had and she was desperate to be wanted. Desperate to be loved. Desperate to have a family who wouldn’t give up on her.

“If you’re going to stay here, you can’t freeze anyone.” Meghan looked into Lannie’s eyes. “You understand? You have to stop freezing people just because they don’t do what you want.”

Lannie closed her eyes. She leaned her head forward and inhaled the steam from the cocoa deeply. Opening her eyes again, she looked at Meghan. “No one ever made me cocoa before.” Her voice came out in a whisper. She hunched in even more on herself, looking even smaller…if that was possible. “I always wondered what it tasted like.”

“Lannie. Did you hear me?” Meghan asked.

Lannie looked up at her and frowned. “I could freeze you.”

“I saved you.”

The words hung in the air between them, like snowflakes settling.

Lannie looked away and whispered, almost too quiet to be heard, “Maybe you shouldn’t have.” She sipped the cocoa and lowered her head.

“You have to stop freezing people, Lannie.” Meghan put a hand on the other girl’s arm; ignored the way Lannie flinched and cringed from her touch. “You can’t get friends or people to care about you by making them scared of you.”

“But they never wanted me.” Tears slipped out of Lannie’s eyes. Clung to her eyelashes before trickling down her cheeks. “No one ever wanted me.” The words ended on a sob.

Meghan reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. When Lannie finally relaxed and let her head drop onto Meghan’s shoulder, Meghan wrapped her other arm around the other girl, embracing her tightly.

Lannie’s whole body shook. Her sobs sounded like they were torn from her throat. Her tears soaked through Meghan’s blouse, moisture coating her skin.

Meghan didn’t know how long they sat there like that. How long she held Lannie for. How long she listened to the sobs and ached with empathy for the lonely, unloved child who’d turned to manipulation just to have friends, a boyfriend, a family.

By the time Lannie lifted her head, sniffling softly, the tears had dried on her face  and her nose was running. Her eyes were wet and red.

Meghan let go of Lannie with one hand and reached out to grab a tissue. She carefully wiped Lannie’s face.

Lannie closed her eyes and pressed her face into the touch. As Meghan continued to wipe the other girl’s face, Lannie whispered, “I don’t know if I can stop.”

Meghan finished wiping her face and then looked into Lannie’s eyes. “You haven’t had anyone to care about you.” She hesitated, thinking, biting her lip before continuing, “You haven’t had any consequences either, have you? No one to care enough to make sure you act in the right way.”

Shrugging slightly, Lannie said quietly, “They hated me.”

Meghan didn’t need to ask who ‘they’ were. Her own mother had mentioned that Lannie’s parents hadn’t wanted her; that she’d never been hugged or comforted. She couldn’t say anything to defend them, even if Lannie had frozen them. All she could say was, “I don’t hate you.”

Lannie’s mouth twisted and she said, in a bitter tone, “Everyone hates me. No one wanted to spend time with me until I made them.”

“You didn’t make me.”

“Because you feel sorry for me,” Lannie whispered. “You’ll send me back out into the cold again.”

“I won’t,” Meghan promised. “I want you to stay here. To live here with me. As my sister.”

Lannie’s eyes darted up to her face and she frowned, studying Meghan for a few moments before saying, “You don’t want me as your sister. I’m bad.”

“You’re not bad.” Meghan hesitated, thinking about what Lannie had said. Thinking about the fact that the other girl hadn’t had anyone to care enough about her to give rules…boundaries…to change her behaviour. No one had made an effort to teach Lannie how to control her abilities. How to use them responsibly.

Meghan had never expected or even thought about being responsible for someone else. But there was no one who was willing to take that responsibility for Lannie. Her own parents had treated her badly. Hadn’t loved her. And the Trevor family had been forced and manipulated into accepting her. As far as Meghan could tell, she was the only one actually making the effort to care about Lannie; not to treat her as something to be scared of, but as a lonely girl who’d been neglected for all of her life.

She needed a family. And while Meghan couldn’t give Lannie parents, she could give the other girl a sister.

Meghan took the cocoa out of Lannie’s hand and put it on the coffee table in front of the couch. Then, she closed her fingers around Lannie’s wrist and tugged the other girl forward and across her lap.

Lannie landed in place with a startled exhalation of air. She placed her hands on the seat of the couch and tried to push herself up. “What are you doing?!”

Meghan placed one hand on Lannie’s back, pushing her down, and raised her other hand, allowing it to land smartly on the seat of Lannie’s skirt. “No one’s ever given you boundaries or consequences before,” she said, continuing to smack firmly, each slap making a dull sound that echoed through the room.

Lannie clenched her fists tightly and burst out, “You aren’t my Mom!”

Meghan flipped up her skirt, tucking it under her arm, and resumed the spanking over the other girl’s panties. “I’m not your Mom,” she agreed. “You killed your Mom. And your step-dad. But did that make things any better? Did it make you feel any better?” She continued to swat, covering every inch of Lannie’s backside down to the middle of her thighs, which were uncovered by the underwear.

In response to the smacks to her thighs, Lannie began kicking her legs. “No one’s ever hit me before!” she burst out.

“I’m not ‘hitting’ you, Lannie. This is a spanking.” Meghan could see the effects of the spanking in the pink showing through the white underwear and the tops of her bare thighs. “It’s a punishment. Consequences given by someone who cares about you. I care about you, Lannie.”

“No.” Lannie’s voice broke and she slumped over Meghan’s lap. “You don’t.” She fought to get the words out and then her voice broke and she began to sob without pause.

Meghan winced at the sound of the tears. To her, it sounded like Lannie’s heart was broken. The other girl’s body shook with the force of her sobs.

Empathy made Meghan’s heart twist and she lowered Lannie’s skirt, then carefully moved the other girl onto her lap, wrapping her arms tight around Lannie.

In response, Lannie wrapped her own arms around Meghan and clung on tightly, dropping her head onto Meghan’s shoulder as she sobbed her heart out.

They sat there like that for a while, cuddling each other. Finally, though, Lannie’s tears slowed and then stopped. Sniffling quietly, she raised a hand to her eyes and wiped them, before raising her eyes to Meghan’s face, looking almost heartbreakingly young. “You really want to be my sister?” she whispered. “You really want me?”

“I do.” Meghan reached for another tissue, once more wiping at Lannie’s eyes and nose. Once most of the remnants of tears were gone, she then picked up the cocoa and placed the mug in Lannie’s hands once more. “It’ll help you feel better.”

Nodding shakily, Lannie leaned against Meghan and began to sip at the cocoa.

They hadn’t solved everything. The Trevor siblings needed to be held accountable for the choices they’d made. And Meghan was certain that Lannie wouldn’t find it easy to stop freezing people for a long time.

But they were taking steps in the right direction. And that was the most important thing.

The End