this winterโs so cold, please warm me up
The winter of 2017 was hard on Athena. She meets Storm when Kohao's off his face 24/7, wasting himself all to shit after having nearly blown his head off in late October. There's this massive rift widening / friend-group break-up going on in the aftermath of that incident, and then Seth slits his throat in November. Athena's having to try and hold it all together and she just cant but literally all of her friends are dealing with the same shit so she has no one 100% on the outside to confide in--she and Teagan are still just co-workers at that point.
In her group she's been "the stable one" for so long--her and Aetos--but Aetos is ALSO busy being "the stable one" and Athena's closer to Kohao than Aetos is and lives with him and his cocaine and his cutting, so she's having to manage her fear for him and her fear over Seth too and she's a Wreck.
So one night she just gets into a taxi on the way home. Gives the driver her address. Thinks about how scared she is of getting back to the apartment and finding a BODY or getting a CALL that someone is DEAD or DYING, and she's losing or has lost a third of her support system and cant call any of THEM and she just....bursts into tears in the back of the cab.
And Storm's kind enough, and offers her tissues, and asks what's going on, ma'am, and Athena just spills Everything because GOD SHE NEEDS TO TALK TO SOMEONE.
And she gets to the part where she says "and I'm fucking terrified that my older brother is gonna manage to kill himself one of these days, god, he slit his own fucking throat like a week ago--" and Storm lost her brother, Shadow, when she was younger and she knows that fear and she gives Athena her number...and then suddenly Athena has someone on the Outside, someone separate from all the chaos she's dealing with. And someone who understands. Storm becomes a confidant for her quickly, becomes a close friend, becomes who Athena breaks down crying in front of and asks "Do you think if I stopped eating again he'd care enough to save his own life?" Storm guides her away from relapse, keeps her safe. And emotions run high in December, after Athena moves to her own apartment, and the pair of them push the boundaries on what a "close friendship" is. And even though they both conclude afterwards that neither of them is who the other is looking for in a long-term partner, they know that they can trust one another completely, and stay very close friends. Storm's the one who encourages Athena to ask out "that hot swim instructor at the gym", and Athena comforts Storm when things don't work out with Jazz. They lean on one another, and hold each other up.