We watched till almost midnight. I didn’t mean to watch so long, but it was so good. I’d forgotten just how good. I’d also forgotten just how long it takes to get to the Lumity stuff and Alice’s patience was well and truly tested. “Can’t we just skip to the part where they’re dating” she whined. “Noooooooo! you have to watch it in order. They have to be enemies before they get to be lovers or it doesn’t have the same emotional weiiiiiight!” I gracefully expined back. “I get it, they were like you and Rose, can we get to the part where they’re like Rose and Leah?” she moaned.
I let out an involuntary bark of ughter. “You noticed too huh?” I asked. “When you know what you’re looking for its kinda obvious. They never stop looking at each other. Its like, Just kiss already right” ughed Alice. “Nah, you can’t just skip to the kissing. You need a couple of months of pining and stolen gnces to properly build tension. It needs to be a slow burn” I said philosophically.
“… That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said” intoned Alice bnkly. “BUT ITS TRUE” I protested. “The greater the buildup, the more satisfying the eventual payoff! Its like baking. The cookies you buy in shops never taste as good as ones you spent 3 hours baking yourself!” I expined. “Ones from Gloria’s bakery always taste just fine to me” chuckled Alice. “I have cookie mix. Lets make some cookies together and I bet they’ll taste nicer.” I decred. I stood up and turned around, drawing the clock on the opposite wall into my field of view. I defted. “But not tonight. Its te, I need to get you home.” I sighed sadly.
“Aww, but its dark and cold. Couldn’t I say the night?” asked Alice. “If I had a way to contact your mother that would be fine, but I don’t and I really don’t want the town thinking I kidnapped you.” I stated. “Sorry, we gotta get you home.”
“But it would take like an hour to get home. You wouldn’t send a girl out in the dark on her own would you? What if I get ravaged?” she pouted sensibly. “It’ll be fine, we’ll take the car” I said. “What’s a car?” asked Alice. “… Didn’t miss Noceda drop Luz to camp in one in the first episode?” I asked. “… Um, no I don’t think so” said Alice. I thought back. Oh. Right. That was Vee. I sighed. Maybe I should have skipped straight to season 2. “Come on” I said.
In certain US states children as young as 14 years old may be granted emergency driving permits if they can demonstrate this is their only means of transportation. As a legally dead kind-of-emancipated orphan I probably should have qualified. Thankfully I never had to prove it because that would have been an awkward conversation. (“Yeah, I’m legally dead and you can’t tell anyone I’m alive because then my abusive father might find out”. That’s sure to end well!)
Ethically acquiring a car was the real challenge. Sure I could easily steal one, but the people I’d feel comfortable stealing from all drove Tess and BMWs, neither of which could be relied upon to stay running for thousands of miles without servicing, the BMWs from shit engineering and the Tess from maliciously shit engineering. The 1995 Toyota Corol which carried me off the mountain a couple of times per month was liberated from a truly tragic individual who had died from lung cancer which his doctors had concluded was caused by inhaling fumes from a trash pit near his station during the Iraq war. His insurance company had decided that the united states army was responsible and the united states army had decided that they hadn’t been illegally burning trash in Iraq so it was nothing to do with them.
He died hours before I found him. I tried to save him with my little positive vibes trick but he was already long braindead. I found his story printed on a few sad letters in the trunk. Perhaps his car should have gone to someone in his family, but the way I see it if his family wanted anything to do with him they wouldn’t have let him die on the street. He’d been living out of it for months at least. None of which I told Alice. Stealing a dead veterans car is bad enough but you’d have to be a particur breed of scum to brag about it.
His car hadn’t seen a servicing centre since it had fallen into my possession. The only thing I had repced were the license ptes, donated by a simir model I found in a scrapyard.
She buzzed into life with a pleasant hum. Japanese engineering at its finest. I showed Alice how to put on her seatbelt and for the first time since moving out here I pointed Sgt. Hale’s car (for it would always be Sgt. Hale’s car) towards town. There wasn’t a road exactly. calling it a dirt path would be generous. But once I was clear of the treeline it was a retively quick journey back to town. Those roads were at least cobblestone, and while I might have been made far more familiar than I had any desire to be regarding the improvements to suspension since 1995, we arrived in good time. There was nowhere to park really, but on the other hand there was nobody to obstruct it being midnight, so I just stopped in the middle of the street.
I opened the door for her. “Welcome home Madame” I said with a cheeky smile. She dismounted and then immediately ran over to puke in a shrub patch. Oh. Maybe I wasn’t being as gentle as I thought I was. I knocked on the door. It was answered by a plump and rather bemused looking woman. She had the same ash hair as her daughter without using her shapeshifting powers.
“Madame, I’m here to drop off your daughter” I intoned. “Daughter… Oh! you mean Adrian” she excimed. “You must be his new friend from out of town. Esme Cooper, charmed to meecha” she smiled jovially. I thought about correcting her before deciding to ask Alice first. Parents are different, and from what I can gather many of the trans people who are on good terms with theirs tend to let them away with things they’d fight a stranger for. I’d happily intercede if Alice willed it. Hell, I’d erase her old name from her mothers memories if she asked. But not without her asking. How she chose to handle her family was up to her.
The girl herself returned from her visit to shrub patch. “Hey baby. You doing okay” she asked with a weak smile of concern. Alice made to puke again but had nothing left to extrude. When was the st time the poor girl ate? Shit, when was the st time I ate for that matter? Shit, I’m a terrible host. My mistake did not escape the woman for a second. “Adrian, baby, when was the st time you ate? Did your new friend’s mother not feed you? I’ll have to have words with her when I see her…” she said.
“Sorry miss Cooper, we were watching a show and lost track of time” I said sheepishly. “Gosh, have you not eaten either? Please, come in. I couldn’t possibly let you go all the way home on an empty stomach!” she said. And not against my will but quite against my ability to protest I was dragged to dinner with my new friend’s Mom.
Individual oven ownership wasn’t really a thing in town. That would require a gas mains or put a strain on their mediocre power grid. You can only steal so much electricity before uncle Sam notices I guess. I regurly bought propane for my stove in heavy metal cylinders that I needed to swap every so often like big batteries that will explode if they get too hot. There were a few to go around every month for the folks with a business need for a fancy oven but everyone else cooked their food over an open fire or just got their meals already hot from one of the pces that did have an oven. These breaded chicken breasts apparently came from one of the tter.
These weren’t tenders. Its like someone expined the concept of a tender to someone who’d never seen one before and they had tried to make from that description alone and they’d missed a step. This was a whole chicken that had been covered in breadcrumbs. It was pretty good. Apparently whoever was in charge of food prep had access to spices. Alice told her Mom about my magic panel that pyed moving pictures. I nodded along and answered any questions her Mom had that Alice herself hadn’t thought to ask. Not the brightest that one. Thank heavens she’s cute.
“So the government can’t track it, right?” she asked with a note of concern. “Not on its own. It doesn’t have a powerful enough ariel to transmit a signal more than a few miles and there’s absolutely no reception here. All my media is physical, even if it might have come from the internet at some point. As for my phone, I had it modified with a physical kill switch for the GPS and other wireless modules which I’m very careful to flick when I get within fifty miles of the mountain” I noted.
“You leave the mountain!” she excimed in shock. “Well yeah, I need to restock my provisions every so often. There’s things out there that just can’t be gotten in town even if you have the dolrs to trade for them” I said wearily. “The elders won’t like this” she said. “The elders don’t have to like it. I’m not a citizen of the town, just someone who happens to live nearby it for its repellent effect on someone I’d strongly prefer to never see again” I said.
“You should have a chat with them. They can expin the risks of leaving much better than I can” she said. “I can look after myself” I bristled. “I’m sure you can dear. But its not just yourself you’re risking when you leave” she noted. “… well I suppose it couldn’t hurt to hear them out” I said. “How do I arrange to meet them?”
“Ah, you’ll find them hunting or fishing around the ke at weekends. Just turn up. They do most their business there anyway” she chuckled. I nodded. I could have my chat with them on Saturday, expin my situation, get any and all advice on how to come and go without endangering my sort-of home and hopefully reassure them I’m not a threat.
I ate in silence for a few minutes. “Hey, miss Cooper. Next time Alice is over te like that can she just stay the night at my pce? I have extra bnkets, and I don’t think she particurly enjoyed the drive over” I asked. Miss Cooper chuckled. “So long as you don’t go starving him again I’m fine with that. This is a safe Town. The elders would sound an arm if something were the matter” she said. “Thanks” I said.
Once I was finished, Alice saw me to the door. “Goodnight Alice” I said. She stared at me as if there was a zit on my face and she was debating telling me. Which wouldn’t make sense because I passively express a desire people don’t notice things about me so even if I had a zit she logically shouldn’t be able to see it.
As I was spiralling about what could possibly be on my face, Alice suddenly grabbed me by the hair behind my ears, pulled me in so close my nose dug into the side of hers and pnted a firm kiss on my lips. Several parts of my brain shut down and several others started an internal civil war.
My sense of logical consistency was insisting that this couldn’t be happening and putting its fingers in its ears and making the sound. The yuri lover in me was bemoaning that holding hands with someone you’ve known a week is too soon let alone this. My… sensitive side was screaming that I should stick my tongue down her throat and maybe grab ahold of that magnificent chest and some part of me I couldn’t remember the name of was screaming about age of consent ws and informed consent and any excuse that I stop this this instant before I let her down.
She let me go and pushed me back with a self satisfied smirk. “What was that for?” I said. Tried to say. Apparently the bit of my brain that controlled my mouth was busy begging the rest of it for extra protein to grow a longer tongue. Well screw her, I didn’t need words anyway. I reached out with my mind and asked that way. She chuckled. “You might love something all the more for how long you had to wait for it but I’d rather have it sooner so I can love it all the longer” she said, smiling like she’d just said something deep and profound. “But… but… but a slow burn is…” I stammered. Or tried to. Thanks brain. She chuckled. “Goodnight Nessie. See you at school tomorrow…” she said with a suave wink. Then she turned on her heel and closed the door behind her.
It took several minutes before I was calm enough to drive home.
