The team's rest is in and around a bodega, one that Jill identifies as an 'old family business', run by the Lasalles 'since forever'. Your ravaged mind is popping in some amount of familiarity; the cramped aisles, abundant snack foods, cluttered displays, even the full service deli fucking wedged behind the counter in enough space for maybe 1/3rd of a sane deli, all of that means something, but blown if you know what other than 'familiar' and 'safe' and 'home'. You indulge in a small spot of selfishness by sitting down at the end of an aisle to drink a citrus soda (the label says TIDAL WAVE!!!, and it promises to FUEL YOUR LIFE). Every now and again you glance up at the still-intact anti-theft mirrors and spot your companions grabbing snacks or drinks.
You're just about thinking of getting up when Sasha drags Jill, red-faced, into the store when no one else is there. The two of them look at the mirrors, but either they've forgotten you don't have a reflection or don't realize it, because after glancing to be sure of something, Jill takes a box of condoms off the shelf and slaps it into Jill's hands.
"Keep 'em for if you ever grow a spine," Sasha teases. "Or, you know, in general, the ones out of those cars are sketch as hell."
"In what world is this your business?" Jill asks, but she's laughing, so maybe she's not mad? She laughs again when Sasha tweaks her nose. "Fine, fine. But..." and here Jill's face falls.
"Everlasting fucking Lady, here we go again," Sasha mutters, rolling her eyes. "You realize you could have your pick, right? I dunno if you've noticed lately but you're hot, bouncy." Jill turns her head away, somehow getting redder. "Fucksake I'm on the list."
"...I don't go in for casual, alright?"
"Well, this is your fair warning: I do. I ain't gonna break my own heart if a certain someone walks outta my bed and thanks me for my time." This earns Sasha a light slap on her upper arm. "Okay farmgirl, tell me you're slutshaming without saying it."
"I am not," Jill protests in a heated whisper. "...Orchid's..."
You're leaning to get a better view of the mirror. Sasha raises her eyebrows. "It's...what, exactly? Did you not attend the same porno I did? It's not a child."
"It's innocent."
"Say that to its face, see if you go unslapped," Sasha says frankly. "Life isn't gonna wait for our fucking permission. If there's anything I've learned from all this, it's that we're in a new world now. If you wanna wait and wait and wait and tell yourself that when things aren't dire you'll think about love, you can be an idiot. I will be railing the new world's most violent femme into another dimension."
What in the romance novels -
- Wait what the fuck is a femme.
"I don't mind sharin', y'know," Sasha continues in a gentler voice. Jill startles, and Sasha shrugs. "Like I said, farmgirl. Listen. If one of us doesn't make a move fucking Andrea of all people will and I'm not competing with eighty years of experience. So think about it, alright?" Your newly-shaven friend touches Jill's cheek, lightly, and smiles a sad little smile. "...You've been a friend to me too, y'know. I'd love to see you happy."
Jill nods, and you look at your phone, quickly silence the alarm you'd set for the break, and stand up as slowly as possible so you can sneak around towards the door. Nameless instinct tells you that you should not have heard any of this and must not be caught having listened in on it, but as you're moving you hear Jill's voice: "I appreciate that, Sasha. I really do. And...hey, I've got some good news."
"Yeah?" Sasha asks, pre-amused.
"Andrea's only eighty-three, you've got like sixty years of experience to beat."
Sasha's snorting, disbelieving laughter is the perfect cover for you to silently step out of the glassless front door, turn around while frantically attempting to hand-signal your troops outside to not say a gods-damned thing, and then knock on the frame of said door while clearing your throat. "We're moving out," you announce, a little too loudly, but neither of those two seem to notice and when they step out Jill is mysteriously not holding a box of condoms. So you ignore it.
You lead the way further down your path and ignore -
- what the fuck is a fucking femme and why are you being called one -
* * * *
Two Hours Later
- it's gotta be some kinda gender thing right, it sounds like 'female' but it's a different word -
You raise a fist to halt everyone and raise your binoculars. The street ahead, just as claustrophobic and elevated as the rest - you all have been moving as fast as you can from cover to cover as best you can - is reflecting the light in an odd way, and you don't like it. You like it even less when you get a good look at why: high above, starting at the streetlights and only going up from there, are odd masses of...webbing, woven from strangely flexible glass. Very odd webbing. What you mistook from a distance for decorations are strange balls of web, huge in their shape; if the inside is hollow four people could stand in one and run around like hamsters.
Oh you know what a hamster is but not what -
NO, FOCUS.
You lick your dry lips and frown. Jill comes up without a word but the Questioning Aura(tm) she gives off gets you to pass the binoculars. Something here doesn't seem right, which is a dumb sentence to think since obviously something isn't right, but the webs are twigging something in you. They...don't feel bad? That's odd. The idea of a spider big enough to make one of these is certainly objectively fucking terrifying.
"Why're we stopped?" Sasha asks; this gets her the binoculars, and she yelps and swears immediately before passing them back and getting out the roadmaps. "Gotta find another route, fuck that, fuck that, fuck all that -"
Hrm.
Lose 1
[ ] Time
[ ] Morale(?)
[ ] Your personal safety (investigate the webs with Familiar Stranger)
