7
In which there is an ice cream social.
Contains: lewd jokes, somewhat explicit language, painfully generic names, sneaky references, discussion of homophobia
"Aw, man," Aisha groaned. "I think they're closed."
Lisa looked up at the ice cream shop. The windows and the door had been boarded up. There weren't any signs hanging in them. There was no sign of light in the building.
"Wow, Aisha," she deadpanned. "I have no idea why you would possibly think that."
The girl simply raised her middle finger in indignation, already following Alec as he lifted himself over the low fence separating the outdoor seating from the sidewalk.
He glanced around at the tables and chairs, testing one of the nicer-looking ones before slipping into the seat with a happy, lazy little sigh.
"Pretty comfortable for an abandoned ice cream shop," he commented.
"But there's no ice cream!" Aisha cried, jumping into a chair after him. "What's our date without ice cream?!"
"Eh, it still has cute girls. At least two of them are already here."
Aisha's cheeks darkened, even as she grinned.
Lisa shook her head, filing in after them.
She opened the gate like a civilized person.
"Hush. I've got enough of a headache already." It thrummed at the back of her head, soft but inescapable, waiting to flare up into a crippling migraine. She'd probably have one of
those after this was over, but it couldn't be helped. Even if everything went well, she would still need plenty of answers, answers that she'd need her power to find.
Alec and Aisha ignored her and went on bickering about ice cream. Or something. She was doing her best to tune them out. Instead, she focused on their surroundings.
Being in a public place (or really anywhere but her apartment or the lair) always carried a certain element of risk. Given the situation and location – the three of them together in an open space, not too heavily trafficked but visible, doing nothing of note – she wasn't too worried about mundane criminal shenanigans or overzealous law enforcement. Capes were another story, though, especially if someone was going after their 'guests'. The Empire remnants, in particular, had something to prove after Kaiser's death, not to mention that they were
Nazis and thus naturally inclined to disapprove of the 'polyamorous lesbian funhouse' even before one of the Devils called them out on PHO.
As far as Lisa was concerned, that shoe was going to drop sooner or later.
And the sooner this meeting was over, the less likely that shoe would drop on
her.
Lisa didn't yet see anything untoward, but that wasn't surprising. Still, it paid to get a feel of the area, to scope out escape routes, places where a gunman or Blaster might fire from, places where she might take shelter from said fire (aside from the obvious but obviously flawed measure of diving under a table), that sort of thing, even if she had to fight with her power to keep it from burning itself out with unneeded inferences.
Thinking about what to do when –
if things went south was a decent enough distraction from Alec and Aisha's… ugh, bonding. Alec could be annoying, but he was too lazy to cause any real trouble. Aisha, on the other hand, was obviously used to acting out to try and get attention. Alec giving her ideas was a recipe for disaster.
"...pumpkins with laser eyes are cool, but it sounds like a lot of work-"
He suddenly cut off whatever nonsense he was in the middle of saying. The interruption jarred Lisa into actually paying attention, tracking his gaze as he turned to stare through a seemingly random house.
Focus, accelerated breathing: looking at something, seeing something. Something not visible. Seeing with his power. Regent's power has a minimal sensory component, wouldn't normally be able to see through a building: power interaction. Power interaction, place and time: he sensed one of the Devils with his power.
Aisha rapidly blinked, just as thrown off by the suddenness.
"What? What is it, Alec? What the heck are you looking at?"
"They're here," he answered, not even turning to look at her, keeping his gaze focused on, presumably, the Devil or Devils as they moved.
"They are?"
They were. A moment later, they slipped into view from around the corner. Not as three separate people, but as one unit, jumbled together in what, given the way their hands and limbs pressed together and over each other's bodies, might be called a mobile snuggle pile. The unmistakable shape of a human form cast out of water formed the base. Debris and rubble swirled in the currents of Neptune's body, but only pure, clear liquid dripped from the cracks in translucent skin, leaving a trail of shining pavement in her wake. A storm of hands held the pile together, fingers sinking into liquid flesh and brushing soft wings and… holding groceries? Yes, Lisa caught a glimpse of canvas bags between the hands that filled the space, giving the pile a sort of weight and depth, though she couldn't see Jupiter's face within it. A swirl of wings and eyes covered the pile, white feathers circling the dark water and the storm of hands. Lisa
did see Venus's face somewhere in the middle of all those wings and eyes, a lithe body fluttering like a leaf in the breeze, basking in her lovers' flesh.
Lisa's head spun, taking in the chaotic scene. Her power didn't help, firing off like lightning in her mind, snapping from thought to thought.
Sixteen to eighteen years old. Female. Primarily composed of water-
Sixteen to eighteen years old. Female. Each hand is unique and moves individually-
Seventeen to eighteen years old. Female. Unusual flight characteristics-
They love each other. Physical contact in a public forum. No fear of being witnessed? They want
it to be witnessed. Exhibitionism? No, no signs of arousal. Something else.
While Lisa's eyes watered, Alec was already waving. A hundred eyes turned to face him, and before she knew it, the Devils were flowing, or floating, or flying, or… piling their way over to the three of them. Neptune was smirking, Venus was smiling, Jupiter's face was still hidden in the storm of hands until Neptune pushed her out and then Lisa saw her grumpy little pout.
"Hi, Alec," Venus chirped, smiling bright.
"Hey," Jupiter sighed, hands fidgeting against her lovers.
"Hi, nerd," Neptune said, her briny body bouncing as she came to a stop.
"Bonjour," Alec drawled. "Fancy meeting you here. Neptune, I take it?"
"The one and only," she confirmed, pulling away from her teammates as she eyed up the other two Undersiders. "And these must be your boring roommates?"
"I have my own place," Lisa grumbled – only partially true given how much damage her apartment complex had taken from Leviathan's attack, but while she didn't mind boring, being lumped in with Alec was a bridge too far.
"And I'm not boring! I'm the one interesting roommate," Aisha shot in, grinning widely. "Tragic backstory, cool outfit, badass powers…"
Venus pursed her lips in thought as her eyes roamed over the girl. "...oh! So you're the token evil teammate, right?"
Lisa blinked.
Aisha blinked, too.
Then, when the words finally processed, she broke down cackling, stopping only to dart over to the Breaker and hold out her fist for a bump. Venus hesitated, her wings shuffling around as if to try and expose her hand, before finally settling for pushing a wing out and completing the bump with a wingtip and an awkward smile.
"Hey now, being the token evil teammate is
my job," Alec interrupted, leaning back and smirking lazily.
"I mean, both of you
were crazy enough to think you could actually get ice cream in a place like this," Lisa commented, shaking her head sadly. "I told you, but did you listen? Nooooo."
Jupiter suddenly lit up, floating away from Neptune and bringing the canvas bags from earlier to the front. "We figured there wouldn't be any, soooo we brought our own!"
"By which she means we flew out to the next town over and bought some," Venus added. "It only took us a couple of hours, so it should still be good."
"I made sure we had utensils and bowls and napkins and everything!"
"You checked like three times on the way here," Neptune noted, chuckling and shaking her head.
Jupiter reddened, even as she slipped forward and deposited her bags carefully on the table that Alec and Lisa were still sat at (and that Aisha was returning to), the hands pulling away the covering to reveal the… other bag. Which she then opened to reveal a perfectly normal pint of ice cream to go along with all the plastic spoons and bowls and cheap paper napkins.
Lisa found herself reaching out to touch the pint.
It was soft to the touch, but still
mostly frozen.
A hand pushed her gently away. "C'mon, let me get everything set up," Jupiter chided, even though it took barely a moment to stuff a napkin and a bowl and a spoon in front of all six of them.
"This is… a lot of trouble to go through just to have some ice cream," Lisa found herself saying, staring down at the disposable settings, blinking a couple of times to confirm that yep, she was having ice cream forced upon her. Not that she minded ice cream, but… here and now?
Neptune laughed. "Sure it is, but it's the principle of the thing."
Venus smiled. "It's about being normal. Doing normal, human things, like going an hour each way just to get a single pint of ice cream. That's important, right?"
Cadence, tone: she's said this before, though sometimes in different contexts. "At a time like this?"
The winged girl nodded. "Especially at a time like this."
"Probably got a lot of people staring," Aisha said. "Bet it was pretty hilarious."
"A little funny, yeah. But watching is good, you know? There's not much point if nobody sees it."
"Them staring
is the whole point," Neptune said with a chuckle. "I don't know about you, but I don't need to prove to
myself that I'm human. It's everybody else who needs to get a clue. Not that
I need
them to get a clue, either. But I'd like to think that it helps the more interesting parahumans, the Case 53s or whatever they're being called these days."
Lisa almost replied, intrigued by where the Devils were going with this, when Alec cut her off.
"You're all making this way too complicated," he whined. "I came here to have ice cream. You came here to have ice cream. The ice cream is right the fuck there."
The ocean-girl smirked. "You didn't say the magic word, loser."
Alec's eyes widened, obviously for effect, as he lowered his head. "You're right, you're right. Please, oh great and powerful Devils, may I partake of the luscious, filling, creamy joy of decadent and rich ice cream?"
Venus giggled. Aisha raised an eyebrow.
"The luscious, filling, creamy joy?" she repeated.
Alec smiled, raising his head again. "Of course. "
"Gonna dive right in and make a big mess?"
"Gonna suck on it like it's candy."
Neptune smirked. "So you're gonna eat it like you're eating that pussy, right?"
"Or that dick," he agreed. "I'm not picky."
"Come on," Lisa grumbled, dropping her head onto the table. "Can't we just eat ice cream like ice cream, without any stupid sex jokes?"
"And to think, just a moment ago they were doing
decent sex jokes," Jupiter marveled.
"Well, eating delicious food
is about as good as sex," Alec mused.
All eyes turned to him.
"No shit?" said Aisha.
"No shit. They're both basically direct bodily pleasure. Hard to get better than that." He leaned back, closing his eyes and smiling. "This one time, I ate like four cakes in a single sitting and it was great."
Neptune laughed. "Even when you threw it all up afterwards?"
"Nah, I took steps."
Lisa stared at him. She had an idea of what those steps might be, and was he really joking about-
"Pills, Lisa!" he hastily added. "I drowned it in pepto-bismol and laxatives like a normal person! Jeez, you're always assuming the worst."
It was Neptune's turn to stare, her eyes narrowing. "And what, exactly, was she assuming?"
Alec paused, feeling the tension in the air. (Possibly actually feeling it for once? Hard to say.)
"Before I answer, I gotta know. Isn't your kid, like…"
"Cute?" Venus suggested.
"Smart?" Jupiter added.
"No, no, that other thing. Come on, I don't have to spell it out, do I? You know what I mean. The uncomfortable past we pretend not to acknowledge in polite company?"
The Devils let out a chorus of 'ohhhhhs', though Lisa had the feeling that Neptune, at least, hadn't needed the hint.
Lisa was also desperately holding back the urge to scream at Alec for all the things he just implicitly admitted, even if it was to maybe the only people in the world who wouldn't mind too much, what with the whole 'adopting a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine' thing.
"It's not quite that simple, but yeah, that's fair," Neptune said, shrugging her shoulders and spilling out a little more water with the motion. "Soz."
Alec waved his hand. "It's cool. I'm pretty much over it-"
His arm jerked, as if tugged on by a string.
The Devils were suddenly staring at him again. "Hey, are you okay?" Jupiter asked. Venus frowned, and even Neptune was watching him with something sharp and discerning in her gaze.
Alec frowned slightly himself, lifting the arm in question and rubbing it against his cheek. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a minor condition, nothing to worry about."
Lisa also knew exactly why Alec had those sorts of spasms: a side effect of power overuse. Except… it had taken him off guard, hadn't it?
He's confused because he wasn't using his power.
The hands in the air clustered on Alec's skin, pushing into the curves of his body, of his back and shoulders. Tension disappeared, and a lazy smile formed on his face.
Genuine emotion? Genuine emotion. Emotional Master effect? No, specific to Alec. Power interaction. Emotional feedback through viewing the nervous system of the hands, Lisa's power whispered, but while the answers fascinated her, they weren't the answers she was looking for.
She braced herself for a flash of pain, but none came. Maybe she had recovered more than she'd realized.
Lisa wasn't the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. She refocused, tried again.
The Devils obviously knew, or thought they knew, what Alec's spasm meant. Why?
Immediately sought to comfort: viewed as a response to stress. They have comparable tics/misfires under stress. Alec showing early symptoms of Devil-form transmission.
Oh. Oh no.
That quickly? This was the second time he'd met them and the first time was
yesterday. Lisa had been hoping to get enough information to figure out how to get the Devils out of their hair; they couldn't go on with hanging out with these attention-magnets forever, one way or another. But she'd assumed that the transmission wouldn't be an immediate issue, that it wasn't something that happened automatically. Had she already contracted whatever it was that gave them their forms? Was she doomed to some monstrous form? She'd only ever gotten by through blending in. Could she really live like the Devils did, always a center of attention, always in the spotlight? And how many of her contacts and how much of her leverage would she still be able to access? And what about Coil? Could she lose him long enough that he didn't realize who the new monster cape was? Or would he still find ways to sink his fangs into her?
She thought she heard someone whispering in her ear.
Then Aisha shoved a spoonful of ice cream down her throat, forcing her to swallow to avoid choking on the soft, cool treat.
"See? As good as sex," Alec commented, before diving into his own dessert with obscene enthusiasm.
Lisa shoved Aisha's spoon out of her mouth, not that it stopped her delighted cackling. The girl only stopped to ruin her lips with her own sloppy slurp of cream.
Shaking her head, Lisa snatched up the spoon (
her spoon that is, not Aisha's), looking across the table to find the three Devils working away at their respective bowls, the pint of half-melted cream already emptied and left for dead in the center of the table. For the most part, they were too busy eating to giggle.
For the most part.
Her power filled the relative silence while she begrudgingly enjoyed the treat in front of her.
Rapid transmission, no reports of symptoms online: symptoms likely start out, perhaps remain minor for most cases. Time between Bonesaw's disappearance, reappearance as "Riley": significant period between initial transmission and full Breaker-form symptoms.
Okay. So there probably wouldn't be any immediate catastrophes. That was good.
Lisa breathed deep, reset her thoughts, and looked over the table at the Devils.
"So, do you normally go out for ice cream with people you just met?"
"You
do know it was Alec's idea, right?" Neptune countered.
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Of course I do. I'm not
stupid. But you agreed to it and you'd met him once. Or never."
"She's got you there," Alec agreed.
"Not many people want to just hang out with us," Jupiter mused. "It's a valuable opportunity."
Venus smiled. "Even with the creepy asshole thing?"
A loud, long sigh. "Yes, Venus. Even with the creepy asshole thing."
The creepy asshole in question bowed his head deeply. "I do aim to please. Clearly, people simply don't appreciate your
devilish charms."
Neptune waved her spoon. "Points for effort, but too on the nose. Six out of ten?"
"One point to Slytherin," Venus confirmed.
"Wait,
is he a Slytherin?" Neptune asked.
Jupiter sighed. "Of course he's a fucking Slytherin, what else could he be?"
Aisha leaned towards Lisa, grumbling softly. "What the fuck is a Slytherin?"
"Something from a series called Harry Potter. It's kinda like Maggie Holt," she answered, shaking her head, "but it only really got big on Earth Aleph. Had a few movies and everything."
"You should watch them with us," Neptune interjected. "While getting really drunk. It's great. They're great."
"Iiiii think I'm good, thanks."
Aisha huffed. "Man, fuck that fantasy bullshit. Y'all nerds need to watch Jane Bond."
"I bet it doesn't even have singing hats," Neptune smugged.
"God, that sounds stupid. No, it doesn't have singing hats, thank fuck." Aisha rolled her eyes. "It has
rocket cars."
"Rocket cars," Venus declared, "are for people who can't fly."
"Even when they've got laser guns and rockets and a soda machine for some reason?"
Venus's eyes widened with delighted confusion. "Why do they have a soda machine that is so dumb and amazing and it'd be so. Cool."
"No shit it'd be cool." Neptune laughed, reaching out a liquid hand to properly offer a fistbump. "Let's swap tapes sometime, 'kay?"
"Harry Potter for Jane Bond?"
"Yup!"
"You got a deal, sister." Aisha grinned, finally accepting the bump, the sound echoing softly.
They faded back into comfortable silence, or at least comfortable for the smiling girls. Less comfortable for Lisa.
Either way, it didn't last too long.
"Excuse me! Could I ask you some questions?"
Lisa reluctantly turned her head.
The speaker was probably in his early twenties. Vaguely Caucasian, though not as white as he could have been. He looked about as neat as someone in his position could look right now, with a wrinkled but reasonably well-fitted suit and a sleek haircut that was only slightly out of date. A tape recorder was stuffed into one pocket, and he held a notebook under one arm.
His attempt to look serious and yet not unfriendly might have approached endearing, but Lisa wasn't in the mood right now.
She let out a long, tortured sigh, made only slightly more tortured by holding back her power. "And you are…?"
"Ken Smith. Independent journalist."
Translation: some college kid working on a degree. That's about what she thought.
Aisha groaned, loudly. "Fuck off, I'm having ice cream."
"Your ice cream is melting," Alec pointed out.
"It was already melted!"
"Better have it while it's still at least a little cold, then."
The 'journalist' blinked, looking between the bickering couple, back to Lisa's unamused face, and then to-
"Oh, don't mind them," Neptune cooed, sliding her entire body towards Smith and making him take a step back as the mass of water encroached on his personal space. She grinned, leaning her head in even closer still. "I'd be
delighted to answer your questions..."
"A-ah, well-"
"Oh my god, Neptune." Jupiter shook her head. "Are you
trying to give him a heart attack?"
"Jupiter, darling, you already know the answer to that."
The red-faced young man stepped back again, clearing his throat, taking a deep breath and getting, judging by the slight wrinkle of his nose, a lungful of whatever Neptune smelled like.
Brine, alcohol, ink, sweat, holy water.
Wait, what was that last one?
"So." Smith moved right along before she could think too hard about that. Lisa supposed she had to admire his determination in spite of herself. "Just for the record, could you introduce yourselves?"
"Why, I'm Neptune, of course!~" she sang. "A
pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Jupiter." She pointedly glanced away.
"Venus!" She chirped.
"And by our powers combined, we are-"
"Woah, hold up. Haven't we gone over how totally gay you are?" Alec interjected, looking up from his empty bowl.
Neptune scoffed. "Please. I can tease someone without
actually wanting screw their brains out. Really, I'm offended by the implication that I would be so base, so
shallow."
He let out a gasp. "You mean making fun of me doesn't mean you're attracted to me? Say it isn't so!"
She rolled her eyes. "
I learned the difference between teasing and flirting when I was
two."
Alec shot her a look of betrayal, to which she simply responded with a smirk.
The 'journalist' cleared his throat, looking over towards Alec and Lisa. "And you are…?"
Alec coughed. "Nobody important."
Jupiter fixed him with a glare. "Everybody's important. Also don't be a wimp."
His finger twitched. Smith didn't seem to notice. The Devils certainly did.
Alec glanced down at the offending finger, his lips curling into a slight frown. After a moment, he exhaled, looking back up at the college boy. "Fine. I'm Alec. We met and decided to hang out. Happy?"
The journalist scratched the back of his head. "Well, ah… feel free to comment?"
"Nah," Alec said, already looking away.
"Alright, then." Evidently, he'd gotten the point, since he turned his attention back to the Devils without any further attempts to bother Alec. Or Lisa, for that matter. Definitely fine with her.
"You're relatively new to this city, correct?"
"I think it's been about a week since we got here," Venus confirmed.
"What's it like being an openly gay… triplet?" he ventured.
"I still vote for-"
Jupiter cut Neptune off. "Triplet works."
"Boo ruined."
"Hush, Nep."
"Ahem. As I was saying. What's it like being an openly gay triplet in Brockton Bay?"
Venus's eyes narrowed in concentration or maybe in anger.
Jupiter's hands tightened, on tables and chairs and throats.
"Well, the gay triplet part is pretty great," Neptune commented, an awkward smile on her face before she burst into a fit of coughing, spilling up a hint of something dark, something that definitely wasn't ice cream.
Alec, of all people, spoke up. "Maybe you should try another question-"
"No, no, it's fine. Just because it's stressful doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it," Venus insisted, her voice firm.
When no one (not even a fidgeting Smith) objected, she pressed forward, wings stilling as she spoke.
"It's not like people being uncomfortable is new. It's not like people hating us is new. Everywhere we go, there'll be at least a couple of people who avert their eyes, or who mutter things when they think we can't hear them. But here, there are so many more. Not all of them avert their eyes. Some of them, I think they're just in it to be with their friends. But others..."
Neptune scowled. Little ripples went through her body in time with her voice. "Imagine being so fucking hateful that you really truly want to kill someone because they're holding the wrong person's hand. And plenty of them
would if they thought they could get away with it. How many people are killed just for being themselves, do you think? And how many more have to live in fear?"
"And do you? Live in fear, that is?"
"...walked right into that one, didn't I." She coughed quietly, though without the bile this time.
"A little," Venus admitted. "It will never stop being disconcerting, looking into someone's eyes and knowing how much they want you dead."
"It'd be easier than people think," Neptune murmured, waves slowly rolling back and forth across her body. "Not that hard to get a gun if you really want to hurt someone. I've never been shot, so I can't say if I'm immune to bullets, but I know plenty of parahumans aren't. If people weren't as afraid of capes as they are, I'm sure someone would have already tried. That's fucked up, isn't it?"
"It's fucked up," Jupiter agreed.
Alec hummed, then added, "Yup, pretty fucked up."
Lisa couldn't help but nod, having seen how much damage someone like Purity could do when they weren't holding back. Unwritten rules, societal norms and social bonds; flimsy as they were, they still made the difference between Brockton Bay being a rundown city trying to recover from the aftermath of a disaster and Brockton Bay being a warzone.
Smith paused.
"If you're afraid, why do you present yourselves all the same?"
"Because fuck them," Neptune snapped, bubbles popping across her skin, hot steam hissing from pores. "
Fuck them. They are literally just a bunch of haters and assholes and kids like us. What do they know? Where did they get the right to tell us what to do? They fucking
didn't, and it makes me so
mad that they can get away with it. For fuck's sake,
Legend is gay! Legend came out
decades ago and there are still people who can't deal with that like what the actual
shit? It's twenty fucking eleven, how long will it take for them to get over themselves?"
"Maybe it's
because Legend is gay and the director of the PRT is Hispanic and same-sex marriage is legal and all that," Venus mused, eyes slowly opening and closing all over her wings as if to process the thoughts. "They hate being reminded that they're not superior, they hate being told they're wrong. They hate it when the people they hate are successful. So they hate even more. But.. if they weren't being reminded, they'd still hate, right? They'd still be keeping people down, still be hurting them. The absence of tension isn't the same as the presence of justice, you know?"
"And what's the point of being the Devil," Jupiter murmured, a hundred fingers lightly tapping against the table, "if you still live in fear of God? What's the point of being comfortable with yourself if you can't show that to the world? It might be naive, and maybe we're privileged in that we can do this without being lynched, but..."
Smith was furiously scribbling notes as she trailed off.
Suddenly, sound filled the air, a harsh electronic tune against a pounding beat and muffled singing. In the moment it took Lisa to recognize it as a ringtone, Neptune had already flipped her phone open and had it to her ear, without so much as an apology. The college boy frowned, but Jupiter's glare eventually stilled his face into a professional neutrality.
"Hello, this is-"
The voice on the other end was high-pitched, though Lisa couldn't really make out anything. Definitely eager, though. And judging by Neptune's immediate smile, someone she was happy to hear from.
"Hey, girl! What's up?"
Caller is a friend. Caller is a family member. Caller is Riley.
Not like there were any other options, were there?
Neptune laughed, literally bubbling with amusement. "Glad you're having fun! Buuuut you're not calling just to tell me that, right?" Her voice grew a tad more serious. "What do you need, Rye?"
Riley is working on a project, but something's in the way.
"…wow, that's bullshit. But we're done with our ice cream anyways. Might as well blow this joint. See you in a bit!~"
She flipped the phone closed, looking back up at the little crowd with a grin. "Looks like we've gotta head out. Need to help our little girl with some paperwork."
"May I-"
"Follow? Sure, if you can keep up." The girl smirked, washing the plastic trash right off the table, almost out of Lisa's very hands, and into the nearest bin, squeezing it in for all that said bin really needed to be emptied already before it inevitably overflowed.
Aisha let out a little squeak as Neptune swept up her bowl. Wait, where did she go? Oh, right, her power, of course. She hadn't moved.
Mr. Smith made to say something else, but it was lost in the roaring tide as the cackling Neptune curled her water around a giggling Venus and a snorting Jupiter, dragging them into her depths and bursting into a wave rolling down the street, laughing all the way.
Alec watched them go, a small smile on his face. "Well, that was a fun time. They're such a lovely ménage à trois, wouldn't you agree?"
Aisha smiled too, but hers was jittery, uncertain. "Fuck yeah," she declared, a little louder than necessary.
The young man looked between them, blinking a few times as if to clear his eyes.
"… I think I should go."
And then he dashed off in hot pursuit.
Lisa didn't think he'd catch them, but she was happy to see him gone.
"Well, that's done with. Thank fuck." She groaned, slowly rising to her feet, glancing around the area again just to be on the safe side.
Lisa had what she needed to know: namely, that the Devils were full of trouble and ought to be avoided at all costs. Now, whether she could convince her teammates of that…
"I dunno, I wouldn't mind hanging out with them. Beats this nerd." Aisha playfully shoved Alec to the side as she rose from her seat, only for a spasm to send her tumbling to the ground in a heap.
He just raised an eyebrow, looking down at her, only for her to lunge at him and send them both to the ground in a frankly childish wrestling match.
Lisa shook her head, wondering when they'd grow up.
It was at that moment, of course, that her phone vibrated.
Dread settled in her stomach as she picked it out of her pocket, opened it up.
Knowing who it had to be, she waited as long as she dared, staring at the number for a long few seconds before she finally pressed the talk button.
"Hello, Sarah."
Of course it was him. It couldn't have been anyone else. His voice alone was enough to send a chill down her spine, these days. She gave even odds that the fucker
practiced that voice.
"Suuup, Boss?" she drawled, putting a grin on her face to help with the grin in her words.
"Just making sure my most valued employee isn't associating with a dangerous crowd."
Timing. He's talking about the Devils.
"Relaaax. Do I look like the kind of girl to get herself into trouble? I can take care of myself just fine."
"
So you've told me. If I decide otherwise, well…"
Knows I know what he can do to me. Still has assets available for the task, even after Leviathan.
She grit her teeth. "So, what, my friends aren't good enough for you?"
"They draw attention you don't need," Coil hissed.
"Stay away from them."
Then he hung up.
Tattletale breathed deep, shoved the phone back into her pocket.
Fuck. Of course he'd know.
And, damn it all, now she almost
wanted to get this transformation or Breaker state or whatever. Maybe he could still try to ruin what life she had left, but if she was a monster, he couldn't make her disappear.
But he was worried about the Devils. Worried enough to eliminate her immediately, before she could reach that state?
Would he put her in the basement too?
It wasn't good to shiver in public. She tried to smile.
But something caught her eye.
The seat where Aisha had been was covered in some kind of black dust.
Lisa felt her headache – and her terror – returning as the whispers closed in again.
A/N: Still not 100.0000000% sure on everything, but you gotta post eventually, right? And there's a sneaky Martin Luther King Junior reference in here, so obviously it has to be posted in time for MLK Jr. Day.
Beta'd by
@Reyemile, with further help from
@Dusky ,
@Subrosian_Smithy , and others.
Neptune's ringtone, as suggested by Subrosian, is a track called
In My Mouth by a group called the Black Dresses. It's definitely not my normal listening. At all. But it's pretty good and
very fitting.
