Chapter 22: Chapter 22: So That...Happened
Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 22: So That...Happened
They had a week until their meeting with Director Piggot, and they'd spent most of yesterday in some form of unconsciousness. It had started with the couch nap, which put a crick in her neck and her legs to sleep. Then, her dad had come home with the promised food. After tearing through most, if not all of it in a frenzy of plastic forks and cardboard cartons, they retired back to the living room to settle into a nice food coma that turned into a food nap. Now, at this point, Taylor was rested, healed and ready to roll. The food and the small amounts of sleep had been more than she needed to recover fully, and was now prepared for whatever came next. This was not the case for Lisa. Though rapidly on the mend, supernaturally fast in point of fact, she was still a ways from fully mobile. It was this, more than any other thing, that led Taylor to making a decision.
No cape business. There was to be no costumes, no training, no going to the base – not even to get something, there wasn't anything there anyway – and definitely no patrols or fighting. For the next week, she, Taylor Hebert, and all of her friends, would simply be...not capes. They were going to go out and be as normal as possible. It was a task at which she was more than likely to fail, given how she'd lost track of what 'normal' was a little more than half a year ago. With the grace and guidance of her friends, who totally wouldn't lead her astray for kicks, she could muddle through. But! This decision left her in something a pickle. What did two, possibly three teenage girls who weren't capes do in a city like Brockton Bay?
Not knowing what else to do, she asked her dad. After what was possibly the most awkward pause in their long, sad, family history of awkward pauses – and that included her telling him about her powers – he suggested something that he called 'The Classic'. After some elaboration, it turned out he meant mini golf.
It was perfect.
It wasn't a movie, so they could actually interact with each other – this, she was told, was very important – and catch up on all the things that someone who might have been out of town had missed. A quick bit of Internet searching told her that there was a course not ten minutes from her house. The Ocean Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex had opened last month Downtown to rave reviews.
So. Now she had a plan. What she needed now, was participants. To that end, she reached for her phone.
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Lisa had chosen not to go, for two reasons. The first was that she was allergic. The second, which came after Taylor finished marveling how the first was said with a straight face, was that she didn't feel up to much moving around. Which, given how she'd just gotten an enthusiastic response, made her feel like a bit of a heel. She offered to cancel, or maybe change the idea to a bit less active. An idea that had been waved off, followed by Lisa asserting that, "I'm probably going to end up asleep in a few minutes anyway, if the yesterday was any indication. Go. Away with you. Do mighty deeds in my name."
Taylor gestured dramatically. "Pff – they'll – there's going to be books about how good I am at mini golf. And a movie version, like four years later."
There was a teasing light in Lisa's eyes and the quirk of her lips. "What kind of movie? Gladiator or Weekend at Bernie's?"
Taylor sniffed. "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."
Sabah then announced her arrival by way of leaning on her car horn, the brassy sound whining through the air for several long seconds. Taylor chose to capitalize on the opportunity; tossing her hair dramatically, stalking to the door, and swinging it wide open. She paused only long enough toss an arch look over her shoulder. The door closed behind her to Lisa's soft, gentle laughter.
Behind her dad's truck was a boxy, forest green SUV that had a film of dust, dirt, and general road gross covering the lower portions of the vehicle. Its rims were dirty, what could be seen of the back window was covered in stickers, and there was some kind of pass dangling from the rearview mirror stalk. It looked like a college student's car, and it hit her then that she hadn't actually seen Sabah's car before. Which was odd, considering how they'd been friends for the better part of half a year. Taylor waved and smiled her greeting as she trotted across her – admittedly tiny – front yard. She tried to open the passenger door only to find herself locked out. An exasperated look was directed to the driver. Really, it seemed to say?
"Oh, damn it!" Sabah's curse and fumble for the 'unlock' button was entertaining, and gave her enough time to tuck her keys into one of the pockets on her cargo pants. The doors unlocked with a thunk, Sabah gave a triumphant sound of victory over her own car, and Taylor let herself in. She hadn't quite gotten her ass into the chair when she attacked by an over-the-console hug. "It's so good to see you, Taylor!"
Ever so slightly bewildered, Taylor returned the hug. "It's...good to see you too." They separated, returning to their opposite sides of the car. Sabah put the car in gear – it was a manual, she didn't know those existed anymore – and they pulled away. "I was only gone for like, three days, you know?"
Sabah shrugged. "So?" They pulled a right onto a feeder road that would lead them to a main road that would take them Downtown. "I can't miss a friend? Plus, it was, you know...busy. We were both busy. Many things happened."
An eyebrow rose. "I know what I did. What happened here?"
"Your dad didn't tell you?"
Taylor shifted sheepishly. "I, uh, we were kind of occupied with how I forgot to call him the entire time I was gone."
Sabah hummed. "I'm going to have to beat you for that, myself. But anyway, yeah. Many things happened. I missed most of it cuz I had a wicked hangov – uh...head cold for most of the time, but apparently it started with a girl called Hellhound going after some underground dog-fighting rings and tearing the buildings down..."
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The Ocean Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex was a stunningly average looking building. Long, low, and wide – it looked to be a re-purposed warehouse, and only a lack of corrugated metal walls made that seem unlikely. Or maybe that metal was just sandwiched between layers of drywall and beige stucco. Maybe not. Either way, the angled roof was a network of asphalt strips and tar, so fresh that some of the smell drifted to Taylor's bloodhound like nose. As to be expected there were few windows, and little glass overall save the sliding front doors. Above them was the blue-and-green neon strips naming the place in a retro kind of cursive. Above that, a neon flower in bloom.
Giving credence to the praise she'd found online, the parking lot was full to near-bursting. It took Sabah a bit of searching and a somewhat...intense...conversation with a minivan full of Clarendon kids on some sort of sports retreat to finagle a parking spot. As they walked inside, Sabah finished her story with, "So roll credits and, spoiler; she's joining the Wards. I mean, officially, it's next week, but she's on the Rig now."
"Sounds like...it was a long time coming." Taylor commented over the sudden influx of noise that came with the automatic doors sliding open. Music and crashing pins and a dozen dozen conversations, whoops, and shouted curses.
"Yeah, she's had a rough time of it." Sabah led them to the counter, where a pimpled teen was making a solid effort to be named the Most Bored Person in History. He mumbled his way through the welcome, and only the fact that Taylor had superhuman hearing let her hear a syllable.
"Welcome to the Ocean Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex my name Steve what can I do for you today."
Sabah, not possessing any sort of enhanced sense of hearing, had to ask to repeat himself. He did so, after a heavily put-upon sigh, and was only slightly louder. It was enough for her to hear him, though, and negotiate for a set of brightly colored putters and an equally colorful set of balls. Taylor managed to argue her friend around to paying for half, because...because she didn't really have a reason. Other than a sort of knee-jerk pride or reluctance or some, chimera-like combination of both. After that, they received a set of instructions to find the course. These basically amounted to 'follow the signs', which they then did, pushing through a set of double doors with no motors to find themselves at the beginning of a twisting, variously themed mini golf course.
She grinned at Sabah. "Ready to get rocked?"
As answer, Sabah hefted her club as a knight would their sword. "Let's get wild."
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It was a little odd, Taylor thought, to see a windmill in an ocean theme mini-golf course. It seemed there was a universal law that a plastic windmill would inevitably appear in a mini-golf course, regardless of theme or location. Much in the same way that a car would inevitably acquire a collection of old french fries beneath the driver's seat. They made their way through the course, Taylor cheating viciously at any opportunity and still managing to lose. It was as Sabah was doing some form of geometrical analysis with her club that she asked, in a strangely casual manner, "So where's your partner in crime?"
For a brief moment Taylor was about to protest that she and Lisa weren't criminals. That they were heroes, trying to make the world a better, safer place. Then her brain re-engaged. "We got back pretty late the other day, and we weren't entirely sure where her car was, so she crashed at my house."
Now confusion, still with that same tone. "She didn't leave?"
And now Taylor was confused. Sabah took her shot, putting more force than required and sending her ball straight the grinning crab's mechanical pincers. The ball bounced off them into the 'water hazard', which was actually a sort of bowl looking dip covered in blue felt. "N – no. Still there. Snoring away when we left." Not really true, but Lisa would forgive her. If she ever found out, which she would. She took her turn at the tee, adjusting her stance a few times before swinging in the vain hope it would send her ball anywhere but right into the obstacles.
This, curiously enough, was what happened. Sabah hummed, and dipped her head in an accommodating gesture that bounced her ponytail of thick, black hair. Just as Taylor was about to take her shot, she said something absolutely insane. "Are you dating her?"
Taylor flubbed the shot. She flubbed it so much that the head of the club dug into the ground, slipped out of her hands, slapped into the ground, then rebounded up to smack her in the shin. She thought it was a joke until she looked up from rubbing her shin. Sabah's dark eyes were searching, serious. Above them, a frown drew her brows down and together. She'd crossed her arms and cocked her hip. This was absolutely, one hundred percent not a joke.
Where was this coming from? Why – what...?
At one point in her youth, her mom had surprised her dad so thoroughly that she'd said he looked like a smacked ass. Taylor could now empathize. Even her thoughts refused to be coherent for a minute. Finally, after an embarrassing amount of flapping her lips like a fish, she was able to say, "Wha – no. No we're not. Um, wh – why do you ask?" But she wanted to. Oh, so very much. Granted, she also wanted to pin Lisa to the bed and explore every inch of that hot body with her mouth, but...that was neither here nor there. There was a flash of something like satisfaction across Sabah's features. Like it, but not quite, in a way Taylor couldn't quite name. Just as quick as it appeared, it was gone.
Sabah sighed. "I...I don't know to say this without just, you know, saying it. So I'm just going to say it, and we'll just ride out the awkward that follows, okay?" A pause, and a deep breath. "I kinda have a crush on you, Taylor."
She was wrong, earlier. Now, she could empathize. What came out of her mouth was a series of disjointed noises, as there was clearly no way she was capable of forming thoughts, let alone words, at this point in time. There was something in her, some sad little part, that refused to hear what her friend – more than a friend? – had just said. It was impossible, this bitterness whispered, for anyone to crush on her. For anyone to even be attracted to her. Her eyes were too big, her mouth too wide. She was flat and skinny and unattractive.
…
Right?
"I'd kind of appreciate you saying something, you know. Cuz um, this is – yeah, this is pretty awkward."
"Y-" Nope. Reboot, brain. Taylor tried again. "You have a crush on me."
Sabah's brows rose. "Is that so hard to believe?"
Yes, but saying that outright would be...weird? Fuck it, things were already weird. "A little bit, yeah."
"Huh." Sabah sniffed, swinging her club up to rest on her shoulder. "Okay. Uh...this was a much better idea in my head. And, it's still your turn."
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The next three holes were an exercise in awkward silence. Taylor was no stranger to these, and found herself in an unfamiliar and unenviable position. That of the person to whom the duty fell of breaking that silence. Usually it was someone else – her dad, Lisa, or Sabah – who drew her out and made her talk, and she had no idea how they did it. They just started talking and somehow the awkward went away. There had to be some middle step, some...link between talking and slaying that particular dragon. If such a thing existed, she didn't know what it was. But it was becoming increasingly clear that Sabah had run out of this peculiar brand of social courage, and so it would fall to Taylor to suck it up and make this silence end because frankly, she was considering throwing herself off the little wooden footbridge than endure one more second of it. So she opened her mouth, said a quick mental prayer, and let words tumble out. "On the way down to Florida, we stopped at this little truck stop and – and I bought this book. It was a murder-mystery and, strangely enough for truck stop lit, it was terrible. One of the worst things I ever read, but I read it out loud until we reached Charleston, and then I got so disgusted with it I threw it out the window. And, well...We were going pretty fast, and there were those roadside fruit vendor stalls, and...the book hit one of the stalls and knocked it over."
She chanced a look up from her putting preparation at the sound of a muffled snort. Laughter? It danced in Sabah's dark eyes and Taylor felt a rush of elation. Victory and joy in equal measure. She was doing it! It was working! She made her putt, not really caring where it went, and stepped back to let Sabah have her turn. She heard the clack-clack-clack of the ball bouncing off the various obstacles and then a sound she had only heard rarely that day. The sound of plastic bouncing off plastic, rolling, and a settling crackle. Sabah dropped her ball on the little, electric-tape X and looked up just in time to see Taylor get a hole in one. "That's – you just cheated. You had to. Nobody gets a hole in one without looking."
"Cross my heart, no cheating." They were talking again! Words, sweet, sweet words were being exchanged! Yes, they were very pointedly not talking about how Sabah – beautiful, crazy, awesome Sabah – had a crush on her and that Taylor did not return those feelings, but progress was progress. "In fact, I was cheating until right now."
Sabah missed, sending her fluorescent orange ball into the mouth of the mechanical clam, which promptly closed, emitted a swallowing noise, and then a tinny belch. "Okay, so...the clam just ate my ball, you just confessed to cheating at mini-golf, and I'm getting a little hungry. I mean, like, I could eat. Wanna go see what the food's like here, or scram to somewhere else?"
Taylor, who wasn't very hungry, simply shrugged. Truth be told, she was starting to feel...guilty. Guilty in a way she was having a little difficulty nailing down. It was a lot like when she was younger, and her friend had wanted to do something and she'd been unable or incapable, like horseback riding. Close to that, but not quite. Less innocent than horses, which she wasn't fond of.
Oh.
She understood now. As they were leaving the course, clubs in hand, Taylor apologized. "Sorry, Sabah."
"For what?"
"For not – for not liking you the way you like me. You were my first friend in almost two years, and one of my best now, and now I don't – now I can't..."
Sabah frowned. "Are you apologizing for not reciprocating how I feel? Cuz that's – that's a little..." A pause. "that's not something you should feel bad about. I'm not going to stop being your friend, you know."
"But I hurt your feelings." Taylor pointed this out, compelled to by...something. Guilt, again?
"Taylor, if I stopped talking to everyone who hurt my feelings, the only living thing I'd interact with would be my fish, Broseidon. I have a crush on you because you're awesome, and you're hot, and you kick all kinds of ass. And , you rep my store, so that's good, too. Anyway, the point is that you shouldn't feel obligated to date me out of some kind of obligation. If you're hot for Blondie, be hot for Blondie. Hell, ravish that body and write me a detailed report later." She stopped them in the parking lot, and put her hands on Taylor's shoulders. "I was a bit jealous, you know? But I'll get over it. I'm a big girl. I am going to help your dad work on his shovel speech, though."
Warmth rush through her, washing away the guilt and drawing out a smile. "Don't you dare. Sabah, he's been working on that speech since I was born, he doesn't need any help."
"I can edit. You know, proofread it. I'm a college student, we're good at that."
"No."
"Taylorrrr..."
"No."
"Fine."
And then, Sabah proceeded to pout all the way to Macho Nacho.
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Weekly Power Status
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