บท 46: Chapter 46: So...Yeah
Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 46: So...Yeah.
The sun was rising. Thick shades of a dark brown blocked most of it, casting Lisa's bedroom in rays of shadow and sunlight. Motes swirled through the air. The room was quiet, save for the breathing of its two occupants. The wine-red sheets had puddled at the foot of the bed. One of the pillows hung haphazardly from the mattress, the other was in use. Two heads; one with white-blonde hair splayed and tangled, another with dark hair that had gone wild, rested on that pillow.
Lisa's eyes were bright. She held Taylor's hand to her cheek, fingers curled around her wrist. Every once in a while she'd kiss the inside of Taylor's wrist and smile at the thrumming pulse beneath her lips. After one such kiss she murmured into Taylor's skin, "This was the best idea."
Taylor ran her thumb over the smooth curve of her girlfriend's cheek, then drew her in for a soft, long kiss. Bruised, kiss-swollen lips pressed against each other, sliding slick and sure until she drew away and grinned. "I agree. Which is why, when someone asks, I'm taking the credit."
Lisa gasped, eyes dancing with humor. " All the credit?"
Taylor was unable to stop herself from kissing the slightest curve of a smile on Lisa's mouth. " All of it."
That slight curve turned to a full-blown grin. She rolled Taylor onto her back and swung a leg across her hips to straddle her. Rising above, hands tangled with Taylor's, Lisa leaned down to brush their noses together. "Oh, no. " There was no way to describe that grin, Taylor decided, other than smug . "What ever shall I do?"
After adopting a pensieve look, Taylor offered, "I have an idea."
Lisa kissed her, stroking her tongue deep. "Shoot."
Taylor freed one of her hands and slid it down the front of Lisa's body, brushing against the curls above her vagina before sliding – ever so gently – over the little hood hiding the bump. Lisa shuddered, hips rising and falling, chasing the feeling created by Taylor's fingers. "Oh." Lisa's free hand rose to pluck and pull at her nipple. " Yes. "
=+= Chapter 46: So...Yeah =+=
It had been a futile effort, she decided, to try and find all of her clothing. Especially give how she was dating one of the most notorious clothes thieves in modern history. As it was she managed to get the essentials: underwear, pants. Comfy socks. Her shirt, she suspected, would end up in Lisa's closet. So she gave up on it and went to the kitchen for a cup of tea. It was then, as she rummaged through the cabinetry, that she came to a sad realization.
The only tea in the entire apartment was the kind that came in bags.
It hurt. In her soul.
She persevered and, fortified with her terrible tea, went to find her phone and reconnect with the outside world. Even if she'd rather not. After hunting around for a moment she found it under the coffee table and found that she had a number of messages. From her dad she had a missed call and a voicemail. From Roo, a long-winded complaint about Sabah and/or Lily's 'complete inability to get on with it'. A text from Lily, complaining about Roo. Finally, a missed call and text from Sabah.
Best get to it . She called her dad and reassured him that yes, she was still alive. Both of them knew there wasn't a person in the city who could threaten her, but it was nice of him to worry and a pleasure for her to reassure him. After that she texted Roo and told him to keep the pressure on, Lily was about to crack. She told Lily that Roo was entirely uncontrollable and that there was nothing she could do.
Then she turned her attention to Sabah. The text read: I need your help. Call me as soon as you read this .
Taylor pulled her lip between her teeth. That was certainly...foreboding. With a growing sense of worry she thumbed Sabah's contact photo. It rang twice. " Taylor? " Tension was thick in Sabah's voice.
"I'm here."
" Oh, thank God. Listen. Wait. Hang on. " There were sounds of muffled movement. Then it got quiet. " Okay. Um. I need your help. "
"I got your text. What with?"
" I kissed Lily. "
…
Oh.
=+= Chapter 46: So...Yeah =+=
The coffee shop on the corner of 8th and Winton was small and lively. Lots of wooden furniture and clattering ceramics. An artfully decorated blackboard covered the wall behind the counter, advertising both the menu and the drawing skills of the barista. The muffled roar of conversation filled the spaces in between all of those things. Taylor entered, tugging the hem of her shirt lower and searching the tables for Sabah.
It took her a few seconds. Which actually spoke to both the crowded nature of the place and the effort Sabah had put into squashing herself into a corner booth. She'd pulled her legs up, shins pressed against the table, and was running her thumbnail along the rounded edge of her phone. She was frowning at nothing in particular, bearing the expression of someone deep in thought.
Taylor wound her way through the tables, dodging chairs and rising customers with her usual grace. At one point she rose onto her toes and spun behind a heavyset man who ignored the world around him to focus on his phone. After about half a minute of this dance, she reached Sabah's table and dropped artlessly into the bench across from her.
Sabah startled and blinked, the sound of butt meeting bench jolting her from her thoughts. She stared at Taylor for a second before sighing heavily and hanging her head. "Oh, it's you. Thank God you're here, I'm driving myself crazy!"
"Um." Not entirely sure how to proceed, Taylor just...dove in. "Why? I thought this was good."
"It is!" By the way Sabah flattened her hands on the table and leaned in, coupled with the insistence of her voice, she meant it. "It's...it was really good, right? Like, I don't know how to say just how much I liked it."
"Okay. Did Lily like it?"
Sabah shrugged, curling in on herself. "I mean, she seemed to. She definitely kissed me back. And like, it wasn't just the one kiss. We – we made out, a little bit."
Taylor's confusion remained. "That's good, too. I'm a little confused. Did it get bad after, or...what's going on? Why are you so worried?"
"No. No, it ended fine. We uh, we traded numbers and everything. I was like, over the moon, you know? But..." And with the tone of someone informing their peers they had less than a year to live, Sabah dropped the bomb. "It's been like, ten hours, and she hasn't texted me."
That...Taylor closed her eyes. She breathed in, breathed out, and opened them. Then gave a decisive nod. She stood, going around to Sabah's side and began extricating her friend from her worry ball. "Come on."
Sabah came along willingly enough. "What – Taylo – what? Where are we going?"
"To sort this out."
Their progress came to a screeching halt. Sabah actually dug her feet into the linoleum floor. "Are you crazy?! I can't do that!"
"Yes you can. And you will."
"Oh?" Sabah set herself, mulish and ready to be stubborn for its own sake. "Why will I?"
"Because if you do, I'll tell you why I'm wearing Lisa's shirt."
"You're what?" She did a quick perusal of Taylor's sartorial choices. "You are!" Then she heaved a great sigh. "Damn you for knowing me so well. Fine, but I want details, you hear me? Details."
Taylor grinned, and led the way to the apartment Roo and Lily shared. Where it turned out that the reason that Lily hadn't texted Sabah was because she was doing to herself the exact same thing. They really do deserve each other, she thought.
=+= Chapter 46: So...Yeah =+=
Sabah was in Lily's room. Taylor tried very, very hard not to listen to what they were doing as she sat at the kitchen table. Roo had offered a pot of tea – actual tea, the godsend – and she had gladly taken him up on the offer. While the leaves steeped they had a round of good-natured griping at their friends' expense. It was only after the tea was ready that things took a more serious turn. As Roo added honey and lemon to his cup he asked, "So, do you remember, way back when, when I told you that there was this whole story behind my name?"
"Uh..." Did she? After a few moments of thought, she found that yes, she did. "Yes. You said something like you not liking telling it to people you barely knew."
"Yeah. Well, it's a bit much to be dropping on someone when you first meet them. 'Hey, my name's weird, and here's this story about why'. So I tend to wait, you know? Until I know them a little better. And I think we know each other well enough, and Lily trusts you, so...I guess what I'm saying is that I'm ready to tell you if you're ready to listen."
This, Taylor realized, was what many people called an expression of trust. Or maybe an offering of the same. "I'll listen."
Roo took a sip of tea. "Ah, that's the good stuff. Anyway." And he began. "I was born in India, in a city called Jabalpur, which doesn't exist anymore. Um, reason being that – well, you know how Pakistan and India don't get along? Like, at all?"
She had memories of a history class which covered something to that effect and said as much.
"Well, as you might guess, giving random people superpowers didn't help things. Especially this one guy. No one ever did figure out his name. Uh, his real name, I mean. Best anyone can figure he came from Pakistan, and walked all the way to Jabalpur."
"Is that...significant?"
Roo nodded. "India is big, and Jabalpur is not the closest town to the border. He could have picked any number of other places. But, for whatever reason, he did not. Made a beeline for my hometown and proceeded to blow it the fuck up. He was a, what's the word, Blaster? Shot like, radioactive fire all over the place. Destroyed ninety percent of the town and irradiated the rest like Chernobyl before he created enough parahumans to kill him.
The aftermath is the important bit, though. That's where I come in. All the people who ran and survived and weren't horrifically radioactive needed somewhere to be. Me and three others were some of them. We ended up, through a series of...events...in the care of a woman named Prudence Abernathy. She took us in, raised us and, when she died, we decided to honor what she did in the best way we knew. So now, there's four Indian boys running around America named Prudence Abernathy. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Taylor reached across the table to pat his hand. At some point, Lily and Sabah had entered the kitchen. Lily seemed to know the story. Sabah clearly did not. Both seemed to see it for what it was. "I think, maybe, you did it because she loved you. And you her."
Roo looked down at his tea and nodded. "Yeah."
=+= Chapter 46: So...Yeah =+=
Taylor's phone began to ring. The chirping, while neither particularly loud nor annoying, seemed both in the quiet haven of Roo and Lily's kitchen. It took her a few seconds to dig out the offending device and, thumb hovering over 'deny call', checked who was calling. She gave an apologetic, somewhat bewildered look to the other three. "What does the PRT want?"
Sabah shrugged, wrapping an arm around Lily's waist to draw the shorter girl against her. "Better find out. They hate it when you make them leave a voicemail."
Taylor accepted the call. "Hello?"
"Am I speaking to Guardian?"
She recognized that voice. "Kenneth?"
"Yes! I'm calling on behalf of Director Piggot. She'd like to speak with you."
She frowned. "Okay. When?"
"As soon as possible, Guardian."
She lifted her shoulders and made a sound of helpless confusion. "I can be there in...twenty minutes?"
"Perfect. I'll let her know to expect you then."
"Wait, Kenneth!"
"Yes?"
"What's this about?"
"Pittsburgh. The Director will fill you in. I'm sorry, Guardian, I have to go. More calls to make."
With a murmured goodbye, she hung up. She looked to the three across from her. They looked back, a growing certainty that something – nobody knew what – was horribly, horribly wrong.
=+= Chapter 46: So...Yeah =+=
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