Wake-up Call – Chapter 66

Do you remember all those romantic comedies in which an unlikely couple hooks up not at the end of the movie but somewhere close to the beginning? The ones where the story is not about the typical Meet Cute, but about how those two horribly clashing personalities who should have never gotten together try to overcome all the awkwardness of a drunken makeout or something equally (or more) impulsive? Well, what always fascinated me as a kid was the morning after of such movies. The couple realizing what they had just done and how the near future was about to be catastrophically derailed by it.

…

Given all that, I really should have thought things through after Taylor first assaulted me in my bed.

"So, Brian," Alec says with utter delight dripping from every syllable. "Did you sleep well last night?"

The leader of my mercenary group looks across the kitchen counter at his frequent nemesis, the lower half of his face hidden by a coffee mug. It's not that relevant, given how much hate and spite can fit into his very visible eyes.

"Alec, I swear to God—" I start to say, very carefully not touching my own cup of expresso just in case—

"Oh, we all know just how [religious] you can get," Alec says.

But not when I have coffee in my mouth.

So, there, spit-take averted.

[Hot coffee sprayed on open eyes—]

… Nice one. Maybe another time.

"Only the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, yet far from omnibenevolent being would explain the set of circumstances that have saddled me with you as a roommate," I finally say, with all the calm and composure I'm known for.

I'm even doing that thing where my fingertips touch while encircling the warm cup of coffee resting between my palms without touching it. Would somebody who wasn't calm and composed do that? I think not.

[Lisa Wilbourn's obsession with theatrics—]

I'm a [Thinker]. The only way I can fight is with theatrics, so it's not an obsession: it's grueling practice.

[Lisa Wilbourn's obsession with anime training—]

That is a lie, and you know it. My least favorite Nanoha season is the dumb one when they train the rookies.

[Lisa Wilbourn's squealing when Nanoha and Fate shared a bed—]

That is entirely beside the point!

"Is… Is she broken? Should I smack her head or something? Try to shift her ponytail and see if it catches better reception?" Alec says in what one may assume to be concern.

If one had the mental adroitness of a Kaiser.

"She's… You get used to it," Taylor says, taking the chance to pretend she isn't blushing behind her glazed donut.

"That is a filthy lie, and you know it," I tell her reflexively.

[Lisa Wilbourn's resort to unfairly questioning the sincerity of—]

Shut. Up.

"All right. Fine. You don't get used to it. She just talks with the voice in her head, sometimes loudly drifting into what sounds like very anguished halves of a conversation, and then she says that's a superpower instead of something that requires carefully regulated use of expensive medication. Is that better, [Honey?"] Taylor asks, glaring at me over the ominously gleaming donut—oh, [come on!] That's just unfair!

I think for a brief second for the best possible way to sum up my feelings without any reiteration.

[Lack of telepathy—]

Oh, right. Thanks.

"Oh, come on! That's just [unfair!"] I say while pointing at her with an entirely justified level of theatrics.

And then pat myself at nobody having caught me repeating myself.

[Lisa Wilbourn's contribution to dialog—]

Fine, I'll co-credit you as a writer. Happy now?

"What… I fear to ask, but what is it that's unfair?" Brian asks, no longer glaring at Alec but only to add a bit of variety to his repertoire.

"You wouldn't understand, uncultured peasant," I say, still pointing at Taylor and gesturing at Alec with my head to prompt him to realize what's going on.

"What the Hell—" Brian protests with entirely unjustified ire.

"I don't see it," Alec says, interrupting him out of sheer habit.

I presume.

[Chances of Alec riling Brian Laborn up as a reflexive—]

Ah, thanks for confirming that.

"I can't believe I need to explain this to you out of all people…" I grumble at him with dripping disappointment. "When a smart character in an anime tilts their glasses up, and they ominously go opaque as they reflect the light? Look at what Taylor's doing [with her donut."]

Alec blinks.

Then looks at Taylor's frozen form.

Then focuses on her ominously gleaming glazed donut.

And then, with the greatest amount of respect I've ever seen from him, Alec claps.

It is at that very moment that Rachel finishes wiping Brutus' paws and walks up the stairs to find us all still at the start of our very rambunctious breakfast.

She blinks, looks at all of us in turn, briefly pausing to take in Taylor's pajama-wearing, donut-shining self, and then walks right up to me.

And claps my shoulder.

"Good job last night," she says.

And, as my cheeks burn at about the same intensity as Taylor's, she walks to the fridge without a second glance at her victims and grabs a carton of milk.

Note to self: look up into soundproofing my temporary quarters.

***

So. I'm doing this.

"You don't have to," Taylor's voice reassures me from right behind me.

From where she's still sitting on my bike, her body molded to mine.

From where she's been waiting since a few minutes ago, when I parked my bike behind her house only to proceed to stare at the door to her kitchen.

"I…" I try to sum up everything that I'm feeling. I obviously fail, because nothing else comes out of my mouth.

"Liz. It's all right. You didn't choose this," she says, not whispering in my ear just because of my helmet getting in the way, her arms tightening around my waist making up for the barrier to our intimacy.

"No. I didn't," I say, just… Just confirming the obvious.

"But…?" she asks, knowing that's not everything. That it can't be.

And I sigh.

I unlatch my helmet before taking it off, the dangling straps pulling at my hair and forcing me to fiddle with them with still-gloved fingers, just adding even more frustration to the moment until Taylor helps. Until her own, longer fingers thread through mine, untangling my hair, pulling the strands loose before gathering them together by the side of my head as I just hold my helmet up, frozen as she slides a blue elastic band to keep my ponytail in place.

I'm not wearing the electric blue strand. Not today.

But… she still chooses that hairstyle for me. The one I donned when we went into hiding together, when we were forced to live with one another, away from everyone else while I dealt with everything that threatened us.

It's… It anchors me. Not just the side ponytail, as symbolic as it is, but that Taylor has chosen it for me, styled it for me.

So I lean back, my helmet over my lap, over the rough fabric of thick jeans that may be up to surviving a fall at high speeds—

[Unlikelihood of—]

Spoilsport.

"Thanks," I mutter, my head resting over her shoulder as her arms close around me once more.

"Always," she says, her open half-helmet letting her whisper the words right across my ear as her cheek rubs against my now tight hair.

"It's… You know how I kept delaying the Panacea thing?" I pause to let her answer and smile in relief when she doesn't. "It's… When I ran away from home? It's not just because I couldn't deal with… with [them] anymore, but because… I felt guilty. That question? The… the only question that mattered back then? The doubt about what I missed, what I could've done differently? The thought that kept popping in my head, and I just… I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't face my possible guilt, my blame, what I did wrong—"

"Not your fault. Whatever happened… It wasn't your fault. It couldn't be," she says, selfishly refusing me the same right she grants herself to be responsible for the entire world.

"Not the point. The point is that… I don't deal well with… not with responsibility, but with… with mistakes. With hurting others. I—don't laugh, you jerk."

"Sorry," she says, her voice warm and completely unapologetic. "[You] don't deal well with hurting others?"

"Not that funny…" I grumble while I shift my shoulders, and not just to rub my back against her chest.

"You have to admit it [is]."

"It's—damn it, OK, I'll explain so that you, inferior non-Thinker that you are, may get a glimpse at the brilliant workings of my dazzling mind."

"Please, elevate me, your Dazzlingness," she says before nibbling on the edge of my very exposed and now tingling ear.

…

I'm not going to get horny.

[Lisa Wilbourn's—]

Shut. Up.

"OK, if I—when it's a challenge? When I'm in the midst of it? I don't see [people]. I see all the buttons and levers, the cracks, the weak points. I see a challenge, a puzzle, and it's… Hell, it's addicting. The rush I get when I [understand]? When I get a glimpse at what lies behind someone's façade, and I can strike at the one, single thing that causes a cascade of chaos no one else could predict? When I can get at secrets, at things they hide from themselves? I [love] that, Tay. I could drown myself in it and not think about anything else, about nothing but the pounding thrill behind my eyes, the sparks of connections slotting in place. I… I get a hunger for it. I… I…"

The mouth by my ear lowers to kiss my cheek, the brim of her half-helmet briefly brushing my temple before she pulls back and whispers over wet skin.

"And when it isn't a challenge?" she asks with none of the horror a part of me wanted to elicit in my lover.

So my back uncoils from the tension I had unwittingly allowed to build during my rant, and I slump into Taylor's embrace. Into arms that don't reject me. That trust me not to be what I sometimes want others to see in me.

I'm lowering her Thinker rating just for that.

"When it isn't… Afterward. When the rush is gone, when only facts remain… Then I try not to think about it. And I often succeed."

I let the words hang in the air, hoping against hope that—

"You were the one who wanted to tell me. Stop being so difficult," she says, still supportive even as she lets some of her annoyance filter out.

It makes me smile.

"If you wanted things to be easy, you should've gone for Brian, you know?" I tell her, poking a bit at the sore spot—

She just bit my ear!

"Oh, sure," she says, the annoyance replaced with [danger]. "That would've gone over so much better. I can already see it: 'Hey, Brian, how are things going with that thing we're both terribly interested in and that we have in common? What's that thing, you say? I don't know, maybe your muscles?'"

OK, maybe laughing isn't the wisest move at the moment, but she makes it kinda hard not to.

Until she pokes both my sides at once and makes me jump so suddenly it's a wonder my baby doesn't tip over.

"Your rant. Finish it," she grumbles when I turn my head in perfectly warranted indignation that doesn't turn into apologetic sheepishness.

Not at all.

[Lisa Wilbourn's self-awareness—]

Power, I swear, as much as I love you, sometimes you should let me have a bit of self-deception—I mean, dignity.

[Conflation of two concepts—]

Fuck you.

"OK, OK, no need to get even [more] violent[,"] I tell a worryingly glaring Taylor who's no longer hugging me, but holding me captive. "I… When the dust has settled… Damn it, it's kinda hard to regain the dramatic momentum now. Could we shelve this—stop poking me!"

"Stop stalling!"

"Fine! I try not to think of puzzles as people after I'm done with them! I try very hard not to think about everything I've done, because I feel horribly guilty, because I don't know if I can fix everything I've broken! Because I don't want to even think about somebody doing what my brother did because of me!"

I am looking at Taylor.

Her face's right in front of me, and I'm sitting sideways on my baby, twisting my neck back so that my eyes are in front of hers, so that I can see seafoam green narrow in disgust.

It doesn't.

Instead, she clasps my cheeks, her palms warm against me as she leans forward until our lips brush as her eyes slowly lid until the green disappears entirely, and only her sharp features remain, the lines turning softer as she pours warmth and… and [peace] inside of me.

She doesn't deepen it. Doesn't push forward. Doesn't make my toes curl or my heart race.

She just… Holds me in place and kisses me until my own eyes close, and there's only darkness, an errant, cool breeze brushing over where the tips of her spread fingers stop guarding my skin…

And her.

Taylor. My lover. Holding me. Accepting me.

And I…

I let her.

***

I'm licking my lips. Not because they are dry, but because I still can't believe Taylor, of all things, decided to wear cherry Chapstick today.

"It's to mess with Alec," she says, rolling her eyes as she tries very hard not to sound smug at having pulled a Thinker moment.

"We'll make a regular Sherlock out of you yet," I tell her, still sitting sideways on her lap.

"Wouldn't Power get surly?"

"Yes," I say with a radiant smile that—

[Lisa Wilbourn's emotional abuse—]

I don't want to hear that [from you].

"He just got prissy, didn't he?" Taylor says with what may be a bit of a chagrined smile at getting far too much insight into what goes on inside my head.

"False accusations and slander," I tell her with my own prissy tone.

She snorts. It's glorious.

And then…

Then I look at her house. Where my mother is staying with her father. Where I should confront someone that I…

…

Damn it.

"Tay, about what I said earlier?" I say, raising up a now ungloved hand to brush a drifting strand of dark hair behind her ear.

"Yes?" she asks, her eyes once again holding my own in place.

"I… I don't want to be like that anymore. I don't want to run away from my… from my own actions," I tell her, begging her to understand.

So, before she can answer… I pull out my phone.

She looks halfway startled and halfway annoyed, but I'm already calling a number very few people have access to, and…

"Hello, Lisa," Dragon's unfailingly polite voice says.

"Hey, I… I'm sorry to do this to you after how much I hurried you, but something's come up that I need to deal with today. Can we reschedule the tests for tomorrow?" I tell her.

"Well, that would inconvenience me greatly, but, on the other hand, maybe tomorrow there would be [something] to test," she says with what may be the sassiest algorithm in the world backing her up.

"I don't even know if you're making fun of me, reassuring me, or actually reproachful," I tell her, tugging at my ponytail in lieu of rubbing my temple.

"Yes," she says. Because Mathematician's Answer. A formal logic joke. From an AI.

Ha. Ha. How droll.

"You can do better than that…" I grumble.

"Oh, I certainly can. Would you like me to?" she says with a cheerfulness that—

Oh.

Oh, no.

"Please, don't. I'll be good," I desperately lie to her.

"I'm sure you'd appreciate some extra insight into some of the people you're spending most of your time with nowadays. Some [intimate] detail," the possibly exhibitionist AI who spends [far too much time on the Internet] cheerfully comments. In a joking manner.

Obviously.

[Likelihood of remark being merely teasing—]

Oh, fuck, no!

"It's just one day! The mission's still on! Please, don't hurt whatever remains of my tattered sanity!"

"Lisa, honey, I was joking. There's absolutely no issue, really. I will have a more extensive battery of tests ready for tomorrow; this will actually save us time," she says, trying to placate my impending nervous breakdown. "Though now I see why Colin insists on that Thinker six—"

"I'm about to hang up on the most powerful Tinker in the world. It will be both warranted and therapeutic. Not to mention [glorious]."

"I'm not sure 'warranted' is the word I would—"

And I hang up.

Going from the warm feeling spreading through my chest, it was at least two of those three things. I'll let Dragon argue about the first item next time.

So I turn toward my eyebrow-raising girlfriend, whose right arm is limply wrapped around me, and, without acknowledging what just went on, I lean back to give her an uncharacteristically chaste peck.

"As I was saying… I don't want to run away anymore."

And, before she can reply, maybe acting like somebody who's actually running away, I jump off her lap and confidently walk toward the house where my mother is.

Then I jerk to a sudden stop, remember precisely where we are, and rush back to chain my bike down with my customary fervor.

Taylor, as she dismounts, says something that sounds suspiciously like 'six,' but that must just be the wind playing tricks on me.

==================

This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 88 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!