Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started on a bleak Friday evening when Jemilla was out for blood. But not blood, because while she was irritated, she needed food and toilet paper more than murder.

The lights in Clivesdale’s skyline were little bright squares from where she was walking, boots smacking heavily against the footpath as she quietly fumed her way back to her apartment. From her arm her reusable shopping bags were swinging wildly in the mild wind. All save one were empty. Why? Because every person in town had seemingly decided that with the onset of the Coronavirus, they needed two years’ worth of everything to survive their fortnight long quarantine - should they catch the disease. The shelves of the supermarkets were empty, stark in comparison to how they looked not even two weeks ago...

Jemilla had needed to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables, rice or pasta, some meat so she wouldn’t become anemic and some toilet paper, because she had nearly finished the last roll of it at home. So, she went to the shops expecting to just pick up what she needed and go home. But she couldn’t do that. All stock of the things she needed was gone. Nil. Zilch. Nothing.

It had been a kick in the guts after a long day of overtime of working from home, her management position at one of the offices in town paying well but being potentially the most boring job possible. Not that she was complaining too much. It kept a roof over her head and food on her table. But listening to Janice going on and on about arbitrary HR troubles over video chat was draining. To finally clock off, realise she had no food, go out and get some only to find there was no food to buy? Shattering. Extremely frustrating.

So, now annoyed and unable to get food, all Jemilla could do was buy herself some pity iron supplement tablets and leave the store otherwise empty handed. How could all the toilet paper be gone? Were people scared that COVID-19 was going to give them severe diarrhoea? Were they making disposable beds for the elderly with it? Duck forbid if they were burning it.

She pulled her beanie closer over her ears as she grew closer to the apartment complex, which like the rest of the buildings in the area stood as a solemn box covered in glowing rectangles. Around it, most of the streets were devoid of live, apart from the street lights, occasional homeless person or late night shopper like Jemilla was. The quarantine and shut down of non-essential businesses had changed Clivesdale and the surrounding area.

Her apartment building was quiet on the inside, the fake potted plants next to the window and in the stairwells doing nothing to brighten the gloomy atmosphere. The virus’ effects obviously hadn’t just been on people’s sanity and state of mind it appeared. Maybe it was working on her too, because as she ascended the stairs to the third floor, the lights seemed almost grey. The globe was supposed to be ‘warm white’. No wonder people had started to get hysterical.

She turned out of the stairwell onto her floor, contemplating the stupidity of humanity, how sensationalism had ruined people’s common sense, and the futility of life. Then she bumped into somebody.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Jemilla blurted, looking up and then down again to see a figure in sweatpants and a black hoodie sprawled over the ground.

As they rolled over, the figure’s hood fell back to reveal a short young woman with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had the deepest brown eyes Jemilla had ever seen. Next to them a suspicious looking cluster of full shopping bags were piled up next to the first apartment door. Incidentally, the apartment was the one next to Jemilla’s own... which begged the question how she hadn't noticed this spectacle on her way out.

“Dude!” the girl exclaimed in frustration, wobbling to her feet and rubbing her face. “Be careful, I’ve got precious cargo here!”

“I’m so sorry, I was just lost in my thoughts you know – wait,” Jemilla stopped half through her sentence, “what do you mean?”

“What?” the girl asked, digging into her pocket and fishing out a set of keys.

“What do you mean precious cargo?”

“Oh.” the short brunette smirked, pulling one of the bags closer to her and from it pulling out… “I’ve got a sh*tload of toilet paper here dude. I’m not running out any time soon!”

Jemilla could have drooled. That or punch the girl and run off with her TP. But then again, her smug grin was strangely attractive and Jemilla didn’t want to ruin her chances with a hot girl… Which was what punching would do. But she wasn’t opposed to mild manipulation. The key fact here was that she didn’t have toilet paper and the girl did, which obviously meant Jemilla wanted it more.

Maybe she could do something with this. This girl seemed to be her neighbour of all people and had a hoard of toilet paper. She could persuade her to give one or two rolls away… Jemilla didn’t go through that much in two weeks as she was one person living alone. Unconsciously, she started quietly laughing, while the girl stopped fiddling with her keys and looking proud of herself.

“Uh, are you good there, or are you having a heart attack?” she asked.

Jemilla looked down at her, eyes pleading and probably slightly manic. “Can I please have a roll or two?”

“What? No! These are mine; you’ll just have to get some yourself.” The girl scoffed, turning to unlock the door to her apartment. Jemilla stood and watched while the girl stuck the keys in the lock and twisted them around for a little. Then she tried the door handle. It made a rattling noise which was not common to working door handles. A ceiling light in the corridor flickered once, casting brief shadows on the monochromatic striped carpet.

“Are you good there?” Jemilla asked.

“Why are you still here?!” the girl exclaimed in frustration, “Just go back to your apartment or something!”

The taller brunette didn’t budge. “What’s wrong?”

The girl turned around, and now Jemilla could see that while the girl looked tired, albeit a little pale in the artificial light. The purplish crescent-moons of sleep deprivation beneath her eyes made her look akin to a raccoon. Her hair was frazzled, and her clothes seemed dishevelled.

“I’m not giving you any of my toilet paper. Go away.” She stated tersely through gritted teeth.

Jemilla responded with: “You’re starting to look homeless.”

The girl (dang, she really needed to find out their name) closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, turning to her door. She fiddled with her lock for a few more seconds, twisting it around, before finally trying the handle again. It made a single clank before giving way and breaking, hanging limp. The girl pulled her key out and turned to Jemilla.

“My lock is stuffed. I’ve been here for three hours,” she grumbled dejectedly. Jemilla felt a bit bad for annoying the young woman now. “This is what I had in my car.” Right, not feeling remorseful anymore.

“You had all that in your car! Twelve packs with twelve rolls in each? That’s just greedy," Jemilla argued, "how much more do you have in your apartment and you have, what, a hundred a forty-four here?”

The woman sighed once again. “I buy in bulk cause' I'm too lazy to make multiple trips for this stuff. This is what I had left in my car from last time.”

Oh. Jemilla felt sort of bad again. This poor girl was just trying to get the rest of her bulk bought toilet paper into her apartment, but because the lock was screwed she was forced to wait. In the corridor. With twelve packs of toilet paper while desperate people passed by in the middle of a toilet paper shortage. The girl may as well have run into a pack of wolves with sirloin steaks tied to her body.

The young woman sighed and leaned against her locked door, sliding down it to the floor and tugging one of her bags closer. It was quite depressing really… but also an opportunity for Jemilla.

“You could stay in my apartment.” Jemilla suggested. This way, the girl would have to give her some toilet paper if they were both going to be able to use the toilet. The girl got a place to stay until her lock was fixed and Jemilla got an amenity back. It was a win-win situation.

“What? I don’t even know you!” the girl exclaimed, “There’s a loophole in here somewhere, complete strangers don’t just let other random strangers stay in their houses.”

“Well, I’m Jemilla and I am literally your neighbour.” Jemilla said in lieu of an introduction, “You're stuck with twelve packs of toilet paper without an apartment in a toilet paper shortage. Otherwise you are?”

The girl looked tired for a second before muttering under her breath ‘I don’t have time for this…’ and sighing. “Well, it seems I’m Zazzalil and –” she hesitated before seemingly throwing caution to the wind, “and I’m staying in your apartment.”

Jemilla looked on in surprise, while Zazzalil stood up and looped the handles of her several full shopping bags over her arms.

“Oh, well it’s quite literally this apartment… here I’ll help you.” Jemilla offered, holding just a bag of iron supplements and empty sacks herself.

“No, no.” Zazzalil waved her off, hauling up yet another bag into her arms and staggering with her load towards Jemilla’s door. “I can do it by myself. And no matter what happens, you’re not getting any of my TP.”

Chapter Text

It was six in the morning, and Zazzalil was wide awake. She usually only woke up this early for work, but today it would be Saturday, and she didn’t have to get up. She could sleep in for once! Maybe she should just roll over and go back to sleep, but somehow she knew that wasn’t going to happen. There was something about sleeping on a camp bed in the corner of a stranger’s living room which kept you awake.

Zazzalil was feeling pretty bad. Not like she’d caught something, no. Instead, it was kind of an uncomfortable feeling of mental forfeit to whatever sh*tty god up there was throwing her curveballs in life. So far, that stupid coronavirus had come and done nothing to close her job, no matter how disease exposing ‘Assistant Animal Wrangler’ at Clivesdale City and District Council’s Animal Control was. Apparently, picking up feral cats and catching raccoons that got into everyone’s bins was an ‘essential job’.

But that wasn’t it all. Her sh*tty apartment just decided that its door wasn’t going to work. Brilliant, right? Then she was stuck outside. Worse than that, stuck outside with the rest of her toilet paper. It wasn’t like she was hoarding the stuff; it was just that this was supposed to last her for at least six months. She wasn’t going to leave it in the car to be stolen. No sir, she was keeping it safe.

Zazzalil shifted onto her elbows, before looking next to her at the bags of TP packs. It was crazy that people were hoarding it. Maybe it was even crazier that she feared people would take it, but that was mass hysteria for you.

At six fifteen Zazzalil got up, stretched and looked down at the camp bed. Jemilla had kindly given her a spare quilt, a pillow and a self-inflating camping mat to use. The pillow and quilt had matching covers of cream with muted blue polka dots. The bed itself was little more than some woven plastic material stretched over a metal frame. Paired with the sleeping mat it still wasn’t very comfortable, but better than the floor of the corridor.

In her sweatpants and hoodie, Zazzalil was pleasantly surprised to find that she wasn’t cold. Jemilla’s apartment was warm. Apparently, it had a working heater, unlike hers, which led her to believe that every appliance she owned was broken. It was interesting how two identical apartments, with the same style and set up, could be so different.

Jemilla’s living room/dining area/kitchen combo flowed into itself nicely. The kitchen benches made an ‘L’ shape, capped by a tower of drawers and cupboards on one end and the other with a fridge. Outset from it was a kitchen island. In the opposite side of the room from where she was lying, Zazzalil could see a brown wooden dining table, looking suspiciously IKEA in style.

On Zazzalil’s side of the apartment, opposite the entrance, a grey ‘L’ shaped couch marked the start of a lounge area. Around the whole space, the white walls were adorned with pictures and paintings, shelves full of plants, and what seemed to be… were those fairy lights?

She could have laughed when she thought of her apartment, white walls bare and light globes hanging from unfurnished cables. All Jemilla’s lights were either pretty or had covers. Even comparing their windowsills made Zazzalil’s seem depressing. Hers, while wide and good for sitting on, were home to a pile of newspapers and a vase of dead flowers Keeri had gotten her when she had first moved into the apartment. She couldn’t bear to throw them away. Jemilla’s wide-ass windowsill had a padded mat for sitting on and some more fairy lights.

Sensing opportunity knocking, Zazzalil grabbed her borrowed bed covers and the pillow and took them to the window. There she sat down and pulled the covers over herself, before pushing the curtains back and staring out at the world below.

Outside the place was grey, while the sun appeared to be just starting to rise. The gradual light rising over Clivesdale made it seem like it was the dawn of days or some sh*t like that, but had a more foreboding sense to it. Maybe it was the world’s way of telling Zazzalil she’d get the virus today. It was either that or she was going to be evicted from her apartment which she couldn’t get into.

“It’s a pretty view isn’t it?” a voice asked from just behind her, and Zazzalil fell off the windowsill in shock. For the second time in less than a day, she looked up from the floor at her neighbour Jemilla. The taller girl’s eyes were wide in shock over her own, but this time had an amused, albeit surprised, smile growing.

“God f*cking damnit, don’t sneak up like that!” Zazzalil exclaimed, pulling herself up from the floor while Jemilla laughed.

“I thought you heard me!” she gasped, while Zazzalil noted the taller girl’s messy hair and pink plaid pyjama pants. She must have just gotten up.

“Well, I didn’t.”

Jemilla laughed for a couple more seconds before sobering up, rubbing her eyes and tucking some of her hair behind one ear. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Zazzalil said, picking up the comforter from the floor and folding it over her arm, “My dignity’s bruised but I’ll live.”

Jemilla smiled at that, before turning and walking back towards the kitchen part of the living space where the lights had been turned on. Looking up and around, Zazzalil saw that the fairy lights had been turned on soon, casting cloudy white light over the living room. It was cosy, in a way. If Keeri were here she’d coo at the room, homey and cute being the blonde’s whole aesthetic.

“Well, do you want anything for breakfast?” Jemilla asked, “I’ve got enough flour to make a batch of pancakes if you’d like.”

Zazzalil’s mouth watered, but there was still an uncertain thought at the back of her head. Why was Jemilla being so kind? It was definitely because of the toilet paper.

“Yes please. But what’s in it for you?” Zazzalil said, padding over to the table with the quilt.

Jemilla looked up with query written all over her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Pancakes use flour dude, there’s none of that left in the supermarkets. You’re practically giving away valuable resources,” Zazzalil explained, “So what’s in it for you? You’re going to want something back, right?”

“No,” the taller girl shook her head, opening a drawer and pulling out a bowl, “I don’t want anything from you. Yesterday I let you stay because I needed some toilet paper, but now I’m not tired and I don’t care so much about that. It’s fine.”

Zazzalil couldn’t think of anything to say, because her neighbour Jemilla was apparently quite selfless and that was not something she could relate with unless she was denying it.

For the next half hour, Zazzalil watched as Jemilla mixed pancake batter and then cooked them both breakfast. It was slightly mesmerising, especially when it came to the pancakes themselves. The taller girl had placed a third of the batter in a squeeze bottle, using that to draw a pattern first before covering it with a spoonful of the other batter. The result was a pancake blank on one side with a cool picture on the other. And not only was watching the pancakes be flipped hypnotic, but Jemilla hummed while she worked.

‘Why is this so calming?’ Zazzalil thought to herself as the sun breached the horizon and sent golden, early morning rays through the window. Maybe it was because Zazzalil usually slept in as late as she could on weekends, or at least until Keeri’s ‘wake up Zazz it’s eleven’ alarm went off, and she didn’t know they joys of waking up early.

Or maybe it was due to the pancakes and their intoxicating pancake fumes entrancing her… Despite how awake she had been earlier the warm scents of batter cooking made her feel warm and sleepy. Putting her head back, she breathed in deeply and thought of the last time she had eaten pancakes.

They had been cold and doused heavily in maple syrup, eaten one night after going to catch a possum that raised hell in someone’s bathroom. Afterwards she’d gotten back home and thrown open the fridge to reveal the cold pancakes she had as takeaway from breakfast that morning. It was nice comfort food, a little on the stale side, but calming after the chaos of the possum… How the animal got in the room she still wasn’t sure, especially since the guy who had been washing didn’t seen it join him in the bathtub.

A plate appeared on the table, with it another full of pancakes.

“Are you falling asleep?”

“No.” Zazzalil denied vehemently, rubbing her eyes. When she looked up Jemilla was gazing at her with an unreadable expression. “What?”

“You look tired,” she explained, grabbing cutlery from a drawer on the other side of the kitchen island, “if you’re falling asleep, you need it.”

“Nah. I’m just not used to waking up this early on weekends.” Cutlery and maple syrup appeared, as well as Jemilla sitting down opposite her at the IKEA table. “Thanks for the pancakes.”

“You’re welcome.”

They ate in relative peace, making idle small talk between them. Zazzalil, in the time, found out that Jemilla had an office job somewhere in town, a cantankerous adoptive aunt or something (family was all relative, so Zazzalil didn’t bother with specifics) and knew the duck guy. Through that, Zazzalil mentioned she too knew the duck guy, then divulging her work in Animal Control and the tale of Frank the opossum’s legendary capture.

The pancakes were good icebreakers.

By 8.30 the leftover pancakes were cold and Jemilla said she was going to have a shower, so Zazzalil helped stack the dirty dishes by the sink before going back to her camp bed. It squeaked as she sat down. Hoping she could get her Wifi from through the walls, she pulled her phone from where she’d stashed it in TP bag 5 and went to look up locksmiths or general handy-persons who might be able to fix the door.

It seemed like they were all closed. To be fair, it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. In fact, it was a miracle that Zazzalil was even awake at all. Usually by this time on a weekend she’d be asleep. But Keeri wouldn’t. And Keeri would maybe know what to do.

She called Keeri.

“Hey Zazz!” she was greeted with a blast of early morning energy which should have been illegal.

“Uh, the door to my apartment is broken. What do I do?”

“Yeah, hi Zazzalil, nice to hear from you too. Are you in your apartment?”

“No,” Zazzalil muttered, “I’m in my neighbour’s house.”

“Could you climb on over the balcony?”

“No, we don’t have balconies. It’s a sh*tty building.”

“What about the fire escape?”

Zazzalil sighed. “It’s a really sh*tty building Keeri.”

“Well, how sick are you on a scale from zero to ten?”

“Uh,” Where was this even going? “Zero?”

“Nice, I’m coming to pick you up.”

“What? Keeri, you don’t have a car.”

Keeri sighed like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Yeah, I know that! I’m walking over and then you’re driving us both back to my house.”

“Wait, Keeri –”

“Bye!”

The phone hung up, and Zazzalil was left holding it silently. Keeri was coming to get her. Okay. She was tired and Keeri was being spontaneous, so it was a little hard to follow. Jemilla walked out from the corridor that lead to the bathroom.

“Was that you talking just now?” she asked, towel in one hand and hair brush in the other. Her hair itself was hanging limply, straighter than when it was dry.

“Yeah, I’ve got a friend who’s coming over to pick me up.”

“Oh.” Jemilla said, looking disappointed for a split second. “That’s good. Aren’t we supposed to avoid social interactions?”

Zazzalil chuckled awkwardly. “Apparently Keeri doesn’t care. Besides, you let me in here.”

“You’re right,” Jemilla admitted, before the conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. “Can you help me pack up your bed then?”

“Sure.”

The next half hour was spent doing just that. The quilt was folded, cover still on, and with the pillow thrown into the largest hall closet Zazzalil had ever seen, squeezed in next to the bathroom. The camp mat was rolled, the camp bed folded up, and both met the same fate. Then there was nothing left to do except sit and wait.

After a few minutes of sitting, Zazzalil’s phone buzzed. Inspection revealed a text from Keeri, whose text read ‘Meet me at ur car’. She cleared her throat.

“Is your friend here?” Jemilla asked, nodding to the phone.

“Yeah.” Zazzalil answered, before a sudden alien feeling washed over her, triggered by Jemilla’s kindness and apparent sadness at her leaving. “Can I use your bathroom before I go? I’ll use my own toilet paper.”

“Oh, sure. Go ahead.”

She grabbed the nearest bag of TP to her and walked past the IKEA table to the bathroom. Inside it was clean and white, with tiles on the floor and walls. On the toilet roll holder there looked to be a quarter of a roll. The strange emotion controlling her made her take the pack of rolls and nestle it next to the cistern. She could have sold those for at least fifty dollars each. But she didn't. Ah yes, now she knew what this feeling was: Altruism.

To seem believable, she took off her t-shirt beneath the hoodie and stuffed it into the bag hoping it looked full enough. Then she flushed the toilet for appearance's sake, smiled deviously, and prepared to leave.

Chapter Text

It was nearly midday, and even after doing the dishes, tidying up the camp bed and taking some of her pity iron supplements, Jemilla was bored. But not just bored. Sure, she could be online and waste hours of time watching videos or playing Google snake until the word snake didn’t mean anything anymore… But something would still feel off.

When Zazzalil had left, bags of toilet paper slung over her arms and waddling away like a penguin, she had felt slightly relaxed. It was like a small weight had been lifted from her life. Sure, Zazzalil was nice enough and had some interesting stories, but a little time with the apartment back to herself would be nice. And it was, for maybe two hours until the strange feeling set in.

She wondered what it was at first. She wasn’t hungry – although she did plan to go and stalk the supermarkets again because plain lentils in salt broth was not going to cut it – and it wasn’t illness. Maybe she was getting cabin fever. It was funny how once something was taken away you wanted it even more. Before the quarantine, going out to get food or withdraw money from the bank had just been necessary tasks to do. Not unpleasant, but not a trip to Disneyland either. Now, the highlight of Jemilla’s days had been going out to get those groceries and relish the smell of fresh air.

Maybe she’d watch a documentary.

By one o’clock, Jemilla could rattle off a list of facts about Antarctica if she wanted to, but instead knew what she was feeling. Loneliness. The need for social interaction that wasn’t in a professional work setting had been growing since the quarantine had been ordered. Like a plant that had been deprived of sunlight, Jemilla’s social life had shrivelled. When Zazzalil had been over the sun had shone again, if only briefly.

She smiled, thinking back to when she padded out of her bedroom when she awoke to find her guest gazing out the window into the pale morning. In all truth, Jemilla had been expecting to find Zazzalil sound asleep. The girl looked tired. But instead she had been perched upon the window seat, while the faint hints of daylight illuminated her face in a ghostly white. She couldn’t help but stare herself as the shorter girl’s brown eyes scanned the view. Of course, when she announced herself Zazzalil fell off the window, breaking the peaceful image completely.

That short memory of interaction had been enough for her to realise her isolation was starting to get to her. Maybe she’d go on a trip to get groceries now, if the shops had any.

Jemilla strolled through the apartment, picking up her coat, beanie, numerous shopping bags and a mental shopping list in her head. It probably wasn’t worth the effort, because this time Jemilla was going to take what she could get, but the list was a nice loose plan.

Ducking into the bathroom, Jemilla peeked at her dwindling toilet paper supply. There was hardly any left, excluding the pack next to the toilet. The pack next to the toilet? What pack next to the –

“Oh my Duck,” Jemilla gasped, pulling it out just to make sure that she wasn’t hallucinating. Sure enough, in her hands sat salvation: 12 rolls of 3 ply toilet paper. Wrapped in soft plastic and very real.

When had Zazzalil put this here? She hadn’t noticed any of the bags go missing, so it must have been done sneakily when the girl was last here…

Her neighbour, although they had met only recently, was turning out to be more interesting than she could have thought. Strangely, she hadn’t considered interacting with her fellow apartment dwellers in the while she had been living in the building. The most she knew was that Zazzalil was on her left and to her right there was a middle-aged couple whose names she didn’t know. It was a shame Zazzalil had to leave so soon, as Jemilla found herself suddenly interested in kindling neighbourly relations.

But, networking could wait. Jemilla needed to go shopping.

Outside the apartment, the corridor of the third storey was still as lifeless as it had been the day before. Zazzalil’s door handle was still hanging limply. Jemilla gave it a go and it just made a rattling sound, so she moved on. Today the lights in the stairwell almost looked brighter.

As she walked down the street, shopping bags swinging loosely from her arm, she thought about her friends, specifically those she had in school and college. Despite having largely different lives by now, they still kept in touch and got together every now and then for birthdays and other celebrations. She wondered how they were doing in the pandemic.

Jemilla chuckled as she reached the traffic lights, remembering New Years. Now that was a good time if there ever was any. Ducker, who still decided to keep his job relatively ambiguous but posted obscure memes and cryptic messages on Twitter, had gotten drunk. This wasn’t extremely uncommon, but a rarity was witnessing Ducker standing on a table bellowing about his shadow being a demon. Then he ripped his shirt off.

Also at New Years, but much less rowdy, had been the joint package of Emberly and Grunt. Newly married and enjoying a steady domestic life was Grunt, who painted in his spare time. He also tended to the couple’s garden and occasionally baked. Emberly on the other hand had a hectic entrepreneurial lifestyle. She ran her own small café, cooked at home and was often trying ‘bold new flavours’. The couple also just had a puppy, christened Trunkelle for whatever slightly sappy couple reason – Jemilla had sort of zoned out whilst they explained it to her.

SB had been present too, looking very homeless in an old, dirty hoodie he claimed to have washed at least once in the past three months and equally as dirty sweatpants. Both articles of clothing were the same colour, a faded elephant grey which were hardly illustrative of someone named Sebastian Bartholomew, as Schwoopsie jokingly commented. The woman herself was apparently still pursuing comedy and had loudly exclaimed that drunk Ducker would make excellent material.

The doors of the supermarket reared up before Jemilla, slightly lost in the reverie of past friendships and future distance. They looked the same as ever. Glassy and sliding. But they were more than that now. Supermarket doors now symbolised the entrance to a zone where the weak were left with the weird canned goods and the strong took everything worth eating. Even the carrion, late night shoppers like Jemilla had been yesterday, were left with not even a morsel. What would Jemilla be today? The weak… or the strong?

“Alright Jemilla, now is the time to focus.” Jemilla said to herself as the supermarket doors opened, and she strode inside with the intent to kill.

As she walked in, she took note of the people who were roaming between the aisles. Before the quarantine, it was common to see a small amount of people going about their business. Not hardly any, but not screaming masses either. Now it was a mere handful of people, walking despondently between the aisles, remembering back to times when you could buy five bottles of hand sanitiser without being scorned by the general public. The level of dejection did not bode well for how filled Jemilla’s bags were going to be.

But overall, she was pleasantly surprised.

The fresh food area, unlike the day before when she had been met with bare shelves stripped of all produce, was marginally stocked. It wasn’t full, but there was some food and Jemilla was going to take what she could get. Immediately she snatched up a bag of carrots, which seemed more expensive than usual, and then raced against a middle-aged man to seize the last bag of potatoes.

From there she moved as fast as she could to where the pasta was kept. That on the other hand had been picked clean of stock, as was the toilet paper. Then, in the snacks area, there was enough to get by. In the meat section there was still little to no stock. It was representative of most of the store. Flour, sugar and eggs were limited to two items per person. So was milk. Soap was gone, the signs denoting one per customer swaying ever so slightly as a hopeful person walked past disappointedly.

By two o’clock, Jemilla left the market bearing brighter spirits. First and foremost, the shopping trip had gone well, yielding some semblance of the foods she had readily eaten before the quarantine. While expecting to come back empty handed, Jemilla had found some tinned food that could readily be turned into several different meals and several packs of Asian noodles. It was interesting how if anyone saw anything that could be remotely from China it was cast aside.

The walk back home was enjoyable. Despite being a rather frigid winter’s day, the sun was peeking through clouds that had rolled in and sat like a gleaming pearl between cushions of misty grey velvet. The wind, although biting, was exhilarating instead of chilling. In fact, the entire ‘it’s winter it’s horrible outside’ experience was lessened by the feeling of freedom she now had.

When she got to her apartment, having strolled up the depressing stairwell and passing Zazzalil’s very broken door, she got another burst of enthusiasm. The second reason for feeling optimistic was that Jemilla had realised how she could improve neighbourly relations. The answer to that, to put it simply, was Chorn.

Chorn and Tiblyn, both part of Jemilla’s crowd in college, were living together. Tiblyn was a ‘carry the world’ sort of person who found interest in helping humanity for the greater good. She had become a nurse, and as she had said at the New Year’s party, was ‘helping people up.’ Tiblyn was also very attracted to Chorn. As far as Jemilla could tell though, the attraction was either unrequited or hidden very well; the pair weren’t affectionate in public and she hadn’t been invited to any weddings or even ‘we’re dating’ announcements.

Chorn on the other hand was a literal genius.

Non-binary, ginger, and a person of little words, they were an enigma housed within an enigma. The first time Jemilla met them, Chorn was sitting next to them in a lecture when the lecture slides started to correct themselves before the class’ eyes. While everyone else was gasping and muttering, Jemilla looked to her neighbour. There she saw they had a box flickering with codes and a window with the current slides being corrected on their computer screen.

“What – Are you doing that?” Jemilla hissed, while Chorn had simply looked up at them unemotively. “We’re supposed to be learning, do a few mistakes matter?”

Chorn shrugged, before opening a different window with pictures of puppies.

“I could put some puppies in…” they said, looking Jemilla dead in the eyes.

“But you’re disrupting class and - Wait, you can do that?” she had exclaimed, before lowering her voice. “Go on then.”

Sure enough, to the confusion and adoration of the rest of the class, images of tiny dogs filled the screen. Chorn just smiled knowingly, watching as their professor spluttered and tried to fix the display. They didn’t succeed.

After that, Jemilla had pulled Chorn along to lunch with the Tribe (as they called themselves). They were met with mixed emotions. Tiblyn took to them immediately while SB struck up a grudge after they called him by his ‘fancy’ name. But they made up after some good old-fashioned bickering, mostly on SB’s part, and a discovered shared interest in puppies, co-existing peacefully ever since.

But the thing with Chorn was not just that they could hack a computer well. Oh no. Apart from having insane intelligence and a level-headed personality rivalling a poker champion, they had the skills of a secret agent – lock picking, coding, reading backwards and upside down… they were just some of the mad talents Chorn possessed. And if anyone could potentially break into and fix a door. It was Chorn.

So Jemilla, situated on her couch and gazing at her phone in contemplation, decided ‘what was the worst that could come from it’?

She hit the call button for Chorn’s number and held the phone to her ear. It rang, the tone beeping a few times. Then came an automated voice: “You’ve reached Chorn. Leave a message after the tone.”

Beep. Here went nothing.

“Hi, Chorn? It’s Jemilla… I know we haven’t talked for a long time, but can I ask you for a favour? You see, there’s this girl who lives next to me and her apartment door’s broken. So, I figured it would be a neighbourly gesture to fix her door,” Jemilla explained.

On the other end of the phone there was nothing yet. Still in message bank.

Jemilla continued. “But I don’t think there are any locksmiths open, so I thought that maybe you could do it. Please. And I know that it’s probably illegal for you to be doing this because you’re not licensed or anything, but you’d do it better than a locksmith because you’re Chorn! But if you don’t want to, you don’t have to –”

“You like her, don’t you?” Chorn’s voice asked.

“What the Duck Chorn?!? How long have you been there?” Jemilla exclaimed in surprise of having expected to speak to the answering machine. Also, Jemilla did not like Zazzalil. Well, not romantically at least… She’d just met the girl!

“I answered the phone.”

“But I got the answering machine and everything… You were the answering machine?!”

A chuckle sounded from the other line. “Yeah, I was the answering machine.”

Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be the answering machine? Jemilla knew she shouldn’t be freaking out over these things anymore, but she couldn’t help it. Chorn had impersonated the Duck damn answering machine!

“And I can fix the door.”

In her head Jemilla did a little victory dance despite how confused she still was. Zazzalil would come back and be like ‘wow my door is fixed’ and then she’d be so happy and Jemilla could talk to her again. Maybe she could make more pancakes! But she controlled her excitement.

“Thanks Chorn. Do you want me to give you the address?”

“I know where you live,” they said in finality. Yes, hardly creepy at all Chorn. “Bye.”

“Chorn, wait – when are you coming around?” Jemilla asked, because as much as she could just leave her friend to it she did want to talk to them from a metre or two away.

“Tomorrow. 2.00pm.”

“Oh, okay. Bye!”

The phone hung up, but Jemilla had a wide grin plastered across her face. Not only was she going to see Chorn tomorrow, but Zazzalil’s door would be fixed! Wouldn’t that be great? But she definitely did not like the girl. Well, she liked Zazzalil, but she didn’t like Zazzalil. Obviously. Why would anyone think she liked Zazzalil?

Chapter Text

Even in the pandemonium of the pandemic, Keeri’s house was as calm and sunny as it had been before. The little garden was flourishing, and inside it was a warm and bright as ever. Sometimes Zazzalil had to wonder if Keeri owned a temporal realm which she brought around to wherever she lived.

They were in the living room. Here was a comfy old sofa, an equally as old armchair and a solid wooden coffee table. The rest of the house was peppered with such reclaimed furniture. While small, Keeri’s house on the edge of Clivesdale’s city limits was large enough to have its own little block of land, a second storey and a loft. That was in Keeri’s bedroom upstairs where she decided to have the ceiling knocked out and put a nook up in the roof space.

“Wait, so you were stuck outside your apartment?”

“Yes!” Zazzalil exclaimed. She and Keeri were sitting on the couch, each warm and huddled beneath a fuzzy blanket.

Since the morning they had been watching TV and playing video games, but now that it was late afternoon and they’d decided to take a break. To the right, Keeri’s small woodfire was burning merrily. In front of them on the TV was running adds promoting travel to Thailand on mute, because they’d lost enthusiasm for it several minutes ago.

“And then the damn lock wouldn’t like, work or something. It was totally unfair, so I had to sit in the corridor with my toilet paper and -”

 “Where did you sleep? And how did you end up in your neighbour’s house?” Keeri asked curiously. The golden afternoon sun that shone through the window illuminated her blonde hair. She looked rather angelic.

“I was getting there!” Zazzalil sighed. While Keeri was a great friend, the best friend ever, she asked a lot of questions. “I gave up trying to get into my sh*tty apartment and then Jemilla walked by and was like ‘hey you look homeless’. And then I was like ‘Go back to your functioning apartment’ and she was like ‘Can I have some toilet paper?’ Then I said ‘no’ and she said, ‘You could stay at mine’.”

Keeri shifted on the couch, standing and walking over to the steel mesh cage on the table under the window. “But like, what happened after that?”

Zazzalil shuddered as Keeri removed the lid of the cage and placed in a handful of grains. A friend to all animals, Keeri kept rats, specifically Fancy Rats, which were just glorified sewer rats in Zazzalil’s opinion. One of the blonde’s three rodents had been running in a wheel while they were talking, the quiet whirring adding to background ambience. Personally, Zazzalil didn’t like the rats, even if they were pets. She saw enough of them at work, slinking around dusty sheds and rushing out from abandoned buildings.

“Well, I put my TP in a huge pile and then she got a camp bed for me. Then we sort of both went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep, and then I woke up early and she made me pancakes!” Zazzalil exclaimed, perking up at the memory from just that morning. “And then it was just warm and smelling like pancakes – Keeri. Keeri, are you listening? She has f*cking fairy lights all over her house. Fairy lights!”

Keeri hummed in acknowledgement from the woodfire, where she put on another log.

Zazzalil continued. “Anyway, the fairy lights were on and her apartment was warm Keeri. Mine is f*cking freezing in the morning but Jemilla’s was warm. And the pancakes were smelling nice and she was humming while she made them… And then she told me I needed more sleep.”

She gazed up at Keeri, who was now upside down after Zazzalil had shuffled around on the couch.

“Well,” Keeri summarised, “we all know what this means.”

“What?” Zazzalil spluttered, because sometimes Keeri didn’t make sense and it was one of those times. “What does what mean? I never asked for a meaning. There’s nothing to ‘mean' from all of this at all. Wait.” She thought it over in her head. “Keeri, does this mean something?”

“Yeah,” the blonde said, flopping down on the couch next to Zazzalil, “You’ve got it bad.”

“Got it bad – no.” She did not like where this was going, especially because Keeri was usually right about these things.

“Yes. You’re crushing on your neighbour.”

“No I’m not! I literally only met her yesterday!”

“And have slept in her apartment and let her give advice on your sleep habits already.” Keeri said, poking Zazzalil in the side.

“Shut up.” She replied, manoeuvring herself into an upright position.

That night, the two of them had pasta. Keeri cooked, but let Zazzalil stir the pasta sauce, which was about as much effort she wanted to put into the process anyway. She was tired. Even under the bright kitchen lights she found her eyelids drooping and her focus drifting off to other things.

When dinner was ready the two ate on opposite ends of Keeri’s dinner table. It was warm, the fan on the wood heater was whirring steadily in the background and the rustles of the rats doing their thing made everything very cosy. The copious amounts of fairy lights, tiny round lanterns on a string and other miscellaneous light sources didn’t help.

Maybe it was something about them, or the excessive wood tones Keeri insisted on having as the walls, floor and ceiling, but her house was cosy. Jemilla’s apartment was the same way, but more like a couple’s therapy retreat. Keeri’s home was like a nice mountaintop cabin.

She was halfway through her bowl when the thought occurred to her. Her apartment really wasn’t her home. Her house, yes. Her home, no. A home had things you loved and cherished in it. You took pride in your home. A house was just a shell to keep yourself and your stuff in. Jemilla obviously loved her apartment. Keeri had her rats and her millions of lights strung up all over the place. Zazzalil had a vase full of dead flowers to love. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something missing form her house to make a home.

“Zazz?” Keeri asked, and Zazzalil blinked a few times. She was staring at her half-eaten bowl of pasta. From her hand her fork was hanging loosely, the pasta that was previously on it now lying on her hoodie.

“Wha’? Sorry, I’m listening.” She explained, looking intently back at her best friend while surreptitiously trying to clear up the pasta.

Keeri sighed. “I didn’t say anything. You were staring at your pasta with your mouth open.”

“Oh.” She opened and closed her mouth just to make sure she wasn’t still doing it. “Was I?”

“Yeah, I’ve been watching you for the past minute.”

“Nah… I can’t have been,” Zazzalil said in humoured denial, while internally things started to crash and burn. Play it off as being fine, play it off as being fine…

“I’ve seen kids with better motor skills than you have then.” Keeri noted, pointing to the pasta down Zazzalil’s front, “Do you need, like, a bib or something?”

“What? No! You mean like for a baby? Because no!”

The rest of the meal was undertaken with the same light banter sprinkled through, but Zazzalil made sure to make and effort to stay awake. She didn’t zone out again, but Keeri seemed suspicious. Then again, it was sometimes hard to decipher Keeri’s moods and motives, masked heavily by positivity and general adoration for the world.

After the dishes had been stacked on the side of the sink to be cleaned the next day, Zazzalil found herself and Keeri both on the couch once again. The TV had been turned to a channel showing an incredibly cliché Hallmark style movie. Keeri had suggested to watch it, claiming that Hallmark movies were the one and only sleepover movie option. Zazzalil begged to differ, because horror movies existed, but wasn’t opposed to occasional depthless entertainment. It would keep her awake for a little longer. Right?

Wrong.

Khrystal, or whatever the protagonist’s name was, hadn’t even met the popular (yet aloof) roguish bachelor in the small town she’d moved to before Zazzalil felt her eyelids growing heavy. She was partially shocked, because they had eaten at 7.45 and that still early for her. She shouldn’t be this tired!

“Pst, Keeri!” she whispered, “Are you feeling tired?”

“Swhot?” Keeri answered unintelligibly, the whisper lost in Khrystal’s monologue in her huge-ass country house about her estranged sister who – get this – was suffering from a dangerous but little know chronic disease.

“What? No, are you feeling tired?” Zazzalil repeated shuffling over from her side of the couch to the middle.

“Zazz, you need to speak up.” Keeri raised her voice to a stage whisper.

“Are. You. Feeling. Tired?”

“No, I’m not tired. Why do you –”

“No reason, no reason.” Zazzalil quickly cut in. For a few minutes she turned back to the TV screen, absorbing how everyone in the small town of Fir Heights or whatever were so attractive. Then, coming out of the veterinary surgery was the most photogenic ‘attractive’ man she had ever seen. Square jaw, slight stubble, dark hair, flannel beneath an expensive ski jacket and jeans. Khrystal had no hope for salvation now, and Zazzalil found herself sinking further into the couch.

It was just so comfy. And it was warm under the blankets in her hoodie and sweatpants… even if one part of her was screaming at her to change clothes and take a shower. But she was too warm, and it was easier to close her eyes, just listening to the TV babble on…

She felt herself nodding off and jerked back awake again. Maybe this would be easier if she didn’t have to sit up. The nearest thing to lie against was Keeri, so she impulsively moved closer to the blonde and settled down tucked into her best friend’s side.

“Hey.” Zazzalil said, watching as Khrystal smiled toothily at the fancy jacket man. The pain in the actor’s faces was almost tangible.

“Hey.” Keeri replied, patting her on the head. “What’re you doing?”

She shrugged half-heartedly and blinked through heavily lidded eyes at the TV. “Nothing much. Just watching a movie with my best friend.” Her eyelids slipped shut yet again.

“Aww, that’s nice.” She managed to catch Keeri cooing before nodding off.

Zazzalil found herself waking to soft light and much warmth. Unlike the morning, dramatic background music was quietly echoing and she could feel something stroking her hair. Opening her eyes, the TV came into focus showing a schmaltzy winter drama/romance. She could tell because some dude was running in an expensive jacket through the snow.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” she asked, and the hand moved. Wriggling a little, she discovered her head had been resting on a pillow on Keeri’s lap.

“Hey. The movie’s nearly over. Charlton’s going after Khrystal even though she tired to leave in the snowstorm because of her sister.” Keeri stated, pointing to the TV screen.

“Screw Charlton and Khrystal. Wha’ time is it?” Zazzalil grumbled as she sat up, rubbing her face with her hands before leaning her head on Keeri’s shoulder. Screw social distancing. She was comfy.

“It’s a bit past nine.”

“AM?” Please be the morning…

“No, night.”

“Well sh*t.” There was still the rest of the night to sleep through until she felt it was socially acceptable to have a shower. That and she didn’t feel very good, like naps tended to make you do. What she wouldn’t give for clean hoodie and sweatpants…

Keeri turned off the TV, cutting right in just as the camera zoomed in on a body lying in the snow.

“What? I wanted to see if the body was dead.” Zazzalil complained, moving away from Keeri and flopping back onto the rest of the couch.

“You fell asleep and missed half of it. And you wouldn’t care less if she died.”

“She owned a…” Zazzalil realised she hadn’t seen half of the movie and couldn’t testify the body’s wealth. “Hell if I know what she had, but she didn’t need the man as well.”

Keeri snickered. “You sound drunk. We need to go to sleep or I won’t be able to get up early tomorrow.”

“No…” Zazzalil whined, “Keeri we don’t have to go to bed! We could totally stay up. Keeri, don’t leave… Keeri!”

With a little bit of coaxing and friendly teasing Zazzalil wrapped her blanket around herself and dutifully followed Keeri upstairs. There she gratefully accepted a pair of Keeri’s pyjamas although they were a little big for her (wearing her clothes for a second night in a row was starting to seem unhygienic) and collapsed in the blonde’s bed.

It was not an uncommon occurrence. Ever since early in high school they’d been having sleepovers which always ended with Zazzalil joining Keeri in her bed because ‘the air mattress went down’ or ‘the air mattress went down last time so now I have no place to sleep… oh no how unfortunate’. It continued into college, where some days Zazzalil couldn’t remember the last time either of them hadn’t been in their own bed. It was their thing, the platonic sharing of a bed and body heat.

Keeri slipped under the covers of the left side of the double bed, settling down and closing her eyes. Zazzalil decided that now was the best time to be talking instead of in ten minutes when they were both nearly asleep… Although by the way her eyelids were already threatening to close she’d be asleep in five.

“Keeri?”

A slight sigh as the blonde rolled on her side and turned on a dim light, before looking to Zazzalil.

“Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t I be in the loft? Social distancing and everything.” She didn’t want to leave, but neither did she want to Keeri to be sick.

“If you want to. I can make up the bed.” Keeri suggested.

Zazzalil yawned, blinking sleepily. She’d overestimated. She’d be out in two minutes. “Not really. It’s f*cking lonely in the loft.”

“It’d be f*cking lonely here if you left.”

“Keeri! You can’t swear… it’s like a baby swearing…” Zazzalil said indignantly but tiredly, closing her eyes and swatting a hand in Keeri’s direction, “…It’s not allowed.”

She heard the light being turned off and Keeri pulling the covers up more, so they covered her shoulders before the blonde settled down again herself. Duck was she lucky to have Keeri.

“Goodnight Zazz.”

“’Night.”

Chapter Text

Jemilla woke up early on Sunday and smiled, because she was going to see Chorn. She hadn’t seen her friend in ages, and it was going to be a good chance to catch up. Apart from that, she was eager to see Zazzalil’s reaction to having a fixed door again. In fact, despite the less than 48 hours of knowing her neighbour Jemilla was thinking of her a lot.

When she got up, Jemilla went to the doorway of the small corridor that lead to her bedroom and the bathroom. From there she leant against the doorframe and looked at her dim apartment, grey light filtering in from behind the curtains. She’d half expected to see them open, a small figure perched on the windowsill and staring down at the world below like a cat surveying its territory. But there was no one.

She caught herself thinking of Zazzalil once again, when she took her laundry downstairs to the laundry rooms on the ground floor. It was a mental flash to when the girl had left the day before, struggling down the stairs and away from their apartments with shopping bags hanging off her arms. Jemilla had had the urge to help her with the load, but something stopped her. She didn’t know what it was, but she regretted it.

Back in the apartment, after the washing and drying had been done, Jemilla realised she had the whole morning and two hours after that until Chorn arrived – it was nearly nine then and she had nothing else to do.

After several minutes of pondering, Jemilla decided that she’d call Molag instead of wasting another hour or two of her life on mindlessly watching TV. She hadn’t done that in a while, not since Christmas or something like that. The woman would probably give her hell about it, but it would be worth it.

Molag was Jemilla’s guardian. She was a quick witted, hard mouthed woman who used to work on the police force before she was injured ‘in a blaze of glory’ as she used to say. Serving on a desk job just wasn’t her thing, so she quit. From there she decided to go travelling for a while and went to all sorts of places – Jemilla had heard all about them as a child.

Speaking of being a child, Jemilla had been an infant when she was surrendered to the state. She still didn’t know her parents, or what they did. But after a few years of being in the system, Molag adopted her. From then on it was amazing stories at bedtime of snakes and criminals, listening to Molag insult teachers and being all around the best parental figure there could be… Well, sort of.

One of Jemilla’s earliest good memories was of her telling Molag that there was a monster under her bed. She then watched as Molag preceded to grab a broom and swing it wildly beneath the bed before exclaiming ‘aha, I’ve got him!’

“What do you mean? Did you kill it?” Jemilla had squeaked.

Molag had grinned, pulling out the broom and leaning down to look in the dark space. “Yep. I killed him viciously and violently.”

“What does he look like? How do you know it’s a he?” Jemilla had asked with four-year-old curiosity.

“He’s f*cking scary. And I don’t know it’s a him.” Molag had said, glowering under the bed with contempt. When she was older, Jemilla appreciated that Molag was so adept at acting – lying really – because four-year-old Jemilla had loved every bit of it.

“Molag?” Jemilla had asked, “What does f*cking mean?”

“Oh shi…vers.” The woman had cursed, “It’s a grown-up word. You can’t use it yet or your pre-school teacher would kill me.”

“How would she kill you?”

“She’d make me eat the play-doh. Then she’d cut me up into little pieces and feed me to Blubber or whatever your class goldfish is called.”

“Bubbles. It’s Bubbles, Molag,” young Jemilla had corrected, before climbing into bed, “Thank you for killing the monster viciously and violently.”

Present day Jemilla smirked at the memory, remembering how she had in fact sworn at preschool several days later, to the teacher’s shock and Molag’s delight. It was an interesting upbringing, to say the least, but not a bad one. These days, her guardian was getting on in the years and had become quite crochety. She still had her twisted sense of humour too, making for interesting conversations.

Jemilla pressed the call button on her phone, before settling down on the couch. Outside the window a few birds flew past. The phone kept ringing.

“Hello?” an irritated voice grumbled, while in the background the sounds of a chainsaw running were heard, “I don’t need sh*t done to my f*cking lightbulbs.”

“Hi Molag –” Jemilla answered, before being cut off.

“Jemilla! You privileged f*ck haven’t called me in f*cking months!”

“No, it was more like a few weeks –”

Molag cut in again, while the chainsaw noise in the background was interlaced with screaming. Jemilla hoped she was watching a horror movie. “Do you know about my back problems?”

“Uh, what?”

“The doctor said I had to get flu shots this year.”

“Molag –”

“Those privileged f*cks won’t let me leave the f*cking house Jemilla. I’m old now. My only joy comes from seeing the natural order of the world fall into place like it f*cking should! You know, leaves fall from trees, sky being blue, clouds are white and all that beautiful sh*t. And if that means I’m going to die from the flu or that goddamn new virus, that’s what’s going to happen!”

“You need the flu shots every year Molag!” Jemilla said tiredly, “Your immune system is weaker now. And what did you just say about back problems?!”

“I’m going to move to Australia.” Molag muttered, now with a hopeful tone in her voice.

“WHAT?”

“Their upside-down customs mean I’ll be able to swear at whoever I f*cking like and they won’t make me stay indoors…”

“Molag, that’s not how it works!” Jemilla exclaimed frantically. This woman was going to give her a heart attack. Also, the screaming and chainsaw noises still hadn’t stopped.

“Okay, if you’ve got such a bias against the southern hemisphere, I’ll go to Canada then. They have bagels! Bye Jemilla!” Molag’s tone turned to be amused.

“Wait – Molag what are you –” The line went dead, and all Jemilla could hear was the dialling tone. This was bad. This could be very bad. She called Molag back immediately.

“Molag!”

“Psych! Or whatever you privileged f*cks are saying these days,” Molag’s voice rang out heartily over the phone, “How are you Jemilla?”

She was annoyed, a little, but that was fine. Of course it was fine. “I’m good. I met my neighbour yesterday. And are those chainsaws and screaming sounds real?”

“Nah, it’s just a movie! Tell me about them will ya?”

“Well,” Jemilla said, taking a breath to try and summarise Zazzalil into a few sentences at most, “She’s funny and quite short… she works in animal control…”

“Ayy! You’ll have to put me in touch!” Molag exclaimed, “There’s this huge f*cking cat that’s stalking around my place. Big ginger beast, took down the f*cking raccoons going through my garbage.”

“Yeah, I could try that.” Jemilla said absentmindedly. ‘I’ll get to talk to Zazzalil again, I have an excuse! Maybe it isn’t so bad talking to Molag after all…’

“Hey Jemilla?”

“Yes?”

“I heard all of that you privileged f*ck.” Molag monotoned, while Jemilla realised she’d said her thoughts out loud. Oh god. “You’ve got it bad Jemilla.”

“Sorry Molag, say again?”

“Do I hear wedding bells?” F*CK. “Will I be getting grandkids any time soon?” She had to go.

“Goodbye Molag,” she tried to say quickly without sounding flustered, “I have to leave this conversation now!”

“Bye! Don’t forget to name one after me!”

That time Jemilla hung up. She then tired to ignore how fast her heart was beating and the flush that had appeared on her cheeks. One of the problems with talking to Molag was that the woman had no shame.

Maybe she’d watch TV after all.

By the time that two pm rolled around, Jemilla had exhausted the TV of any good shows to watch and Ducker’s twitter account of it’s memes.

She didn’t know what he posted anymore, if she ever did. The latest thing he’d gifted the world was a picture of a red panda with the caption ‘expensive cheeses bae’. What did that even mean? Apparently the internet knew, because the post had been retweeted several thousand times. Jemilla mentally added it to the list of things to ask Ducker the next time she saw him. Said list included exactly what his job was, what was the deal with his duck, and why his profile picture was an unopened can of peaches.

A knock at the door was a welcome distraction from the insanity. Like a dog eager to meet it’s owner after a long day Jemilla sped to the door and upon opening it was faced with one of the best sights of her life: Chorn.

“Hi!” Jemilla exclaimed with a grin, while Chorn stood a solid metre away from the door with a lazy smile upon their face. “Long time no see!”

“Indeed.” Chorn agreed, looking Jemilla up and down.

She waited as they did their thing. Chorn was prone to stopping and sizing people up, taking in their outfit, expressions, body language and such. Jemilla took the time to look over Chorn too, just so it would be a mutual scanning of each other instead of just her being analysed.

Their vibrant red hair was as messy as it had ever been, erupting wildly from beneath a grey beanie. They were wearing an olive-green raincoat, the edge of a blue polar fleece top peeking out from where the zipper of their coat was undone. They were also wearing faded blue jeans, the cuffs hanging over a pain of dirty white runners. Over their left shoulder was the strap of a backpack, which Jemilla could only assume held whatever tools Chorn needed.

“Uh, do you want to come in?” Jemilla asked, motioning into her apartment, “I can make us a drink if you’d like.”

“Maybe. Next door’s door needs fixing.” Chorn said, pointing with a thumb in the direction of Zazzalil’s apartment.

“Yes, of course.”

She closed her own apartment door before following Chorn to Zazzalil’s door. The handle was still hanging limply, just as it had been the day before and Friday night. As for the door itself, it looked fine. It was a rich, deep brown like the other doors in the hallway, thicker than doors inside any of the apartments and fifteen times uglier.

Jemilla kept her distance as Chorn dumped their backpack on the ground and tried the broken door handle. It made the same rattling sound like a couple of nails in box. Chorn hummed in contemplation, then experimentally batted at the handle like a cat swatting a toy. Much to Jemilla’s surprise, it made a 360-degree spin before falling off altogether.

“It’s broken.” Chorn said, staring and the now handle less door.

“No sh*t,” Jemilla said, eyes on the handle on the ground.

Not that she had any doubt in Chorn’s skills, but she hoped to Duck that they could fix the door. Judging on how cut up about it Zazzalil had been, seeing it worse would probably give the shorter girl a heart attack.

“Do you think you’ll be able to fix it?” she asked, watching as Chorn grabbed their backpack and dragged it closer to them.

“Yes,” Chorn pulled a screwdriver from the bag and started to poke it around in the inner workings of the door handle, “Shouldn’t be hard.”

They continued to work, mostly in silence, as Jemilla asked questions and talked about things that was happening in her life. Chorn spoke in one sentence answers, rarely elaborating much. It was slightly annoying, because while she and Chorn were friends, it was hard to carry a conversation when you were the only one talking.

“So… how is Tiblyn?” Jemilla asked some time during the conversation, while Chorn was examining pieces of metal they’d extracted from the turning mechanism.

“Busy.”

“Oh yeah, because she’s a nurse. Have you done anything cool while she’s off work?”

“We went shopping on Thursday,” Chorn said, screwing something with a screwdriver. It was a very insightful statement.

“I went shopping yesterday and on Friday,” Jemilla said, “It’s so empty! And yesterday everyone was walking around so sadly… I still couldn’t find soap.”

Chorn said nothing, putting something into the door handle’s mechanism. Fifteen minutes later Jemilla gave up on the questions, instead enjoying Chorn’s company from a respectable distance. By then she had no idea what they were doing and hadn’t known for a long time. Neither did the middle-aged couple who lived on Jemilla’s other side, who became the most interesting thing to have happen in the period of silence.

The two emerged from their apartment like bears from hibernation. They huffed distastefully and gave thin, tight lipped grimaces when they passed, eyeing Chorn suspiciously. They, in response, stared the couple dead in the eyes with no emotion on their face until the two uncomfortably shivered and walked away faster.

It was maybe two forty when Jemilla heard voices in the stairwell. At first she thought nothing of it, because people passed through the building frequently enough. Although, being quarantine it was a little abnormal, considering that people were supposed to be staying indoors.

“Nice,” Chorn commented, pulling a tool out of the handle mechanism and leaning back. The fiddly metal pieces, which Jemilla had before seen organised into neat rows on the carpet, were all gone. The handle was attached to the door once again.

“Is that it?” Jemilla asked hopefully, while the voices in the stairwell started to get louder. In response Chorn shrugged and tried the door handle.

It worked well. Really well. In fact, maybe too well. The handle, instead of rattling or swinging limply, turned quietly and smoothly. It was a moment of extreme satisfaction. But it also opened the door.

“That’s not supposed to happen!” Jemilla exclaimed, while Chorn stood holding the door open, “We’re going to be accused of breaking and entering! Close the door!”

The voices in the stair well became louder still, and Jemilla turned around in hopes that it was the middle-aged couple coming back. However, as she waited with bated breath, the figures which turned out and into the corridor were both women. One was of average height with blonde hair, the other a noticeably cute short brunette.

Both stopped talking and stood still at the sight of what Jemilla could only assume looked to be a professional house invasion. She tried to compose herself and appear non stressed about looking like she was aiding and abetting home robbery. Also, Zazzalil was there.

Molag’s voice rang in her head: ‘Do I hear wedding bells?’

She could feel a blush developing on her face. SH*T.

“Hi.” Jemilla said after a moment of silence.

Chorn closed the door.

Chapter Text

On Wednesday night, Zazzalil took the pile of newspapers off her windowsill. She kept Keeri’s dead flowers. Then she grabbed the pillow from her bed, the quilt and her warmest clothes, and sat on the window, looking out at the world.

It wasn’t as good as in Jemilla’s apartment.

For one thing, Zazzalil’s apartment was cold. Cold as f*ck. The heater was broken and the window was jammed open a quarter of an inch or so, which was great for summer nights when it was cooling down or breezy spring days, but sh*t for any other time. Also, her apartment she now noticed was bland. The walls were bare, her couch was pretty lumpy and the lights were too bright and harsh. On the upside, she discovered that she too had a huge ass hall closet behind what she first thought was a locked door.

Speaking of locked doors, she’d only been able to get into her apartment because hers was not broken anymore. That was Jemilla’s doing. Jemilla who had gotten the door fixed for her. Jemilla who it was hard not to think about since three days prior and who had invited Zazzalil to come over on the weekend.

In short, Zazzalil was screwed.

On Sunday the last thing she had expected to see when she went back to her apartment with Keeri was the door to be intact. And open. Her neighbour and a red-haired person being there too was another unexpected occurrence.

The two loitering with the open apartment door had entirely changed her day, which had gone from ‘slightly sh*tty but not so much as the future will be’ to ‘not sh*tty at all’.

Sunday until that point had been moping around Keeri’s house, whinging every now and then about the broken door. Keeri, likely in retaliation for having to listen to her complaints, suggested that they both go back over to the apartment and see if they could do anything. At first Zazzalil had vetoed the idea, because the door was broken and there was no way they could fix it. Story over, case closed, full stop, end of sentence. But Keeri, who was optimistic, had persisted in her suggestions, which got so annoying Zazzalil figured that maybe they’d try it. What was the worst that could happen?

Apparently nothing.

Apart from the door being open, which she needed to question certain people about. Who was the red head? Why were they standing by the open door? Why was the door open at all? Last time Zazzalil had seen it, the handle was screwed. But at least she could change into a different hoodie and pair of sweatpants and sleep in her own bed.

Such complex feelings of joy, surprise, confusion and suspicion had left her motionless as a statue while she processed them. Beside her, Keeri had been equally still, likely taking everything in.

“Hi,” Jemilla had said with a sheepish smile from where she was standing on the other side of the corridor to the apartment door. Zazzalil had noticed the taller brunette blushing slightly, her chocolate eyes wide and hair out of place. She looked flustered. It was cute. The red-haired person closed the door.

“Hi!” Keeri had responded when Zazzalil didn’t, giving both Jemilla and the red-head a smile, “I’m Keeri! Who are you guys?”

“Why was my door open?” Zazzalil remembered asking, tilting her head to one side in confusion. It was great to have it open, but why? Why was it open? And how? Answers to those questions had seemed a little more important than introductions.

“Oh, I’m Jemilla. I’m Zazzalil’s neighbour!” Jemilla introduced herself, relaxing and moving forward to holding out a hand for a handshake.

“Distancing,” reminded the red-head, nodding at the curly-haired brunette, “Chorn. They/them.” Jemilla looked at her hand as if remembering that normal social protocol no longer was appropriate and stepped back.

Keeri’s smile widened. “Hey! Are you the neighbour that let Zazzalil sleep over Friday night?”

Jemilla nodded. “Yeah. Chorn’s a friend of mine. Are you the friend that picked her up yesterday?”

“Yeah!”

“Um, why was my door open?!” Zazzalil exclaimed, moving toward said door which looked remarkably normal.

The red-head – Chorn – nodded their head, coppery mane swaying. “I fixed it.”

“What?” she asked, looking at the door. It certainly looked fine. It was inherently an ugly door, but nothing looked amiss. When she tried the handle, it was silent and glided from open to closed like a knife cutting through warm butter. Zazzalil turned to Chorn, unsure what to say. “Dude. That’s like… amazing!”

Chorn shrugged. “Thanks.”

“How much should I pay you?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jemilla quickly exclaimed, eyes wide once again and sounding frazzled. “Wait a second it’s just – yeah. Uh, I’m friends with Chorn and I asked if they could fix your door as a favour. You don’t need to pay.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.” Zazzalil said, now feeling indebted to her neighbour. Her neighbour who was looking at her with a hesitant smile, deep brown eyes the colour of a good strong coffee, shining with some selfless energy.

It was almost at that moment she realised how attractive Jemilla was – all long slender limbs and soft chestnut brown hair… How could she not have noticed on Friday or Saturday morning when they were alone together in Jemilla’s apartment? Although maybe that was a good thing, because Jemilla was hot and Zazzalil would have done something stupid or messed up, like she usually did around hot people.

“Zazz.” Keeri muttered, nudging Zazzalil in the arm and knocking her from her thoughts.

“What?”

Keeri shot her a knowing look, accompanied by a teasing smirk before whispering, “You’re staring.”

Staring. Okay, that wasn’t so bad, if a little weird socially but it wasn’t - Oh sh*t, she had been staring at Jemilla.

Zazzalil tried to will away the blush developing as she looked to Jemilla and Chorn, the latter of whom had an intense gaze set upon her. Their eyes were searching, scanning, almost x-raying her. What they were looking for exactly was unknown… but the process was unsettling. Extremely unnerved, she shifted her gaze to Jemilla, who on the other hand had a humoured smile plastered on her face.

“Man, I must had zoned out again.” Zazzalil chuckled uncomfortably, turning the handle to her door absentmindedly.

“You need to get more sleep,” Jemilla quipped with a smile, “You’ve still got raccoon eyes.”

“No, I haven’t…” she mumbled in denial, “You’ve got raccoon eyes.”

Her neighbour laughed, and something in Zazzalil soared. It was like someone had released thousands of butterflies in her body and they were all flapping around. She had suddenly felt warm, and remembered wondering if the thermostat for the corridors in the apartment building had been raised.

From there the conversation had lapsed into awkward small talk, before they were interrupted by two old people who Chorn stared at with intensity. The two had gruffly told the group how disrespectful and rebellious of them it was to be gathering in a pandemic before disappearing further down the hall. They all mutually decided going back to their respective dwellings after that, albeit somewhat disappointedly.

Keeri and Chorn had both left rather quickly, the blonde saying something about her rats while Chorn said only goodbye to Jemilla and the muttered words ‘dolphin hypnosis’ before they strode away. That left Zazzalil alone with Jemilla in the corridor, a few feet away and nervously sweating.

What could she do? How was there any way to say goodbye without making it awkward? She bit her lip in contemplation, then chancing a peek at her neighbour – nope, Jemilla was looking at her already. Abort. Abort!

“So, uh, that was Keeri?” Jemilla asked.

“Oh yeah!” Zazzalil exclaimed, “That was Keeri… did I hear Chorn – it was Chorn?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, Chorn. Did they say dolphin hypnosis? Like not to judge but that’s a bit weird.”

Jemilla chuckled before looking away, maybe to cut off the conversation? “Well, that’s Chorn for you.”

“Yeah. So…” Outside the windows Zazzalil had noticed the sky was an oppressive grey as she fought to find something to say. She glanced to Jemilla to find the curly haired brunette shifting on her feet, a pensive expression on her face. Well, maybe she’d tie the conversation up so she could go inside her apartment and collapse on her bed, also letting Jemilla get to whatever she was thinking about. “Thanks for the door –”

“Do you want to come over?” Jemilla cut in.

“What? Like right now?” Her heart skipped a beat. Jemilla wanted her to go over, Duck almighty…

“Oh. No… well, I mean, you can if you want to.”

“Later!” Zazzalil blurted. Yes, really smooth there… “This weekend?”

Jemilla’s eyes lit up, and a smile erupted on her face. “Yeah! That would be great. When?”

“Does 11.30 on Saturday sound okay?” that was probably the earliest she could visit and be a functioning human being.

“Yeah! Well… I’ll see you then.” Jemilla had said, nodding and walking back to her apartment door.

Zazzalil felt disappointed to see her leave, and so quickly, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit it wasn’t bad seeing her go. Before she neighbour entered her apartment, the taller brunette turned and waved. Zazzalil had waved back from where she was standing next to her newly fixed door, then watching as Jemilla’s door closed and she was left alone in the corridor.

She couldn’t think about anything but Jemilla since. Not five minutes after having her apartment back, not the next day while writing up reports, and not Wednesday morning when she was sitting on her windowsill.

It was hard to know what exactly about Jemilla captivated her. Was it the cute nervous, flustered look she had when Zazzalil and Keeri stumbled upon her and Chorn with the door open? Was it that she was really nice and let Zazzalil sleep in her warm, cosy apartment? Was it that Zazzalil was gay and easily attracted to hot people? Probably the last one, but maybe all the above.

And she was going over to Jemilla’s on Saturday. It would be good, she guessed. Actually it would be great. Jemilla would probably be polite and cheerful like she had been before – but she might not be, Zazzalil hadn’t really known her for that long. Just five days. Duck almighty, she was still at the stage where being polite was the social course of interaction for fear of making a weird impression on her neighbour. And she was still calling Jemilla her neighbour! But she had a crush…

Zazzalil shook her head, trying to dispel her thoughts. This is what she got for being gay. The sped-up love, the intense crushes which smashed into you like a train. She’d been through the process before, back in high school and more often so in college. Except back then, there was always her dad breathing down her neck.

He wasn’t against her interest in other girls per say but hadn’t respected it. He didn’t really give a sh*t about it at all. Distasteful jokes and constantly pointing out boys to judge her interest in them were common things he did just to be an ass. It got worse when he himself got back into love and found Zazzalil’s stepmother. ‘The Elephant’ Zazzalil used to call her, because of her big ears, although by the woman’s excessive body hair she should have been ‘The Mammoth’. If anything, the woman had killed all that was left of her father as he became more interested in her rather than Zazzalil and how she was going.

It was suffocating in high school, when she was stuck in the middle of their expectations and the responsibilities of having parents who didn’t make an effort except to be nasty.

In college however, she was able to get some space. A few hook-ups happened. For a while she crushed on Keeri. But there was always the lingering presence of her father and The Elephant in the background. They were paying for her tuition, so if she royally f*cked up in any way there would be actual trouble. So, she had to deal with them when she rarely saw them until she was out. Once she was she cut all ties as quickly as possible, got a job and moved into her sh*tty apartment.

Zazzalil remembered how amazing life had seemed after finally becoming independent. She had her apartment to herself, a job doing paperwork for Clivesdale’s City Council Animal Control and the ability to do whatever she wanted. The euphoria had lasted for a while but wore off quickly. Her job became a chore and the apartment revealed it’s sh*ttiness. She could do whatever she wanted but didn’t find the motivation for it.

Outside, Clivedale’s sky was dimming and the city’s skyline was starting to become illuminated by the windows of buildings and streetlights. If there was no quarantine Zazzalil might have gone out to soak in the nightlife. Maybe she would have gone out to one of the barbecue pits on the shore of the lake and lit a fire just for the hell of it, to watch the flames dancing in the darkness and their reflections dancing on the water. Not that she was speaking from experience, but it sounded like a pretty cool way to spend the night.

She couldn’t do it though. It wasn’t for exercise, work or to buy supplies. It wasn’t to get medical care or look after someone. Life sucked since the quarantine… although she hadn’t really been living for a while. Existing, yes, but not living. Any person could exist. Living was lighting fires, being gay and being a hazard to yourself and society. All Zazzalil had been doing for a while was a cycle of sleep, eat, work, repeat.

Sighing, Zazzalil looked from the greying view outside her window to the bright screen of her phone. She never did anything fun anymore. Well, apart from going to see Jemilla on the weekend. That could be fun. She still didn’t know what they’d be doing or what she’d wear or even how long she’d be there. But maybe she’d just have to wait and find out.

Chapter Text

So… maybe she’d asked Zazzalil if she wanted to come over. And maybe Zazzalil had said yes. And maybe it was Saturday morning and Jemilla was sitting as close as she could to the wall between her apartment and Zazzalil’s listening for any movement. It wasn’t weird at all. Totally.

During the week Jemilla was distracted. As boring as her job was, she always kept focused because focus meant progress and progress was good. But this week she had found herself distracted by thoughts of Zazzalil popping into her head. At first, they were just little ideas she would consider and sweep out of her mind quickly, like how they could maybe watch a movie or something. That could be cool. Then the ideas started to grow into daydreams of walking in the deserted park or Clivesdale’s empty lake front. It was ideas on Monday, thoughts on Wednesday, and from there grew into several blissful minutes of contemplation when she should have been listening to Friday’s HR meeting.

She hoped it would all be worth it. Even if she had a tiny, minuscule crush on Zazzalil, they didn’t know each other beyond small talk in a corridor and whatever early morning chat had happened exactly one week before.

From the other side of the wall, Jemilla heard a loud thud, followed by muffled curses. Looking at her watch, it was ten forty, and she had been sitting next to the wall and intermittently looking at her phone for about an hour. Well, it wasn’t like she had been doing it since she woke up, forgetting to eat, shower or wash the dishes. She wasn’t that obsessed with her neighbour.

An unspoken ‘yet’ lingered in her head as she thought to the online stalking she’d been doing while waiting to hear movement from Zazzalil’s apartment. It wasn’t even creepy. She just wanted to find out some other stuff about her neighbour. She didn’t even find much anyway, search results yielding a Twitter profile with little content and links to fifteen or so other people whose names were ever so slightly similar from various other social media sites.

Once eleven o’clock rolled around Jemilla was considering leaving the wall, because the more she thought about listening to what her neighbour was doing the creepier she realised she was. But when she heard running water and very faint singing, her heart surged in her chest and a smile rose to her face. For one thing, Zazzalil’s shower singing wasn’t bad – if only really quiet and masked by the water – and she had never been more appreciative of the apartment building’s strangely sound-transparent walls. Sure, she hated them when her other neighbours were getting particularly frisky, but to hear Zazzalil singing… Right, now it was past getting weird.

She moved away from the wall very quickly and to the other side of her apartment. There she spent the next half hour or so being antsy and browsing social media, eagerly awaiting the knock on her door that would signify her neighbour’s arrival.

When the knock arrived, she bolted up from her chair. Then she walked calmly over to the door, ignoring the impulse to run over to it, while her heart decided to run a marathon in her chest.

Upon opening the door, her heart ditched the marathon and skipped a beat instead.

Before her, wrapped up in yet again sweatpants and a large hoodie, was Zazzalil. Her hair was damp but only slightly straggly, in its wet state a few shades darker than Jemilla had seen it before. Contrary to suggestion, it didn’t look like Zazzalil had slept properly since the week before. The pale purplish half-moons beneath her eyes were still there and accompanied by a cloud of sleep the shower apparently hadn’t gotten rid of.

“Hey!” Jemilla greeted cheerfully.

“Hey.” Zazzalil replied, rubbing an eye, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She opened the door more and let Zazzalil move inside, before closing it behind her. She could feel a hole in her chest and it was pooling with euphoria. She had Zazzalil back in her apartment! It only increased as she saw the shorter girl make a beeline for the windowsill.

“How are you?” Jemilla asked as Zazzalil, as expected, hopped deftly up onto the windowsill and sat cross legged.

“I’m good… F*cking bored of working though.”

“Oh?” Jemilla dragged out an armchair from next to the couch and set it a metre or so from the window. “What do you mean? Don’t you work in animal control?”

“Yeah. But it’s so much paperwork. Where did you catch it the dog? Whose dog is it? Where are you going to put the dog? Like, I don’t know who this rabid dog belongs to! We found it out near the woods. And then they’ve got to go to the pound,” Zazzalil sighed, a grumpy expression on her face, “Which is sad because no one wants the old rabid dogs. Why can’t we just train them to catch rats so we don’t have to?”

Jemilla snorted. “But aren’t you supposed to catch the rats? It’s literally your job.”

“Well, catching stuff is fun,” Zazzalil supposed, a clouded-over look in her eyes, “But rats are nasty. They just get everywhere and are always dirty and stink to heck.” She shook her head and looked to Jemilla. “What do you do?”

“Oh, I’m in management.” It seemed kind of useless next to Zazzalil’s adventures catching stuff.

“What of?”

“People. We’re part of a team working with Torshn Corp –”

“Ew. Isn’t that like a fruit or something?”

“No, tech design.”

“Oh.” Zazzalil said, “Is it fun?”

“Uh… not really,” Jemilla confessed. “It’s a bit boring, but it’s my job. I can deal with boring. Everyone has a job and you just have to sit down and do it.”

Zazzalil nodded in response, which lapsed into silence… which was bad. How could Jemilla follow up on a nod? She was probably being too boring, asking all the questions and giving generic work answers in return. But it wasn’t her fault! She wanted to know everything about the brunette. Her friends, favourite colour, a phone number would be nice… But Zazzalil was probably bored out of her mind, Jemilla wouldn’t be able to ask because she would leave, it would be bad, and they’d never speak again.

But she didn’t know that. She rationalised. Maybe if she asked, then she wouldn’t have to jump to false conclusions. Jemilla looked to Zazzalil, who was moving so one leg was pulled up onto the windowsill and the other hung down. She didn’t appear to be bored.

As if sensing Jemilla’s gaze, Zazzalil’s head snapped up suddenly, a smirk spreading to her face. She looked Jemilla dead in the eyes – good lord those deep brown eyes would be the death of her – and it was like being caught in a floodlight.

“Do you want to light a fire?”

What. Jemilla could only look at her neighbour in confusion, observing the mischievous glint in her eyes and the excited smile. Light a fire??? Where? Why? What did it mean?

“Uh, not really. Do you want to light a fire?”

“I mean, maybe. The idea sort of just popped up.” Zazzalil shifted on the windowsill so she was sitting sideways, back against one side and legs pulled up to her chest. “Fire’s just… Satan’s sending some of their flames to dance for you. It’s like I’m in charge of them. Like, ‘f*ck you Satan! Now give me a show!’ and then there’s dancing colours which destroy stuff and sh*t.”

“Do you like being in charge?” Jemilla responded without thinking – obviously her impulse control was compromised – and watched with a smirk as her neighbour’s face started to go crimson. She hadn’t meant to do it, to be flirty or smart in any way, but oh boy was the result amusing.

“Pft, I mean, being in charge means being… responsible!” Zazzalil exclaimed with denial, “But I can totally do that! Being responsible is fine… Hey! Hot – I mean fire! Is hot. Fire is warm. That’s also why I like fire.”

“Aren’t you warm enough?”

“What?”

“Your hoodie and sweatpants. And you’re red in the face.” Jemilla pointed out.

“Oh. Well it is a little warm.”

She watched as Zazzalil untangled her legs from the pretzel they’d migrated into as they’d been speaking to each other, jumping lightly from the windowsill and starting to pull her hoodie off. As the smaller girl struggled with her arms over her head, Jemilla couldn’t help but notice how whatever she was wearing beneath the hoodie rode up to reveal a sliver of skin and a toned abdomen.

“There!” Zazzalil exclaimed happily, pulling the hoodie off her head and shaking Jemilla’s focus off the brunette’s midriff. Instead, her attention was drawn to what was beneath the jacket… a second hoodie.

“Uh, how many of those do you have on?”

“Just two.”

Jemilla chuckled. “Like two more or… How cold are you?”

“I’m not cold now. My window’s stuck open lets the air in.” the smaller girl grumbled, tying her hoodie around her waist and perching upon the windowsill again. It was almost like she was a squirrel, all intrepidly attentive, full of energy and ideas.

“Geez, that sound sh*tty.”

“I’ve got a sh*tty apartment.”

“Can’t you plug the window and turn your heater on?” Jemilla said with a frown, thinking about how she’d fix the problem if it was at work. Maybe Zazzalil didn’t always use her brain.

“The heater’s broken. It’s a really sh*tty apartment.” Right… Why everything in Zazzalil’s apartment broken? Did she run around with a softball bat and hit everything she could see in her spare time?

“Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah. But sixty percent of my clothes are hoodies and sweatpants, so I just layer up.”

“What’s the other forty percent like? It’s not… a large collection of –” what was something ridiculous “– revealing Halloween outfits or something?”

Zazzalil raised an eyebrow and summoned a cocky smirk which, if Jemilla wasn’t already into women, would have converted her there and then. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Oof. Dead. Jemilla might have been reduced to stuttering if she wasn’t competitive and hadn’t just thought of a comeback. She raised her own eyebrows and pulled on a similar effortless grin, leaning forward in her seat to rest her elbows on her knees.

“Maybe I do.” She said with a confident drawl and watched as the bomb dropped.

To her internal delight, Zazzalil’s eyes went wide and face red, and she added a point to her imaginary scoreboard. Jemilla: one. Cute blushing brunette spluttering about the rest of her wardrobe: zero. Inside, her chest felt as if a helium balloon had been let go there. She felt light and floaty almost like… she was crushing. And oh duck, she had literally just flirted with Zazzalil.

Then in her head Jemilla came to a dilemma. The thing was, she hadn’t know Zazzalil for that long. Now they were flirting. Or – at least she thought they were flirting. Either way, what if she was flirting and Zazzalil didn’t know? But she definitely knew… Right? She had flirted first.

Her neighbour shifted once again on the windowsill, face slightly pink, and cleared her throat.

“Uh, do you want to get take-out for lunch?”

“Oh,” Jemilla started, because when she’d asked Zazzalil over she had just planned on fixing up some sandwiches or something and maybe watching a movie. More concrete plans weren’t in mind. “If you want to. I was going to make sandwiches or something…”

“Sandwiches work. We don’t have to go for take-out. I mean, what’s even open?” Zazzalil said with an awkward laugh, before looking down to her knees, rubbing a hand over the other arm.

Jemilla could only imagine how she’d just shot down Zazzalil’s suggestion – and the small brunette thought that she didn’t like the idea! Was this going to be the end of their relationship totally platonic friendship before it even started? Her eyes scanned over her neighbour for signs of rejection before witnessing her perk up, scrambling her legs back into a pretzel.

“We can have grilled sandwiches!” Zazzalil exclaimed with a gasp, like it was a brand-new concept. Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm, like a child who had discovered something amazing or a dog who had heard they could go on a walk.

Whew. Crisis averted, Jemilla thought, plastering a smile across her face. Thank the Duck, if she hadn’t managed to keep on good terms with her attractive neighbour her gay, gay heart would not have been able to take it.

“Sounds great!” Jemilla agreed, getting up out of her seat and moving towards the kitchen. “I don’t really have a grill… But my guardian Molag used to make the best toasted sandwiches in a pan. Especially for lunch when I was a kid. When high school came along, she taught me how to make them myself and then that was the only way I got them.”

While speaking she looked for a pan, leaning down to search the drawers under the island. When she found it and stood up, Zazzalil had migrated from the window to sitting at the table, attentively listening to Jemilla.

“Go on,” Zazzalil said, “tell me more.”

“There’s not much,” Jemilla said with a snort, “Hardly anything more to it than being begged to make grilled cheese for friends in college.”

“But it sounds cool!” Her neighbour pouted, which made her heart do a backflip and the helium balloon feeling come back again along with a swarm of butterflies flapping around inside her chest. “You said you knew the duck guy right? Knowing him has got to have all sorts of crazy sh*t to talk about.”

“I mean, yeah. Ducker is crazy,” Jemilla agreed, thinking to the man’s drunken shambles on New Years’, the entirety of his twitter account and his chaotic escapades in college. “You see there was this one time when Emberly and Grunt had just started dating –”

“Who’re Emberly an Grunt?”

“Oh, they’re some of my other college friends,” she continued, whilst preparing some bread. It was calming, telling Zazzalil stories. While none of them would be the most interesting, Jemilla certainly didn’t think they were, it was worth it to see her neighbour intently listening. Zazzalil’s brown eyes were shining with every detail, and she looked so open to know about Jemilla.

Maybe the girl felt the same way that Jemilla had when she was listening to the short brunette talk. In that case, Jemilla would happily spill her life story if it made Zazzalil happy.

Chapter Text

So far, everything had been going well. Or as well as going to her pretty neighbour’s house to get to know her more could go. Which obviously, since she said so, doomed the rest of the day to go badly somehow.

When she’d woke up, she’d fallen out of bed. Which wasn’t uncommon, she sometimes woke up to find her face mashed against the carpet of her bedroom floor. What wasn’t common was to remember that she had to go over to her neighbour’s house for lunch at eleven thirty… and it was ten forty. She had all of thirty minutes to get her sh*t together, another ten to try and get herself looking presentable and then a final ten to loiter near her own door, then Jemilla’s before finally knocking.

She had dragged herself out of bed and had a shower, waking properly somewhere in her allotted half hour of… sh*t getting together. Then she’d dragged herself to her wardrobe and considered what she’d wear. After minimal choosing Zazzalil had picked out a hoodie, another one because it was cold, before snagging the cleanest looking pair of sweatpants she could find.

When eleven thirty came around, she had knocked on Jemilla’s door after only a moment’s hesitation. Then she had been greeted with her neighbour’s smiling face. That enough sent her in a spin, where her head was screeching about how pretty women were while her heart told her to act naturally and maybe she wouldn’t screw anything up. Also, she regretted her clothing choices because Jemilla was wearing normal clothes – faded jeans and a slightly sparkly, very furry jumper – which made her look like a model while Zazzalil looked homeless.

From there she’d been invited in and gone straight to the window seat where small talk had commenced.

During the small talk two things had happened. Or three. She wasn’t sure if they were good things, or bad things, but they were things. While small talk had started out as small talk, it didn’t end that way.

Firstly, she had almost announced herself as being a pyromaniac. That was probably fine enough, because who didn’t like fire? It was warm and pretty. Zazzalil especially liked how it flickered, almost like it was dancing. Like the devil sent up a show for the small donation of fuel, oxygen and the desire to burn things. It was as if she was friends with Lucifer and they were doing her a favour. The devil at your command! Wasn’t that cool? That was what she had told Jemilla.

It was also when the second thing happened.

Jemilla, who Zazzalil had known for just over a week and was without objection one of the hottest humans she had ever seen, had used her words against her. Zazzalil said that it was like she was in charge of Satan. Jemilla in return asked her if she liked being in charge.

So, maybe her mind was in the gutter, or she was so f*cking gay she was wishing everything was flirtatious, but it sounded like Jemilla was being suggestive. Which, even if she wasn’t, had stopped her heart for a second or two. Maybe the idea that her neighbour who was so nice and wholesome had a different, more titillating side shocked her. That or because Zazzalil didn’t really want to be in charge, it called her out.

Well, her reaction called her out either way, because she denied and then denied her denial of not liking being in charge. Her heart had been yelling at her to act confident, while her head screeched that responsibility was for capitalists. From there she was left a confused mess, stumbling on her words. Then she told herself to f*cking pull her sh*t together, covering her stupefaction with more talk of fire.

Interestingly, through the whole event Jemilla had just smiled amusedly. Zazzalil concluded that her neighbour was probably flirting, or at least teasing her. That meant she had to up her game.

The perfect opportunity to tease back arrived when they moved on from fire to the contents of Zazzalil’s wardrobe. Jemilla had jokingly suggested that part of it was filled with provocative Halloween outfits, to which she responded with a smirk and: ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ The problem was, apparently Jemilla did want to know.

She didn’t have a comeback for that. Apart from becoming a stuttering mess, blushing like an idiot and trying to explain that her closet had only hoodies and some shirts.

Luckily, lunch would be a perfect distraction from flirting and how hot Jemilla was when she smirked. Her idea of getting take-out wasn’t the best, because she really only wanted an excuse to get some air. It made sense when Jemilla suggested sandwiches, to which Zazzalil decided grilled sandwiches would be better, and her neighbour had taken her up on the idea.

That brought Zazzalil to where she was, sitting at Jemilla’s IKEA table and listening to her voice over the sound of sizzling toasted sandwiches. It honestly didn’t matter if the curly haired was saying good things or not, Zazzalil could listen to her all day.

“So, they had just been bickering like they were married already,” Jemilla explained, “and Ducker turns to them and goes ‘It’s not you that’s the problem, it’s you two together against the problem’. Then he says, ‘Would you like to do spicy noodles in the forest?’”

“What?”

“That’s what they said, before agreeing with each other and complaining about what it even meant. Then he turned to the rest of us and went ‘I’m the problem.’”

Oh. Zazzalil wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but maybe that was the point. The Duck guy, or Ducker as she had been told his name was, had internet notoriety for making no sense half of the time but still being respected and held in high regard either way. She had stumbled across his twitter page one day while being very bored and it was enough for her to remember it. When she discovered that he too lived in Clivesdale – it was almost as if she found a local celebrity.

“Wow. Is he always like that?” Zazzalil asked. Jemilla shrugged, flipping a sandwich in the pan so a sizzle erupted when the buttered face of the uncooked side met hot metal head on.

“Yeah… for a while he made up a cult chant which he would say before and after he ate, but also when he said hello or goodbye. Then he insisted that for the cult he needed to get the best seat or the better bed in his room.”

“Huh. Sounds fun.”

“You can’t imagine.”

They lapsed into silence, like their conversations inevitably had been recently, but it felt different. Comfortable, maybe. After a little while Jemilla started humming, like she had the week before, while Zazzalil happily considered other topics of conversation. It was as if she’d stepped into a daydream.

When someone asked Zazzalil what she wanted to be doing, she’d respond with whatever required the least thought. Usually she didn’t want to do things. Everything was a bit meh, so it was easier to give a generic answer than explain her apathy. Sleeping was a good response for that. If she was feeling adventurous, and wanted other people to know, she’d mention exploring the woods or lighting fires (but not at the same time… that led to mixed reactions that weren’t always good ones). But now that she thought of it, hanging out with her neighbour was something she’d like to do.

Five minutes or so later, they were sitting at the table. Across from Zazzalil, on the side closest to the kitchen, Jemilla was cutting her toasted sandwich in half – diagonally, thank Duck – while Zazzalil had decided that cutlery was for the aristocracy and she’d rather use her hands. Not that she had a problem with the aristocracy, as Jemilla’s elegant and deft silverware skills were nothing short of royalty.

“Ow.” Zazzalil complained, when biting into her food and finding the melted cheese in her sandwich far too hot for a normal human to consume.

“What is it?” Jemilla asked, looking up from her own lunch, brown eyes curious.

“It’s really hot.”

“Don’t eat it yet then.”

Damn, Jemilla sounded like a parent. It was interesting, being around someone who was responsible and willing to work. Zazzalil actively avoided work when she could, responsibility was for people who wanted to work, and Keeri usually went along with whatever she wanted to do with little to no disagreement.

She tried to take another bite, because who was Jemilla to tell her what to do?

“Ow… it’s still too hot.”

“Didn’t I just warn you not to eat it then?” Jemilla asked with a bemused look on her face.

“Yeah but – How come you can eat yours?” Zazzalil asked in return, deflecting the question because Jemilla did tell her that it was too hot.

“It’s cool enough.” The taller girl shrugged, while her sandwich emitted puffs of steam. It looked f*cking hot. Both had literally just come off the pan.

“Asbestos mouth.”

“Hey!” Jemilla exclaimed in faux annoyance, before smiling. “I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Yeah… it’s a thing.”

The meal continued in the same manner, until the sandwiches were consumed, and the dishes were stacked on the side of the sink for later washing. Zazzalil wasn’t complaining, but it occurred to her that all she had done with her neighbour was talk, eat, talk some more and eat some more. It was cloyingly boring. Where was the interest, the variation? Where was the chaos that would either burn their developing acquaintance or make it stronger?

Looking to Jemilla’s analogue clock set above the entrance to the bedroom, bathroom and huge ass hall closet, it wasn’t late. Barely one o’clock yet. There were a few good hours of daylight left, and then it would be dark. They could go walking or something. It would be fun!

But it was also so nice inside… As sh*tty as the apartment building was, her neighbour had been able to transform what could have turned into a dank, empty space into somewhere enjoyable. It helped that she had a working heater – but that was a little beside the point. The point was that she was happy to stay indoors despite the lack of activities and the itch to rebel against the government.

“Hey Jemilla,” Zazzalil asked, ignoring the spark in her stomach when she said the curly haired brunette’s name and she looked up immediately. “What are we going to be doing?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. We could watch something if you like.”

“Hm…” it sounded boring, “Nah. Do you want to go outside?”

“Why would we go out? Do you want to be arrested for breaking quarantine?” Jemilla queried, one eyebrow raised.

“I mean… maybe. Do you?”

“Do I want to be arrested?”

“Yeah.”

“No,” Jemilla said with a small chuckle, “Molag would kill me.”

Molag… that was Jemilla’s guardian, right? Zazzalil didn’t really know, which was funny considering she’d heard the name enough to recognise that there was a person attached. How Jemilla had turned out (responsible, great work ethic and conscientious of others) she expected her neighbour’s guardian was some lovely old woman who baked apple pies and used to knit hats when she was middle aged for her adoptive daughter.

Such a guardian sounded great. Zazzalil was pretty sure that if her own mother was still around, she’d become the type to bake biscuits and pies. She had memories of being very young hearing a melodic voice, as well as some pictures of a short woman with the same hair and eyes as her. The memories were sweet and soft. The images only filled her with a sense of confused loss, considering she couldn’t fully remember the washed out photograph’s subject.

Of course, instead she was stuck with her sh*tty homophobic father and abominable stepmother - in both the hairy snowman sense of the word and fact the woman was morally and physically repulsive. Both she was sure would become ‘wonderful’ old people who scoffed at youth and openly LGBTQ people in streets and shops once they felt ancient enough to get away with it more than they currently did.

“Why would Molag kill you?”

“She used to be a police officer… The best around apparently. You have no idea how many times I heard the stories of the ‘War Master’,” she made quotation marks with her fingers and leant back her head with a sigh,, “and her ‘reign of terror’.”

Oh. Maybe not so much apple pies, knitted hats and cat jumpers.

“So, you grew up a good law-abiding citizen then? Swayed by your responsible, humanitarian guardian?”

“Pft, I was the first to swear at the teacher in pre-school. Molag is in no way a role model…” Jemilla shook her head. “She’s cantankerous, likes to mess around with other people for fun – she used to bait boys I brought home into confessing bad habits…”

Huh, Zazzalil thought as Jemilla rambled on. Molag was not a stereotypical kindly older woman with white hair and scatty tendencies.

Also, she was certain she had heard Jemilla mention boys her neighbour had brought home. Unless she was being silly, usually when people brought boys home it meant they were romantically involved in some way. Which for Zazzalil, meant a gargantuan problem if Jemilla was straight.

It was painful to think about it. She’d fallen for straight people before and they were not fun. Hell, the one straight male she dated briefly was enough to put her off his whole gender for life.

Jemilla was still chatting, but Zazzalil’s thoughts were elsewhere. Her sh*tty father and the Mammoth, the problems she ran into trying to just f*cking be herself during high school. The worry that her neighbour wouldn’t like her in the same heart wrenching, head pounding way sat the same way a backpack full of lead would over her shoulders. She needed to call Keeri.

She focused back on Jemilla, stopping her autopilot from nodding and looking attentive for her.

“…so weird, because who even does that? Well, I’m sure there are a few people who do. There are, right?”

“Uh,” Zazzalil had to shake her head slightly to form reasonable thoughts, “I think? Yes? Remind me what it was again?”

“It can’t be that weird is it… Are you good?” Jemilla was look at her with friendly concern that didn’t appear to over-bearing or forced. Duck, she was just perfect.

“Yeah! I’m fine,” she cleared her throat while trying to find an excuse to go back to her own apartment to sort out problems, “I just, uh, remembered that I had something come up this afternoon. I sort of need to go and… prepare that.”

“Oh,” Jemilla looked surprised, but plastered a smile over her obvious disappointment, “Yeah you can go if you want.”

They both stood up, Zazzalil pulling her hoodie off her waist in preparation to return to her freezer of an apartment. Jemilla rather walked to the door slowly, and Zazzalil followed in her neighbour’s wake. She’d just messed this up, hadn’t she? Jemilla would think that she hated her.

At the door, Jemilla opened it up for her. It was crazy how a door had started all of this. Her own being broken. She stepped out into the corridor, where it was like a whole different dimension to the bright apartment she’d just exited. It was suddenly colder, the grey sky outside morphed into one a few shades darker. It was as if night had come early.

“Well, uh, this has been fun.” Zazzalil said, scratching the back of her head and looking at the ground before chancing looking at her neighbour.

Jemilla’s face looked downcast beneath the smile. “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. I’d uh, love to do it again sometime.” She turned after an awkward final nod and flashed smile, walking slowly down the dismal corridor. The sound of a door closing after some hesitation echoed through the space.

When she reached her own door, she turned around on instinct. Maybe just to see if Jemilla was still standing there in the doorway. She wasn’t.

Chapter Text

When Jemilla closed her door, thoughts rushing through her head. Everything had been going so well! Lunch was fine, the hadn’t really talked about anything concerning… Had they? The way Zazzalil had seemed paler, some sort of energy gone from her eyes when she said announced she had to go. Something must had gone wrong, despite how she tried to mask it.

It really was a shame to see her neighbour leave. Maybe it was just her, but she felt lighter when the short brunette was around. The room was brighter. It was as if the grey clouds in the sky cleared for just a little to let the sun in.

Before bed that night, while she was brushing her teeth at the mirror, she considered that it was probably her own fault. What else could it have been? Maybe Zazzalil got too bored, or her story of how her umpteenth crush used to have that weird habit of sticking his gum somewhere and – disgusting – eating it again later.

“Was it me?” she asked her reflection, which stared blankly back at her. Reflections didn’t talk unless you were the one talking. At least in real life they didn’t.

In bed, after reading for a little while but finding it wasn’t making her any sleepier, she considered Zazzalil. She was gorgeous, quirky and cute. Perhaps a little stubborn. Grumpy at times, but not in a constant state of irritancy. She also wasn’t always keen on working, which made Jemilla stick her as a chronically lazy person, but was interested in what Jemilla had been saying.

It had been a little while since someone was that invested in her.

Sure, she had her friends, but they had mostly separate lives by now. She hadn’t seen Chorn prior to the previous week since New Years. Was Chorn even at the New Years party? Tiblyn was – she hadn’t spoken to Tiblyn in an even longer time. She only knew Ducker from his online presence, and SB was… unemployed? Schwoopsie was still doing comedy to the best of her knowledge. Even Emberly, who she had gotten along with the best in school, she hadn’t spoken with for a good while.

Maybe this begged the question that she wasn’t doing her bit to be active in her friends’ lives and thus they weren’t interested in hers. It would make sense. Especially relative to the day’s events. Had she not been interested enough in Zazzalil? Did the conversation become too much about her and not enough around her neighbour?

Sleep came with less ease that night than it had previously. Usually she was out like a light, lack of screen time before bed and a good book sending her mind to rest for a few hours. But instead it felt like she spent a millennium lying awake, with nothing to pass the time but to think.

When morning broke, Jemilla woke with vague recollections of running around in a theme park where colours were fun and the sun bright. The sensation being pulled along by the hand remained in her arm. She remembered peals of laughter, a head on her shoulder as two people sat side by side looking at stars. Real enough was a deep warmth spreading from her chest and around her shoulders. She’d felt it before.

Sunday was a slump. Nasty business, the whole lot of it. Maybe it was because of the events of the previous day, but she generally felt sh*tty. It felt like it was just one of those days. Everyone had them now and then, days when reality seemed off and nothing felt right.

The day wasn’t improved by the fact that she didn’t do anything productive. She didn’t have the motivation, but because of that she felt worse for not doing anything. Imagine what she could have done in the hours she was mindlessly flipping through the television’s channels! She could have learned crochet or how to bake tiramisu, reorganised her hall cupboard even.

At about two in the afternoon, Jemilla’s lazing around was interrupted by her phone ringing. Inspection uncovered that it was in fact Molag calling. She considered letting the phone ring out but answered after two or so more rings.

“Hey Jemilla!” Molag’s joyful voice pealed over the telephone.

“Hello Molag,” she sighed, while internally bracing for what could follow.

“What’s that? Why so down in the dumps Jemilla?”

“It’s just… nothing Molag.” In the background of Molag’s call, there was an incredible racket. It sounded like a rubber chicken being slowly dismembered by a drill that wasn’t working. “What’s happening over there with you?”

“Oh, that’s just Snarl.”

“What’s Snarl, Molag?”

“Just that bastard ginger cat which has been killing the raccoons going through my trash, the privileged f*cks,” her guardian recounted gleefully, “I set a mirror next to the bins and he’s been yowling at his own f*cking reflection. He thinks it’s another cat!”

Molag’s deep cackles sounded load and clear over the phone while the caterwauling continued. If she hadn’t known any better, Jemilla would have said that the noise she was hearing was the devil laughing in the depths of hell over the calls of the souls of the damned. But she had bigger fish to fry than dealings with the devil.

“Is the cat dangerous?” she asked. If it was, she wasn’t leaving her sharp – albeit chaotic dumbass – of a guardian to stick around tormenting it. It would be for both the animal and Molag’s own good.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is!”

“But he kills the raccoons…” The beast was a menace to society. And why did Molag sound so sad? “I’ve got enough to make us matching hats Jemilla.”

“No! I’m going to come over tomorrow, we’re going to get rid of the dead animals and we’ll try some anti-cat measures.”

“Ooh, will I get to meet your neighbour?”

“…no.”

“You’re no fun J-Mills,” Molag complained, “I adopted you so I could raise a badass hardcore mini me but instead I got the fun police.”

Great. Now somebody else was disappointed with her. Wasn’t it brilliant? First her cute neighbour that she was feeling very gay for, now her childhood protector and idol.

“Well, I’m sorry Molag but the cat is a problem,” Jemilla sighed, fed up, with the response of some muffled grumbling, “and tomorrow we’re doing something about it.”

“Damn, that’s cold!” Molag exclaimed, “But you can’t come tomorrow. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment for my back ‘cause the privileged f*ck says that it’s a problem.”

“Tuesday then?” It wasn’t like she had anything else to do when she wasn’t working.

“Yeah that’s fine.”

“Okay, bye Molag.”

“See ya Jemilla.” Molag replied, less excitedly than on previous occasions or even at the start of the conversation.

She spent the rest of the day mooching around and trying to distract herself from her own thoughts, which buzzed around her head like a swarm of angry wasps. Contrary to her own apathy she actually tried a new recipe for dinner – which meant the day wasn’t entirely wasted – but it wasn’t how she wanted to end her weekend.

On Monday two things happened. The first was that she had to work again, but the second was that she saw Zazzalil.

Work had finished, and all Jemilla wanted to do was sweep working with the HR department behind her. There was a huge scandal about a workplace discrimination accusation filed by the straightest, whitest man Jemilla had ever met, and it was a pain to deal with. Trying to mediate the issue over video chat was even harder while the dude shouted at his computer at some other poor worker.

So, when she got off from her laptop, joyously closing tab after tab on her browser, she decided that it she’d go outside. It was sunny enough, and a walk around the mostly empty town would be beneficial.

Outside the air was crisp and bit playfully at exposed skin with a chill. There were a few other people out walking too, and the number of dogs Jemilla saw was noticeably higher than before the quarantine. It seemed people had started to make enough time for their pets now that they were home more often… which was actually sad.

She saw Zazzalil when she was going back into her apartment building. The shorter brunette was trudging slowly up the stairs, clothed a slate grey beanie and what appeared to be a prison jumpsuit – except it was a deep navy blue with ‘Clivesdale City and District Council’ printed in all caps across the back. From her hand the girl was carrying a small, grey duffel bag. If she was walking in an airport she would have been arrested for suspicious behaviour.

“Hey!” Jemilla said as she approached her neighbour, who jumped and turned in the stairwell.

“Oh… hi.” Zazzalil replied quickly, looking at Jemilla for a second or two. This revealed a few bright red scratches on the girl’s cheek, contrasting greatly with the girl’s pale skin. She cast her eyes down to the stairs and continued to walk.

“Uh, how are you?” Jemilla followed.

The animal control shifted her duffel bag uncomfortably, before sighing irritably. “Fine. How about you?”

“I’m great. Are you sure about yourself though? You’ve got a few little…” Jemilla gestured to her own cheek, “…scratches.”

“Urgh. Really?!” Zazzalil muttered tersely, eyebrows furrowing more as she put a hand to her cheek, “Had to chase someone’s f*cking stupid dog around in Hachetfield. Must have got scratched by the bushes.”

“I’m sorry about that… Do you want me to help you patch it up?”

“No. I’m not a baby, I can do it myself!” Zazzalil exclaimed somewhat angrily, speeding up her ascent of the steps.

“I never said you were!” Jemilla placated, taken aback at the drastic change in behaviour to how she’d seen her neighbour before.

Had she done something, she wondered as she followed Zazzalil up the dull stairwell, to make her neighbour upset? Was it her fault? Of course it wasn’t, it couldn’t have been. She had just seen Zazzalil – but maybe she had said something last time.

“Did I say something last time?” Jemilla asked, increasing her speed to match Zazzlil’s. “I’m sorry if I did.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Zazzalil murmured to herself under her breath, but not quietly enough to go unnoticed, “No. It’s fine. It didn’t happen.”

“Sorry? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Never mind.” Her neighbour turned out of the stairwell, heading straight to her door, “I’m just… sh*t, I don’t know.”

“Wait – Zazzalil, I haven’t upset you though right? Are we all good? Because you left quickly last time without warning and it was a bit strange, you know?”

“I don’t know. People just keep f*cking expecting things that I can’t do,” a slightly manic laugh followed, and when Jemilla looked closely she could see Zazzalil’s eyes were bloodshot, “And when I can’t they let me go!”

Jemilla could only watch as Zazzalil disappeared into her apartment, fixed door shutting and locking with a metallic click. She obviously wasn’t quite… okay. What with the muttering and scratches on her face – maybe she had a bad day at work. Everyone had those. This wasn’t all Jemilla’s fault for trying to be nice.

She walked back to her apartment silently, trying to process the interaction that had just gone down. Everyone had some sort of crap they had to sort out in their lives and it seemed like Zazzalil was trying to deal with it. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with her.

That night she had another dream, more defined than the last. She was on a rowing boat, right out in the middle of the Hachetfield Lake, where the dark water was roiling and twisting in the night. Above her, the stars were flickering like a faulty lightbulb.

With her in the boat was SB sporting a floral sundress and a huge straw boating hat with a red ribbon around it. He spoke about their upcoming marriage, which was disturbing, before the water beneath the boat started to bubble and glow. The sun began to ascend the horizon, bringing with it a new day. Rising from the steaming lake, iridescent water pooling off him like goldfish made in molten gold, was Ducker.

“We are here today to address the marriage of this woman –” dream Ducker pointed to SB, who in fact wasn’t SB anymore but rather Zazzalil looking cute as f*ck in the sundress, lord above “– and Jemilla. LET US PRAY.”

Dream Zazzalil smiled, pulling off the straw hat and dream Jemilla smiled back. It was perfect. Everything was amazing. Dream Jemilla leaned forward to put her forehead against Zazzalil’s before there was no more, and real Jemilla awoke to her bedroom ceiling.

Damn, she was liking that dream, no matter how much it reminded her of that one time she experimented with drugs in college.

Tuesday’s work was the same as Monday’s: Try to sort out how Mr Straight White was discriminated against, listen to other people below her in HR complain about their jobs and enjoy the peace and quiet on her lunch break when she turned her computer off and stopped getting angry emails.

As soon as she finished work, it was time to change into comfier clothes she didn’t mind getting ruined, mentally prepare herself for what was to come and dig her helmet from out of the hall closet. Then she locked her apartment, traversed the stairwell and reached the building foyer. Next stop? Bike racks.

Behind the apartment building, where people parked cars if they had them and a miserable liquidambar tree was doing its best to survive surrounded by concrete, was a tiny little shed. It was more of a lean-to shelter at best. It was constructed from corrugated iron, thrown together into a vague open box shape and painted green to blend in with absolutely nothing nearby.

Inside the box was a janky set of bicycle racks. Locked to it by both wheels and frame was Jemilla’s bicycle. It too was looking old, green and battered, but it hadn’t fallen apart yet, had zero carbon emissions and held nostalgia. She usually rode it to work, but now her destination was Molag’s house.

The ride through Clivesdale to the outskirts of town was quiet. Eerily so. The streets were so empty that by the time Jemilla reached Molag’s house, she half expected to have been taken out by apocalypse survivors. But thank goodness, she wasn’t.

Jemilla was in the process of leaning her bike up against the front porch when she first noticed it. A dead rat. A huge dead rat. Which could only mean one thing. A huge cat. She knocked on the door.

“Ah, Jemilla!” the door opened and, in the doorway, stood Molag, supported by a cane and wearing what one could only describe as a raccoon skin hat. She had a wicked grin Jemilla didn’t like the look of. “Are you ready to kick some ass?”

Jemilla sighed, making her way inside. “That’s the plan.”

Chapter Text

She sat on her bed, squashed amongst the quilt and the wall. Her second hoodie was pulled over her legs. To her ear, Zazzalil held her phone. A picture of Keeri, in sunglasses and smiling happily, could barely be see in a circle on screen.

The call to her best friend was made the day after she saw Jemilla. Zazzalil had wanted to call the whole day, but whispers in her head told her she’d be fine. She didn’t need to call Keeri, because the blonde had her own problems to worry about. So, she put it off until late at night when her emotions had been stewing for the whole day.

At first, it was almost cathartic speaking to her friend. But then she was finding herself becoming irritated after trying to tell Keeri what was wrong, because her emotions just weren’t working for her.

“Oh my gosh, Zazz you are so useless!”

“Hey! I am not useless!”

“You are – have you seen Jemilla’s haircut?” Keeri exclaimed over the phone, “I’m not judging, but that was the… the bi-est haircut I’ve ever seen.”

“What?” Zazzalil exclaimed back as quietly as she could, because the thin-ass walls would not keep the noise in. She did not want her yells about Jemilla’s sexuality overheard through the inches of plasterboard and wooden framework between them. “You can’t just… Someone isn’t just bi because of their haircut Keeri. She literally talked about the boys she had over!”

That was the problem. Zazzalil was very gay and found Jemilla very attractive, but she was pretty sure that her neighbour didn’t like women.

“Seeing boys doesn’t like, mean that she’s not into women Zazz. It’s like… saying you drink juice doesn’t mean you hate soda. And you saw how she was looking at you, right?”

“No! You don’t just stare at people to see how they’re looking at you! ‘Oh hey, just keep going while I make it weird and gaze at your face for a sec, just so I can tell how you look at me’ NO.”

“Well I saw how she was looking at you. It was cute.”

“Sure. Whatever you say. But I know that she’s very not gay, and definitely just thinks of us as friends and will always think of as friends.”

“Zazz.”

“No Keeri!” Zazzalil called as loudly as she dared, “She’s at least fifteen percent straight.”

“Doesn’t that leave like, a solid eighty percent left to be a raging homosexual?”

“No, it leaves eighty-five, so at least thirty than. And when did you start speaking like that?”

“Since I’ve met you. But Zazz, seventy is a lot of percent to be gay in.”

“But that’s just my wishful thinking,” she ran her hands over her head, trying to wipe frazzled hair from her face. “Right? It’s just that she’s so pretty and she f*cking hums while preoccupied with work. Isn’t that the cutest sh*t you’ve ever heard? But I can’t even try, because there’s no point!”

“Are you sure you’re not like, overreacting? It’s getting closer to that time of the year too and –”

Zazzalil had moved her head away from the phone. Of course Keeri would bring it up. Yes, Keeri was her best friend, which meant she knew almost everything about her, but it didn’t mean that she always had to use that information. It was nice that she cared, but she didn’t need to. Zazzalil’s mother’s death was behind her and had been for years.

She then put the phone on speaker. Keeri was still rambling on about whatever.

“– you got blackout drunk and nearly died.” Ah yes… Zazzalil didn’t remember that.

“It’s fine. That was ages ago. I’m totally fine now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said I’m f*cking fine Keeri,” she snapped, “Everything is fine and I’m being f*cking good at life.”

She heard Keeri hesitate over the phone. The sound circle things – the ones that expanded from around Keeri’s call icon and showed that there indeed was sound coming from the other side of the call – oscillated slightly with the faint sound of the blonde’s breathing. It really was quiet.

Her best friend’s voice finally sounded after a moment of silence which sounded like a million years between them. “I can always come over if you want.”

“Keeri, I’m fine.”

“You could come to me instead.”

“Keeri.”

“You can see the rats.”

“I hate the rats.” There was a heavy silence from the other side of the phone. She could feel Keeri’s sadness leeching through the touch screen of her phone. “I have to go.”

She’d hung up after that. It left a heavy feeling sitting on her shoulders again, like someone had given her a backpack full of books to wear. It reminded her of high school and college, when she literally had to carry stuff around on her back but also had her stupid parents and studying stress.

But it wasn’t high school and college anymore. She’d ditched her father and The Mammoth on the other side of town. They were not going to ruin her spring this year, she wouldn’t let them. She was going to watch some videos of people doing stupid things, get some cup noodles to eat and go to sleep. Then she’d wake up, forget their faces and move on with life.

It was almost what happened.

On Monday, Zazzalil woke to sirens blaring in her ear, which at first made her feel extremely confused. Then she shot up and stumbled out of bed like a drunkard, because the sirens were her alarm telling her that it was eleven o’clock and she had to be awake. The problem? She was supposed to be at work by eight thirty at the latest.

When she got to work, after madly scrambling around her apartment and then down to the car, she was faced with a sight that made her skin crawl.

The main office was a large rectangular room. In front of a set of ugly green filing cabinets and the space’s only window was the desk of Jethro Pincer. The boss was a man with pasty pink-beige skin which blended into the walls, and large meaty hands. He usually held an unblinking gaze, black beady eyes making Zazzalil feel like she was approaching a great predator.

This time was no different, except Pincer had a vein sticking out on his forehead. He looked like he’d recently been yelling at someone. Zazzalil could only hope that he was angry because one of the shady side deals he orchestrated from the animal control office had gone badly.

“Zazzalil,” Pincer drawled, twirling a yellow pencil in a claw-like grip, “tell me if it’s the end of the f*cking world.”

“My alarm broke.” Zazzalil said, staring right back at the man.

“Was that the question?”

“What do you want from me man?” she sighed in vexed defeat, going to her minuscule, peeling laminate desk next to the wall.

“Is it. The end. Of. The. F*cking. World?” Pincer asked again through gritted teeth. In one hand, the yellow pencil was crushed in half with a brittle crunch.

“No,” sarcasm poured from her as she dropped her duffel bag on the desk, where it landed with a soft thud, “It’s not the end of the world.”

“So, you’re late for no reason! I expected you here at least three hours ago, but instead I find the office empty. I had to send out Veeto and Neato!” Pincer stood up, gesturing wildly with his huge, muscly hands.

Zazzalil gulped, because it was bad if Veeto and Neato were sent out. They were lazier than her and had a better time harassing people than solving their issues. Pincer only ever sent them out to prove a point to the rest of the animal control workers – what the point was, she wasn’t sure. Maybe to give the job a bad reputation and make the rest of them look bad?

“And what’s worse, you come in late – here, with the indecency to sass me! And that’s sir to you. Not ‘man’ or ‘dude’,” he violently jabbed the air with one sausage of a finger, “or ‘homeslice’ or whatever other freaky things you’re calling each other these days! I’m a whisker away from firing you!”

“Well I’m sorry for being late,” Zazzalil said sardonically, while a caterpillar eyebrow on Pincer’s face twitched, “sir. What do you want me to do?”

Pincer sat down heavily in his office chair, absently gesturing to the door. “Go help Veeto and Neato. Some sh*thead in Hachetfield’s let their dog loose at the trailer park.”

Zazzalil frowned at her boss. “But aren’t they already there in the council vehicle? How am I going to get there?”

“I don’t know, In your own f*cking car?” he laughed, pointing to the door, “Get the f*ck to it.”

That’s how Zazzalil found herself some hours later, armed with a catch pole and standing amongst thick scrub of a small forest bordering the trailer park. Well, forest was a bit much. It was hardly more than a wide copse of trees with sprawling, waist high weeds and bushes. But it was enough for the dog to have a good time and for Zazzalil to become very frustrated.

Loitering near the edge of the trailer park were Veeto and Neato. Both siblings with round bugged out eyes and a nasal, high pitched voices. Both were dressed, like herself, in the council issued jumpsuits that made her feel like a teen doing community service. Unlike herself, Zazzalil felt they helped pull off the community service thing better than she did.

The dog, a large brown and white mutt with a blue collar had been taking them on a goose chase around the forest. Or it had rather taken Zazzalil around while her co-workers gawked at the sight.

“Hey!” she called angrily out to them, while slowly and carefully walking around towards the dog, “Try to do something?”

Veeto and Neato, the dickheads, just stood gawping.

Zazzalil slunk closer to the dog, widening the loop on the catch pole. This time felt like it would be the one. She’d catch the animal this time. The hours of f*cking nearly catching it would be over in one foul swoop, she’d be able to get back to the office and put off writing up a report by wasting time on social media.

She carefully held out the catch pole over the dog’s head, trying to slip it on. She was so close… Easy does it, over the nose… Yes, over the ears… She had the dog! She had the –

The second that the catch pole started tightening, the dog took off. Still gripping the pole and taken by surprise, Zazzalil found herself being pulled over, the thick scrub and the ground approaching much faster than it should usually. Then her face felt… warm? Numb maybe? Either way, the pole was ripped from her grasp and she watched as the dog galloped away, only to stop and roll over at Neato’s feet.

“I got him!” the man shouted, pushing his brother out of the way, “Oi Veeto, look it, I got him!”

Fan-f*cking-tastic. Zazzalil pushed herself up to her feet, watching as the two men led the dog away. This was great. Absolutely. Just what she needed. Could the day get any worse?

Yes. Yes, it could.

After taking the dog to Clivesdale, its owner was contacted and asked in to fill out paperwork. But because of the virus, they wouldn’t come ‘near all those filthy animals’ and insisted on doing the whole thing over telephone. Then Pincer, the absolute bastard, wanted her to stay and do overtime. It was especially annoying because she’d just done overtime to make up for the morning and was leaving for the evening.

“You brought this upon yourself.” He sighed condescendingly, sliding in to bar the door with his massive body. Zazzalil moved six feet back. If he had anything, she didn’t want to catch it.

“Dude, I need you to move,” she crossed her arms, grey duffel swinging from a blue, boiler suited arm. She couldn’t be bothered taking the uniform off. “I’m leaving.”

“Ah, but you aren’t! And what am I called?”

“No. Work is over. I don’t have to call you sh*t. I’ve already done the time!” she pressed forward. Pincer didn’t move.

“Do you like having a job?” he drawled, picking at his fingernails, “Because if you leave… you might just find you won’t have one.” The man watched with a smirk as Zazzalil’s face drained of colour. She needed an income. “Get back to it.”

She stood for a second, considering what to do. She could stay and keep her job… but she’d done the overtime, it was six thirty for Duck’s sake. No. F*ck Pincer and his wily mannerisms.

“Hell no. Maybe I don’t want a job!” Zazzalil shouted at her boss, who looked back with a competitive smirk, “Get out of my way.”

He moved, but not without a smug leer. “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow…”

“I wasn’t planning on it. F*ck this. F*ck you!” she yelled over her shoulder at him, storming out and away to her car.

Maybe she wouldn’t come back. She wasn’t even trained in animal care. None of the council workers seemed to be past catching them. She wouldn’t be missed. Hell, the animals would be better off at Hachetfield’s non-profit shelter, which wasn’t doubling as the base of operations for tax fraud, drugs or whatever shady sh*t Pincer had on.

But the longer she thought about it, the further she got from work down Clivesdale’s mostly empty streets, the more she regretted her decision. Where would she get a job? The rent didn’t pay itself. She could crash on her parents… but that was like asking to be attacked by a bear. Never in a million years was she staying with them.

When parked in the apartment lot she grabbed her work bag, filled with her normal clothes, and made a beeline towards the foyer. She needed to get to her apartment as soon as possible to reassess her priorities.

At the stairwell she was halted by a familiar voice.

“Hey!” Jemilla’s voice called. Zazzalil jumped.

“Oh… hi.” She turned to see her neighbour, smiling politely and – oh sh*t Jemilla’s hair was bi. So f*cking bi. How did she miss it? Right, she had to go now before she did something stupid…

“Uh, how are you?” Jemilla followed her as she walked up the stairs.

She shifted her duffel bag, before sighing. She’d basically just fired herself, but she couldn’t say that. Duck, she was such an idiot. “Fine. How about you?”

“I’m great. Are you sure about yourself though? You’ve got a few little…scratches.”

“Urgh. Really?!” She put a hand to her face and felt a dull sting upon contact. It must have been from when the dog pulled her over outside the trailer park. “Had to chase someone’s f*cking stupid dog around in Hachetfield. Must have got scratched by the bushes.”

“I’m sorry about that… Do you want me to help you patch it up?”

Yes. Deep down, very much yes.

“No. I’m not a baby, I can do it myself!” The angry words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Did everyone think she was inept? But Jemilla looked hurt. Oh Duck – abort, abort, ABORT.

“I never said you were!”

Yep, Jemilla was upset. Zazzalil needed to get to her apartment quickly. She sped up, but the taller girl followed. Damn her and her beautiful long legs!

“Did I say something last time? I’m sorry if I did.”

Memories popped into her head. “It doesn’t matter,” the awkward goodbye at Jemilla’s door, “No, it’s fine.” Her gay panic, “It didn’t happen.” She didn’t need those!

“Sorry? I didn’t quite catch that.”

Oh duck… she had been talking to herself to make them leave. Jemilla wasn’t meant to hear that…

“Never mind.” Turn out of stairwell, straight to her door. She needed to get in there… but Jemilla. “I’m just… sh*t, I don’t know.”

“Wait – Zazzalil, I haven’t upset you though right?” the tall brunette asked sincerely, “Are we all good? Because you left quickly last time without warning and it was a bit strange, you know?”

How did she explain it. That her life was falling apart? That she may or may not have fired herself from her job? Sh*t was happening, and she didn’t want it to? That she was an idiot who jumped to conclusions?

“I don’t know. People just keep f*cking expecting things that I can’t do,” she exclaimed desperately, laughing when she realised just how dumb it was, “And when I can’t they let me go!”

Then she went as quickly as she could into her apartment to change out of her work clothes and drown her sorrows in the same fail compilations that kept her up until three in the morning.

On Tuesday, Zazzalil woke up to her alarm again. But instead of freaking out, she rolled over in bed and closed her eyes. She woke up even later at one in the afternoon. Then she mooched around her apartment.

At six o’clock, there was a knock on her door.

When it happened, she almost thought she’d imagined it. She was shoulder deep in a kitchen cupboard, trying to find any rogue packets of noodles or ramen she’d missed and could consume. No matter how nice it was to have a load of toilet paper squirreled away in the hall closet, she wished that as a lazy person she’d stocked up on more two-minute food.

But when the knock came again, Zazzalil realised it wasn’t her mind playing tricks on her and removed herself from beneath the sink. She walked over to her door. She opened the door.

Jemilla was at the door. Dressed in sweatpants and a worn green flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was messed up, there were grass stains and the like on her clothes, and there were a small number of grazes upon her.

“Hey,” Jemilla said, rubbing a hand over her opposite arm, “I need your help.”

Chapter Text

If Jemilla peered out of Molag’s kitchen window, the problem she had come to address would stare right back at her. The problem had fierce yellow eyes, ginger fur and a scratch over its nose. Molag, dressed in jeans and what a polar fleece jacket, was standing next to the window and looking over her dishevelled garden with pride. She rather smiled at the problem.

“He’s a big one eh Jemilla?” the old black woman chuckled, nudging her adoptive daughter in the side, “I’m thinking of keeping him.”

Jemilla considered it. Molag with her cane, abounding in back problems as notified by some doctor’s documents stuck to the fridge with industrial strength magnets… with a demon animal that was brutally murdering wildlife. It didn’t sound very appealing. If anything, she needed a service dog to help her around.

“No, Molag he’s literally been killing animals. Large ones too,” she looked to the few dead raccoons on the side of the back porch, “it’s dangerous.”

“Really? I haven’t seen a f*cking rats in ages.”

“Yes. Why do you have rats in the first place?”

“Don’t ask me J-Mills, I didn’t invite those privileged f*cks here.”

“No one really invites rats anywhere…”

“I know that!” Molag feigned hurt, tapping Jemilla’s foot with her cane “You’re no fun today J-Mills.”

Well, maybe she was. But she didn’t have to be happy all the time, not when her neighbour was being cryptic and moody. Not when her guardian, who was getting on in the years, was intent to befriend a dangerous feral animal.

Speaking of the feline, as Jemilla chanced another look at the garden, Snarl had seemingly slipped into the shadows. The garden was a rectangular space, open and merging with the forest in the back but fenced in on either side. A stack of wood sat against the fence on the right. Molag’s tool shed stood on the left. Down the middle, patchy grass extended. In a few places the ground was scorched from countless bonfires.

Molag moved away from the window, and Jemilla followed, keeping a careful eye on her guardian’s every step. The older woman wobbled about here and there, leaning heavily on her cane, although overall she seemed mostly stable. But that could mean nothing, because her guardian was aging and denying it. She was also an adept liar. Her acting was still decent, and her pain threshold was high enough to be gritting her teeth and bearing what aches she had. In all, Molag was built for pretending her age wasn’t catching up with her and hiding when she needed help.

Funnily enough, she was still sneaky as ever and ‘old age’ had become an excuse not to do things.

“So, how are we going to catch the bastard?” Molag exclaimed, leaning against her dining table. Upon its flat top, what appeared to be several raccoon skins were sitting flat out. Jemilla didn’t want to think about how Molag got a hold of them, let alone where the bodies had gone.

“Well… Do you know if it likes food or anything?” she suggested, because she honestly had no plan apart from getting the animal away.

“Aha!” the ex-police officer yelled happily, “We’re trapping him then!”

“What?”

“We’re trapping him! You’re not going to just feed him Jemilla. That’s not you.”

“Are you saying I wouldn’t feed a starving animal?”

“No,” Molag chuckled, “You wouldn’t grant an animal the satisfaction of enjoying a fancy meal.”

“Fancy? What do you mean ‘fancy’?” Jemilla laughed in humoured disbelief.

Molag shrugged, holding up a tin. “He’s been eating raccoons J-Mills, tuna’s a delicacy for him.”

Oh. Well that was fair enough. Jemilla didn’t plan on questioning how rich a food raccoon was. She didn't want to know how Molag knew for that matter. If tuna was what was sitting around, then tuna was what they’d use.

The plan of attack was thus: They’d place the tuna in an optimal position, preferably up against the side of the house, and wait for Snarl to go eat it. Then Jemilla would try to dive on top of him with a container or box of some kind. After that she wasn’t entirely sure, but it would probably involve finding a shelter or calling the council to come pick the beast up.

Carefully, and with an opened tin of tuna in hand, Jemilla opened the glass sliding door that lead to the back yard. Behind her, Molag held a plastic washing basket they had found. Immediately, almost as if sensing their presence, Snarl rose to his feet and let out a warning yowl.

“Oh sh*t, he’s out for blood!” Molag whispered, while the cat stretched its legs out behind it, one then the other.

As quickly as she could, Jemilla placed the tuna on the grass just in front of the porch. Then she moved back, only to find her guardian standing right behind her with the basket.

“F*ck a Duck! Molag, don’t sneak up on –”

“See ya Jemilla, this is for you.” The older woman pressed the basket into her hands before hastily retreating to the sliding door as fast as she could hobble with her cane.

“Hey! Molag, you’re not just going to leave me, are you?”

“I don’t want to catch him Jemilla. I’m gonna go with my sense of self preservation.”

“Molag!”

“Oooooh... look out Jemilla!”

In front of her, at the bottom of the porch and crouched over the fish, was the largest cat she’d seen in her entire life. Not that she went looking at a lot of cats, but this one seemed to take the cake. From scarred nose to incredibly fluffy but slightly matted tail, the animal looked to be at least as long as the basket they had planned to capture it in. Along with the warning yowls and the raised ginger fur on the feline’s back, it was a formidable sight.

Slowly, so as not to draw unnecessary attention to herself, Jemilla sidled behind Snarl. She gave him a wide berth, because spooking him would be the worst thing to do. Ideally, she would swoop in, drop the basket down on him and be done with it. But it was not an ideal world. If she factored in her growing dread of gaining proximity to the cat, the chances of her catching him were slim.

Jemilla held her breath as she got right behind Snarl. His tall triangular ears, almost like satellite dishes swivelling to picking up signals from every direction, were still but alert. Now was the time.

Snarl had other ideas as Jemilla lunged, basket coming down upon him.

If it was filmed in slow motion, it probably would have looked epic. Jemilla lunged, bringing the basket down, and the huge cat turned to look. His eyes went wide, ears flattening, and Snarl shuffled back along the grass. His face morphed into a hiss, teeth bared. Jemilla hit the grass face first, basket flying out sideways.

“Get him! Get him!” Molag yelled, and Jemilla rose to her feet, stumbling forward and after the huge cat. “Get him Jemilla!”

Leaving the basket behind, she lunged for a second time at the cat as he made for a space beneath a pile of wood. Once again, the cat deftly changed directions, while Jemilla narrowly avoided a head on collision with a stack of logs by falling and skidding across the ground at the last minute. It would cost a few layers of skin, but it was better than scrapes across her face for Janice in HR to be nosy about.

When she got up again, Snarl was making a beeline for the porch. In doorway of the open sliding door, Molag was yelling and cursing.

“Close one Jemilla! Nearly got him – git away from there you privileged f*ck! Get!”

“Molag, your cane! Use your cane!” Jemilla exclaimed, rushing forward to the porch as the huge ginger cat darted for the doorway of the house… and ran straight past her guardian’s legs.

F*ck. The cat was in the house. As if it had been hard enough to try and catch it before, now it had hidey holes and furniture to sneak into. Or maybe it would be easier to corner it? Either way, the cat was going to trash the house and make a big mess.

“Well,” Molag sighed, with astonishing composure for having a feral animal in her house. She stepped from doorway and closed the sliding door behind her, “I’m camping in the shed tonight.”

“The cat’s in the house.”

“Yep. Unless you want to get your face clawed off –” there was a terrific yowl from somewhere behind the sliding door, “I’m going to let that privileged f*ck do what he likes.”

“The cat’s in the f*cking house…” Jemilla groaned in frustrated defeat. “How are we going to get it out now?”

“Well,” Molag walked to the edge of the porch and sat down, “I think I’ll just come and live with you until the cat dies.”

“Ah, no… That’s both inhumane and disgusting.”

“Well, it’ll have the raccoon furs to eat. Sh*t, it’s got the raccoon furs! Privileged f*ck.”

Jemilla sat down next to Molag, who was grimly poking the grass in front of the porch with her cane. She put her head on Molag’s shoulder. It was almost like the old days, when Jemilla was younger and having problems with school. She’d changed so much since then, and sometimes she forgot that she used to be that bookworm of a kid who lived on the edge of town. She’d sat on the porch with her guardian before.

“Hey J-Mills.”

“Yeah?”

“I want my house back.” Molag complained.

“I want your house back too. We’re going to need help.” Jemilla removed her head from Molag’s shoulder and stood up. She knew what she needed to do, even though she didn’t really want to. The other person wouldn’t happy either. “I’m going to grab someone. Are you going to be okay here?”

Molag’s face broke out into a grin. “Am I finally going to meet her?”

“Shut up.”

That’s how Jemilla found herself some while later, standing outside of Zazzalil’s apartment. She must have looked a sight cycling back over. For one, she didn’t wear her helmet because it was inside with Snarl. But apart from riding her bike illegally, she was covered in grass stains, had a rip in the sleeve of her flannel and various scrapes on her body.

She hoped it wasn’t too late to be knocking when she rapped on her neighbour’s door. It would be just her luck if the short brunette was still at work. After a moment no one had answered, so Jemilla knocked a second time.

This time the door opened, and Jemilla was faced with Zazzalil, dressed in sweatshirt and sweatpants, which were apparently her apparel status quo. Despite this and the unbrushed mess of hair hastily tied back, she still looked cute.

“Hey,” she started, observing Zazzalil’s face twist in surprise, “I need your help.”

“Oh,” Zazzalil scanned her over, “I’m not sure if I should with… uh.”

“Please?” Jemilla implored, “It’s for my guardian Molag.”

“Why should I help? I mean –”

“I don’t care what you’ve got against me, but Molag’s old and stuck outside of her house… she’s planning to sleep in the shed.”

Zazzalil sighed, “Alright, what do you need?”

“Oh, okay,” Jemilla said. She’d expected to need to plead and beg, even resort to bribery for her neighbour’s help. “Well, there’s thing huge feral cat which has been hanging around Molag’s house for ages now. I’m afraid it might be dangerous… and Molag’s been messing with it. Which isn’t good for anyone.”

Zazzalil was nodding along. “Keep going.”

"Anyway, we tried catching it but that didn’t work, and for some reason the cat just disobeyed all logic and ran into the house. So now the cat’s inside, and I didn’t really think a woman with back problems and an inexperienced HR manager could catch it. Anyway, I know you. So…”

“Yeah I can help,” Zazzalil said tiredly, slapping the edge of the door absentmindedly, “Do you need me to get my work clothes or should I just,“ she gestured to the garments she was wearing already, “wear these.”

“Maybe bring your work clothes? You don’t have to if you don’t want to though, it’s entirely up to you.” She did like seeing Zazzalil in her work uniform though.

Zazzalil shrugged, ducking into her apartment. Through the doorway, Jemilla could see bare walls, a stack of old looking newspapers heaped on the floor and what looked like a vase of dead flowers set on an upturned crate. It was sadly poetic, like a modern art piece that you didn’t understand but was supposed to evoke confusion from the viewer, so they indeed did understand it.

Her neighbour came shooting out again, a coat and set of keys in hand.

“Ready to go?” she asked, while the shorter brunette closed and locked the door. They both set off to the stairwell.

“Yeah. My car or yours?”

“Sorry?”

“My car or your car?” Zazzalil asked, jingling a set of keys.

“I don’t have a car,” Jemilla answered, “I like to be environmentally friendly, and my work is – used to be – close enough to ride there.”

Her neighbour nodded. “We’ll take my car then. I don’t think two people will fit on one bike.”

“They could.” Yes, that was very possible. And dangerous. But the pros of being very close to her neighbour, even if they apparently weren’t on the best terms, would outweigh the cons.

The drive across Clivesdale in Zazzalil’s little beat up car was uneventful. Awkward maybe. There wasn’t anything to do except sit in the passenger seat and watch out of the corner of her eye as her neighbour easily changed gears – the car was a manual, which would put Zazzalil in Molag’s good books – and indicated. It appeared the world wanted them to have an awkward time. Pedestrians, which had all but dominated scenery before, had seemingly melted away. Instead, the world was still.

At least it was before they reached Molag’s house.

As soon as Zazzalil had parallel parked the car in the quiet street, Jemilla unbuckled her seatbelt and got out, only to hear a muffled yowling. She immediately hastened towards the house, making for the back yard. In her peripheral vision she could see Zazzalil following intently.

“That’s right you privileged F*CK!” Molag exclaimed loudly, and as Jemilla rounded the edge of the house she could see her guardian flipping the bird through the sliding door, “Who’s got the raccoon skins now!”

“Molag, what’s happening?”

“Oh!” Molag turned around, a wild grin spread across her face. In one hand, she brandished the raccoon furs that had previously been inside the house. “Look what I got back J-Mills! Privileged f*ck was trying to tear his claws into those, but I stopped him!”

A snort rose up from next to her as her guardian waved the raccoon furs in triumph.

“J-Mills? Wow. I haven’t heard anything like that in years.”

“Zazzalil be nice.” Jemilla warned, trying not to sound too affected by all that was happening. Next to her, Zazzalil was smirking.

“Aha! Who’s this?” Molag asked, before turning to Zazzalil herself. “Who are you short-stack?”

Zazzalil’s smirk vanished. “Short-stack?”

“Molag, this is Zazzalil, my neighbour,” she gestured to the brunette, “and Zazzalil, this is my guardian, Molag.”

Both women looked at each other, trying to figure the other out. Jemilla noticed Zazzalil move ever so slightly behind her, while Molag stopped slouching and stood straight. Intimidation techniques from the latter, the former trying to appear less threatening… That one extra credit psychology project in high school paid off.

Jemilla decided to remove herself as the buffer between them, stepping backwards and away to watch the fireworks.

Chapter Text

Zazzalil didn’t know quite what to expect when Jemilla had mentioned her guardian previously. At first, she thought of a tottering grandmother sort of person, who knitted jumpers and baked pies. Then she heard about the ex-police officer thing and didn’t really know what to think. That Molag was a drill sergeant maybe? One who expected discipline and order?

She couldn’t have been further from the truth.

As she rounded the corner of the house – which was an awesome mix between a psychopath’s hunting lodge and typical suburban dwelling – she was faced with a sight indeed. Slightly hunched over, cursing like a sailor and flipping the bird through a glass door, was an older woman. In one hand were what looked to be furs. On her head, a raccoon hat. Leaning up against the door was a dull plastic and metal cane.

“Molag, what’s happening?” Jemilla exclaimed, and the woman turned around.

“Oh! Look what I got back J-Mills! Privileged f*ck was trying to get his claws into them but I stopped him!” Molag waved the furs victoriously, a wide grin across her face.

J-Mills. That was some nickname that Zazzalil wouldn’t have ever considered for her neighbour. Also, she hadn’t been feeling to sure about coming along to help, what with her being an idiot and Jemilla being a little upset with her and all. Also, she didn’t have a job. That really sucked and made her want to hide under her bed until kingdom come when she wouldn’t have to care anymore. But the nickname made it somewhat bearable.

“J-Mills?” she snorted, “Wow. I haven’t heard anything like that in years.”

“Zazzalil, be nice.” Jemilla said in a strained voice. Yep… Zazzalil remembered how she was probably making her neighbour a lot more stressed by joking around. She should probably just stay quiet, but it was pretty funny. She reduced her level of amusement to a smirk.

“Aha! Who’s this” Molag exclaimed, turning to Jemilla before turning to Zazzalil, “Who are you short-stack?”

A dig at her height already? Damn, Molag got to the point quickly. Zazzalil liked the woman’s attitude, but she still bristled at the comment. “Short stack?”

Jemilla laughed almost nervously and introduced them both. Afterwards, there was an awkward silence where Zazzalil didn’t really know what to do. Molag seemed to be sizing her up, eyes flicking up and down her figure. For a second or two, she internally panicked that Jemilla had complained to her guardian about how she had been behaving recently. She shifted sideways slightly.

Then Jemilla stepped away, leaving her facing the older woman alone. It was like she was meeting Jemilla’s parents – well she was. Her neighbour literally was introducing Zazzalil to her parent. Except it was different, because she and Jemilla weren’t together.

“So, you’re the neighbour.” Molag said seriously, with a nod in Zazzalil’s direction. It was neither a question nor a statement.

“Yep.” She replied, trying to think of what to do, “Your hat’s cool.”

Molag nodded once again, still serious. Zazzalil straightened her posture, glancing at Jemilla, who was standing to the side and watching the interaction. Her heartbeat echoed in her head. Molag seemed to be disapproving… which was bad. She was about to say something else to ease tension, before the older woman broke out into a wide smile and relaxed her posture.

“See Jemilla,” she exclaimed happily, walking over to her adoptive daughter, “Zazzalil knows what’s up! How are you? Life next to J-Mills treating you well? I’ve got a massive ass cat in my house.”

“I’m… good!” Zazzalil said in surprise, because she hadn’t expected the exchange to go as well as it did. “What is your hat even?”

“Snarl’s been killing the raccoons, so… ‘waste not want not’. It’s raccoon skin.”

“Huh. How did you get that?”

“Well I –”

“No!” Jemilla exclaimed, looking slightly more frazzled than before, “I don’t want to know how it happened. Moving on thank you.”

Molag grinned, “YouTube can teach you anything these days.”

“Nope!” the curly haired brunette shook her head, “We’re not going to talk about that. Onto the cat in the house please.”

Internally, Zazzalil’s heart swelled as she watched the playful family dynamic Molag and Jemilla had going on, the elder lightly teasing and laughing good naturedly at the younger. She wished she had something like that with someone. Not her parents, because she’d given up on them being any good a literal age ago. Generally, Zazzalil thought found family was sweeter than actual blood relation. Sure, blood was thicker than water, but there was a hell of a lot of things you could do with water that you couldn’t with blood.

“Welp, he’s in here somewhere,” Molag said, walking up the porch to a big glass sliding door and waving for Zazzalil and Jemilla to follow. “Can anyone see him?”

Looking in, Zazzalil could see plastered walls and a large fireplace on an undressed brick wall. A mismatch of furniture was scattered around. Closest to the back window, a wooden dinner table with an empty glass fishbowl in the middle could be seen. Behind the table, a kitchen space was separated from the living area by a white plastered dividing wall. The fireplace had a tv above it on a wide but precarious looking mantlepiece. Before the fireplace was a grey L-shaped couch. Already there were so many places for the cat to be hiding.

“Well, he’s a huge cat, right?” Jemilla said, mostly speaking to herself. She sounded a little frantic. “There aren’t that many places for him to hide… He’s huge! We should be able to see him. Where could he be?”

“Hey, take a chill pill J-Mills,” Molag soothed, “Remember that this could be worse.”

“How could it be worse?”

“The privileged f*ck could have my raccoon skins.”

“That’s not helping! Zazzalil, you’re the expert, what should we be doing?”

Zazzalil looked to her neighbour, whose eyes were wide. One eyelid was twitching. It obviously wasn’t a good situation for either of them, considering that she wasn’t actually a trained animal handler and would probably do just as well as Jemilla.

“Uh well… I guess we just need to catch him and put him somewhere,” she looked to Molag, who was watching through the sliding door with concentration. “Do you have like, a box or something?”

“But he’s huge!” Jemilla exclaimed, “We can’t just put him in a box!”

“Cats are like a fluid, he’ll fit if the box is big enough.”

“I’ve got boxes.” Molag piped up, nodding towards the interior of the house. “If you catch him, I’ll get one for you.”

“Right.” Zazzalil sighed, before putting a hand on the handle of the sliding door. “In?”

Jemilla nodded, looking determined. “We’re going in. Are you coming Molag?”

“Pfft! I’m old! I won’t be any use to you privileged f*cks who can still use their legs,” the older woman chuckled, pointing to her cane. “You should manage fine. It’s an in and out job. Apprehend the suspect and wait for me to get a box.”

That didn’t sound half bad. In fact, it didn’t sound much different to the work Zazzalil had been doing just the day before. The scratches on her cheek were no longer painful, thank Duck, but bitter reminders of what she didn’t have anymore. One part of her wished that she had a catch pole still, because those were useful when it came to a pinch.

She pulled open the door and was immediately hit with a wave of warm air that smelled slightly of pine. As she moved into the house, Jemilla followed and closed the door behind them. It was disconcertingly still. Zazzalil held a breath, before quietly treading over the wood laminate floor towards the living space.

Up close, the area was remarkably similar to her neighbour’s apartment. Hanging off wall mounted bookshelves and the fireplace mantlepiece were strings of lantern fairy lights, potted cacti scattered around. Framed pictures were everywhere. On the dividing wall, a black and white image of a younger Molag in uniform. Above the fireplace, a picture of a curly haired toddler in a smiling Molag’s arms.

Moving under the guise of checking beneath the couch, Zazzalil ventured further into the living area. The pine scent grew stronger. Hanging from a bookshelf was a hefty bundle of pine scented air fresheners meant for cars. Said bookshelf also held a photograph of Jemilla, still a young child, in a cowboy costume and smiling toothily at the camera from next to a wood stack.

It was actually adorable, all of the photos. Molag obviously wanted her daughter to remember the amazing upbringing she had, instead of dwelling on whatever traumatic experience she’d gone through as a child. Or not. Maybe Jemilla had been surrendered to the state as a baby who didn’t experience anything.

Zazzalil cast her glance to the space behind a wooden rocking chair when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She jumped with a gasp, looking around to see a curly haired brunette.

“We should check the rooms that we can close the doors to.” Jemilla suggested in a voice no louder than a murmur. “Then we can eliminate them as possible cat hiding places.”

“Lead the way.”

Slowly and carefully, Jemilla moved towards a hallway, where one side was taken up by stairs and the other with three doors. Zazzalil followed. She would have been lying if she said she didn’t take a second or two to appreciate the woman in front of her as they tiptoed through the first unopened door. It wasn’t her fault that Jemilla looked hot in flannel and sweatpants!

What appeared to be a guest bedroom was bare enough for them both to decide wordlessly that a room with a stripped bed and single chair would not hide a one metre long cat. Even if he was trying to hide behind the venetian blinds, there was no way that Snarl would fit on the windowsill. It was almost alien to see a windowsill which wasn’t wide enough to sit on, what with being stuck inside the house with the quarantine and all.

Oh sh*t. The quarantine. Zazzalil was in the house of an at-risk person, probably spreading her work germs and trailer park pathogens around for Molag to catch. She needed to get out of the house.

“Jemilla!” she called to the taller of them as they made their past a closed door, “I shouldn’t be here!”

“What? No, I need you to help catch the cat.” Jemilla replied, sounding puzzled.

“It’s the quarantine.”

“And?”

“I’ve literally been at work and in a trailer park. I’ve probably spread germs all over the house and Molag could catch something!”

“I won’t be able to worry about that if she catches something from that cat.” Jemilla hissed under her breath, still stealthily moving along the corridor. “We can worry about that later.”

“But if Molag gets sick you’ll hate me even more than you do now,” Zazzalil said tormentedly, “So it’d better be safer than sorry or whatever if I go.”

“What? I don’t hate you. Why would you think –”

Jemilla stopped in her tracks, holding out an arm which stopped Zazzalil from moving forward.

“What is it?”

“Snarl. In the laundry room.”

Just ahead of them by a foot or two, a ginger tail could be seen slowly waving from side to side from the doorway of the last room. The tail moved from the doorway and further into the room.

“Do we just grab him?” Zazzalil asked, looking to Jemilla for confirmation.

“I mean… maybe?” the curly haired brunette didn’t appear any less uncertain, “I’ve never caught a cat before.”

“Well, let’s go for it then.”

Zazzalil pushed past Jemilla’s arm, alarm bells vaguely going off in her head about the contact with her neighbour both for romantic and hygienic reasons. To be fair, she and Jemilla had been in the same car and ignoring the ‘stay a metre and a bit from people’ rule for a while. She really should have been worrying about demon animal she was about to confront.

Said demon animal noticed immediately when Zazzalil stepped into the laundry. It was her first time seeing it and suffice to say she had sorely underestimated what she was going to be up against.

Before her, fur raised on his back and hissing angrily, was a monstrous cat. His total length couldn’t have been much shorter that her own arm span. The cat’s face, long and noble but contorted into a… well, a snarl, had a scar running down across the nose from above one amber eye to a set of long whiskers. In his open mouth, long sharp incisors sat like polished white ice picks.

Zazzalil didn’t really feel like touching him.

Either way, she made her way towards him. Not that she hadn’t anticipated it, but Snarl let out an almighty yowl before making to dart up onto a shelf. She rushed forwards, but he was too fast. Several plastic bottles of detergent and other cleaning products fell as the animal scrabbled on the edge of the shelf before deciding the shelf was not a valid escape. Like a bolt of lightning he pelted to the floor and towards the door.

“He’s running!” Zazzlil shouted, running forward as Jemilla fell trying to lunge and grab the cat as it shot past her feet, yowling. She dashed past the taller brunette’s prone form on the floor, following the streak of ginger out of the corridor.

Snarl scurried into the living area, leaping onto furniture and knocking nick-knacks off shelves. From outside the glass sliding door Zazzalil could see Molag. The older woman was standing, yelling and flipping the bird in Snarl’s direction as she rushed past.

“F*ck you Snarl you privileged f*ck! Get him short-stack, GET THE PRIVILEGED F*CK!”

Snarl galloped out of the living space and around the corner of the dividing wall.

“Zazzalil, the kitchen!” Jemilla hollered from where she was scrabbling to her feet.

“On it!”

She could see the animal ahead of her, doing a paranoid lap of the kitchen area. She was not going to be beaten by some cat which had stupidly gone into someone’s house rather than running away into the woods like a normal feline. Zazzalil tracked Snarl’s movements, noticing that he was in the middle of a flying leap onto the bench from the kitchen floor. If she timed it right…

As Snarl took off from the kitchen benchtop to whirlwind around the house once again, Zazzalil took a dive towards him. There was no gravity in the split second that she was airborne. It was almost blissful, feeling her hands wrap around the cat’s body and knowing that she had caught him. It was the calm before the storm.

She landed hard on the floor, tightening her grip around wriggling furry mass in her arms. The noise was almost deafening as Snarl yowled and hissed and spat. Zazzalil tried to ignore the twisting and writhing as she sat up, then struggling to her feet. It didn’t help that Snarl had killer claws and teeth. A part of her mind recalled that the beast of an animal had been killing raccoons, mammals which had been proven to kill cats if they had to.

“Oh my Duck!” Zazzalil heard Jemilla exclaim, gazing up to see her neighbour frantically searching for something. “Wait a second!”

“I don’t think I have a second – ow!”

Whilst off guard, sharp claws raked across her exposed hands and wrists. It smarted like anything. Zazzalil moved the cat against her chest with one arm so she could adjust her hands and hold it further away from her body.

“Hold him! Keep him down!” Molag yells grew louder over the cacophony with the sound of the glass door opening, “Don’t let that privileged f*ck get ya!”

“Molag, give me the basket!” Jemilla exclaimed.

In the chaos, Zazzalil didn’t see Snarl reaching up with his claws once again, but she certainly felt it. For the second time in two days, she felt streaks of warmth over her face – but also near her neck, and this time it f*ckiing hurt. Instinctively she dropped the cat.

“AH! Sh*t!” Zazzalil yelped, because her right eye was stinging, and she’d dropped the cat. They’d just caught the thing, but now they’d have to catch it all over. Didn’t life just suck!

“No! Zazzalil!”

“OOH! Get him! GET HIM!”

She could hear exclamations as she pressed a fist to her stinging eye, the other clenched shut and streaming because that’s what injured eyes did. It didn’t sound like the shouts from around her were good.

“OOOOOHHH! GET HIM J-MILLS!”

Tentatively, Zazzalil tried opening her uninjured eye, and through fierce watery blinking witnessed a divine act.

Unsure where to go, likely with annoyance and fear of the humans ahead of and behind him, Snarl was a f*cking idiot and ran towards the open door. Zazzalil had to squeeze her eye closed again. When she opened them, Jemilla was just bringing a plastic basket down over the cat’s head. And the basket stayed there. A ginger paw stuck out from a hole, batting the air.

“I got him!” Jemilla exclaimed, while Zazzalil staggered over.

“That’s my daughter!” Molag was yelling, whilst also jumping on her old, weak, feeble legs, “Run away from J-Mills and she’ll dump a basket on your head! AND her neighbour the hobgoblin who caught the cat first – oh damn girl, your face is looking… spicy?”

“What? Oh geez, Zazzalil,” Jemilla cringed when she looked up from the basket.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Zazzalil brushed them both off, “We’ve got him, right?”

“Yeah. We got him. What are going to do with him now?”

Chapter Text

Jemilla was sitting at Molag’s table, a cup of tea, her phone and the first aid kit from the bathroom in front of her. It was a welcome respite from the chaos of earlier that evening, with all the yowling and hissing and excessive falling over in effort to catch Snarl.

They’d all sat down some time ago, after clearing away the mess Snarl had created and transferring said cat from under the washing basket into a spacious cardboard box Molag had found. Now he was poking a paw out of the box, meowing occasionally but otherwise appearing docile… not that she believed the animal wouldn’t attack them should it escape.

Proof of the feline’s savage nature was both on the table and sitting next to Jemilla with her own hot beverage. Exhibit A of why Molag could not have a cat was a small bundle of raccoon skins that the brunette had confiscated and weighted down beneath the empty fishbowl. Exhibit B was her neighbour Zazzalil, scratched up and eyeing the first aid kit with suspicion. Of course, the unspoken Exhibit C was Molag herself.

“Hey J-Mills, can I keep them if I make you a hat too?” her guardian asked, gaze moving back and forth from the raccoon furs and Jemilla.

“No.” Jemilla flipped open the first aid kit, “We don’t know if they had any diseases or anything, you could catch something.”

“I think she should keep them.” Zazzalil piped up, “As a symbol of our great achievements.”

“Hear, hear! I’ll drink to that.” Molag raised her mug of coffee. “To we, the best cat catchers Clivesdale has ever seen!”

Outside, the sky had slowly been fading into twilight. At present it was basically dark, with the last whispers of sunlight painting the very edge horizon saffron orange bleeding into a deeper red. Jemilla looked in the first aid kit for a gauze pad or the like.

Because she didn’t have experience with cats, she had consulted with Dr ‘The Internet’, whose advice for a cat scratch was cleaning the wound and applying antiseptic. It had also brought up several links to something called cat scratch disease, which she was now worried about because Zazzalil had several scratches that broke her skin and were subsequently bleeding.

“Well, the internet tells me we need to clean the wounds,” Jemilla said, looking to the shorter brunette next to her. “Are you okay with me doing that?”

“I mean, I – yes? I don’t really, you know, want to get rabies so, sure.” Zazzalil spluttered, squinting with her irritated eye closed.

Part of Jemilla’s heart burst. Even when she didn’t really know how to act around the brunette (Zazzalil said she thought Jemilla hated her – they needed to talk about that), her body kept reminding her that she liked her neighbour. The way her chest felt lighter when Zazzalil was flustered was proof enough. This was hardly mentioning the heart attack she’d had when she saw her neighbour all scratched up.

Zazzalil had originally caught Snarl, also catching the brunt of the animal’s claws and teeth. Her wrists and hands had surface level scratches, while her face and neck had a few that were bleeding slightly. Of those included a cut that had caught the brunette’s lower eyelid and ran for a few centimetres over her cheekbone, which had rendered her right eye puffy and sensitive.

“Right,” Jemilla pulled out an individually packaged antiseptic wipe, tearing the packaging open. Luckily, she’d washed her hands before the tea was made, so that wouldn’t be a problem. “Where should I start?”

“Um… I don’t know.” Zazzalil replied, “Whichever ones need to be clean I guess.”

Well that helped… all the wounds needed to be clean. Jemilla looked at Molag for guidance, instead receiving a shrug. The older woman chuckled, casting a knowing look that just quite didn’t make sense between sips of coffee.

“I haven’t done this sh*t in years. Just muscle up and choose a place to begin.”

“Well… okay,” Jemilla sighed, before looking to her neighbour, “Stay still.”

She started with the wounds on Zazzalil’s hands and wrists, which were the easiest to deal with. They were mildly scratched and hopefully less painful than the other wounds. It was mostly uneventful, Molag chatting to Zazzalil and Jemilla throughout. Occasionally, the cardboard box on the floor meowed.

Every now and then Jemilla would glance to her neighbour to judge her reactions to make sure she wasn’t hurting the brunette. It was hard to tell, what with Zazzalil keeping her right eye closed and otherwise staying unnaturally tense for most of it. Although, the latter was probably one big sign something was up in itself.

After a few minutes, she broke out a different antiseptic wipe and prepared to deal with the scratches on Zazzalil’s face. This was daunting for two reasons. Firstly, there was now the extra added challenge of accidentally getting antiseptic in an eye. The other reason was that she would be getting awfully close to her neighbour. Like… really close.

“Really, I just wanted to f*ck with his mind, you know?” Molag was explaining to Zazzalil, “And so I went up to this moron with my eleventh girlfriend – or was it one of the boyfriends? Hell if I know, I got around in the eighties. Anyhow, so I saw him and shouted ‘Hey, I remember you! You were at the fried seagull convention!’ and then he –”

“Hey, uh, sorry to interrupt,” Jemilla interjected, “But I’m going to start cleaning the scratches on your face… Well, unless you want to do that.”

“Oh, I won’t be able to see what I’m doing, so… Please do?” Zazzalil said with a slight self-deprecative chuckle, before looking back to Molag. “Go on.”

Jemilla didn’t miss the slight blush which appeared on the short brunette’s face when she dragged her chair closer, hesitating slightly before putting up one hand to hold her neighbour’s head still.

“So this guy turns around and he –”

“Ah!” Zazzalil hissed as Jemilla carefully set to wiping away smears of blood from the notorious eye wound. She removed her hand and the antiseptic wipe immediately.

“Are you okay? I’m sorry if that hurt.” Jemilla scanned Zazzalil’s face, noticing the grimace of pain.

“It’s fine… Just cold. You can keep going.”

“People keep interrupting me!” Molag exclaimed huffily.

Jemilla sighed, resuming her efforts. Zazzalil potentially went tenser than she had been before, face turning a little redder. “Yes Molag, but I’ve heard that story many times and it’s getting old.”

“I haven’t heard it.” Zazzalil indignantly cut in.

“Yeah, she hasn’t heard it!”

“It’s not much,” she dabbed at a drying stain of crimson, also noting that in her proximity to her neighbour she could pinpoint every fading freckle and the slight shimmer of hazel in Zazzalil’s brown eyes. “Molag can tell you later.”

“Geez, J-Mills you really are the fun police today,” Molag grumbled, “Are you sure I can’t keep the raccoon skins? I promise I’ll just make hats.”

“Yes.” she responded while moving to wipe the scratch where it was closest to Zazzalil’s eye.

Molag sighed grumpily again, before her voice caught a humoured tone of a woman who knew they were going to stir some sh*t up. “Will you let me keep them if I put your pride flag on the hat?”

Zazzalil visibly twitched. The box on the floor meowed. Jemilla sincerely hoped that this was not a huge revelation. She hadn’t introduced herself immediately to her neighbour as being pan, but had hoped the flirting would be apparent enough… although it more than likely hadn’t been, which meant it was completely her own fault for not letting Zazzalil know.

“Molag.” Jemilla sighed, finishing up with the scratch and moving back to survey her work. There wasn’t any bleed left where it shouldn’t have been, the cut just an angry red line on swollen skin. “That doesn’t change anything. I still don’t want to catch diseases.”

“I’ll make one for short-stack too. Her head looks small enough and we’ve got enough raccoon pelts.”

“Oh, thanks.” Zazzalil smiled at Molag, putting a hand to the scratch and gingerly pressing against it, “I’ve always wanted a badass hat.”

“Of course you do. Who doesn’t want a badass hat? Apart from J-Mills.”

“Hey, I’d like a badass hat, just not one that could be diseased!” Jemilla argued.

Molag sighed and shook her head in faux disappointment, before taking a drink from her coffee. Jemilla looked to Zazzalil, who was smiling to herself. She liked whatever they all had going on. It was really great to see her guardian and her neighbour getting along. It gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling, even if she was going to interrogate Zazzalil about the whole ‘you’ll hate me more than you do now’ thing in the car on the way back to the apartments.

That was one thing she’d try to look into. What did that whole thing mean? Jemilla though she had done something wrong perhaps, especially when Zazzalil had left so suddenly just those few days ago… had it really been just on Saturday that they had lunch together? Spending time with people seemed to stretch out longer, or was maybe more distracting than spending it alone. Either way, the evening she had spent with Molag and Jemilla felt like a holiday.

When she looked at Molag’s analogue clock, which was somehow attached to the front of the fridge in the kitchen, she was almost surprised to find that it was nearly eight o’clock. Eight at night! She’d got Zazzalil from the apartment building around six-ish, give or take a few minutes, but where did the two hours since then go?

As much as Jemilla would have loved to wonder about that, she had work in the morning – so would Zazzalil, unless animal control had days off. Her normal schedule was out the window. She hadn’t even had dinner yet, but still needed to deal with a furry demon. She also had to check in with Molag about what the doctors were saying, considering that she’d seen the notes stuck to the fridge earlier on. But she could do that a bit later. Now she needed to try to leave politely.

She looked up to see Molag and Zazzalil chatting contentedly, both parties with smiles across their faces. It seemed a shame to break up the conversation.

“I set a letter box on fire,” her guardian proudly admitted, grinning.

“I can one up you – I set a rubbish bin on fire.” Zazzalil smirked, just as happy with the achievement.

“Well damn armrest, that must have been huge for you.”

“Hey! It isn’t like you’ve burnt anything bigger. A letter box is tiny.”

“Eh, well…”

“Ahem,” Jemilla cut in, “As great as sharing arson stories is, I’ve got work tomorrow. You’ve got work too, right Zazzalil?”

Next to her, Zazzalil’s smile fell a little, a kind of unspoken tension slipping into her eyes. Jemilla couldn’t place it, but if Zazzalil was fire and the eyes were the windows to the soul, the fire had been extinguished and steam was fogging up the glass.

“Yeah,” her neighbour begrudgingly stood, “Work to do tomorrow.”

Molag sighed, standing in the same manner, “Well, I figured you’d stay longer. But if you’ve really got to go…”

Jemilla smiled sympathetically, standing herself and walking to her guardian. “Sorry. But we really do need to go,” she looked to Zazzalil, “but we’ve got work to do.”

“Ah, privileged f*cks. Having jobs to occupy your time,” Molag swung her cane, pacing over to the box which contained one huge cat, “You’ll have to come visit me again soon. It’s going to be f*cking quiet without this bastard around.”

The older woman crouched awkwardly down to the cardboard box, tapping a finger just below where an old carry hole was. A paw shot out, batting at the space in an attempt to catch whatever had been making the noise. Claws shined for a second on the paw before it disappeared, and all Jemilla could think of was how those claws had scratched up Zazzalil. How alien it was to see Molag smiling sadly at the box, almost as if she’d miss the cat within, when the animal was so dangerous.

Zazzalil picked up the cat in its spacious container, a startled meow echoing from within. Jemilla wondered how that was possible, the cat and box being so heavy while Zazzalil was so small.

“Shall we?” Jemilla gestured towards the direction of the front door.

“Well, yeah… unless you want to go out the window or something.” Molag said, walking towards the corridor, at the end of which the front door was located, Zazzalil striding with the box full of cat in tow.

“No, no, the front door works just fine.”

“You sure? I could open the skylight.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

The front door loomed up like a portal to another realm which was cold, dark, and lacking pine scent. Jemilla knew the door like she knew the back of her hand. She’d seen it every day before she left to go to school, waited behind it countless times for friends to arrive to sleepovers and parties, not to mention those days as a small child when she just stood and looked at it, trying to commit it’s shape to memory.

Molag opened the door and they stepped out into the cold and dark. The older woman hung inside the entrance, partially closing the door behind her.

“It was nice having you. Good to meet you short-stack, come again soon.”

Zazzalil shifted the box in her arms, “It was great. Just don’t have a huge-ass cat next time.”

Molag smiled at her with an unreadable expression, something between cryptic knowledge and humour. “Yes… no huge-ass cats...”

“Molag, I’ll call you.” Jemilla said, stepping to hug her guardian.

“You’d better you privileged f*ck,” Molag hugged back before breaking away and nodding, “Now get on out if here!”

“Bye!” she stepped back and waved once, before turning down to join Zazzalil in treading down the paths to her neighbour’s car. Behind her she could hear the door closing, while all around was the quiet rustle of wind in the trees and the crunch of her footsteps on the gravel.

 The car ride home was very much like the one on the way to Molag’s house.

Zazzalil was once again quiet, this time with an intense focus on the road. Although it was a good thing, the lack of social noise made the entire journey pressingly silent despite the other noise. Jemilla was holding the box which contained Snarl, who every now and then meowed. Because it was cold outside, water condensed on the inside of the windows. Zazzalil combated that by turning on either an air conditioner or fan, which made a noisy whooshing sound. She was glad when they pulled into the apartment building’s car park.

From there it was a hurried walk into the foyer, Jemilla with the cat while her neighbour followed. It was still quiet. In the stairwell, which was acting as a sound vacuum where most noise was absorbed by the walls or industrial carpeted floor, she was reminded of how she’d seen Zazzalil the day before. And what the brunette had said that evening. ‘You’ll hate me even more than you do now.’

“So, apparently you think I hate you,” she started, whilst passing a particularly ugly potted plant.

Zazzalil grimaced, scratch marks on her face whitening under pressure. Her eye was still slightly puffy. “Forget I said that.”

“I can’t forget something like that. Why would you think I hated you?”

"It’s really stupid. I can’t tell you.”

Was it? Jemilla didn’t really think there was any stupid reason to think someone hated you. If anything, she was starting to think a little that Zazzalil didn’t like her, rather than vice versa.

“Is it? I can take stupid.” They were up on their floor now.

“Yeah. I’m still not going to tell you.”

“Come on. You literally said you thought I hated you!” they were outside their apartments. Jemilla would have crossed her arms expectantly if she wasn’t carrying a box with a huge-ass cat in it. “You can’t just say something like that and expect someone not to want and explanation.”

Zazzalil didn’t say anything, rather looking at a point on the wall nearby.

“Okay,” Jemilla sighed, “I’ll drop it. But you don’t hate me, right?”

A snort from her neighbour. “No, I don’t hate you.”

They both stood awkwardly, while thoughts rushed around Jemilla’s head. Zazzalil didn’t hate her! That was good. That was really good, because Zazzalil was cute, and funny, and apparently strong because Snarl was getting heavy in her arms – she shifted the box around.

“So… what are we going to do with him?” Jemilla asked.

“I’ll take him. I think I’ve got somewhere he can go.” Zazzalil looked contemplative but held her arms out to take the box. Jemilla handed Snarl over without hesitation.

“Yeah? You’re not going to let him loose in your apartment?”

“It’s fine. You won’t see me with a new furry ginger hat next time you see me.”

Jemilla felt a bubble of happiness rise in her chest as Zazzalil responded with a joke rather than a terse remark. Maybe whatever they had going on was water under a bridge now. “Molag’s rubbed off on you.”

“Molag’s cool.”

“Yeah… well I’ve got work tomorrow, and I need to eat…” Jemilla trailed off, pointing to her apartment.

“Work. Yeah.” Zazzalil smiled with tight lips, “I need to do some stuff too.”

“Bye?” Also see you later, because Jemilla was going to see Zazzalil again if they were sort of on good terms.

“Bye.”

The shorter girl walked back to where her apartment door was, putting up a knee to hold the box. With one hand she fumbled out some keys from her jacket, successfully unlocking her working door. Jemilla watched as her neighbour turned back once and nodded, before entering her home.

The door shut. Jemilla smiled to herself, because things were looking better and turned to her own apartment.

Chapter Text

The cardboard box’s occupant had his faced pressed to the carry holes and was glowering at her from the other side of her car. She was glaring right back. It was like a scene from a spaghetti western, where the standoff was taking place. Each occupant stood ready to fire their gun but not willing to take the first shot. She hoped he didn’t decide to make the first move, because the traffic lights would change at any time and she did not want to drive and fight a cat at the same time.

Snarl, despite being quite vicious the day before, seemed mostly grumpy now. Overnight, Zazzalil had put the box and the cat in the hall closet, tentatively slipping a dish of water into the cardboard cube with the cat and hoping for the best as she went to sleep. She didn’t know what to do otherwise.

All night, she had been plagued by meowing. And not just cute little meows or occasional chitters. Instead it was needy, attention seeking calls of an animal that was bored and cooped up. Mentally, Zazzalil felt bad for keeping the cat where he was, rather than letting him out into the hall closet. No one wanted to be kept in such a small space as a cardboard box for too long. But neither did she want to chase the animal around her apartment and get scratched again when he inevitably escaped.

Speaking of scratches, the two on her face from her last day at work had been joined by more. Most were thin red lines now. The ones on her hands and wrists certainly were. The scratch beneath her right eye was looking better too, scabbed over and no longer puffy. Zazzalil supposed she had Jemilla to thank for that.

She actually could have had a lot to thank Jemilla for. A distraction from the sh*tty ‘I’m no longer working’ hole she’d jumped into. For being nice even though Zazzalil was pretty sure she had been weird and angry. Introducing her to Molag, the best adult to exist. For patching her up the day before.

That had been a trip. For one, she was still very attracted to Jemilla. Thus having seen her neighbour slam a washing basket over the animal which had scratched her face up was pretty hot and had left her gay heart pounding. Then, the taller brunette had offered to help with the scratches and been so gentle and considerate and cautious and her gay heart exploded. Zazzalil would have been a fool to turn the offer of assistance down – both because of the crush and the fact she couldn’t see properly out of her puffy eye.

Whoops. She realised that she had driven them both home with impaired vision. That could have gone badly… At least she could see now.

“Hey!” Zazzalil exclaimed, tapping the box at the sound of claws shredding cardboard, “Cut it out!”

An unamused yowl reached her in return. Snarl was none too happy with his relocation from his smaller cardboard box to a bigger one – despite the extra space he had been granted. She’d felt sorry for him, but since the extra scratches she’d gotten transferring him she felt less so.

And now he was trying to escape. Great. Couldn’t he have tried that back when she was about to leave the apartment building parking lot instead of when they were just a few blocks away from where she needed to be?

Zazzalil kept her ears open for sounds of shredding as she drove. Clivesdale was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday during the quarantine. Although, her past Wednesdays had been spent on the shadier side of town in an antiquated, asbestos filled building that was a health hazard waiting to happen. She didn’t exactly get out to see town.

The street she needed was quieter than the main roads, which were littered with retirees in fluoro workout gear and a herd of children that most definitely weren’t following social distancing laws. Instead, a single old man walking a dog was making his way down the footpath on the opposite side of the road.

She parked the car outside the front of a double storey weatherboard house, painted white, with a similarly painted wooden fence. Thank duck they’d got there. Zazzalil couldn’t bear being stuck in the car with the scraping of claws against cardboard.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth.” She muttered irritably at the box. The cat inside was silent.

It was a bit of a job to walk the larger box up to the house’s front door. Maybe it was something to do with the eternal fear the animal would break out at any second. Or the fact that said animal was trying to move around while being carried, sliding around and tipping the container’s centre of gravity. Zazzalil could feel his feet putting pressure on different areas of the cardboard.

At the door, she rang the doorbell and waited. The door was stained a rich honey colour, bordering on amber. It matched the leaves of a maple in the front yard, some of which nevertheless yellow and stubbornly clinging to grey branches although it was nearly the end of winter. They should have fallen off ages ago. But they hadn’t. Nature was f*cking weird like that sometimes.

The door opened suddenly after a few moments of waiting, in which Zazzalil considered abandoning the box on the doorstep in a bizarre ring and run. She smiled at the person who answered.

“Zazz! What are you do – What happened to your face!?” the blonde’s eyes went wide, before shifting to the cube in Zazzalil’s arms. “What’s in the box?”

“Hey Keeri,” she stepped forward, pushing a little bit past her confused blonde friend into the house. “I’ve uh… you like animals, right?”

“Uh, yeah!” Keeri scoffed, before following as Zazzalil made her way towards the living room, “I love animals! I have the rats, and remember, I told you about the dog in college. Oh! And I like totally found this mouse one time and I was going to name it Hermione and put it in with Harry and Ron, but it ran away.”

“Good, good. Wait – who the f*ck are Harry and Ron?”

“…My rats. Oh wait, I forgot that you hated the rats.” Keeri’s wide smile fell, and she seriously looked like a kicked puppy.

Zazzalil’s heart screamed at her. How could she have made such a precious soul sad? At the sight of the slightest hint of sadness in Keeri’s eyes, which Zazzalil knew was her fault, she felt like someone hung a length of heavy chain over her shoulders.

The thought occurred to her that getting Keeri a cat might have been the worst thing to do. Cats ate mice and rats. Yep, not a good present at all, even if she hadn’t planned it.

“I’m sorry Keeri! I just… wasn’t feeling good,” Zazzalil explained, feeling genuinely bad for having snapped at her friend, “You know how it is.”

Keeri’s sad expression morphed into one of sympathy. The blonde moved forward and put a hand on Zazzalil’s shoulder, rubbing her upper arm in pity.

“I’m sorry you had a bad day, but that doesn’t mean you get away easily. You have to pet the rats.”

“Really?” Zazzalil complained, “It’s just that they’re so much like the street rats and I don’t like those at… work.”

“Yes. They’re not that bad!”

“Are you sure?” she had seen the rats on the streets, and they were not pretty. If anything, they were a reason to add to her list of good reasons to have left her job. From inside the box, Snarl chose this time to let out a yowl.

Keeri looked extremely confused. “What the duck?”

“Uhh…” What could she possibly do now? Zazzalil gave a sheepish grin, shrugging with the box in her arms “Surprise?”

“Is that a cat?”

“Yes.”

“Why is it still in the box!? Can we let it out?” Keeri looked concerned, moving to open the hastily taped closed box.

“Whoa! Wait – let’s go to the bathroom.” Zazzalil moved the box away from Keeri and started for the tiled space.

“Why the bathroom?”

“Because it’s small, and then we can get him back in the box.”

“Why does he need to be in the box?” Keeri hurried into the small, white-tiled walled bathroom behind Zazzalil, who placed said box onto the darker, slate tiled floor.

“Because he’s a f*cking menace. My face didn’t get like this for no reason. Yesterday I got this sucker from Jemilla’s badass guardian’s house.” She closed the bathroom door and pointed to the box. “Open at your own risk.”

“Okay?” Keeri said with a hesitant but querying smile. “He’s just a kitty. What harm could he do?”

“Lots. He’s a vicious animal that was killing raccoons.”

With a questioning glance, Keeri knelt and pulled at the tape. After a moment of two, it came off, and the blonde cautiously opened the flaps of the box. Zazzalil hastily moved to sit on the bathroom counter, pulling her friend away from the impending cat explosion. She held her breath.

Nothing happened. Zazzalil’s heart thudded in her chest with the anticipation. But it was in vain, because it was actually very anti-climactic rather than a tornado of paws and claws.

At first Snarl just poked his head up, long triangular ears twitching, yellow eyes wide and scarred pink nose sniffing at the air. Zazzalil’s heart rate dropped again. Then he gracefully stepped from his cardboard prison and began to pace the room, making annoyed meows that sounded like he was grumbling away to himself. His ginger tail, long and furry, thrashed from side to side as he walked. Zazzalil remembered hearing somewhere that cats did that when they were mad.

“Oh my gosh he’s so precious!” Keeri squealed, immediately approaching the beast and holding out a hand to him. “Hi! I’m Keeri!”

This would be the time that his jaws snapped down on her best friend’s hand, or claws scratched at her. Zazzalil cringed in expectation of the first aid kit being brought out.

Instead, Snarl sniffed at Keeri before rubbing his chin over her fingers. Keeri’s face morphed into a gleeful smile. Zazzalil’s brain malfunctioned.

“He’s being… what?” WHAT? HOW?

“Isn’t he sweet!” Keeri exclaimed as she scratched at Snarl’s head, the cat attempting to rub her in return. “Yes, you are precious! Aren’t you gorgeous! Aww…”

“How can… what? He was attacking me and Jemilla! That’s not fair!” Zazzalil spluttered, “What makes you so different?”

Keeri shrugged, petting Snarl. “Animals like me. Also – wait, what’s this?” She dragged her fingers through the fur at the cat’s neck, grabbing onto something.

“What’s what?” Zazzalil asked as the blonde fiddled with something, leaning close to Snarl before pulling away with…

“It’s a collar,” sure enough, in Keeri’s hand was a tattered, faded blue collar, a single bell and a tag hanging off it. She threw it to Zazzalil.

The metal tag’s printed words were faded beyond recognition of a few letters. A capital letter B or perhaps an R was visible and a seven from an old contact number. The bell didn’t work, and Zazzalil sighed in shocked contemplation. “It must have got caught in his fur.”

The blonde cooed sadly at the ginger cat. “Oh, poor baby! Someone didn’t want you anymore. But you’re so handsome!” She picked Snarl up into a hug, although with his sheer size he just stood on her lap with his paws over her shoulder. “That’s okay, I’m your mummy now.”

From over Keeri’s shoulder, Zazzalil watched with wide eyes as Snarl made a sad meow, nuzzling his nose into the blonde’s neck. But his yellow eyes narrowed when they made eye contact with her. He might have had Keeri taken to him like a moth to a flame, but Zazzalil didn’t trust him.

“So… you’re going to keep him?” she asked curiously, not breaking her gaze with the feline.

“Yeah, look at him!” Keeri removed Snarl from her shoulder and booped his nose. “Isn’t he cute?”

“Uh, yeah… Very cute.”

“You’re still not getting out of the rat petting thing though. Also, have you fed him?”

Zazzalil sighed. “Keeri, I know like nothing about animals. No, I didn’t feed the monster cat.”

“Well that’s not good. And he’s not a monster. Come on, I’ve got something.”

That’s how Zazzalil found herself sitting on Keeri’s couch later, discussing exactly how she had come across Snarl. The animal himself was crunching away at some dry food that Keeri had dug out from a cupboard. He was also looking less dirty and mangy and feral despite never having been feral in the first place. Keeri was sure he was a stray Maine Coon, and had adamantly told Zazzalil so when they had been petting the rats.

About the rats, Zazzalil had patted them. They weren’t so bad. In fact, she liked Harry and Ron (one sleek and black, the other apparently a cinnamon colour) a lot better and related with them on an emotional level. The entire time they had been out, they had seemed jittery and scared. No guesses as to why, apart from the huge-ass cat that could eat them. Zazzalil had just wanted to hold them close and keep them safe the whole time.

Luckily, they were back in their cage where they were hopefully safe. It didn’t stop Zazzalil from glancing up to them just to be sure they were okay while talking.

Keeri had listened intently as Zazzalil recounted everything, how Jemilla had come over asking for help, and she had said yes because her neighbour was cute and sad and making her feel guilty with her talk of her poor old guardian. Molag she had covered in much detail, from the badass raccoon hat down to the end of her stainless-steel walking cane. However, she omitted the fact she no longer had a source of income… that and she’d technically stolen one of the boiler suits from work.

“And I just said I’d deal with it and then I left.” She explained, finally getting to the end of the night.

“You just said goodbye?”

“Yeah. There was nothing else to say. And I found out she’s pan, Molag outed her.”

Keeri smiled broadly. “See! I told you that was not a straight haircut. Doesn’t this mean there is like literally no reason for her not to like you now?”

Zazzalil groaned. “But… I don’t know. I’ll keep an open mind, but she could just, you know, not like me.”

“Come on! At least don’t lead her on and then be a wuss about it.”

“I just – Okay. But what if she’s just friend material, you know?”

“Zazz. Give it a go.” Keeri said as sternly as she could. “You’re trying to avoid a problem and it’s not going to get better. It’s a bit annoying. You should try making a move.”

Of course it was getting annoying. But what could she do? Zazzalil didn’t know Jemilla really well, they had met two weeks ago and wasn’t that taking things too fast? She’d gotten together with people before and they didn’t take things slow. In fact, Keeri had once told her to slow down, because the rate at which she was moving in relationships was scaring the other people away. Now Keeri was saying the opposite.

“Well, what do I do!” she exclaimed in exasperation. “If I go to fast, I’ll scare her away and there won’t even be the chance to maybe stay friends afterwards.”

Keeri patted her arm. “Well, we moved fast, and that didn’t work. We’re still friends.”

“Yeah, but we were like, destined to be best friends. We don’t even talk about that anymore. And you’re you! You’ve agreed to take in that bastard cat and insist he’s cute and beautiful. You’ve just committed to be his friend because you know, ‘a pet is for life’ and all that,” Zazzalil sighed, “There’s like no way you could have just ditched me. You’re too nice like that.”

“Yeah.” Keeri smiled, “I like making friends. It makes me happy. And I know you’re nice too, we were friends before that thing in college. Also, like a pet, a friend is forever. Right?”

“Well… Yeah, but friendships do drift apart.”

“But you were still friends with them. You’ll still have those friend moments, like to remember and stuff. They don’t go.”

“Unless I get amnesia.”

Keeri laughed. “That’s the memory thing right? But like, you should try with Jemilla. It can’t hurt.”

Well, it could hurt. But what would that mean? She’d had her heart broken before. Jemilla might just add to the pile of cute women she’d ever been with but failed to make a connection. Although, she didn’t feel like Jemilla would become just another failed relationship. There was something special about how her neighbour talked. How she moved. Probably how she thought. If she played it right, everything would work out. But if it didn’t, she’d always have Keeri.

“Well… I can try,” Zazzalil sighed, relaxing into the couch, “But if it doesn’t work I’m coming to live as a bachelor with you. And Harry and Ron.”

Keeri, if she hadn’t been smiling before, was beaming. “So you do like them!”

“They’re cuter than I first thought.”

“I saw you hugging them. You like them.”

“Okay, maybe I do like them.” Zazzalil admitted, to Keeri’s delight and her own joy at seeing her friend so happy. Maybe that was all that counted.

Chapter Text

After the chaos of seeing Molag and dealing with… everything Tuesday had entailed, the rest of Jemilla’s week was boring in comparison. What could she do? The quarantine was still going, shopping trips were suddenly incredibly dull, and work was still the chore of dealing with other people’s problems.

The most exciting thing to have happened was on Wednesday morning, at around ten o’clock. For most of the night before, until she went to bed, Jemilla had heard meows echoing through the thin walls between her and Zazzalil’s apartment. Snarl was likely making a fuss in his box or whatever. It continued in the morning, and after a few hours of working she was used to it.

But she wasn’t ready for the colossal screech that she was sure people had heard from the ground floor.

For a second, after looking up abruptly, she had wondered if Zazzalil was okay – it was obvious that Snarl was not. No animal made such a noise when it was happy. It was like someone combined the high-pitched whine of a power drill and the squeal of a motorbike. Afterwards a volley of loud cursing sounded, albeit slightly muffled, through the wall. This was a fair sign that her neighbour wasn’t lying in her apartment, bleeding out from scratch wounds while Snarl prepared to eat her body.

Obviously that couldn’t have happened, but that cat was a literal nightmare. And after seeing the damage he had done the day before… she didn’t really want to take any second chances.

After Wednesday morning Jemilla didn’t hear meowing again, and she took this as a good thing. Hopefully Zazzalil had found somewhere else for the feline to go where it didn’t disrupt half the apartment complex.

On the subject of hearing things through the walls, Jemilla had started to become vigilant of the noise coming from her neighbour. While over the previous weeks it had been so quiet you could have heard a coin drop at the bottom of the stairwell, now she could occasionally hear music playing from the other apartment. Other times it was muted conversation.

It was different. The noise was also puzzling because Zazzalil should have been at work during the middle of the day. Music she could pin to leaving a radio on, but conversation? Maybe the shorter brunette was getting days off work. Otherwise, Jemilla couldn’t explain it.

On Friday after work had finished, she called Molag as she had promised. She hoped it would be a welcome respite from listening to HR talk all day. Already, she had changed from the clothes she was wearing while she was working into a comfier navy hooded jacket and time-weathered green cargo pants. Then she settled on her bed as the phone rang.

“You privileged f*ck!” she was immediately greeted with her guardian’s jovial exclamations. This would not be a boring phone call. Surprisingly, or maybe concernedly, there was a distinct lack of disturbing background noise.

“Hi Molag, nice to hear from you too –” Jemilla answered, before being interrupted. That was happening a lot lately…

“So. Short-stack’s the neighbour then?” Molag questioned, her voice smug.

“Uh, yeah. Zazzalil lives next door.”

“Pfft, you know what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” she knew exactly what Molag meant. The last time she’d been on a phone call (or perhaps it was the time before) with her guardian, she had practically confessed her attraction to the brunette next door. Or at least, her guardian had picked up on her crush immediately instead of

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Don’t mess with me J-Mills, I know someone who can take your kneecaps.”

“Molag what the f*ck?”

“Ha, I’m just messing with you!” her guardian chuckled heartily, “I don’t know someone who’ll take your kneecaps, but I do know someone who’ll take your elbows.”

“Molag!”

She was doing the thing again. Jemilla had heard it since she was little. Pretending to know things or saying that things happened and making the situation progressively worse for the person she was messing with. It used to be knowing the Easter bunny or claiming that Santa Claus wasn’t an old man but rather a teenage boy… now it was this.

“They’re a nice person… had a heart attack a few years back, got me to look after their elbow collection. Then we both had elbow soup when they got better –”

“Alright!” Jemilla sighed exasperatedly, deeply wanting that part of the exchange to be over, “Yes, Zazzalil is the neighbour. The neighbour I wanted to spend more time with.”

“What with that crush, of f*cking course you do!” Molag cackled, “So it’s definitely her?”

“Yes Molag, who else could it be? My other neighbours who are heterosexual, monogamous and married?”

“I don’t f*cking know. But you’re completely sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I can start planning my speech.”

“What speech?” Jemilla asked in confusion, because she didn’t know what speeches had to do with anything. Was her guardian going to go all scary ‘you treat my daughter right or I’ll take your knees’ on Zazzalil? Because for one thing, she felt that those sorts of orations we no longer necessary now that she was an adult. She could look after herself.

“The speech for your wedding.” Molag announced calmly, like she was recounting the items on her shopping list.

Alarm bells started ringing in Jemilla’s head for two reasons, the first being that Molag was trying to annoy her and it was working. The second was that she wasn’t too opposed to a wedding – or at least the part of her that pushed all rationale and logic aside did. Realistically, getting married was a distant goal that she’d reach one day in the remote future – or maybe not at all, because why sign yourself to one person for the rest of eternity?

“Molag! I don’t want to move too fast, I only met her –”

“Three weeks ago? Get a grip Jemilla, that’s like a whole-ass month. Make a move or something!”

“What if I want to wait and see how things go, like a normal person?”

“Eh, no one’s normal. Short-stack certainly isn’t. That’s why I like her.”

“Well, it’s good you like her. But a wedding?”

“Maybe I just want to see a wedding before I go J-Mills.”

When she went? Where was Molag going? Oh no, she had decided to go to Canada after all… which would be fine normally, except for the whole virus situation which had airports ground to a halt and thousands of people sick and dying.

“Go? Where are you going?” Jemilla asked.

“Well it depends – it’ll be an old folks’ home and soon after that into Satan’s fiery embrace.”

“No…” Jemilla hesitated before continuing, because it was a touchy subject. “You’re not that old… you’ve got a long time left still Molag.”

 She knew Molag was getting on in the years, the long-term implications of her injury from when she was younger and, in the force, starting to take their toll. When she was younger, her guardian only used a cane on a bad day, or after physiotherapy. Nowadays Molag was lucky to have a day without having to hobble around. And Jemilla knew that there was a lot Molag wan’t saying, pain she didn’t let anyone else in on.

“That’s what they all say. Doctors and physio and all that sh*t.” her guardian bitterly muttered. In the background now, Jemilla could hear the subtle notes of piano tinkling away.

“Well – I actually did call about that.”

“Yeah, well, what’s it you need to know?”

“Uh, those papers on the fridge maybe? I just –” Jemilla sighed, “I want to know how you’re going. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s just fine,” Molag said placatingly, “It’s just about how much I need to use my cane more and these painkillers or something.”

“Are you sure? Because if you need help with anything…”

“Hey J-Mills, take a breath or something. It’s fine. I’m fine. Any privileged f*ck who says otherwise will find they don’t have any knees.”

It struck her unsure as how to proceed. Obviously, it was within Molag’s right to keep her medical information confidential, but there were a lot of documents on the fridge. Certainly more than should be normal for just painkillers. Or had Molag been stacking them there for years? Surely Jemilla would notice if there had been a pile of doctor’s documents slowly accumulating over time. Although, it had been a while since Jemilla had really visited her guardian before the whole Snarl incident. Maybe the notes had been piling up.

She felt guilty. She shouldn’t have. It wasn’t her fault that a pandemic had to come and sweep everyone off their feet – not in the charming way either. But she also should have called Molag more often.

Life was to the point where work was your whole day and the rest was spent wishing you didn’t have to work. And there was also the fear of running out of food or basic supplies such as toilet paper or tissues. And soap! Who would have thought there’d be a time when you couldn’t get soap?

“Anyhow, that’s not important. What is important is that you call me more!” Molag exclaimed over the phone, “I’m getting bored! Now I don’t have raccoon versus cat gladiator battles to watch, what can I do? You’d know, you get bored.”

“I don’t know,” Jemilla said tiredly, thinking of the hours she’d spent mooching around the house between washing dishes or doing laundry. “Maybe watch some tv?”

“F*cking television? J-Mills, I’ve done that. I’ve seen all the sh*tty reality shows and the dramas. I want to do something fun.”

“Well, there are some really cool documentaries online – would you like to know about Ancient Egypt?”

“Nope. Do you know where I can get drugs?”

“A pharmacy?”

“Wrong drugs.”

“Should you really be taking illicit substances?” Jemilla questioned, because if Molag was on new painkillers – or any painkillers at all – she didn’t think that adding drugs into the mix was a good idea.

Molag laughed, “Hell no! I’d probably die. But come on, where do I get the drugs Jemilla?”

“Try searching up Mandelbrot Sets. They’re close enough to drugs.”

“Welp, if that’s all I’m getting…”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Molag sounded slightly excited, but still as bored as she had been, “I’m going to go do that then. How about you?”

“Oh.” Jemilla hadn’t actually intended to do anything beyond what she usually did in the evenings: Go walking if it was nice out, stay in it wasn’t, have dinner, clean the dishes and go to sleep. Then she’d wake and likely do something similar all over again. “I don’t know. I haven’t planned for anything specific Just what I usually do I suppose.”

“Well, you should do something. Can’t have you being a f*cking stick in the mud.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that. I’m going to go do whatever you said.”

“Mandelbrot sets.”

“Yeah, those.”

The phone hung up. For a moment, all Jemilla could do was sit on her bed and think about what she would be doing. Molag apparently was going to treat herself to an hour or two of bright colours and infinitely expanding patterns. But what would she do?

Jemilla didn’t know, so she followed her usual routine.

Her routine, while unapologetically bland, kept her life running smoothly. Apparently Molag claimed that Jemilla’s love of schedule was due to the chaos of her life before being adopted. Something to do with psychologically creating order when everything was so shaken up. Jemilla preferred to think it was because she’d taken to organisation naturally.

Usually, she would go for walk after work. But it was not looking like good walking weather outside. Fierce winds had heralded the imminent arrival of spring in the next week, bringing with them miserable smoky grey clouds and rain which wasn’t bucketing down, but not drizzling either.

Thus, she was challenged to find something else to do indoors. It wasn’t time to have dinner yet, so making a start on that would be a bit useless. Not that dinner was planned to be much – leftover stew from the day before heated in the microwave. Maybe she’d browse social media?

Social media eventually turned into dinner, eaten while listening to faint sounds of music from someone else’s apartment. That turned into dish washing, which turned into more social media. The boring schedule kept going.

It was while she was scrolling through Ducker’s twitter page when she had an idea. It was like a fog had lifted and she could see clearly. The answer to her boredom was talking to people. Jemilla was almost shocked at how stupid it was she hadn’t seen it before.

Sure, It was called social distancing and social isolation for a reason, but since committing to adult life where work and survival in the concrete jungle overran catching up with her friends, she’d not noticed how lonely she was. The New Years party when she saw her tribe was a ‘last hoorah’ sort of thing. They hadn’t actually gotten together for months before that and chatting between them had decreased exponentially. It unofficially proclaimed the start of greying hair, fraying nerves and the steady increase in perceived authority over youth.

But Jemilla didn’t want that to be her life. She wanted her life to be enjoying the good days and surviving the bad. She wanted to talk to people, to her friends and family. She really wanted to see Zazzalil.

With her neighbour she wanted to do so many things. Go kayaking on the glassy early morning waters of the Hachetfield Lake. Watch a scary movie that made at least one of them cling onto the other in fright. Walk along the lakefront at night. Jemilla very much wanted to introduce Zazzalil to her friends and watch as equally chaotic people met each other.

Jemilla looked to her phone. She still had her friend’s phone numbers. Heck, the group chat from back in college was still there. She hadn’t looked at it in ages. In fact, she’d blocked notifications from the app after an incident at work and forgotten it existed. But oh boy would it be interesting to reminisce on times past.

Sure enough, when she looked back through the apps on her phone, she found it. The Tribe chat was still up, but unlike she had actually last been on, it had been re-named to ‘Duckwr iz lod’… Whatever that meant.

For the first time in over a year, Jemilla opened the app and was treated to an onslaught of messages that had been piling up she had last been present.

They had left off with messaging about an event or something which had happened, with comments from most but not all of her friends, but they slowly transformed into just updates on how things were going or little notes saying ‘I remember when we used to use this’. Then, finally the thread turned into what looked like a drunken naming battle between Ducker and SB – supplemented occasionally with texts from Schwoopsie and Tiblyn. It was dated from Tuesday the week before.

>Ducker changed the group chat to ‘Dyvkrr rhles’

>SB changed the group chat to ‘Sb is thhe bwst’

Tiblyn: Omg you guys

>Ducker changed the group chat to ‘TJBHE DEOMANs THAT FIOLLW US’

SB: duckerr you succ so badd

Ducker: no u sjck

SB: I’Ll yelll aT you adn scare u awey

SB: like the sunn

Ducker: the DUCK kniws what youu did

>SB changed the group chat to ‘ARHGGHHHGHGh’

SB: THe sunn is a cowerdlly men

Ducker: Dont liiie to me the DUcK knows all

SB: But ur Dukcer

Schwoopsie: Ok wtf is this??? My phone literally just exploded

Tiblyn: oh hey!!! how are u?

Schwoopsie: Im good

Ducker: im Ducker but the DuCK is loord

Ducker: iz lorrd

Ducker: ix lprd

Tiblyn: l o r d

>Ducker changed the group chat to ‘The duck ISs loRDe’

SB: but youre ducker

Schwoopsie: Are u two high?

Ducker: yyes. Hi scwhoops

>SB changed the group chat to ‘Duckwr iz lod’

Schwoopsie: Omfg LOL

The chat ended there, but it was clear enough to Jemilla that people had been using it. Using it sparingly indeed, but enough to see updates. Evidently her friends hadn’t blocked notifications as she had.

Luckily, this was a good thing. If they were seeing and responding to each other’s drunken messages they could see and respond to an offer of catch up. From there it wouldn’t be to hard to telephone Emberly and Grunt – Chorn would probably find out through their own mad hacking skills.

Sitting on her bed, Jemilla smiled before starting to type out a message. She didn’t even check the clock to make sure her routine was on time – she had some phone calls to make.

Chapter Text

It was Monday. Or maybe Tuesday. Zazzalil didn’t really know, because once she didn’t need to worry about working all concepts of time had escaped her. What she did know was that she was standing outside of Jemilla’s apartment.

She considered knocking on her neighbour’s door, that being the principle reason for loitering before it. It wasn’t like she had been standing there for a good fifteen minutes while Jemilla’s weird middle-aged neighbours walked past twice and muttered disapprovingly about her appearance or anything. It wasn’t like she had actually knocked once before, afterwards running back into her own apartment when realising she didn’t know what to say to Jemilla when the curly haired brunette answered the door.

Deciding what to do was hard. Especially when you thought about it for too long. Usually she didn’t think too much about things for that exact reason. No thinking, no consequences. Or at least not foreseen consequences, because she didn’t stop to think of any.

Zazzalil decided to take her own advice and knocked on the door. From somewhere inside Jemilla’s apartment, footsteps sounded. The light in the corridor flickered as her heartrate increased and started thudding dully in her head.

The door opened, revealing Jemilla dressed in smart-casual clothes perfect for working at home and maintaining a business mindset while also being comfortable. Black woolly cardigan, white button up shirt, grey pants that looked both warm and suitable for wearing to a function. In contrast, Zazzalil was wearing her old work uniform jumpsuit with the top undone and tied by the sleeves around her waist. She also had one of her sweatshirts on.

Also, she was covered in flour. She also knew, as Jemilla’s eyes went wide in befuddlement and opened her mouth to say something but evidently was rendered speechless, that she regretted everything.

Everything was a lot.

‘Everything’ had started with her deciding that she’d suck it up, repress her emotions and make a move with Jemilla. The best idea she could think of was cookies, because if everything went badly they could be interpreted as a nice, platonic, neighbourly gesture. Neighbours definitely shared biscuits with each other. Baking cookies would also distract from her recently lost job, sh*tty apartment and seasonal emotional turmoil because of her parents.

Despite having been estranged from her father and stepmother for a few years by now, since college was no longer needed to be paid for and they didn’t know her address, she didn’t see them and the effects of The Anniversary couldn’t get her.

It was actually coming around the corner fast this year. Spring had already sprung upon them, and egg hunting day would be upon them at any minute. Luckily there would be enough time to emotionally prepare, unlike the year in college when she thought it couldn’t get to her, but a drunk phone call from her father and stepmother changed that. The latter complained it was Zazzalil’s fault her father was a wreck, the former blaming her for not being supportive or mourning or even ‘noticing that he was suffering, since it was all her fault anyway’. It was the same every year.

Apparently Keeri had found her early the morning after when she didn’t come back by one. Half collapsed at the bottom of some stairs and sick after drinking alcohol - along with other dubious substances – Keeri said she thought her best friend had died, she was so still. Zazzalil hardly remembered it at all, apart from a vague recollection of feeling very cold and being vigorously shaken awake. The next she had known she was waking up in her own room, piled with blankets while her best friend sat nearby, just keeping an eye on things.

In short, Keeri was a godsend. Just visiting the cheerful blonde had put Zazzalil in a better mood.

As much as seeing Keeri had been fun and left her feeling optimistic about potential future romance, she was still without a job in an apartment which she was barely paying for properly when she was employed. Rent needed to be paid soon. Sitting around doing nothing made her antsy, which became a twisting circle of bad feelings. ‘I’m feeling bad’ turned into ‘distract yourself’, which became ‘you’re wasting time’, which became ‘do something’, which became ‘I’m feeling bad’ again.

Hours over the past few days had been spent just sitting and thinking. Sometimes she would grasp an idea and it would transport her away to a different world for a little. Hopefully it was what baking would do.

Zazzalil started out the baking process rather well. She had put on her stolen work clothes in a ‘f*ck you’ to her old boss. The internet had been consulted to find the easiest chocolate chip cookie recipe there was, and surprisingly she had most of the ingredients hiding away in the dark recesses of her kitchen. This was surprising because Zazzalil never cooked and didn’t remember buying half of them.

The recipe had called for butter, sugar, a single egg, a little salt, baking powder – whatever that was – flour and obviously chocolate. Everything she almost had, apart from the baking powder. But did that matter? Probably not.

As she had followed the recipe’s steps with the precision of a child playing pin the tail on the donkey, her kitchen started to look less barren. Lights were turned on and the counters were wiped down for the first time in a while. There were good few millimetres of dust sticking stubbornly in the corners and crevices of most surfaces, which prompted Zazzalil’s discovery of some cleaning products deep beneath the sink. She didn’t know if Keeri had put them there while helping her move in or whether they were still there from the previous owners.

Either way, the apartment was coming alive.

Cooking butter she didn’t have, but spreadable butter she did. As a cup of that was melting in the microwave, she found the sugar and measured a cup of that. When it was done, she mixed the two in the largest bowl she could find and started to feel like baking was actually fun. The scent of the melted butter, the knowledge that she’d be making something… it was nice.

Then she needed to mix together the dry ingredients so she could add them to the butter/sugar mix, which was when everything went to hell.

The big problem was the flour. Zazzalil knew she had some hanging around somewhere, which was why she went ahead with baking, but its exact location was undetermined. That wasn’t good. In a slight panic, she threw all efforts into searching the cupboards yet again. If she didn’t have any flour, the cookies were screwed.

Luckily, she found the flour. Unluckily, it was at the back of one of the highest cupboards. Distantly, Zazzalil remembered having it down with the pasta but exiled it when space in the pasta draw ran out. Then she forgot about it.

There were two ways to tackle the problem. She could either climb onto the counter a get the flour, or she could try jumping with a stick to get it down. Or she could find a stable chair and stand on that. Option Stick sounded like she was least likely to be injured.

Thus, armed with a hook made from an unbent clothing hanger, Zazzalil found herself looking up to the cupboard. The flour bag was red, and the top of it was sitting just smugly in view. If she planned it properly, she’d be able to jump and hook the privileged f*ck down. The plan sounded solid in her head. She only hoped it would turn out the same way when she tried it.

It didn’t.

Taking a leap, Zazzalil successfully hooked onto the flour bag. As she landed on the floor directly below the cabinet, the bag was pulled towards her with a tearing sound. She looked up just in time to see the ripped and tipping bag spewing forth flour over the shelf, the floor, the counter, and all over her own body. It was like a small snowstorm materialised in her kitchen.

Coughing, because there was a heck load of white powder in the air which she was breathing in, Zazzalil staggered back from the counter. The flour bag, upon inspection, still had a small amount in it. Just enough to make a batch of cookies if the ratios of ingredients were ten times smaller. The flour piled onto the counter wasn’t much either, the majority of it being on the floor and stubbornly stuck in her hair and her clothes.

So what, if the cookies were ruined before she had even gotten started with them? It was fine. It was completely fine. She could go to the shops and get more flour. But then people would think she was crazy, covered in flour and wandering the streets like the worst ghost in existence. Also, why buy flour when she could get another month’s worth of packet noodles? It was great. Nothing had gone to sh*t and she wasn’t frustrated at all.

Contrary to that, she let out an annoyed yell.

On the counter, the bowl of sugar and butter sat taunting her. Zazzalil glared at it while dusting herself off, white particulate floating off into the air. She coughed again. All the cookie recipe had needed was a cup of flour, and there were probably two and a half on the floor. Her previously navy work uniform was now a lighter shade of blue with all the flour.

As she had leaned against the kitchen counter she started to feel grumpy again. Maybe there wasn’t any point in trying to make anything. It could be the universe’s way of telling her not to go see Jemilla, some freaky Romeo and Juliet fate prewritten in the stars sh*t. Then again, when did she let anyone else tell her what to do when she didn’t like what was going on? F*ck the stars, Zazzalil would see Jemilla herself.

Hopefully Jemilla had a cup of flour.

That lead her to where she was, standing before her shocked neighbour. She cleared her throat, feeling a little stupid covered in what would have been part of her cookies while her neighbour was done up to the nines. Or maybe the four-point-fives, because smart-casual wasn’t really the height of formality. Honestly it didn’t matter. Jemilla was hot.

“Hi.” She said, trying to put on her least troubled smile.

“Yeah, hi.” Jemilla said in surprise, “What happened to you?”

“I was baking.” Zazzalil replied, looking as Jemilla’s bright brown eyes scanned her over, “Can I borrow something?”

“Well, sure. What do you need?”

“I uh, need,” Zazzalil’s heart skipped a beat as her neighbour reached out and brushed a patch of flour off her shoulder. The brief contact threw her off guard. What did she need again, apart from something to stop her increasingly thudding heart? “Cup.”

Jemilla’s eyebrows raised and a slight smile appeared on her face. The taller brunette leant against the doorway casually before brushing some more flour off the other shoulder. “You need… cup.”

“Yes.” She said, more distracted than okay to answer questions properly. Holy cow, Zazzalil was very attracted to Jemilla. She took a fraction of a moment to appreciate her neighbour’s poise and general beauty.

“Just cup? Nothing else at all?”

She blinked away from Jemilla appreciation. She needed to pull herself together. What had she said? Something about cups? “Wait… the f*ck is cup?”

“I don’t know, you asked for it. Do you want to come in?” Jemilla removed her hand from her shoulder opened the door more. Zazzalil remembered what she had come to do.

“Am I allowed to,” she motioned to her own flour covered clothes, “with all this?” She wasn’t keen on messing up Jemilla’s floor or furniture.

Jemilla shrugged, still holding the door open. “Sure. But first, what is it?”

“Flour.”

“How did that happen?”

“Very quickly and not intentionally. I look stupid don’t I?”

A laugh echoed from Jemilla, “It’s not that bad. You look great.”

Zazzalil blushed slightly as she made her way inside. She made towards the window before reconsidering what flour would do to Jemilla’s cushion there, then making for the kitchen table. There she sat down, looking at the lights around the room. It always seemed to be bright in Jemilla’s apartment.

“So, what was with the cup?” her neighbour asked from closing the door.

“Aha, yes that.” Yes, about that… “I spilt my flour everywhere and I was just wondering if you maybe had some I could take.”

“Oh…”

“What?”

“I’m out of flour,” Jemilla said with a sympathetic grimace, walking to where she had a laptop sitting on the kitchen island. “I was going to go shopping after work.”

“Damn. Work is a bitch.”

“Speaking of, why aren’t you at work?”

That was when Zazzalil realised that it was one o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. People usually were still working then. She had taken to the timeless vortex which was unemployment so easily it was scary. Jemilla was looking at her expectantly and for a second, she panicked. What if Jemilla thought less of her if she knew she was out of a job?

“I got time off!” she exclaimed, trying to smile convincingly.

Jemilla quirked an eyebrow. “Is this a recent thing? I’ve been hearing music for like the past week.”

“Really?” Oops. Zazzalil had completely forgot about the thin walls.

Her neighbour nodded. “I heard Snarl screaming too. How is he going?”

“Yeah, he’s good. I gave him to a friend. I’ve been on a break for a while already. And I got a while off.”

“Geez, lucky. Your work must be great to give you so long. I get the Spanish Inquisition if I’m off sick for one day. I wish I had your boss.”

“Ha, ha… you can’t imagine…” Zazzalil chuckled somewhat uncomfortably, remembering Pincer’s threats and frankly disgusting behaviour. Zazzalil would commit murder and throw her life on the line to protect Jemilla if she ever encountered him.

“So, what were you baking?”

“Just some chocolate chip cookies.”

“I love cookies! I have a friend who makes the best cookies I swear,” Jemilla rambled happily, looking occasionally up from typing her computer. She was still working! Zazzalil couldn’t help but gaze in awe as her neighbour continued to work and talk at the same time. Multitasking suddenly appeared more attractive than it probably should have been.

“Sure,” Jemilla continued, “the recipe was a little experimental but it’s actually amazing now. From what I heard last it was one of her bestselling goods. I think that recipe won a few awards and got Emberly’s café featured in this food magazine.”

“Wow, that’s so cool!” Zazzalil said, amazed at both Jemilla’s story and the multitasking, which she was watching closely.

“Hey, we could make some together! Do you want to come shopping with me after I’m done? It’s just a few reports after this and then I’m free.”

Zazzalil looked at Jemilla for a moment, while her head started screaming unintelligible babble along the lines of ‘IT’S HAPPENING!!!’ Jemilla just asked her if she wanted to go shopping with her. Yes. Very much yes.

“Yeah, that sounds cool.”

“Great!” Jemilla said with a smile, “Do you maybe want to go get changed into something else?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m having a shower to get this sh*t off.” She gestured to her sweatshirt and jumpsuit. Some of the flour itched at her neck. “It’s not comfortable and it’s everywhere.”

“Oh no,” Jemilla chuckled, “Well, you should get to that I suppose. I’ll be done soon.”

“When should I come back?”

“Ah it’s okay, I’ll knock on your door when I’m ready. Is that fine with you?”

Zazzalil’s heart thudded in her chest, perhaps more than it had before. She could hear its beats like someone was gently knocking on the inside of her skull. This however was nothing compared to the euphoria soaring somewhere deep inside her chest.

She smiled back at Jemilla. “Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter Text

Jemilla was listening to the sound of rushing water and the eerie squeal of taps under inadequate water pressure as she finished her last report. On the floor, she could see a few places that were now powdered white from Zazzalil having visited. She’d have to sweep that up later.

It was quite funny actually, seeing her short neighbour walk around like a grumpy powdered doughnut. However, the short brunette had apparently left as a happy powdered doughnut with the smile on her face. It made Jemilla’s heart soar.

She had been feeling quite jovial lately, considering that she had recently found some direction in her quarantined life apart from sleep, work, repeat. Over the weekend she had made consecutive phone calls to the Tribe, and somehow had chaotically organised a Zoom meeting, scheduled for the weekend to come. It was going to be amazing, socialising beyond her colleagues, Molag and Zazzalil. Not that she was going to complain about seeing the latter.

After carefully mulling over Molag’s words, Jemilla had decided she was in fact very attracted to her neighbour – or should she say crush? Even if the term seemed a little juvenile, love made everyone feel young, so why not call it by what it was. Either way, she was no longer going to sit around and let life pass her by. Her aim was that If she wasn’t closer to Zazzalil in another month’s time, she was going to just ask her out. Hopefully. If circumstance permitted it.

On her computer, she clicked the submit button for her last report before mentally giving herself a high five. She’d done it! Now she could leave, even if the clock read 1.30 pm and it was earlier than she usually clocked off. Jemilla had done enough overtime to make up for it.

For the next fifteen minutes, she almost flew around her apartment. The laptop was returned to its place, she changed from her work clothes into sweatpants and a polar fleece jacket, and she collated a list of everything she needed to buy. Currently it was composed of flour, fruits and vegetables, soap and milk.

When she was satisfied that the list was complete and could no longer hear the sound of running water from Zazzalil’s apartment, she collected a beanie and some shopping bags. Then left her apartment, locked the door behind her and walked to her neighbour’s door.

Upon knocking, the door opened and Zazzalil walked out, clothed unsurprisingly in sweatpants and a hoodie. Her hair looked darker and still damp, trailing from beneath the slate grey beanie she had been wearing almost a week before when Snarl was caught. The short brunette was also free of all traces of flour.

“Hey again. Got the flour off?” Jemilla asked, smiling.

“Come take a look at this,” Zazzalil said, beckoning Jemilla into the apartment.

She followed complacently, slightly abuzz. She had never seen where her crush lived apart from glimpses through the open door and mentions of the sh*tty state of the apartment in conversation. From what she’d seen of it before, it was rather bare and gloomy. But not like an emo kid writing angsty poetry in a decaying Victorian manor gloomy. What she’d previously glanced upon was more like a school over summer break – packed away and devoid of life.

Inside the apartment, the layout a mirror image of her own down to the wide windowsill, the emptiness was widespread. There were no shelves or ornamental lights and Zazzalil’s furniture was a mismatch of a stiff couch and cheap looking table. The dead flowers in a vase – which she had seen through the door – upon closer inspection were stuffed into an oddly shaped jar.

“Here. This is what I did,” Zazzalil pointed to inside the kitchen area, where there was flour all over the floor, shelves, and the counter. In the white powder footprints tracked away from a vacant imprint of where her crush must have been standing when the incident happened.

“That’s quite a bit of flour.” Jemilla said, looking to Zazzalil. The brunette was looking at the whitened floor with contemplation and slight chagrin.

“No sh*t. That was supposed to be in my cookies.”

They both stood silently and stared at the mess of white.

“Well, that’s what we’re going to the shops for right?” Jemilla said, hoping to get things moving again. It was kind of depressing standing and staring. The undefined grey of Zazzalil’s apartment didn’t help.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Jemilla followed the short brunette out of the apartment, waited as she locked the door, and together they ventured into the stairwell. It was no cheerier than Zazzalil’s apartment had been, and there was little conversation between the two of them. Nevertheless, Jemilla felt happier being in her neighbour’s presence, no matter how sad the building was.

As they exited the building from the lobby, Jemilla was determined to get conversation going again.

“So, how have you been?” she asked as they broached the footpath, “how’s that extended time off been going?”

“Oh yeah, that’s fine. I’ve sort of just been hanging around.”

“Yeah? I wish I had some time off. How did you even go about getting it?”

“Eh,” Zazzalil shrugged, “I sort of just thought: ‘I don’t really wanna do the work today. Or any other day for a little while.’”

Jemilla laughed, “So you just got time off?”

“Yep. Just went right up to my boss and was like ‘Hey I’m going to get time off now man, and there’s nothing you can do.’”

“Wow. How long are you off for?”

“Um…” Zazzalil hesitated, like she wasn’t sure about how to answer. “It’s a short while. It’s kinda not proper time off. More of a ‘I’m not doing work at work so how about I work at home’ thing.”

Jemilla nodded, humming in recognition. “So, you’re still being payed? Is the council getting a package from the government to pay employees while they’re off?”

“Yes.” Zazzalil said, “That is what it is.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“I’m never f*cking sure about anything.”

They both rounded the corner, the mid-afternoon sun shining brightly for such a cold day. The supermarket was still two blocks away, on the other side of the road, meaning they still had at least a little while to appreciate the outside world. For a rather urban area, Clivesdale was actually rather nice. There were trees planted along the side of the road, cute shrubs here and there, and where grass was able to be put in, there was grass.

As they walked, Jemilla carefully watched her crush out of the corner of her eye. Zazzalil’s own deep brown eyes seemed brighter, and she had a slight spring in her step. It was almost a shame it was cold and they both had their hands shoved inside their pockets. Jemilla had sort of been looking forward to the thrill of ‘accidentally’ brushing hands with Zazzalil.

Two blocks shot by like bullets, and in no time at all they were standing outside of the supermarket. Automatically, Jemilla grabbed a trolley from the line of them outside in the car park to put her goods in, before walking straight to the sliding doors. As they went entered, Zazzalil paused.

“What are you doing?” Jemilla asked, stopping the cart.

“Getting a basket,” Zazzalil said, looking at Jemilla like she had three eyes, “for my stuff. It’s what you do before you start shopping so you can carry everything.”

“No, just put your shopping in with mine.”

“But our stuff will get mixed up.”

“That’s fine,” Jemilla said with a smile and a shrug, “Worst comes to worst I’ll pay for something and you can pay me back.”

“Welp, anything you accidentally pay for is your loss.”

“Sure, sure. Let’s go. Can you hold the list?”

“That’s fine.”

Jemilla handed off the list before starting for the fresh produce section, where the fruits and vegetables were all displayed on an angle in their trays. She needed to re-stock on her fresh food, considering that she always used hers up before it needed to be frozen or had gone off. Behind her, Zazzalil made a noise of disbelief.

“Where are you going?” the short brunette asked, an expression of confusion on her face.

“What do you mean? To the fresh food, obviously,” Jemilla said, baffled at her crush, “where else?”

“The first thing on the list is flour. That’s in the baking aisle.”

“Yeah, but we’re not getting that now.”

Zazzalil looked even more surprised. “You don’t go down the list?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you look at the first thing, go find it and then tick it off. Then you go to the second thing.”

“That’s not efficient,” Jemilla chuckled, because only idiots and Zazzalil would go down the list. “Unless you only need, like, three things, you make your way through the shop and tick stuff off as you buy it. Much less unnecessary wandering.”

“But what if you forget something?!”

“Then you go back and get it. But since you tick everything off as you go along, you don’t forget anything.”

“What if it’s not on the list.” Zazzalil said, now sounding competitive. Oh, it was on. Jemilla wasn’t against some competition and light debate. Her way of buying things was definitely better.

“Then you’ve already seen it, or things that are like it, and it’s easier to go back and find it.” Jemilla said back, letting all the confidence seep into her voice.

“What if you don’t need something after all?”

“Then you don’t buy it in the first place.”

“But –”

“Excuse me,” came a tired voice and Jemilla looked up to see an old man with dark skin, dungarees and a red jumper. He was hunched over and limped crookedly, clutching a basket – which held a hat – in one hand and the hand of a small, white, blond haired boy in the other. “But my grandson and I need to get through to get some beef. You’re in the way.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Jemilla exclaimed, moving her trolley out of the way. The blond boy and the old man shuffled past, the child’s eyes brimming with tears.

“Yeah Jemilla, get out of the way – wait is he okay?” Zazzalil taunted jokingly, before concernedly asking about the boy, who quietly started wailing.

“Bah,” the old man said, turning and looking lovingly at the child, “His dumb father told him where meat comes from. Won’t touch a single piece of it.” He looked up to Jemilla and Zazzalil, face cracking into a smile, “It’s steak for dinner tonight.”

The boy wailed more, before the pair moved off.

“Welp, how about we just go up and down the aisles.” Jemilla said, watching the grandfather grandson duo move along with mystification.

“Yeah…” Zazzalil was looking as equally perplexed, “Up and down the aisles…”

They continued exactly like that, gradually filling the trolley. Apart from the fresh produce Jemilla had wanted, she bought pasta, some cooking butter, milk – which was limited to two cartons per customer and oatmeal. Soap products were only one per customer, as was flour.

Zazzalil on the other hand had a myriad of seemingly unrelated items to buy. Packet noodles, toothpaste, spreadable butter, soap of her own, shampoo and when they were half way down the confectionary aisle…

“Gummy bears! Gummy bears gummy bears gummy bears…”

“What?” Jemilla looked around after stalling the trolley, having been fast walking down the aisle. She needed nothing from the aisle – she wasn’t going to ruin her body with junk foods when she could be eating fruit. But Zazzalil had stopped and was doing a victory dance in the middle of the aisle.

“Gummy bears Jemilla! The best food in the world!” Zazzalil exclaimed, grabbing what appeared to be several packets and throwing them into the shopping trolley.

“Do you really need that many?”

“Uh, yes.”

“I don’t think so,” Jemilla picked up six of the seven packets and put the back.

“Hey!” Zazzalil went and grabbed some of them back, looking at Jemilla with a slight frown. “I need those!”

“No you don’t,” she put the lollies back again.

Zazzalil’s face split into a smug, sh*t eating grin as she picked up a pack of gummy bears. The shorter girl stared Jemilla dead in the eyes. “Fight me.”

Oh. So, this was how they were playing it. Jemilla stepped towards Zazzalil confidently, etching a smirk onto her face as she grabbed onto the bears. Zazzalil didn’t let go. They were maybe half a foot apart.

“Be careful what you say. I might just take you up on that offer.”

Zazzalil’s eyes went wide, before someone cleared their throat behind them.

Once again, Jemilla turned around, this time moving the trolley and hoping to duck it wasn’t the old man and his vegetarian-to-be grandson. It wasn’t. Instead, looking entirely bored with the world and sipping on a toxic blue Slurpee, was a young person dressed in a red cap and faded crimson, orange and yellow tie die shirt. They stopped drinking and nodded towards both Jemilla and Zazzalil.

“Are you two together?” the teen asked in an obnoxious voice. He sounded high.

Oh. OH. OH SH*T. Suddenly Jemilla was at a loss for words. Firstly, who even just asked random people something like that? And secondly, this wasn’t going to make anything awkward at all! This random teenager had just ruined every chance she had with Zazzalil!

“Uh… why do you ask?”

The teen nodded once again towards them. “That’s not social distancing. I could tell the cops or… tell the supermarket people on you.”

Jemilla looked at the six inches between her and Zazzalil. The short brunette did the same, eye’s catching Jemilla’s. She could almost see the panic reflected back at her. Welp. Oh sh*t².

“Well, we…” Jemilla tried to communicate with Zazzalil through her eyes. She had no desire to be kicked out of the shop. “Yes? We uh, we are…”

“We’re together.” Zazzalil said resolutely, snaking an arm around Jemilla’s waist and leaning into her side. Jemilla almost had a heart attack. Zazzalil was doing… whatever she was doing.

In that moment, despite being taken by surprise by her neighbour, Jemilla felt good. Correction, she felt HIGH. Having Zazzalil at her side felt strangely normal, like the short brunette belonged there. They said that some people fit together like jigsaw pieces, and now she knew what the saying meant.

It was actually sort of frightening. As she was standing there, she couldn’t even imagine what Zazzalil was feeling. But while she was scared, she also felt an ecstasy. It was not unlike a runner taking off at the sound of a gun or a writer coming up with the rest of their plot and realising they knew what was going on. In short: HOLY F*CK.

“Yeah, we are.” Jemilla said confidently, putting her own arm around Zazzalil’s shoulder. “What’s it to you?”

The kid nodded his head again, taking a sip of his Slurpee. “That’s gay.”

“Uh, no sh*t! That’s how lesbians work,” Zazzalil said, before clearing her own throat. “And thank you. It – it would be an insult if you said we were straight.”

“All cool. Good for you I guess,” the kid said, before grabbing a packet of something and moving to walk away backwards. “I’m gonna go get hiiiiiigh.”

“Uh, stay safe?” Jemilla called, as the youth backed out of the aisle. She let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her heart however didn’t stop beating, and adrenaline was flowing around her body. She felt like she needed to shout very loudly or run around, being full of energy.

Zazzalil cleared her throat, and Jemilla realised the breath wasn’t the only thing she was holding. She still had an arm over her neighbour’s shoulders, the smaller girl thus still tucked into her side.

“Oops, uh… sorry.” Jemilla let go of her crush’s shoulder.

“It’s fine.” Zazzalil said, side stepping away.

Zazzalil’s arm disappeared from around her waist. Internally, Jemilla screamed for the contact to continue because it felt so… natural. It was the highest she’d felt since the experimental with a lot of alcohol in college. But unlike drinking herself stupid, it was something she would not mind doing again. In fact, she could get very used to it. It was as if Zazzalil was an extremely potent addictive drug and Jemilla was now hooked.

She turned to Zazzalil. She was almost trembling slightly. Was it from adrenaline too, like Jemilla’s feeling of energy in her veins? Was the short brunette experiencing the same high she had yet to come down from?

“Well,” Jemilla said breathlessly, “that was a close one.”

“No sh*t.” Zazzalil agreed.

Chapter Text

Zazzalil could only describe what was going on inside her head as a train accident. She wanted to tune out of it and look away, but she couldn’t. It was as if someone had mixed the feelings of drinking a liquid rainbow, existential dread and a jump-scare. The emotions were causing absolute chaos, while simultaneously her heart rate had increased a hundred-fold and its dull thuds were echoing loudly in her skull.

All the emotions were fogging up her head, and behind these she could just recognise instinctual observations. It was like someone had released a swarm of flies into a room with a single jar of honey in the middle, her mind being the honey and the flies being emotions, while the room sat back and was all like ‘huh… that’s a lot of flies’.

In this case, while Zazzalil internally panicked because holy hell, she and Jemilla were sorta-kinda hugging, deep down within her she knew that it felt nice. Really nice. Then while she slightly obsessed about what this would mean in the future, and oh duck had her gay heart been yearning for this forever, she thought: ‘Yeah. This is nice. This is something I could get used to.’

But the raging battle of convoluted emotions became harder to ignore and oh f*ck the room was full of flies, each one representing a thought and they were all buzzing louder and louder…

“Uh, stay safe?” Zazzalil heard Jemilla say, and the teenager that had started it all shuffled backwards out of the junk food aisle.

Oh, how Zazzalil both loathed and wanted to thank that teenager. The high, nosy youth who had caused her to have a heart attack. What was he going to do about them not social distancing? Certainly not tell the police, not with how high they were at two o’clock on a Tuesday. A different part of her wondered exactly why her first reaction to being asked if she was together with Jemilla was to go all out fake relationship with her neighbour. The same neighbour who played along. The neighbour who didn’t deny it, in fact starting the whole thing. The neighbour who was still holding Zazzalil’s shoulder holy f*ck her gay heart exploded.

She nearly let out a half panicked, half ecstatic squeak. A f*cking squeak. Boy oh boy would that end in lots of questions. Luckily masked it by clearing her throat, and Jemilla seemed none the wiser. Whew, lucky save…

“Oops, uh… sorry.” Jemilla said awkwardly.

Mentally Zazzalil protested as the taller girl took her hand off her shoulder, wishing for the hand to be replaced, but instead she side stepped away with “It’s fine.”

It was fine. Totally fine. Her heart rate wasn’t increasing at all. She definitely wasn’t obsessing over how this could have ruined everything. What if she came on too strong with the pretending to be together thing? What if Jemilla only saw it as a way to get rid of the teenager? Also, somewhere in the back of her mind, she didn’t like how her shoulders were cold now that they didn’t have Jemilla’s arm draped over them.

Zazzalil shivered slightly, trying not to think about how cold it felt or how awkward it was going to be. Or maybe it wouldn’t be awkward. Was there a saying that sort of went along the lines of ‘it’s not awkward unless you make it awkward’?

“Well, that was a close one.” Jemilla said with an exhale, almost like she was out of breath.

“No sh*t,” Zazzalil said, then deciding that it would indeed only be awkward if she made it awkward. “Should we keep shopping?”

“Yeah. What’s on the list still?”

“Uh… soap, frozen peas… more frozen stuff…”

“Let’s get to that then.”

The rest of the time at the shops was spent chatting idly and clumsily about prices of goods, the availability of soap and which items were in high demand since quarantine had become effective several weeks ago. Since the initial rush, it appeared that toilet paper and other similar products were on the shelves again. Priced higher, but present. It was the same for canned goods and pasta, which previously were cleared out.

By the time they left, Zazzalil was over twenty-five dollars poorer but then in possession of four packs of packet noodles, flour, corn chips, soap, toothpaste and two packs of gummy bears. Her total purchases fit into a reusable bag Jemilla had forced upon her at the self-serve checkout. Her neighbour on the other hand had three bags stocked with more substantial looking goods, including a 3kg bag of oranges and an equally weighty and orange bag of carrots. Those she had somehow been roped into carrying.

Maybe it was how attractive Jemilla was, or that her mind was still reeling from the whole confectionary aisle incident, but Zazzalil didn’t mind being pulled in to carry an extra six kilograms of shopping. It made her feel useful. And she also maybe wanted to show off a bit

It was carrying the shopping on the way back to their apartment building when a conversation came up. And not just a normal conversation either. A Conversation™.

The afternoon sun was still shining but had dipped slightly lower in the sky. It was at the point when the light was almost starting to get golden, where the sky became a fraction dimmer and the clouds turned from stark white to a muted cream. Zazzalil was walking and looking at the clouds, shopping bags swaying in her hands and occasionally bumping into her legs. She was also keeping a wary eye on Jemilla – who she was striding alongside.

She was considering the woodsmoke scent in the air, wondering where it exactly came from, when her neighbour spoke up.

“So… gay?” Jemilla asked casually, not sounding accusatory nor intrusive. Just… curious.

“Wait, do you mean me?” Zazzalil asked back, because her brain short circuited and

“Who else? Yes, you. I should probably have been a bit more straight forward though,” Jemilla chuckled before launching into an awkward ramble, “because if I just said ‘gay’ it could mean anything and maybe not your sexuality – which is what I’m asking about, obviously. Also I’m sorry if I’m being intrusive but after the supermarket and all –”

“It’s okay! Yeah, I’m pretty gay… very gay actually. I’m a lesbian.”

“Oh, nice.”

“Yeah… you?” Zazzalil asked, even though she already knew that Jemilla was pansexual because Molag had mentioned a pride flag and outed her. Also, she didn’t know how to respond to ‘oh, nice.’

“I’m pan.”

“Cool.”

The conversation ended there, but it was by no means forgotten as the apartment building grew near. Not only had Zazzalil’s heart resumed actively skipping beats here and there, but the cloud of thoughts in her head which had died down started to make a comeback.

Firstly, she was extremely happy. She was one hundred percent certain that Jemilla wasn’t straight, as if it hadn’t been clear enough already from the taller girl’s haircut and Molag. This was good because there was a solid possibility that Zazzalil had a chance with her. But on the flipside maybe she was just friend material, or maybe she just wasn’t Jemilla’s type. That was something that could happen, and she wanted to respect that if it ever came up.

But there was no harm in trying her chances with Jemilla – even though yes, there was so much harm in trying and who knew what could happen. But otherwise, no harm in trying. Zazzalil kept that in mind.

The apartment building eventually loomed up out of the ground, all red brick with white concrete working in tandem to create the boxiest looking construction there ever was. Zazzalil followed Jemilla through the foyer and quickly up the grey stairwell, which despite the afternoon sun remained as demoralising as ever.

When she reached her apartment door, preparing to go in and put her shopping away, Jemilla spoke up again.

“I uh… you’re still coming to make cookies now, right?” the taller brunette looked a little concerned, slight worry and query etched across her face.

“Oh yeah,” Zazzalil replied, “we’re doing that now?”

“Well, yes. But only if you want to of course.”

“Yeah! Hell yeah! I just need to –” she raised her bag of shopping, “Put this away.”

She busied herself with fumbling to get her keys from the pocket of her sweatpants, while an almost melodic laugh rang from Jemilla.

“Do you want me to take that bag from you?” the curly haired girl had amusement in her eyes, which were shining with an energy Zazzalil couldn’t place.

“No, it’s okay. I can do it,” the keys were just out of reach… maybe if she inverted her wrist she’d e able to grab them… “It is my shopping after all.”

“Oh, is it now?” When Zazzalil looked up, her neighbour’s face had split into a smirk.

“What?”

“Is that your shopping?”

She looked to the bag in her hand. Gummy bears, corn chips, flour… “Yeah, this is my stuff. I’ve got gummy bears in here.”

“So it’s all yours?”

“…yes?”

“Even the six kilograms of carrots and oranges?”

“Oh… no.” Zazzalil looked to her other hand, where Jemilla’s reusable bag was swinging slightly. It bumped into her leg. She passed it over to Jemilla with a sheepish smile. “I forgot about that.”

“Forgot about six kilograms of fruit and vegetables?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Shut up.”

Jemilla chuckled again, while Zazzalil used her free hand to pull her keys from her pocket. “No, no. I’m actually impressed you forgot about the extra six kilos you were carrying.”

“Shut up.” Zazzalil successfully unlocked her apartment, going to enter but turning to her neighbour. “Do we need anything for the cookies?”

“Well, I need you of course,” Jemilla said with a grin, which made Zazzalil’s stomach flip and her heart jolt, “But I bought flour and chocolate so… Just bring anything you think we could use.”

“Okay.”

Heart pounding in a good way, Zazzalil excused herself into her apartment.

Inside, after closing the door and taking a deep breath, she looked around and sighed. It was cold, dim, and quiet. Almost like an alternate dimension hidden away in one series of rooms. On the kitchen floor, the flour was still settled on surfaces like the ashes on Pompeii. She’d have to clean that up, even if it felt like a small slice of history. What would the historians say if this was what they found years in the future?

“Probably something depressing.” She muttered to herself, stepping past the remains of the cookies that weren’t meant to be, to the cupboards and drawers at the other end of the kitchen.

Flour was stuffed back in the pasta drawer with the packet noodles, the corn chips were flung into an empty cupboard and the gummy bears were left out on the kitchen counter while the toothpaste and soap were hastily placed in the bathroom.

Taking the two packets of gummy bears, Zazzalil took a look at her apartment from the door. The kitchen floor was similar to ground zero of a nuclear warhead deployment. The rest of the apartment could have been a stock image for an abandoned building. Even though the sun was illuminating her space, the light brought no life to the room.

Slightly disturbed and feeling unsettling melancholy creeping into head, she left.

In contrast, after knocking and being let inside, Jemilla’s apartment could have featured in a housing magazine. The afternoon light was streaming in through the windows, and the light above the stove was shining. After answering the door Jemilla went to washing some of the produce she had bought, and Zazzalil, feeling a little useless if she were to sit and do nothing on the windowsill, stood awkwardly next to the kitchen island.

“Do you need help?” she asked, watching as her neighbour moved a colander full of freshly washed oranges to the dish rack.

“Not really – but if you have a cookie recipe you could get that out.” Jemilla said with a smile.

“Ah…” she chuckled self-deprecatorily, “well I was sort of just using one I found on the internet.”

“I think I’ve got a recipe somewhere. Try looking under there.” A delicate hand pointed to the kitchen island Zazzalil was leaning against.

She looked down, but there was nothing to look under… what the f*ck? She circled it and found some grooves on Jemilla’s side of the island, but otherwise nothing.

“Umm…” Zazzalil noted, “There’s nothing to look under.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s attached to the floor. There’s just island.”

Jemilla snorted. “You dumbass, there are drawers under there.”

Zazzalil looked from the blank side of the island to her neighbour, to the island and back to her neighbour again. “Where?!”

“Here,” Jemilla pushed against the side of the island and…

“Holy sh*t, a cupboard!”

“Cool right? You push to open it.”

“Yeah… so cookbooks?”

“I mean, I think I can remember a recipe,” Jemilla said, but pulled out a particularly think and heavy looking binder with both hands and dropped it onto the island with a thud, “But it’s better safe than sorry.”

The recipe in question was located right in the middle of the binder and was unpretentiously titled ‘Chocolate Cookies’, apparently scanned from an even more simply titled book called ‘Chocolate!’ Ingredients included flour, corn starch, sugar of both brown and white kinds, a sh*t ton of butter, an egg, baking soda, salt and vanilla.

Jemilla was sure to immediately pre-heat the oven and set Zazzalil to measuring ingredients. She started with the flour, seeing as it was right out on the kitchen countertop. However, that was short lived when she opened the paper bag and a large puff of loose white powder landed right on her sweatshirt. It wasn’t that bad, but her neighbour’s eyes focused in on it immediately and Zazzalil could almost see the wheels turning in her head.

“Come with me,” Jemilla said, motioning for Zazzalil to follow her into the corridor. They stopped at the huge-ass hall closet, where the taller brunette disappeared inside for a second before returning. “Here, turn around.”

Only a little nervous, with her heartbeat rising once again, Zazzalil did as she was instructed, turning to face away from her neighbour.

A pair of arms and hands clasping a bundle of starched white fabric appeared in her vision. The stiff cloth unfolded, and the hands moved behind her to bring a loop of material over her neck. Looking down, Zazzalil saw that she was sporting an apron, firm white cloth decorated on the front with the handwritten words ‘Cook like I can see You’.

“What’s this?” Zazzalil turned her head to look at Jemilla, fiercely trying to ignore the feeling of the curly haired brunette grabbing the apron ties that were hanging beside her waist.

“Turn around again, you’ll make the apron sit funnily,” Jemilla lightly admonished, as though scolding a distracted child, “It’s a present from my friend Emberly, she owns a café and has mad cooking skills.”

“That’s cool.” She could feel the apron strings being pulled gently taut before the beginning of a knot was tied. “Why do I need it? I’m not that clumsy.”

“Sure you’re not are. This is a precaution.” The apron strings tightened.

“What for?”

“High shelves.” Jemilla said with a chuckle, while Zazzalil could feel tension on the apron, “Is that tight enough?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Also how dare you.” The sensation of something being tampered with behind her back, before pressure on a certain spot and Jemilla stepped away.

“I dare rather easily,” the taller girl moved to stand before Zazzalil and looked her up and down. “That’s better.”

Zazzalil sighed, “I would have been fine! But thanks… I suppose.”

“You’re welcome. Come on, cookies don’t bake themselves.”

They certainly didn’t, as Jemilla mostly did the work and Zazzalil helped in the same way children helped cook. She got to mix things together, measure ingredients and generally accept what tasks Jemilla deemed worthy of her honestly top notch culinary skills… or lack thereof.

Despite the making of the cookies not being an entire group effort, she had a lot of fun. Mixing the butter and sugar went well, and the only close call was made when she read the recipe incorrectly and went to add in the chocolate chips right after mixing the sugar and warm melted butter together.

“No!” Jemilla had exclaimed, reaching out and grabbing the chocolate chip bag from Zazzalil’s hands. She looked like she’d just stopped a child from putting a fork in an electric socket or a dog from eating something it shouldn’t have. “Oh my duck.”

“What?” Zazzalil asked, looking at her neighbour quizzically. Surely she had been following the recipe. What was wrong?

“You don’t add the chocolate until last!”

“Oh. Why not?”

“It melts while you’re mixing it. We want chocolate chip cookies not chocolate cookies.”

“Well… yeah.”

That maybe was the point at which Zazzalil had all and any recipe following privileges revoked. Either way, the cookie dough came together nicely, and after lots of pestering on her part and a stone-cold resolve on Jemilla’s, they went into the oven with no dough taken out to eat raw. The apron however did not escape unscathed.

“You know, I’m glad this decision was made.” Jemilla said, whilst fiddling with the apron strings behind Zazzalil’s back. The cookies were in the oven still, and they were cleaning up. “Just look at you.”

When she looked down, Zazzalil could see that the apron was nicely covered with a mixture of the dry ingredients and some of the sugar/butter mixture that she had stirred a little too vigorously. Also a lot a water and a few melted chocolate stains. Honestly, she was glad to have the apron on too – she was wearing her last clean sweatshirt and wouldn’t have anything else to wear. While not having a heart attack because Jemilla was undoing the apron, she made a mental note to do laundry soon.

“I mean… it’s hard to get this undone, but you made a mess.”

“I didn’t,” Zazzalil protested, “it made itself.”

“It didn’t, that was all you,” some more fiddling with the apron, before Jemilla’s voice turned contemplative, “I don’t think we’re getting this off very soon.”

“What?”

“The knot just got way more complicated.”

“Oh no.” This certainly wouldn’t do, being stuck in Jemilla’s apron in her warm, bright, not covered in flour apartment. She sighed dramatically. “That’s a shame.”

“Yep. You’re just going to have to stay here I guess.” Jemilla said, “Maybe even for dinner.”

“Is that an offer?” Zazzalil asked, turning to look at her neighbour, who just smiled and shrugged.

“Maybe. Do you accept?”

“Yeah!”

“Sounds good. But turn around, I want to see if I can untie this anymore.”

Zazzalil turned and stood still, allowing herself to zone out a little as Jemilla tried to coerce the apron strings into cooperation. The apartment smelt like baking cookies, it was bright and it was warm. It also wasn’t covered in flour, and she very much wanted to procrastinate on cleaning the mess several metres to the right of the room she was standing in.

She was going to stay for longer whether food was on offer or not. Also she was very gay and oh duck did Jemilla just put her hand on her back for a second?

Chapter Text

Jemilla watched as Zazzalil was in the process of sticking gummy bears into the soft and warm cookies, fresh from the oven. The shorter girl was still sporting the apron Jemilla had put on her, which had been a good investment into how clean her furniture would be later.

It was funny, because although the apron was a good thing, she hadn’t anticipated the strings becoming undoable when she tied them. That had resulted in five minutes of standing behind her crush trying to unknot them. She would have tried for longer had Zazzalil not started to shift around on the spot before attempting to wriggle her way out of the stiff white apron to no success.

Jemilla had offered that her neighbour could sit on the island and then she could continue to try to free the brunette. To that Zazzalil had frowned slightly, scrunching up her nose and claiming that was too childish.

Thus, the smaller girl had been limited to roaming the floor area around the kitchen and table, where any dirty apron meets clean couch accidents couldn’t happen. It would work until at least after dinner – after that Jemilla didn’t know what she’d do. Cut the apron strings and do her best to sew new ties on it.

Inviting Zazzalil over for dinner hadn’t been planned. Jemilla’s plans for dinner had been to make a big bowl of salad. If she was still hungry afterwards she’d bring out the blender, which would both passive aggressively shoot the middle finger at her painfully heteronormative middle-aged neighbours and give her a nice fruit smoothie to drink. But then the cookies had happened, and at the shops she had thought ahead… the result was ingredients for fried rice and the hopes Zazzalil could use chopsticks.

For the moment, Jemilla was using the whole of the now cookie scented kitchen for preparing dinner. Her crush had been relocated to the table, where all the cookies spread out on plates. Many were now decorated with gummy bears in varying patterns, all melting slowly, some looking more distinct than others.

“Hey, when can we eat these?” Zazzalil piped up.

“Not yet. They need to cool,” Jemilla answered, slightly preoccupied because she had to keep a careful eye on the rice in case it boiled over. “I was going to wait until they were solid enough to put them in the fridge and that would speed things up.”

The fridge was also why she’d let her crush put gummy bears in the biscuits anyway, because they’d cool down and not leave sticky, sugary messes everywhere. She had to admit she did think gummy bear chocolate chip cookies had levels of sugar not fit for human beings to consume. It would probably also taste pretty funky. But Zazzalil had asked, Jemilla was very attracted to her, and the cookies did look cool…

On the table a whole plate was devoted to biscuits with only the letters G, A and Y formed from gummy bears. Several others had lines of bears squashed as close together as possible to create pseudo pride flags.

“Do you like them?”

“Yeah. They’re very…” she struggled to think of any descriptor than…

“Gay?” Zazzalil took the words right of her mouth.

“That’s it. Also, they look like they’d give cavities to your cavities.”

“Psych, I don’t have any cavities.”

“Really?”

“Well… I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been to a dentist in ages. Like before college ages.”

Jemilla swiftly turned to her neighbour. “You haven’t been to a dentist since before college?!”

“Correct!” Zazzalil emphasised her point by throwing a gummy bear into the air and catching it in her mouth. It was moderately impressive.

“How long ago was that?”

“Eh… six years maybe? Five? I don’t know, I’m not really keeping track.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“It’s not that bad – Jemilla, the rice!”

A louder gurgling sound than what had been quietly simmering on the stove caught her attention; large white bubbles were rising in the pot and threatening to push the lid off. Jemilla turned the heat on the stove down. The pot settled.

“That was a close one.” Zazzalil commented, before pushing back from the table. “These are done. What do you want me to do with them?”

“Oh, uh…” there was so much going on, she didn’t really know where to start. She had vegetables to chop and the pot to watch, where would she put the cookies? “Put them in here.”

Jemilla paused cooking to grab a large plastic container, and soon the rice came off the heat as Zazzalil packed away the cookies, every now and then taking a gummy bear to eat. She could only imagine what effects the sugar would take on her crush’s system.

After a short while, the sun started to dip below the sky. The rest of the apartment was dim, illuminated only by the kitchen lights and faint light from the sunset. It was painted in saffron at the horizon, peeking out from the next apartment building over, the clouds higher above in pale purple. While taking a short break between cutting carrot, Jemilla turned on the various sets of fairy lights scattered around the main room.

She took great joy in watching not only the sky’s natural display of colour, but the wonder that reflected off Zazzalil’s eyes as the smaller brunette gazed at the lights in awe. It made a bubble of elation rise in her chest and left her trying not to smile giddily.

Eventually, the sun plummeted below the horizon and the apartment was filled with the scent of cooking food. Jemilla had been switching between absentmindedly cooking, wordlessly watching the sun go down and chatting with Zazzalil, who was making gummy bear trick shots.

Despite it being hardly exciting, she was happy. She had her crush, her apartment and all the time in the world to enjoy them.

The domesticity of it all both pleased and surprised her.

She smiled to herself and went back to cooking.

Fifteen minutes later, the fried rice was ready and Jemilla set bowls on the table. Zazzalil, who had been semi-slumped in her chair and just seemed to be vibing while slowly making her way through the rest of the gummy bears, straightened up and looked about sheepishly.

“What’s up?” Jemilla asked, watching as her crush took the pair of chopsticks that were before her and dexterously held them, “How was the wait while I went silent for a while?”

“I got the apron off.”

“What? You did?”

“Yeah. It was a bastard to untie though. Some things need Velcro.”

She hadn’t even noticed, but sure enough, the brunette no longer had the stiff white apron on. When Jemilla looked around more attentively she could see that it was draped over the back of one of the other chairs

“Hey, good job!”

“Thanks. I do feel sort of bad though,” Zazzalil admitted after a slight smile to herself, ducking her head before looking Jemilla in the eyes. “You did all of the work.”

Jemilla wouldn’t be ashamed to admit she secretly didn’t mind the smaller brunette’s lack of assistance with the food. Frankly, she preferred it that Zazzalil was kept as far away from the knives and boiling water as possible. She had seen what happened with flour, and spending the night taking her neighbour to an emergency department because of a similar accident with sharp objects was not something she wanted to do.

“It’s okay,” she said, “And what was that smile for?”

“Nothing,” Zazzalil smiled again to herself, “I’m probably a little high on those gummy bears.”

“Oh god no. You haven’t ruined dinner by eating them, have you?”

“No, I haven’t ruined my dinner or whatever. You sound exactly like a parent.”

“Molag raised me. One of us had to be responsible and it certainly wasn’t her.” Jemilla said, taking the pan of fried rice and moving it to the table.

“You sure? Molag seems responsible to me.”

She shot Zazzalil a faux annoyed look as she scooped some fried rice into her bowl. “Responsible enough, but not that much.”

“Well,” Zazzalil said as she took the serving spoon, “she did mention raccoon jerky when you were getting bandaids or whatever…”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Raccoon jerk –”

“No, no no no no. I’m eating now, I don’t want to know,” she moved to eating her fried rice, watching as Zazzalil grinned and got some food herself, “No more dubious jerky talk until eating’s over.”

Dinner proceeded in the fashion of conversation ensuing in between eating, generally one person speaking while the other made their way through their food. Otherwise it was quiet, with only the faint sounds of other apartments’ business echoing through the thin walls.

After dinner was eaten and the plates taken away to be stacked for later washing, Jemilla found herself sitting at the table with Zazzalil still. They had been talking, or rather Zazzalil had been talking while Jemilla listened. As she was treated to an anecdote about a high fence and someone’s dog, her mind wandered slightly. What time was it? It was dark outside, she had closed the curtains and blinds a while ago, but she didn’t have any idea of whether she needed to consider starting to wind down for the night.

It shouldn’t have been a problem, but on work nights Jemilla grew increasingly conscious of the time the later it got. She had to be up early in the morning. It wasn’t extremely late, only – she looked quickly at her clock – seven forty-five. It was early eight o’clock. She had been with her neighbour since maybe two in the afternoon or so, which was a whole five and a bit hours ago. Where had the time gone?

“And I was all like ‘f*ck this sh*t, I’m out of here.’” Zazzalil narrated between gummy bears, “And this huge rottweiler was all ‘rah’ but I was already going up the fence. A fence that was like, six feet tall! Do you know how tall that is?”

“Is it six feet tall?” Jemilla asked, a smile slipping onto her face. She knew where the time had gone. Time flew when you were having fun… or spending time with someone you were attracted to and distracted by.

“Yeah! That’s like… huge!” Zazzalil held an arm up for emphasis, the other reaching for the gummy bears. However, the small brunette frowned, glaring at the confectionary bag and shaking it a little.

“What is it?”

“It’s empty.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah! And it’s not fair!”

“How many have you had?” Jemilla asked, grabbing the bag from her pouting crush and trying to read its net weight. “Oh my god, two hundred and seventy-five grams. Did you eat all of these?”

“I think so… They’re not in the bag anymore.” Zazzalil murmured, looking around at the table slightly.

“Well no sh*t Sherlock. You ate the others as well, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Wait – yes I did.”

“You’re going to get sick.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are – you’ve eaten two and a half packets of gummy bears at least!” Jemilla exclaimed with a laugh in disbelief. Why was her crush the way she was? Why was it sort of cute? And why was it giving her butterflies? “How do you feel?”

“I feel great!” Zazzalil stated, standing up and swinging her arms around, “I’m going to be fine.”

“Right…” Jemilla could see that Zazzalil was practically vibrating with energy. She also knew that what went up would always come down.

“Why do you ask?”

“Uh. No reason.” Many reasons.

Jemilla was left with a dilemma. It was getting closer to being late for a work night. But she didn’t want to send her crush home to deal with the effects the inevitable sugar crash would bring – sugar highs were a myth but the energy drops after excessive sugar consumption certainly weren’t.

The evident solution was a low energy activity, after which she could go to bed satisfied that she kept an eye on Zazzalil and didn’t leave her to be sick in the corridor or the brunette’s cold apartment. Thus:

“Hey, do you want to watch a movie?”

“Wait, a what?”

“A movie?” Jemilla looked to her crush, who was shifting from one foot to the other on the spot. “What else?”

“I don’t know, I just heard ‘watch’ and that was it,” Zazzalil shrugged, “Do you have a movie in mind?”

“Not really. I figured we’d just pick one and see.”

“Hmm. I’m totally up for an action movie. Like actual action.”

“Actual action as compared to…”

“Urgh, I watched this Hallmark style movie and I swear, it was just this woman fawning over some dude in a snow jacket.”

Zazzalil went into a spiel about how much she didn’t like the movie, how the characters smiled too much and how the plot featured only on how a man could fix a woman’s shoddily constructed life problems. Jemilla listened. Honestly, she would watch anything if Zazzalil wanted to. Horror movies? Sure. A nice sensible documentary? Yes, Jemilla loved those. The music video to Girls Like Girls on repeat for two hours? It sounded like a fun time. She’d even watch three quarters sped up video footage of grass growing.

After some deliberation, in which Disney movies, the action movies she should have had on DVD and the ethics of watching a dystopian movie in the midst of the pandemic were discussed, Jemilla decided that they’d watch Isle of Dogs. It was perfect – intriguing enough to be worth watching, chill enough to wind down to and packed with Wes Anderson’s cinematic charm.

“But it’s in cartoon!” Zazzalil complained from her acquired spot on the couch.

“Nope. Stop motion animation,” Jemilla corrected from where she was trying to load the DVD into the DVD player, “There’s a difference.”

“Not much. I thought we’d watch an action movie.”

“Well… it’s sort of an action movie.”

“Exactly. The Hunger Games on the other hand…”

“Yep. Lots of violence. A forced relationship. Fire.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, how about we just watch it and you can see.”

The DVD player accepted the offer of one disc and promptly swallowed it, clicking and whirring. Jemilla stood up and moved to sit next to Zazzalil on the couch. Not too close though – she didn’t want to make anything awkward. Then she grabbed the TV remote, pressing play and waiting for potential chaos to unfold.

Apparently, the movie wasn’t as bad as Zazzalil had thought it was. After ten minutes the brunette had reduced in movie comments to notable occasions rather than every few seconds and shifted around far less.

Not that Jemilla was keeping track.

Okay, she was definitely keeping track. There was just something interesting about watching other people. Especially Zazzalil. Maybe it was how her eyes shone while taking in the moving pictures. Every little gasp and raise of eyebrows that made Jemilla’s heart skip a beat. The whispered ‘Is that Bill Murry? It’s gotta be Bill Murry’ during the movie. Luckily, nothing she observed were signs of illness.

However, just over half-way through the movie Zazzalil moved from her part of the couch and closer to Jemilla.

“Can I lean on you?” the smaller girl asked. She sounded somnolent.

“Sure,” Jemilla replied, trying to sound impartial to the action, “may I ask why?”

“I’m tired.”

Ah. The sugar crash had arrived. Also, Zazzalil fully leaned against her and holy f*ck her heart jolted. Suddenly she didn’t want to move. She didn’t want Zazzalil to leave either. She looked so cute with her eyes drifting closed, still trying to watch the movie…

“Hey. Don’t fall asleep.”

“I won’t…”

“You know what they say, eating sugar before sleeping causes nightmares.”

“Bulls*t.” Zazzalil mumbled, prying her eyelids open only to close them again.

“It’s true.”

“Yeah… right. Don’t mind me, I’m just… going to rest my eyes.”

“Okay,” Jemilla smirked, “Do you want to lie down or are you just going to keep leaning while resting your eyes?”

“’m staying here. It’s not my fault you’re warm.”

On the TV, the song which was almost in the middle of the movie started playing. It was almost fitting – the song was low and chill and could have passed as weird lullaby if not for the fast but soft drumbeats which emulated a heartbeat.

In the song’s duration Jemilla looked to her crush and saw Zazzalil’s breathing was slowing down. The smaller brunette was falling asleep. The urge to stay still as not to disturb her grew more insistent.

Jemilla ignored her heart beating along to the music’s end and kept watching the movie. She’d sit until the movie finished, and if it didn’t wake Zazzalil up by the end she’d go and get her crush a blanket.

Chapter Text

Walking through the park was like slowly walking through a series of photographs. Maybe Zazzalil was. The seasons changed around her, pausing to display snapshots from time before moving away. Leafy trees cast large slices of shade across the sunlit ground, before fading to orange and gold and amber. They finally shed their foliage to become bare skeletons, before budding and showing greenery starting to burst from the branches. The seasons changed, but they didn’t.

The people in the park were the same individuals. At least, three of them always were. The first was a man with mousey brown hair, generally with a stubbled chin, permanently angry frown lines etched into his forehead. He was of ‘an average height’ albeit shorter than most other men. Zazzalil knew that he was very touchy about his height and tried to appear as dominant and masculine as possible. Thus he didn’t come to the park often, because his fragile masculinity cracked a little when he was seen in company with the other two people.

Usually smiling, with deep truth etched into her eyes as anger was into her husband’s, was a woman. She was of a petite figure, sporting long, straight brown hair and deep brown eyes. She was kind, loved everyone, and was loved in return. If not for the age in her face, the pale, stressed complexion and the purple half-mons beneath her eyes, Zazzalil could have assumed she was going to join the children on the playground equipment.

Last of the group, generally always in the snapshots of the park, was a small girl. A very small girl who couldn’t have been older than five, short and thin but nevertheless a spitting image of her mother. In every snapshot Zazzalil could see her, digging in the sandpit or attempting monkey bars, smiling with glee as she shot down the slide. The girl’s mother watched the child closely, smiling and nodding encouragingly, an unreadable expression sometimes gracing the woman’s features.

Zazzalil watched the group through the snapshots of the seasons. The group always approached the park from across the busy road next to it. Rarely was one parent in the park in the company of the other. While the little girl played, her mother always watched and the father sat back on his telephone talking, or smoking a few metres away from the playground. Several times he left altogether.

In Autumn, the mother took photographs of her daughter. In winter she buttoned coats and helped put on gloves before the little girl sprinted off to play. Occasionally the woman moved a short way into the trees and gardens nearby the playground, dropped her head to her hands and cried. The little girl only noticed once or twice, but left her mother to it. Zazzalil felt sorry for them both.

Spring came. The snapshots froze. Around her, the park was full of children and adults, the former dressed in little shirts and bow ties, pretend fairy wings and rabbit ears. Many children had face paint on, from a small stand set up in one corner of the park. The small girl however did not.

She was dressed in a faded blue jumper, black tights, a circle skirt with a floral pattern and tiny, bright orange gumboots. In her hand she had a small wicker basket. It had a few foil covered eggs in it. Zazzalil didn’t miss the longing look towards the other children’s dress ups and the face painting stand. The parents, surprisingly together in the park, did.

Both adults looked tetchy. The man wasn’t even hiding his apathy, talking on his telephone and scowling at every other male over five foot five in the area. The woman looked like she was trying to have a good time, holding the hand of her daughter while shooting desperate, reproachful looks at her partner. She was evidently stressed.

“F*cking fairy bunny day. Had to go with the f*cking wife and the brat kid to some f*cking socialist community Easter egg hunt,” the man growled through gritted teeth into the phone. “Yeah… nah. I can’t f*cking come. No, I’m not sh*tting you.”

Zazzalil watched as the little girl tugged against her mother’s arm.

“Mummy can I get my face painted?”

“Shh… Daddy’s on the phone,” The brown-haired woman whispered, but almost fearfully.

“No I don’t f*cking know! Yeah… Well can’t f*cking do that can I? I can’t do sh*t. Yeah, see you at the bar.”

As soon as the man hung up the phone, the little girl was asking again. “Please? Can I get my face painted?”

The man scowled, “No you can’t. You think I’m spending any sort of money on f*cking fairy face make up?”

“Don’t swear at her!” the mother exclaimed, pulling the little girl behind her.

“Shut the f*ck up.”

“Can’t she just get something she wants for once?”

“Don’t you f*cking start. As if you’re raising her –”

“I am! When have you ever –”

The man turned aggressively towards his wife, “It’s always you f*cking off to get her sh*t! That’s my money going down the drain!”

Zazzalil could only watch as the scene panned out before her. The adults were fighting again, and the little girl knew this. She didn’t like it when her daddy got angry. He shouted. He didn’t hit, but the child was scared of him. He was mean to her mummy.

Preoccupied by arguing with her partner, the mother didn’t notice as her daughter slipped her hand from her grasp.

The little girl wandered, and Zazzalil followed behind. She wasn’t sure why… she just did. She walked behind the girl, through park. No one seemed to notice her – in fact, both sound and the rest of the park was blurred out. People’s faces were literally blank.

It was an almost mesmeric walk. The little girl wasn’t looking to do much in particular, except for head home. She didn’t like it when her daddy was mean to her mummy. At home, she could stay in her room and hide under her bed. And there, if she used her imagine hard enough, she wasn’t at home with her daddy and mummy fighting. She and her mummy were somewhere else. Her mummy had told her that soon, they wouldn’t have to live with her daddy anymore.

At the very edge of the park, the blurred road just ahead, Zazzalil realised that the small child was walking straight towards it. Tiny gumboots slapped against the pavement, while blurred cars drove quickly, swaying as if they were being seen from underwater, along the road towards them. None looked like they were going to stop. Behind them, a scream rang out across the park.

Blind to the world around them apart from their immediate vicinity, Zazzalil stepped with the little girl from the footpath onto the road. It was clear directly in front of them. They just had to reach the other side…

There was a screeching noise, and the world snapped into immaculate clarity. Zazzalil suddenly found herself pushed away. She fell almost as if in slow motion, observing the way her the sky tilted, before her back hit and scraped along the footpath. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly on impact. When she opened them, she saw the kind, pretty brown-haired woman for a split second. She was standing on the road, with her arms thrown to the side. Then there was a sickening thud and then there was only the car and –

With a jolt, Zazzalil woke up.

Her first instinct was to sit up, because of the car and the pavement and it was there and the woman was just hit by a car because she saved the little girl and – she couldn’t breathe. Her heart was beating fast, and that air wasn’t really going into her lungs. What the f*ck was up with that? Why wasn’t the air clear and easy to breathe? It was like it was thinner than usual. The air didn’t have the usual volume to it and she couldn’t breathe and it didn’t make sense.

She tried to move her arms but found that she couldn’t. What the f*ck was happening? Why couldn’t she move? She couldn’t move and she couldn’t breathe and it didn’t make sense because of the car which had just been there but wasn’t anymore.

Whatever was stopping her from moving wasn’t giving in, no matter how much Zazzalil attempted to free herself. Every time she twisted and turned it got tighter and holy sh*t what was happening? She knew she was lying down, and that air wasn’t working properly, and that it was dark so she couldn’t see on top of being unable to do anything else.

Suddenly, after trying to pull her arms away from where they were stuck, pressed against her body, the ground fell out from under her. Instinctively, she yelped. What else did you do when you could move to save yourself from inescapable death? Her heart skipped a beat and another jolt ran through her. And then, as soon as it had started, the ground appeared again at great velocity.

The ground was hard. Hard and slightly cold, more so than wherever Zazzalil had been before. Luckily, when she tried to move her arms she could. That was good. As she sat up unsteadily (which way even was up?) she could feel something soft piled near her feet. The air still felt thin and unsubstantial. She still couldn’t see anything.

That changed as a soft yellow light turned on. A doorway in front of her became illuminated and cast light into the room. It wasn’t obnoxiously bright, but Zazzalil couldn’t help blinking at the sudden luminance. As she blinked, she noticed that she was in Jemilla’s apartment… She remembered that she had been watching a movie with her neighbour – something about stop-motion Japanese dogs?

“What’s going on?” Jemilla’s voice sounded, hoarse from sleep, before the taller girl’s figure appeared in the doorway, “Zazzalil? Wait… are you okay?”

“Uh…” she tried to think of something to say, but what could she say? The f*cking air wasn’t breathable and still felt too thin? She’d just seen a woman get hit by a car in her dreams? That she couldn’t move, then she was falling but it had probably just been from the couch to the floor so it shouldn’t have been so dramatic?

“Zazzalil?” Jemilla walked quickly, the soft sound of footsteps padding over the floor and mixing with the heartbeat thudding in Zazzalil’s head. She watched as the taller girl approached, hesitated a little, moved the bunched-up quilt and sat down before her. “Hey. Are you good?”

“I - uh… I think I fell off the couch.”

“You fell off the couch.” A pause. “Are you okay?”

Yes…? She was fine. She didn’t actually injure herself falling and the air didn’t seem so thin anymore, the more she thought about other things. And the dream would go away… it had before. It had before so it would now and she wouldn’t have to think about it.

When she didn’t answer, Jemilla pressed a little further, “You’re not hurt or anything? I did hear a yelp.”

“Yeah… that was me falling off the couch.”

“And you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fine. But if you’re not okay, that’s also fine.”

“I’m not okay,” Zazzalil whispered before she could stop herself.

Sh*t.

Why was Jemilla so patient? When Zazzalil looked at her neighbour, who was gazing back with concern, she felt uncertainty slip into her head. She folded her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

Usually she kept things to herself, mentally packed them up and shoved the boxes away. Out of sight, out of mind. However, while Jemilla looked at her with a pensive sadness but also a sort of weird-ass poetic beauty she didn’t know how to properly describe, Zazzalil felt like she couldn’t just pack away another box.

Being emotionally vulnerable wasn’t something she was good at. Zazzalil built walls and tried to be angry, or annoyed, or anything rather than tears or reflection. Anger was easier to pass off than sadness. Turning off her thoughts and just sitting, numb, took some effort initially but then none at all.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jemilla asked, her brown eyes shining with consideration.

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s okay. We should get up off the floor.”

The couch was warmer and softer than Zazzalil first realised when she moved from the floor. It was better when Jemilla picked up the twisted heap of quilt that had been on the ground, unravelling it and spreading it over them both on the couch.

They sat in silence for what felt like a good quarter of an hour. Zazzalil felt her heartbeat, which had been echoing fast and loud in her head like a drum, slow down and fade from her head. The air cleared too. She could breath properly, she was warmer and she could think lucidly.

How it happened she wasn’t exactly sure, but sometime during the fifteen minutes or so of sitting she drifted closer to Jemilla. Mentally, she wasn’t surprised. She had discovered that once she knew a person well enough, or was hopelessly attracted to them, she became quite clingy. According to Keeri, it was like living with a cat that lounged. Zazzalil did that. She leaned on people, curled up next to them or sometimes with them.

In this instance, Zazzalil found herself settled but a few inches away from her neighbour, feeling tired and unsure as to continue. Were they just going to sit or…?

The real surprise was when Jemilla raised an arm and looped it over gently over her shoulders, pulling her those few inches close. That kick started her heart into beating faster again – but in a way which didn’t make her feel like she was dying.

“Is this okay?” Jemilla asked cautiously.

“Oh… yeah,” Zazzalil responded tiredly, “It’s fine. Why do you ask?”

The taller girl smiled slightly, gently rubbing her thumb over Zazzalil’s upper arm. “Your eyes went really big… They still are.”

Alright, so her body was betraying her. Her attraction to Jemilla had not disappeared in the face of stress. That was fine. Everything was fine. Her heart wasn’t screaming at her and her head hadn’t just put all operations on hold so she couldn’t think straight. Not that she ever did think straight.

“Uh,” Zazzalil said, trying to stall because she was tired and gay and still feeling shaken from the horrors her mind produced. Also, Jemilla’s touch was sending a thrumming buzz through her veins which felt like rays of sunlight and shards of ice. “That’s weird. Really weird. What… uh, what time is it?”

Her neighbour turned her head, exposing her jawline – holy sh*t she wasn’t awake enough for this.

“It’s nearly two.”

“AM?”

“Well it’s not two pm.”

“Damn…” Zazzalil said with a yawn, trying to ignore both the static running through her body and the exhaustion, “is that okay? Like for you because of work and… stuff?”

“It’s fine,” Jemilla assured, yawning herself because they were really catchy. She sounded tired. “I know there hasn’t been a home invasion or you haven’t suddenly gotten appendicitis or something.”

“What’s appendicitis got to do with anything?”

“Why else would you be screaming in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe spiders,” Zazzalil considered, before figuring she’d disclose why she had yelled. She felt warm and… safe. That was it. So why not? “I had a bad dream.”

“I told you sugar is bad before sleeping, that’s why. Is that why you screamed?”

“That was actually me falling off the f*cking couch. It was just really dark and then there wasn’t anything holding me up.”

“I’ll hold you up. You won’t fall if I’m here.”

Something in Zazzalil’s heart or brain or essential functioning organ burst, because she was tired and Jemilla was also tired and tired Jemilla was really cute.

“But isn’t it like… nearly two? You need to sleep so you can f*cking… do work or something.”

“But I’ll sit up with you,” Jemilla obstinately proclaimed, “or maybe I’ll sleep here. I’m not leaving unless you don’t want me here. Do… do you want me to stay?”

In that moment, covered in a warm quilt and pressed against her neighbour’s side, everything her neighbour said made perfect sense. Jemilla could have suggested they be good citizens and not trespass and Zazzalil probably would have agreed. Even if not trespassing was literally the stupidest thing. Why not trespass, when you just could?

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I’m up to sit for a while.”

They stopped talking and sat for a while.

Eventually Zazzalil leant her head against her neighbour’s shoulder, because she was feeling numb – in a weird, good way – and she didn’t know where else to put it. An indefinite amount of time after that, a head of curly brown hair was leaning against hers. By that point Zazzalil didn’t know or care what was happening, instead being content with the knowledge she could see, she could breathe, and she didn’t know about the fifteen different muscles which would be protesting in the morning because she fell asleep sitting on the couch.

Chapter Text

Jemilla had been properly awake for ten minutes, and she was considering whether to risk moving again. Or moving at all for that matter, because her crush was lying on her and it was literally the cutest thing she had ever seen. That was why she had dared not breathe for perhaps fifteen minutes.

She had woken up to her apartment dimly illuminated by yellow light which, after a quick double take of why she was on the couch and not in her own bed, she remembered was coming from the lamp in her room. Or the one at the end of the short corridor… either way, she hadn’t gotten the chance to turn it off, what with pledging while half asleep to stay up with her neighbour.

Obviously, she hadn’t just stayed up, rather falling asleep alongside the brunette. Speaking of…

Not to be weird, but for some of the ten minutes of properly being awake all Jemilla could do was gaze at Zazzalil. Who was sleeping. She had been watching Zazzalil sleep. But in a not creepy way, if there was such a way to watch someone sleep.

Chiefly it was because the smaller girl was cute and gorgeous as heck, and Jemilla wanted to commit every aspect of her face to memory. The light smattering of freckles fading from her face, the angle of her jaw and the hardly existent scratch marks from Snarl. She wanted to remember its all.

But it was also something to do with how different she appeared in rest. Zazzalil was generally looking a lot different from how she had looked at two in the morning. While she still looked tired, she didn’t seem as pale or stressed as she had when Jemilla first came across her, sitting bolt upright looking small and shaken on the floor.

She wasn’t going to lie, she had been scared when she woke up to a scream, shortly followed by a thud. Not ideal sounds to hear in the middle of the night. At first it was unnerving, because what else could have been making those noises but her? Then she remembered that her crush was alone out on the couch, which worried her enough to go check everything was okay…which it wasn’t as it turned out.

After some careful questioning, which led to them sitting down together, Jemilla discovered that Zazzalil had had a nightmare and subsequently fallen off the couch. She had also likely gotten tangled up in the quilt Jemilla had draped over her when the movie had ended, as judged by it having been piled in a twisted heap. All that ended in a panicked Zazzalil, whose rapid breathing had finally slowed by the time Jemilla vowed to stay up with her.

However, how much ‘sitting up’ was done was debatable. She only remembered up until a short while after Zazzalil put her head on her shoulder (which had made butterflies erupt in her stomach) and then she must have fallen asleep.

Where she was sitting, Jemilla heard her morning alarm go off from her bedroom. Sh*t. She only had a half hour until she started work.

Carefully, she lifted the quilt and set to the task of extracting herself from Zazzalil. It didn’t appear particularly difficult on the brunette, who had seemingly slumped sideways and was sleeping that way. Instead, Jemilla hadn’t moved and Zazzalil was slumped over sideways onto her lap. For her to get out, the shorter brunette had to move. And she was asleep.

It was neither graceful nor well executed, but after some awkward manoeuvring she managed to prop up Zazzalil without waking her. Then it was the slight matter of staggering to her feet and ensuring her crush didn’t fall forwards off the couch and smack her face on the floor. As she stood, keeping one hand against Zazzalil’s shoulder, something in her neck cracked. That was when she realised that both her neck and her back were aching. Ouch… she regretted nothing though. If it was what needed to happen to make sure Zazzalil was okay, she was glad she did it.

In hindsight, she should have asked if Zazzalil wanted to come and lie with her in her bed instead of sitting on the couch. It would have been comfier, she could have turned her light off and there would have been less chance of aching backs in the morning.

The also would have been cuddle potential, but she tried not to think to much about that. You had to respect people’s boundaries.

After carefully lying Zazzalil back down on the couch, quilt draped over her and a pillow tucked under her head as best one could tuck a pillow beneath someone else’s head, Jemilla got to her work schedule. In the half hour that remained, Jemilla had a shower, got changed into her work clothes, fixed up some toast and washed her breakfast dishes. Occasionally she’d check on her neighbour, who was still fast asleep.

Eight o’clock came around fast. With it, she brought out her laptop and the planning diary which held all the information for meetings and other HR duties. Reports to be due in. Paperwork to complete. All increasingly dull tasks, but necessary ones. If the company was to keep running as smoothly as it had already during the pandemic, somebody had to do them.

Up until about eleven AM Jemilla sat at one end of the kitchen table and worked. She mostly ran damage control between some of the higher ups and the lower downs on complaints of salary, which took up the bulk of her morning. Then she checked on Zazzalil, who appeared to have rolled onto her front and simultaneously knocked the quilt askew. She readjusted the quilt and went back to work.

After emails had been sent to the right people about a pay rise or a paycheck or generally a pay anything, she went through some job applications. It surprised her was that there weren’t other people cooperating with her on the seventeen forms. Also, she was certain they were for a position that had already been filled.

Between the background noise of other people’s apartments and the hum of her refrigerator, Jemilla felt the day slowing down despite it not being even noon. Usually lethargy didn’t commence until mid to late afternoon, depending on when she started usually it was only by three or four o’clock when momentum slowed. It was probably because she woke up at nearly two in the morning and then got a solid five or so hours’ sleep compared to her usual seven to nine.

Distraction, and a welcome change from searching up people’s names to check their criminal records or their online presence (company guidelines stated they wanted to maintain an image), occurred at twenty three minutes past nine when a noticeable rustling was followed by a head of messy brown hair appearing over the back of the couch. Zazzalil was awake.

“Good morning,” Jemilla greeted her crush with a smile, looking up from her work, “how are you feeling?”

“’m sorry say again?” came the muffled reply from the brunette, who looked both tireder then she had before she slept and somehow insanely precious with her chin rested on the back of the couch, blinking sluggishly.

“How are you feeling?” Jemilla repeated.

“Like sh*t,” Zazzalil mumbled, looking around blearily, “what time is it?”

“Twenty-three past eleven.”

“Oh. Thanks.” the shorter girl stretching out an arm and squinted at the table. “What the f*ck is that?”

Jemilla tried to follow her line of sight, “What is what?”

“That stuff on the table.”

“My work things?”

“Yeah. Also, ew. Paperwork’s f*cking nasty. You should stop doing it.”

“Well, it’s not going to do itself,” she admonished, setting her pen back to the papers, “besides, what do you have against paperwork?”

Zazzalil had stood up and was looking at the stack of papers with an unimpressed expression. “It sucks.”

 “If you say so.” Jemilla said with a shrug, looked back to her work. It actually appeared much less important than speaking to Zazzalil, or perhaps doing something different. Maybe paperwork did suck. Hmm… or maybe her neighbour was a bad influence on her work ethic.

She looked up again from the papers and her computer to see that Zazzalil was still standing around, now almost awkwardly. That or she looked lost, like she didn’t have anything to do and hadn’t been told to do anything, which was giving her a slight crisis.

“Uh, do you want to have breakfast?”

“What?” Zazzalil looked to Jemilla from where she was standing, “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“Do you want to have breakfast?”

“Oh yeah. Isn’t it like… going to be lunch instead?”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”

Glad to get a much-needed break from the trivialities of bureaucracy, Jemilla consolidated some of the sliced meat and vegetables in her fridge into sandwiches. Zazzalil helped and proved herself naturally adept at making food that didn’t require any sort of cooking. She claimed it wasn’t talent, rather years of practise.

Then they ate.

At the end of lunch, in which conversation had so far been limited but comfortable, Zazzalil cleared her throat.

“Um. I’ve been here for a while,” the smaller girl said. She sounded unsure, as if it wasn’t okay that she’d spent so long outside of her own apartment.

“Yeah,” Jemilla agreed, “that’s fine.” Her crush had spent the night, most of the previous afternoon and the morning. She wasn’t complaining though. In fact, she definitely preferred having Zazzalil around. Even if the brunette was asleep, it was comforting to know there was another human presence.

“Oh. I was wondering if you wanted me to leave –”

“No! Not at all!”

“– because of well, you literally made dinner and let me sleep over and then well… yeah,” Zazzalil looked down and away, avoiding eye contact. Obviously that was about what happened at two in the morning.

“Are you okay after that?”

“Yep. I’m good. My back’s sore as f*ck though.”

Well that was good, if Zazzalil wasn’t covering it up really well. It was better than good. She didn’t know what Zazzalil had dreamed about, or why it was so scary, but it had obviously freaked her out. And then they had both fallen asleep, so if it wasn’t okay there was no way she could have known.

There was another moment of silence, before Jemilla figured she should take the plates to the sink. Sitting in silence wasn’t going to do anything.

“Are you sure I can stay?” Zazzalil piped up as Jemilla took the plate from in front of her.

“Uh, yeah? It’s fine.” Why wouldn’t it be? Apart from if she had a video meeting, or if the brunette was planning on running around screeching with maracas tied to her clothes. Anything that made a colossal amount of noise really.

“But your work and stuff…”

“It’s totally fine, so long as you’re quiet I guess.”

“Cool. Great. Wonderful!” Zazzalil seemed to brighten up. Or was it relief that crossed her face? Jemilla couldn’t quite tell. “Can I go to my apartment then just come back?”

“Of course!”

Jemilla’s heart flipped as her crush gave her a smile, before mentioning she’d be back and just… leaving. The door closed behind her with a gentle thud, and then it was quiet. Not eerily so, because there was always going to be noise from the other apartments, but it was like when she used to be left home alone as she started to become a teenager. Something felt missing.

In ten minutes, Jemilla was back to working again. Or she tried to be back to working again, the paperwork was sitting in front of her and she couldn’t focus on it. She kept wondering what Zazzalil was up to. It was just ten minutes; she didn’t need to know what her crush was doing. Was she that attached to her already?

But ten minutes turned into half an hour, and Jemilla really started to wonder what Zazzalil was up to. Especially when a thud, faint cursing and then fainter singing, mixed with the sound of rushing water though the wall.

Eventually, Zazzalil came back. Her hair was damp and she had different clothes on, which were uncharacteristically not sweatpants in a different shade of grey and a similar sweatshirt. Instead, she had what appeared to be black leggings and white long-sleeved top with blue sleeves. A large laptop computer and a charger, as well as what appeared to be an envelope clenched tightly in one fist, were with her.

“Hey, I’m back.”

“Cool,” Jemilla said with a smile, relieved that the apartment didn’t feel so empty again, “how do you feel now?”

“After showering?” Zazzalil questioned distractedly, situating herself on her windowsill.

“Yeah.”

“Better. Wait – how did you know about the shower?”

“Your hair’s wet.” And the walls are really thin and she had heard her crush’s shower singing just a little bit.

“Oh yeah.”

From then until the afternoon, Zazzalil was around. Not always demanding attention or completely ignoring Jemilla either, but just around. When Jemilla looked up from her work, her crush was curled up on the windowsill, tapping away at her enormous laptop. Or she was looking at her phone, sometimes just quietly bopping her head while watching out the window.

At the end of Jemilla’s workday when she packed up her things, she asked if Zazzalil wanted to stay over for dinner. The other girl declined, and after several minutes of chatting left.

That night she slept peacefully.

Thursday came like it usually did – as the day before Friday, which was the placeholder for two days away from Janice in HR and dealing with people. However, unlike the standard Thursday, Zazzalil knocked on the door at noon.

“Oh. Hey!” Jemilla greeted her, surveying the brunette. She was wearing the same clothes as the day before, had her computer held under her arm but also had what looked like a packet of corn chips.  “What are you doing here?”

The shorter girl shrugged. “I don’t know. Well I do actually. It’s warmer and more like IKEA in your apartment.”

“Okay?”

“Can I come in?”

Well… she did have nachos, even if it sounded like she was taking advantage of a heated room.

“Sure.”

Much like the previous day, Jemilla worked and Zazzalil sat around doing her own thing, whatever that was. Jemilla could hear clicking and typing that wasn’t her own, and unlike the previous day her crush brought out a phone and took photos from the window before settling down again. They made and ate lunch together, and in the afternoon the nachos made their appearance. Before evening, Zazzalil left again.

On Friday it happened once again. Jemilla sat at the table, Zazzalil sat on the windowsill, and they both did their own thing. It was comfortable. When working was boring, Jemilla could speak to someone. And when it wasn’t, she enjoyed having another person around. The company was reassuring.

When Saturday morning came and Zazzalil didn’t knock, Jemilla was both slightly surprised and disappointed. Even if it was the weekend and people had things to do she had been expecting a knock. Evidently, she had grown attached to having the brunette around. It had literally only been three days.

Saturday passed uneventfully. Sunday would not.

Chapter Text

It started with the letter. A simple, plain, white envelope, sealed and addressed to her apartment and put in her letter box downstairs. The letterbox she forgot she had because no one sent her letters. The letterbox which had three identical envelopes as well as some junk mail stuffed into it.

She had left Jemilla’s apartment with the intent of having a quick shower and getting changed into some clothes which weren’t infused with sweat, before finding something she could occupy herself with while hanging out with her neighbour. But then she remembered that she needed to do laundry and her only clean clothes were ones she hadn’t worn in ages. So, she went and took the washing downstairs and while she was there, she found the letters.

Upon inspection, after she had gone back upstairs to her apartment, the letters were from her landlord. Or maybe the apartment building’s owner. It was one or the other. Either way, it was a bad sign.

A very bad sign was the notice to vacate, for the reasons of not paying rent for two weeks, property damage and keeping an animal. It said she had another two weeks to pay the rent or she’d get a second warning. The second notice, dated from two weeks after that, was an even worse sign. The third and final notice to vacate from two weeks after that was no longer a bad sign but a billboard which spelled out the word ‘DISASTER’.

The fourth letter was the notice for eviction on premise that notices to vacate had been ignored and she hadn’t paid ten weeks of rent.

So obviously, like a completely normal person when they’re notified that they’re going to be kicked out of their apartment, Zazzalil went to her neighbour’s apartment with the eviction letter, her computer and the charger for said computer. Obviously.

Her logic was that Jemilla was reasonable and kept a steady head, so she’d feel compelled to think calmly and properly about everything as well. She’d check her bank account, check whatever savings she had, and see what she could pay off. She’d look for another job. She’d… feel depressed thinking about those things and get distracted looking at pictures of cool cakes people had made, which was what happened.

That night she actually checked her finances, and it didn’t take a genius to tell her she didn’t have what she needed to pay off the ten weeks of rent with what remained of her sh*tty salary Pincer had been giving her – and what he hadn’t, because he apparently hadn’t paid her for most of the quarantine.

Whatever. She didn’t need his illicit drug/tax fraud/other shady sh*t money anyway. Which was a lie, because she did. She needed it so much.

At one in the morning, after crouching gremlin-like over hr computer for several hours, Zazzalil considered selling her sh*tty furniture. She didn’t need her cheap couch, or her chairs and the weird ass table she didn’t remember buying. Why have those things when she could sit cross legged on the kitchen counter?

On Thursday she went back to Jemilla’s again, this time with a packet of nachos as… a bribe? A gift to the apartment’s benevolent owner? She was only really there because she couldn’t handle her apartment. She still hadn’t cleaned up the flour in her apartment and the heater would never stop being broken. It was past repair, except for maybe if the red head who had fixed her door – Chorn, she was pretty sure that was their name – tried fixing it. Also, Jemilla’s apartment was temporal realm where everything was an IKEA show room, and everything was okay.

While Jemilla worked, Zazzalil sat on the windowsill with her things, pinballing between games online, job search websites and taking photos of the interesting cloud formations which appeared throughout the day. Anything except thinking about the eviction notice which was lying next to the notices to vacate next to her microwave. The microwave… she could sell the microwave. People bought second-hand microwaves, right?

On Saturday, something didn’t feel right and she couldn’t pin-point what it was. It was like she was a Christmas tree with too many ornaments on its branches, or a spring which was coiled too tight.

Like during the week, she had considered going to Jemilla’s apartment and hanging around there for the day, but she didn’t feel right. Jemilla would probably have something to do that was more exciting than sitting and talking with her neighbour. Instead, Zazzalil spent the day migrating back and forth between her computer and the microwave or fridge, avoiding the flour she had still yet to clean up and normal responsibilities. Thus, she went to bed at three in the morning after zoning out and watching three hours of a train going through Norway.

Sunday arrived with the vision of being shoved onto the pavement and the split-second vision of the pretty brown-haired woman before there was only the screech of car tyres and then vision of her ceiling.

Zazzalil woke up late and cold and unable to breathe, covers hanging off one half of her bed. It was dim in her room, which made total sense because the f*cking stupid architects decided the sh*tty block of apartments could be less sh*tty by giving bathrooms windows and putting bedrooms on the corridor side where they couldn’t have windows. The darkness wasn’t helped by the layer of thick cloud she discovered was hanging over Clivesdale when she visited the bathroom to splash water on her face and hyperventilate over the sink.

During her late, late breakfast – or late lunch – of packet noodles supplemented with some of the cookies Jemilla had let her take, there was a knock at the door.

Upon opening it, Zazzalil found regret.

Regret personified was Regina Fell – a precise waterfall of straight black hair, impeccable makeup and five feet and ten inches of woman on four more inches of stilettos, bringing her total height to six foot two. Exaggerated by her the never changing long blood red dress, she was an imposing figure who towered over both men and women alike, owned most of Clivesdale’s apartment buildings and funnelled the rent into her hungry and apparently endless Swiss bank account.

Zazzalil had only met her once, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t forgotten. Regina Fell had a steel trap for memory and apathy for financial security. It didn’t matter who you were, you were insignificant to her might unless you had money to pay, or you were her sister in law Linda Monroe, or Gary Goldstein – the nearby town of Hachetfield’s only lawyer. Rumour had it that the inquiry into the mysterious death of wealthy Adam Fell Jnr after marrying Regina Monroe fell through because the attorney and the new widow were ‘close’.

In short, Regina Fell was scary. And you didn’t want to be on her bad side.

“Zazzalil,” purred the woman before her doorway, “where’s my money mother f*cker.”

“What the f*ck –” Zazzalil spluttered, not only feeling dwarfed at five feet tall but also surprised that heels as expensive as those of the woman before her could touch the same ground peasants such as her walked on.

“I said,” Regina repeated, tone hovering over anger and humour, “Where the f*ck is my money.”

“Well I –”

“You’re ten weeks behind.”

“Sh*t.”

“Yes exactly. Sh*t,” the extremely taller woman snapped, “is what I’ve been getting from you Zazzalil. SH*T,” her voice lowered to a hiss, “is what I’ve had for the. past. ten. weeks.”

Zazzalil could feel only fear as she leaned towards the wall. Even though all that was standing before her was a tall woman whose could be taken down with a sharp kick to the knees, her heart was pounding, and her head was spinning. Holy sh*t she hadn’t paid her rent in ten weeks! Ten f*cking weeks and the person who collected it all was there in person!

“And not only that, Zazzalil,” the raven-haired woman continued, face splitting into a wry smile as she made an off-handed point into the apartment, “But look what’s happened. It’s a mess. This is squalor.”

“Well, I can explain – f*ck – it’s just flour and, and –”

“No matter. You’d be used to it, if I’m correct. Zazzalil.”

“The f*ck does that mean?!”

“Tomorrow you’re out.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Keys need to be handed in at the block office desk, no f*cking around pretending you can’t find them,” she leaned down, almost as if she was speaking to a child, “Because I’ll know. We’re not playing any games are we Zazzalil?”

“Stop saying my name.” It felt wrong to say. Her name was something she was proud of. Her mother had named her, had cherished the syllables her husband had found ‘silly’. But Zazzalil was a person, and she deserved respect that Regina Fell wasn’t giving her.

“Well, Zazzalil, that’s a f*cking shame,” the edge of Regina’s mouth twitched into a knowing smirk, “Enjoy the public holiday tomorrow.”

The woman stalked away silently as Zazzalil’s fumed. The crazy b*tch had come on the weekend to tell her she had to become homeless on a freaking public holiday. This was great! This was f*cking fantastic! It definitely was all fine and not a catastrophe where everything was crashing and burning.

Why was it going to be a public holiday anyway? She wracked her brain for ideas, because for over a week she hadn’t needed to properly look at the date. What the hell was it? The birthday of someone who was important? A death anniversary for –

Oh. It was that day. It was the day today because it was always before the holiday. Sh*t.

She closed the door with a slam. Her apartment, grey and dreary and still f*cking covered in flour and actual dead flowers sat before her. ‘Living in squalor.’ It was more like a dump. No that she’d had anything better ever. Not in college with the room with a leaky ceiling, not when she was younger with second-hand clothes and an alcohol ruined father.

It wasn’t anger that ran through her veins. Loathing perhaps. She hated all of it. She hated her father and her useless stepmother. She hated the stupid flour on the floor, and the broken window, the feeling of sickness which plagued the room. And the f*cking dead flowers. What the f*ck was she doing keeping dead flowers around for?

From the moment she picked up the vase to when it smashed on the floor she didn’t feel anything. Nothing at all. She felt the emptiness from desperately calling out into the dark for a light, or for someone to help, and hearing nothing reply. All feelings were null and void.

But then she stood and looked at what she’d done.

There were shards of glass on the floor. Nestled amongst the glass were crushed pieces of brittle dried husks that used to be flowers. They were flowers that Keeri gave her. Sunflowers, small ones, but bright and yellow and representative of the friend she still had beyond the apartment’s walls.

The flowers used to be in a vase - which wasn’t actually a vase but a jar Keeri said she liked to pretend was a vase. And Zazzalil had humoured her, because they were best friends. If Keeri was so adamant that the jar was a vase, then the jar was a vase. A flawed vase, but an accepted one either way.

Maybe she was the weird ass vase to Keeri’s beautiful sunflowers.

The more she looked around the apartment, the more it looked like the aftermath of a natural disaster. Maybe she was the natural disaster and the apartment the small unfortunate world she manifested in. A volcano that covered her small world in ash, a hurricane that tore up things she loved and broke them.

On the table, her phone buzzed.

“Five missed messages,” the automated phone voice said after Zazzalil picked it up and unlocked it, pressing on the first notification she had. It took her to the message bank. “Message one.”

“Hi Zazz, it’s Keeri, I was just calling because, well you know what day it is today so–”

BEEP. She skipped to the next one. It didn’t matter that it was Keeri. Well it did, but it didn’t and she just needed to see the rest. She tried to ignore her heart beating in her chest.

“Message two.”

“Um, yeah hi Zazz, it’s just me again, Kee–”

“Message three.”

“Hello, my name is Trevor from Powercel, we’re–” BEEP.

“Zazz, can you call me back? You know I’m wo–” BEEP.

“Message five.”

The voice she heard made her draw in a quick breath through her already tight throat. “I’m your f*cking father and you didn’t even call.”

He called. He always f*cking called, even though he knew not to. He never did any other time. It was like some sort of sick, twisted joke.

“Didn’t call, didn’t ask… You even changed your f*cking phone number!” her father’s voice, heavy and loud and unnervingly drunk, echoed in the room. “You’re just like your mother, that b*tch. Had to go and die, leave me with you. Always wanting things, demanding MY MONEY. I should have kicked you out after the funeral… and what the sh*t did you do then? Be an embarrassment by f*cking crying and trying to run after the coffin. ‘Mummy, mummy come back!’ She was F*CKING DEAD!”

Zazzalil dropped her phone. He had mocked her. Mocked a much younger version of her, but mocked a crying child. Why were her hands shaking? Why was the air even thicker? It was the same every year. She should have been used to it. Used to him trying to claw his pathetic little life into hers and stir everything up. He didn’t care what he said. He wanted her to feel the pain, feel the burn. She had swapped numbers. But he kept worming his way back in, like a parasite.

“YOU’RE F*CKING USELESS!” the phone echoed from the floor, “SO F*CKING USELESS YOU’RE NOT EVEN THERE!”

BEEP. “End of messages. To save, press one…”

She was useless. She was going to be living from her car the next day. Already she ate packet noodles every day, whatever was cheapest and easiest. She lost her job. All that was next was dying in a gutter of hypothermia, or being a body found under a park bench one day. What the f*ck could she do now?

There was a buzzing in her head. It was telling her nothing was okay. Telling her she needed to put her hands to her head because then maybe she’d catch a grip on reality. Maybe she’d make the buzzing go away. Or she’d think of something.

The best idea she could think of was leaving.

Zazzalil left through the front door, not bothering to lock it. There wasn’t anything left for her there anyway.

She had planned to start running as far as she could and deal with the consequences of that later, but she found herself directly outside Jemilla’s door. The entry into Jemilla’s world, which was a portal to an IKEA showroom and warmth and chocolate gummy bear cookies. Jemilla’s world was stable.

From where she was standing outside the door, she could vaguely hear Jemilla talking. Though also, laughing. Then a pause, before she started talking again. It sounded like she was on the phone.

Whether it was television or not, Zazzalil knocked on the door of her neighbour’s apartment.

For a second, it was silent and she could hear her pulse throbbing in her head. Then, after a few more seconds, the door opened and she was faced with her neighbour – whose expressions changed dramatically from being laid back to surprise and concern.

“Zazzalil?” Jemilla exclaimed, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” she tried to pull in breathes, but her body wasn’t cooperating. The lump in her throat was telling her she needed to cry, but she wasn’t going to cry. Obviously not. She was stronger than crying and being weak. She could take everything life threw at her. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not - What happened?!”

What happened… Everything happened. She didn’t pay her rent because she’d slowly forgot to do that and then the notices came up but she didn’t see them and then there were more notices and Pincer was a sh*tty boss who didn’t pay her and – Was the air suddenly thicker or was her throat closing up?

“Hey. Hey hey hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. Here, come in.” Jemilla exclaimed, and Zazzalil let her neighbour take one of her hands and lead her inside.

Almost automatically, as she was lead towards the table where a laptop was set up, Zazzalil moved away from Jemilla towards the windowsill.

“Uh Zazz, maybe not the window – well actually it’s not bad, just… Never mind. I’ll be back.” Jemilla rambled, before moving directly to her open computer. “Guys something came up. No, I can’t – Ducker that’s not what came up. No! I mean – I wish, but no! There’s a time and place for those sorts of things and another for when your neighbour’s – sh*t I need to do something about that. Yes, I’m going! I’m so sorry but bye!”

Zazzalil felt a pang of guilt shoot through her body as she watched her neighbour frantically disappeared into the corridor. Jemilla had been on a video call and she had interrupted. Just like the rent and her trashed apartment she’d gone and busted up something else. Great. Just great. Jemilla was probably annoyed, or at least the people she had been talking to her were.

She tucked her legs up and rested her chin on her knees, while Jemilla hurried over. Zazzalil took in her shimmering brown eyes and furrowed brow as the taller girl stared in concern.

“What happened to you?”

“I – it’s… uh.” Where did she start?

“Hey, it’s okay. Just take a second to breathe, it’s okay.”

Right. It was okay, she could tell Jemilla stuff. She could tell her anything. It was fine.

“I can’t pay my rent. I’m getting evicted tomorrow and it’s just – f*ck. I can’t go back to my parents because they’d kick me out again and I’m not staying with them anyway,” her breath hitched as she remembered everything which was going wrong, “And I can’t pay, it’s ten weeks over and –”

“Whoa, why? Did Pincer suspend your pay?” Jemilla cut in concernedly.

“No no no I lost my job ages ago. Pincer was being a creep and I kicked myself out…”

“What? When was this?”

Zazzalil gulped, “The day before Snarl.”

Jemilla’s eyes widened, almost in realisation. “Zazz, that was ages ago.”

“Exactly, I can’t pay and I can’t go because it’s my mother’s f*cking death anniversary and my other parents are sh*t –”

She couldn’t breathe again, and while she could feel tears escaping her eyes it took al of her resolve not to properly cry. Tears would be it. Even with Jemilla sounding all worried but also telling her that it was okay, everything was going to be okay.

Everything would be okay sounded like a lie. Her life as she knew it was crashing and burning, and she didn’t know what to do.

How the f*ck could anything be okay?

Chapter Text

Her computer was sat on the table, and it was loading. The clock ticked to twelve thirty-five. Jemilla sighed, leaning back in her chair to check that her analogue clock matched time with her computer. Sometimes computers were off by a few seconds, but the same could be said for the one on the wall. It stopped and had to have batteries replaced sometimes.

The clock was correct. She stopped leaning in her chair, because that damaged chairs and was dangerous, and looked to her computer again. Still loading. With her right hand she fiddled with the cord to her headphones. She was bored. So bored, even if she knew what was going to be coming up.

Not that Jemilla was or should have been expecting it, but Zazzalil didn’t knock that morning. She was okay with it, people had their own things to do on the weekends. Maybe she’d see her crush on Monday, or on Tuesday, or hopefully all of the days of the working week. Except she remembered that Monday was going to be a public holiday because of Easter so… Perhaps she wouldn’t see Zazzalil then.

However, she was going to see people. The video calling app, whichever non-mainstream one it was because Ducker refused to use Zoom for personal reasons, was currently loading – and had been doing so for the past five minutes. Jemilla wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing, because while her test call with Molag the other weekend had taken all of three seconds to load, the video call she was making was between five other people. Hopefully the loading was just set up.

It took two more minutes of the circle symbol of the software pulsing in and out for her screen to suddenly divide into six segments, hers in the middle of the bottom row, and for the faces of her friends to appear.

“Hi!!!” Emberly, dark hair pulled into a bun, glasses perched on her nose precariously and a think grey jumper bunched in her hands, exclaimed. Jemilla was pleasantly surprised that both audio and video worked. It had taken some tweaking on the test call. “Oh, my duck it’s so good to see you!”

In the top left segment Emberly and Grunt – whose quarantine facial hair looked immaculately groomed - were both squashed together on their couch, with them a scruffy dog with no apparent breed but sandy coloured fur, floppy ears and a wide doggy grin. This apparently was Trunkelle – from memory the dog was named after… an elephant Grunt and Emberly saw at the zoo on their first date? She didn’t know exactly why the elephant was so important that they named their dog after it. It must have been a couple thing that only made sense to them because they were in love.

“Hi! Jemilla replied, followed by a chorus of hellos from everyone else, then an inhuman screech from the top middle segment.

“SKIDEEDLE SKIDOODLE YOUR HEAD IS A NOODLE! SKIDEEDLE SKIDADLE YOUR FACE IS A BAGEL!”

“What the actual F*CK, SB?” Schwoopsie exclaimed from her top right segment with a laugh, while Jemilla’s eyes widened, “what was that?!?”

“That is a certified confusing war cry.” Ducker, wearing no shirt but homemade texta tattoos that looked like it was drawn by a drunken high person on both his face and chest, commented from bottom right, “And I own the patent.”

“Why would that even need a patent?” Emberly queried, “It’s a war cry.”

“Why not? Don’t come crying to me when your war cry isn’t recognised because it’s not Ducker brand certified.”

“Oh my god guys!” Tiblyn’s voice came suddenly issuing from the bottom left segment of the screen, the black girl’s face beaming while the field of view wobbled, “It’s so good to see you! See, I told you Chorn, the app would work!”

From somewhere beside Tiblyn, Chorn’s voice issued in their usual calm cadence, “That’s because I fixed it,” their mane of unruly coppery locks framed their face as they came into view, a pair of what looked like welding goggles over their eyes, “also if you set the phone on the tripod you don’t have to hold it.”

“Oh my duck, yes, but look at everyone! Wait – I totally found this thing in the back of the cleaning cupboard,” the field of view tilted disjointedly once again and Jemilla got a very good look at her friend’s carpeted floor. “I don’t even know what it is but like, who does know?”

In front of the camera, Tiblyn held up a briefcase next to her head and shook it.

“Don’t do that.” Chorn’s voice echoed, while the briefcase made a beeping noise. The camera was moved as Tiblyn and the briefcase disappeared from view, muffled speech in the background.

“Uh, is that all okay?” Jemilla asked. From experience briefcases weren’t supposed to beep.

“It’s fine guys!” Tiblyn’s section stopped shaking and the girl appeared again with her arm slung around Chorn’s shoulders. “It was just a communication beacon between earth and a distant Russian satellite! That’s what it was, right Chorn?”

“No. It was definitely a video game.”

Jemilla had no doubt that it wasn’t a video game and rather a potential security threat that could condemn the whole planet to apocalypse. It seemed like a Chorn thing she’d learnt to quietly ignore because if she thought about it she’d get a headache.

“Well anyways how are you all!” Tiblyn exclaimed.

“Yeah… yeah I’m good.” Jemilla replied while the rest of the Tribe’s voices overlapped with statements of their own. It was pure chaos.

“My followers went up by so much since I released the video of SB using orange juice and chugging mouthwash!” Ducker exclaimed happily, looking smug.

“Wait – don’t you mean using mouthwash and chugging orange juice?” Grunt piped up, “Emberly and I are good by the way. So is Trunkelle!”

“Mouthwash tastes good!” SB yelled, and there was an echo from someone’s sound.

“Honey that can’t be good for you.” Emberly said. She was right, there was no way drinking mouthwash was healthy. “Are you okay?”

SB scoffed, “Hell yeah I’m okay! I just threw up on Ducker’s bathroom floor is all.”

“You and Ducker are together at the moment?”

“We’ve been staying in the same house for three weeks!”

“Wait, where were you before – ”

“What I want to know,” Schwoopise interrupted, blonde hair covered by a beanie. She was also rocking a button up shirt with a tie that looked – like a sloth? “Is why you two are on different computers If you’re in the same house.”

Ducker didn’t look up from what appeared to be his phone, while SB just nodded.

“Hey,” Jemilla said, “why don’t you turn your computer off SB and join Ducker.”

“Hell yeah!!! Joining people! Good idea Jemilla!” SB exclaimed happily, moving from his screen into the side of Ducker’s.

“Or you could stay at your computer and Ducker could move.”

“Hell. YEAH!” SB moved out of Ducker’s screen, appearing back in his own. “Jemilla, that’s a great idea!”

Resisting the urge to facepalm, she let the call progress, watching her friends and generally being happy to see them all again, even if it was across a screen. She had been looking forward to it since she had organised it almost two weeks prior. Was it two weeks? Maybe it was.

She discovered, in the time the speaking was going on, that SB and Ducker had moved in together and were at any time either causing chaos or sleeping. Schwoopsie was trying to stay adrift when none of the shops were open and she couldn’t work her retail job on the side of her work in comedy. The comedian had also met a girl – somehow not over an internet comedy thing – and she thought she’d try her chances.

The two other couples were something else altogether. Emberly was serving take out from her café and was flooded with orders from around the city. She was thinking about employing some people to deliver the take out, but for the moment was happily mass producing cookies and sandwiches for people who retreated from their houses during lunch breaks. Grunt was perfectly happy with the quarantine being in effect – his reasoning being that it was good for people’s health and that it wasn’t much different from his quiet life of being a househusband, painting and gardening on the side.

Chorn and Tiblyn were the other ‘couple’, although not confirmed, and seemed to be taking everything well. Jemilla discovered, through Tiblyn’s joyous chattering, that Chorn had been rebuilding the kitchen from scratch, taken apart the fridge and taught the squirrels that if they wanted food they needed work they needed to bow at the back door. Chorn gave no comment other then that the squirrels were becoming more brainwashed every day, and made a statement implying Tiblyn was working at the Clivesdale aged care centre and wasn’t taking the pandemic very well.

In return to hearing what her friends had been doing, Jemilla was obliged to speak a little herself. At first she didn’t really say too much other than that she was fine, Molag was fine and oh – she had taken out the huge cat that was terrorising Molag. However, after a pointed look or two from Chorn and some metaphorical poking and prodding, she ended up spilling her thoughts on Zazzalil.

“Ooh, you’ve got a crush!” Tiblyn exclaimed before sweetly adding, “I’m very happy for you.”

“I’m not!” Ducker said, “We can’t tease you about it – wait there’s a reply on my tweet…”

“I mean, I just like her. She’s beautiful and funny and a bit wild – but that’s okay. Also, Molag likes her!”

“Of course, Molag would like her!” Emberly giggled, “Molag likes people as long as they’re decent human beings.”

“Wow, she didn’t like me when I first met her,” Schwoopise said with a slight frown, “And I’m nice.”

“That’s because you were a snotty college kid who was dating her daughter and threw up on her shoes the first time you met.” Jemilla replied with a laugh, remembering the occasion well.

“What? I was?”

“Yeah! You can’t remember?”

“Well, no. I know I walked you home from a date once and when I met her, she just sort of… glared.”

Jemilla was listening, but then there was the sound of a knock at the door. It was loud enough that she could hear it over the sound of her friend’s houses and chatter, and she slipped her headphones off.

“Guys, I’m just going to get the door,” she spoke at the computer, knowing her friends would hear her if they weren’t caught up in their own riveting conversation. She crossed the apartment, treading lightly over the floor until she reached the door, hardly stopping to think before pulling it open.

Outside the door, she was faced with her crush. Her crush who was wheezing where she stood, face pale, expression frantic and eyes brimming with tears. Not expected at all.

“Zazzalil? What’s wrong?” The smaller girl didn’t look injured… She would beat up anyone who had so much touched a hair on her crush’s head.

“Nothing! I’m fine.” Zazzalil gasped.

“No you’re not – What happened?”

The brunette didn’t answer, rather breathing more loudly and swaying slightly on the spot, looking like she’d keel over at any second. If Jemilla didn’t do anything, her crush would pass out in the corridor.

“Hey. Hey hey hey, it’s okay,” she soothed, deciding to expend executive action and take Zazzalil by the hand to lead her inside the apartment, “Here come in.”

Zazzalil seemingly allowed herself to be lead inside without any problems, becoming self-aware again half way across the floor at the right point to make a beeline for her windowsill, dropping Jemilla’s hand.

“Uh Zazz, maybe not the window –” How was she supposed to wrap her crush in her arms and keep her safe if there wasn’t enough room for them both? But it was Zazzalil’s windowsill now. It was her safe space within the apartment, so maybe the brunette would calm down if she sat there. “Well actually it’s not bad, just… Never mind. I’ll be back.”

She had friends to notify that she couldn’t stay and chat for longer.

When she slipped on her headphones again, she was met with questions of what was happening and why she had left.

“Guys, something came up,” she explained.

“Can’t it wait?” Ducker asked.

“No I can’t –”

“Or is it a romantic thing? Ooh are you going to make out with someone?”

“Ducker that’s not what came up.”

“JEMILLA’S GOING TO KISS SOMEONE!” Ducker yelled, followed by SB’s cheering.

“No! I mean – I wish, but no!” she exclaimed, “There’s a time and place for those sorts of things and another for when your neighbour’s – sh*t I need to do something about that.”

Emberly looked understanding. “Help out with whatever you’re doing. I’ll deal with them.”

“Yes, I’m going! I’m so sorry but bye!”

“Bye Jemilla!”

She hung up immediately, before closing the lid to her laptop and picking the whole thing up. The idea of getting a blanket for Zazzalil popped into her head and she rushed into the corridor. The faster she could get it and get back to her crush the better. She didn’t think the hyperventilating brunette should be left alone for too long.

The closest blanket she could find was the quilt from her own bed. It would do. Jemilla grabbed it and hurried back out of the corridor.

Zazzalil was indeed on her windowsill, legs pulled up tightly to her chest, eyes glazed over in a way which didn’t seem healthy. Her body was shaking. She just looked so defeated. A fiery urge to protect the brunette erupted from somewhere deep in her chest.

“What happened to you?”

“I – it’s… uh.” Zazzalil stammered, breathing picking up again to a level that sounded unhealthy.

Jemilla quickly backpedalled to trying to keep her crush calm. “Hey, it’s okay. Just take a second to breathe, it’s okay.”

The shorter girl launched into explanation. “I can’t pay my rent. I’m getting evicted tomorrow and it’s just – f*ck. I can’t go back to my parents because they’d kick me out again and I’m not staying with them anyway. And I can’t pay, it’s ten weeks over and –”

“Whoa, why? Did Pincer suspend your pay?” Wasn’t Zazzalil’s boss paying her? Was that why she couldn’t pay her rent? Because that was wrong, and a worker’s union would be able to get involved there.

“No no no I lost my job ages ago. Pincer was being a creep and I kicked myself out…”

“What? When was this?”

“The day before Snarl.”

That was why Zazzalil was home so early way back when… the day before Snarl was when she had met Zazzalil in the corridor and she had been so grumpy. “Zazz, that was ages ago.”

“Exactly, I can’t pay and I can’t go because it’s my mother’s f*cking death anniversary and my other parents are sh*t –”

Jemilla watched in shock as Zazz fell apart, not quite crying but hiccoughing and trying to breathe all at once. And whether she was technically crying or not, there were tears flowing down her crush’s face. It made her heart break.

“Zazz, it’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay,” she put a hand to her crush’s shoulder in hope she could be a comforting presence, “We’ll figure this out. It’s all going to be okay.”

Zazzalil looked up, deep brown eyes wide and full of despair. It was a moment Jemilla knew she’d remember for years to come, whether she and Zazzalil drifted apart or knew each other until they were old and grey.

“No, it’s not,” she said hoarsely, “it’s not going to be okay. How can it be okay?”

“It will be okay. It will.” It had to be. “Can I give you a hug?”

There was a short pause before Jemilla got a whispered reply. “Yes.”

“Okay. Come on, I can’t hug you when you’re on your windowsill.”

She watched as her crush, with hesitation and fatigue, uncurled from her place at the window, tentatively standing and with uncertainty stepping forward. Zazzalil hesitated yet another second before wrapping her arms around her waist and burying her head into her shoulder. Jemilla’s heart burst, and she moved to reciprocate the hug before realising she still had the quilt in her hands. But she had a plan for that.

It wasn’t graceful, but she tried moving slowly backwards until she found the couch. Then it was just a matter of sitting down, gently taking Zazzalil down with her and settling so she was held close, the quilt spread over them both. It was warm and she hoped it was safe - Zazzalil was still trembling in her arms, but her breathing was less as severe as it had been.

“You’re okay. It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.” Jemilla found herself murmuring, using one hand to rub here crush’s back as she shook, “It’s all going to be fine.”

God and any other deities be damned if she wasn’t going to fiercely protect the human in her arms until everything was fine.

Outside, it began to rain. They were only on the third floor of the maybe seven storey building, so they couldn’t hear the rain directly, but the pitter patter of the rain on the ground outside mixed with the grey sky made everything seem just a little darker. It felt like it was late evening – the day’s vibe was disjointed.

But she had Zazzalil in her arms, and that didn’t feel wrong at all. In fact, it felt right.

It was nearly two pm.

Chapter Text

Zazzalil was aware of a few things. The first was that everything had gone to sh*t and there wasn’t anything she could do except watch it unfold like failed origami. The second thing she was very much aware of was that Jemilla was holding her. Not keeping an arm over her shoulder, or a strange half hug, but quite literally holding her. It was slightly awkward, but mostly comforting through the numbness she was feeling.

She was settled on the couch directly before the taller brunette. This was no exaggeration, as she couldn’t be closer to Jemilla if she tried. She was essentially in her neighbour’s lap, but also on the couch and she didn’t really know, apart from that she was warm and secure. Very secure. Jemilla’s arms were wrapped around her, one hand rubbing her back, keeping her pulled as close as possible. Her head was resting on her neighbour’s shoulder. It was as if she’d fall and break if she didn’t have someone keeping her up, like she was a delicate antique vase or a baby.

On top of that, she was covered in a soft quilt which smelt not just like freshly washed laundry, but something sweet and familiar that she couldn’t quite place. It was different from the weird washing powdery smell of the t-shirt and a hoodie she had pulled from her wardrobe.

While Zazzalil wanted to try and think about what to do about her sh*tty, sh*tty parents and imminent eviction, the subjects only prompted unease to creep into her head. The most she could do was close her eyes and focus on taking shuddering breaths, which were becoming less shuddery as time passed. Maybe it had something to do with Jemilla’s quiet mutterings that didn’t make sense, or the faint noise of rain. Or the warmth and scent of the quilt. Or, perhaps, she was just exhausted and giving up. It was probably a mix of all three.

After a short while, Jemilla’s murmurings ceased, and all she could hear was her own heartbeat reverberating slowly and steadily. The hand on her back also stopped it’s circular rubbing movements, and instead she got an experimental tap on her shoulder.

“Zazzalil. Are you asleep?” Jemilla asked quietly.

“No,” she opened her eyes and leaned back a bit so she could see her neighbour properly – also she and Jemilla were very close. Like, very close.

It occurred to her then that she didn’t know what she and Jemilla were. Neighbours didn’t usually hug one another so much, and neighbours weren’t as close as they were now. And oh sh*t now her gay feelings were creeping in to join the party despair and long-lived grief had started in her head. The party she had just shut down but seemed to be starting back up again. Also, did Jemilla have a problem with her being in her apartment? Because it occurred to her that most people didn’t want to deal with their deadbeat neighbours whose lives were going downhill like a broken rollercoaster.

“You’re holding me,” was all Zazzalil could say quietly, while her brain short circuited.

“Well, yeah. Is that a problem?” Jemilla queried, concern edging back into her voice and releasing her arms from around Zazzalil. “I can totally let you go if you want me to.”

“Um. I don’t know.” Was it a problem? “Maybe?”

“Okay. Cool, I’ll just…” Jemilla stopped hugging her.

Only a little awkwardly, Zazzalil got up from where she had been sitting and moved to settle a foot or two away, still on the couch because she didn’t want it to seem like she had been uncomfortable. Although, it seemed like she couldn’t escape that.

“I’m sorry if that was weird.” Jemilla said.

“Oh no – it was fine. I mean… a bit warm but, yeah.”

“You sure? Your eyes did the thing where they just…” her neighbour pointed to her own eye and made an explosion hand movement, “get a lot bigger.”

“No, it’s fine.” Her f*cking eyes were betraying her. Sh*t, she needed to think of an excuse for being weird and gay and sad and pretty much homeless. Gah, she just remembered that! Self depricative jokes usually worked. Right? “My parents didn’t hug me as a child.”

“Oh. That’s…”

The joke didn’t work. “No, no it’s fine. I’m joking – well I’m not. But it’s not a big deal!”

Jemilla sent her look that roughly translated to ‘yes, it is a big deal because you are evidently not okay’ before asking, “I’m guessing you don’t get on with your parents?”

“Well no. My father’s just… I don’t think he ever wanted me in the first place. Like, they didn’t plan to have me. He sort of left my mother to del with me,” Zazzalil explained, “He didn’t leave, but he didn’t voluntarily take care of me or anything. Like, my mother named me – he hates my name. Probably because she named me. I think he just hated her. Almost, like it was her fault for having a child.

“And then… when she died, he got to play the grieving husband card like ‘oh no how am I supposed to raise a child all by myself’. Like – you bastard she was raising a child without you for five years! And then he blamed me for her death when it was really his own fault and he still does, and I can’t f*cking get rid of him.”

“Wait, did you say he blames you?” Jemilla asked, suddenly sounding incredulous. “But weren’t you five? What could you have done at five years old?”

How could she say it without it sounding concerning in every way possible? How could she say it at all. “Run into open traffic during the community Easter egg hunt.”

“Oh duck.”

“Yeah. My mother and father had been arguing – they had been for a while. I think she wanted to take me away with her. Live somewhere better. Away from him. Anyway, I guess I wandered off and by the time my mother noticed I was pretty much on the road. I probably would’ve died but… she pushed me out of the way and got hit herself.”

This would be the point where things got messy. Some people, when they found out, would just bring out the generic ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ while others went all ‘ah yes how cliché’ on her. That wasn’t fun. Even after that there were the rare few that would get strangely invested, asking about literally every detail. There were a disturbingly large amount of those at her high school. How did her father react? Did she see her mother die? Was it gory?

Zazzalil didn’t remember it very clearly, but flashes of memory from the event and its aftermath remained. Trying to get up and feeling that her back hurt. Being held tightly by an adult she didn’t know as her mother lay on the pavement surrounded by other strangers. Sitting silently in a room with toys for very young children while someone from the hospital – a nurse perhaps – tried to get her to play instead of being quiet and detached.

She looked over to her neighbour, feeling the weight of sadness clinging to her all over again. It was like being wrapped in a blanket except the blanket didn’t help keeping you warm. Jemilla was looking back at her with absolute sympathy.

“I’m so sorry,” the taller brunette said, “that’s awful.”

“Yeah,” she replied, before shrugging, “It’s not like anyone can do anything about it.”

“Well, your dad could start by forgiving you because it sounds like he started the chain of events.”

“He wouldn’t do that. Still f*cking blames me about it.”

“Is that why you don’t get on?”

“Sort of. But mostly because he’s an ass,” Zazzalil could feel a bubble of anger rising through the hollow, empty feeling in her chest. All the words in a dictionary couldn’t explain how much she hated the man.

“He f*cking enrolled me in school and left me to figure that sh*t out all by myself. I can make sandwiches because this one teacher noticed I wasn’t bringing food to school because he didn’t always buy food, and they sent a note home. I got yelled at.s

“Then he f*cking got married again to some random woman he met at the bar. And she wasn’t any better. Like, could they not see me? Them drinking and smoking every night. They just f*cking left for like a week when I was ten. Who even does that? Why? What the f*ck do you get from being such assholes?!”

“I don’t know Zazz.” Jemilla replied. They were rhetorical questions, but okay. Obviously Jemilla didn’t know. She didn’t know. Nobody would know – it wasn’t explainable behaviour.

She flopped back against the couch, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to think anymore. She wanted to just not exist for a while, to let everything smooth itself out because she sure wasn’t going to be able to f*cking do it herself.

“I can’t move in with my parents because that’s like, asking for death,” she spiralled aloud in frustration,” I’m probably just going to live in my car or something.”

“When do you have to be out by?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Okay…” There was a long pause before Jemilla spoke again, “and you don’t have a place to go?”

“Maybe?” If she thought about it, Keeri would probably let her crash for a while. Keeri also had the spare bed in the loft. But she didn’t want to be leeching of her friend for too long. “Keeri might let me stay with her.”

“Right. Because – and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s totally up to you – you could stay with me if you like.”

“What?” Zazzalil opened her eyes and shot up from where she had been slouching, turning to her neighbour faster than her heart jolted in her chest. Jemilla would let her stay? With HER?

“You basically live with me already anyway.”

“But that was for like, three days!”

Jemilla smiled and looked down, avoiding eye contact. “Well, I got used to having you around, I guess. I like hanging out with you.”

In her head, Zazzalil was feeling the effects of mixed emotions causing turmoil. Relief because she had an option for a place to stay. Happiness because the person offering was Jemilla – and holy sh*t was she attracted to Jemilla. Attraction, for obvious reasons.

But previous sadness and anger were running rampant, supplemented with extra added confusion and doubt. Was Jemilla going to expect her to help pay rent? What if she changed her mind? If Regina Fell found out that she was still hanging around in the apartment building and using the facilities was she going to be hunted down for lawsuits? Speaking of lawsuits, did she still have to pay the ten weeks rent, or for the damages she didn’t perpetrate to her apartment’s heater and broken window?

Also, would Keeri be disappointed if she stayed with Jemilla instead of her? Zazzalil didn’t think Keeri would be too bothered, but a small part of her considered how it was probably stranger to move in with a neighbour who you hadn’t know for long rather than your best friend since high school. But she did like Jemilla, and spending time with the taller brunette was literally the best thing in the world.

So, she was faced with a dilemma. Stay with Jemilla. Or beg Keeri to let her crash and subsequently do so.

Zazzalil needed to make a phone call.

“So… uh, do you want to stay?” Jemilla asked, donning a hopeful expression after finally looking up and making eye contact again. It was like staring into the eyes of a kitten of a baby deer – Zazzalil felt like she couldn’t say no. Not that she wanted to of course.

“Well, I need to make a phone call but… it should be fine,” she remembered that her phone was still in her apartment. “Uh, my phone’s not here. I need to get that.”

“Sure! Get anything else you need if you need it.”

When she got back to her trashed apartment, her phone was lying where she had dropped it. The screen was cracked maybe a little more then it had already been from past mishaps, but otherwise it didn’t appear to be too worse for wear. Upon unlocking it, the device buzzed and proclaimed she had another voicemail.

Some small amount of inspection found the message left to be from Keeri, who once again stated she was worried and needed Zazzalil to call her as quickly as possible. In the background she could hear needy meows from Snarl, who was probably being murder-y or psychopathic.

Immediately she called Keeri back, and after the weird electronic beeping of her best friend’s ringtone, was quickly met with hurried speech and a volley of meowing.

“Zazz? Oh my gosh, I was so worried!” Keeri’s alarmed voice echoed over the phone into the empty apartment.

“Keeri, I’m okay.”

“You know you have to call. We talked about this like, every year. You need to call me so I know you’re not out in some alley getting f*cked up on drugs or something.”

“It’s fine, I’m…good.” Was she though? Was she??? The writhing snakes feeling was settling in her stomach and she couldn’t tell if it was because she was feeling stressed or happy. Because she was feeling both. “Um, I do have a problem –”

“What is it? If it’s your father I’ll… I’ll make you come and pet the rats because they like being petted.”

“Aw, thanks? No it’s not just him. I’m getting evicted.”

“What?!”

“I got evicted, I need to be out by tomorrow.”

“Stay there, I’m coming to get you and you can stay with me.”

“Wait, Keeri –”

“All your stuff fits in your car, right?” Keeri cut in again.

“No, no. Keeri!” Zazzalil jumped in before the blonde on the other side of the conversation couldn’t continue to ramble, “Um, Jemilla said I could stay with her.”

A surprised gasp, followed by an irritated meow: “She WHAT?”

“Jemilla invited me to stay with her?”

“Oh, my duck, it’s happening!”

Zazzalil almost had to take a second to process what she heard, because not only had Keeri suddenly disregarded literally everything else, but she said ‘it’s happening’ in reference to some event she had foreseen. What was happening? What did it mean?

“Keeri, what’s happening?” Zazzalil asked, simultaneously noticing that while she had been aimlessly pacing her apartment while on the phone, she had come across Keeri’s smashed up vase. Nope. Not looking at that – ignore the problem.

“You! And Jemilla! Hopefully getting together because you told me you like her and Chorn said that like, how her pupils get bigger when she’s looking at you is a sign she likes you!”

“Wasn’t that a while ago?”

“Well… yeah, but what have you been doing recently?”

“Uh,” she had slept over at Jemilla’s and they had sort of cuddled on the couch on two occasions in the past week, so, “Hanging out?”

“With Jemilla?”

“…yes.”

“See! You should totally go for it! Also, I’m sorry you’re being evicted. Is everything good?”

It was. It definitely was. “Not really.”

“Oh. That’s not good.”

“No.” The smashed vase on the floor caught her eye again. Not that she wanted to, but Zazzalil felt like she needed to tell Keeri. Her breath hitched a little as she confessed, “Um, I sort of smashed your vase of flowers.”

“You still kept that? Aw, Zazz!” Keeri said happily, “I can get you another one.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to do that.”

“No no no, it’ll be like a moving in present for you and Jemilla!”

“Wait – so I’m doing that?” Zazzalil asked, even though she knew the answer was yes. But sometimes second opinions were needed.

“Yeah!”

“I’m moving in with Jemilla. Holy sh*t. Thanks Keeri.”

“You’re welcome!”

When she hung up the phone, after promises to call again and drawn out goodbyes, the smashed vase on the floor didn’t seem to taunt her that much. Her apartment – soon to be someone else’s  - while still morose and depressing, wasn’t so much like a prison. She was getting the f*ck out of it.

Chapter Text

It had been five days. Just five. That was approximately one hundred and twenty hours – actually appearing to be a long time when she looked at it that way. No matter how long it seemed or how short it was in reality, Jemilla couldn’t imagine life in her apartment without having Zazzalil around.

On Sunday afternoon, she had helped empty the contents of her crush’s sparse apartment into cardboard boxes, some of which were taken and moved into her neighbour – no they weren’t neighbours anymore. Roommates? Yeah. Some of the boxes were move to her roommate’s car, and the rest were either stacked haphazardly in the corner of the living space Zazzalil had claimed or in the hall closet.

While packing the boxes, Jemilla had discovered a few things. Firstly, Zazzalil hadn’t been joking when she said most of her clothes were sweatshirts and pants. There were perhaps two pairs of jeans and a few pairs of leggings, as well as a single woollen jumper, the single blue sleeved baseball shirt and a plethora of assorted t-shirts. But otherwise that was it. Hoodies and sweatshirts and sweatpants for days.

Also interesting was the sheer variety of the things she found in her ex-neighbour’s kitchen. For one thing, the flour from before they had made the gummy bear cookies was there. In one drawer, a mountain of pasta. Also, enough packet noodles to last through an apocalypse. Seven jars of unlabelled red jam in a high cupboard. A packet of rubber bands. The flavour sachets that came with taco shells.

When they were done, some of Zazzalil’s stuff – like the insane amount of toilet paper and the food that had been squirrelled away, was now by unspoken agreement both their property. The chocolate gummy bear cookies were now all together in a container in the fridge and several unopened tins of fruit salad dating from two years before were tucked under the kitchen island. Jemilla had a pasta drawer now. She didn’t know why the pasta needed its own drawer. It just did apparently.

Other changes in her apartment were more obvious than less space in the fridge and cupboards. The camp bed in the corner of the living room, as well as the numerous cardboard boxes, were sure signs she was no longer living alone. Also, finding a short brunette curled up on the windowsill was a common occurrence. As was finding Zazzalil in all manner of places. The couch, the table, perched on the kitchen island like a cat overseeing its domain, and even in the hall closet.

During the days she had been working, it was very similar to the week before. Jemilla would work, while Zazzalil hung around doing her own thing. In the mornings, that was usually sleeping – but sometimes she would be up and doing things. At lunchtime they’d have something to eat and engage in idle talk. Then it was back to working again. The major difference was that when work ended, Zazzalil didn’t disappear.

For the strange system it was, Jemilla liked it. She liked having her new roommate around, liked having someone else around to both keep her company and split the load of household chores. She found, in the past few days, that she especially liked waking up in the morning and going out into the main part of the apartment to see what Zazzalil was doing.

Speaking of, in the time they had become roommates the shorter brunette had been a little… closed off. Less energetic, more likely to be found sitting and gazing out of windows. Jemilla had pinned it on having recently undergone a big life change, as well as her roommate’s truly sh*tty family history having made an appearance.

That was another small problem. She had promised herself some time before that if she hadn’t made a move with Zazzalil, she was… going to do something. What that was exactly she couldn’t remember. But there were consequences. The problem with that was she didn’t think Zazzalil needed her useless gay self making moves when the brunette was obviously going through some stuff. Especially when any advances could be unwarranted and unwanted.

And that was her other problem: she didn’t know if Zazzalil liked her. She knew she liked Zazzalil – that was obvious to anyone with eyes and a functioning brain who could see her blush or smile and put two and two together. But reading into Zazzalil’s reactions was like trying to read a book, except she was illiterate. She couldn’t do it! Everything the shorter girl did was just cute or funny.

Was she too distracted by Zazzalil to know if the attraction was mutual?

Mentally, she sighed. It was too hard to know. Maybe she was too gay to know. Physically, she looked from the car window – which she had been staring out of – to Zazzalil, who was fiddling with the car keys. They had arrived at Molag’s house.

That day, like the others, Jemilla had worked and Zazzalil did her own thing. However just after lunchtime, Molag had called.

“Jemilla you privileged f*ck! How are you?” Molag had exclaimed jovially when she answered the phone, “Life treating you well? How did that video call sh*t go down?”

“Molag, I’m supposed to be working.”

“Well so am I, but every privileged f*ck who asks about the chain-sawing ad says I’m too old and fragile. Which is bullsh*t, I could wrestle a bear. Young people are all the same these days, all messing around because they have everything they need and not taking people seriously. Age discriminating privileged f*cks.”

“Right…” she didn’t know her guardian was running ads for chain sawing jobs. “What do you want Molag?”

“Can’t I just talk to you? My wonderful daughter? Also, I want you and your neighbour to come over for dinner.”

“Sorry what?” she wanted them to come over for dinner… this wasn’t something that had happened before. Was Molag okay? Had she fallen and hit her head, or had she taken something she shouldn’t have? Also, she and Zazzalil were no longer neighbours.

“I want you and Short Stack to come over for dinner,” Molag repeated, “Can’t an old woman have some company every once in a while?”

“Well… yeah, of course. Also Zazzalil isn’t my neighbour anymore – ”

“I’ve finished the raccoon hats too.”

“You still had those?! I thought I took the dead raccoons away from you!”

“You did.”

Jemilla didn’t know what to think. Molag had evidently had more raccoon furs than she had been showing off. Or she had gone and killed more raccoons just for their furs – which frankly didn’t sound okay. “How did you make the hats than? Because if I took the raccoon skins away…”

“Psych! They’re just made from some fake fur I found because you’re a f*cking spoilsport.” Molag cackled, “And did you say Short-stack isn’t your neighbour anymore? You didn’t mess things up did you J-mills?”

“Uh, no I don’t think so.”

“Well that’s great! Get her over if you’re still on good terms. Also, maybe tell her now that she’s been invited because if she can’t come it’s going to be no fun.”

“Geez, do you not like me that much?” Jemilla chuckled, before looking over to Zazzalil’s windowsill where the shorter girl was sitting with headphones half on and half off. “Hey Zazzalil.”

Zazzalil looked up questioningly, phone in one hand and the other fiddling with the cord to her headphones. “Yeah?”

“Wait, is Short-stack there? J-mills!” Molag exclaimed.

Jemilla ignored her, pulling the phone away from her ear. “Molag wants us to come over for dinner.”

A smile – not the infectious grin which she had grown to love seeing, but definitely a smile – erupted over the brunette’s face. “Sounds like fun.”

The impulse to grin right back was one that Jemilla was okay with swaying to. With a light, buoyant feeling in her chest, and a pleased smile on her face, she turned away from her crush and put the phone back to her ear. There she was met with Molag, now yelling into the phone.

“–MILLA YOU PRIVILEGED F*CK! IS YOUR GIRL THERE?”

“Zazzalil is here if that’s what you mean.”

“Why the f*ck didn’t you lead with that? Oh. OHHHH –”

“Molag she just moved in with me –”

“You’re not neighbours with Short-stack anymore because you scored a girlfriend and brought her home! HELL. YES. I knew I didn’t raise a disappointment!” Molag exclaimed gleefully, “So. Have you two kissed yet?”

“What?” Oh no. Molag had got the wrong idea. Although she wished that was why she and Zazzalil were now cohabiting, it was not. “No, Molag! There was a problem with rent and she couldn’t –”

“Jemilla, you’re a failure. Dinner is going to be ready by six, but get here by five or something.”

After that, Molag had hung up. So, fast forward a few hours, and that lead to where she was. Sitting in her crush’s car and waiting while said crush fiddled with something on her phone before they were able to go in for dinner.

Zazzalil was looking better than she had during the day. It had been another wake-up late day, where for a good portion of the morning Jemilla was able to look up from work and gaze at her crush admiringly, just taking in the beautiful person existing on the other side of the room. Waking up late days also meant that Zazzalil looked like a sloth for most of them – complete with bleary eyes and lethargy.

However, after a shower and a fresh change of clothes, which were surprisingly jeans and the single jumper instead of the usual sweatshirt/sweatpants combo, Zazzalil looked more functional. Then again, it wasn’t like Molag would care. Molag had relaxed standards.

“Ready to go in?” Jemilla asked.

“Oh. Yeah, I’ve been ready. I was waiting for you.” Zazzalil said, taking her eyes off her phone and putting it down.

“Well… we should go in then.”

“Yeah.”

Walking up the gravel path to the front door, Jemilla was reminded of other almost identical occasions when she had brought people home. Well, not bringing them home in the ‘bringing them home, meet the family’ kind of way – although there were a few of those – but her increasing heart rate and the alien feeling of awaiting judgement was the same. She didn’t know why though. Molag had met and apparently liked Zazzalil, found her amusing even.

After knocking on the door, she found there indeed was no reason to be stressed.

The front door, which was a heavy honey coloured slab of lacquered oak (according to Molag at least) swung open to reveal the older woman herself, grinning happily from vivid crimson, mustard and turquoise drug rug hoodie.

“Hey Jemilla!” Molag exclaimed in greeting, straightening from her usual sightly hunched over state to envelop Jemilla in a hug. “It’s great to see you!”

“Hi Molag.” She hugged her guardian back, taking in the scent of pine and woodsmoke, “How are you?”

“Bored as f*ck!” Molag complained, cutting off the hug and stepping back through the doorway to hold the door open, “Quarantine’s a b*tch. Anyhow get in here. Hey Zazzalil!”

“Hey Molag. Nice hoodie.” Zazzalil said as walked through the door, to the effect of Molag’s face shifting into a knowing expression, still maintaining a wry grin.

“It is, isn’t it…” when the shorter brunette had made her way ahead, she looked to Jemilla and mouthed the words “She’s a keeper!”

“Shut up Molag.”

“Hey, respect your elders! Also you need to face the facts and not be a disappointment.”

“Jemilla isn’t a disappointment.” Zazzalil piped up as they all walked into the kitchen space, sounding genuinely defensive.

“Oho! Got some fire there Short-stack!” Molag exclaimed happily, looking back to Jemilla and raising her eyebrows, “Nah, it’s fine. J-mills is anything but a disappointment.”

“Aw, thanks Molag.”

“She’s a f*cking dumbass though.”

“Hey!”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t love you! Sit down, both of you.”

Jemilla moved to sit at the table, Zazzalil following suit and taking the seat next to her. On the table were what she recognised as the family photo albums, face down, and a new photo album she didn’t recognise. Also sat on the table were a pair of pruning shears and a very large live cockroach in a jar. Huh. Weird.

She watched as Molag hobbled around the kitchen, wide smile fluctuating into a stoic grimace every now and then, one hand clutching at the countertop. She needed to ask her guardian about medical things again. Also, where was her cane?

“Can I get you anything? Chocolate milk? Glass of water? Juice box?”

“Why do you still have juice boxes?” Jemilla asked, keeping a careful eye on the older woman as she opened the fridge and bent down to pick something out, “Also I’m not six and bringing a friend over for a playdate.”

Molag stood up again and shrugged, two opaque plastic bags in hand. “Well I don’t have any alcohol; I drank that all myself and used the rest to get rid of the poison ivy down in the back of the yard. And I’ve got juice pouches if you’d prefer?”

“Yeah can I have one?” Zazzalil asked, “Juice is the best. And why is there a cockroach on the table?”

“I found him when he f*cking flew out of firewood this morning and figured that he was bigger than normal and you two would get a kick out of seeing him. His name is Cody. Juice box or juice pouch?”

“Box. He’s shiny.”

“Hell yeah he is!” Molag grinned, reaching into one bag and throwing over a juice box, “Catch! Also here J-mills.”

She was thrown a juice box herself, which she’d be lying if she said she didn’t mind having juice, even if it seemed immature. Zazzalil seemed to be enjoying it at least. Molag also seemed to be enjoying having people over, taking some juice boxes herself and settling down at the end of the table.

“What have you got planned for dinner?” Jemilla asked, genuinely interested. She hadn’t seen anything out or being prepared. What she did notice after looking around was the Pride Flag pinned up above the mantle piece in the living room.

“Eh… pizza.” Molag said after a moment of thought.

“Homemade pizza?”

“Nah. Just sh*tty frozen pizza from wherever’s cheapest.”

“Just store-bought pizza? And not even the good stuff?”

“Yep. If we get some now they can be ready by six. What do you privileged f*cks want?”

“Wow.”

Molag made a tutting noise. “J-mills, you know full well ‘wow’ isn’t a type of pizza.”

“I know it’s not! It’s just…”

“Just what? Is store bought pizza not good enough? Are you trying to impress someone by having fancy food?” Molag started teasing, “You know what? You could impress someone by fighting me over some bread with stuff on. One could say – ” Molag held up her hands like she was going to start boxing, “– that you want a pizza this.”

No. Oh no. The parent puns were out. Good god she was not going to survive the night.

“Well, I was going to say that it’s just okay. I’ll have vegetarian.” Jemilla said, taking a breath and taking a mental step back from the situation. It was fine. It was just pizza night with her crush, who she did want to impress, but they were having sh*tty store bought pizza. But it was fine. “What are you having Zazzalil?”

“Uh… anything with pineapple.”

Oop. While Jemilla didn’t care for pineapple on pizza or people who liked it - it was an atrocity, but she knew there was no way to reason with deluded pineapple on pizza lovers - but Molag did.

“What?” Molag exclaimed, before proclaiming, “Well they’re not always perfect.” Then giving a look that Jemilla could only translate as: ‘This is who I’m getting as a future daughter in law?’

Great. Jemilla wasn’t afraid that Molag was going to expose her, but she had the feeling that her crush on Zazzalil wasn’t going to be respectfully ignored - instead, quite the opposite in fact. She could tell from the glint in Molag’s eyes.

“Pineapple on pizza isn’t that bad.” Zazzalil said indignantly.

“Pft, it’s a fruit. It’s fruit on a savoury food, it doesn’t work!” Molag grumbled, “Eh it’s okay. We can get you a small Tropicana or another pizza sin to eat by yourself.”

Well, she was glad that was sorted out. And there wasn’t any arguing either! “Okay, so that’s sorted. Should I call the nearest open pizza place and see if we can get them delivered?”

“Wait a second! I wanted frozen store pizza.” Molag protested, “And the shops are open until late. You could go get some.”

“Did you just invite us over to get you store pizza?” That didn’t sound weird at all, having them to come over then leave quickly.

“Well… no. You’re going to go get the store pizza. Short-stack and I are going to stay here.”

Okay… Jemilla glanced to Zazzalil, who was looking surprised. Leaving her and Molag alone seemed like a recipe for disaster. “What do you mean that Zazzalil is staying here?”

“I just want to talk to her.” Molag said with a shrug, but the way her eyes seemed to glint told a different story. “Is that not allowed?”

“Nope. That’s fine. Completely fine.”

“Well, you’d better get to that pizza then. Also – can you drop by the pharmacy and pick up a prescription?”

Molag pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her drug rug hoodie, sliding it across the table to her with a smile. Right. Jemilla saw how it was. She was being sent to do errands while Molag exposed her to Zazzalil. And it would go badly because Zazzalil was going through some stuff and wouldn’t want to be… pursued romantically or whatever.

Begrudgingly, she took the prescription and stood up. What else could she do?

“I’m going to go get pizza then I guess,” she turned to Zazzalil, “Can I borrow your car?”

“You can drive?” Zazzalil asked, looking confused, “I thought you just rode your bike?”

“No, I can drive, I use Molag’s car sometimes. But bicycles are easier.”

“Huh. Why can’t you use Molag’s car?”

“I… actually don’t know.” She knew it hadn’t been parked out front for a while, and that because of the whole

“Eh, it’s parked somewhere out back,” Molag cut in, gesturing with one hand, “It’s easier not to take it out.”

Zazzalil seemed to consider this, before shrugging and digging a set of car keys out of her pocket. She deftly tossed them to Jemilla, who caught them in both hands.

“Don’t crash my car I guess,” the shorter brunette said, taking a rattling sip from her apparently nearly empty juice box.

“And you’re okay staying here with Molag?” Jemilla asked, just to make sure.

“Yeah,” Zazzalil shrugged once again, while Molag huffed in offense, “It’s fine.”

“Okay. Good.” she moved back from the table with a sigh, eyeing the cockroach and juice and pruning shears before turning her gaze to two of the people she probably cared about most in her life. “You two… don’t start arguing over pizza or set anything on fire or something.” Jemilla made sure to give Molag a look which meant ‘don’t you dare mess anything up for me’.

Both her guardian and her crush looked back at her like butter wouldn’t melt in their hands.

“We won’t. Maybe.”

“Expect the house to be razed with fire J-mills.”

She considered, as she left through the front door and thoroughly regretted her decision, that she was going to come back and find a satanic ritual happening on the living room floor. Whatever they would do was going to be dark god summoning level chaos. Or something similar. Either way, it would exceed at least level seven chaos. Jemilla just knew it.

Chapter Text

There were times when Zazzalil felt high – like she was invincible and nothing in the world could stop her from having a good time. Those were the days when the sun shone brighter and she appreciated the nicer things the world had to offer; cute dogs, cute women, cheap but tasty food and good friends to name a few. They indeed were the days.

But obviously, there were the other days. Days when things just weren’t going well or something didn’t vibe right and even puppies couldn’t do anything to make it better. It was an endless down cycle or melancholy and dissatisfaction. And sometimes the bad feelings from one day spread to the next like rot through apples in a barrel, causing a major slump.

It was one of those slumps.

Even though she was free from her old, sh*tty apartment, and she was practically living the dream by being moved in with Jemilla, Zazzalil found life was being just a massive slump. The first night she was out, she was optimistic. Sure, the anniversary and her sh*tty father were weighing her down like a ton of bricks, but she felt like the future was going to be bright – especially if Jemilla’s tonne of fairy lights had anything to do with the matter. But when she woke up late on Monday, it was like something had sapped her energy, and instead of getting up Zazzalil felt more like existing as a blanket burrito.

It was easier on blanket burrito days, which were pretty much every day that followed, to roll over and go back to sleep. Then she’d wake up to daylight and usually to Jemilla’s greeting of ‘good morning sleepyhead’ when she finally decided to sit up and try to get moving for the day.

Her waking hours, if they were even to be called such, were spent in a haze of two activities: trying to chill out and looking for jobs online – she didn’t want to freeload off her ex-neighbour from the get-go. In between those actions were the daily motions of sleeping, eating, washing and talking to Jemilla.

Every now and then she remembered her sh*tty father and her dead mother – it had been yet another year since the accident two days ago, three days, four… When that happened, she preferred to think about other things. Or she’d look out the window and focus on the clouds. Or sometimes she’d gaze at Jemilla just for long enough that it wasn’t too weird. But it was hard when social media kept reminding her that spring had sprung and wow, wasn’t the community Easter egg hunt fun? Totally not like the year way back when a woman f*cking died after being hit by a car.

On Friday, she got a distraction.

It had been another wake-up-late day when she was probably going to laze around, before feeling guilty for not doing anything and fall into another spiral of lazing around because she felt bad. Just after lunch however, Jemilla got a phone call which changed everything.

She had been half listening at the time, and while most of Jemilla’s half of the conversation made no sense, she understood after a short while of eavesdropping that Molag was on the phone. Then Jemilla asked her if she wanted to go to over to Molag’s house for dinner. Obviously, she said yes – Molag was perhaps one of the best people Zazzalil had ever met, and it sounded like it would be a ton of fun.

So, instead of laying around all afternoon, she took a shower and cleaned up a bit so she didn’t look like sh*t. It would be interesting to dress more formally for a change. Instead of sweatpants, she threw on a pair of jeans. She replaced a sweatshirt with the grey woollen jumper she found languishing in the back of her wardrobe days before. They were nice clothes, right?

An internal crisis she hadn’t had before on an issue she hadn’t seriously considered to be an issue appeared. Was how she dressed well enough? She didn’t usually care, but now she had someone to compare against, her smart casual was average casual compared to Jemilla’s smart amazing - and that gave her butterflies. Not that the olive cargo style pants and flowy white cardigan over a blue shirt made Jemilla more gorgeous than usual. Formal clothes on an inherently beautiful person just excessively accentuated the beauty that was already there.

When they finally got to Molag’s after successfully navigating the roads without major stress on hitting pedestrians, Zazzalil decided that she was maybe overdressed for the occasion. Molag looked like she had rolled out of bed after sleeping in her clothes while high. Honestly, she didn’t know what she had expected.

Smash cut to what Zazzalil especially didn’t expect – sitting and sipping a nearly empty juice box while Molag did the same to her left. Jemilla had borrowed the car to go get pizza and a prescription filled, so it was just her and the older woman alone. They’d currently been sitting for a few minutes in relative silence. So much for chaos.

“This is fun,” Molag said dryly, a thoughtful expression on her face, “I’m out of juice.”

“Same.” Zazzalil had forgotten how small juice boxes were, considering she hadn’t had one for what was probably years.

“Want another one?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Good, because I f*cking do.”

Molag grinned, getting to her feet and traipsing rather unsteadily over to the kitchen counter, where the opaque plastic bags full of juice were still sitting. A handful of juice pouches were pulled from one, and Molag came hobbling back over again, dropping the handful loosely on the table.

“Eyy! Here you go. These ones are – privileged f*cks can’t consider their elders before labelling sh*t – what’s this?” Molag exclaimed, before tossing Zazzalil a juice pouch, “I can’t read that small.”

“Uh,” she squinted at the incredibly tiny writing on the large label that had been stuck over the juice’s intrinsic logo and flavour, “Grape juice, best before November 2017… ‘NOW 75% OFF’… also ‘OUT OF DATE DO NOT CONSUME’.”

“Nice! Here check these, the privileged f*cks put the labels over the flavours. Are any of them not grape?”

“Grape, grape, more grape, apple, grape for days, another apple… I think they’re mostly grape. Where did you even get them all?”

“These were all together like ten dollars out the back of some store,” Molag said with a chuckle, “I don’t f*cking know where they came from.” The black woman took one of the pouches and stabbed it with a straw. “J-mills used to love juice so much as a kid, I figured I’d buy in bulk. Were you a juice kid?”

“I didn’t really get juice.” Or lots of things for that matter. “My parents were assholes.”

Molag nodded slowly, “Like just assholes for not getting you juice or just… assholes.”

“Just assholes.”

It wasn’t the first time her parents had gotten in the way once again. When they arrived, and Molag joking called Jemilla a disappointment, it sort of hit different for her. She didn’t know why Jemilla was so disappointing – evidently an inside joke she wasn’t in on – but that word and  similar had come from her father’s mouth enough for it not to be funny. Or maybe it was sort of funny and she was just making a huge deal out of something which didn’t need a deal made out of.

In the jar on the table, the large cockroach seemingly awakened from its previously catatonic state and whirred into the side of the jar.

“Assholes shouldn’t be allowed to have kids,” Molag said sagely, picking up the glass container and eyeing the insect inside, “asshole parents are either sh*t or have asshole kids to continue the assholery.”

“Thank duck my stepmother and my father didn’t try for any more children then.”

“Hmm. Are they bothering you? Because I can f*ck them up.”

“Sorry what?” Zazzalil asked in confusion, because she hadn’t really said anything to Molag about her parents apart from that they were assholes. Although, she wouldn’t mind if they got f*cked up. It sounded messed up, truly messed up, but she would much rather see her father hit by a car one hundred times than her mother the once.

“You don’t sound so good.” The older woman said resolutely, placing the jar of cockroach back on the table with a clink, “I’ve seen people when something’s wrong with them. Trust me. Something’s not right with you at the moment.”

Okay? Partially, she couldn’t help feeling called out. It hadn’t been a week yet, and even if the anniversary came by every year she couldn’t help but be out of commission for a short while. Although, one small part of her head whispered to her that she should have gotten over it by now. It had been so many years. She hardly knew her mother anyway. The lack of a maternal figure in her life was fine.

“I mean… My mother got hit by a car at the Easter egg hunt way back. It was that anniversary the other day.”

“Oh sh*t, you were that kid?”

“Yep.”

“Dang – that’s real cold. Tragic. I remember reading about it in the papers. Your mum was a good one then.”

“What do you mean?” Zazzalil asked, confused as to what the older woman meant. Her mother was a good what? A good person? Was she good compared to something else?

“Good parent. There are some parents – f*ck that, adults who care for children in general – who won’t do sh*t for their kids. God knows Jemilla’s didn’t.”

“No?”

“F*ck no!” Molag exclaimed, “Here, bring the juices.”

The old black woman shunted the plastic bags full of juice boxes towards Zazzalil, reaching out with bony hands for the photo albums on the table. When the books were in her grasp she stood, immediately placing a hand to her back and gritting her teeth, before shaking her head like a dog after a bath and limping unevenly towards the living space.

“You good Molag?”

“Old age is a scam, everything is always aching just a little – don’t tell J-mills or I’m coming for your spine. Come on Short-stack we haven’t got all day!”

With the threat duly remembered, Zazzalil hurried after the woman, who had gingerly settled on the grey couch in front of the fireplace. Said fireplace had flames gambolling over two partially burnt logs. The dancing reds and oranges casting light and heat out towards the hearth. As she sat down next her roommate’s guardian, she was greeted with a pine scent wafting from the bundle of air fresheners and a thick photo album pressed into her hands.

The book was formal. Grey faux leather cover, in the centre the word ‘memories’ embossed in gold. It wasn’t dusty, and from its practically new state she could feel the importance of the book in her hands.

“Just hold that for now,” Molag instructed, looking more at ease at her place on the couch, “So, you knew I was a police officer right?”

“Yeah.”

“Damned hard to get the job but those privileged f*cks let me in eventually. Anyhow, I had a grand old time until I was f*cking blow up – but it was a badass explosion and I was a hero and you’d better remember that. Anyway I worked a desk job for a while and it sucked worse than a broken vacuum cleaner so I quit.

“I went travelling. It was the best sh*t I’ve ever done. And then I came back. That was worse but not so bad. I got myself this house, got a job, got the house fixed up. But I got lonely. And so I thought I’d adopt a kid, because I’d seen kids whose lives were sh*t and I didn’t want another kid to go through that.”

“So… you got Jemilla?”

“Yeah,” Molag said with a faraway smile, as if she was reimagining about a better time, “I got paperwork and the checks done and a little while after they said they had a kid! And that was kind of it. The first time I saw her it was like...” she turned to Zazzalil, “You ever seen a puppy, but a f*cking sad one? It looks at you like you’re both a scary monster and the greatest person alive?”

She’d seen Keeri stare at cute animals and sometimes just pretty leaves and flowers as if she blinked they’d disappear. That could have been similar? “Uh… maybe?”

“Well they showed me a little girl with the biggest brown eyes, the rattiest stuffed animal tight in her hands… and she looks at me like that. I knelt down and I said hi, you know, like you say to any f*cking person. And those eyes. F*ck, those eyes.”

Zazzalil could see on the older woman’s face an expression of unbridled joy and simultaneous disbelief. But also sadness, all nostalgia you couldn’t let go of even as you knew time passed and the good times were gone.

“Yeah?” she prompted after a moment, “Her eyes?”

“They just flooded with tears. This little kid stood there, knees buckled in and dressed like a pastel crayon box threw up on a sweater and cried.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Apparently, no one showed her human decency for a while – even as a three-year-old it had got to her. She’d been in the system since she was born. I swore she’d live better after that. And she got different clothes… f*ck they were awful!”

The older woman grabbed and opened the photo album, flipping past some official looking pictures of a dark-haired baby to what was evidently an image of a younger Molag with a child who could have passed as a minuscule circus clown.

“Damn, that’s bad.”

“Yep. I like the kids clothes now better, little privileged sh*ts.”

“I think I like Jemilla better now, yeah.” Zazzalil agreed, taking in the photograph’s faded colours.

Molag snorted. “Pft, course you do. Anyone who can’t see it is oblivious.”

“What?”

“Googly eyes. Little smiles. You stare at my daughter like she’s about to cure the blind and bring about the end of this goddamn pandemic by breathing.”

Was this going to be the dreaded parent talk? Sh*t, was Molag going to threaten to remove her knees if she treated Jemilla badly? But she hadn’t said anything about her roommate! Not a word – you didn’t tell a person you liked them because it would make you look like an idiot. You especially didn’t tell your crush’s parents because that was a death wish.

“I don’t! She’s just…”

“Very pretty? I heard you two moved in together.” The black woman’s face grew into a grin.

“No she’s not! I mean she is pretty – also my rent got all messed up and Jemilla was just being nice!”

“You’ve seemed awfully f*cking close lately…”

“We’re not that close!” They’d only been cuddled together on the couch… twice? Was it two times too many to appear like she hadn’t fallen in love and hadn’t made conscious efforts to get out of it?

“You sure? I could use a daughter in law. And grandchildren.”

Oop. Zazzalil had to look away from Molag’s grinning face as images flashed into her head. She hadn’t considered children – but she’d be denying it if she didn’t think Jemilla would make a good parent. Already the taller brunette was the most responsible adult she had met. She felt heat rising on her cheeks as she tried to dispel mental images of her crush holding a child and laughing – nope. None of that.

When she looked back up Molag was still sporting a Cheshire cat like grin. “So, grandchildren?”

“You’re evil.” Zazzalil muttered, reaching for a juice box. She wasn’t high enough on sugar for this.

Molag chuckled heartily again, before drawing back to a smug grin. “You’ve got a month.”

She looked up, concerned for her knees again. “A month? For what?”

“Ask her out in a month or I’m locking you both in a closet and you’re not getting out ‘til one of you privileged f*cks have confessed.”

Her and Jemilla locked together in a confined space wasn’t going to be an idea bouncing around her head late at night at all.

Well, that was one way of doing it – although why Jemilla would agree to date her or like her more than just being a very good friend she couldn’t imagine. She didn’t have a job, gave up at literally anything if it was too hard, and had enough repressed emotional baggage to fill an airport’s lost and found. And Jemilla was just so… beautiful and kind and cute.

“I’m not… forget it.” Zazzalil attempted to argue before giving up upon seeing Molag’s unrelenting grin, “How long until Jemilla gets back?”

“Oooooh someone’s having separation anxiety!” Molag cackled, moving the photo album to the coffee table and grabbing a TV remote from between the couch cushions. “Ages if the store’s out of frozen pizzas.”

“Great…”

“Hell yeah! You know, I’ve always thought ‘Molag’ would make a good middle name –  just an idea of course, but you never know…”

As fun as being teased mercilessly was, Zazzalil hoped Jemilla got back soon.

Chapter Text

It was cool outside. Not entirely freezing, but chilly enough to send shivers dancing down Jemilla’s spine as she got out of Zazzalil’s car. The sky, while not dark, was entering a stage when it began to feel like heat and light was slowly being sucked away from reality.

She observed in relief, warm pizza boxes in hand and Molag’s prescription hanging in a bag from her arm, that house was not on fire. That was good. What wasn’t so good, after walking up the path and opening the front door, were the exclamations coming from further within the house.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

“I can’t chug it yet, the other one’s not open!”

“What are you doing?” Jemilla yelled as she walked into the kitchen, placing the prescription and the pizza boxes on the counter. “It had better not be dangerous or we’re not having pizza!”

“OOOH SHE’S BACK! Chug or spill Short-stack!”

“Sh*t – if you say anything though…”

“I won’t say anything if you commit to it.”

As she rounded the dividing wall, she was faced with a peculiar sight. Not a particularly bad one, but one which was nonetheless very confusing.

On the floor in the living room area, in front of the fire, was a small pile of empty juice boxes and pouches. Sitting cross legged next to it, holding a brightly coloured juice box in one hand and a straw in the other, was Zazzalil. On the couch Molag was sat, looking cosily retreated in the hood of her drug rug hoodie with a juice herself and her cane in hand. Both her crush and guardian looked slightly sheepish.

“Oh hey J-mills!” her guardian exclaimed, breaking into a wide, toothy smile, “How was shopping?”

“Good…” she eyed the pile of discarded empty juice boxes and pouches suspiciously, “I’m happy the house isn’t burned down but what is this?”

“Well you see, we were just discussing very important matters, such as grandchi–” Molag started explaining.

Zazzalil cut in very quickly, cheeks pinkening slightly, “Future expansion of the human population.”

“Whatever you want to call it Short-stack, a pig wearing f*cking lipstick and makeup is still a pig. Anyhow we were discussing that and…” Molag trailed off, and her expression turned from one of joviality into grumpiness, “Why can I smell cooked pizza?”

“I’m going to drink two juices at once.” Zazzalil exclaimed, stabbing her juice box with a straw. The brunette motioned to a second, already impaled, on the floor beside her.

Jemilla just raised an eyebrow, moving forward to attempt to confiscate one or both boxes. “With all of those other juices already? You’re a hazard to society, give me those.”

“And a coward, do four!” Molag encouraged.

“Don’t you start,” she took one of Zazzalil’s juice boxes and turned to her guardian again, “the pharmacist says you’re on some pretty strong drugs, care to tell me what’s been going on?”

The silence as Molag’s face dropped from a grin to a more guarded expression spoke volumes. She needed to know though, because when she handed over the script and the person behind the pharmacy counter whistled best they could from behind a mask, it wasn’t a good sign. Neither was the lengthy explanation Jemilla had got on the effects of the drug and what it could not be taken with, possible side effects, and how to know something was going wrong.

She wasn’t angry at Molag for not telling her what was happening, just concerned. It wasn’t easy to see her guardian limp around, cracking jokes but hiding grimaces of pain when she thought no one was looking. Jemilla wanted to help her so much. But she couldn’t do that if she wasn’t told anything.

“Well… I’m just doing what my doctor – that privileged f*ck – says I need to do!” Molag said with a shrug, “I didn’t know I was getting horse tranquilisers. If I did, I’d ask for more.”

From next to her on the floor, Zazzalil snorted half-way through drinking, which quickly dissolved into coughing before the shorter brunette was able to regain composure.

“What was that? You okay?” Jemilla asked.

“Yeah, probably just the expired juice,” she coughed a little again, “it’s fine.”

“The juice is expired?!”

“Uh yeah–”

“It could be dangerous! Why were you drinking it? What sort of a dumbass drinks expired juice?!”

“Whoa, just chill out J-mills,” Molag put in, whilst taking yet another juice out of a plastic bag at her side, “you had some too.”

The juices were out of date. All of them? In the pile of empty boxes and pouches on the floor, she was able to find the pouches were clearly marked with a sticker reading ‘OUT OF DATE DO NOT CONSUME’ that a person could only miss if they were blind. The boxes on the other hand… did not appear to as old, but nonetheless weren’t discernibly new.

“Well, maybe I didn’t. The boxes seem okay. But you two– ” Jemilla waved a finger back and forth between her guardian and her crush, “had juice pouches that were last safe to drink three years ago and will probably need to have your stomachs pumped in hospital.”

“Pft,” Molag said, “I didn’t see any green slime or mould or anything in my straw as I was drinking it. Did you, Short-stack?”

“Nope! All tasted the same to me.”

“Exactly. We’re perfectly okay J-mills. No stomach pumping here. Besides, that’s f*cking gross.”

“Urgh fine. But if either of you get sick remember I told you so.” Jemilla sighed. She loved them both, but their two collective braincells didn’t appear to make the best decisions.

Making a decision herself, one which would hopefully serve as precaution the night ran without incident, she took the plastic bag with the juices away. Maybe, if she placed the up high enough, Molag wouldn’t be able to get them because she was less mobile. Her crush wouldn’t because she was just short. However, it didn’t happen without causing the people enjoying it to complain indignantly.

“Hey! Respect your elders and give that back you privileged f*ck!”

“Yeah! Respect Molag and give the juice back so she can give some to me!”

“Nope!” Jemilla said complacently, walking out of the living area to the kitchen, “No chance!”

“But juice is healthy and everything!” Zazzalil rebutted, following her.

“Not at all. It’s actually a gateway drug, especially for children, because of the insane sugar content.”

“Yo, I’m already on drugs, can’t I just take more?” her guardian called from the living area.

“That’s not how it works Molag.”

Zazzalil smiled smugly from where she was leaning against the counter. “Well I’m not a child.”

“You’re like the size of a child,” Molag said, hobbling around the corner as Jemilla surveyed the kitchen for a suitably high cupboard, “it’s the same thing.”

“I call lies.”

“Tomato tomato potato potato you child gremlin creature. See, this is why you’d make a good parent Jemilla. I’ve been telling you–”

“Molag, we talked about this!” She didn’t want to be exposed, and Zazzalil wouldn’t want an old woman suggesting they get together and have children. It was just too forward, and then Molag would start talking about death and it would get awkward, oh god…

“–you need to find yourself a girl, settle down and get me some well-adjusted grandchildren.”

Okay. All of this was fine. Jemilla just needed to take a step away from the situation. Molag was evidently trying to tease her, which was fine. But was it making Zazzalil uncomfortable? Well, her crush was sort of blushing, doing that thing where people awkwardly put a hand to the back of their neck… sh*t.

“Well that’s… great,” she commented, while placing the juices up out of the way, “I’ll keep it in mind. Are we going to have pizza?”

“Sure, sure. But why isn’t it from the shops?” Molag questioned from the table, opening the lid of one of the boxes and frowning.

“It is from the shops. It’s from a pizza shop.”

“That’s not what I meant. I wanted frozen pizza.”

“Why?”

Molag shrugged, “No reason.”

Well that wasn’t suspicious at all. Jemilla got the feeling it either had something to do with Zazzalil, or maybe Molag was just lonely. Frozen pizzas would need to be cooked at home, extending how long they were visiting. A flash of guilt shot through her.

“Okay,” she said, deciding not to pursue the topic any further and to call Molag more often, “pizza then?”

“Hell yeah!” Zazzalil exclaimed, sitting at the table and looking expectantly at the pizza boxes there. “Can we start eating now?”

“I mean… nothing’s stopping you.”

After a short period in which Jemilla fetched three plates and her other dining companions squabbled between each other, the pizzas were freed from their cardboard prisons. Much to the Zazzalil’s glee, Molag accidentally took the Hawaiian pizza by mistake. This caused a slight ruckus as curses were thrown and Jemilla watched the pizza box lid slam close with the yell of ‘devil be gone!’

The meal itself was good. Pizza – and most foods by rule – seemed to taste better when you hadn’t made it. Thus, it was adequate. Jemilla was perfectly happy with her vegetarian option, and it appeared that her guardian was enjoying what the pizza place called the ‘everything’ (sans pineapple). Obviously Zazzalil was relishing her own food, and the disgusted looks shot its way.

After the meal was underway, the conversation picked up. At first it oscillated between seemingly random topics and the food, before going back to randomness again. It was fine at first, but then the randomness got weird.

“…and so what if the person on the exit signs isn’t leaving the room you’re in, instead exiting the other room and coming into your room?”

“And he’s got an inverted knee.”

“Wait, what?”

“His knee’s inverted,” Zazzalil insisted, “like it’s the wrong way around.”

“You mean…” Molag said, pausing to gulp down a bite of pizza, “that he has a backwards leg? How the f*ck does that work?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Isn’t that medically impossible?” Jemilla input, “Legs don’t work like that.”

Her crush took another bite of her pizza, chewing thoughtfully for a second before saying, “Maybe he broke it.”

“Geez, table manners. Don’t speak with your mouth full of food.”

“Sorry. But like… maybe he was in a horrible accident and shattered his kneecap.”

“Ew. How come he’s walking then?”

“I don’t know,” Zazzalil said with a shrug, “Maybe he didn’t go to a doctor about it.”

“Whoo boy, he should have!” Molag exclaimed, “Because after I got f*cking blown up back in… was it the eighties? Or the early nineties… Either way, if this – ” the older woman gestured to her own body from the waist down, “ – is how I turned out even with those privileged medical f*cks putting pins and sh*t in my back, I hate to think how he’d turn out.”

Jemilla had known for a long time that her guardian had at least a plate and a few pins in her hip. When she was much younger, Molag made sure to tell her friends that came over for playdates at least one cool story. This gained her popularity when she was in the first few grades of school, and later a kind of respect.

Like so many of her peers before, Jemilla could see Zazzalil gazing at Molag in awe. In her chest her heart skipped a beat. Was it because she saw her crush being happy and that made her happy? Perhaps. Or maybe it was because the complete respect and awed curiosity the shorter brunette exhibited was just so genuinely kind. It was just so wholesome and… beautiful.

“You have metal in your back?” Zazzalil asked curiously, speaking in a hushed tone as if she was questioning a great legend.

“Oh yeah, enough to set off the detectors at airports for sure.” Molag assured. “And every now and then if I walk by a radio the signal cuts in and out…”

“Really?”

“Nah, I’m just kidding with ya! Instead, if I had a compass and held it near my hip it, it would go crazy.”

Jemilla could almost see the cogs turning in Zazzalil’s head as she watched her crush try to figure the statement out. To her it was evident that Molag was lying – the older woman had playfully done so for years. But to her roommate it wasn’t so evident.

“So that means your hip’s magnetic?” the short brunette queried.

“Oho Short-stack’s got some smarts!” Molag gleefully, “But no. I’m just messing with you… they’re titanium, which is magnetic as sh*t.”

“Dang.”

“Yeah – but hey, there was this one time when one of my boyfriends back in the eighties had this wicked nose piercing ripped out by an industrial magnet.”

Zazzalil’s eyes lit up. “What? Really?”

“True! So, he had this health condition right…”

Life stories with Molag lasted until the end of dinner. Or at least until no one had eaten for an hour or so and Jemilla decided that it was the end of dinner. Then, it was fun times trying to wrangle her dining companions into stacking dishes and consolidating pizza. After that she decided it was probably time to wind down before politely leaving when it started to get late.

Thus, Jemilla found herself standing near the open door, leftover pizza in hand. After a good half hour of chilling and watching TV, Zazzalil curled up next to her on the couch, she had decided it was getting late when the nine pm news appeared. Molag, who had been watching her and her crush closely from a separate armchair while pretending to watch TV, had decided to let them go. But not without having a final say in things.

“So,” Molag said seriously, blocking the doorway. Jemilla looked up from the pizza box to see her guardian staring her directly in the eyes. “When do I get grandchildren from you two?”

Cue blood to rush to her face, because while the grandchild question had come up before, Zazzalil wasn’t involved. And while it wasn’t like she hadn’t considered a long and happy future for her crush and herself, it was kind of like a taboo. Why think of such a future when she didn’t even think that her crush could like her back. Why even bring a crush up, let alone plans for a family, when they were sharing an apartment now and things could get awkward?

As if it wasn’t suddenly awkward now.

Zazzalil was focusing intensely on the wood grain of the open door. For a second, she thought she saw Zazzalil’s eyes flicker from the door to her face and away again. Her roommate shifted sideways and… was she blushing? Oh god, this was probably embarrassing and Zazzalil was uncomfortable.

“We’ve already talked about this Molag,” she sighed, “I’m not going to just procure a child through uncertain means. Besides, I’d need to find someone else to raise the child with first.”

“Hey, single parent right here! I raised you, didn’t I?”

“Point taken.”

“But that wasn’t my question. Why don’t I have grandchildren from you two privileged f*ck’s yet?”

“Because I…” Truthfully, Jemilla hadn’t put much thought into it and was dodging the question. “Why does it matter? And what does Zazzalil have to do with it?”

“Well I’m not going to be around forever, am I?” the old black woman exclaimed huffily, “Before I go it’s my f*cking right to have grandchildren to spoil and impart my wisdom to – otherwise what’s the purpose of old age?”

“And what about Zazzalil?”

“Who the f*ck else would you have kids with?”

Okay, she was going to leave before she was exposed. Also, things were getting weird. Her heartrate had skyrocketed, and next to her Zazzalil was either having a heart attack or trying to supress shocked laughter.

“Alright,” Jemilla said, moving to hug her guardian so she could leave, “thanks for inviting us Molag.”

“You’re welcome!” Molag said, “But you two are going to have to get together if I ever get to be Grandmother Molag. It’s got a ring to it, don’t you think?”

“We’re not together!”

“I know. Get! Together! Already!”

“That’s not how it works.” Jemilla moved out of the doorway, gently grabbing Zazzalil’s hand so she could escape more quickly. “Come on, we need to get home.”

She stepped down off the front porch and walked down the gravel path, Zazzalil trailing slightly behind. It was hard to ignore her brain screaming that she was holding her crush’s hand and it was gay.

“Bye Molag!” Zazzalil called behind as they reached the edge of the front yard, “Thanks for the juice!”

“One month you privileged f*ck! ONE MONTH!”

Then, the door closed with a clatter, and the beam of light which was illuminating the path was suddenly gone.

“What was that about?” Jemilla asked as she reached the car. One month until what? It sounded important.

“Nothing.” Zazzalil said quickly, ‘But look, I said thank you for the juice! I was polite for once!”

“Wow. I’m a good influence then.”

Her crush unlocked the car. “Nah that was all me.”

The drive back was peaceful. Zazzalil talked more than she had on the way there and seemed overall much happier. It was a nice change from her roommate’s withdrawn behaviour earlier in the week, which was starting to get worrying.

Speaking of worrying, while Jemilla knew that Molag was probably joking and teasing them both for a laugh, she wanted to make sure Zazzalil hadn’t been uncomfortable about it. She looked at her crush next to her in the dim light. She didn’t appear to be shocked or anything - and oh sh*t she was looking really pretty.

She cleared her throat. “So… Molag wasn’t being too weird was she?”

“Huh?” Zazzalil glanced from the road and back to it again, “No, not really.”

“Oh good, I just wanted to make sure.”

“She had some badass stories.”

“So, it was good then?” Jemilla asked. This was the make it or break it point…

Her crush nodded happily, “Yeah, it was fun.”

It was hard to explain the relief and mixed joy that ran through her body. It was like an adrenaline high but calmer, because she didn’t feel suddenly energetic but rather… content. It was more of a quiet happiness. Which was fine – she didn’t need her emotions to throw a party.

It had been a good night.

Chapter Text

Zazzalil had a month. A whole month – which was probably fine. Definitely probably fine, having a whole month to just work up the courage to rip out some emotions and present them to Jemilla with the verdict of Cupid having f*cking shot her and now she was majorly crushing on her roommate. Although she probably wouldn’t say that if she confessed before being shoved into a cupboard by Molag to ‘sort their differences and majorly focus on the things they had in common’.

Commonalities being, of course, the fact they were both gay and living in the same apartment. If she confessed and got the answer which was the best and thus the obviously most impossible one, maybe they’d share mutual attraction.

The impending doom of confessing her feelings was messing with her head. Sometimes she felt the urge just to up and say it. Like she’d plan out what she’d say in her head, and the words were on the tip of her tongue. But then she wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t the next time she felt like saying anything or the next or the occasion after that. It wasn’t a very good pattern she’d created.

But it was fine, because Zazzalil had a month to confess and she was only six days through. That meant she had like… twenty-five left. Which was ages.

During the days that had passed, she had found out that if she woke up early enough and showered semi-regularly, she didn’t feel like sh*t. And when she didn’t feel like sh*t, she actually did stuff which wasn’t moping around and staring at a screen.

On the weekend, she went walking around Clivesdale with Jemilla. Zazzalil hadn’t thought it would be very fun – walking was walking. One foot then the next, it was as repetitive as you could get. But it wasn’t when they wound their way through backstreets and towards the outskirts of town. Suddenly, instead of the same boxy houses that looked like they were mass produced for some weirdly architectural child’s play set and placed down in rows perfect to a millimetre, the landscape introduced random vacant blocks and bridges with towering underpasses, the houses became more natural and soon the wilderness started to creep in.

Clivesdale wasn’t secluded by any means. There were at least three highway entrances and exits from the township, Hachetfield was a stone’s throw away in the lake and there were smaller localities nearby. But around the edges wooded patches made themselves known, and on the more industrial side of town abandoned warehouses gave way to lots overgrown with weeds which then gave way to dense green shrubland.

Zazzalil found, after taking moments to persuade Jemilla to go into places which the taller brunette called trespassing and she called adventure, that walking was much more exciting than she first thought it was. Maybe walking with other people would be boring. But when she was able to see the spring afternoon sunlight turn her roommate’s hair a more golden shade of brown, or when their footsteps became synced, it couldn’t have been more exhilarating.

There was one moment – which she had started to call ‘I like you’ moments – when she had very nearly confessed everything. Or done something very rash which would has lead to a confession. Or perhaps it could have been a confession in itself.

They’d moved on from a backroad into an empty lot with a patch of well-established trees. One tree had low enough limbs and sturdy branches, making it very good for climbing, and Zazzalil had scrambled through the fence and up it like a monkey. By the time Jemilla had begrudgingly walked in she was hanging off a lower branch by her knees, one foot hooked under another branch.

“Uh, Zazz?” the taller brunette questioned, looking around the lot with suspicion. “We shouldn’t be in here.”

“Hey, it’s fine!” she’d been in empty lots like this before and nothing was going to happen. “You look weird upside down.”

Funnily enough an eye roll looked the same when up and down were inverted. Although, as strange as the world looked Jemilla didn’t appear any less beautiful. Maybe it was the dappled sunlight which shone through the leaves, or perhaps the flash of slight annoyance that turned into humour on her roommate’s face.

“Sure. Are we doing anything here or are we just… hanging? I can see you certainly are.”

“Hell yeah I am!” Zazzalil smiled as she felt the pressure building in her head. How vampires slept upside down she had no idea. Maybe it helped that they didn’t have any blood.

“That doesn’t look very safe. Aren’t you going to pass out or something?” Jemilla queried, stepping closer to where Zazzalil was hanging, making her suddenly very aware of the distance between them. It was now barely a foot, and conveniently her head was level with her roommate’s. “You’re very red.”

Thank god the heat rising to her face was masked by the fact there was already a lot of blood in her head. If worst came to worst than she could blame her knees slipping against the branch or her foot feeling a bit numb.

“Nah. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not seeing double or anything?”

Zazzalil’s first thought was that it wouldn’t matter if she was seeing double because she’d be privileged to twice the beauty that was before her. It took a second not to blurt it out, or to say something equally as likely to lead to confession. Besides, her vision wasn’t crazy, it was hardly even fuzzy at the edges.

“Nope!”

Jemilla’s face split into a bemused smile as the taller girl shook her head and stepped slightly forward yet again.  “Well don’t say I didn’t warn you when you fall.”

Perchance Zazzalil could not judge distance but they were hardly six inches apart. Sh*t. It was both good and bad and the best thing…

Chocolate brown eyes like polished glass looked directly into hers, and she could see where her roommate’s irises were darker at the edges and flecked with a lighter brown. She smiled back, eyes flicking to Jemilla’s lips, which were… lip like. Holy f*ck what was she thinking? Apart from how much she wanted to kiss Jemilla. And whoo boy it would be a Spiderman kiss too. She was definitely thinking about that.

It was almost at the point where if they didn’t kiss it would be awkward. Maybe kissing wasn’t the best course of action – it would be without consent and it was a bit cliché. Perhaps it was a good time to say something instead – why wait to be pushed into a closet by an old woman? Then she’d be able to prove everyone who’d said she couldn’t get a girlfriend or keep a relationship going wrong. And she’d have a girlfriend.

Right. Now or never. She was going to say it. “I li-”

Zazzalil had barely opened her mouth, eyes still locked with her roommate, when her foot slipped out from under the branch that was keeping her up and the ground was suddenly appearing at an alarming rate.

“Ow,” she blinked up at the world above, back hurting a little and body coursing with adrenaline. The ground was really hard in comparison to being surrounded by air, even with the lush grass under the tree.

“Are you okay?” Jemilla stood before her once again, now leaning over her in concern. “You didn’t hit your head or anything?”

“It’s okay, I’m fine. I think my foot went numb.”

“Alright… Nothing hurts?”

“Yeah a bit, but It’s no big deal,” she her back twinged a little as she sat up in the long grass, and Zazzalil knew she’d be discovering bruises on her arms and legs for a few days. “I’ll live.”

“Well that’s good. I did warn you.” Jemilla stated resolutely, offering a hand in help to stand. “It’s probably karma though – this is your comeuppance for trespassing.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes a little, before accepting the hand. “That’s bullsh*t. This isn’t even trespassing, and it could happen to anyone!” If anything, it was the universe telling her not to make a move.

“We went through a fence.”

“Yeah… A decorational fence to mark out the lot.”

“Decorational isn’t a word Zazz. Also the fence’s there for a reason – it’s to keep people out.”

“Really though?”

“Yes,” Jemilla said with finality, “We should get going before something else happens.”

With only slight reluctance she followed her roommate out from the lot, mentally lamenting the ruined moment. She’d pay more attention to how numb her foot would be next time.

The rest of her week was far less interesting in comparison to the weekend walk. Sunday was cold as f*ck and windy – because as a season spring was erratic and basically when compared to the previous day, so Zazzalil spent it playing games on her computer, texting Keeri, doing household chores and watching the Hunger Games with Jemilla before dinner.

After that, the weekdays were marginally different from each other. She’d wake up to find Jemilla working, pour some cereal and spend breakfast waking up. Every other day she’d shower. Then it was basically spare time doing whatever for the rest of the day.

It was about halfway through the week when Zazzalil thought of an idea. Since she had a lot of free time, she could do something which was both beneficial to her own life skills and the apartment. Thus: baking.

Her previous attempts at baking hadn’t gone well. That was evident from the cookie incident and then how she’d nearly messed up the second batch of cookies she made with Jemilla. Note to self – chocolate melts. Since then there hadn’t been much incident wither her and the kitchen, mostly because she wasn’t trusted in it by herself. Hopefully that would change.

On Thursday morning, when it was relatively blowy outside and Jemilla has engrossed in her work, Zazzalil set to it. She looked for a recipe, considered ingredients, time restrains and whether it would actually be possible to make bagels.

Bagels weren’t chosen for any particular reason apart from that they were really tasty. Bagels were cool. They were, in Zazzalil’s eyes, one of the best forms of bread there was possible. Apart from maybe a soft pretzel – which would be the next thing to tackle if the bagels went well.

When she went into the kitchen, looking in the cupboards for flour and a suitable mixing bowl, Jemilla apparently didn’t bat an eyelid. It was good. She had her recipe, the necessary ingredients and a ton of determination. She was going to bake and it was NOT going to go badly.

The recipe was easy. It first called for all the ingredients to be mixed together in no specific order (flour, yeast, sugar, salt and warm water) and then for the resulting dough to be kneaded by hand for about fifteen minutes. Then it was a matter of letting the dough to rise for about two hours, then forming it into rings before letting those sit and rise. After another half hour the bagels were boiled, left to dry and then placed in the oven for about thirty minutes or until they looked ready.

Easy.

Finding the ingredients in the kitchen was the hardest part of the process. Flour was easy, sugar and salt just as so, but Zazzalil didn’t have the faintest clue where to find yeast. And what even was yeast? She’d heard it at sugar or consumed carbs or something, making it honestly sound like something to be kept in a top-secret lab rather than a kitchen.

“What are you looking for?” Jemilla asked after she’d made her second round of the cupboards.

“Yeast.”

“Wait, yeast? Why?”

“Because I need it,” Zazzalil complained, opening one drawer only to find the pasta drawer yet again, “I can’t make bagels without the yeast.”

Jemilla jolted up, alarmed. “You’re baking?”

“Uh, yes.”

“You. You’re baking.”

“Yep! It’s fine, nothing bad is going to happen.”

“Are you sure about that? You burnt that soup the other day,” the taller brunette moved from the table to the fridge, “I didn’t even know it was possible.”

“It shouldn’t be possible; soup isn’t even a food. It’s just like warm flavoured water. And besides, I didn’t burn it.” Zazzalil said in defence, because she wanted to prove she could cook without burning everything. Jemilla tossed her a cylinder from the fridge. “What the f*ck is this?”

“Yeast.”

“Really?” Inside the cylinder was a strange light brown substance, like granules of sand. “I thought it was alive or something.”

“It is in environments with food, warmth and moisture,” Jemilla said, walking back to the table. “It’s a single celled organism that feeds on sugar.”

“Ew.”

“Yep. Are you sure you want to make some stuff now?”

“Yeah!” Zazzalil exclaimed, “I can totally do this Jemilla. You’ll see, I won’t burn anything.”

“Right…” her roommate didn’t look convinced but wasn’t against the course of action either. “Tell me if you need help.”

And just like that, Jemilla went back to work. Suddenly Zazzalil felt as if she’d just been granted a great privilege. She was entrusted with the kitchen and responsibility of making something without f*cking it up. The knowledge that she wouldn’t burn the kitchen down filled her with… determination.

Just as the recipe said, mixing everything was simple. Kneading the dough was actually kind of fun, if a bit tiring. She got to punch it and generally give the mass a good pummelling. And after that, she got to leave it alone for two hours.

After clearing up a little and mooching around for a while, the dough had puffed and swelled like a strange smelling, slow acting airbag.

“That’ll be the yeast,” Jemilla commented as she went on her lunch break.

“Wow.” It was almost surreal how much it had grown. Zazzalil couldn’t help gaping at it, poking the mass experimentally with a finger. “That’s sick. Do you want to help make it into rings?”

“Sure,” Jemilla said, “What do you want me to do?”

It didn’t take very long for the actual bagel shapes to be made between the two of them, and then for the rings to sit and rise just a bit more. After that it was a simple but time-consuming matter of boiling each dough ring in water, transferring them to a dish towel and letting them dry. Zazzalil could feel Jemilla’s gaze watching the step with the boiling water closely.

Finally, after the bagels were all dried and had been transferred to baking trays lined with baking paper, Zazzalil sat down at the table. She wasn’t exhausted, but she wasn’t energetic either. Bagels took some work.

“How long are they in for?” Jemilla asked, looking tiredly up from her work and slipping a pair of headphones half off her head.

“Half an hour.”

“Ooh, thank duck. I could do with a bagel right now – Janice won’t stop talking about her homophobic son even though we’re supposed to be doing a productivity review.”

“F*cking Janice… does she know he’s a sh*tty excuse for a human being?”

“Well probably. I can’t tell if she’s just–” the taller brunette suddenly halted, bringing her headphones back on, “Sh*t, meeting’s started again – Hi! Janice…”

Eventually, after listening to Jemilla speak jargon for a solid while, the apartment started to fill with the scent of baked bread. Zazzalil started impulsively checking the nearest clock for when the bagels were ready. She was ready to enjoy the fruits of her labour, even if they were going to be burnt or inedible.

Although, she wouldn’t have to deal with inedible bagels because when the half hour had gone by and she practically sprinted to the oven, the bagels were done well enough. All were a bit overdone, others just perfectly golden brown, but none looked bad. Not even the one which was no longer a circle or oval shape.

“Hey Jemilla! Look!” Zazzalil exclaimed when she had retrieved her precious creations from the oven, setting a tray on the stovetop and brining the other over to her crush.

“Yeah?” Jemilla glanced up, the withering expression on her face morphing onto one of joy. “Oh wow! They look so good!”

“They’re f*cking badass bagels! Even if they’re not all the same size and shape.”

“Well… I think they’re the best bagels I’ve ever seen.”

“Really? Wait, that’s totally a lie.”

“No…” Jemilla said with a shrug, moving a hand to her mouth almost to cover up a smile. “I think they’re brilliant.”

“But like, I just made them. They’re nothing special.” Really, they were just some bagels.

Her roommate shrugged, before looking back to her work with a smile. “They’re very good. Besides, you made them, so that makes them special.”

It wasn’t that Zazzalil didn’t know what to say – her brain kind of short circuited, that was all. Somewhere in her head, a little voice screamed that THIS MEANT SOMETHING!!! It probably did, especially judging by how her heart rate increased and she could feel herself blushing a little.

The moment wasn’t an ‘I like you moment’, but it was pretty damn close as her brain put the pieces together and told her that if someone complimented such sh*tty bagels they were worth having around. Although maybe it was just a case of them being really nice.

“Aw, thanks!”

“Anytime. And you didn’t even burn anything!”

Chapter Text

It was Friday. Jemilla had nearly finished work and was stressed. She went to dinner with Molag a week beforehand. six days beforehand she had nearly kissed Zazzalil. Four days before, her work had told her she was put in charge of figuring out which employees weren’t going to be kept around anymore. The previous day she had started to crack a bit.

Funny, how some much could change in so little time.

Jemilla had enjoyed a brief period of bliss on the weekend, when for those two short days it was just her and her crush. On Saturday, she went walking with Zazzalil to the outskirts of town. In an illegal visit to a vacant lot she had walked right up to her crush, who was hanging upside from a tree.

She’d been playfully teasing the crimson faced smaller woman, and when she was done she realised this was what she wanted. The banter, the meaningless chatter and a smile. The few inches were all that was between her and that possibility. Or a few inches and then the existential dread she’d do something wrong and ruin the moment – Zazzalil’s eyes were shining with some sort of joy. It was like a spark that could grow into a fire, and Jemilla didn’t want to put that fire out.

Then, just as Zazzalil started to say something, and Jemilla’s heart plummeted because it could have been anything she was going to say, the brunette fell out of the tree.

After that she went into a slight internal flurry, because she needed to make sure her crush hadn’t just given herself brain damage or drastically injured herself. Luckily it appeared Zazzalil was okay, if a little surprised. There was no need to freak out.

The work week was fine until Thursday. Reports from the week before were already sent in and she was just able to tick of some of the more menial tasks. In the mornings she got to witness Zazzalil wake up and topple out of the camp bed, still half asleep. It was cute, like a fawn walking on wobbly legs.

It didn’t last, because just when she was thinking it was going to be a quiet week, her boss emailed.

Normally it was fine when her boss emailed. They were able to maintain a civil business relationship, and the man appeared to be respectful enough for someone who was that high up the authorial hierarchy that they’d be at least some flavour of psychopath. A rather disturbing yet fascinating documentary had taught her that.

But on Thursday, the psychopathy made itself known. Looking at the order that the company was going to cut casual staff, the ones which weren’t permanently working and rather hired for a fixed term, made her feel uncomfortable. Mostly because of the part that said she and the other people in human resources would be in charge of deciding who was going to go. Also maybe that the primary reason that the employees were going to be laid off was because the company was ‘tight on money’ and had to cut some people rather than cutting the big bosses’ exponential salary.

As hard as it would be, she Jemilla had to do it. It was her job. But it was also f*cking stressful, and Jemilla was not one to name names but Janice was the main problem.

It started off with just casual gossip. Nothing very unsettling. Gossip was gossip, and the woman went on like a steam train fuelled by lies. But recently, her colleague had shown her true colours. Especially when it came to discussing how one openly gay casual worker deserved to be laid off by the company. Then came general homophobia, followed by her praise of her homophobic son, followed by even more homophobia. All this added to Jemilla’s already stressful task of deciding whose livelihoods she’d have to destroy by taking their jobs away.

In between the stress, there was Zazzalil. She was cooking, which was concerning at first, but she was also a welcome distraction from dealing with bureaucracy and the meeting with Janice. Listening to an inappropriate joke? Zazzalil made a racket looking in the cupboards and needed to find yeast. When it was starting to get to be too much for her to handle she took her break and helped, and later she was pleasantly interrupted by her crush proudly showing off her bagels.

Friday was similar. Perhaps worse. No meetings, but her boss emailed again for the complete list of people who needed to be let go with the utmost celerity, which meant taking a few days’ worth of work and condensing it into a few stressful hours. And unlike the previous day, Zazzalil wasn’t around to be a distraction. Her crush had been intermittently in and out throughout the day, not staying long enough to settle down on her windowsill or for lunch. She’d been carrying a few bags as well. It had been suspicious.

As the clock ticked to five o’clock, foretelling the end of work, Jemilla ran her hands over her face tiredly. The report and employee redundancy list had been emailed to the higher ups for consultation finally, after she’d worked tirelessly on it for hours. She was mentally exhausted. It felt like her head was a sponge that had been wrung of water, now dull and light and useless.

She closed all the windows on her computer in relief, snapped the lid shut and stood, stretching. Then it was over to the cupboards and the sink to get a glass of water – or maybe some tea? Tea would be nice. Nothing with caffeine though, no matter how much one part of her head thought it was a good idea, she’d seen some of the kids who got quickly addicted to it in college and that was not something she wanted for herself.

As Jemilla waited for the water to boil, she turned her attention to surveying the apartment for signs of her roommate. The shorter brunette wasn’t around, and most of her things were where they usually were. Boxes semi stacked in the corner. Clothes laid out haphazardly on the bed, which was… actually made for once. Hmm, weird.

Jemilla didn’t want to ride the horse before it was hitched to the wagon, but she entertained the idea that somehow Zazzalil didn’t like their situation, that the unemployed woman was unsettled about sleeping in the living area and sharing a bathroom and everything else. It wasn’t likely, but maybe Zazzalil was considering moving out.

Halfway through leaning against the windowsill and clasping a steaming mug of tea, once she had prepared it, she caught sight of something out the window. Way down on the ground a car pulled into the apartment’s lot. It was Zazzalil’s car.

Her suspicions were bolstered by when she watched the car stop and Zazzalil get out, pulling a bag from the front and moving it to the back. Suspicious as f*ck. Come to think of it, the shorter brunette’s behaviour over the past few days had been abnormal. Usually her crush didn’t have the motivation to shower, let alone bake and now go out to get mysterious bags.

When Zazzalil appeared back at the apartment again, after fussing with the bags and the car for a few more minutes, it got even more out of usual.

“What have you been up to?” she asked, as Zazzalil closed the door. “You’ve been out all day.”

An expression she couldn’t quite place flickered over her crush for a second, as she replied cryptically, “Things”

“Anything in particular?”

“Nah. Just dumb sh*t,” Zazzalil hesitated before blurting “Heydoyouwannagoouttonight?”

Jemilla didn’t quite catch whatever the last bit was. “Sorry, what?”

“Uh… do you want to go out? Tonight?”

“Wait do you mean – like on a date?” Her heart skipped a beat, because if this was what she thought it was… And if she read into it wrong the results wouldn’t be good.

Zazzalil awkwardly scratched the side of her head. “Uh yeah well… a friend date? Because we’re roommates?”

“Oh yeah, roommates! Totally!” Jemilla replied. She wasn’t disappointed at all. Nope, it was fine. They were going on a roommate… date? Roommates didn’t do that, but she’d pretend they did.

“Cool. Cool cool cool.” Zazzalil said, before putting her hands together in a call to action. “You need to get changed. Like, into warm clothes. So do I.”

“What’s wrong with what we’re wearing?”

“Well I’m not going to say you don’t look hot in that long cardigan and leggings combo and I’m rocking the ex-animal control officer/I’m-the-mole-man-plumber-who-lives-in-your-sewers look, but we need like, warm clothes.”

Her crush had just called her hot. Jemilla wasn’t going to let that and the slight blush that followed be obscured by the mole man plumber thing. Also, she’d learnt whatever was going on, it was going to be cold. And come to think of it, she wasn’t sure if Zazzalil owned anything warmer than hoodies and sweatpants.

“Alright.” she nodded, mind wandering with possibilities for what was to come. Work was forgotten. “When do we need to ready by?”

“Five thirty maybe? Add fifteen minutes or so?” the shorter brunette turned and cringed at the kitchen clock. It was five twenty already. “Add fifteen just to be safe. Quarter to six.”

“Right.”

Thankfully, or at least pleasantly surprisingly, it took about five minutes less than predicted to get ready for whatever was going to happen. For Jemilla it was a process of having a quick shower to get rid of the clammy feeling from having worked all day, before fetching thermals, warm pants and a polar fleece jacket. Whatever Zazzalil needed to do in the time she didn’t know, but when they reconvened in the kitchen, she was correct in guessing that her crush’s warmest clothes were indeed what appeared to be two different hoodies and sweatpants.

From there the curtains were closed, lights turned off and Jemilla was beckoned out of the apartment. The stairwell was quiet, and if there wasn’t a layer of strange carpet on the floor their footsteps would have echoed something fierce.

Out in the lot Zazzalil led her over to the car. Thinking to what she had seen three quarters of an hour or so ago, Jemilla scanned it with a careful glance, or as much of a look she could get while her crush ushered her towards the passenger seat. From what she saw, there were a few opaque white bags in the back of the car, looking unsettlingly inconspicuous.

“What’s in the bags?” Jemilla asked from the passenger seat while Zazzalil got into the car.

“Hey, no looking! It’s a surprise,” her crush admonished, “you’ll find out.”

Jemilla pointedly looked back at the bags, just to be annoying. It seemed a childish action. But the burst of joy she got when receiving a volley of complaints and a few threats that were about as scary as a kitten trying to take down a ball of wool was powerful.

The drive, which was longer than Jemilla had first expected, was chill. Outside it was the time of day when the light had been golden for a while, and the wisps of clouds in the sky had gone from being white to tinted with the pale orange gold of a ripening peach. Inside the car Zazzalil set music from one of the local stations playing and had the car’s heater blowing out heat. Every now and then the driver cursed when music cut to advertisement and cut to a different station.

After a fair amount of driving, they stopped.

The clouds had gone from pale colours to a still pale, but brighter pink. In places the sky was orange, and in others a light blue that could pass for an off white. Through the windscreen Jemilla looked out at where her crush had taken her: an unsealed sideroad that ended possibly a hundred metres from one of the roads leading away from Clivesdale. Wooded copses on all sides, sparser in front of them.

“We’re here!” Zazzalil said happily, as she exited the car and let in a cold breeze of evening air.

“Where are we?” Jemilla asked, following suit.

“Near the lake,” the shorter brunette pointed towards where the trees were thinner, “it’s just this cool little spot.”

Past the trees the land dipped down, becoming grassy and then declining into the pebbled shore of the lake. After her crush grabbed some of the bags from the back of the car Jemilla was led down a small path out to where the grass and stones started to meet.

“What are we doing here?”

“Having a picnic,” Zazzalil replied, reaching into one of the bags and extracting a large picnic blanket, “except there’re less sandwiches and it’s more like a camp dinner.”

“Molag used to take me camping all the time when I was young,” Jemilla said, observing as her crush unfolded the blanket and set it down, “and I went with my friends when I graduated college.”

“Nice! I went overnight hiking with Keeri for like two weeks, we almost died twice at least.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It was fine in the end, but pro tip: muesli bars and jerky are not enough for two people to last three days.”

That didn’t sound like a pro tip more than common sense, but Jemilla would take it. She sat on the picnic blanket, watching as her crush searched amongst the bags. “I hope this meal isn’t based off the jerky granola bar camp dinner.”

“Pfft, no,” Zazzalil said, pulling out what looked to be a camp stove, “this is more like dinner on day two when we still had proper food.”

“So, the plan is…?”

“Burgers! Or like bacon with lettuce on bagels or something.”

“Didn’t you say we weren’t going to be having sandwiches?” Jemilla teased with a smile, “Bacon on a bagel sounds like a sandwich to me.”

“Well I kinda brought both so… it’s half sandwiches.” Zazzalil shrugged, sitting before the stove and dragging a bag towards her. “Or you could have a bacon burger!”

A part of Jemilla’s heart fluttered, because Zazzalil had prepared. For her. Or for this… date or outing or whatever it was. “Bacon and a burger sounds like too much meat.”

“It’s not.”

“It is. Heart disease in a bread roll.”

“But like, what’s some heart disease between friends?”

“A very serious medical condition that shouldn’t be joked about?”

“You’re no fun,” Zazzalil said with faux grumpiness, a smile on her face.

Jemilla smirked back. “Oh, I know.”

The sky grew progressively darker as together they cooked bacon and had sandwiches for dinner after all (it turned out Zazzalil had purchased minced meat that could be made into burgers rather than the final product). It was delightful to watch the sun drop, the colours in the sky flaring before fading away as Jemilla listened to her crush recount a story. When it was finally dark, a lamp that emitted a warm yellow light was procured.

Maybe it was about marvelling at the beautiful colours and knowing Zazzalil could see them too. It was almost definitely something out of a book or a movie – the idea that they were seeing the same sky, the same stars coming into view unnoticed.

Eventually, after dinner was done, Jemilla started to feel cold. Even with her warm clothes the night’s chill was biting at her, and she was sure she was shivering. Her crush didn’t appear to be much better but was disguising it as they talked by swaying back on forth. It was also properly dark, and through the few small puffy clouds the stars were shining brightly.

“Are you cold?” Jemilla asked, looking over to her crush.

“Are you?” Zazzalil shot the question right back.

“Well you didn’t answer my question... but yeah.”

“Okay.”

She watched as the shorter brunette reached out from the bag she assumed the picnic blanket had been kept in, pulling out blankets. Blankets she recognised.

“Aren’t these mine?”

“Uh… maybe?” Zazzalil didn’t quite answer, “Is there a problem if they are?”

Jemilla simply smiled, accepting a blanket as it thrown to her. “So that’s why you were skulking around the apartment.”

“I wasn’t skulking, I was trying to keep this on the down low.”

“If you say so.”

“I was being inconspicuous!”

“Sure,” and Jemilla hadn’t seen her crush speed walking in and out holding suspicious looking bags. Whether suspicious or not however, she was glad that the blankets were there. When it was cold there was never an occasion when a blanket wasn’t necessary.

Zazzalil grinned, taking a blanket and wrapping it around herself. Jemilla then watched as her crush flopped back on the picnic rug and gazed up into the stars, taking a second before patting the space next to her.

“Do you know any constellations?”

“Nope!” Jemilla confessed, laying next to the shorter brunette, and gazing up at the sky. For somewhere with two major towns nearby and the general level of light pollution there was in the world, she could see a surprising number of stars.

“Well I don’t. So this is going to f*cking suck.” Zazzalil commented, looking at the sky all the same.

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

“We could make our own constellations,” Jemilla suggested.

A chuckle from next to her. “Are you sure it’s not just going to be just like one of us pointing out stars and the other going: ‘Where? Where? I can’t see it, where are you pointing?’”

“I mean that would happen with the actual constellations so what’s the difference?” There wasn’t really one, except maybe that the constellations they’d find would be their own. “We’d be pointing and saying, ‘No not that star, that one’ anyway.”

“Good point.”

Jemilla couldn’t think of how to follow it up, but she lay still on the picnic blanket, listening to the sound of the wind and watching the misty puffs of their breath condensing in the cold before catching the glow of the lamp light.

It wasn’t long before she started to feel cold again, because as warm as the blankets were they weren’t ideal for cold nights on the lakefront.

“Are you cold?” Jemilla asked for the second time that night. She’d imagine Zazzalil was, considering her crush only had the double hoodies and sweatpants.

“A bit.”

“I am.”

“Huh,” Zazzalil said, and when Jemilla turned her head to look her roommate was already looking her way, an unreadable expression on her face.  “Well I mean, it’s like, cold.”

“It is.”

There was a moment of tense silence, conscious eye contact and hesitation, before Zazzalil sat up, motioning for Jemilla to do the same. She obliged with little thought to it, before her crush situated herself behind her and then there was a pair of arms around her waist and… oh. That hit different.

The colloquial term was cuddling, and Jemilla had sat and held Zazzalil before. It was warm and made her feel strong, like she was protecting the human in her arms from the darkness in the world. But she hadn’t really been held before, and it. hit. different. A good different, like feeling safe, warm and carefree. Janice and work stress from earlier in the day could get lost.

“Still cold?” Zazzalil’s voice sounded close behind her.

“Not as cold as before. How about you?”

“I’m good. This is good.”

“It is good,” Jemilla contemplated, severely understating how good it was when she felt so happy, heartbeat rising in her chest and brain buzzing with euphoria. It was definitely oxytocin, and part of her wished the high could last forever. “We should do this again.”

From behind her Zazzalil either went tense for a second or shivered quite violently, before clearing her throat and saying, “Yeah, we should. I uh, like doing stuff with you…… I like you.”

“Well that’s great. I like you too.” Jemilla replied.

Wait. Wait a damn second.

‘I like you.’

…

Cue heart attack.

Chapter Text

Someone had told Zazzalil something once. She didn’t remember who it was, or if someone told her rather than she heard it somewhere. Either way, it was advice she had so far stuck by as best she could – you never tell a girl you like them. There was a reason for it, something about it making you look stupid, and as she had told Keeri enough while they debated the topic she made herself look stupid enough already.

She could use a talk with Keeri.

But she couldn’t just up and call her best friend, no matter how much she wanted to. Ditching a date (a goddamn date!!!) with Jemilla to get advice would be rude. It would ruin the date as well, an occasion which so far had been going well.

Zazzalil wasn’t sure what had come over her in the past few days to influence her to set up a… date? Was it a date? She said it was a date, a friend date at least, because she hadn’t actually planned any of it. And she wanted it to be a date. Either way she didn’t know why she set it up. Maybe it had something to do with the excess of bagels she suddenly found herself in possession of, or the stressed look she’d seen on Jemilla’s face. Dates fixed stress.

If they went well at least – which it had been so far. As far as Zazzalil’s dates had gone along the years, this one seemed like the best. She had a pretty woman in her arms, relying on her for warmth and a comfier place to lie than the picnic blanket. They hadn’t been set upon by wild animals or drunken college students with too much time and newly granted access to alcohol either. That had happened once in the past and Zazzalil didn’t much want it to happen again.

Also good, depending how she looked at it, Zazzalil had just done the thing. The confession thing. While ‘I like you’ statements were the most basic and childish form of admitting affection, and they certainly did the job in most circumstances, they were also basic as f*ck. They were the emotional equivalent of bread and butter. Rather, her confession wasn’t sh*t and she needed to do better if she continued what she had going on.

Speaking of…

“Well that’s great. I like you too.” Jemilla agreed casually, like she was commenting on the colour of some flowers or how nice the weather was this time of year.

SH*T. It hadn’t come off as attraction. It was just a ‘hey I’m acknowledging I don’t hate you and that’s cool’ statement. Emotional bread and butter indeed.

Then Jemilla, who she had her arms draped around from behind, turned from gazing out at the sky and the lake. Oop. This was different. As she looked to her roommate’s face, her brown eyes were wide and shining with a feeling that couldn’t humanly be described. Was it hope? Uncertainty? F*ck if she knew.

“You like me?” Jemilla queried, shimmying back from her place in Zazzalil’s lap to turn and face her.

“…Yeah!” Zazzalil exclaimed after a moment of mental arithmetic, trying to unscramble her quick thoughts from processing the past moment. A quiet corner of her mind lamented the loss of Jemilla from her lap.

“And you mean this as…”

“As what?”

“…something romantic? I’m not about to be friend zoned right now?”

Zazzalil couldn’t help her mouth dropping open. “Who’d friend zone you?”

“Someone who isn’t into me,” Jemilla uncomfortably said with a shrug, before slipping into insouciance, “it’s happened before.”

“But you’re so pretty,” Zazzalil found herself saying, the words flowing naturally from her with little consideration to them.

Her crush stared at her, a smile breaking over her face. She let herself be taken in by the sight, just enjoying the moment, mentally committing the beauty before her to memory. Even if it was in the mellow yellow light of the electric lantern, and some details such as the exact hue of Jemilla’s irises were blurred with shadow, she wanted to remember the moment for years to come.

With what happened next, she was going to.

“Thanks,” Jemilla said, before impossibly shifting closer than they already were, cross legged with knees touching on the picnic blanket.

Zazzalil unconsciously held a breath as the taller brunette reached out to tuck some hair behind her ear, but kept the hand on the side of her face. HOLY SH*T. This was it. Zazzalil’s brain, if not already scrambled, was now certifiably not functioning. Thinking wasn’t possible. How could it be?

And with that complete lack of thought, the words tumbled out.

“Are we about to kiss right now?”

“Yes?” Jemilla said, sounding slightly hesitant but eyes betraying a shine of confidence, “If you want to.”

“Hell yeah,” Zazzalil breathed.

The next moment, there were soft lips against hers. Jemilla was kissing her.

She kissed her back, because this had been everything she had been wanting and waiting for, for more than a month. Since the start of it all perhaps. Although not immediately after meeting Jemilla, way back when she had been bowled over in the depressingly grey corridor outside of her sh*tty apartment. Shortly after that probably.

No matter when it started, it was happening, And it was everything and more than what she had first expected.

Even when attempting not to get sappily poetic about it, there was no other way to describe it. Zazzalil felt a soaring sensation in her chest, like when an elevator first starts to rise or the moment you leap off a swing when it reaches its apex. Liquid gold was running through her veins, warming her to the soul. It was the beauty of being alive summarised in one moment.

When she thought about it, what was happening was similar what happened in the Hallmark movies she usually bagged for their cliché. Maybe it wasn’t quite there – she hadn’t realised at the last minute at the airport before her flight took off that she actually was madly in love and hadn’t listened to her heart – but it was sweet as f*ck compared to the train wrecks which were the first kisses of her previous relationships.

Her first experiences with others were during high school, where she cemented the fact that men weren’t her thing. Her first kiss couldn’t have been anything but awkward, or perhaps even considered a kiss, both parties inexperienced and the moment stopped before it had really begun. Spin the bottle sucked like that.

In time Zazzalil had kissed more people and improved. While never as much of a clusterf*ck as the first-first kiss, the other first kisses with others never felt how this one did. Never had she been so aware of every slight movement Jemilla made, and never so caught in the moment to be apathetic to everything else in the world. No other experience even got close. Not even the time she first kissed Keeri, in their time in college when they were both figuring things out.

She didn’t even think about that anymore. But here was the power of the moment, pulling out the past with only the purpose to remind her that the best of the past was sh*t compared to what she had now. What, if fate and what was already written in the stars allowed, she would have indefinitely.

After a few illustrious moments more, they broke apart, and Zazzalil’s heart keened when she was left with only the taste of Jemilla’s lip gloss and the cold air hitting her skin.

“You’re amazing,” she whispered in awe, as Jemilla’s hand moved from the side of her face down to one of hers. On instinct she interlocked fingers. “That was amazing.”

“You’re telling me,” Jemilla replied, “you have no idea how long I wanted to do that.”

“Same here. Ever since you ran into me really.”

“Really? Even after I knocked you over?”

“Well…” Zazzalil admitted, “maybe not right that moment… but still! It was early!”

“How early though? The next day? Week after?”

Sh*t, she couldn’t really pinpoint a moment. “I mean, it sort of grew? I don’t f*cking know exactly when.”

“Ha!” Jemilla exclaimed with a smirk, yellow light reflecting off the shine in her eyes, “I knew when I wanted to kiss you earlier than you wanted to kiss me.”

“What! That’s bullsh*t, when?”

Jemilla looked at her fondly, smirk changing into a sweet smile. “Maybe since I walked out into the apartment and saw you sitting at the window.”

She remembered that. She’d been on and off with sleeping for most of the night in the apartment of the neighbour who she didn’t know, and when she woke up early it was best to accept she wouldn’t fall asleep again. Thus watching the world start to wake up from the window seemed like a chill idea. It was, until Jemilla sprung up from behind her.

“And then you fell off the windowsill!”

“No! Don’t bring that up!”

“But it was so funny! And cute, you were so grumpy about it.” Jemilla laughed.

Zazzalil grumbled in faux annoyance before a thought came to mind and she smirked. Oh, that was just perfect. “Well maybe I decided I wanted to kiss you then. Or earlier than that.”

“You just told me you didn’t know when –”

“Because I’d just fallen for you.”

She watched as the taller brunette’s face shifted from confusion into realisation, and Jemilla let out a humoured, yet exasperated, sigh.

“You’re hopeless.”

“Yep!” Zazzalil said with a grin, “But let me guess, you like that, right?”

Jemilla sighed again, still smiling. It made Zazzalil’s heart skip a beat. “Unfortunately.”

“I knew it!”

“Shut up and kiss me again already.”

Zazzalil smiled in self-satisfaction, before quickly complying.

The next half hour or so passed in a similar fashion, kissing and talking and kissing again.

However, eventually it grew cold to a point where staying out was stupid, no matter how much Zazzalil wanted to. Staying out and cuddling beneath the stars was all fine and dandy until someone was ill.

Packing up the picnic was always the worst part of a picnic, even more so when it was dark, cold and the car was up the hill. It took a few tries to pack everything back together under the yellow light from the electric lantern, but it worked out. The camp barbecue was smaller than first expected, picnic blanket folding with difficulty, in the process Jemilla accidentally standing on the unused mince meat that had been set aside.

In the end, everything was packed up in the car, and Zazzalil was keen to get back to a heated apartment and potentially a movie – it was Friday night after all.

“Ready to go?” she asked Jemilla, the curly haired woman gazing out in the direction of the lake, just beyond a line of trees and down the grassy incline. Out on the lake, the lights of Hachetfield reflected distantly on the water.

“Yeah. Are you sure we’ve got everything though?”

“Yep. Why, do you think I forgot something?”

“Nope,” Jemilla said with a shake of her head, before moving to open the passenger side door and get in the car. “I just want to make sure we don’t remember we left like, I don’t know, one of the blankets here when we get back to my… Our? I can call it ‘our apartment’ now right?”

“I don’t have a problem with it.” Zazzalil said with a one-armed shrug, the other reaching for her seatbelt while her heart skipped a few beats again. It was no longer she and Jemilla separately against the world. They were in it together now.

“Nice. Back to our apartment it is! Be careful of wildlife.”

During the drive, Zazzalil was indeed careful of the wildlife, Jemilla’s words sticking in her mind. But that wasn’t all that was sticking. There were still the echoes of ‘our apartment’ and ‘I wanted to kiss you’ running through her head. If not for her focus on the road, the thoughts might have been distracting.

When they finally got back to the apartment complex however, the questions weren’t nearly as distracting as Jemilla’s hand surreptitiously crossing to her knee sometime after entering Clivesdale proper had been. She almost hadn’t noticed at first, not with the thick sweatpants she had on and her attention on driving. But like someone knowing when they were being stared at, she looked down on instinct and oops, there went any normal train of thought again.

“Hey, this might be to early, but what are we?” Zazzalil asked when she parked the car. The hand-on-leg-while-driving was definitely a girlfriend thing, and while they had cleared up their feelings for each other, labels hadn’t been given yet.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, are we girlfriends? Is there a label? Are we – is this going to be a thing?”

“Well… I assumed so,” Jemilla said carefully, caution evident in her voice, “I thought with all the kissing, you know, we’re probably girlfriends now… Unless you don’t want to be?”

“Oh no I didn’t know if – I thought maybe we hadn’t labelled anything –”

“Oh! Well, if you don’t want to label ‘this’ yet it’s totally fine –”

“But,” Zazzalil cut in, “if we’re doing labels like, it’s my honour to be your girlfriend.”

Jemilla’s eyes lit up, and Zazzalil didn’t know how else someone could appear so elated and beautiful and inwardly joyful at nearly ten thirty pm on a Friday night.

“If you’re my girlfriend can I be yours?”

“Milla, why wouldn’t you be? That’s so stupid.”

“Oh, nicknames now?” Jemilla raised an eyebrow with a smirk, “that’s new.”

Zazzalil fought down a blush, even if it wouldn’t be seen in the dim light. “Might try it out. Nicknames are a girlfriend thing, right?”

“Probably, Zazz.”

“Everyone calls me that.”

In the pale light from the florescent bulb on the side of the building, Zazzalil could see Jemilla squint for a second before:

“How about Zazzy?”

“…It works.” It was also just an added ‘y’, but she’d be hard pressed to ignore the butterflies that erupted in her stomach at it.

Jemilla smiled. “Nice. So, we’re girlfriends now? Yeah?”

Oof. More butterflies, so many butterflies. “F*ck yeah!”

“Alright. Well, girlfriend, we should probably get out of her before it gets too cold and your car smells like raw meat.”

“Aww, sh*t, I forgot about that.”

Later, after a trip upstairs with the perishables and other essentials, followed by a movie being firmly vetoed because ‘it was eleven at night, they should have been sleeping’ and finally some more kissing, Zazzalil lay and considered just how lucky she was, snuggled close to her girlfriend (girlfriend!!!) beneath a warm blanket on the couch.

It was the sort of life she didn’t know she wanted or needed. Now she’d had it for only an hour or two and didn’t want to let it go.

Jemilla was pressed against her back, and she almost thought she was asleep from the sound of her girlfriend’s gentle breathing, when there was a slight gasp from above her head.

“Sh*t, Zazzy!”

“What ‘Milla?!”

“We’re girlfriends now. We kissed! What do we f*cking tell Molag?”

Chapter Text

She woke up early that morning. From behind the curtains, light faintly filtered into the apartment, swathing everything in a haze of dull, pale yellow-golden light that early mornings brought. With a yawn Jemilla stretched, internally wondering what time it was, before a slightly snuffling noise from next to her broke her thoughts.

For a second her mind reeled in confusion, before the sleep haze lifted a smidge and a logical thought entered her head. It was Zazzalil. Her girlfriend, who had passed out halfway through the shitty movie the had watched the night before. Who also had decided long ago that the camp bed was no longer required because there was a perfectly good twin bed in Jemilla’s room that could ‘totally fit the both of them’.

To be fair, it absolutely could – if they kept their limbs entangled and tried not to move lest one of them topple over the edge. Jemilla didn’t usually movie in her sleep, so she didn’t have any problems. However, Zazzalil was prone to rolling and wriggling, and initially had fallen off the bed almost every night until Jemilla had the sense to put her on the side against the wall where she couldn’t fall.

Since then, they had both slept well. Mostly. Jemilla had to keep promising herself that it would only be a few more weeks of jolting awake from Zazzalil’s squirming. They were holding out until they could move in with Molag to buy a bigger bed.

Molag, who they had kept their relationship secret from for weeks just for shits and giggles, had been instrumental in them finally making U-Haul level decisions. She had taken a fall while Jemilla was visiting. It was the scariest moment Jemilla could remember, hearing a crash and then an unfiltered shout of pain from the woman who had been so stoic for as long as she knew.

Kneeling on the floor next to her guardian, Jemilla had called Zazzalil immediately, crying over the phone as she tried to keep it together.

“Hey babe!” Zazzalil had answered cheerily, before catching onto Jemilla’s distress. “Wait ‘Milla, what’s wrong?”

“It’s – it’s Molag, Zazz.”

“Oh shit, is she ok?”

“She fell, she fell and it’s not good–”

“Ok, ok, ok, ok. Oh my god, ok – what do you need?”

Jemilla had looked at Molag, lying on the floor with her face screwed up in pain. “I think I need to call an ambulance, can you come–”

“Fuck the ambulance!” Molag had opened her eyes and hollered, “I ain’t paying those privileged fucks!”

“Molag you literally could have broken your hip!”

“I don’t give a shit! Your wife can drive, she can take me!”

“Wife?!” Jemilla had exclaimed.

“WIFE!?!” Zazzalil’s voice echoed tinnily through the phone.

Molag had glared through a furrowed brown at Jemilla. “Don’t you think I haven’t seen how you two young fucks look at each other, y’all will be married by Spring. Now get me to the goddamn hospital!”

Sure enough, after an ordeal of getting Molag up off the ground Zazzalil had ended up driving them all to Clivesdale’s hospital, Molag refusing to seek medical help otherwise. After hours inside the frigid car, Jemilla made to wait outside while Molag was seen, they were told grim news. Molag had a broken hip which needed surgery and left her with the grim prognosis of limited mobility even after it had healed.

Jemilla had turned to Zazzalil after hearing the news, both in the car outside the hospital. “I’ve got to look after her Zazzalil, I can’t just leave her.”

“I know,” Zazzalil said with a nod, “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”

“I’d be over at her house all the time. She might need me 24/7. I won’t be able to leave her alone Zazzy.”

“Jemilla. I’m cool with that. Where you go, I’ll go.”

Jemilla’s heart had swooped, believing every word but needing reassurance that they could do this. “You’ll come with me? We’ll do it together?”

“Yeah,” Zazzalil’s eyes held a seriousness and determination that burned like an ember. “Together.”

So, they planned to move in with Molag. Drove to her house every morning to look after her while she was recovering. Continue to help her around the house and keep her company while staying together. Move out of the shitty apartment complex that looked more and more decrepit each time they drove back.

For now though, they were in here in the apartment until they could get their shit together and make an effort to move. Stuck in the twin size bed, each other’s personal spaces overlapping so they were closer together than ever before. Zazzalil made another noise in her sleep, twitching just slightly before settling back into rest.

She looked so peaceful… Jemilla had taken to waking up and marvelling at the fact that yes, her girlfriend was sleeping in the same bed as her, and such a wonderful person existed. It allowed her opportunities to retrace her lover’s features with her eyes, tracking from wisps of brown hair spread over the pillow to freckles dotting skin pale like the few stars that managed to reach earth through a cloudy night sky.

Truthfully, Jemilla was enjoying not being single anymore very much. Sure, it had its ups and down, but both were things she wouldn’t miss for the world.

For example, whilst waking up was a joy to behold when faced with a sleeping partner who made cute noises every now and then, she was also faced with finding out that Zazzalil had clung to her arm during the night and slowed down blood circulation to a point where part of her arm was numb.

But she didn’t mind. Her girlfriend has adorable.

After a few days of fervour over their new relationship, Zazzalil had asked Jemilla if she was able to tell Keeri about the new developments. She had said yes, because as far as Jemilla knew, Keeri wasn’t great friends with Molag nor involved with her other friends. What had followed was a series of exclamations and excited squeals echoing from her girlfriend’s phone.

Communication with each other became an important daily activity, checking lines that could or couldn’t be crossed and resetting previous boundaries to fit their new situation. This included how fast paced they’d be – which so far was reasonably fast considering they’d settled on the fact that they were indeed girlfriends after only a car trip’s worth of consideration.

Since they were moving, they may as well fast track to marriage and fulfill the lesbian stereotype. Fuck normal pacing, they moved at light speed.

Jemilla sighed, nestling farther into her girlfriend. What would their wedding be like? Could she get Zazzalil in a suit? That would be hot – Zazzalil stretched, breaking her from her thoughts. Jemilla watched her blearily open her eyes and blink dopily.

“Hey, ‘Milla.”

“Hey.”

Zazzalil scanned her face, eyes darting from her red cheeks to her lips. “Thinking about me?”

“Maybe.” Jemilla reached out to pull Zazzalil towards her so they were face to face, subtly putting her thigh between Zazzalil’s legs then moving one hand to push loose hairs from her girlfriend’s eyes like she wasn’t planning on teasing her. “Just planning out wedding.”

“Holy – ok, wow.” Zazzalil perked up from initial listlessness, Jemilla moving to trace her fingers over Zazzalil’s face. “That’s really, uh, taking things fast.”

“Hmmm. Maybe! We’ll be moved in soon, right?”

“Uh huh…”

Jemilla smirked, leaning in and giving Zazzalil a swift kiss. “You’re not paying attention.”

She got a huff of feigned frustration as she leant away. “And you didn’t put your leg right there.”

“Okay, okay. I did do that. But you love it.”

Zazzalil rolled her eyes and lightly punched Jemilla in the arm, but quickly settled back down again to stare at her with her big brown eyes. “You’re so fucking pretty. I can’t believe we’re together right now.”

Jemilla smiled back. “You too. You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Can’t believe you get all this,” Zazzalil motioned towards herself like a commercial television presenter with a brand-new product, “because of some toilet paper huh?”

“Huh… it was a bit like earth called the shittiest helpline in a telephone.”

Zazzalil chuckled. “Well yeah. Pandemics R Us, how can I help you?”

“Do you need a dangerous infectious disease? Call 1800-CORONA.”

“Yeah, um, ‘disease calling, how may I ruin your life?’”

Jemilla laughed, then paused. Moved to smooth her hand back over Zazzalil’s hair. “I don’t think so.”

“Huh? What you mean?”

“Well… It didn’t ruin my life.”

Zazzalil snorted. “Uh people died? Molag was just in hospital and you couldn’t see her.  Don’t forget I totally crashed your apartment!”

“Yeah, but you forgot about a small part about all that.”

Jemilla watched confusion cross Zazzalil’s face for the third time in the short moment. Smiled, letting all of her love show on her face. “I got you.”

The way Zazzalil looked back at her, surprise and joy and the creep of a crimson blush crawling up her face, made everything worth it.