#I know I don’t push it sci fi enough look Wilma is just in a dress and buck has jeans let me live-

[sentient-cloud]

Glenn refs Glenn refs. In the nick of time. Kind of embarrassing to tag him as a wizard101 oc. Oh that’s your wizard who’s saving the sprial and getting so traumatized doing it? Umm. Here’s my Deer he works a desk job in Sky City and h*lds h*nds with Buck Gordon 🤗 Anyway go on Glenn, keep trying to make photomancy happen. I believe in you.

[definitelyameatbag]

Meet the Roommates 2/2

Another chapter for the college AU by @drawbauchery!

---

The inside of the spaceship looked truly awful, painted cardboard and tinfoil decorating the one or two boards of flashing lights they had. One of the men in silver jumpsuits was moving his hands around a ‘free-motion interface’, which helpfully saved on having to build or buy a control console.

“Gorgak, you must come here.”

“I don’t wanna play House anymore, I wanna play Fireman!”, whined Perri beside Bell, turning her already nasally voice to eleven.

The camera cut to a closeup of another, equally stone-faced man in a silver jumpsuit, square-jawed and gelled black hair, who managed to visibly move about two muscles on his face.

“The Earthlings approach the satellite. They do not sense danger. They are as foolish as they are primitive.”

Pearl dropped a few octaves to match the voice of the dub. “Hello. I am Peter Graves, and I am from the planet of Minnesota.”

Perri giggled, before taking a gulp from her hot chocolate. She turned to Bell and whispered, “You ok, Bell? You’ve been pretty quiet.”

Bell shifted up closer to Perri. “It’s alright, Perri, I’m just tired. I should’ve gotten some tea when they did nothing but fumble about in that forest for ten minutes.”

Perri cringed in pain, “God, don’t remind me. That was just unsalvageable.”

Bell snorted, “Well, seeing you lose your marbles helped get me through it.”

Perri flushed red with an angry frown, but it quickly turned into a smile. “Well, however I might be of help.” She took another sip, and set her chocolate on the table. “Listen, Bell, I wanted to tell you--”

“Exterminate! Exterminate!”, yelled Yana, her legs dangling over the arm of her chair. Bell and Perri looked back at the TV, the ‘aliens’ having donned something embarrassingly close to white gimp masks.

“Surely, it’s the Cybermen they remind you of?”, questioned Pearl.

“Bah!”, exclaimed Yana, “Nerds!”

“Anyway...”, continued Perri, “I just wanted to say that I really appreciate that moment in the library.”, she blushed even redder and started fidgeting with her hands.”

Bell placed a hand on Perri’s shoulder, “Ah, Perri, there’s no need, sure anyone would’ve done the same thing.”

Perri snorted. “Umm, yeah. Well, I’m not the most graceful person, I fell over plenty of times both as a kid and growing up. Especially when I--” she laughed to herself, “I had these paint cans that I would wear as stilts to try and be ‘taller’. Those led to a lot of cuts and bruises. And mamma and pappa, they...”, she scratched her arm, “They said early on that they didn’t want to teach me that cuts and bruises means hugs and attention, so...”, she looked up into Bells eyes, “I can’t really remember someone doing that for me.”

Bell pondered on what she saw in those big eyes. Gratitude. Pleading. She looked down, and reached for Perri’s right hand, sandwiching it between her own and bringing it up to heart-level. “Then I’m happy to provide that memory, Perri.”

They heard a snort come from Pearl, and they saw that the scene had changed, to the white-suited jerk from the club scene before, walking down a very, very long hotel corridor. Pearl spoke to the beat of his stride. “Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a womans man, no time to talk.”

The man then turned to one of the doors and proceeded to bang on it.

“Julie! Open this door!”

“Wilma!”, hollered Yana, banging on the arm of her chair for full effect.

The woman opened the door and the camera cut inside.

“What is it, baby?”

“Don’t ‘baby’ me, sweetcheeks, I’m here to find out what the hell that was at the club.”

“What was what?”

“You swinging your pretty little keister at that Frankie bozo!”

“Charming fellow, isn’t he?”, Bell quipped, starting to think she was getting the hang of this concept. She supposed she saw enough court dramas in her teenage years to know a good mobster accent.

“Hmm.”, mumbled Perri, now sitting still and looking at the TV.

“You worry too much, Al, you just keep your eyes on the guns, and I’ll make sure their eyes are on me.”

Julie tried to walk away with a smirk, but Al grabbed her by he arm and pulled her back. Bell heard Perri take a sharp breath in. “Perri?”

“You forget, Julie, that you are my girl!”

“That’s odd. I was starting to think you were mine.”

Al responded with a nasty grin, lasting long enough for Pearl and Yana to share an ‘Ohhhhhh!’, but then raised his other hand and smacked Julie to the ground. Perri nearly jumped, squeaking in surprise and turning away from the TV.

“Perri?”, she leaned in to the woman beside, now shielding her face, “What’s wrong?”

“You little rat! Think I spent so much money on you to disrespect me?! I own you! I own every part of you! So don’t you ever think you belong to a man who isn’t me! You got that?!”

Bell put an arm around the shoulders of Perri, who had retreated into a ball, hiding her face behind her knees. She was trembling, and her breathing was getting faster. She shook her head, muttering “No...no...”

Pearl straightened from her relaxed position on her chair, noticing what was happening on the couch. “Oh no, Perri...”, she scrambled for the remote in front of her, turning the TV off.

“Hey, what gi--”, began Yana, before seeing Bell and Perri too. “Oh.”, she responded, all the snark gone from her voice.

“Perri, it’s alright, you’re safe.”, Bell linked her hands in an embrace around the women, now slowly opening up into a foetal position. As her face emerged, she could see tears forming in Perris eyes, her face frozen in terror.

Bell tried to make her voice as soft as possible. “It’s ok, Perri, it’s me, Bell. Nobody will hurt you.”

She wasn’t quite expecting Perri to dive into her chest, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing as tightly as she could, but Bell returned the embrace all the same. The smaller woman cried into her shirt.

Yana looked shocked, and didn’t dare move, but Pearl was more collected, if still the face of heartbreak, getting up and walking around the table to kneel beside Bell and Perri, rubbing a hand against Perri’s back. “It’s all alright, Perri, take your time, we’ve got you.”

Bell looked at Pearl, betraying a curiosity in her eyes that she immediately felt shame for, she felt it rude to sniff for the details on the personal lives of innocent people, but she felt itself a deep anger, a fire that fuelled a conviction to bring harm to an ill-doer, the fire that had one day convinced her to become a lawyer.

“Perri was...hurt, back from where she grew up.” explained Pearl, still rubbing her back. “She’s escaped it, but she gets...reminded of it, from time to time. She doesn’t like talking about it.”

Bell looked down at the sobbing woman in her arms, and squeezed tighter.

Soon, however, she was finished, and calmed down enough to pull away from Bell. Bell felt a bit of moisture from the tears on her shirt. Perri sat back on her seat, rubbing away the tears from her eyes.

“I’m sorry about that. I’m such a baby.”

“No.”, said Bell, placing her hand on her shoulder again, “Don’t think you’re being a burden on me. I respect whatever why you choose to deal with it, and if you think I can help you with anything, either as a legal professional or as a friend, don’t be scared to ask me.”

Her eyes were still red, but she gave Bell a smile. “Thanks, Bell. I was just...caught with my shields down. I’m fine now. Let’s watch the rest of the movie.”

---

‘Al’ ended up getting obliterated by a laser gun. That was a satisfying moment, thought Bell, a thought that returned her to full consciousness enough to see the end credits of the second film they watched, one about gigantic radioactive bees. She looked around the room, and saw both Pearl and Yana asleep in their chairs.

She looked down to check her watch, but the first thing she was was Perri, asleep on her lap.

She seemed calm in her sleep. At peace, it seemed. Bell wondered how often that was the case for her.

She reckoned that it was around the time for Yana and her to head home, but first she had to get Perri somewhere she could have a good nights sleep.

She gently lifted Perri off her lap, pulling herself off the couch and quickly substituted her lap with a cushion.

Bell quickly decided it wasn’t good enough. And she didn’t want to wake her up, either, and risk her returning to sleep thinking about the ‘moment’ rather than better things.

That left Bell with only one choice. And she wasn’t sure what she was going to do if Perri’s bedroom door was closed.

Sliding her arms underneath Perri, she scooped the woman up. Her parents had a German Shepherd, a massive one at that, and she tried to remember how she held it back home. She made a sort of bucket, in which Perri sank into but not through, her head resting against Bells arm.

Her arms and ribcage already felt like they were burning, so Bell opted to get up the stairs quickly.

Soon, she came across a door with a Little Green Man, guessing it was Perri’s. She pushed the door open with her foot, unveiling a bedroom that was...well, not a complete mess, but wasn’t exactly as well-ordered as the rest of the house. She had some shelving that was brimming with figurines, old cheap books and comics, and the wall was covered in posters, of pulp sci-fi covers, of bands that she recalls Yana talking about endlessly, and of...she supposed they looked like women from those cartoons from Japan, but their clothing was...marginal.

Anyway, the bed was before her, and the duvet was peeled away. She walked in, kneeling before the bed to gently place Perri down, fighting to keep inside the moan encouraged by the relief to her arms.

Wiping away the sweat on her forehead, she helped Perri to roll into a more comfortable position, on her side and wrapped in the duvet. She heard Perri mutter something.

“What is it?”, she said, far too quietly to really be asking a question. She saw her eyebrows furrow in irritation, and her hands instinctively try to grab at something.

“Oh.”, Bell muttered at the sight of the plushie next to her, a green alien with a top hat. She reached over, picking up the alien and sliding it into Perri’s hands, who pulled it into a tight hug and let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.

Bell delicately pulled off Perri’s glasses, noticing her eyes ever so slightly opening and closing. She gave Bell a, nearly, unconscious smile.

“G‘night, Mamma...”, Perri muttered, before letting out a quiet snore.

Bell felt a warm tingle in her heart, nearly tearing up as she placed Perri’s glasses on her table.

“Goodnight, Perri.”