Hagen Dazs Makes Everything Better... (attn: Ana)
((ooc: Follows Devouring Knowledge ))
Aishe walked the two blocks with Ana, smiling at her when she expressed concern over her expression in the movie store. She shook her head, her frown banished completely, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand.
"Oh, there's nothing wrong," she said as they headed back to Ana's apartment. "I was thinking about what I'd set out to do here in Nachton, and realizing I've been here for a while and not done it yet. I should just stop procrastinating and apply to Meridian; get it done with."
She swung the bag with the movies and snacks in it loosely by her side. "I've much such wonderful people though; I suppose it makes the time fly by that much faster."
She wasn't surprised at how easily the lie came out. She certainly couldn't really explain her true purpose in Nachton to Ana, and even if she was comfortable broaching the topic, she wasn't going to indoctrinate the girl into a world full of vampires just like that. Telling her about them could endanger her clanmates, and Aishe hardly wanted that. It could endanger Ana too; what if she actually believed Aishe and got herself in trouble?
No, best she remained unenlightened for the time being.
Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. She was doing to Ana just what Kem was trying to do for her. In a way.
But this was different, the little voice inside protested. Ana had no previous knowledge, or so Aishe suspected. Aishe did. And she had, long before Kem had even realized it.
They reached Ana's apartment door and Aishe grinned at the strange color blocks of it. "Has personality," she said with a nod. She preceded Ana into an old, but charming, little studio apartment.
"Oh, how cute," Aishe exclaimed. She set her purse down on one of the chairs at the slightly cluttered table and took her windbreaker off, then held up their bag. "Freezer? Won't do any good if our ice cream melts!"
Ana felt a little trepidation on her first real guest in her apartment; the delivery guys from Ikea notwithstanding, she hadn't imagined when she signed the lease that she'd actually have someone she'd want to bring home.
She was glad she did now have such a person, such a friend. She closed the door and locked it as they entered.
Unbuttoning her jacket, she said to Aishe's request of a freezer, "Third door on your right. Spoons in the drawer next to the sink. Clean glasses in the cabinet above. The bathroom's the first door here, and that's where I'll be for a moment or two. Pardon the cliche, but please, make yourself at home. 'Scuse me."
Dropping her jacket on one of the other chairs, she quickly took care of her business, washed her hands, and returned to the main room. Seeing Aishe had not yet returned from the kitchenette, she called as she walked across the room to her laptop, "Bed or sofa?"
"Sofa sounds just fine to me," Aishe responded, handing over a spoon and the container of coffee ice cream. "Did you want a drink? I'm fine for the moment, but I can get you something while you toss in a movie, if you like."
She didn't have any issues with making herself at home, as Ana had suggested. While she wasn't exactly about to go looking into every nook and cranny, Aishe didn't often stand on ceremony or expect to be waited on. She was well used to doing things for herself, and the trait often extended to situations like this as well. Besides, after what Ana had told her at he restaurant, the woman needed a friend - not a guest.
With a soft click, the speakers hummed to life as power flowed into them. A sharp pop as they were connected to the laptop, and the menu screen for Galaxy Quest appeared with the movie's signature fanfare.
As she guided Aishe to the sofa, she apologized. "I haven't needed a TV in so long, but since I'll be in Nachton for a while, maybe I should get one? At least it'll be easier to see movies than on a laptop screen." She felt slightly embarassed, but then again, she hadn't expected to really have company.
But company was probably what she needed the most. Kicking off her shoes, she flopped down on the couch, then snorted, and putting her ice cream on the coffee table, stood back up. "Movie might work better if I hit play, hmm?" Fitting actions to words, she moved over to her laptop and hit 'enter' to start the movie.
The laptop was the last remaining item she'd purchased from her trip across country two summers before. The 17 inch screen made it easy to view games and movies when in bed or at the table, but she also hoped it wouldn't be too uncomfortable for her guest to view while seated on the sofa.
"It honestly wouldn't matter if I couldn't see the screen at all," she said. "I've watched this movie that often."
Uncovering her pint of chocolate ice cream, she offered some to Ana. "Want some?"
As the movie began, Aishe fell silent. She wasn't about to start reciting the entire thing, but she wasn't sure if Ana was a movie-talker or not, so she let her take the lead. Aishe generally stayed pretty quiet during movies, but in the case where it was simply an old favorite she could be just as chatty as the next person.
She was silent for a few moments. "There were five curtain calls dammit, now look at me, -look at me!-" "My mom used to have this huge actor-crush on Alan Rickman. Never quite understood it, since the first movie I ever saw him in was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and well there wasn't much to be attracted to him in that. Besides, I'd been only eight or nine at the time. Sometimes I wonder what she'd think of movies today, or the world in general. I know the Internet would be a surprise to her, as it had barely become a nudge on technology's radar when she passed."
She dipped her unused spoon into Aishe's ice cream and held out her own for the other woman to try.
"My parents are all modern," she said as Crewman #6 sat down to give out autographs with the rest of the 'crew.'
"The nature of their jobs, though, requires it. My mother is an archaeologist, like me, and my father is a software designer. They're back in Egypt now and I do miss them, but it's different when you know they're a phone call away."
She looked at the movie again. "Alan Rickman is one of my favorite actors," she said, "but I don't think I've ever seen him as a 'crush' kind of guy. Now, Jason Isaacs on the other hand..."
Aishe let the sentence trail off and gave Ana her best impression of a lewd, lecherous wink.
"I still don't understand a lot of that stuff. Probably because I didn't have a mother growing up, but I don't know for sure. My dad did the best he could, that's obvious. I mean, I do know how to wear bras, and that's a plus, right?" She snorted into her ice cream.
"It is nice, though," she rambled on as Peter Quincy Taggart pulled off his shoes watching himself on TV, "to have found a couple friends in such a big town." She reached out and grabbed the nearest part of Aishe - which happened to be her foot - and gave it a grateful squeeze. "Thank you."
She may as well add that she liked older men... much older men. Like, a thousand years older and then some. The tought made her giggle, coinciding with the picture of Jason Nesmith drooling on himself as he fell asleep on the screen.
Aishe smiled at Ana when she felt the squeeze on her foot, and wiggled her toes playfully. "I have to agree. I'm glad we met, me and you and Fallon. I've never been much of an extrovert; making friends was tough for me when I was younger. I never minded much at he time, but now I'm happy to have you both."
Ana nodded agreeably, knocking her spoon off her nose, rolling out of her lap onto the couch. She wiped it with her fingers and prepared another spoonful of frozen greatness. "Making friends was tough for me, too. I had books and TV and writing and video games and my dad... It wasn't so bad, you know? But I feel stunted sometimes," she said, pointing to the electronics store girl rejecting Crewman #6. "Kind of like that, or even when Alec fell in my lap the other day, I just don't know how everything works. Friendships, relationships, attraction."
She shrugged and nibbled on a spoonful. "But I'm happy to have you both too!"
She was getting warmed up into a philosophical debate, so she checked herself and shortened what could have been an all-night lecture.
"Gender and sex are two different things. Gender is a cultural distinction; sex is biological. A culture like ours used to tell us all over the place that homosexuality was wrong, although that's changing... it still leaves people confused now, because they think they're wrong to feel it or some such."
Aishe shrugged again. "So to answer your question, although I don't know what exactly draws one person of any kind to another, I could probably bore you all night long with rambling on about human instinct and the need to reproduce to perpetuate your own species. Suffice it to say that it's different for everyone, and you'll know it when it happens."
Aishe then grinned at Ana. "So we're going to have to experiment, I suppose, and take you out where you can meet plenty of guys and girls. Then you can get a fix on what you might look for... when you're ready to look for it."
She attempted to get her spoon to stick to her nose as well, never having attempted such, but was unsuccessul. She decided the spoon was far more useful as a chocolate-delivery system and gave up, digging into her ice cream once more.
"We just have to make it through this cloud!" Ana snorted. "Relationships for me have been just like that - a minefield. My last best friend, Olivia, was brutally murdered in her apartment the day I was to visit her. My next friend-who-might-have-become-best decided - I think - that she loved me after we'd only known each other two days, and then kissed me a few times. I have always had relationships end prematurely. Like my parents. Like Olivia. I've learned that it's through no fault of my own, but it doesn't make it suck any less, you know?"
Ana had dug through half of her ice cream, in between bursts of sentences, laughs at the movie - "You broke the ship, you broke the bloody ship!" - and listening to Aishe. "But with Fallon, and now with you, at first it was different, something I recognize now was a feeling of lasting, of not-going-away anytime-soon." She shrugged and gave a bemused smile to Aishe. "Kind of difficult to explain."
What's my last name? What's my last name?! I don't have one! I'm just Crewman Number 6!
Aishe turned her attention briefly to her most favorite section of the movie, though she still continued to chat with Ana. "You haven't exactly had it easy in terms of relationships. For myself, I've never really put myself out there I guess. I've always been safe with my mom and dad, and two or three sort-of friends. I never had the need for anything else. This is the first time I've ever really had to persue a relationship. And really persue it."
To late, she realized what she'd said, and her face colored. Stuffing a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, she hoped Ana was too caught up in the movie to realize what she'd just said. Or maybe she would assume Aishe had meant relationships with other friends, like her and Fallon... she dug diligently at her ice cream, ignoring the inevitable brain freeze that set in.
Ana sighed, then smirked as Aishe's spoon flashed in her peripheral vision. Focusing on the other woman, she saw spoonsfull of ice cream shovelled into her mouth with barely a pause. "Oh, sure, they're like three years old." "Minors, not miners!" "You lost me." Snickering, she continued, "So, realistically," she reached out and poked Aishe's foot gently, "I could ask you the same thing, but I won't, since you didn't volunteer, and because you're stuffing ice cream into your mouth like it's melting in a half a second." She pointed to the screen as the little green aliens pounced. "Or maybe your ice cream has beryllium as its special ingredient and you're worried the minor miners will get it?"
She giggled to herself.
She didn't really want Ana to mistrust her, or think she was hiding things. It was easier to explain this to vampires, she realized. How to put it so Ana might understand?
She chewed on her lip just a bit. I know! Look around you. Can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe? A lathe? Get off the line, Guy. Alexander, you're my advisor, advise me!
Aishe nodded to herself then and poked Ana back with her toes. "All right. This is going to sound strange, but just humor me. I'm here in Nachton to find a job, yes, but the reason I came here is because I'm following someone close to me. A friend, if you will... maybe more than that. He think he's bad for me, I disagree, to make a long story short. Anyhow, he's a coward and he ran, thinking I wouldn't follow."
She grinned, keeping the mood light, she hoped. "He was wrong on that score. So here I am. Only, I don't really want him to know I'm in town. Not just yet, not until I'm settled in a bit more."
Aishe took another bite of ice cream, making a damn decent sized dent in the pint and awaiting Ana's reaction to her story.
Cleaning off her spoon again, she tapped the convex side against her forehead with a couple rather satisfying thunks. "Though if he's cowardly enough to run, maybe you just need a tractor beam of some sort."
Ana reached out again to squeeze Aishe's foot as Captain Taggart tried to explain the truth behind the Earthlings and the 'Historical Documents.' "In any event, if there's anything I can do to help, let me know. I'm decent with knots; I was a Girl Scout for some years, and between the two of us we might even be able to tackle him if need be."
"I think each one of those has occurred to me as being meritous at one point or another since I got here. I'm not sure how Kem would take to any of them, although I have a feeling that when all is said and done he'll agree to letting me have a few goes at him with a nerf dart-gun."
Meanwhile, Tech Sergeant Chen made passionate tentacle-love to Laliari, and Aishe goggled at it as always. Ewww.
"Hopefully none of them will actually be necessary as a method of restraint, but I'll let you know if I need backup."
Ana made gagging motions with her spoon. "I think Guy has it right, though - that's not right, nope!"
The rescue of the Thermians always pepped up Ana, because well, it meant the good guys were winning! "I may be plucky," she said musingly, "but dammit, I wouldn't go down without a fight! Or at least," and her voice slipped into her British accent again, "a stiff upper lip. Though," she continued yet again, pointing to Alexander Dane, "I should sincerely hope that I never have to lose a friend to get my gumption back in working order."
With that, and a little chuckle, she turned her attention to the end of the movie and Security Chief 'Roc' Ingersol. She was in a good mood in spite of her slip-up; she was happy to have real friends, good friends, like Fallon and now Ana.
"We need to get Fallon in on a late-night movie session sometime," she said, finishing off her ice cream and licking the spoon. "I'm absolutely stuffed. I don't believe I ate all of that."
The final fanfare started as the teaser for Galaxy Quest - the Adventure Continues came up on screen, and as always, Ana got goosebumps momentarily. Shivering from both the sheer amount of ice cream she'd just eaten as well as the happygoofy feeling she was having, she stood from the couch and stretched. Padding over to the laptop, she stopped and removed the movie. Checking the time, she said to Aishe, "It's barely nine-thirty. Want to watch Goonies, too? Or we could chat without the movie background, s'up to you. And you're welcome to stay here, I have extra blankets for me on the couch, since I'd offer you the bed."
It was almost a true sleepover. Without the dead people hovering over their heads. And it was nice, Ana decided. "Though, I think Fallon might need to be in on the movie selection next time. Do you want something to drink? My mouth tastes like fuzzy coffee now and I was going to get a glass of water."
"I actually have to take care of a few things back at home, but how about we plan the girly-sleepover for another night? That way I can even bring PJ's!"
She offered Ana a bright smile, so the woman would know she sincerely regretted turning down the offer. "We can get Fallon in on it too, that way."
It would be something of a trick, working it so Fallon could stay over and not have to worry about the sunlight; but perhaps if they had it in Aishe's suite, where she could easily block out the light?
"Next time maybe at my place," she suggested. "It'll be fun!"
Note to self: check the policy at Liefde about having friends over. Particularly friends like Fallon.