Lil, Fatale, and Mort - March 30

[ax_diamondlil]

Lil tries to visit Vance and is discovered stuffing food into the Brotherhood's fridge by Fatale. It doesn't go to well for Lil, even after Mort makes an appearance.


Lil had worried, after everything was already made and there was no going back, that there wouldn't be enough room in the Brotherhood's fridge, but it had been a little bare and by stacking things carefully she could fit it all in. Enough meals for a few days, a couple of deserts, some rolls on the counter... it had been a busy way to burn off energy yesterday until she could come see Vance and give him a hug. Thank goodness she'd been working on her cooking skills over the winter.

Of course, that hadn't been her plan at first. At first she was going to grab a bunch of food and set herself up in their kitchen. That lasted as long as it had taken to tell Tamara her plan and then she'd slowly gone red as Tamara explained just how badly that could go down with the Brotherhood kids. Thank goodness for friends who worked hard to save her from herself.

It was still a little weird that she cared enough to throw food at these kids, but she'd blame Vance for that. She cared for him and these were his people. If she could do one thing to make stuff a little easier for him and the rest for a few days, then she might as well do it.

Normally, Pam didn't open portals inside the base - why bother, when it was just as easy to walk, and it wasnt as if she actually had to get dressed to look like she was? But that was usually, and the past 48 hours had been anything but usual.

Dressed in one of Alex's t-shirts, she opened a portal into the kitchen, hoping to just snag a bag of cookies and take them along to go check on Eileen. As she stepped through, however, her eyes settled on an unfamiliar figure in front of the fridge, and narrowed in a way that those who knew her would recognize as dangerous. "What the fuck are you doing in our kitchen?" she demanded.

That was one way to scare the shit out of someone. Teleporters. "I, uh, I was gonna visit Vance and... um," Lil opened the fridge up to show the stacks of aluminum foil containers, "just bringing some food. In case you guy weren't up to cooking. Or ordering out. Or whatever."

"Bullshit. Lance said no visitors," Pam shot back. "Newbie wouldn't have let you in." She recognized the girl now - one of the school kids, and she'd definitely never seen her at the base before, which meant she didn't belong.

"I thought the no-visitors thing was just yesterday?" That sounded weak, but it was all she had at the moment. "I seriously just wanted to see how Vance was doing and like, do the food thing. That's it."

"So you just broke in? Like the Kitty-Cat girl?" Fatale moved to plant her hands on her hips, realized how ridiculous that was going to look with her cast, and instead crossed her arms over her chest. "You guys do understand the whole private property thing, right?"

Well, this was going to shit. "Fuck, I'm sorry. No, I came with a friend from school... Jesus." She grabbed the plastic bags she'd used for the food off the counter and stuffed them in a coat pocket. "I don't really think stuff through too well. I'll head out, no problem."

"What friend?" Fatale demanded. Shit. There was a possibility - slim, but there - that the girl actually was there legitimately. She wasn't about to admit that just yet, though.

"Billy. He was here to see Wanda I guess? I don't have to wait for him though." And god, she couldn't lie, but if that got Billy in shit she was never going to forgive herself. Lil fished a piece of paper out of her pocket and walked over to the girl (she'd seen her at school be she was fucked if she could remember her named), holding it out like a white flag. "Just, um, I got this? It's got cooking times and ingredients and shit, just in case anyone's allergic. No nuts in the brownies just in case. And like, it's all in individual serving things so you guys can eat when you want or freeze it for later."

Fuck. The fact she'd come with Billy didn't win her any points with Fatale (in fact, it made her lose them) but it would with Wanda. Fatale tensed, though, as the taller girl stepped towards her, then silently slipped her knife from it's sheath on her arm into her hand. "Put it down on the table," she demanded, jerking her head towards it.

"Okay," Lil said, noticing the knife and wondering if she'd been holding that from the start or if it had just appeared. Regardless, it's presence had the effect of relaxing her. Embarrassment was a real threat. Violence? Not so much. "I'm honestly not here to start anything. I just wanted to make sure you guys had one less thing to think about for a couple of days."

"We're just fine," Fatale said coolly. "Nothing to look at, no problems here."

Mort bounded into the kitchen in grungy jeans and a t-shirt that might have been white, once, to scavenge through the cabinets. Never knew what might still be lurking in there. Or, just as importantly, what bugs might've found what was lurking in there. Hell, man, it was like a buffet. He didn't make it to the cabinets, though, because Fatale was in the kitchen with a knife and glaring at some girl he'd never met before.

"Hey there, hot stuff, you seem new around here. Anything I can do to help you?" He winked at her, and then grinned winningly at both her and Fatale.

Lil's mouth twitched and a smile threatened. It was exactly the sort of approach that would generally get a death stare from her, but this guy's timing was brilliant. "Nope. I think I got myself in deep shit here. Not sure there's anything you can do at this point."

"She says she knows the newbie," Fatale said, twirling the knife between her fingers as much for effect as because she had any intention of using it. "But I found her in here messing around in the fridge." That should grab Mort's attention, right?

"Whoaaaaaa, whoa." Mort leaned closer to eye the tall girl thoroughly. "The fridge?"

Lil frowned at the girl. "I also said I brought food. There's shepherd's pie, homemade mac and cheese, and a spaghetti casserole thing in the fridge. Plus brownies. Plus a great big bag of dinner rolls!" She waved at the counter beside the fridge where proof of the last claim sat." Those are storebought though. I haven't tried making bread yet. "

Despite the large quantities of food, he looked vaguely disappointed. "No bugs at all? What'm I, a vegetarian?" Still, Mort went over to look through all her various offerings.

"Why're you bringing us food, hot stuff?" Because in his experience? People didn't just....give you free food.

"Because of the shit some of you guys just went through? Some of you got hurt, right? I thought it might make it a bit easier if you didn't have to worry about cooking for a couple of days. Evil stuff, I know." Lil gave the knife another long look. She had no intention of telling them it was useless until things had gotten sorted. Who knew how jumpy the girl would get if she knew?

Fatale was equally suspicious. "No one just does that. What do you want?"

"People 'just do that' at home. If I told my mom about what happened, and that I knew one of you and others went to my school, and I didn't do it, she'd kick my ass from here to China." Which was absolutely true. Now, her first plan of just cooking for them might have been a little too far, but Lil had decided that could be left unrevealed for, well, forever. "It's an honest-to-god thing, at least up north."

"So you...know the newbie, and just....decided to bring food to the rest of us, too?" If Mort sounded skeptical, it was because he was. "Like some kind of hot casserole fairy?"

"Well yeah, I guess!" Lil threw up her hands. "Look, maybe I was worried about him and maybe cooking took my mind off it and maybe it was as much about that as giving it to you guys, but I swear there's no evil plan behind it."

Mort cocked his head as he looked at her. "You're weird, hot girl."

Fatale gave her a skeptical look, then pointedly turned towards Mort. "I vote we get Freddy to try it. If she dosed it with anything, he'd probably live through it, right?" It stood to reason, given his size. Kinda like how they had to give elephants huge doses of shit to knock them out.

"Oh my God!!" Lil leaned back against the counter, put her hands over her eyes and then dragged her hands down her face. "One, don't call me hot girl. Just. Don't. Two, I'll have some of it, right here, right now, in front of you guys from whatever container you want to prove I didn't like, dump a bunch of wafarin in it or... or like, even over salt the fucking food."

Mort gave her two slow blinks. "You prefer Baby Cakes? Sweet Cheeks?" He asked.

"What's that one you call Wanda, Sweetums?" Fatale volunteered, smirking.

Jesus fucking Christ, she hadn't wanted to throw a punch this much in months. She crossed her arms in front of her so keep her hands firmly tucked away and temptation at bay. "I get it. I bring dinner and you guys are the entertainment. That how it's works?"

"No." Fatale turned towards her, still smirking. "You bring dinner, and you get out before we make you regret breaking into our base. The rest is just bonus for us."

"And how the fuck are you gonna make me regret it? That knife of yours?" Lil raised an eyebrow.

Mort hopped, literally hopped, up on to the counter. He landed in a crouch, and remained that way, looking far more comfortable that he really ought to have. "Ladies, ladies....there's enough of me to go around. No need to fight."

Fatale toyed with the knife in question, ignoring what Mort was saying, and just smirked.

Lil let her temper evaporate (A knife was so much easier to deal with than name-calling) and smiled. "You guys didn't waste any time paying attention to the rest of us when you were at the school, did you?" She held out a hand to the weird guy. "I'm Lil, the invulnerable kid. Nice to meet you."

Mort gave Fatale a skeptical look, before staring at the offered hand like it was a foreign object. He reached out and grabbed a couple of her fingers, shook them quickly, and then dropped them like they'd burned him. "Toad," was all he said.

There. Trump card served and an introduction made, all without going ballistic. That felt damn good. She nodded at Toad before turning to the girl. "I don't know how long you're planning on keeping this up, but this would be a whole lot simpler if one of you just went and asked Billy if he brought me. Or asked Vance if he knew me. Or whatever."

"Or we could just repeat "get out" until you get it," Fatale pointed out. "Lance said no visitors. Billy gets a pass for being Wanda's kid. You don't."

Ah shit. She'd let herself forget about that whole part of the situation during the knife stuff. In fact, before the knife came out, she'd been on her way out the door, hadn't she? "Yeah, there's that." No point in arguing that she was sure Lance had meant just the day after when that had already gone down like a lead balloon. She pushed the sheet of instructions towards Toad because it seemed a tad more likely that he'd let Vance know than the other one. "You make sure Vance gets that, will you? He can text me if he's got any questions."

Mort picked it up and looked it over curiously. "Alright, yo."

"Bye now," Fatale said with another smirk as she opened a portal to the front porch of the school. "Have a nice day."

Lil's eyes widened for a moment. "That's... really cool," she whispered. It almost made up for the embarrassment of getting booted out on her ass. Almost.

She stepped up to the portal and stretch a hand through, but turned to say one last thing before she stepped through. "Just take it out of the foil if you decide to nuke it, okay? The containers aren't microwave safe." Then, before they could say anything else went through the portal.

Mort turned to Fatale, now that it was just them. "She ain't gonna come back, is she?"

Fatale closed the portal, then turned towards Mort and smirked. "Not now, she isn't. You think anyone'd believe we cooked all that?"

"Yeah, you're sexy and all, but neither of us knows how to cook," Mort said, eyeing the haul.

"Good point." Fatale eyed it as well. "Bet we'd still get huge points if we heated it up and yelled that it was time for dinner."

"No doubt, no doubt, no doubt," Mort agreed, grinning. His teeth were slightly yellowed, but it was still his most charming expression.

"So?" Pam started taking containers back out of the fridge. "Read off the instructions and let's get started."

Comments

[ax_hulkling]

Aw, Lil. Making friends everywhere she goes.

[ax_diamondlil]

It's a gift, really. :D

[ax_dragoness]

So I’m finally catching up on logs, and omg, so glad I read this one. XD If Tam heard about this, she was undoubtedly like “omg why didn’t you just send the food with Billy??!”

<3

[ax_glitter]

And Lil would reply, "Because I wanted to see Vance!" XD Not that Lil isn't, you know, a bit of a bull in a china shop when it comes to sorting social situations.