See Yourself Be Yourself

[55] Bracing

When they returned to Valerie’s workspace, the girl with the pancake pin still had her mute shark associate propped on a nearby table. She held her slim hands out in quick little slicing motions, like paper blades, as if fighting off some persistent invisible ghost at the entryway.

Spotting the two of them, she reached for her stack of clipboards and nearly lost her grip. As Misty turned to whisper to Valerie before heading back to work, the girl gave a sharp, squeaking whimper and dropped one.

Bright red bloomed across her palm, slicing against the fine lines. She closed her hand protectively and looked around, the finger beside her thumb quivering. Misty opened her mouth to speak, to search for paper or ask what happened, but Valerie darted from her side and rushed down the main hallway.

A moment later, Valerie came back with a first aid kit and several paper towels from the bathroom. She sat the girl down, pressed the towels into her hand, and told her to keep her hand raised to slow the bleeding.

Misty led them to the nearby restroom, where they washed out the pancake-pin girl’s wound as gingerly as possible. She flinched at first, her fingers quivering under the stream. When the water turned warm, Misty shielded her from its tight, needling force. Slowly, she relaxed enough for tears. Valerie hugged her from the side.

"It's gonna be okay. Same thing happened to me. Just relax your muscles."

The mark on Valerie’s right hand from the broken controller a week ago had faded to a faint ruffle. Her fingers gave a sympathetic quiver.

Working quickly, Valerie tended the cut, occasionally scrunching her brow and mouthing half-words to herself.

The wrap they got around the girl’s hand wasn’t as snug and secure as the one Tracy made for Valerie. But it did the job.

As they worked, Valerie asked her name and got an answer that made her grin.

“…P-pancakes. I’m a pancake. See?” She gestured to the hairpin, then launched into a flustered burst of pancakeness. She was moldy pancakes, with cleverness and sassiness and deep kinship with all the other pancakes.

Misty just smiled at all the curious details, but Valerie kept pressing and probing, asking questions that held her attention on pancake lore instead of the bandage around her hand.

Valerie launched into an abridged version of her pizza philosophy, folding pizza and pancakes together as round-food friends. She got surprisingly far comparing the two, talking about how syrup and sauce were basically cousins and how fruit toppings matched pepperoni and cheese. Misty couldn’t resist grinning as she listened.

Back at the front, using her good hand, Pancakes picked up her shark and made him swim across the table. His name was Oizys. Misty blanked on the reference, but Valerie caught it immediately and asked all sorts of follow-up questions about the adorable shark.

Bright, playful ideas snapped back and forth between them until work tugged them apart. Valerie had to go back to data entry, and Pancakes had to go back to pretending to be human at the front desk with her little bitey assistant.

Valerie wrapped her arms around Pancakes and gave her a bracing, lingering hug, the kind meant to carry a person through the rest of the day. But she saved the last and best hug for Misty, loving and full, with her whole self wrapped around her.

Pancakes and Valerie lamented that they couldn’t spend the rest of the day tossing weird, bright ideas back and forth, but at least they traded numbers so they could keep it going whenever time allowed. As a quick reassurance, Valerie promised she would text Misty too.

“…Elpis.” Their new friend spoke so quietly that neither Valerie nor Misty caught the name for several seconds.

"That's my name. My human name... if that's okay."

Valerie swiftly added it to her phone, but made sure Pancakes stayed at the top.

The walk back to the boutique didn’t feel like the perfect romantic afterglow Misty had been hoping for. No kiss lingered. No extra closeness. Just a half-tossed see you in a little bit that could’ve been more eloquent. Valerie had found someone else to spend the rest of her day with, cheerfully trading sparks and strange little ideas. But why couldn’t that also be Misty?

She didn’t have to work at the boutique. They weren’t doing her a service. It was like hiring people who got sick from coal slag as miners before offering them restitution. Why the fuck was she going back to work?

Still, Misty did it. She signed back in, grabbed her tablet, fixed her hair, and put her pretty hospitality mask back on.

Sure, there was no way she could keep up with Valerie’s craft, spinning songs, sketching ideas, building worlds, celebrating them as she went. But she could at least be there.

It was good that Valerie had someone like-minded. Elpis was the best kind of coworker for her, a bright little match to her nature, someone who could help carry her through the rest of the day.

Misty had to brace herself at the sink. No, the perfect noodle-soup moment with Valerie wasn’t coming back. She was just stressed. It was Friday. She only had a few hours left. That was all. She could still be creative. Something to occupy her mind. She was always inside there anyway.

The scheduled clients stayed in the foreground, but behind them Misty summoned her thoughts and far more.

She drew out the nightmares that plagued Valerie and beat the ever-loving crap out of them. Misty turning into ashes? No. She mentally yanked on that thread, tore the darkness away, and put the pieces back together with Valerie waking to comfort instead of pain.

Bureaucratic Prentiss? She lifted him with her will, reached in, and leeched the poison out of him. Elisa and cruel laughter? Her first instinct was to choke it out, but that was too close to Valerie’s aunt. Bagpipes, then. Play it out. When she was done, Elisa’s musical giggles were a cheer instead of an indictment.

After purifying those dream-specters, she went looking for other targets.

That Costco bastard who tried to moralize their closeness. She flung him into a wall hard enough for his flesh to melt into the tile, drove him down into the cement beneath it, and finally yanked him back up to embed him in their food-court table.

He had no mouth left, but she knew he was screaming. Not dead. Dead was too fast and too easy. This was what hate earned. Pain could teach just fine in the right places.

As their table, he was supporting them now in their love. She imagined pressing her chest against him. See? Just flesh. Just her body. Say goodbye to yours. He’d probably get off on this kind of thing. No matter. A little mercy.

She’d put him back the old way eventually. If she felt like it. If the lesson stuck.

The perv at the game café. She could pour him into a drink or play with his pieces. Flip the table and see if that scared him. He wasn’t that bad. Just a little lesson. Something fitted to the crime, the way Dina would’ve liked.

Dina. She would reserve her divine judgment for Dina. Special consideration would be required.

All those asshole drivers who stressed Valerie out on the trip to and from Pasadena. They deserved to feel what they’d done to the broken lines in the road, only harder, only until something in them finally cracked.

The boutique sexist from the other day. He might make a good support bra or back brace. Then again, he might like that. So she imagined throwing him against the walls for a while first, just to stretch the material out.

The thief who took Vivi’s phone. No arms. No legs. Just the first round. Vivi would probably have better ideas for what to do with him. Maybe shatter him like glass a few times, wipe his memory, then put him back again. No. He needed his memories. All of them. Everything he’d done hammered into him, slammed against every wall until it spread into splinters. All he’d know was screaming. Endless screaming, never heard.

Mom. She’d be difficult. Brent imagined squeezing her hands until every cruel word and every caustic scolding answered back through the bones. This is how it feels, but inside me. Let that whole damn waterfall live in her for once. Would it matter? Fuck thinking it through. This was catharsis. She mentally tossed her mother around like a discarded muppet while smiling broadly for her newest client.

The car lady from the apartment really did live in her car now, bodily and totally. Does it hurt now when the door hits you?

The administrator, with those cold blue eyes nothing like Lillis’s. She wanted to destroy Misty, destroy all of them. She should know who was really in control. Feel these damn glass panels. Take the tablet to the face, you evil, controlling bitch. You…

As Misty’s mental image of the administrator got thrown around like a paper doll in a storm, her face warped. For a flash, she didn’t see her stern features and gray hair at all, but Nell peering out in fear and confusion.

Misty almost dropped her tablet and swiftly apologized to the client, blaming a sudden hand cramp.

What the hell was that?

She held herself together long enough to make it to her break. Once she hit the restroom, she braced herself against the sink and fought through an acrid fit of coughs that turned into hacking. Warm thoughts of Valerie at her side eased the nausea.

Was the boutique policing her thoughts? That was all she could imagine. Think ill of your boss and suffer for it. But if they could do that, what hope did any of them have?

Nell. How dare they put the thought of Nell in there somehow. She couldn’t forget Nell, even if the rest of this damned world did. She clenched her teeth and spat a brown reminder of her noodle soup into the drain.

Survive. Endure. Set things right. Not just with rage, but with true justice. Fair-play reckoning against the unfair. But get through today first.

And to get through it, she clung to the same thought she’d offered Valerie. Kittens. See kittens, enjoy kittens. Let them crawl over you and fall asleep in your lap. It was the best thought she had.

None of the customers had issues big enough for her to remember five minutes after she finished helping them. If anyone had asked, she could’ve repeated their needs back verbatim like a good little corporate tool. There were just so many of them, and what she really wanted to tell them was that this place was horrible.

Time at least had the cruelty and decency to pass faster than she expected.

When she checked her numbers at the end of the shift, she couldn’t help feeling a tickling, tangling, soul-scratching amusement at those perfect marks. One hundred percent positive ratings. She’d done the most bullshit job imaginable while secretly wanting to rage-punish everyone and everything in her way. So she finished with the most authentic smile plastered over that mask.

“You okay? You seem down. Did lunch with Valerie go alright?” Lillis strolled over to her locker, but her eyes stayed on Misty.

Lillis had been around off and on, coordinating with her on certain cases, but they hadn’t said much to each other beyond the automatic things people said on the job.

Misty was surprised to hear her normal voice. It was softer than usual. Gentler. Like a mother, but not her mother. More like the idea of a mom from movies and TV, the one who stays calm while all sorts of impossible things happen around the heroes and still somehow brings them home.

Stretching out her leg before it went numb, Misty answered, “I spent most of the afternoon venting, thinking about doing all sorts of awful but nonlethal things to the guy who stole Vivi’s phone… and other people. Catharsis.”

Lillis grinned and started pulling her work top over her head. Misty didn’t even flinch at the sight of her bra as she folded up her work clothes and reached for her regular ones.

“Did you do one for me?” Lillis pressed, suddenly bright with interest.

"What?" Misty's heart went spelunking.

“Did you rage at and torture a little version of me? Swords? Oh, splattering, I bet. You splattered me against the wall like Gumby under a truck tire.”

Misty splayed both her legs even though she didn’t want to stand. “No, no, no. No way. I didn’t even think about you.”

Lillis pouted as she kicked off her flats and stepped out of her pants. “I’m disappointed. I would’ve loved to hear about all the creative ways you want to rage against me. What about your ex?”

Misty used the time Lillis was half-dressed as an excuse to collect her thoughts. “I’m not mad at you. Or secretly mad at you. Or anything. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t think those things.”

Retying her ponytail, Lillis gave a coughing little chuckle. “Now that’s a load of crap. Just because you think something doesn’t mean you want it. That’s the whole point of an intrusive thought. There’s a whole psychological science behind it.”

Misty realized she needed to change too. Her process wasn’t nearly as smooth or elegant as Lillis’s, but it got the job done. “I didn’t think about you. I thought about… Dina, but…”

“You still care about her.” Lillis leaned back against the couch.

Misty spun around more than necessary, sputtering, “What? No fucking way!”

“Liar. If you didn’t care, you’d be like, yeah, fuck that bitch, I sent her to the moon and back in my thoughts, screaming. You still care because you’re a better person than she ever was. You don’t get pleasure from hurting people. You get angry and bitter. But you’re an idealist. An idealist this sad sack of a world needs more of. Did you at least send the wannabe antithesis of Grover Cleveland slamming into the gold-and-money shower he gets off to every night?” Lillis tilted her head with a smirk.

“Is that a political reference?” Misty asked, gently shutting her locker.

“Yeah. I’m a bit saucy myself.” Lillis held up a hand with a smile.

Misty detailed all the people she’d picked for punishment until she reached the Administrator. Then she fumbled, coughed, and said, “And other figures we should not talk about at work. And… other things.”

Lillis gave her a quick nod of understanding as she picked up her purse and keys. “Let’s go get Val first. I heard she made a friend.”

Frowning, Misty reached for her phone. No messages from Valerie. "She texted you?"

“Just after lunch. She met a living pancake. Round-food friends or something. I told her maple-roasted tomato sauce would be too sweet. Not that it’s gonna stop her from trying it.”

"Oh. I see..." Misty pressed the phone to her chest.

Lillis giggled. "*Now* you're imagining throwing me through a wall. So green. Come on. I know you'll feel better once you get a hug from your girlfriend."

----

BONUS

---- Alternate geekier references I asked Taphy for

“You splattered me like a guild navigator hitting turbulence.”

“You smeared me across the wall like spice paste.”

“You flattened me like a Holodeck safety protocol failure.”

“You turned me into redshirt wallpaper.”

“You splattered me like a Looney Tunes teleport accident.”

“Oh, splattering, I bet. You turned me into some kind of budget Cronenberg mural.”