(no subject)
Hayes, Lien, and a birthday.
Written because Sares is ♥
1002 words, no warnings but for... two swears that you'll miss if you blink.
“Rising unemployment among the lower and middle class population, noted. General opinion that elections are rigged, noted- ”
A tapping of keys, and that particular bit of information is entered into the simulation subroutine she is programming line by painstaking line of handwritten code.
“Shouldn’t have to be doing this,” Lien grumbles, pushing her glasses back up her nose for what seems to be at least the twentieth time in the last five minutes.
It’s midsummer, in this world’s version of Denmark, and the rooms they’ve rented on the outskirts of Copenhagen aren’t exactly the type that come with air conditioning. The walls are dingy, the sort of yellow that one normally associates with the dried-up crust around the nozzle of the squeezable mustard bottles found on hot dog vendors’ stands, the wooden floors rough enough to regularly impale their feet with splinters, and the single window is plastered with an extravaganza of grease paper that they’ve had no luck-so far, at least-peeling off.
“Don’t forget the riots,” Hayes puts in from the floor, where he’s sprawled out in front of the fan that they’d been forced to purchase or risk death by heatstroke, putting the finishing touches on a pyramid of empty Chinese take-out boxes.
Lien looks up from her handheld-the glasses get jammed back up her sweat-slick nose-and glowers half-heartedly at him. “Don’t see you jumping all up and down to help program, do I?”
“It’s too hot,” He moans pathetically, and rolls over, letting the pyramid blow apart. “Damn.” There’s a moment of silence as he contemplates the boxes now strewn across his back. “I think my brain fused together about three hours ago. And it’s my birthday. I shouldn’t have to work on my birthday; it’s only fair, right? Birthdays are special things. Once a year, and all.”
“Duly noted, Hayes.” Still, she snaps the handheld closed and leans forward, resting her chin in her hands. “Your birthday? How come you didn’t say anything about it until just now? You forget?”
“I was-thinking about ice cream,” Hayes grins lopsidedly up at her. “Swimming in ice cream. And thinking about ice cream means thinking about cake. And cakes always mean birthdays. And then I was thinking some more and trying to figure out what the day back at Headquarters is. And I remembered!”
“So how old are you then, Clarence Hayes?”
“Twen-that’s just, just… Jung!”
“Answer the question, if you please. Twenty what?”
“Twenty-one,” he admits reluctantly.
“-why in all the worlds didn’t you remember earlier? Hayes! On your feet, man!”
He stands, brushing several clinging grains of rice from his forehead, then glances back and forth between Lien and his shoes.
“We,” Lien says sweetly, clambering out of the couch, “are going to a bar. And you, Hayes, are drinking libations of an alcoholic nature that I am paying for. I’ll accept no excuses.”
She steps neatly around the fallen avalanche of cartons, headed in the general direction of the room they’ve been sleeping in, then stops and peers around the doorframe. Her grin is unrepentant, full of good-humored malice.
“It is your birthday, after all. Only fair.”
Hayes gulps. And then gulps again.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
---
Twenty minutes later, they’re side by side in a subway car, rattling ever closer to the city centre as the tunnel walls rush past in a blur of concrete and wiring. Hayes is slouched down in his seat, his chin roughly level with his stomach. Every so often, he darts a side-long glance at her, then just as quickly returns his gaze to the advertisement for what appears to be either a perfume or a high-class escort service across from him, cheeks a burning pink.
“Hayes, we’re going to a bar. People wear clothing like this to a bar.” The clothing in question is a strapless dress, blue cotton with a knee-length skirt. “You can look at me, you know. It’s just a dress.”
“But I can see your you-know-what!” He slumps down even further, resolutely not looking over at her now.
“My chest, Hayes?” Lien elbows him in the ribs, hard. “Sit up, for fuck’s sake. It’s not going to bite you. It’s hot outside, we’re going out for your birthday, and ergo I am wearing a dress. And yes, it happens that I am a girl, even if I normally don’t go waving my girl bits around for the world to see.”
“Girl bits,” he repeats, horrified, and squirms away from her so as to avoid another elbowing. His expression is now approximately that of someone who’s had quite a bit more to drink than is normally healthy. “You could at least wear a jacket,” he pleads, somewhat belatedly. “Jackets are good. Right. Good jackets. Excellent things, those jackets. In style!”
“And besides,” she continues thoughtfully, sailing right past his desire for jackets and the wearing thereof, “I could’ve worn the coconut bikini I had for a costume party a few years back. Well. Maybe not the same one. But something similar, at least. Wouldn’t be all that out of place here, anyway. -or am I thinking of Amsterdam? I really should’ve warned you about the red light district with that one.”
“Nggk,” Hayes whimpers into the folds of his suit coat. “You are cruel, Jung.”
---
In the end, it’s not a bar they’re drinking at, it’s a park fountain, and it’s not alcohol they’re drinking, it’s bottles of orange and strawberry Fanta, and Lien’s wearing Hayes’ coat, and they’re both sopping wet since she pushed him into the fountain and he pulled her in after, but it is, as Hayes decides much later, tacking up the strip of photographs of the both of them crammed into a photo booth and sticking their tongues out at the camera, possibly his favorite birthday that he’s had yet.
Although- he doesn’t quite want to think about whatever Jung is planning for next year.
He suspects it will involve the coconut bikini.
Written because Sares is ♥
1002 words, no warnings but for... two swears that you'll miss if you blink.
“Rising unemployment among the lower and middle class population, noted. General opinion that elections are rigged, noted- ”
A tapping of keys, and that particular bit of information is entered into the simulation subroutine she is programming line by painstaking line of handwritten code.
“Shouldn’t have to be doing this,” Lien grumbles, pushing her glasses back up her nose for what seems to be at least the twentieth time in the last five minutes.
It’s midsummer, in this world’s version of Denmark, and the rooms they’ve rented on the outskirts of Copenhagen aren’t exactly the type that come with air conditioning. The walls are dingy, the sort of yellow that one normally associates with the dried-up crust around the nozzle of the squeezable mustard bottles found on hot dog vendors’ stands, the wooden floors rough enough to regularly impale their feet with splinters, and the single window is plastered with an extravaganza of grease paper that they’ve had no luck-so far, at least-peeling off.
“Don’t forget the riots,” Hayes puts in from the floor, where he’s sprawled out in front of the fan that they’d been forced to purchase or risk death by heatstroke, putting the finishing touches on a pyramid of empty Chinese take-out boxes.
Lien looks up from her handheld-the glasses get jammed back up her sweat-slick nose-and glowers half-heartedly at him. “Don’t see you jumping all up and down to help program, do I?”
“It’s too hot,” He moans pathetically, and rolls over, letting the pyramid blow apart. “Damn.” There’s a moment of silence as he contemplates the boxes now strewn across his back. “I think my brain fused together about three hours ago. And it’s my birthday. I shouldn’t have to work on my birthday; it’s only fair, right? Birthdays are special things. Once a year, and all.”
“Duly noted, Hayes.” Still, she snaps the handheld closed and leans forward, resting her chin in her hands. “Your birthday? How come you didn’t say anything about it until just now? You forget?”
“I was-thinking about ice cream,” Hayes grins lopsidedly up at her. “Swimming in ice cream. And thinking about ice cream means thinking about cake. And cakes always mean birthdays. And then I was thinking some more and trying to figure out what the day back at Headquarters is. And I remembered!”
“So how old are you then, Clarence Hayes?”
“Twen-that’s just, just… Jung!”
“Answer the question, if you please. Twenty what?”
“Twenty-one,” he admits reluctantly.
“-why in all the worlds didn’t you remember earlier? Hayes! On your feet, man!”
He stands, brushing several clinging grains of rice from his forehead, then glances back and forth between Lien and his shoes.
“We,” Lien says sweetly, clambering out of the couch, “are going to a bar. And you, Hayes, are drinking libations of an alcoholic nature that I am paying for. I’ll accept no excuses.”
She steps neatly around the fallen avalanche of cartons, headed in the general direction of the room they’ve been sleeping in, then stops and peers around the doorframe. Her grin is unrepentant, full of good-humored malice.
“It is your birthday, after all. Only fair.”
Hayes gulps. And then gulps again.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
---
Twenty minutes later, they’re side by side in a subway car, rattling ever closer to the city centre as the tunnel walls rush past in a blur of concrete and wiring. Hayes is slouched down in his seat, his chin roughly level with his stomach. Every so often, he darts a side-long glance at her, then just as quickly returns his gaze to the advertisement for what appears to be either a perfume or a high-class escort service across from him, cheeks a burning pink.
“Hayes, we’re going to a bar. People wear clothing like this to a bar.” The clothing in question is a strapless dress, blue cotton with a knee-length skirt. “You can look at me, you know. It’s just a dress.”
“But I can see your you-know-what!” He slumps down even further, resolutely not looking over at her now.
“My chest, Hayes?” Lien elbows him in the ribs, hard. “Sit up, for fuck’s sake. It’s not going to bite you. It’s hot outside, we’re going out for your birthday, and ergo I am wearing a dress. And yes, it happens that I am a girl, even if I normally don’t go waving my girl bits around for the world to see.”
“Girl bits,” he repeats, horrified, and squirms away from her so as to avoid another elbowing. His expression is now approximately that of someone who’s had quite a bit more to drink than is normally healthy. “You could at least wear a jacket,” he pleads, somewhat belatedly. “Jackets are good. Right. Good jackets. Excellent things, those jackets. In style!”
“And besides,” she continues thoughtfully, sailing right past his desire for jackets and the wearing thereof, “I could’ve worn the coconut bikini I had for a costume party a few years back. Well. Maybe not the same one. But something similar, at least. Wouldn’t be all that out of place here, anyway. -or am I thinking of Amsterdam? I really should’ve warned you about the red light district with that one.”
“Nggk,” Hayes whimpers into the folds of his suit coat. “You are cruel, Jung.”
---
In the end, it’s not a bar they’re drinking at, it’s a park fountain, and it’s not alcohol they’re drinking, it’s bottles of orange and strawberry Fanta, and Lien’s wearing Hayes’ coat, and they’re both sopping wet since she pushed him into the fountain and he pulled her in after, but it is, as Hayes decides much later, tacking up the strip of photographs of the both of them crammed into a photo booth and sticking their tongues out at the camera, possibly his favorite birthday that he’s had yet.
Although- he doesn’t quite want to think about whatever Jung is planning for next year.
He suspects it will involve the coconut bikini.