Thereafter Chapter 9: Seeking Oblivion
As he opened the door to the room he had come to understand as belonging to the Exalted Heroes, Michael felt his stomach sink with a disappointment that he did not want to acknowledge or think about too much.
The room wasn’t empty at all. Lex was there, sitting with her legs folded and their attention very much turned to the ancient-looking book they were reading. Lex seemed to sit nowhere in particular, and bob in a way that at first made Michael’s tired mind think they were levitating again. Once he stepped into the room proper and could see over the back of the couch, though, Michael realized that the explanation was solidly in the realm of the martial, as Lex had planted themself on Alicia’s back as she did push-ups. It was a strange scene to Michael. It felt intimate in a way he couldn’t quite explain, but it wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t much of anything, except maybe the platonic ideal of parallel play, and yet, it felt like he had walked in on a very private moment. Had he not been so god-damn tired, Michael would’ve stepped back out before anyone noticed, but tired as he was, he had no compunction about trudging into this little scene.
“Excuse me,” he half said, half coughed as he tumbled onto the couch. He didn’t care if he was disturbing anything, the day had been long and deeply demoralizing, and he craved oblivion.
“Oh hey Mike,” Alicia said. “You ok, man? You look a bit pale.”
“It’s fine,” Michael said. “Knee’s bothering me, the knee and … everything I guess.”
“I did notice you limp a bit,” Lex spoke up, still not looking away from the book. “I thought it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It usually isn’t, when my life isn’t fantasy equivalent of a particularly depressing episodes of The E.R.”
“The problem spot’s the first to crumble,” Alicia said, it wasn’t quite just an observation, but close.
“You tell me,” Michael said. In a normal conversation he’d let it sit with that, but given the circumstances, Michael found himself opening the floodgates on the massive damn in his mind just a touch. “I got it back in Caveworld when I was a kid, well, in Lux Aeterna, the Lightlord’s fortress, which was built over all the caves, on the surface there. It was a shitshow of an operation, just… things going to shit you know?”
Michael found himself adjusting his position on the couch as he noticed the quiet in the room. Lex had looked away from their book, and their light grey eyes was fixed on him, like he was the puzzle that was to be solved.
“What happened?” Lex asked. They weren’t brusque about it, but there was a matter-of-factness to the question that made it feel more like a question of curiosity than an attempt of empathy.
“Well, uh, you’ve heard the story presumably,” Michael said. “We were going in to save the Burrow Chief’s daughter, Sur-Ti and disable the defenses of the fortress so the Molefolk sappers could collapse the whole wretched thing when…”
The door slammed open, pulling Michael fully out of his narrative. Felipe entered, every bit as wretchedly casual about everything as he had been earlier in the day.
“Not disturbing anything, am I?” Felipe said as he cartwheeled over the back of the shitty chairs, landing in a perfect sit because of course he did.
“You kinda were,” Lex said. “Michael was telling us about his knee.”
“Ooh, we swapping war stories?”
“I suppose so,” Michael conceded.
“That sounds fun, we should get to know each other, network, y’know?”
“Where have you been this entire time? Didn’t see you at the plaza,” Alicia asked.
“Oh I was running messages mostly, getting anyone with any skill in medicine and healing that the Magus could think of. Hardly a good use of my talent, but I suppose these circumstances call for using what you have, no?” Felipe shrugged. His attitude made more sense to Michael now, he hadn’t been wading in bodies all afternoon.
“Anyway, I’m sure Michael would prefer to get back to his story now,” Lex said, having fully put their book away. If Michael was honest, he’d rather not. The moment was gone and he was way too tired to try to get into it again. Felipe, fortunately, was on a similar, if not compatible wavelength.
“Oh, no, no, we cannot have a bonding time sober. That simply won’t do,” Felipe said as he got up. “This requires the finest wines and the rudest liquor known to man, we will drink as the heroes we are!”
“Now you’re finally talking sense,” Lex agreed as they dismounted Alicia with a bounce Michael would not consider himself capable of even on his best days.
“We shall strike out in this brave new world in search of exotic alcohols, no tincture shall be beyond our grasp.” Felipe proclaimed, a rapidfire sort of theatrical tone to his voice, he was high on his own supply, or perhaps enjoying the opportunity to be extra now that everyone else were too tired to push back.
“You guys have fun with that,” Michael said. “I’m spent, I’d rather not go anywhere or do much of anything.”
“Don’t you worry about that, sweet prince,” Felipe continued, “For I, and this… weird elf will brave the unknown and scavenge what adult soda can be scavenged.”
“I like weird elf” Lex said. “I feel I’m giving Galadriel right now.”
“Funny, I’d have you pegged more as a Hermey The Elf kind of thing,” Alicia opined. For her part, she had taken the departure of her added weight to roll to her side and do side leg lifts.
“Alicia, you’re going to yell at me for this,” Lex said, “But you can peg me any way you want girl.”
“Well, you’re not wrong… anyway, you two have fun with that. I don’t drink.”
“We will have to see what the night brings. Let’s go, Galadriel!” Felipe motioned for the door, and out they went, quickly dissolving into bickering as the question of which dwarf or hobbit Felipe most resembled came up. The argument was off to a bad start, as Felipe insisted he was certainly not one of the shorter races in the first place, which led to Lex’ suggestion he was, perhaps, a goblin.
“Those two has some kind of thing going, don’t you think?” Alicia’s question snapped Michael out of the eavesdropping reverie. She had stopped working out, and was now going through a complex set of stretches.
“Like romantically?”
“Yeah, or… like non-platonically at least. It’s hard to tell with Lex because they’re so horny on main all the time, but Felipe seems to be matching the energy a lot, right?”
“I suppose,” Michael said as he shifted in the sofa, trying to sit up a bit if nothing else. Sleep wasn’t going to happen no matter what he did right now.
“Whatever they are to each other, they sure are a pair, I’ll tell you that.”
“creep seeks same” Michael said, and once he realized what he had said he provided “Oh that’s one of the translation things again I think. It’s a Norwegian expression, means something like weirdos seek out other weirdos, I guess. It’s not a very nuanced translation.”
“It must be a trip and a half,” Alicia said, ever so slightly pensive at the thought. “Having your words just get translated like that.”
“It is a bit weird,” Michael had to concede. “But honestly, it’s not even the weirdest thing about this place.”
“Hey, do you want me to have a look at your knee.”
“Oh, sure,” Michael said, a bit taken aback at the suddenness of the question.
As he rolled up his right pant leg, Alicia explained that she wasn’t a physio or anything, but her training as a PT had included at least some passing expertise on the various ways in which the body breaks. It was a quick examination, and Michael hardly had the time to note how warm Alicia’s fingers were, or how suggestive the pose they found themselves in would seem to an outside observer.
“Well, something really went to town on your leg, huh?” Alicia asked as she handled the aching joint, about as gently as one could expect.
“Yeah,” Michael said, putting his every conscious thought into not saying so through gritted teeth. “It was a Luminous One, chosen warrior of the Lightlord.”
“That’s an ominous title. Was it as scary as it sounded?”
“Yeah, he was huge, shining armor, blinding light from beneath his visor type of deal. I almost snuck past him, but he got me good.”
“Sounds pretty scary,” Alicia said absentmindedly as she tested the flexibility of the joint.
“Oh it was. Damn close call too, but I dropped like half of a parapet on him and that settled things.”
“Shit, I’d hope so… Wait, what’s a parapet?”
“It’s like, uh, the railing? On top of a tower, with the “teeth” to protect from enemy archers".”
“Oh yeah, castle shit, I’ve seen those.”
“Mhm, they were in the process of really fortifying up the place, so it was a bit of a construction site. Probably saved all our asses that day if I’m honest.”
“I see… hm, yeah, seems like you have some problem with the supporting musculature around the knee. I’m no doctor or anything, but you might want to look into getting a cane. Get some weight off the knee, might help you with the pain at least.”
Michael couldn’t but grimace. This wasn’t news to him, but a part of him had hoped he could just grin and bear the damn thing.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was kind of hoping someone in here,” he motioned up in the air, he meant Thereafter. “Had some magical pressure point business that could help with this stuff. They did try to cure me back in Caveworld and that helped, for a bit.”
“Well, I’m no mage,” Alicia said. “But knees are tricky customers either way you slice ‘em. The initial spell might even have ended up hurting you more once the spell wore off, since it doesn’t seem to have repaired the underlying problem entirely.”
“A bear’s favor.” Michael sighed.
“That another local expression?”
“Yeah…”
Michael found himself taking a deep breath. “Sorry for kinda… uh, I’m… this whole thing. It’s…”
“It’s a lot,” Alicia said, her tone had changed, she wasn’t in Customer Service mode any more. Michael hadn’t even noticed that she had shifted into it, but she unquestionably had. “Even without this magical jigsaw shit it’s a lot.”
Michael looked down. Alicia was leaning one elbow on the couch, her hand just over his knee. It was a situation of a sort Michael found himself in, and he could only describe it as acutely, suddenly, earnest.
“You can say that again…. You seem to be handling this “magical jigsaw shit” pretty well, if you don’t mind me saying.
Alicia shook her head, the tiredness of her smile said it better than words could, but she wouldn’t settle with just that.
“Oh honey,” she said. “I am hanging on by a thread. This whole situation is SO WEIRD, and that’s without even getting into the whole Lia thing and…”
“We’re here, we’re queer, we’ve got beer!” The door slammed open, revealing Lex, Felipe, and the bathtub-sized ball of bottles, barrels and sundry containers that floated behind them, suspended by some magic spell or other.
The shock of the uncouth entrance went through Michael and Alicia like an electric current, sending them stumbling to their separate corners of the couch.
“Or what passes for beer around here, think they’ve figured out the still though,” Lex said, flicking at a floating bottle of some semiclear liquid, sending it spinning into the room, beholden to physics even though gravity was out of the picture. “Most of the non-frothy stuff should be hundred proof or thereabout. The beer might be canoe sex though.” It wasn’t quite confidence in Lex’ steps, but there was a slight hit of pizzas to it, like breaking out into vogue wasn’t entirely out of the picture.
“Canoe sex?” Michael found himself repeating.
“Fucking close to water,” Alicia said by way of explanation as Felipe started guiding the unwieldy dirigible of floating alcohol containers into the room proper. Whatever else you could say about their situation, the night was certainly promising to be quite the event.
Author’s Note: We’ve had a lot of world building and action these last few chapters, so it’s time to dial it back a skootch and see the characters bounce off each other. Lex and Felipe make for a fun zany double act, and Michael and Alicia have a pleasant chemistry. Now is this indicative of any future shipping business? Perhaps, or maybe I’m just having fun. It is, after all, important to have some fun don’t you think?
-V.S.D-