Who: Alyssa, Ned, and Peter What: chilling with all the pretzels When: during the pretzel plot in April Where: Alyssa’s place Rating: lowish Status: Closed; Completed Gdoc Alyssa’s sleep schedule was all over the place as of late, especially after the zombies. Unfortunately, they’d left her feeling scared and less sane. Of course, she was trying to avoid sleep, unless she could sleep cocooned next to Damien. Which was why she’d only awoken in time to shower and get ready for an evening with Peter and Ned. Damien didn’t seem to mind them like he did her Mikaleson siblings, so she didn’t see a reason not to host tonight (of course, she’d also invite anyone else over, but that was neither here nor there).
She put water in the kettle and ground coffee for some French Press. So far she hadn’t noticed anything awry with the food, but Alyssa also hadn’t pulled out any food yet to eat, not having much of an appetite lately. After running upstairs once more to grab a hoodie, the Red Queen headed back to the kitchen to finish grabbing snacks.
Except the red velvet scones she’d made were now…pretzels. As…apparently, were the bags of candy she bought and WHY THE HELL WAS HUMMUS ALSO PRETZELS?
“Well…I hope we all like fucking eating pretzels,” Alyssa commented as she heard noises at the door.
“I never want to be part of a video game ever again.” Ned summarized to Peter as they reached the door of Alyssa’s house and knocked. He was just glad he knew how to portal (mostly) away from things and his girlfriend was a badass witch. That didn’t stop him from being utterly terrified the entire time though. Ned was pretty sure he’d like normal zombies better. Or maybe not.
“Not unless it’s something like Super Mario Bros.” Peter’d be fine with that. It might be nice to hang around the Mushroom Kingdom for a bit. But who knows? They might just all wind up having to fight Bowser anyway.
But that was still better than fighting zombies. At least to Peter, anyway.
Alyssa opened the door. She knew she looked more drawn than usual, the brightness of her personality dimmed by the recent Dome shit, but she truly wanted a normal night. Didn’t look like the Dome wanted them to eat normal food.
“Hey,” she greeted her bros when she opened the door. “Oh come on. You loved MarioKart.” Alyssa couldn’t stand that her powers hadn’t done much, but she ushered Peter and Ned inside. “So…I bought snacks. But everything turned into pretzels. Except water, and hopefully coffee.”
When Alyssa opened the door, Ned just sort of stared with his mouth a little open and his eyes just a bit wider than normal because he had never seen Alyssa like this and it was super noticeable that something was wrong. It wasn’t until Alyssa ushered them inside that Ned actually ‘snapped out of it’ and walked inside. Still, he was kind of staring and hadn’t really processed what she said yet.
“Everything… turned into pretzels?” Peter repeated, incredulous. That wouldn’t register into one of the top 5 weirdest things that the Dome had done, but it was a different tack for it for a change. How Alyssa was looking was way more unusual, and it worried Peter.
“Tell me they’re different types of pretzels,” he said questioningly, stepping in after Ned inside. Maybe it wasn’t appropriate of him to make light of things given how Alyssa was looking, but he couldn’t help quipping about it anyway.
The Red Queen tried to not take the stares too personally, given she knew how she looked at the moment. This whole thing did a number on her. The constant thrum of anger wouldn’t be easily forgotten anytime soon.
She wrapped her arms around her middle as she led the other two to the kitchen. The kettle went off and Alyssa measured coffee into her French press.
“I don’t know if they taste differently, but the candy is mini-pretzels? I don’t even want to consider the hummus and veggies…and the scones seem to be scone shaped pretzels?” Alyssa shrugged and smirked. “Water? And what shaped pretzels do you two want?”
Ned looked to Peter, then to Alyssa, then to Peter, then back to Alyssa and finally to Peter once more while they spoke. Ned was doing that thing where he was trying to figure out if he should say something, but Peter wasn’t saying something. Alyssa wasn’t offering it up either. So that meant he should probably not say something right? Right. But then what if she needed someone to ask? What if it was rude? But Peter would know how to handle it and he wasn’t — so Ned decided to try to focus on pretzels.
“I’d like some small pretzels please. I like bite-size ones. Not that I hate the normal size or the big ones you get at fairs, but there’s just something about tiny ones that are the best. Like mini M&Ms.”
“Those are my favorites, too.” Peter and Ned were totally aligned on a lot of things – and pretzels and being worried about Alyssa were two of them. Now he just needed to figure out how exactly to bring it up.
Maybe it was best not to beat around the bush.
“You doing okay?” he asked, looking over to Alyssa as he grabbed a handful of pretzels from one of the bowls.
At least one of them asked because if they kept up the Mother Hen act without saying anything, well, Alyssa might actually lose her patience. She opted for the scone shaped pretzels. Her kettle beeped and she poured some over ground coffee, thankful they hadn’t turned into pretzels.
“No. I’m not. But I can’t keep hiding in my room attached to Damien like a fucking barnacle. The...I could hear the plants. Or a plant? I spent the whole time hiding, because all I could hear was anger.” It terrified her. Really, really terrified her. Honestly felt like if Red was in the form of a fucking mushroom type thing.
“But, I’ll be okay. Eventually.”
“Oh man, I didn’t even think of that.” The idea of heading a zombie’s thoughts seemed entirely unsettling and Ned would not like it one bit. It was probably a little different with it being a plant, but it was the same idea.
“I should have offered to like, portal you somewhere not in town.” Ned’s portals were a bit more reliable now, but even a one-way to the middle of nowhere for a while would have probably been good for her mental health?
“I’m sorry Alyssa.”
“Yeah, me too.” Peter took a handful of pretzels into his hand, but he didn’t eat from them. Not yet.
“You know you can tell us when you’re feeling down, right? We might be younger and maybe we don’t have the same amount of experience as you, but we do care.” Peter was sure he was speaking for the both of them.
Even if Ned offered, she wouldn’t have left, but she gave him one of her softer smiles. “I wouldn’t have left. Not with everyone else still here. But thank you, Ned.” Alyssa knew they loved her and she loved them.
“I do. I love you both, so I’m telling you now. With that noise…I had trouble simply telling Damien and he was next to me. I should have been more forthright, though.” This time she looked just a little more like herself.
“Come on. We can at least chat on the comfort of the couch.” Alyssa had her coffee in her hand and the pretzel scones in hand.
“I get it.” Ned said after a moment when they started to walk the living room. “One time I didn’t tell Peter I was really sick and had diarrhea until after he got really sick and had diarrhea. I should have told him before we went to the arcade and shared that slushie drink.”
Ned, trying to show he understood through relating.
Peter firmly planted the palm of his free hand against his forehead. “Ned…” Definitely not the kind of thing that he wanted Alyssa knowing. But it was way better than if Ned had slipped this in during a conversation with Liz.
Alyssa nodded, intent to enjoy the evening with the two, though she had wondered about Ned’s choice of stories. But, Ned would be Ned and she loved him dearly for it.