Remember how we used to kick around just wasting time? Who: Olivia and Maizie Where: one of the all-but-overlooked rooms of the LBJ What: a friendship is born over shared chocolate When: backstory ~ Christmas 2016
Come on, jump out at me Come on, bring everything Is it too much to ask for something great?
The outbreak would be over before Christmas. Or, at least, everyone had been saying so since the beginning, but it hadn't quite turned out that way. According to the rumors that swirled around the LBJ, salvation came under many guises. First it was the National Guard, rolling in with tanks or something like that and plowing down the shufflers. Then it was the gas, which was gonna burn all the undead up like bread left too long in the toaster. Now it was -- well. Nobody exactly knew what form their deliverance was supposed to take these days, but it was coming. They all knew that much. For certain this time.
Still, they'd managed to make the inside of the library look pretty festive, considering the circumstances. Artificial wreaths and garlands, red bows, a few strings of lights in some places. There was even a small tree in the entryway (fake, of course) that had been looted from who knew where. Daddy had promised to play Christmas carols on his guitar at the next sing-along night too, and Maizie planned to make sure it happened.
Right now, though, she was looking for Liv. Failing to find her in the kitchens, she'd decided to check the Social Justice wing, where she knew Olivia was living with, like, a million other people. Peeking around a couple of the makeshift walls that had been constructed to divide the room into sections, Maizie finally located her friend -- they were totally friends, right? -- and approached to say hello.
“Hey, Liv! You got a minute? Or, I mean, more like 30 of them? I was wondering if you wanted to go hang out for a little bit.” Glancing around to see if any of those roommates were openly eavesdropping, Maizie lowered her voice and added, “I've got something I thought we could share.”
"Yeah? Like what?" Olivia couldn't necessarily spot anything shareable on Maizie's person upon first glance, but maybe it was something small. And what could they share, exactly? Logistics aside, though, it was enough to pique her interest. It wasn't like she'd been making tons of progress on the copy of Emma that she'd been loaned, anyway. (If a page and a half over forty-five minutes could be considered 'progress' at all.)
“You’ll see,” Maizie replied, tilting her head to read the title of Liv’s book. Oh, Austen. She'd tried one of her novels once -- Northhanger Abbey, to be exact -- and found it very boring. There wasn't even kissing! What kind of book about people falling in love didn't have kissing?
Olivia fixed her with a quizzical look but she shoved the book aside and stood up nonetheless, her eyes narrowing once they were on the same level. It was hard to not notice the fact that Maizie had somehow grown taller during the months that had passed since the world had gone to hell, forcing them to meet. How unfair; wasn't she like, fifteen? Olivia had stopped growing by the time she'd left Mora.
"Okay. Where are we doing this?"
“I know a place. Somewhere that’s usually empty.” Liv seemed grouchy for some reason, but it didn't dim the broad smile on Maizie’s face. “If other people see, they’ll totally want in, and I think it's better if it's just the two of us.”
Yeah, so she was maybe being a little evasive, because Maizie had a sneaking suspicion that Liv might not think her surprise was worth going all the way to the over School of Public Affairs for. But she would totally enjoy it once they were there, Maizie just knew it. Motioning for Liv to follow her, she led the way out of the Social Justice wing.
The walk was mostly silent, save for the odd person every now and then who stopped them to say hello, but it didn't take long for the two of them to reach their destination. Less than a room and more than a closet, the little alcove came complete with a window that still opened. Maizie only rarely found anyone else in there, probably because most people just never bothered to check out what was behind the nondescript door. Maizie, on the other hand, always bothered. It was how she knew all the secret places in the library.
“So here we are,” she said, setting her bookbag down once they were inside. “I know it’s a little stuffy, but hold on and I’ll crack the window.”
"Okay." Olivia glanced around, her hands in her pockets, then sat down on the floor after a moment's awkward standing in the center of the room. "How did you even find this place, anyway?" she asked, filling the silence and talking to give herself something to do while Maizie fussed about with the window. "I mean, it's a little bit weird, but I trust that you aren't about to like, turn around and start eating my brains or anything." She stifled a laugh at her own terrible joke; by the time that Maizie turned back around, her face was mostly serious again.
“Grr. Argh.” Maizie deadpanned, curving her hands into talons. Then she laughed it off, rolling her shoulders into a shrug. “No, I dunno. I just … found it. I guess most people don’t go around poking into places they haven’t been specifically invited, but I totally do.” Crossing back over to her bag, she bent to pull out her surprise -- an unopened Toblerone -- and held it up to show Liv. “See? Told you it was something people would wanna share if they saw. Dad gave it to me this morning, said he found it in a ransacked drugstore a while back and saved it. You like these things, right?”
Without waiting for a reply, Maizie gently tossed the package over to Liv, then straightened and began to shed the sweatpants she wore with her festive Christmas sweater. It meant toeing off her sneakers at the same time, and she had to hop a little bit in place to avoid losing her balance.
"Wait. What are you doing? Why are you taking your pants off?" First Maizie had led her into a random, secluded, dusty alcove on the promise of secret chocolate -- well, Olivia was holding the chocolate now, so at least that part had been real -- and now Maizie was -- She averted her eyes, looking pointedly in the opposite corner as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on. "I mean, I knew it was stuffy in here, but if it's so hot, you have to take your pants off, maybe we should like, find somewhere else to eat this?" Because she wasn't really into whatever this was apparently becoming.
Maizie, standing with one shoe back on and the other halfway there, shot Liv a confused look. “What?” She shoved her heel the rest of the way into her sneaker, taking in the way that the other girl had turned away from her, and then glanced down at herself and started laughing. “Oh! You thought -- No, really, look. I have shorts on.” Tossing her sweatpants over on top of her bag, Maizie flipped up the hem of her sweater as Olivia cautiously looked back over at her, showing the (admittedly skimpy) little black shorts hidden underneath. “Daddy thinks they’re indecent, so I decided to change after I left the Oval Office. Sorry! Guess I’ll warn you or something next time.”
"That makes way more sense." Olivia could tell she was blushing, though, for some reason. Probably because the whole situation was super weird, even if she did get chocolate out of it. Still better than the alternative, though, which was trying to read Emma while Edward made them all listen to shitty music. She could make a few compromises tonight.
Still grinning, Maizie dropped down to sit next to Liv on the floor and gestured at the Toblerone. “So are you gonna open that or what?”
"Oh, yeah." Olivia made quick work of the wrapper, marveling all the while that such a premium kind of chocolate had even been left for the scavenging in the first place, then broke off a piece for them both. "Thanks for sharing it with me, too," she added belatedly. Maizie brushed off the gratitude with a wave of her hand. It wasn't a secret that there weren't a lot of people around their age, even if Maizie was way younger than she was, but she could've just kept it to herself. "Your dad's kind of strict, I guess?" Olivia knew he could be like that from the way the shelter was run, but if he was that weird about her wearing shorts, well. That was totally different.
With her mouth full of chocolate, at first Maizie could only nod in response to Liv’s question while she chewed. She opened her eyes wide, in a silent Oh, yeah. Then, swallowing, she added, “Totally! I mean, trust me, I get the whole point behind keeping me safely here inside the LBJ. Even if I do completely hate it. But he’s, like, stricter than ever across the board now. Always giving me grief about who I talk to on the freenet, and what I’m wearing, and whether I’m keeping up on the assignments he’s given me. As if studying the Cuban Missile Crisis is really that helpful anymore, you know?” Maizie rolled her eyes.
"I don't even know what that is, to tell you the truth." Olivia had never exactly been a star student, and all motivation she'd ever had to apply herself in school had dwindled away once the dead started walking. "That sucks. I didn't know he was like, making you still study and stuff, though now that I think about it it shouldn't be a surprise." She reached for another piece of chocolate, her words picking up in cadence as she latched onto a topic they could commiserate about together. "I know they're talking about doing like, an education thing here but to tell you the truth, I'm probably never going to go to any of the lecture things they set up. If they can even get it off the ground, at least." They probably would, though; Gray had been a professor -- she'd taken one of his classes, even -- and seemed pretty committed to to the endeavor.
“I’ll probably have to go,” Maizie said, and made a face. Not likely Dad would let her get away with skipping something like that.
For a moment she eyed the candy bar, but then turned her face away again, deciding it was better not to rush through when who knew when they’d get another treat like this one. God, she missed being able to take things for granted. “I know he’s just looking out for me.” Maizie stretched her legs out straight, looking down at her bare skin. Olivia couldn't help but follow, her eyes dropping before she realized just what she was doing and brought her gaze up to meet Maizie's. “But it gets old. What does this hurt, really?”
"It doesn't really hurt anything." Olivia shrugged one shoulder, then leaned back onto her elbows and crossed her ankles. "I never had to like, deal with that." Her own parents had never taken that much of an interest in her life, and her aunt had been too much of a bleeding heart liberal feminist to impose those kinds of rules. "Besides, some of the things I have for track -- like, the actual uniforms -- are just as short. So I say wear it if you want to wear it. If he's worried about people like, leering at you or something, I bet you could get security on whoever's creeping on you super quick. 'First Daughter' and all."
Being the child of their shelter’s leader did kind of have its perks, Maizie had to admit. “I don’t know if it’s about the leering, really. Dad’s always saying that I have to have respect for myself or something like that. As if that has anything to do with the length of my shorts.” She shrugged, because it was just one of those unshakeable pillars of the world -- Dad was always going to be around nitpicking her choices. “I knew you’d get it, though.”
"Oh, yeah?" Olivia's gaze lifted up to study Maizie curiously. She knew her okay enough, all things considered -- like, her name and the fact that she talked a lot, which wasn't necessarily bad. But she'd never thought to herself, 'Oh, I bet Maizie would totally get this.' "Good thing you came to me, then," she said, deciding something just then, and offered Maizie a smile.
Maizie grinned back. “A very good thing.” Now she did reach for a second piece from the toblerone, drawing her legs up to sit cross-legged while she nibbled on the chocolate. Without really thinking about it, she began humming quietly, her mind automatically supplying the tune to a song by her favorite band. Changing the subject suddenly, she said, “Hey, have you ever heard that One Direction song, ‘Olivia’? I think of it every time we talk, since it’s your name and all.”
"No, I haven't. Aren't they like… They were on a break, right? Before everything went crazy?" Because that was a totally fun holiday topic, wondering if famous people had escaped the apocalypse or if some of them were walking around eating brains these days. "I didn't really listen to them a lot after they first got famous but one of the girls on the team was like, super into them, you know?" Olivia looked over at Maizie again, amused. "Are you super into them?"
“Super into them,” she confirmed with a nod. Well, as into anything as you could be these days, when there was no longer a social aspect to fandoms (or bandoms, as the case may be) and there was never going to be new material to look forward to again. Maizie missed that kind of stuff sometimes, shallow as it was. Now she could share the music with Liv, though, and that was nice.
Reaching for her bag, Maizie dug around inside before finally locating her phone down in the bottom, earbuds still attached. “They were on a break, yeah, which … like, I get why they wanted to step back after touring and recording and all that for so many years. It was still a bummer at the time, though.” With one hand, she held out one side of the headphones to Liv. The other was busy opening up her music app and queuing up the right song. “Thank god for digital music, right? Otherwise you’d have to listen to me try to sing this, and 1D do it much better, trust me.”
"Sure." Olivia glanced sideways at Maizie, the look on her face skeptical at best, but she accepted the earbud without complaint. Of course, she was also reaching for a piece of toblerone at the same time, but still. Listening to new music, even if it was 1D and they were sequestered away in some weird hovel closet, would make things almost feel like they could be normal again. So she looked back over at Maizie once more as the song started to play, this time with a smile.