Not red
Who: River Tam and Alma Wade What: Shopping at Wal-mart for paint and comforters. pyschic events, and talking about the new plant lady. When: Friday Where: Walmart Status: complete Rating: PG-13 for brief mentions of fingerpainting in blood.
Wal-mart was a vast, cavernous place, and Alma found it profoundly disturbing. She felt like she were being watched, everywhere she went. Probably just the cameras but she was highly paranoid when it came to being discovered. She didn't quite believe that her former employers wouldn't come for her.
She forced herself to feel normal. She was out, with a friend, and attraction notwithstanding she was going to have a good time. Especially when that friend was out of sorts.
The friend in question was trying very hard not to be out of sorts. Sometimes she managed it, and was back to her usual, beaming self. Then a stray thought would crawl into her head, and she’d frown. She didn’t like this. She didn’t understand why it was happening here.
River was, despite this, determined to enjoy herself. Alma was picking out things for her new room, and she thought that was exciting! They were currently trying to decide between 4 different bedspread sets. River kept gravitating to one of them, which had rich colors and was pieced together with various fabrics that all had nice textures to them.
“Reds and Purples are so pretty. I’m not sure they’re you, but they’re delightful anyway.” River grinned.
It was happening here...because. Alma didn't have a scientific explanation for it. She had better control than River did, but it was also incredibly sporadic. As long as she kept calm, disaster would not befall them, or those around them. Alma used that like a mantra.
She was fascinated by the way River seemed to gravitate towards that one, "It is delightful. Why do you not take it for yourself, and I can take this deeper red one?"
River deserved it!
"Oh, that's so sweet of you! I have a set at home already... and I probably don't have an excuse to buy a new one except that I'm kind of tired of blue and cream and wanted something a little more warm, but..." River tilted her head to the side, and frowned, "I'm not sure I deserve it, no."
She put it back on the shelf. The price was way out of what she'd spend without consulting her brother first. He was always extremely careful not to tell her about their financial situation, and she, in turn, was careful not to be too frivolous with the funds she did have available to her.
"That red one is so pretty and the texture on it is so..." she wrinkled her nose and grinned, "It would feel great to sleep under, I think. It's soft and silky. We can do so many pretty things to go with it, too!"
"I could buy it as a gift," Alma insisted quietly, but she didn't really press the issue. River was too...River right now to really want to upset her. She ignored the turmoil in her stomach to focus on enjoying herself. She wondered what River put in her hair...
"The red one then!"
At the mention of it being a gift, River put a hand on Alma's shoulder, and squeezed a bit. Her friend was very open, as far as innermost thoughts and feelings went. River was having an extra hard time with that today - Her own ability to catch the odd thought here and there that had started this week only seemed to amplify it.
So she knew that Alma was worried and upset about something, and also that she wondered what River used on her hair, "It's just Suave shampoo, it's cheap but it makes my hair soft and pretty, which is nice. I like it to look good, when I don't have to have it back in a bun."
She added, with a grin, "The red one is perfect. Let's get you some throw pillows to go with it! You can pile them up on your bed and then lean against them when you're reading and things! We could paint your room to go with it, too... Maybe not red though. But some other nice color that would warm it up. Maybe some candles, or some pretty pictures..."
River trailed off and grinned goofily, "I just like decorating, I guess. A room says so much about a person, but it's your space, so you should decide."
"You are reading me," Alma said, with quiet wonder. She took River's hand - which was warm and smooth (and those thoughts she hid deep inside herself) - and squeezed it. She changed the subject, "Throw pillows and...paint. I want to paint. That is supposed to be fun and I really could use fun...."
"... I don't mean to be, but you're loud." River whispered. And she wasn't sure how to shut it off. Things just floated in and out, and she was generally glad that at least right now, they didn't do that all the time.
Alma had told her to try to be zen, which is what she was trying to do. And trying to stay herself, which she thought was most important. So she squeezed Alma's hand and grinned so widely that her eyes wrinkled up, "If you want paint, little duck, then paint is what you'll have!"
Alma threw the comforter into the cart, then sneakily added the one that River liked so much. Her feelings for the girl were much like Roy- overwhelming and not returned, but it was proving a little easier this time. Experience, and River was just a hard person not to feel cheerful around. Of course when she grinned like that Alma's insides turned to mush. Not for the first time she wished she was still being forced to take hormonal supplements.
She started pushing the cart towards the paint department. Awkwardly, she explained, "I want something that matches and is..flecked and shimmery. I want the room to gleam and feel..alive."
River hadn't noticed the addition the extra comforter yet. She'd flitted ahead a bit to pick out throw pillows from the one area that looked like they might go with the comforter and add some extra color. Reds, Golds, and Creams, some with embroidery on them, some a shimmery fabric. One was fuzzy like velvet.
"These would go really well, and then we can take your room and paint it a shimmery champagne color! I hear they have this glitter that you can add to paint now that makes the walls all gleam like a fairy's touched them or they were secretly made of dragon eggs instead of drywall and paint!"
Lord only knows where she got those kinds of ideas. Sometimes it was hard to tell that she ever grew up past the age of 11. But River just loved fairy tales and mysterious old folk tales. That kind of world seemed more suited to her than this one did.
Alma followed her, flitting around a bit. She found the girl's behavior adorable. She was like a kid in a candy store, and Alma was willing to help her OD on sugar.
"We can paint it however you want. I am not too picky....although glimmering sounds rather nice..."
"You wanted it to gleam and be alive! We can do that!" River grinned at her. She looked around and twirled on her feet, then pointed at the Hardware Department, "To the Paint Colors!"
Alma wrapped her arms around River and squeezed tightly, then she let go and led on, dragging the girl by the hand.
The other girl allowed herself to be tugged along, giggling most of the way.
In the paint section, Alma paused, looking at all the selections. The reds drew her, and for a moment, all she saw were blood splattered walls, drawings and doodles and pictures in them, like a macabre finger painting. In that moment she felt like she was falling off a cliff into space and what awaited her at the bottom was nothing but darkness. Somewhere in her mind, pieces to a puzzle had fallen into place, and all that remained were the missing ones.
“Not red,” she whispered, eyes wide and dilated. “Anything but red.”
She couldn’t sleep in a red room.
Alma sagged against the table. In her mind she envisioned her zen garden. She pushed out the memories and the visions until there was just the sand, and then she began to rake at it.
When she next looked at River, she managed a smile, “I’m sorry. I think a gold would be wonderful.”
River looked a little pale when Alma glanced over at her, and had grabbed onto the shopping cart to catch her balance. Bits and pieces of the puzzle had fallen into her head like bricks from a falling building, and she felt like her head was going to explode.
Her head wasn't big enough for all the things. It really wasn't. But she wanted to be River, not Alma with her ... red splattered walls... she thought of being zen. She thought of Simon, and curled up in his bed, mentally.
"Gold sparkling walls... gold sparkling walls sounds very pretty."
"I am sorry," Alma breathed, tears pricking at her eyes. Calm, zen, her zen garden and zen place. She wished she had someone's bed to climb into and oddly, that teenage angst helped her focus. She started picking out paint cards, trying to push them past this, "Gold sparkling walls. Warm colors."
"Yes. Yes! We can make your room look like... Like the den of an exotic autumn fairy, doesn't that sound pretty?" River perked up again and grinned, then started flitting around the paint section, trying to find the glitter she'd heard about.
She came back to Alma with a few bags of the stuff, one set of glitter a sort of aurora borealis of shimmering color, another set straight up gold flecks, "We could mix these into the paint cans!"
“Ooo, maybe we could even paint leaves on the walls...”
"Leaves? Like nature?" This seemed to appeal to Alma and she nodded, enthusiasm returning, "Leaves of gold or green?"
"We could take this warm peach-ish color that goes with the red comforter you bought, and paint the walls with this and the sparkles, right? And then we could get real gold paint, with the shimmer to it, and yellows and oranges and browns, and paint your room like it's got branches and autumn leaves coming in..." River trailed off, then grinned sheepishly, "I don't know if that's more you or me though."
"You're so good at this," Alma said, resting a hand on River's arm. "I picture you with blues. Cooler colors. Blues and purples, or perhaps late winter at the melt."
"Oh I like blues well enough... My room is in blues right now. But I just have this feeling like... Like I want to be a gypsy, and I need warm, rich colors in my life from all kinds of exotic places..." River grinned, "Blue is one of my favorite colors, though!"
It was a shame that she mainly lived in black and ballet pink, really. The colors were appropriate for the thing she did with her life, and she didn't regret that her life centered around them, but more and more these days she felt like she needed a more colorful life.
Alma envisioned River in warm gyspy colors and the smile that came to her face was unforced, "We should go clothing shopping some time. Is that not what normal girls do?"
"We could, if you want to! I don't go shopping for clothing too often, though... I like book shopping. We could go book shopping? Maybe normal girls just enjoy shopping, period." River laughed, and picked out some paint colors for their leaves and branches, showing them to Alma before handing them to the paint specialist to start mixing colors up.
"I met this wonderful clothing fairy woman, and I want her to design some shirts and dresses for me. Portia! She helped me pick out a dress, and I think she'd be great with shirts. I need a job first, though."
"Book shopping sounds nice," Alma agreed, her eyes following River around as she moved, admiring and loving her fluidity of motion and grace, "Perhaps you could work with books."
"I thought about that! There's this lovely used book store, but I think he's got all the help he needs, and it's not always open these days. But I also thought I might try working with plants."
River lifted the newly mixed buckets of paint into the cart, bouncing on the balls of her feet a bit, "That woman who runs that nursery is so wonderful. I want to sing to her plants and dance with them to make them feel better, and get my nails all dirty and feel the living earth all around my hands..."
"There's that shop, the nice woman on the valarnet." A very nice woman that Alma would probably crush on in a heartbeat....and then she realized they were talking about the same person and covered by adjusting the paint in the cart. She swallowed, "I like to garden too."
"Yes, that one! I'm growing peonies in window boxes in the kitchen now!" River bounced on her feet again, hardly unable to contain her exuberance over this, "And it's your fault. You made me think of it."
"It makes you happy." It was bleeding over and making Alma positively giddy, "You need to try. You won't know if you can do it until you try. Andmaybeyoucouldintroducemetoher."
"Well... Maybe I'll go down there and ask her if she's hiring, then..." River smiled, and started steering the cart towards the checkout, "And then I'll introduce her to you, and you can come sing to the plants, too."
River laughed, "But first, we make your room look like a beautiful autumn wood."
Alma rested a hand against River's back, Thank you. Then it was time to check out, and paint, and get covered in paint.