Who: Lorna and Tessa What: coffee, gossip When: 4/24 Where: a coffee shop Rating: PG-13, because sex is one of the topics Status: complete
Lorna was glad to be out and about again on Wednesday. The sun was shining, the birds were fighting over a french fry, and she had not a care in the world. It was a glorious day.
Lorna hummed cheerfully as she made her way into the coffeeshop to get her fix. Tea was her drink of choice, even in the heat she was looking forward to a nice hot cup of jasmine tea.
Tessa had a break from work, enjoying the fresh air and the gorgeous weather as she sipped her fruit-and-yogurt smoothie. She had a comic book--a gift from Zach--spread out in front of her, and she skimmed the paged, glancing up every now and then to watch the comings and goings around her. Coffee shops were great places to people-watch.
Lorna ordered her tea and took it outside, looking around for somewhere to sit. She spotted Tessa, and the girl looked familiar, but Lorna couldn’t say where she knew the woman from. Being in a very good mood, and not very shy, Lorna bounced over. “Hi! "
"Hello!" Tessa smiled, closing her book, and nudging the empty chair across from her out from the table to show she was amenable to company. "No cone of shame, I see," she remarked, referencing their brief but fairly recent conversation on the net. "That's good." And then, for the sake of introductions, "I'm Tessa."
Lorna giggled. Ah ha! “Nice to finally meet you!” Lorna took the seat and held out her hand. “Lorna. What are you reading?”
“You too.” Tessa shook her hand, then turned the comic book so Lorna could see the title. “Spider-woman. My boyf--fiance--told me I reminded him of her, when we first met, so naturally I had to see what that was all about.” Zach was a sweetheart, really.
“Awwwww. That’s sweet, congratulations.” Lorna grinned widely. “Spider-woman is really hot, that’s kind of sweet too, in a nerdy way.” She didn’t read comic books, because her dreams were bad enough. Seeing them from a third person perspective would potentially destroy her brain.
“That would be Zach,” Tessa agreed. Sweet and nerdy. “I don’t actually stick to walls in real life, but that’s beside the point.” She stole a peek at the brand new ring on her finger. She was still kind of floating on the clouds, a little.
Lorna looked at it as well, curiously. “Awwww. So cute! I think I’ve seen him on the network. Congratulations again.” She smiled brightly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said, “He’s become quite the social butterfly--and I mean that in the best way.” He’d been gaining confidence by leaps and bounds since Tessa had first met him. “And thank you. What about you--you are Alex’ Lorna, right? How’s life treating the two of you?”
“Other than being sick, not too bad.” Lorna grinned brightly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Tessa their new relationship developments, since she knew the girl had once been a steady lay with him, but She wasn’t bothered to talk about general things. “He’s working his butt off, I’m working my butt off, but we still manage to have a little fun in between.”
Tessa didn’t begrudge Alex and Lorna their happiness, but neither would she be offended if Lorna would rather keep the personal details private. Alex was passionate, but he was her past. Zach was her present, and her future. And whatever kept the awkwardness to a minimum was a good thing. “I’m glad to hear that things are going well.”
“So beside reading comics in coffee shops,” or outside them, in this case, “What do you like to do for fun?” That was the most important thing, after all. She wanted to get to know Tessa, she seemed like a nice girl, and Lorna didn’t have a lot of friends who were girls.
“For fun....” Tessa had to think for a moment. She and Zach did their fair share of working their butts off as well. “I work with some women’s self defense classes, Zach and I rollerskate. Sometimes we go dancing.” She shrugged. “What about you?”
“I crochet, though I’ve been doing that for work recently too.” Lorna looked a little sheepish. “Nothing as useful as teaching self-defense classes. Though I do teach crafts on Mondays.”
“Hey, now, crocheting can be very useful,” Tessa said, “I couldn’t crochet to save my soul, but not every problem can be solved by beating somebody up.” She grinned. “It’s funny, I can suture a wound without batting an eye, but to try and sew a button? Blood everywhere.”
Lorna laughed. “It is funny how that works out sometimes. I can’t knit to save my life. Not that I can think of a situation where it would be knit or die, but I’m not ruling it out.” She grinned over her cup. “Are you a doctor or something?”
“Paramedic,” she said, laughing. “Which means when things get crazy around here, my overtime goes through the roof. But whaddya do? It’s a paycheck.”
“And you get to help people for a living. That’s so amazing.” She smiled brightly. “I’m so proud of Alex for his work, You and he both help so many people.”
“I do my best,” Tessa said modestly, but it was plain from her expression that she enjoyed her job, in spite of its stresses. “I always did look up to my brothers, so when most of them went into law enforcement, and medicine, and the fire department, guess I sort of followed in their footsteps." She smiled fondly.
“And I guess we all sort of followed in our dad’s footsteps, to an extent. He’s an ME.”
“ME?” Lorna asked. She didn’t know a lot about those kind of jobs. The little she did know she’d picked up from Alex.
“Medical Examiner,” she said, “Used to be called a coroner. He’d be the guy in all those procedural cop shows, who performs the autopsies, and tells the buddy cop team what the cause of death was, and all that stuff.” She grinned. “And yes, it is a bit like having an undertaker for a father. But I wasn’t nearly as morbid a child as what’s her name in My Girl.”
“Oh, I see.” Lorna giggled a little. “I think that would be an interesting job, if you have the stomach for it.” Lorna really didn’t.
“It’s not for everyone,” Tessa admitted, “But I guess I’m a little desensitized. At least to some aspects of it.” Too much empathy, and you couldn’t really function in a triage situation. Not enough, and you had terrible bedside manner and old ladies would call you names.
That was definitely a problem Lorna had. She was much better suited to raising and distributing medical marijuana than saving lives. “I think it’s necessary. I know Alex has had to go check up on some of his friends and I’d just be a wreck dealing with something like that."
Tessa nodded. It was one thing being professionally detached from a perfect stranger, and another to fight for the life of someone that you'd begun to get to know, and started to think of as a friend. "It's hard to work on friends." But it could also be hard not to.
Lorna nodded. “Yeah.” This topic of conversation was pretty depressing. “When are you going to get married?”
“That!” said Tessa, “Is an excellent question.” And much more cheerful. But she just smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. “We haven’t set a date yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened soon, but then again, it could take a couple years.” She took a sip of her coffee, and shrugged again. Zach tended to surprise her with his timing, so the perfect date would probably present itself when she least expected it. “Wedding bells do seem to be in the air this year, don’t they?”
“It’s an epidemic.” Lorna said with a laugh. “I’m just happy to see people in love. It’s really nice. At least when it works out.” She sipped her tea. “I’m sure your wedding will be awesome when it happens.”
Tessa grinned. “We’ll have the Rebel’s Theme for our recessional,” she joked, “And have fandom-themed tables at the reception.” Or who knows, they could go completely traditional. Or invent their own tradition.
“If there’s a lightsaber battle I’ll be really impressed.” Lorna wondered if she would ever really get married. Alex said he wanted to, and she did too, but their lives were strange, and the dreams were much stranger. It was okay if they didn’t, she decided. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy, no matter what theme you go with.”
“Me too,” Tessa agreed. The idea of a lightsaber battle was a rather fascinating one, but she knew they would find the perfect them for them, whatever that might be. “I’m glad things are going well for you and Alex, too. He seemed really happy the last time we ran into each other on the net.”
She didn’t really seek him out, but she didn’t feel the need to avoid him, or like she had to walk on eggshells with Lorna, and that was nice.
“Thanks. We are, when things aren’t getting messed up by the dreams.” Lorna rolled her eyes. Stupid dreams. “I hope yours are less crazy, but I kind of remember that they aren’t.” Alex mentioned her here and there, and Lorna was curious about the people he knew. Even the hot ones he’d slept with. She couldn’t blame him, Tessa was really pretty, and seemed like an interesting person.
“Oh, god.” Tessa rolled her eyes a little at the mention of dreams. She was glad to have seemingly hit a lull, for the time being, and just hoped they didn’t start replaying. “After watching the apocalypse happen, or almost happen, I don’t know how many times over?” She shook her head. “And that’s not even mentioning Zach’s dreams. But if I’m honest, there are a few upsides as well.”
“That’s true.” Lorna loved her powers. The hair was okay. “So what did you get out of them?”
“Oh, well, I get to be a valkyrie-slash-reaper, and shepherd of lost souls,” she said, “But my boyfriend is kind of a god.” Her voice took on a conspiratorial, use-your-imagination sort of tone as she said the last bit. She may have started out having to teach Zach everything he knew, in the bedroom, but he was picking things up very quickly.
Lorna giggled. “We have a bunch of gods. Which one is yours?” She knew Thor had some interesting upgrades from his dreams, she could only imagine that would be universal. Lucky Tessa.
“Oh, you know,” she said, “Only the king of Olympus.” She tried to stifle a burst of laughter, and added, “But don’t say anything, he really doesn’t like having all that on his shoulders. He’d rather be just plain Zach.”
Lorna just laughed. “I wouldn’t want to be Zeus either.” She grinned at Tessa, glad to see she had a sense of humor about all the dream stuff. Lorna knew it was important to keep perspective, especially if you had crazy dreams. “So we have two thunder gods here. No wonder it’s been raining so much.”
“Mm, yeah.” Tessa smiled sheepishly at that. “You know how some people say there are fireworks when they’re with ‘The One?’ Well, there was a spontaneous thundershower when I said yes to Zach’s proposal.” And it just so happened to have occurred in the middle of sex, but that was need to know.
“Awwwww.” Lorna squeed. “That’s so sweet.” There was no need to mention what she’d been up to with Alex when the shower had started. It made the outdoor sex swing much more amusing if weather played pranks on them. “I’m really glad for you, it sounds like you’ll have an amazing life together.”
Tessa smiled, that happy glow suffusing through her whole being at the thought of life with Zachary Jupiter. It had the potential to be a very long one, and there was no telling what sort of twists and turns the future might hold, but she was no longer afraid of facing the rest of forever alone. “I hope life continues to be amazing for you and Alex, too,” she said.
And she really, truly meant it.
Lorna grinned. “It will be, and it will be the good kind of amazing, too.”