Plastics

Brooke watched as Courtney retreated down the hallway before stepping back into her apartment and swinging the door closed. The clunk of her forehead hitting the wooden frame resounded in her ears.

Coffee. She’d offered more coffee. After practically drenching the other woman in the stuff. It’d be amazing if Courtney wanted anything to do with either one of them, between that and Brooke blabbing her mouth off about personal stuff, and mentioning Courtney’s obvious as fuck crush.

Part of Brooke - the old, jealous part that didn’t understand her own feelings toward women, who hadn’t sat through hours of therapy trying to figure herself out - was still nervous about that. The part that had ruined any chance of friendship Brooke had ever had with Alyssa, out of some misguided fear that Lauren - or the name she’d gone by then anyway - would have gone back to her ex over Brooke.

‘She loves you. You love her.’

Everything else could be figured out later.

As if the universe itself was reading her mind, a pair  wrapped themselves around her, their owner’s lips against the back of her neck. “Good morning, beautiful.”

The affection and concern in those words brought a smile to Brooke’s face, and she slid around with Lauren’s arms to gaze into her love’s eyes. “Yeah. Just old insecurities raising voices.”

A look of sympathy, support and acceptance. Lauren had had her own voices in the past. Alpha male macho bullshit. If you act manly, you’ll feel manly . It hadn’t worked.

“Need to talk about it?”

Brook shook her head. “Not right now. I’m more worried about Courtney.” And wasn’t that a weird thought to have. Two years ago, if someone had asked her to describe Courtney Wagner she would have come back with maybe a handful of words - and not many polite. Bootlicker. Shallow.

The difference time could make.

“Hmm,” Ren murmured against her neck. “Yeah. I can’t even imagine how I’d be feeling if I’d witnessed someone… do that.”

Any further talk on that topic was interrupted by a sudden beeping from Lauren’s phone, and the taller girl regretfully pulled away from her girlfriend to turn and jog back into the curtained off portion of the room. Amused, Brooke followed along behind her, slipping past the self made barrier to watch Lauren launch herself at the overburdened desk stashed in the corner, fingers pushing past textbooks and spare robotic parts to drag out the old hunk of metal, dials, and cords stashed there.

Brooke sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Ren in amusement of fondness as the brown-haired girl continued to mess with the settings of the old ham radio she had dug out of somewhere or other. Finally she sat back, and listened .

A screech - an unholy scream like metal against glass - emerged from the device, and then just as quickly was gone.

“I’m never gonna get used to that,” Brooke murmured. Lauren nodded, but otherwise didn’t answer as she dug out a notebook and recorded the time.It was the same time as yesterday. And as the day before that. And the day before that…