A Little Of What You Fancy

Jade's Quarters

Alex thumped heavily to the floor, the saved box in his hands, and a post-pukey Jade on top of him. "Oof."
For a few stunned seconds they just lie there.
“Uh, here.” He offered the box to her.
“Thank you! I thought-“ She didn’t say any more, just snatched it to herself like a fieldmouse with a precious piece of corn, pulled herself up, and wobbled over to put it back in its spot.
Alex sat up and sighed. The night hadn’t turned out how he’d planned.

He’d privately hoped Jade might find him handsome in his suit, maybe dance with him a little. Gaze up into his eyes. A little kissing, and then, maybe they’d have-

“Alex?” Her voice pulled him back to the heartache of reality.
“Hm?”
“Sorry ‘bout that.” She motioned at the box, meaning for knocking into the counter. “S’just your mixed signals ar-“
“My mixed signals?” That was rich.
He got up and shot her a hurt look, before grabbing a glass of water and passing it to her.

“I’m gonna go now Jade.”
She shook her head, bottom lip pouting, her petite-ness making her child-like.
He shook his own head. “I just… I don’t get it.”
“Please don’t leave me feeling poorly.”
“Should I get Jamie?”
“Don’ git jealous ‘gain.”

He tutted. Did she want him to be part of some male-harem or something? Probably.
He considered it for a moment, with a shrug of his mouth, could be fun... Then shook the thought from his mind. Don’t be stupid Solvay. You’re a good boy now. The flirting with the non-single Molly was just a slip up.

“All right” he told her. “I’ll stay the night… But no funny business.”
Her eyebrows raised but she said nothing.

“Holly, cartoons please.” Alex requested, lying down on the floor next to the sofa, despite there being a perfectly good bunk nearby.
“Yeah, all right dude, Spongebob Squarepants series 900 it is.”
Jade screwed up her face and looked incredulously down at Alex. “Spongebob!? How old are you?
“Old enough and young enough. Now watch the sponge and get some kip.”
“Meh… Mr Bossy.” She murmured before finally passing out in a drunken, likely dreamless, sleep.

---

The next morning

“Dudes, there is a meeting in the refectory in half an hour. There is a meeting in the refectory in half an hour.”

Alex woke up with a cricked neck, an aching back from its box-saving impact with the floor, and a murky hangover. He’d slept all night in his suit and felt like he needed a good shower.
“Holly. Shh. Turn the lights down.”
“There is a meeting in the refectory in half an hour. Seymour and Jay have advised that everyone must attend.”
“Fine. Fine…” he croaked.

He sat up and looked at Jade who was moaning gently, and looked like death cooled down.
“Wha’ happened?” She groaned, squinting even in the low level lights. “Did I get hit by a truck?” She clearly felt extremely rough - her voice was barely there.
“No. You got drunk.”
“P-pass me my bag?” She managed.
He passed her medical bag, she fumbled in it and then surprised Alex by injecting her own neck with something that hissed.
“I’ll be okay in a bit.”
Solvay stood up and gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll er-“ he jerked a thumb towards the door. “See you later. Sorry about…” he trailed off, gave her a funny little look, and left the room.

---

Refectory

Alex entered the refectory a little late. He’d taken a shower and so far managed to resist the lure of hair of the dog, forcing some painkillers and coffee down his throat. He may have avoided alcohol, but he had stupidly taken some pills he’d nicked from the medi bay. He wasn’t particularly sure what they were, he just knew they gave him a bit of a colourful buzz. He needed a colourful buzz right now, his embarrassment, his hurt and his hangover meant that he was in danger of turning grayscale.

He stumbled through the door, achy and limpy and wearing his default blue coveralls - quite a different look than his smart ball apparel. The difference between Prince Alarming and Cinder-fella.
If he hadn’t managed to impress Jade when he was scrubbed up, he thought with an internal sigh, he was hardly likely to manage it looking like a slightly sad and faded janitor.

“I’m glad you could join us.” Seymour snorted.
Alex felt too rough to grump any of his usual retorts. Instead he hobbled through people’s stares to the back of the room.
As he passed her, he noticed that Jade’s hair was scooped only partially up today, as if she felt too rough to put it in a proper bun. She looked a lot better than when he’d left her, though. Whatever she’d given herself was obviously temporarily keeping her going. He’d have to try and get some of that for himself.
As he plonked himself down into a hard plastic chair, he scowled at the back of her head... because she was sitting next to Jamie.

As Seymour warbled on she craned around to look at him.
“We need to talk.” She mouthed. He nodded. Jamie nudged her and nodded at Seymour as if to say ‘are you listening to this? It’s an important bit.’
Alex scowled again. Then he sighed in resignation and told himself not to be such an immature twit. Time to get the soldering iron out. Seal his heart back up.

Molly was sat over one side of the room near Jacky. They looked like they’d been arguing. Must be the season for it.
He sighed as he recalled some of the hurtful things Jade had said. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d done wrong. As far as he was aware, all he’d done was sing a song about loving her, seen her with Jamie, and asked her to leave him alone. Next thing he knew he was being called a dog, a loser, and a sad lonely tosser and… he winced… and being accused of making Jacob’s death up. His soul was still struggling with that as it was, let alone the stress of this on top of it. Well, thank Gods he had the pills. He’d likely go to Whiskers’s later as well.
That was unless Jade saw him and started calling him a lousy no good drunk, and began the swearing again. He couldn’t recall having heard her swear before. He knew beneath the sweet surface was a fiery temper but… He knew it was the alcohol, but was it releasing her true thoughts? Did she really think-

His own thoughts were drawn back to the room as Seymour's voice penetrated his brain. “… which Mister Solvay will be doing.”
“Oh uh, yeah.” He nodded, wondering what the hell he’d just agreed to.

His eyes drifted from Niples, coming to rest on White Wolf and Candice, who were snuggled up extremely closely. Ha, perhaps it wasn’t the season for conflict after all. His eyes drifted on, landing on the Chryslers.

He appreciated the sight of Katrina, Jay and Max looking like a contented family. Obviously they were strained and worried about Cass, who they cared about, but they still had that nice vibe. He was really pleased for them, that even this desolate side of the three million year ocean, they were starting to make a family life again. The normality was good not just for them, he reckoned, but for the group as a whole.

At the thought, his eyes couldn’t help but trail back to Jade. His subconscious song had told of wanting to spend forever with her… marriage in other words. He didn’t think that part of the song was meant to be taken literally, he didn’t think he’d been about to propose or anything – it was about the depth of tenderness - but he couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if he had one day asked her to marry him. Perhaps… he allowed himself to consider, very very tentatively, as if mentally walking over precariously thin ice… perhaps they would have tried for a baby themselves, increase the number of humans alive. [Alex doesn’t know about her hysterectomy.]
As an insular lone wolf, these thoughts were somewhat unsettling, but in the light of recent events it was only natural that they were flooding his mind.
Maybe in another reality she wouldn’t be with Jamie, and they would have got married. Then, with a shocked blink, he remembered Twalex and Jaahday – they already had.

He noticed Evelina and Jaxx looked pretty happy too. He was pleased for them. Young love on a desolate beat up mining craft adrift in deep space, was also not to be sneezed at.

With a start, he noticed Plisken looking at him, all wisdom and calmness. For a moment, things seemed to move in slow motion, and a strange and ethereal music (like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ukxcNW1i6E) seemed to permeate Solvay’s mind. Plisken’s beard and hair seemed to blow in an impossible breeze, as he nodded and gestured his pipe towards Jade.
What was he trying to tell him?

Then reality snapped back in with a whoosh.

“Yes.” Artemis was saying. “Unfortunately, while partaking of-“ Seymour gave him a look “… a certain, shared subst- er experience, late last night, Jacky and I discovered the virus is quite deeply embedded indeed. Quite nasty.”
“Yeah.” Jacky called from his chair, not bothering to stand up.
“Now," said Artie with a flourish of his hand, "we’ve deduced that the most fun-" Seymour shot him another look “… uh, that is to say the most efficient way of dealing with the problem, is to send a team in to manage it manually…”

At this Solvay zoned out again. He wasn’t even really taking in the words. He glanced at Plisken, who... wasn’t looking at him. Had he even been looking at him a minute ago? Oh Gods, he thought, with a moment of paranoia, the years of drug abuse weren’t taking their toll again, were they? Spurred on by these pills? Was it like when he’d seen Brittany? He shuddered, still not sure if all the Brittany stuff had been hallucinations, or real. Now that the woman was buggering around with them again, he’d better mention it to someone, just in case it had been real. Maybe he’d bring it up when he next saw Phi. He'd better check with her first. He didn't want Jay or Seymour to think he was mentally unstable.

He looked around, and with a worried stir he noted that Pancake and Phil were missing.
And, of course, there was a Cass-shaped space in the room.

… Everybody you cared about left or hurt you.
Or you hurt them.

He gazed at the back of Jade’s head again wondering why she’d acted so outraged at his request to leave him alone, and his song - had she hated it that much? No, she’d said it was pretty…
He still wasn’t 100% sure that her and Jamie weren’t playing a game with him. Though after last night’s upset, he wondered if it was a case of her going out with Jamie but having some feelings for him too. Either way, he should be strong and-

Oh shit. He’d not been paying attention again.

“... We need to get it before it spreads to Holly.”
“Indeed. So, I’m afraid, before we can recover Ms Jones,” Seymour was saying, addressing the whole group “this problem must be dealt with, and those who I mentioned are going to have to enter the virtual reality world in order to manually deal with the virus with all available haste.” He looked around the room. “Chop chop!” He added.
“Uh!” Jay got to his feet and used his cane to hobble over to Seymour and stand next to him, heading the meeting. “What Seymour means is, if you wouldn’t mind, it would help a lot, and the more of you who enter AR in order to combat the virus - head to head, hand to hand - the speedier things will progress.” He sighed, and Alex noticed how weary he looked.
“Now, that’s not to put you under pressure,” he told everyone. “… it’s just a fact. Anybody who’d rather not enter, you are of course free to say no.”
“Yes” agreed Artemis “There is a slight chance that things could get dangerous.”

“When is it ever any different?” Alex grumbled, louder than he’d intended.
“What was that, Solvay?” Jay asked, not challenging, but a genuine question as he couldn’t make out Solvay’s back-of-the-room mumble.
Not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to himself after opening up like an idiot in front of them all last night, he just waved a hand and said “nothing.”

Jay shrugged. “So, I’ll leave you guys to think it over, if we could have your answers by first thing tomorrow though.” He cast his leaderly gaze over the group “… I’d appreciate it.”

--

As Alex limped out of the refectory, past Jay, the man grabbed his arm.
“Solvay, get it together. You weren’t paying attention at all in there.” He squinted, examining the other man's face “... Are you high?”
“Sorry” Alex mumbled, guilty as charged, on both counts.
A steely poignancy in Jay’s eyes was unmissable, high or not.
“Come on man… this is important.”
Solvay nodded. He understood.

----

Trying to get it together as promised, Alex tried to push all silly emotional thoughts from his mind, and went about some chores he’d been meaning to get round to.

After a couple hours work he still couldn’t stop thinking about what a complete tit he’d made of himself at the ball, and how angry Jade had been.

“Why are humans so complicated, eh?” He asked one of the skutters, as he gave its head a fond little polish. He’d just given it a tune up and it seemed much happier now. Ah, it was so simple. Machine-people were so much nicer than human-people.

Well, most of them.

“You’ve got mail, Big Boy.”
“Gah! For smeg’s sake." Alex complained, sick of the embarrassing 'Big Boy' tone. "Change alert.”
“What would you like to change alert to?”
“I dunno, something alerting.”
The PalmPuter played a horrendous foghorn like “Awooga!” It didn’t’ go down well with Solvay’s sore head.
“Not that! Select random sample. A random quiet sample.”
“Done!”
“Now read message.”
“Hey Alex. Meet me at Starbugs, we need to talk. Jade.”

Yeesh.

---

Starbugs

“Jade.”
“Hello Alex.”
She still looked rough, as if waxen and held together with pins. But together she was, even if likely temporarily till her medical boost wore off.
“I’m sorry Jade.”
“I’m sorry too. Those things I said…”
He raised an eyebrow “I’m surprised you can remember them.”
“I’m never drinking again.” She told him.
“Yeah. Me neither.” He joked.
She didn’t laugh.

Even though she was pale, she looked so nice.
Oh Gods. Perhaps… Perhaps he would go back to his old ways. So what if she was with another man? Didn’t mean she couldn’t have some fun on the side too…
He leaned in to kiss her.
“Alex… No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Oh.” He pouted. Looking more Twalex than normal.
“Look, you’ve been giving me a lot of mixed messages. One minute singing that you… Singing that song.”
He winced. “Sorry, I should never have sung it.” He said, meaning because it was inappropriate as she was with Jamie.
But she – still not realising what he thought - took it as meaning that he should never have said he liked her.

She gave him a hurt look. “Like that, for instance. How can you even say that?”
He frowned, utterly confused. What did she want?
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have a bit of… Fun…” he said, trying to appease her with the demon of his Jupiter-sized libido. He took her hand. She wriggled it away.
“Fun!? That’s what you said before! A ‘laugh’ you called it.”
It was true, he had said it was a laugh. But only to protect the open wound of his feelings on discovering her in another man’s arms.
“I don’t understand Jade. I don’t know what you want from me.”

The furry barista looked between the two stupid humans in annoyance. He’d been at the ball and it was obvious to him what had happened.
“Sir, madam, if I may just point out where you’re going wrong…”
They both turned to him. “Shut up!” “Shut up!” They said, in stereo.
“Well there’s no need to be like that.” He said, hurt, and turned away to serve a fat elderly badger who’d just waddled up to the counter.

“Nipples” Alex’s voice suddenly announced, but not from Alex’s mouth.
“Uh… what?”
“Nipples” it said again.
“Oh Gods, it’s my PalmPuter.” He snatched it from his coverall pocket. “PalmPuter" he hissed "why are you using a sample of my voice saying ‘nipples’?”
“It was a suitable quiet sound to use for an alert. It is a sample from six months ago when you were talking to VC-“
“Yes, all right, all right.”
“… Seductive mode was engaged at the time.”
“YES, all right.”

Jade’s expression was a combination of tiredness and disappointment.
“Oh, Alex.”
“What?” His voice came out smaller than he’d meant it to.
“I had been thinking perhaps… perhaps we could work things out.”
“You were? But what about Jam-”
“Yes. But… These confusing mixed messages. Your wanting to hump everything that moves.” She gestured to the PalmPuter “And even things that don’t” She massaged her temples “… I’m just not sure I can take this.”

Alex didn’t know what to say. He was bewildered.
She looked at him, urging him to speak.
He didn't.
Irritated that he wasn’t bothering to say anything, she got up, shaking her head, and walked away.

“What mixed messages?” Alex finally asked the air. “I don’t understand.”
The air offered no reply.
“Oh for smeg’s sake, suit your smeggin’ self.” He grumped. “I can’t think straight when I’m thinking about you all the time anyway. It’s like having a head full of cotton wool.”

The elderly gentleman of a badger turned to him. “Say whut, sonny? You’ve been thinking about me?”
“Uh, no, not you. A girl.”
“A girl, eh?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “They’re complicated.”
“That they are” agreed the badger. “I’ve got some advice about females, you know.”
Alex nodded, expecting some wise words from the elderly fellow on how to deal with the wonderful but confusing world of women. Woodland creatures probably fell in love, just like humans.

“… If you have an ounce of sense,” the badger began “… you’ll take up with males instead. Did me the world of good!”

Alex blinked and shoved a couple more pills down his throat.

--

<TAG JAXX: Please could you write us having to get linked into the VR machines in the AR suite into the fantasy type world you mentioned.>

<TAG Everyone:
i) Please feel free to do more back posts of what you did at, and after, the party.
ii) Also, please write about what you’re doing while you’re deciding to go on the mission, and if you’re going to go into the virtual reality world or going to ‘stay home’ instead. :O) Thank you!>

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