"Charlie, I
totally should get a date on Valentine’s Day," Jay shouts as
he barrels into hotel room, barely avoiding tripping over our bags on
the floor.
He grins, bouncing
from foot to foot as I stare at him. “A date. With something
human?”
"I dunno. But!
there is this saying that love is blind and and and I am blind so
that means I should get a date."
"That isn’t
quite how it works, kiddo."
"Oh. But —
but I might have looked into getting chocolates already!"
"No flowers?"
"I think you’d
like chocolates more."
I blink. “Jay, I
am almost ten years older than you, you are not human and eleven —.”
He scowls behind
his shades. “I know all that but I kind of want to give you a gift
and were friends and! you are totally my best friend and sometimes
friends need more that just hugs, even if they are Jay hugs.”
"Jay. I don’t
ever need more than that from you."
"Uhm. You
might?"
"I might."
I close my eyes. "What happened?"
"I might have
kinda yelled at a really mean police officer who tried to shoot me
and all ran away."
"A police
officer tried to shoot you."
"I’m fine
though and —."
"Pack. Now.
This is going to be more than chocolates."
"Okay,"
he says. "But —."
"But?"
"I was going
to get you the chocolates before all this, Charlie!"
I let out a breath
and walk over, giving Jay a hug. “I know. It’ll be okay.”
"But —."
"You’re a
Jaysaurus so it will be fine."
He grins hugely and
goes back to packing.
I now know when it's appropriate to give someone chocolates...
ReplyDeleteThanks, Alcar!
Only makes sense :) It's always fun to filter holidays through jay's world view. That there might be police blockades to get through etc. is going to have Charlie being all 'wtf?!' but Jay WAS doing the right thing -- it's a fun paradox to throw at her, slowly building to her just losing it at him eventually in a way even Jay can't mistake for anything else. It's going to be hug enough that hugs won't fix it alone.
DeleteJay is utterly earnest and innocent at once so it makes for a fun combination. And, despite that, one that is going to go too far for Charlie to deal with eventually. It's pretty much akin to having a kid dumped on you to raise when you're not ready/equipped for it, with the added fact that Jay probably doesn't have limits as Charlie understands the term -- Charlie has no authority over Jay beyond what he allows (via being her friend) though Jay would never see it that way (or understand it like that).
Basically, the magician fucked up when he left Charlie and Jay and there are going to be consequences to that :)