managing not to

[warmfeelings]

Aelise keeps Harley in her room, and allows visits - mostly Corona, sometimes Tima - but doesn't let him run around being obnoxious to anyone. Chelsa avoids him. Corona is home, after all, and he's just as warm and isn't horrible to her. And now she can invite more friends in. There's that girl she rotated out to make room for Tima, still alive, in Wales - there's that pleasantly sparky boy she met on her trip to Egypt - Chelsa is able to content herself with the situation.

Comments

[pythbox]

So is Harley, more or less. He hates it, but he doesn't hate it nearly as much as he hated having Chelsa working on him.

He stays in Aelise's room. He reads Aelise's books, the millions and millions in her electronic library. He cuddles with Corona when Corona visits. And he torches, every time Aelise drains him, which is often.

One night he goes to sleep, and he wakes up falling out of the air— in Milliways.

He starts crying from pure relief, right there on the floor in front of the fireplace.

[alicornucopia]

"Are you all right?" says a nearby old man with a glass of port. "Goodness, where'd you come from?"

[pythbox]

With some difficulty, between sobs, he says: "I don't - I don't know -"

[alicornucopia]

"Do you need some water?" the man asks.

[pythbox]

He sniffles, and nods.

[alicornucopia]

The man goes and gets him some water. "Whatever's happened to you?"

[pythbox]

"I don't know," he says. "I keep randomly teleporting places, and the last place I ended up was this horrible world where they use mind control to make you love everybody."

[alicornucopia]

"That's awful," says the man. "I've never heard of such a thing. Goodness."

[pythbox]

"It was the nastiest thing," he says, hugging the glass. "Thanks for the water."

[alicornucopia]

"You're welcome. Can you get home from here?"

[pythbox]

"I have no idea," he says. "For all I know, I could end up back where I just was."

[alicornucopia]

"And we can't have that," says the man. "Well. I suppose I could open the door for you? I don't rightly know what you'd do once you were there, but it doesn't have mind control like that going on, at least."

[pythbox]

"I'll manage," he shrugs. "Your world doesn't have an empress named Aelise, right?"

[alicornucopia]

"Nope," says the man. "I think she's called something else. I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing, but I'd remember if it were 'Aelise', sounds a little like my daughter's name."

[pythbox]

"Then sure," he says, "fine, anywhere's better than there."

[alicornucopia]

The gentleman knocks back the remainder of his beverage and gets up to show Harley to the door, and then out they go.

[pythbox]

"Thanks!" says Harley, wiping his face and smiling. "You're nice. I like you."

[alicornucopia]

"You're welcome," says the man. "So, this is Wilmington, Ohio. I can spot you a train ticket if there's somewhere you'd rather be, I think, poor boy."

[pythbox]

Harley shrugs. "I'll be fine," he says. "I'll just... wander."

[alicornucopia]

"All right then, if you're sure."

[pythbox]

"Yeah."

[alicornucopia]

The man shows him out of the house, and gives him a fun-sized candy bar out of a bowl on the windowsill, and bids him goodbye.

[pythbox]

He is a nice guy. Harley eats the candy bar.

And he picks a direction, and he walks.

It's a little lonely. He misses those people, how sick is that? But he just keeps going.

He walks for a long time. When he gets tired he sleeps. When he gets hungry or thirsty he torches. He's not even sure how long it's been, after a while. He's not even sure he's still in Ohio. He's sure that Chelsa isn't in this world, and that's good enough for him. Everything else, he can deal with when he's ready.

[temporal_affairs]

After Harley's been on the road for a week, a confused vampire teleports to within a few hundred feet of him - flares his nostrils - says, "Babe? No, that's... Harley?"

[pythbox]

"...Fuck me, I'm home?" he says incredulously.