|
|
Chapter 70 – Comic Con IIWhen Alex woke up Saturday morning, she put down her cuddly Pikachu plushie and went straight for the kitchen. She already knew just how long it would take to get into her costume, because she was wearing the Kitty Pryde costume from Thursday. And Willow had already sent it down to the hotel cleaners so it was all clean and fresh-smelling and ironed. Willow had read that some cosplayers wore the same costume for like the entire con, pretty much only taking it off to sleep, and so by the second day, if not by late in the first day, plenty of people were not exactly springtime fresh, especially if they were walking a long way in the costume out in the hot outdoors to get to and from the con. Sweaty, stinky guys who had a smelly costume and just kept wearing it. Eww. If Alex went to a con again, she was carrying a big spray bottle of Febreze and squirting guys who needed some de-stinky-ing.
She was pretty much expecting to see languid, smiling Willow. But she got pouty, miserable Willow who wanted a big cup of coffee with a ton of sugar in it.
She cautiously asked, “What’s wrong?”
Willow pouted. “I called Jack last night, and I really wanted some more Skype-sex, but his people had already gotten the police reports and his IT guys had pulled the traffic cams and some convention center security cams, and so he knew I ran out into a battle zone with thirty civilians who didn’t know any better. And he yelled at me for over twenty minutes. He was really mad at me for risking innocent civilians, and he was really super mad at me for risking me. Even if he called it ‘risking that cute, sexy little butt of yours’ while he was being mad at me. So no sex for bad Willow, and Jack’s really mad at me, so I may not get any tonight, either. And Jack thought of stuff I should’ve thought about, like how incredibly dangerous it could’ve been if you were seeing illusions or were affected by some drug, because that guy could have tricked you into attacking me and all the Terawatts just by making us look like angry robots or armed minions or something, and you could’ve killed all of us in about a second.”
Eww. Alex hadn’t even thought about that. But Mister Illusion could have handled that crime a lot better. If he had made the security guards look like crooks, Alex would have blasted them.
Oh, crud, if he had made Willow look like a giant spider, Alex might have blasted her hard enough to kill her and everyone within twenty feet of her.
Hadn’t Buffy and Willow and Sam talked about how much better it was to deal with an incompetent, overly-smug supervillain? Because really, the main reason Terawatt had beaten Danielle Atron was that whole arrogant ‘I’m a jillion times smarter than you’ deal. Well, that, and other-Sam and other-Willow and other-Hermione being way smarter than Danielle was. They were even smarter than Danielle thought she was.
But Sad Willow had really big, sad puppy dog eyes that made Alex feel bad, too. So Alex gave Pouting Willow a hug and told her, “Jack worries about everybody. Even super-powered people who were genetically engineered to be super-soldiers and also have incredibly great Nordic blonde hair and cheekbones that I am totally jealous of.”
Willow giggled and stopped pouting. Alex went on, “And I know he worries a ton about you. In Arizona, I made a joke about him taking you on a sunny vacation down there, and he said there was no way he was letting you within a hundred miles of anything dangerous. I think he’s afraid of losing you the way he lost his wife. And I just about panicked when I saw you running out those doors with all those women, so I know just how Jack had to feel when he found out what you did. I mean, I am totally glad you found a way to save my butt. I just wish you hadn’t put your life on the line to do it.”
Willow fussed, “But you put your life on the line like once a week! And Jack wouldn’t tell me what you did that got you all beat up in Arizona, so I sort of crawled through his firewall and read Riley’s and Jo’s and Graham’s and Hanna’s after-action reports, and … Jesus Christ! I just about peed myself just reading reports! You, in that cave, and the claymores, and the roof caving in, and the giant spiders, and the leaking napalm-y stuff, and the spider swarm, and … and … My God, that was scarier than the last couple of Aliens movies!”
Alex insisted, “It’s different. It’s like the deal with Jack. It’s a lot easier for me to risk me than it is for me to risk someone else. I’m pretty sure Jack knew he was gonna die in a really, really horrible way when he ran back to help Hanna, but he couldn’t make himself leave her there.”
Willow sat and drank coffee while Alex stuffed her face with a couple of bowls of granola. With half and half, and a whole lot of brown sugar sprinkled on top, which she would totally not recommend to anyone on a diet, but it tasted great.
Willow finally said, “I get it. I mean, it would kill me if Jack got hurt bad on one of your ops. Or if you did. I was worried enough yesterday to run right out and do something stupid to help you. But I guess I need to worry more about me, because I don’t have any superpowers. Even if I’m in way better shape than all those Terawatts, because I outran all of them pretty easily, and I was in really high heels.”
Alex told her, “We have to look out for each other. But I really need you to not try to be Catwoman, because I need you to be okay, and I need you to be Acid Burn, and I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
And then Willow hugged her, and she hugged Willow back, and Willow cried on the shoulder of Alex’s peejays.
It took Willow a little bit to get ready, since this was yet another sexy costume. This was Psylocke. And Psylocke’s costume showed more skin than those full-body catsuits Willow wore before. Okay, Willow was in great shape, and she totally had the abs and the butt and the legs for that outfit. And with that gel boob padding Willow was using, Psylocke was a very busty lady.
Psylocke strode out of Willow’s room looking like her entire outfit was made of shimmering bluish-purple latex, starting with the high-collared, legless, armless bodysuit that didn’t show any boob but might as well have been painted on. And the legs were so high cut that on the sides the outfit came up to just above her hipbones. The high-heeled purple boots came up above the knees and then had two purple bands around each thigh. The fingerless gloves came up above the elbow and had two purple bands around each biceps. And there was a sexy red sash that wrapped tightly around her waist, to dangle down her right side. Plus a really sexy purple wig that curled and flowed halfway down her back. Psylocke was wearing dramatic red lipstick, long black false eyelashes, dark purple eyeliner, and purple and gray eyeshadows, so she looked pretty spectacular.
Alex asked, “Holy crud, where are you gonna hide your ID and your phone in that outfit?”
Willow gave her a sneaky smile and then reached behind her neck, under the long hair. She pulled out her phone and waved it around. “Secret pocket stuck on the suit where it doesn’t show.” She turned around to show she had her Comic Con ID badge clipped to the back of her sash but on a little reel so she could pull it out and show guards and stuff, and then let it reel itself back in so it was out of sight from the front.
Alex said, “There’s a Psylocke booth babe in the Marvel comics area, but you’re way hotter than her.”
Willow asked, “Do you think Jack would think so?”
“Oh, without a doubt.” So Alex got pictures of Psylocke posing and acting sexy, and they emailed them off to Jack, who was going to get a totally not safe for work present appearing on his work computer.
Willow gave Alex a grin as Alex tucked away her camera in her bag. “Come on Kitty, we have games to play and guys to slay.”
Alex smiled. “Lead on, Betsy.”
And it was pretty much like the other days, with Willow unable to go more than about twenty feet without someone else asking to take her picture, or asking to have a picture taken with her. Okay, Willow looked mega-awesome in that outfit, but Alex kind of wondered how she was going to get anywhere if she had to stop for a couple of minutes every twenty feet.
When Alex got down to the pressroom, she found a dozen newspapers out on tables. Well, duh, naturally the serious press people read the news and did their homework. And most of the local papers had the Terawatt battle on the front page, even if the picture most of them were using was of Graham Miller in his fanciest tons-of-medals uniform, talking at a press conference.
Ooh, Jack was so smart. Graham, as ‘a spokesman for the Department of Homeland security’ announced that Terawatt had, ‘as a duly authorized agent of the DHS’ been working for two days with a DHS team and local police looking for William Roger Hastings, aka Will Hastie, aka Willy Hart, aka Billy R, aka the supervillain Psych, who had committed five robberies in five days using his psychic illusion powers. Okay, that got Alex Mack off the hook for any connection with Terawatt, unless someone wanted to speculate that maybe Terawatt gave her favorite shutterbug A.L. Mack a heads-up to come down to San Diego on any excuse she could.
Alex had an easy morning, for a change. She played video games, even if Willow totally crushed her in the new Marvel vs. Capcom. Okay, Willow crushed everyone. And people kept taking pictures of her while she played, so there was photographic evidence that she crushed everyone. And if any guy even started to look like he might be a serious challenge, Willow distracted him by jiggling her chest or showing off her butt. Alex really didn’t think that was playing fair. But pretty much any gamer guy there would just look over at Willow and would instantly lose his focus and get combo’ed to death. Willow was just really quick, and she knew everyone’s moves, and she knew how to beat every strategy anyone tried on her.
The funniest part was when the Capcom guys tried to talk Willow into being one of their booth babes at upcoming conferences. And they were only offering scale for models to someone who could maybe buy out Capcom if she really wanted to. Alex thought Willow could do the booth babe thing, because she was hotter than the two booth babes they did have, but Alex thought Willow would be bored out of her mind in four hours. Maybe an hour and a half, if she couldn’t fight people in the video game all the time. And how many times could she put up with the same creepy pickup lines and stares, before she started getting guys’ names just so she could go wreck their Facebook pages or something?
Instead, they went off to the big Marvel get-together and had fun talking to other Marvel cosplayers. There was even a paraplegic guy in a wheelchair who put on a suit and shaved his head, and presto, instant Charles Xavier, with the woman pushing him around dressed as Moira MacTaggert. Alex did a bunch of headcounts, too. There were maybe fifteen Spiderman cosplayers, and maybe a couple more Deadpools — and two of the Deadpool guys were just hilarious — and almost twenty different Wolverines of different eras. Willow was one of six Psylocke cosplayers, and would have been one of seven Jean Greys, or one of the half dozen Rogues. Alex was one of only five Kitty Prydes. It looked like there were more Terawatts than anything else at the whole con by a pretty huge margin, which made her feel really good inside.
Okay, she did feel sort of uncomfortable seeing the Juggernaut guy and the three Magnetos and the two Mystiques. This Juggernaut was a bodybuilder with a decent costume, but he wasn’t nearly as huge as the illusion she had seen. Still, it was a little freaky.
The Marvel PR guy wanted to talk to Willow about cosplay photos, and he also wanted to find out who was the Jean Grey from Thursday, but Willow wasn’t interested in ending up posted on teenaged boys’ walls. And Willow had really important stuff to do with her time, like programming and saving the world.
Alex skipped the press lunch and went with Willow and some female X-Men they’d met during the week. Willow bought Italian for everyone, and Alex got almost enough to eat.
‘Storm’ watched Alex eat and said, “My God, that girl’s got a hollow leg or something.”
Willow said, “Nah, she just phases through the food.”
Well, maybe you had to be there, because it was really totally funny then.
And then it was time for the Terawatt get-together. Willow and Alex went up to the room, so they could get ready. Alex set her GoPro in the fancy ‘steering wheel’ steadicam, so Willow could use it. Willow thought it was pretty awesome. Alex was glad, because Willow was going to be operating it.
Willow admitted, “I borrowed a GoPro like yours and practiced with it for maybe five hours, just so I could do a decent job with it, but this’ll be a lot easier with this system. Your dad should totally market this.”
While Alex was getting the camera equipment ready, Willow was changing into normal clothes and putting on one of Alex’s Kitty Pryde wigs and doing her makeup differently, so she looked more like Alex as Kitty Pryde, and less like Psylocke. Willow muttered, “I really should’ve made a Terawatt costume, too, just for this.”
Alex grinned and said, “It’s great. You look like I switched in mid-stream from that Kitty Pryde costume to something more normal, but I didn’t manage to take care of the makeup and the wig and stuff.”
Willow pursed her lips. “Well, I can’t really wear your real Kitty Pryde costume, because it’s made for your exact measurements, and you’re like three inches taller than me, and your butt isn’t as huge as mine.”
“Your butt is just fine, and I bet Jack thinks it’s perfect!” That was when Alex realized Willow was wearing three-inch chunky heels so she’d be the right height, too. As soon as she held the camera and the whole steadicam rig up in front of her face, no one would know it wasn’t Alex taking the pictures.
Alex switched into her Terawatt costume, made sure she had her phone and earjack just in case, and even dialed Willow once so she’d be ready in case things went seriously wrong. She went silvery, puddled up past the penthouse suites to the roof, and waited until Willow called her and told her she was up. Then she flew down to the outside area facing the marina where the get-together was going on.
“… and now ladies, let me introduce to you our very special judge, you know her, you love her, it’s TERAWATT!”
The sound of the applause and cheering was kind of overwhelming. Alex was blushing as she flew into the courtyard.
Oh, holy crud. There had to be at least eighty or ninety cheering people dressed as Terawatt!
And she meant ‘people’, not ‘women’, because there was a mother-and-daughter Terawatt team with the daughter about eight years old, and a couple of Terawatts who were definitely guys, and a few Terawatts that Alex really wasn’t sure which sex they were. And there were maybe forty or fifty other people there, too, some of them in ‘goes with Terawatt’ costumes. There was a big red blob, a big hairy (well, really, it was furry, because it looked like it was made out of shag carpeting) spider, and even a guy dressed as Danielle Atron. A big, heavy-set guy with a mustache, dressed as Danielle Atron, right down to the earth-tone pants suit and the scarf and that hairdo. Alex had a really hard time not laughing. She was so hoping Willow got that on video so Alex could show her parents. And Ray. And Annie. And Jack. Jack would totally think that was hysterical. Louis was already there, with a cart full of Terawatt merchandise, so Alex was sure he’d seen ‘moustache Danielle’.
She got several pictures from high in the air with her tPhone, just using her telekinesis to snap shots of the courtyard and the crowd so it wasn’t really noticeable. She’d send them to Willow later for the ‘social media presence’ thing. She slipped the phone back into her glove and drifted in until she was thirty feet in the air and fifty feet back from where the crowd of Terawatts was on the steps and the patio.
“Thanks for coming today, and thanks for cosplaying as me!” she called out. “Now I understand there’s a ‘best Terawatt’ contest going on and you need a judge?”
She was sort of surprised that only thirty-five of the Terawatts had put their names into the contest. But the Comic Con organizers had already weeded them down to twelve, based on who had an authentic looking costume. And Alex could see that there were maybe four women who were pretty much dead ringers for Terawatt. She wouldn’t have wanted to go up against them in a Terawatt look-alike contest. And there were a few women who had really good costumes but just didn’t look like Terawatt.
She flew in to where the guy with the mike was standing, and she said into the mike, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to give each of you a notecard and a pen. You have to write down your name and a question for me.” It was a good thing Willow had this idea, and already had a stack of notecards and a bunch of Comic Con pens. She flew down the line of women, handing out pens and cards.
Then she looked over the results. Okay, she was absolutely not interested in the woman who asked where she got her breasts done, or the woman who wanted to know where she got her shoes, or the woman who wanted to know if she had her lips plumped. Her lips were not all fatty!
She hovered near the mike and said, “Thank you ladies … and gentleman.” Because one of the best Terawatt costumes was on a guy named Lawrence who had written down, “Is it okay to be Terawatt and be different?” And it was kind of eerie what a pretty girl he made, other than the thing that he had huge hands and feet, and a big Adam’s apple.
She announced, “First, I am awarding two prizes: a ‘most realistic Terawatt’ award and a ‘best Terawatt’ award. The most realistic Terawatt is … Debbie Willis!” A twenty-something woman who could have been her identical twin, down to the shiny leathery look on the leotard, leapt up and down and squealed like she was twelve.
“And the ‘best’ Terawatt is the woman who asked, ‘How can I be a hero, too, when I’m just working my way through a nursing degree?’ And …” The somewhat plump Terawatt on the stage burst into tears. “… the best Terawatt is Janet Harville!”
She flew down and gave both Debbie and Janet hugs, and handed them the little trophies that were there, and let people take pictures of her with them. She made sure she was flying a few inches about the ground so it would be obvious she was really Terawatt when they showed the pictures to their friends back home.
She flew back to the mike and said, “I think everyone is a hero if they want to help people, or keep people safe, or find ways to make people’s lives better. You don’t need to fly and throw lightning bolts to be a hero. You just have to look around you and find opportunities to make other people’s lives better. Even if it’s reading to kids at the library or helping once a week in a soup kitchen or mowing your elderly neighbor’s yard for them, you can make the world a better place. Thank you!” And she flew off over the convention center so she was out of sight.
Once she was on top of the convention center, she went silvery and moved to a flat area covered with HVAC equipment and stuff like that. Then she jetted across the roof, flew around the Marriott to a far corner, and zipped up to the roof. From there she made it across the Marriott roof and down to her suite. She dived into the gym bag, changed into Kitty Pryde again, went silvery once more, and flew back to the HVAC intake she had used yesterday. It only took her a few seconds to zip through the ductwork and find that same women’s room. It was busy this time, so she had to wait a minute or two. Then she dropped into a stall, went normal, and stepped out like she was just doing the same thing as other women using the room. Willow was waiting for her with the steering wheel cam, but with the wig tucked away.
Alex touched up her lipstick and makeup, checked her wig, and took the steering wheel cam. Then she walked out to ‘return’ to the Terawatt get-together.
Terawatts were still walking around and chatting with each other and getting photographed, so Alex just walked around and took more pictures. One person asked her why she changed back into her cosplay costume, and Alex fibbed that she was trying to look more professional most of the time she was working as A.L. Mack, since the thing yesterday with the police was so awkward.
When the get-together wrapped up, Alex spotted a black guy over by the door back into the convention center. He had his hair styled so it went up and back, and he had a van dyke beard-and-mustache thing, and dark-rimmed glasses. He was wearing jeans and a red scarf and a navy peacoat and a light gray t-shirt with darker vertical stripes so close together the shirt looked like a sweater. And he had a gray messenger bag over one shoulder.
And it was Ray!
She was so excited and happy she just wanted to squeal.
Willow was back in her Psylocke costume and looking ravishing. And she was pointing Ray toward Alex. Willow looked so smug that Alex knew how Ray got down here, and how Ray knew where to find her, and probably even how Ray got a pass into the con. Alex made sure the GoPro was off, and she ran over to where Ray was watching her.
Ray hugged her tight and whispered, “Terawatt was awesome with those contestants. Just totally awesome.”
She kissed him, which felt weird with the fake van dyke. “Are you supposed to be someone?”
He grinned. “Yeah. I’m Postman of the Chicago Morlocks.”
She smiled. “Let me guess. Willow found the character, and got you the coat and shirt and beard, and told you how to do your hair, and bought the con pass, and got you the round trip air ticket, and found you a room, too.”
He laughed. “Pretty much. She got me the outfit and the fake beard and the glue and stuff, but I had to figure out how to do the ’do from the pictures she sent me. And it’s a one-way air fare, because I’ll ride back with you guys tomorrow. And she said you two had a suite, so I could crash there.”
“Do you have a suitcase?”
He patted the messenger bag and said, “You’re looking at it. I’ve got another shirt just like this for tomorrow, and another pair of shorts and another pair of socks, and a toothbrush and a hairbrush and a hairpick and a can of styling wax. I figure you two have everything else I need, which is like toothpaste and a hairdryer.”
She hugged him hard. “I’m so glad to see you.”
He smiled. “If I’d known I was gonna have Kitty Pryde hanging all over me, I’d have gotten here sooner.”
She grinned. “If you’d gotten here yesterday, you could’ve had Terawatt hanging all over you.”
He teased, “I just saw like a hundred of ’em, so I’m not really impressed.”
Willow rounded up Louis and Marsha, and the five of them had dinner up in the suite. Marsha could just not get over it, even after Louis told her Willow had the money to spend on it. Then they went together to the big Comic Con Masquerade event, which was where people with great costumes did skits and things, like a really cool Mass Effect skit, and an amazing ‘Avengers vs. Ultron’ skit and a totally hilarious ‘Project Runway: Star Wars Edition’ skit that won first prize. But one of the skits was ‘Terawatt vs. the giant tarantula’ which was kind of creepy to watch, since it was one Terawatt, a black background, four guys in all black to lift her in the air and hurl ‘lightning bolts’, and four people inside the tarantula so it was pretty huge, maybe twenty feet across.
After that, they went to the huge Marvel Entertainment event in the three biggest ballrooms of the con, and Alex danced with Ray until they were both exhausted.
When they went back to the suite with Willow, Willow said, “Psylocke Tip #17. Don’t really wear rubber, even if it looks sexy. It’s not warm at all in a cold room, and it’s really miserably sweaty in a warm room. And it’s murder to peel off after lots of sticky sweat. And then you smell like a condom.”
“What’s Psylocke tip #1?” Alex asked impishly.
“Don’t let crazy Japanese weirdoes cram you into the body of a Japanese assassin chick.”
Ray said, “This is great, Willow. I can’t thank you enough.”
Willow just said, “Ray, you can camp out here on one of the couches tonight. Meanwhile, I need Alex to help me get this stupid costume off. Give us about ten minutes, okay?”
“Oh, sure.”
Willow grabbed a remote control and clicked on one of the TV sets. ESPN came on, so Ray just sat down to watch.
Then Willow led Alex into her bedroom and plopped her down on the couch. “Okay, you don’t have to make Ray sleep on the couch. But leave the TV on for noise masking.” Alex started blushing bright red. “And you don’t have to go all the way. But just in case, here.” And Willow pulled out a white plastic shopping bag and dumped the contents into Alex’s lap. Alex turned beet red. “A whole box of condoms, because sometimes they break. This stuff is the best lube, because you may need a lot of lube your first times, or just if you’re not really in the mood and he is, or if you want to do it in the shower. Analube, in case you get really adventurous, because you so need more lube back there than you’d think, and definitely go with a condom if you try the buttsex. This is a ‘chocolate pop’ in case you want to try the blowjob but you’re not quite sure how to do it. Wetwipes, because Miss Hymen makes a mess when she goes bye-bye, and not even counting that, you’ll want clean-up afterward …”
Alex was so embarrassed she was surprised she wasn’t glowing bright yellow. Or just melting into a humiliated silver blob on the floor. It was SO obvious that Willow was giving Alex a chance to have a very special night with Ray, and Willow wanted it to go perfectly. But Alex was sure she wasn’t ready to go all the way. Not yet, anyway. And hearing Willow talk about this stuff just made Alex feel less like having sex than she could ever remember.
Willow gave her a hug and said, “And I really don’t need help peeling this off.”
Alex walked back into the main room holding the plastic bag behind her back and feeling totally humiliated. Ray had peeled off his van dyke, ditched the fake glasses, combed out his hair, hung up the peacoat, and taken off his shoes. And he’d probably brushed his teeth, too.
She managed, “Umm, hi. Ray.”
“What’s wrong?”
She got up the courage to hold up the bag. “Willow thinks we’re gonna go have wild monkey sex in my room all night and she gave me a bunch of stuff so it would go better, and now I’m so embarrassed I just want to go hide in the bathroom for the rest of the night.”
He got up and hugged her and said, “Hey, it’s okay. I really can sleep on the couch here. It’s huge, and there’s blankets and pillows in the top of the closet over there.”
She hugged him tight and buried her face in his shirt. “You’re such a great boyfriend! I’m sorry, I just … It was like getting a Mom lecture on birth control. And the stuff in the bag …”
Ray held her and peeked in the bag. “Holy crap! Who packed this? Porn starlets? ’Cause this is something I totally did not need to know about Willow.”
She managed, “Willow was totally a virgin until she found Mister Right like a couple months ago. Now she’s … pretty exuberant about it.”
Ray shook his head slowly. “That is … just … freak.”
She kept hugging him and timidly asked, “If I asked you for just hugs, would that be okay?”
“Sure. That’s what we’re doing.” He looked down at her and asked, “You mean …?”
“Umm, yeah, in my bed. But just hugging. I’m totally un-sexy after Willow’s whole ‘get down and dirty’ talk.”
Ray admitted, “Umm, I’m pretty un-sexy just from looking in that bag. I don’t think I could’ve handled the talk, too. So look, let’s just go to sleep and hug. You just go as far as you want to go, and then tell me to stop. Okay?”
Ray was such a sweetie. He totally deserved a better girlfriend who wasn’t all freaked out just from seeing a tube of lubricant. And other really icky stuff. And some mega-icky stuff.
So Ray turned off the TV, and they got in her bed, and they just cuddled until she fell asleep in Ray’s arms. Which was really nicer than it sounded.
Alex woke up in the morning feeling warm and cuddly and happy. And she was half on top of Ray. And they were both in pajamas. Well, Ray was in a t-shirt and boxers, and she was in her second favorite flannel long pajamas.
Then the whole embarrassing sex lecture from Willow came rushing back, and she had to make an effort not to cringe. She nudged Ray. “Do you wanna shower first, or second?”
He gave her a light kiss and teased her, “I guess showering at the same time is out?”
“Definitely.”
He said, “You go get started on filling that tummy of yours, and I’ll take a fast shower. I can’t wash my hair and keep it like this, anyway.”
So Alex headed for the kitchen and started making a pot of oatmeal, and heating up slices of pre-cooked Canadian bacon in the microwave, and using up the eggs in the fridge and the English muffins in the breadbox. The halved muffins went in the toaster, the eggs got fried hard, and the cheese slices went on the just-heated-up Canadian bacon. So she ate three egg-and-Canadian-bacon-and-cheese sandwiches while she put five more together. And she ate two bowls of the oatmeal before Ray came out. Then she skittered into the shower and did a fast shower before toweling off. She didn’t have to style her hair because it was going under a wig-cap, and her costume was already ready to go, since she was wearing the same outfit as on Friday.
By the time she got the wig and makeup done, and all the accessories on, Ray was done eating. And he was most of the way done getting into costume. He had already slipped on the scarf and coat and glasses, so he just had to stick on that van dyke and go fix his hair with more hair product.
Alex walked out into the main room to find Dazzler eating breakfast. And it was definitely the modern Dazzler, in that black and light gray and dark gray skin-tight bodysuit with the red circle thing between her breasts. Lots of long blonde hair, and lots of makeup. With the boob padding, she didn’t look like Willow, she looked like a Marvel superheroine.
Alex grabbed the last two egg sandwiches and said, “You look awesome, but that Phoenix costume is still my fave.”
Willow said, “I should get a red and gold Dark Phoenix one made up to go with it. I’d need a wig with a lot more teasing and hair-gel, and maybe some way of making it look like I was glowing.” She leaned forward. “So you and Ray … didn’t?”
Alex blushed and shook her head. “No, we just cuddled and went to sleep. I totally wasn’t ready.”
Willow glanced toward the door and then whispered, “So how far have you two gotten?”
Alex admitted, “Second base. A couple times. Well, a few times. But I’m …”
Willow said, “You don’t have to justify yourself. Especially to me. I mean, I didn’t let a boy get even to first base with me except maybe half a dozen times before I was out of college, and I was still a virgin at age twenty-four.”
Alex blushed, “Thanks for the whole … talk and stuff last night, but that’s way past where I am.”
Willow blushed, too. “Sorry. I mean, I think I’m just sort of … over-enthusiastic. Jack’s still trying to be a good dad and a nice guy and a responsible boyfriend, and I’m all ‘hey sailor, new in town?’ and I try not to be too much, but sometimes I feel like my body’s trying to make up for five or ten years of no sex. I mean, I had to go buy a couple vibrators. I was so embarrassed going and buying them, but I’m just … I miss Jack. In a lot of ways all at the same time.” She ducked her head and asked, “Would you mind if I moved to West Virginia?”
Alex checked, “To Jack’s base?” Willow nodded sheepishly. “Well, no, as long as I got to Skype with you and visit you sometimes and do stuff like this. I mean, it’s not like I fly up and visit you a couple times a week as it is. And I really should fly up and visit you more. I’m not a good friend.”
Willow hugged her. “You’re a great friend! My best friend. And I don’t know if I should do it. I mean, what if Charlie doesn’t like me hanging around all the time? What if he just doesn’t like the idea of me as a stupidly young dad-girlfriend? What if I do something dopey and ruin it with Jack?”
Alex said, “If you’re that worried, keep your house. You can afford it. All you’d need would be a yard maintenance guy once or twice a month, and I could fly up once every month to check things over.”
Willow said, “I need to put together a moving plan, because I’ve got a lot of computing power and stuff I need to have with me if I’m going to be out there permanently. So I’ve got to put together a graduated approach, with all my stuff running here and me connecting to it remotely for a while, and I’d need to work out what I need to take with me and what I can leave here for now, but I don’t want to leave my house! It’s … a part of me.”
Ray came back to the kitchen in his ‘Postman’ outfit. “What checkout time do we have to be back here by and have all our stuff out of here?”
Willow said, “We don’t. I’ve got the suite held until tomorrow morning. We just come back at five, when the con is over, and we pack up then, and we drive home. It’s only five hours if traffic’s okay, and six or seven if L.A.’s a problem, and it’s Sunday evening, not Friday rush hour.”
“Man, how can you afford to do that?” he asked.
Willow shrugged. “The way things are right now, I can do stuff like this every week for the rest of my life and still have tons of money left over. Doing it once isn’t exactly a life-threatening proposition.”
Alex and Ray just looked at each other. Alex wasn’t poor. She lived in a nice house in a nice part of a nice town. Her dad had a big job and could afford to put his wife and both his daughters through college. But Willow was way past that. It was just hard to remember most of the time when she was hanging with Willow and Willow was just one of the girls. Or the smart kid.
Alex decided she was scrapping her plans for the day, and just tagging along with Ray instead. He hadn’t gotten to see much of anything yesterday, except the night-time party stuff. So she took him around on the con floor to stuff she thought he’d like to see, and she let him pick the panels to go to, and she let him decide on where to eat lunch. She just packed enough energy bars in her costume to hold her until they got back to the room, just in case.
And they had a great time. She used a move Willow had showed her and beat Ray in Marvel vs. CapCom, even if he beat her in some of the other games they played. She showed him some of the cool stuff people had for sale. They went to an awesome panel that was voice actors for cartoons. Ray bought her lunch, even if the convention center food was way too expensive. And maybe they just walked around holding hands a lot of the time, which was silly when Alex was wearing heavy gloves.
When the con closed, they met up with Willow at the hotel room. Willow and Alex changed clothes, while Ray just dumped the coat and scarf and glasses, peeled off the beard, washed his face, and combed his hair.
Okay, Alex would have been done before Ray if she hadn’t needed time to do something with her hair after having it under a wig-cap all day.
All the costumes went on hangers in Willow’s big folding suitcase, but this time Willow wasn’t using tons of foam sheets and wrapping paper to keep everything unwrinkled, so there was a lot more room in the bag. All the accessories and most of Willow’s regular stuff went around the costumes and at the bottom of the bag. All the boots went into the shoe compartments on the outside. All the wigs and wigheads fit into Willow’s two rolling suitcases, along with Willow’s other stuff that hadn’t gone in the big suitcase. So Willow left all the cardboard boxes for the hotel staff to recycle.
Ray had all his stuff in his messenger bag. Alex had her gym bag and her totebag ready to go. She remembered to get her cooler and put ice in it and pack some drinks and snacks. Willow called the valet parking and the bell station. Then she let some hotel guys put the stuff on luggage carts and take everything downstairs and load it all in the SUV. Willow tipped everybody, handed their keycards to one of the bellmen, and that was it.
They drove home up I-5, except for the part where Willow checked her tablet and had Alex take another highway to avoid a traffic snarl. And they changed drivers when they stopped for a big fast food dinner that they ate in the car, even if Ray said Alex inhaled hers instead of just eating it. It wasn’t her fault she was really hungry. And they had to drop Ray off, too, once they got back to Paradise Valley.
So it was after eleven when they got to Alex’s house. But Alex’s mom and dad insisted Willow spend the night and drive the rest of the way tomorrow. Alex thought it was a great idea. Even if there was no chocolate cake left at all, because some pigs who would not be named, even if they lived in her house, ate it all while she was at San Diego Comic Con.
Willow just brought in one little rolling bag so she could wash her face and put on an oversized t-shirt to sleep in. Alex thought the shirt was really funny. It had a picture of a half-full glass, and underneath the glass it said ‘the glass is completely full’, and to the right of the glass were brackets marking the top half and bottom half of the glass, and by the bottom bracket it said ‘half water’ and by the top bracket it said ‘half air’.
Willow went to bed in Annie’s bed, and thanked Alex for such a great week. It was kind of sad that Willow was surprised at all that Alex’s folks would want Willow to stay the night. Willow just seemed so surprised and excited that Alex’s folks liked her that much.
Some day, Alex was going to meet up with Cordelia Chase and tell her what a jerkhead she was.
Interlude XIIThe researcher adjusted his lab coat and walked over to his boss.
The seated man looked up and said, “The cell cultures are prepared, we’re ready to begin.”
“What about Rome, New York, and Tokyo? Are we going ahead without hearing from them?”
“Yes, I mailed them full reports this morning. They’ll start as soon as they get them.” He gestured for his underlings to get to work. “The potential across the cell membrane must be maintained during the irradiation of the nucleus …”