In Town, Somewhere Between Loon And Chimera, Friday Morning

[giveittoyoursister]

Vi had woken up on Steph's couch less hungover than she might have been, and in a mood that couldn't really be described as good given the night before, but content, maybe?

At least until she'd seen the contents of Steph's pantry and fridge, and while they certainly weren't the worst she'd ever seen...it was still pretty sure and with much less cause. So with a certain amount of silent judgement, she'd pulled her boots on and headed out on a quick grocery run.

So now she was headed back to Steph's loaded with supplies, even if there was less fresh stuff than she'd have preferred to get, she had doubts it would've been eaten on time.

Ainsley

Oh look, there was a strange teenager, one who didn't go to the school, popping out from behind a bench.

"Where are you going?"

Ainsley had actually spotted Vi halfway between Steph's place and the store, trailed her there, and then lurked outside waiting for her to leave because that wasn't weird and creepy at all.

She was scowling slightly now, and looking at the groceries with no small amount of suspicion.

Vi

Oh, no, not at all.

Vi was still in too pleasant a mood to give this girl the kind of answer that kind of nosiness would have gotten in the Lanes (hint, it involved her mother), but she was never going to be in a good enough mood to volunteer any kind of information about herself to a stranger.

"None of your business," she replied airily, stepping around her.

Ainsley

Ainsley, undeterred, trotted along right at her heels.

"I heard the radio, you know. I know where you were last night, and it's not okay."

She could not possibly have made that sound more stridently disapproving if she tried.

Vi

Oh, if only anyone Vi cared what you thought Ainsley.

"If you already think you know, then why bother asking?" Vi wasn't even going to dignify the rest of that statement with a response.

Ainsley

Because critical thinking wasn't remotely her forte.

"I'm asking where you're going now," Ainsley informed her in the very condescending tone of someone who thought everybody else needed the obvious spelled out for them. She switched gears fast, though, right from condescending to weirdly personally offended. "You cannot be going back there."

Vi

This was why she liked taking the rooftop route, you didn't get interrupted nearly as much.

"I don't see anything stopping me." And indeed, somehow, here Vi was walking back towards Steph's place, her good mood slowly evaporating as she had to deal with this annoying kid.

Ainsley

Well, that was just Ainsley's cue to jog a couple of steps forward to get around Vi and into her path, wasn't it?

"She has you buying her groceries now." Don't mind her blithely assuming you had absolutely no agency here, Vi. (Among other assumptions.) Or making a frustrated noise, pressing both hands to her face, and dragging them down slowly to reveal an equally frustrated expression. "Ugh, this is the worst trope I hate it I hate it."

Someone had a very shaky understanding of what the word 'trope' actually meant.

Vi

Vi kept moving forward, making it very clear she wasn't going to stop or move to the side.

"Yeah, it's just terrible me buying groceries for my boss, who pays me to do things for her." Or put in the effort to correct any mistaken assumptions, because someone was definitely not entitled to an explanation of anything Vi was doing. "What is the world coming to?"

Ainsley

Um, as a hardcore fan of the show she was absolutely entitled to have it cater to her exact preferences. Obviously.

Ainsley kept gamely jogging backwards to stay ahead of her, never mind that she was at a serious size disadvantage if it came to actually trying to stop Vi. And don't think she wouldn't still try.

"She pays you?" Context was a thing, Ainsley. A thing you really should try and consider sometime, even just in the course of that one sentence. "I cannot believe this plotline is happening, oh my god, it's so gross."

Maybe she could retcon something? She should totally try to retcon something.

Vi

Oh, obviously.

Ainsley, if you fell backwards down any of the many staircases, Vi wasn't going to...okay she was going to catch you, but she'd be annoyed about it.

"Of course she pays me, not like I'd do it for free." You know, as evidenced by all the time she spent around the store when she wasn't working.

Vi rubbed her temples with her free hand. "Look, kid, are your parents around? Or whoever's responsible for you?" She clearly couldn't be trusted on her own.

Ainsley

As a matter of fact Ainsley did stumble just a little, but managed to catch herself with the help of a nearby lamppost.

"I'm here for the convention, obviously," she said, rolling her eyes, but that wasn't the important part here so she barged on ahead. "And you only just started working for her! She's had you going to see her way longer than that."

Sure, Ainsley, it wasn't like Vi kept coming into the store on her own initiative because she wanted to or anything. Obviously that was Steph's doing somehow.

Vi

That gradually eroding good mood was turning into a rapid loss of patience.

"Well, if you know that much about me-" No, Vi, sadly she very much didn't. "-then you already know how I'm planning on spending the rest of my morning."

Ainsley

Ainsley crossed her arms and huffed with frustration. Didn't Vi get that she was trying to help here?

"Are you really going back to spend more time with her?" It should have been impossible for her to fit that much contempt into a three letter word. "Ugh, I thought she was going to be such a cool character at first, and then they turned her into the worst, most harmful stereotype."

She really should try to fix this. She just had to figure out exactly the right retcon.

Vi

Oh, it was totally helpful the way she was insulting Vi's best friend, even if half her insults made no sense.

"Yeah, I am," she said, leaning in close with a lightness of tone that usually ended with bruised knuckles and a week in solitary. "And I bet we're going to have a great time."

Even if it was just from giving Steph shit about state of her pantry.

Ainsley

Steph currently had two and a half sticks of beef jerky, an instant oatmeal packet, and a can of Spaghetti-Os in her kitchen and absolutely deserved to get shit about it.

Not that Ainsley knew that. Ainsley was just starting to feel a little unfairly (the implications of Vi punching trees in all those previous episodes had gone right over her head) intimidated here and thinking that maybe Steph wasn't the only problematic lesbian stereotype on this show that needed to be fixed. The aggressive butch thing? Yikes.

She made a little uncertain noise and shrank away.

"I'm going to fix this," she said. Where was a good place in canon to to --

Right. That episode where Vi tried to kiss Steph (that was still somehow Steph's fault), where obviously the right thing to do would've been for Steph to cut Vi off in no uncertain terms and ban her from the store altogether. She could make that retcon happen. Hopefully she'd done it right.

Vi

"There's nothing to fix," Vi stated flatly before pulling back and turning away. The kid was an annoying brat, but she hadn't actually done anything and wasn't worth the aggravation.

Or her time, not if she wanted to get a start on breakfast before Steph woke up.

Ainsley

Ainsley, in a rare moment of prudence, stepped back and let Vi go on her way.

"I'm gonna fix this," she repeated under her breath, and then started following Vi again.

She had to make sure it was going to work.

[OOC: Preplayed with onahighdiskhorse. NFI, fine for broadcast.]