003 - [Video] Happy Birthday, Chloe Price.

[helladoomed]

[It's a little after noon when Chloe turns her communicator on. She's sitting on an old white plastic deck chair, and from the look of the buildings behind her, probably on a roof somewhere in Nonah. She's in a worn old white tanktop with a skull on the front, her jeans-covered legs propped up on something, her coat hanging off the back of her chair. She's spent the morning avoiding people, not answering her texts, just...brooding. There's a cigarette between her lips, and she takes a drag off it before she catches it with her other hand, her attention mostly on the phone.]

You ever think about time 'n shit? Like, how it hella doesn't make any sense here? Like, okay, back home, before I wound up here, it was 2013 right? In October.

[She leans back in her chair, resting the phone on her leg, tilted up so all the screen really catches is her face and neck and the clouds.]

Suddenly I'm here, it's three years and a couple months later. Just, wham, welcome to the future except it's a weird fucked up cold war version of the future. And I get like, it's way worse for other people, right? Pulled from other centuries or other fuckin' planets with their own weird-ass calendars but.

Three years.

[She's not even really sure what she's going on about, honestly. She'd been puzzling this over in her head all morning and hadn't gotten anywhere, so maybe she thought rambling out loud would help. It wasn't really working.]

So here we are, right? March 11th, 2016. Shit had gone different, I'd be twenty-two today.

[She hesitates, her gaze distant, up on the clouds as she took another puff off her cigarette.]

Instead, I guess I'm twenty. Sort of. Minus a couple months. Still my birthday though. [And then she smirks, pointing the two fingers holding her cigarette at the sky.] Fuck you, universe. Chloe Price made it to twenty after all.

[She scooped up the phone again, and for a second is framed in the picture again, the camera half-covered by her thumb as she reaches for the disconnect. Her voice is quieter again.]

Didn't see that comin'.

[Click.]

Comments

[helladoomed]

Dunno.

See if Max wants to do anything. If not I'll figure something out.

[fayzedandconfused]

You gotta go to a restaurant and tell them it's your birthday. Free cake!

[ Priorities, she has them. ]

[helladoomed]

I like the way you think, kid.

Go to a bunch of restaurants, order a glass of water and my free cake.

[fayzedandconfused]

[ Brianna nods excitedly. This is a very, very good plan. In fact, she might have to try and test it out herself. Who cares if it's not actually her birthday? ]

You could get enough slices and then put 'em together to make one giant cake with all the different flavors.

[helladoomed]

I think the restaurants would probably catch on eventually.

It'd probably be easier to just buy a cake.

[fayzedandconfused]

Oh. Yeah...

[ Easier, but a lot less fun. ]

Hours and hours later, text.

[helladoomed]

Hey kid, Alison made me this big cake.

thought of you

Come have some tomorrow alright

text;

[fayzedandconfused]

really???

text;

[helladoomed]

no i'm lying to be mean

yes really

text;

[fayzedandconfused]

okay! thanks!

text;

[helladoomed]

Cool.

just warn me before you come make sure I'm home

action;

[fayzedandconfused]

[ The next afternoon, after a quick text to make sure Chloe's home, Breeze shows up and knocks at the door. As if she would forget to show up for free cake. ]

action;

[helladoomed]

[She who is tired of cake is tired of life. For there is to be found in cake all that life can afford.]

[Chloe answers the door with a grin.]

Hey kid.

[fayzedandconfused]

Hey.

[ Breeze comes inside, looking around. Looks pretty hipster to her, but cool. ]

You live here?

[helladoomed]

Yeah. I mean, it's not my place, it's my friend Sarah's. But she's letting me crash here. Gave me a room and everything.

[Chloe absently points towards her room, the door open, as she heads back into the kitchen.]

[fayzedandconfused]

Wow. Cool.

[ Breeze takes a quick second to look at Chloe's room, but the lure of cake is too much, and she follows her to the kitchen. ]

[helladoomed]

[Hey look, there's already a piece cut and waiting for her on the table, while Chloe hunts around in the fridge.]

Want some milk?

[fayzedandconfused]

[ She sits at the table, all excited. Milk, too?? ]

Sure! Thanks.

[ And then she picks the slice of cake up with her bare hands and takes a bite. ]

[helladoomed]

[Gonna get spoiled, probably. Milk and Cake, next she'll be wanting shelter and equal rights.]

Kid, there's a fork on the table.

[Come on Breeze, even chloe uses a fork for cake.]

[fayzedandconfused]

Oh, right.

[ Look, old habits die hard, okay. But she at least picks up the fork once Chloe mentions it. ]

[helladoomed]

[It is a weird day when Chloe is the one civilizing the feral child. She sets a glass of milk down then plops into the chair across from her.]

I think Alison made it out of guilt or something, she just turned up with it last night.

[fayzedandconfused]

She seems like that type. [ Which is all the better for them. More cake. ]

Unless you piss her off. I bet she wouldn't make you one then.

[helladoomed]

She seems kinda hard to piss off. She mostly just frowns at my smoking and getting her sister drunk.

Or does this kind of tired sighs.

[Chloe imitates it fairly well, then laughs.]

[fayzedandconfused]

[ Breeze laughs, too. It's a pretty good impression. She's heard Alison's tired sigh a lot already. ]

She got pissed at me when I went to California. [ Not that she seems very bothered by that fact. ]

[helladoomed]

Kid, I got pissed at you when you went to California. A little warning next time, huh?