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Light. Sweat. Music. Oh, god, the music.
Alex let herself sink into the sensation of playing and of singing, letting her muscle memory carry her as she drank in the experience of standing on stage, feeling the crowd’s moods wash over her. Mostly joy, some nervous energy, a few in mixed states as the music pulled them in different directions.
This was a perspective she'd come to treasure since leaving Haven Springs. This visceral connection to the way her art hit others. Nobody's emotional auras mattered to her more, though, than Steph's.
Steph, for her part, was practically lighting up the whole stage with her joy. If she focused, Alex could just about hear Steph's thoughts as they flowed with the music. She could also just barely pick up an undercurrent of nerves, adding the occasional streak of purple to the warm golden glow.
That made sense, she supposed. After all, this was the biggest gig they'd had yet. They were just the opening act, sure, but a stage and crowd this size in Seattle were not easy to come by under any circumstances. Even so, though, Steph was even deeper in the zone than Alex, and they both played their hearts out.
—
After their set, they stuck around to catch the main event from backstage. Back there, of course, there tended to be a lot more anxieties and hot tempers as the work of keeping the show rolling was tended to, so Alex had done her best to zone out and focus only on the music. Easier said than done.
Steph, though, was as much a godsend as she ever was. She’d kept an arm around Alex’s shoulders, the hand on her upper arm grounding her as Steph moved it steadily up and down. They could have left any time, if she'd wanted, but Alex refused to miss experiences like this if she didn't need to. Besides, she'd had the best girlfriend imaginable to make sure she was okay and provide a constant glow of joy for her to cling to, and that was a world of difference from all the years she'd been alone and convinced something was deeply wrong with her.
Now, they were out back, loading their gear back into the van. Always the least glamorous part of this routine, but they’d both known the score when they started.
What Alex wasn't expecting, as they hoisted the last part of Steph’s drum kit into place, was a strange voice calling from across the parking lot.
“Damn, Gingrich, already done? And here I was all ready to offer our services to get you ready to roll.”
Alex looked over to the source of the voice, and saw two girls just barely illuminated by the back lot’s crappy lights. One, who she was pretty sure was the speaker, had sea-green hair, and wore a tank top that showed off one arm that was basically completely covered in solid black ink. The remnants of an old tat sleeve were just barely peeking out at the wrist and shoulder. The other had brown, bobbed hair, and no obvious tattoos at first glance, but after a moment Alex noticed something, she couldn’t make out what, on the inside of one of her wrists. Alex also noticed that the speaker was radiating joy, whereas the other girl… What the fuck was going on with the other girl?
Just by appearances, the girl with the blackout sleeve was far more likely to attract attention. But for Alex, the plain-Jane one’s emotional aura was waaaay more out there. The girl was nervous, but she could barely even sense it. It seemed like everything around this girl was somehow… frayed. Like she was less tethered to reality than other people, somehow. It was like she caused things on this deeper level that Alex could see to go out of focus if you looked too hard. She was going to tell Steph they should go, that something was off here between how one of the strangers was so happy and the other was so… wrong, as well as anxious.
When she turned to Steph, however, she was almost knocked off her feet by the sudden surge of happiness as her girlfriend's gaze snapped up to the girl that had spoken.
“Chloe!?” Steph shrieked, before practically sprinting into a hug with the green-hair-girl.
“Heya, Steph,” said the girl, who Alex supposed must be Chloe, as she returned the hug. “Long time, huh?”
Steph's emotions flipped on a dime, and suddenly she was very angry. Alex watched as she pulled free of the embrace and punched Chloe, with some real force to boot, in the shoulder.
“Ow!” Chloe rubbed her shoulder, and the fuzzy-aura girl seemed to raise an outstretched hand for a second, then paused almost like she'd thought better of something, and let it drop again. “What was that for!?”
“For letting me think you died, you bitch!”
“My phone got destroyed! I couldn’t remember your number!”
“I texted you, though! Did your number change?”
“Yes! My phone was completely trashed, sim card included!”
Ooooookay, this was too much. Alex stepped forward a little, raising a hand as she cleared her throat, catching Chloe and the other girl's attention.
“Uh, hi,” Alex said, doing her best not to let on how on edge she was about the fuzzy girl. “Anybody wanna explain this conversation to the one who has no idea who you two are?”
“Oh!” Steph's aura mellowed out a bit as she seemed to remember Alex was there. “Sorry, babe. Wasn't thinking straight.”
“As if that were possible in the first place.” Chloe chuckled. Steph tried to look annoyed, but she couldn't fully bury the smirk that tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Anyway!” Steph said, pointedly not responding to the joke. “Alex, this is Chloe. We were, like, total besties in high school.” Steph did her best valley-girl voice for the last part, earning a few small laughs from everyone present.
“She thought I died,” Chloe picked up the explanation, “because we lost touch after a massive storm ripped our rinky-dink little town a new one.”
“And this…” Steph trailed off as she gestured to the other girl with Chloe, who seemed to be taking a very deep breath at the mention of that storm. “Is somebody I'd also love to get an intro to.”
“Hey,” the girl said, raising her hand to wave, revealing what Alex could now tell was a blue butterfly tattoo on the underside of her wrist. “Name's Max.” With introductions now being made, Max's anxious aura seemed to have eased. She still had the weird vibes, though.
“Waaaaaait,” Steph said, “Max as in the legendary Max Caulfield?”
“The very same!” Chloe said, grinning and throwing an arm around the shoulders and planting a kiss on the cheek of a now furiously blushing Max.
“Chloe,” Max said, “what does she mean ‘legendary?’”
“Oh, Chloe told us lots about the trouble you two used to get up to,” Steph smirked. “Used to drive Rachel absolutely insane.”
At the mention of this Rachel person, Chloe and Max both started to glow blue with sorrow. Chloe seemed to be hit worse, and it showed on her face.
“Hey,” Alex chimed in, taking a step toward her. “You alright?”
“Huh?” Chloe seemed to break out of a deep thought. A thought that, as she had moved in closer, Alex ended up just catching the tail end of. Something about in another universe.
Alex barely had time to be concerned about the implications of that before Steph, reading Chloe’s expression, lit up with a powerful fear. Alex winced, hand going to her temple as Steph’s thoughts poured into her own, a chorus of no no no nononono-
“Chloe,” Steph’s voice shook as she spoke, “Where… where is Rachel?”
“She…” Chloe hesitated, her voice flatter than it had yet been since the conversation began. “She’s gone, Steph.”
Steph’s fear shifted to grief nearly as deep as what Alex had felt the day Steph had come to comfort her after Gabe’s death.
“How?” She asked, her voice trembling even worse now. “Was it that storm?”
Chloe shook her head. “Nah. She went missing before the storm came. Months before. I never stopped looking, though. Max helped once she and I met back up.”
The story was a long one, which Max and Chloe recounted mostly over a wee-hours breakfast at a local diner that was all but empty at this time of night. Morning? Whichever it was, at this point.
Alex didn’t need to know who this Rachel had been or have empathic telepathy to see how hard Steph was taking the news of her old friend’s death. So she sat there, comforting Steph as best she could, and desperately trying to resist the urge to pry with her powers as Chloe and Max told their tale. Between how strange Max’s aura was and that stray thought about alternate universes earlier, it was very hard not to go delving deeper when particularly emotional topics caused one of the other two to flare a bit brighter.
No, though. Those were private thoughts, there was no emergency, and this wasn’t her business. Well, at least not directly. Besides? What could possib;y be the fuckin’ chances that not only was she not alone in her supernatural existence, but that one of Steph’s high school best friends was dating another like her?
Then, around four in the morning, it happened. It was now long after the sad story had ended and well into a session of catching up and/or getting to know one another. Grogginess was starting to set in for all of them, and Alex slipped, knocking a rack of butter and jam packets off the end of the table. She winced, her time tending a bar having given her even greater sympathy than she;d had before for everyone in food service and hating to make a mess on someone else’s watch.
Then, she noticed that it hadn’t hit the ground.
Alex looked up again, and blinked hard as she saw the rack settling back onto the table and Max’s outstretched hand falling back to her side. Max hadn’t caught it, the rack had still been in motion as she withdrew her hand, everything on it perfectly back in place.
“Holy shit,” Alex breathed, looking from Max, to the rack, then back to max again.
“What’s up?” Steph asked, glancing over casually.
“Nothing!” Max said, far too quickly and far too strained as she threw a desperate glance for help to Chloe. Both of them were radiating Nerves that Alex didn’t even need to have powers to sense.
“Oh!” Chloe said, seemingly cluing into what was going on. “Max just has crazy reflexes, that’s-”
“Bullshit,” Alex said, a crazed grin creeping onto her face. “You’re like me! Well, not exactly, but-”
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Steph said, eyes going wide as she finally caught up to what the rest of them were dancing around. “Chloe. Chloe,” Steph said, leaning low over the table and looking Chloe dead in the eyes. “Do not fucking tell me your girlfriend is magic too. No fucking way.”
With that, it seemed that everything was officially on the table. Alex got the feeling none of them would sleep till tomorrow night. They had far, far too much to talk about, suddenly.