Chapter Text
“I’m so sorry again about all the noise.” Alicia grimaces as a raving techno beat bounces through the walls of Shalla-Bal’s new room. “I’ve tried to get them to turn it down, but they —” She sighs, fingers at her temples. “Haven’t been listening."
“It’s fine.” Shalla-Bal gives her a small smile. “I’ve lived in worse places.”
As if the next-door neighbors took that as a challenge, a throbbing bass hit the room and both Alicia and Shalla-Bal scrunched their faces. The fuck.
“It’ll be fine,” she mutters. “It’ll be fine.”
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It was fucking not fine.
It had been a whole month of (pretty interesting, but she’ll never admit that) assortment of rave music that somehow was at the perfect level of noise to pierce through the walls. She had first thought that the walls were too thin, but that turned out to be completely false by her quite scientific experiment (she had left her phone in Alicia’s room and screamed at the top of her lungs — turns out Alicia had surprisingly thick walls). The parties haven’t been everyday, but they’ve been close enough to one another that all that rings in Shalla-Bal’s head at work is the screeching build of electronic instruments.
“I’ve tried before and it hasn’t worked out so —”
“So you’re going to let those assholes go?”
“No–” Alicia’s head falls into her hands. “It’s not like they’re going to listen. And — what if this turns into a whole out war?”
“Oh they are going—”
“Please,” Alicia pleads. Her hand holds onto Shalla-Bal's. “Just a bit more for me, Silva.”
All the fight leaves her system and Shalla-Bal takes a deep breath. “Okay.”
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Nope. No. No. No.
Shalla-Bal, with her hair full of twigs, her rumpled and ripped chrome pajamas, and dark, sunken eyes, makes her damn way to the house next door. There’s a hoard of people spilling over into parts of Alicia’s lawn, all equally drunk out of their minds. She had bore this on her back for six months and she’s pretty sure that was enough grace to give to a bunch of little shits with no care for the people with whole lives and a pretty big need (a fucking depraved craving at this point) for sleep.
“Sorry.” “Excuse me.” “Oh no, please — not the drink!” “Shit, sorry!” “Fucking hell.”
At the end of her wits, Shalla-Bal takes one last breath before her fist rises to pound on the — shit. She turns back around, shoulders slumped. Its a fucking party. Anybody — anybody — could be the annoying shit who decided it was a good idea to host these parties twenty times a month. She slips to the ground, her back on the door. This was it . This was the end. She couldn’t believe her hope in the world would die with SOPHIE in her ears, but there were worse ways to die.
Then, she hits the floor. Hard. Guess it’s a pain to die.
However, the pain on the right side of her face is too strong to be that of an afterlife sensation and as she rolls around — oh. Maybe she is in some sort of near death trance.
“Are you – are you here to take me?”
“The fuck?”
The air runs back into her lungs in a flash. She’s sadly alive. And in front of a blonde man with a near buzzcut that is inches away from being insulting (but it strangely works, his collage of brown, blonde, tight white shirt, and loose jeans).
He bends down and offers a hand. “Are you good?” he asks. The furrow of his brow is believable enough that Shalla-Bal takes his offer and sits up. She winces at the throbbing pain that has taken over her entire right cheek.
“Yeah.” Shit. That’s going to bruise and bump. “Stellar.”
“Let me get you something.” The guy rises back up and with her hand still in his, she’s pulled along into the house.
Inside is somehow worse than outside. The nuisance’s house was one floor, but stretched wide apart so much that even when Shalla-Bal first looked at the house from the outside, she could not see its end. From the way near-buzzcut pushed deeper and deeper into the crowd, maybe there actually was no end to the house.
Or maybe she actually is dead.
No.
Is this purgatory?
The grip of near-buzzcut’s hand is loose, but that looseness meant she jostled as if she was the small metal creature in a pinball machine. “Sorry,” she said (more so muttered with the amount of bass that poured through the building), using her free hand to stay in somewhat step with the man in front of her.
He looks back and his eyes widen. “Shit, sorry about the crowd. Is it fine if I pull you in a bit?”
“Huh?” Near-buzzcut gestures to their connected hands. “Oh, yeah.”
In one short flick, Shalla-Bal is whisked through the crowd to near-buzzcut in a heartbeat. He pulls her closer and she feels his chest on her shoulder. She shrinks.
After another mile of shoveling, she finds fresh air and takes it in with a grateful gulp.
Near-buzzcut laughs. “We survived.”
“We did.” She smiles. “We did.”
The two smile at one another for a bit and somehow the pounding noise dulls just (really just) a bit. He lets go.
“Follow me,” he says, flicking his head towards the room in front of them. The single door stands in the middle, a bright light streaking and casting a glow over them.
This place is strangely mystical, but what greets them is a kitchen. Piles of beer cans occupy one corner while there are various bowls, all a third or half full, strewn about on all the surfaces.
Near-buzzcut walks to the fridge, taking a plastic bag smoothly from the cabinet to the right and scooping a bunch of ice into it. He wraps it with paper towels and comes back towards Shalla-Bal. He hands the bag over to her.
Shalla-Bal takes it and her lips tighten. “Thanks—uh—”
“Johnny.” He turns his palm out to the right. “Sorry for all the commotion—”
“Shalla-Bal.” She gives him the tiniest of smiles. “But everybody calls me Silva,” she adds quickly.
“Shalla-Bal—or Silva.” He grins. “It’s nice to meet you.” Johnny moves back to the countertops as he digs through the bowls. Soon, his hand re-emerges with a beer. With a swift hand, he pops the cap open on the edge of the countertop, catching the cap as it flips into the air.
Johnny leans back onto the counter. “So, Shalla-Bal, what brings you here?”
Right. “Uh, I was—uh—I live next door and I was looking for the owner of the house,” she replies.
“Perfect.” He grins again, his ears perking up. “I’m the owner.”
What.
The ice bag falls from her hand and the resulting shatter crunches in the space between.
Oh, fuck no.
“You’re—you’re—” Shalla-Bal could not, for the life of her, find the words.
“Yeah—well, one of the owners, but it’s in my care for now.” He walks over, blasé as ever, and picks up the bag. His brow is furrowed again. “Are you—”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
He flinches back. “What?”
“Oh my god. You’re—you’re—” She feels blood rushing through her skull. “You’re so normal.”
“Uh—thank you—?”
“But the — the noise — the techno, the house beats—”
“Oh. Oh .” Johnny (fucking) brightens up. “I’m so sorry about all the noise, but we have to keep it up for a bit to—uh—well I can’t exactly tell you, but—”
“You can’t?” Venom drips from her tone. The dark circles sink deeper into her skin. “You don’t have a reason?”
“No, no—I do! It’s just—my sister has a project and I have to keep it going for a bit. Big company stuff, but confidential so—”
“So you’re saying being a fucking nuisance is legally ordained?”
“Not legally ordained—well, not exactly in that way, but we have permits and—”
“AND THIS WAS NOT TOLD IN ANY WAY TO YOUR NEIGHBORS?”
Boom, boom, boom. Gotta get that boom, boom, boom. Gotta get that boom, boom, boom. Gotta get that boom, boom, boom. Gotta get that boom, boom, boom. That boom, boom, boom. That boom, boom —
“I. Dare. You. To. Play. One. More. Black. Eyed. Peas. Song. I. Will. Cut. Your. Throat. Out.” Shalla-Bal grits out.
This house. This man. Done.
She turns swiftly, the steam powering her system, firing on all cylinders. Wait —
She faces him again, fire burning at the pit of her stomach. “This. Is. Not. Fucking. Over.”
Shalla-Bal, tired, scorched, and burned, surfs through the crowd with such ease as she dives in with a full set of knives and rage. This is not over.
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Fucking hell. With just a twist of chrome and a flash of fire, Johnny Storm was in love.