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Walking back to the checkout counter, Immy breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she wasn’t as much of a burden as she thought she was? Were they worried for nothing? Vee had seemed so genuine, and Immy had felt calmer after the talk, but… The guilt crept up in their chest again, and they doubled their efforts to keep it tamped down. Focus. Eyes forward, calm expression. Steady and casual walking pace, one foot in front of the other.Immy sighed. No, Vee’s probably just too nice for her own good. They should try not to worry her any more than they have to.
Preoccupied with her own emotions, Immy was completely oblivious to the anxious thoughts cropping up in her new friend’s mind. With everything she’d said earlier, Vee had hoped to lighten the mood and make Immy feel comfortable. And she’d succeeded; Immy seemed to have relaxed a bit!
But now, she’d given herself a new problem: she didn’t know a remarkable number of swears, and only a couple outside her own language. So why did I say that? What was I thinking? It would have been more sensible to send Immy to Bucket for this; he’s surely catalogued several times the amount that she can think of. Maybe I can come up with an excuse for now and ask Bucket for a longer swear list later?
And then… there was also the bit about the cuffs not translating swearing to worry about. Immy had been through so many new and stressful things today, and the last thing Vee wanted was for her unfiltered voice to cause more panic. It’s probably an unusual sound to a human! …What if they think her voice is weird, or scary?
Vee’s mind raced on. Why am I so intent on trying to impress Immy, when so many new coworkers have come and gone? And would they really be here long enough to be trying this hard to befriend them? She knew that their sentence was lengthy, but… there was always the chance of a store transfer. Getting too attached was a bad idea. The point still stood, though: for whatever reason, sheREALLY wanted Immy to like her.
Neither of the coworkers noticed they’d arrived back at the checkout counter until they nearly walked straight into it. After attending to a few customers that had been waiting impatiently, Immy turned to Vee.
“So, uh… you… know a lot of swears?”
Vee startled at Immy’s sudden question and looked up to meet their gaze, and they glanced away from her eye contact nervously. She watched them fidget for a moment before she answered.
“I know some, yeah! But uh, you’ve already had to learn a LOT of stuff today. I’ll only tell you a couple of them for now,” Vee explained, and Immy nodded.
The excuse was only a half-fib, Vee reasoned; it was completely true that she didn’t want Immy feeling overwhelmed! But now, how could she share what she knew without speaking herself? An idea sparked in her brain.
“Immy, do you mind waiting here real quick? I’m gonna go grab something, and I’ll be right back,” Vee promised, already walking backwards in the direction of the appliances.
“Oh uh, sure? I can handle it! Yeah,” Immy responded, offering Vee a nervous thumbs up as the woman turned away.
“Great! It’ll just take a second, proooooomise,” called Vee over her shoulder, power walking towards her secret broken cryofridge portal.
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Vee returned a few minutes later, triumphantly holding up a small smartphone-sized object.
“Uh, Vee? What… is that?” Immy questioned.
“Just watch,” Vee grinned.
Vee fiddled with the object, pushing a couple of small buttons, and wrote a few letters on a piece of paper in an alien script. Their curiosity piqued, Immy observed her movements carefully. After Vee ran the scanner on the device over the text, the object gave a loud BEEP, making Immy jump. It processed for a moment, and then a tinny-sounding voice from the device’s speaker shouted a few unusual-sounding syllables. A nearby customer gasped at the sound and shook their head, scandalized. Vee beamed at Immy with satisfaction.
“It’s a text-to-speech device,” Vee clarified, clearly proud of herself. “It can scan text and say the words out loud, so you can hear them. You can also type words into it if you want to hear how they’re pronounced!”
“Oh, cool! But, um… for teaching swears, why go to the trouble of using that when you can talk?”
Shit. Vee hadn’t thought that far ahead. Her eyes darted around for a couple seconds, as if looking around for something to say.
“Oh! I just… don’t like to swear? It’s…,” Vee faltered, racking her brain. “Um, a cultural thing?”
She mentally patted herself on the back for the decent save. It was a perfect white lie despite the slightly unconvincing delivery; Immy would probably never learn about her culture anyways, and they didn’t seem like the type to question cultural differences.
“O-oh! I’m sorry if it was rude to ask,” Immy mumbled, fiddling with her hands. “But, that’s cool, thanks for telling me about it! And, you know, for everything else today.”
Immy met her eyes and offered her a small smile, and Vee momentarily felt a prick of guilt for her half-truths. She tried not to make a habit of lying, but she just wasn’t ready to tell Immy everything yet. Maybe later on, if the stars aligned and she became close to them, Vee would share what her voice sounds like. She’d be careful for now, but she let herself have a sliver of indulgent hope.
“Of course, any time.”