Making The Best Of It

“So this is where you live huh?” Mia says, looking around at the inside of my apartment. “Technically yes. They do say home is where the heart is though.” She looks at me, and gives me a small smile, despite her sombre mood. I can’t help myself and sweep her up in my arms, kissing her lovingly. She wraps her arms around me and kisses me back.

We separate after a few seconds and I grin at her. “I love you Mia. I promise you that we will get through this, no matter what.” I tell her. “I love you too, my precious Gem.” She says softly, her eyes sparkling and wet with the tears forming. I take her hand and lead her through the apartment. “Come on, most of your stuff is in the spare room.” I say.

Mia follows me and I open the door to the room. She puts her backpack down and slumps to the floor, staring off into space. I sit down next to her, putting an arm around her gently. “Are you gonna be okay? Do you need anything?” I ask, concerned. She looks at me, a sad smile on her face. “I’ll be fine. Can I just have a few minutes to process things?” She asks. I nod, kissing her forehead. “Of course. We’ll be getting things ready for dinner, come out whenever you’re ready.” I tell her.

Exiting the room and shutting the door, I find Ivy and Skylar looking around with interest. Technically Skylar has seen the place already, but she was focusing more on moving Mia’s things quickly than actually taking in how my apartment is. I’ve been very lucky with the apartment that I have. Finding a two bedroom apartment for $400 a week in Sydney isn’t a common thing.

Being able to afford that without a roommate is an even less common thing, and I’m thankful I was able to pull through my mundane life. Affording my apartment now is trivial, but back then, it was a massive achievement. The apartment is simply furnished, with a minimum of furniture. All the basics a girl could need, plus a lot of gaming related stuff.

A couch, a tv and a small selection of gaming consoles in the living room, my bed, desk and chest of drawers in my bedroom, along with my PC and various toys, trinkets and mementos. Ivy giggles as she spies the collection of pop vinyls, figurines and statues, with a fair few of them being a version of Poison Ivy.

“You really had a crush on her, didn’t you?” She asks amusedly, turning to me. “Duh. I love you now though. You’re better than she could ever be.” I tell Ivy, and she pulls me close into a cuddle. “I love you too.” She says happily. “I like this place, it’s cozy.” Ivy continues after a few minutes. “I agree, although I’m not sure how we’re going to fit all four of us.” Skylar remarks.

“Technically this apartment was only supposed to house two people. It’ll be a bit cramped, but we can manage. We’ll have to do some shopping though, maybe for some food and air mattresses for us to sleep on.” I reply. Skylar nods, then grins as an idea comes to her head. “You know, I’ve never really had a proper girly sleepover.” She says. “Neither have I. I guess we’re about to find out what it’s like.” I smile softly.

I ask Ivy to keep an eye on Mia to make sure she’s okay. While she does that and Mia processes everything that happened, Skylar and I take her car to the nearby shopping centre. We buy a pair of king sized inflatable mattresses to put down in the living room, in front of the tv. They should fit with just enough room to spare for the couch to be pushed into a corner, and for a walkway to get to the rest of the apartment.

Along with that, we get some groceries. We decide to get a week’s worth of simple and easy to prepare food for the four of us. Ivy’s cooking is amazing, but neither of us really know much about cooking or what she would even want to get, so we just get basic food for now. Frozen meals, bread and sandwich ingredients and some cheese and bacon rolls for good measure.

When we get back, the door is open to the spare room and Ivy and Mia are cuddling together. We announce our arrival as we carry everything inside, and Mia gets up to help set everything up. Ivy takes a slightly disapproving look at our groceries, before familiarising herself with my kitchen. Mia helps her with that, and Skylar and I busy ourselves with setting up the air mattresses.

We move the couch into an unused corner of the room before we plug in both of the mattresses and let them noisily inflate on their own. One is an annoying enough noise, but two of them is almost unbearable and we move to another room for a minute or two, just while they inflate.

Eventually, dinner is ready, the living room is set up, and we all sit down on the newly inflated mattresses to eat. Turning on the tv, we unanimously decide to put on a kids show, something that’s sort of wholesome and doesn’t require a lot of mental energy to watch. The Looney Tunes Show suffices for that purpose, specifically the 2011 adaptation. We sit back and eat our dinner, snuggling close to each other.

Once we’ve finished our food, I grab some of the ice creams that Skylar and I bought from the freezer and hand them out to everyone. We enjoy our dessert, then snuggle close together under the various blankets, the airconditioning set as cold as it will go, watching the show. None of us feel like doing anything sexual tonight, we’re all still reeling from what happened at the Opera House.

We indulge in as much wholesomeness as we can over the next couple of hours, cuddling and snuggling with each other, gentle, loving kisses, massaging each other gently for relaxation, even a pillow fight at one point. We also make an adorable discovery: that Mia is really ticklish! The endearing sound of Mia giggling delightedly fills the apartment as we tickle her mercilessly.

Eventually, we all get tired and I turn the light off. We snuggle together under the blankets, spreading out with the ample space that the mattress gives us. We snuggle together in a big group cuddle as we all begin to slowly drift off, whispering sweet nothings to one another, and generally just being really glad to be alive and well.

The loud CRASH of a window smashing jolts the four of us awake. Gamer’s Body allows me to blink the sleep away rapidly, and I immediately throw off the blankets, leaping up to see the two shadowy figures in the room. I throw out observes, and am relieved to see that they’re only level 20 each. My girlfriends are a few seconds slower to get out of bed, and our attackers use that time to go on the offensive.

My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness as I sense a punch coming towards me. It’s much slower than I’m used to reacting to, and I grab the unknown person’s hand and lightning fast (to them), step behind their back, twisting the arm. Beside me, Skylar throws a fist of shadows into the second attacker that broke through the living room window, sending him crashing into the wall.

A strong gust of wind, no doubt from Mia, flips the light switch on and allows us to see the gang members that broke into my apartment. Behind me, Ivy easily knocks a third attacker to the ground with her superior strength and her body mostly made of magical metal. “Who the fuck are you?” I ask, twisting the arm up the man’s back hard enough to be very painful. He grunts and swears, and I let up the pressure for him to talk. “We’re nobodies, honest! We thought youse were gonna be easy pickings!” The man answers, and I snarl angrily. “You thought wrong. Did anybody send you?”

“No, nobody sent us! We just followed you here cause we heard the Burgess girl was up for grabs!” He says, his voice getting higher pitched by the second. I increase the pressure and he squeals in pain. “I swear, nobody sent us! I swear, please don’t kill us!” He begs, and I shake my head, disgusted. “Get the fuck out of here before I break that arm.” I tell him, almost wanting to do much more than that.

I release the pressure on his arm and walk over to the door, unlocking it and holding it open for the three men. They sheepishly take the opening and rush out into the night as quickly as they can. Shutting the door behind them, I turn to my girlfriends. “Are you okay?” I ask all three of them. Receiving nods from Mia and Skylar, I look over to Ivy.

She turns to me, tears streaking down her face. “Gemma-” She sobs, her voice catching and her shoulders shaking. “When will they leave us alone? When will we be safe?” She drops to the floor and the three of us immediately gather around her, holding her gently, massaging her and comforting her. The seething anger I feel inside at the men who dared to break into my home is pushed aside by the worry I feel for the woman I love.

None of us can answer her question. We can’t do a thing besides just be here for her and comfort her, hoping that we’ll be okay in the long run. It takes about half an hour to calm Ivy down, with the other three of us having processed what happened in that time. “I guess my protection is really gone now huh?” Mia scoffs bitterly. I kiss her forehead gently. “We’ll get through it, my love. Together.”