ALICE Ch 86

“Yeah. I mean, is that weird?” Alice supposes that it’s Glynda who should be here right now, but she’s busy with serious obligations. Even a lesser team like FUTA still means big money. The pressure on Glynda is immense. Alice should try to be more present for Faye, but she’s curious. She squints at the bed. “What you got going on there?”

“Hmm? Oh,” Faye looks over her shoulder. “I was just...”

“Am I in or out or what?”

Blushing, Faye moves aside and Alice yawns again and crosses the threshold.

“You got any beer?” she asks.

“I dunno,” Faye replies apologetically.

Alice approaches the bed, frowning down at the comic books scattered across it. What is up with Faye always covering her bed in weird stuff?

“I was just going to read a bit before bed,” Faye says, following her.

Alice frowns and sits, picking up a comic book. It’s not like she doesn’t know what it is, they just don’t show up in real life very much. They must exist. They make movies about them every five minutes.

“It’s my therapist. She’s told me to find a new way to relax,” Faye goes on, embarrassed. She sits next to Alice. “My other, um, relaxation process was causing more issues than it was fixing. So this is what I’m doing for self-care now. It’s much better. I used to wait until I got home, then catch up on it all, but now I wait and stay off the internet and bring it with me. It’s going quite well.”

Alice didn’t understand much of that. She sees that there’s a little suitcase nearby that must have held all these. She frowns and looks around.

“Well, you’ve got them all out of order,” she says, grabbing a stack and trying to fix it.

“No! No, no,” Faye gently tries to pull them away. Alice holds on. “That’s the order they go in.”

“Faye, they have numbers on them. I might be American, but I can count.”

“No, but they’re published in a certain order,” Faye counters, a bit desperately, pulling harder. “I know it’s a bit silly, but they all go together in a—a certain order, not like that.”

“What?” Alice lets go. “Seems confusing. And why’re they all wrapped up? Doesn’t that make them hard to read?”

Faye looks at her for several moments, then swallows.

“This is cool,” Alice says, picking up another one. “I’ve seen this movie. This is Halle Berry.”

Faye brightens. “Right,” she says.

“And here’s the Sonic the Hedgehog guy,” Alice adds, looking around. “So you were just going to chill and read? I was worried for nothing? Do these have Hugh Jackman in them? Does he take his shirt off?”

“He’s in there,” Faye replies. “Sort of.”

Actually, Alice will take this over the party. Lying around looking at comic books full of drawings of hot cartoon people? This is so much better. This blonde in white is so Alice’s type.

“So, what’s going on in here?” She picks up one that has a #1 on it.

“Err… do you know about Krakoa?”

Alice lights up and looks over. “I do! It’s in Poland.” She takes the comic out of its bag and flips it open. “I learned that to impress Kylie. I wonder why there’s no Polish Grand Prix. These are in English, right? Not Polish? You read Polish? Because that would be amazing, actually.” Alice hiccups. “Are you sure you don’t have any beer?”