Those Hidden, Tender Moments

Tonight the Hellhound is quiet. No music plays from the speakers, conversation is at an all time low, and the only people walking around are the ones Lillian has on her payroll. Well, not entirely true, she thinks, eyes flickering over to the grey outline of a figure hunched in the corner of Lillian’s office.

Outside of the Hellhound, the same silence spreads for block after block. Lillian never thought she would miss the ambient hum of electrical equipment.

A power outage. Or that’s what TNPS are calling it - “a city wide outage caused by generator failures, officials are working to fix the issue as soon as possible” - but Lillian knows a chalkshit excuse when she hears one. Golden Falls is a marvel of Terran architecture and power processing. The only way the power would blow across the whole city is if someone is holding the generators hostage, and even then that someone has to be pretty damned powerful, otherwise TNPS would be on them faster than a relay jump.

The question then becomes why? Why would someone turn off the power for a whole city?

The answer’s five feet away, brooding, not that any other fucker knows it. Rich kids…

Lillian sighs and carefully steps across the room. She takes an admittedly embarrassing amount of time to determine whether or not she’s close enough to the sofa that she won’t fall on her ass if she tries to sit down, before sinking onto it. Her back clatters against the back, to which Lillian is grateful the sofa is soft and well padded. Otherwise she might’ve woken up to bruises come tomorrow.

She rests an arm over the back of the sofa, angling herself ever so slightly towards her uninvited guest. “So, little bird, what happened this time?”

No response. Lillian just sighs again, tilts her head to try and inspect the younger woman better, but in the darkness Larissa Ziegler is a mystery.

She hasn’t talked since she arrived at the Hellhound, buried by an ill-fitting hoodie, and even then what little she did say was merely mutterings artfully masking avoidance. It’s frustrating. Lillian is a patient woman but fuck it’s been 12 hours since then, the power has been off for the last seven, and she can’t even will however many hours may remain with an ice cold whiskey.

Despite her brain screaming at her to press, she ignores the urge. Better not to spook the woman. She’ll talk eventually.

‘Eventually’ turns into an hour.

Lillian’s dosing off, head tilted backwards at an awkward angle, when she feels a weight press against her side. Those first few seconds take a great deal of self control - she sorts through recent events before her reactions have her hurtling Larissa to the floor, reminding herself that the woman hugging her side is not a threat.

Still, neither of them speak. Lillian figures that whatever this is, it must be progress, except she can feel the erratic shake of the woman’s shoulders.

Or not, she thinks dryly, searching for irritation and finding only concern swelling in her chest. I’m going soft.

What she shouldn’t do is wrap an arm around Larissa and tug her closer. What she shouldn’t do is provide comfort to this young woman who has caused her more problems in the last five months than most of her employees have in a lifetime. Yet she does it anyway.