Layla & Sarah | BACKDATED friday night

[x-mandelbrot.livejournal.com]

Sarah stops by Layla's suite to issue an invitation.

After one of Sarah's many lengthy telephone calls with her sister, Jessie, an idea came to her. Next week was Thanksgiving break and she had already planned to go home for most of it - her folks probably wouldn't be there to get her until Sunday at the earliest - and it occurred to her maybe she could bring a friend home with her. She was almost positive her parents had told her that before, anyway, and if not she knew she could convince them into it.

With that idea in mind, she made her way to Layla's room to ask her if she wanted to come home with her. For some reason it felt like a really good idea, to have her meet her family, and getting to spend more time with the blonde girl certainly was a good thing too on its own. Once she reached the other girl's room she knocked politely on the door and waited for a reply.

"Unless you're selling Girl Scout cookies we're a 'No solicitation' zone," called Layla's voice. The response had nothing to do with anything, actually. She was on her Home for Wayward Mutants appointed laptop surfing around the internet at random to kill brain cells. It seemed pretty effective, her brain felt pretty dead. 'This is prime lolcat time you're interrupting with your non-cookies."

"How do you know I'm not selling cookies?" Of course she wasn't selling them and didn't actually have any on her. "And I'm not soliciting, promise!" She didn't want money, at least, though she was soliciting an answer to a question when it really came down to it. "It's me, Sarah." Just in case she didn't realize who it was.

The door opened suddenly, revealing a typically disheveled Layla. "If you're selling cookies then you're soliciting," she pointed out. "So if you're not soliciting then you have no cookies on offer. Unless you're giving cookies away for free and then we can talk. Otherwise you're gonna need like...a secret password or something. Uh, yeah, something like that." After a brief pause the corner of Layla's mouth began to twitch up into a smile.

Sarah smiled when the other girl appeared. She shook her head as Layla asked about the cookies. "Nope, not selling cookies, and don't have any to give away right now." If she came home with her though she could have cookies though, and Thanksgiving dinner too. Biting her lip, Sarah tried to think of the password. "Oh, um, I know this one. It's... it's..." She snapped her fingers and pointed at Layla. "Pumpkin! Am I right?"

Layla sighed dramatically and slumped against the side of the door before rolling to the side to make room for Sarah to enter. 'I'm so transparent. Sarah! I want to be opaque. How do I learn to be opaque? Can you teach me? I'll take translucent. Anything is better than this unwavering predictability I'm cursed with!" she went on in a most dramatic fashion. Layla suddenly dropped to the ground, back sliding down the door frame until she wound up in something of a puddle on the floor.

Continuing the grin as Layla waxed on poetically, Sarah rolled her eyes when the blonde slide down against the door frame. "Ok, you're not predictable. You're a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." She paused before adding. "Sprinkled with pumpkin spice." Now she wanted a pumpkin spice latte though, d'oh. She reached down to offer her hands to Layla so she could get back to her feet.

The blonde sniffled from her spot on the floor and looked up at Sarah with big, hopeful eyes. "Aw, really?" She took the other girl's hand and got to her feet with a fond smile. Then she tipped her chin toward the brunette in a nod of acknowledgement and her melodramatic act vanished just like that. It was replaced by a grin as Layla made her way back over to the couch. "So, what's up?"

"Of course!" She returned the smile as she helped her get to her feet. Following Layla inside, the brunette headed for the couch as well and sat down next to her. "Not much, I guess, just wanted to see what you are up to. And I had an idea, maybe. But first, what are you up to?" Some more small talk while she thought about how to ask her would be nice.

"LOLcats, obviously. And pumpkin things." She was mostly kidding. About both but she nudged a plate of suspiciously pumpkin smelling cookies Sarah's way. "Mostly trying to kill time and find movies worth watching since of is so not ideal skating season and I don't wanna end up on my ass after hitting an ice patch again this year. That sucked."

"LOLcats are awesome, totally." So were pumpkin things, which seemed to be what Layla was nudging towards her if the scent wafting up to her nostrils was an accurate indication. "Ooooh... can I have a cookie?" Sarah looked over at her with big eyes, batting her eyelashes a little, pretty please? She winced a little at the mention of falling down on an ice patch, that definitely wasn't good. "Aww, no, I hope you don't fall down either. There should be something decent on to watch, hmmm."

"No, I totally just wanna taunt you with cookie awesomeness and then not give you any." Layla rolled her eyes and nudged the plate a bit further over. "I'll find something. I dunno what I feel like watching. That's probably the problem. I'm tempted to watch this show 'Buffy' but it seems sorta lame. Online people like wet themselves over it or something though." She shrugged. "Go figure."

Sarah reached out and took a cookie, taking a bite out of it while keeping one hand underneath it to catch any crumbs she might have made. She didn't want to make a mess in her friend's room, after all. "I knew you'd give me some, but it's polite to ask. That's what Mom always says, anyway." She took another bite and chewed again. "Which is why I'm here, kinda. Not for my Mom, I mean, but to ask you something." Frowning at the mention of Buffy, Sarah finished off her treat. "I've heard of it, I think, but haven't seen it. People do that online a lot, I think."

A little distracted by the mention of Sarah's mom, Layla dropped all other threads of conversation. "You...want me to make your mom cookies?" There was a hopeful note on her voice. She really hoped this wasn't Sarah's saying her mom didn't want her hanging with Layla anymore.

That wasn't a bad idea, actually, and Sarah jumped at the opening, turning on the couch to face Layla. She tucked one of her legs up underneath her as her eyes got a bit wider and she smiled before replying. "Yeah! I mean, sure, you could do that. If, you know." She put her arm up on the back of the couch, picking at the fabric a bit and turning her look at that while she spoke. "If you maybe came home with me for Thanksgiving." She glanced back up at the blonde to gauge her reaction, then looked back down at her fingers. "We have stuff there to make cookies, and you could stay for awhile, have turkey dinner with us, meet my family." No biggie, right? To cover up the last point which was kind of big she continued. "I mean I've made cookies with mom before, she likes that, and would love the help. She's never made pumpkin ones before, which are awesome, by the way." Sarah snuck another one just to prove her point.

Sarah's eyes were pretty big naturally and with them going wide like that Layla was a little worried they might pop out. But Sarah had nothing on the way Layla's eyes bugged out of her head at the invitation. She was totally hearing things, wasn't she? Sarah wanted her to go home with her? For a holiday? And meet her family? It was just the phrasing. Bad phrasing. Bad Sarah phrasing. It was more like 'hey wanna come home and sponge off my parents and I can prove they won't think you're evil and corrupt?' and way, way less like how it sounded.

Somewhere in her shock Layla choked on her own saliva. Slick. After what some would consider something of a prolonged and very awkward silence the blonde finally spoke. "I can't. I mean. Thanks, but I can't. I have a meeting with Sandy and she's not sure when she'll have time for it so it's not like scheduled yet and she's super overbooked with like eighty million cases so there isn't like a lot of open slots for stuff and I guess she has to come meet with me and the bald dude and stuff before my two month mark here and stuff. So...yeah." The lie came easily and smoothly, but the awkwardness of the whole thing was only heightened by how quickly Layla rushed to get the words out.

Nibbling on the cookie while listening to Layla's rapid fire response, Sarah nodded when the other girl was done speaking. "Yeah, no, I understand, totally. You've gotta get stuff done too, it was stupid of me to think you didn't have things to do over the break." It was kind of a big deal, which she realized more and more as their conversation continued, probably not the kind of thing you should just drop on someone like that. She kicked herself mentally, hoping this wasn't a huge mistake that'd permanently mess things up between them. "It's kind of lame anyway, actually, still not sure whose house we're going to first, and my grandparents can be kinda annoying too. So it's cool, no big." Sarah shrugged, whatevs. Playing it off like it had only been a small thing would make it so, right?

"Yeah, no, I mean who expects the orphan to have shit to do, right? But, I mean, thanks for the invite. Besides I'm kinda a downed to have around on holidays. That whole dead parents thing can make people stupid awkward, like they're scared if they bring it up or anything that might be vaguely related I will have a nervous breakdown. Like I don't already know they're or something." Layla shrugged as if it was nothing. She skipped.over the part where dead things came back to life a lot more often around holidays too. Merry Christmas, Fluffy's not dead anymore!

"That's not what I meant, though. I just wasn't thinking. I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say, since she had no idea what it was like for Layla. The truth was she had probably been thinking of herself in wanting to spend more time with the other girl. "It's just that I like you... spending time with you." She shrugged, not sure what else to say, as that in and of itself had been the first time she'd said as much aloud. "Some people do get stupid awkward though, yeah, and I could see my folks being like that. Jessie might be ok but yeah, probably a bad idea, you're right." She rambled through all of that pretty quickly herself and ended up staring at the back of the couch and her hand through most of it.

"Nah, it's cool," Layla put in quickly. "Holidays are sorta sucktastic for me and there's no way for you to know that. Lots of people without parents are fine, you know?" Layla took a deep breath and made the snap decision to come clean a little, though she wasn't sure why. "My parents died on New Year's. My birthday is right before that. Thanksgiving sort of starts the countdown to Christmas and Christmas marks the countdown until New Year's. So it just sorta all sucks for me for like two months straight and trust me I am zero amounts of fun for it. And you didn't know and had no way to so it's not your fault. You were just trying to do this nice thing that woulda been awesome for anyone else." Layla sighed. That was a lot to unload on someone and a lot for her to bring herself to say. Honestly, she'd had no intention of telling anyone that ever. It was just Sarah looked so...something. And Layla didn't want her to look like that anymore. In retrospect, telling her all that was probably counterproductive.

Sarah looked over at her friend while she spoke. Layla was definitely sharing a lot of information with her, so she listened carefully and let her say what she wanted to say. It made a lot more sense knowing all of that, and Sarah quickly realized how good she had it with her own situation in comparison. Her first instinct was to say she was sorry but that wouldn't change anything, and there wasn't anything she could do or say that would. Part of her wanted to hug Layla but that would've probably been strange too, so instead she just reached out and out a hand on Layla's knee. "Still though, I... I'll bring you back some stuff though. My Mom will force me to anyway, no argument will stop her." Which was an indirect admission that her mother already knew about Layla but maybe the other girl wouldn't notice. "Anyway, I'm not going until Sunday though so we can still hang out until then, right?" They could maybe find a movie to watch or something.

The hand on her knee drew conflicting reactions. Layla's default was to pull away. She was distinctly uncomfortable with physical contact that had any sort of affectionate or intimate feeling to it. Sarah's hand had both. On the flip side of things, though, Layla didn't want to pull away specifically because it was Sarah. That only brought up a host of other conflictions. She liked Sarah and she thought she like liked Sarah but she still wasn't sure if she legit liked the girl or if it was just some sort of fucked up manifestation of her desire to belong with someone in a friend or even familial way. But then there was that impulse to say 'fuck it' and kiss her when Sarah looked at her like that, like she was trying to figure out how to fix things for Layla even though they both knew she couldn't. Layla settled for ignoring all those things so she didn't have to confront those thoughts for now. Instead she flashed a small, brief smile and looked back up at Sarah and those eyes that Layla was a little inordinately fond of. "What kinda movie you in the mood for?"