Read Don't Ask My Major (BL) :: Ch 13

“Josephine, this is a specific branch of the Council, you can’t be here!” Jorgien said.

This punk-ass nonbinary sugar-gliding theatre-mask-jaw-line teacher was speaking, but Josephine would hear none of it.

“Dad, did you know about this?” she said into her phone. Jorgien looked openly agitated— the vein in their forehead singing like the ghost of prince, on the edge of spouting Purple Rain. Or whatever color blood was to people that weren’t colorblind.

“I haven’t heard of anything under the school, though to be fair we have a lot of bases.” Father dearest replied. He still sounded exasperated speaking to his daughter— his own gorgeous, flaming, brilliant daughter!

“My dad says you’re lying.” Josephine said.

“That’s not—” her father tried interjecting, but was cut off.

“Sneeleshi.”

Josephine and Maria froze, and she forgot what her dad was saying. Jorgien incanted something into them that went far beyond a regular stillness incantation. And just one word? It must’ve taken incredible control. Josephine could still feel her body, but it was submerged in some sublime ethereal blanket. Like maybe she collided with one of the ghosts from Pac-man.

Jorgien grabbed the phone out of her hands, causing her fingers to unfurl. It appeared parts of her were able to move if forced to.

“Hello, Johnathan. I’ll be sending your daughter on her way, don’t worry. Mhm… yes, she’s doing great in my classes and otherwise. Just has the biggest eyes for mischief.”

Jorgien was pulling out their own phone from a coat pocket, dialing another number.

In her current state, Josephine didn’t feel capable of conscious thought. It was utter hubris, like elephants in tutus twirling ribbons and watery spells over her frontal lobe.

“Of course I will, Johnathan. No worries. Bye bye now.” Jorgien hung up Josephine’s phone and appeared to mess with it before speaking into their own. “Johnathan Horves, Research division in HQ. Oh, you’re near? Perfect. Ten minutes should do.”

Jorgien promptly hung up their own phone, sticking it back into their coat.

“Have it back.” they motioned their hand to Josephine, and she reached out and took her phone back.

How… did…

“I believe the very rough translation from the ancient language would be drone, or perhaps mindless servant, screaming from the inside.” Jorgien said. “There isn’t a word for it now. So how about you go back up the elevator.” Jorgen shooed their hands, and Josephine’s legs started moving backwards. Maria’s too.

The weird part was that she didn’t feel like she was being controlled. She didn’t feel forced. She was more… led. Like her body was listening because it had nothing better to do, or no other reason to exist.

“You two are brilliant students, but this was downright irresponsible. Though I suppose anything I say won’t matter now.”

Jorgien started saying a bunch of ancient words that Josephine couldn’t make heads nor tails of. It was as if Jorgien didn’t want her to hear them, so she couldn’t. Or was it just that she was unable to remember?

The hazy lights of the orangey elevator phased into her peripherals as they backed into the odd escape pod in an amorphous gray space. This was unlike any drug she’d tried, which was saying something. Should she be concerned? She didn’t care about what was happening at all. Maria was drooling and blank, too.

“Shit!” Jorgien shoved them forward the last few steps and pressed the ‘1F’ button, before stepping back out of the elevator. “She’s coming. And she isn’t as forgiving. Don’t come back down here.”

That was all they heard Jorgien say as the doors closed, and their brains lost that last semblance of the experience of living.

Blank.

Blank Space? Taylor Swift? That wasn’t Prince. Wait, why was Josephine thinking about Prince?

Where were they?

An elevator?

Where were the binoculars? They were just in Josephine’s hand…

Wait, how did they get inside?

Why did Josephine not see pretty stars flying around her head, when she knew… what did she know?

The elevator doors opened to some random college Chad staring down at them. He had a baseball cap on and a lollipop in his mouth. We’ll call him Bystander #1.

Staring down? And he was startled. Ah, yes. They were on the floor.

“Are you two okay?” he asked in an overtly hetero-non-ally-like-deep-as-Marianna’s-trench-ass voice.

Maria grabbed her head and Josephine realized she could move again.

Move again? As in she couldn’t before?

“All good… We just… had a blood sugar drop.” Josephine said as her and Maria stood.

The dude held out his lollipop, half sucked and probably cherry flavored. “Need a lick?”

Oh, if Josephine weren’t rebooting her brain, the thoughts she’d have. The things she’d say.

“Can you just show us the vending machines?” Maria asked.

“Ohhhhh-k.” The dude seemed weirded out, but he showed them the way anyway. The way being three whole steps outside the elevator on the left.

“Gracious thanks, kind sir.” Josephine said, her and Maria hanging off of each other as they stumbled onward. “I’m sure someone will suck your lolli one day, but not us.”

“Cool.” he said, hopping into the elevator himself. For some reason Josephine never wanted to step foot in that elevator again.

She threw her hands over the vending machine glass and leaned into it. “There’s… apple juice!” Her fingers slowly dragged down as the liquid morsel was mere inches from her face. The squeezed fruit of the gods. Persephone’s pee.

“Is your blood sugar actually low?” Maria asked, standing upright now and gazing at her.

Josephine started pulling out her card. “No. But juice make tastebuds go bzzzrrrrtttwooooweee!”

A few manual steps involving the slight two-dollar-pain-tinge of capitalism, and the bottle fell with a graceful clunk into the grabby box. So Josephine grabby her juicy apple revitalization potion.

“What the hell?” Maria said, looking at her phone with dented eyebrows. She held it up to Josephine’s face. “Why does it say 3:30?”

Josephine stared at the time on the phone, carrying a blank expression on her own face. Too tired to emote. “Kiss me before I freak out.”

Maria reached her arm around and pulled Josephine in for a quick peck. “Wasn’t it 2:30 just a few minutes ago?”

Josephine leaned back in for a few more kisses, and Maria obliged. Her lips were always strong and commanding, and Josephine always strived to wear them out (when she wasn’t recovering from an unknown grogginess). She broke for a moment.

“Weren’t we waiting on Cody and Jasper to arrive?” she said.

They started making out again, arms flailing all over each other as they regained awake-land points. Like candy-land, but for waking up.

“Yeah.” Maria said. “We somehow teleported inside from the bushes.”