#*sheila

“You know, I was thinking of writing a book about all my experiences as soon as I had a stable job,” Roy continued despite Sheila's eyeroll and 'oh God, there's more?' in response. He picked up a pack of nails and cautiously made his way back. “Like an autobiography of sorts. I thought maybe it would help if there was a guy out there who was willing to share his experiences as a gay man, so that they'd know there's someone out there who went through the same things they did.” He set the board and nails down and went back for the hammer. “And I would've included you, too, of course. I wanted to be able to show people that sometimes it won't get better unless you strive to make it happen for you. You were a pretty good example of that, I think.”

“If you really believed what I said about making better happen, you wouldn't have held off on writing that book,” Sheila commented from the darker side of the room.

“How do you figure that?” Roy asked with a raised eyebrow as he returned to the corner.

Sheila held up one of the boards horizontally across the scar and withdrew a nail from her mouth. It was smudged red with lipstick. “You were procrastinating, weren't you? Instead of actively planning out how you were going to go about writing it, you made excuses like 'oh, I'm too busy for that now' or 'I'll have time to do it later' and ultimately ended up never accomplishing anything.”

Roy frowned and set down the lamp so he could hammer the nail into the board. “This coming from the Duchess of Laziness herself?” He shooed Sheila's thick fingers away, ensuring that she wouldn't get hit. “Just because you managed to get a decent job in the fashion industry, doesn't mean you're qualified to assess anyone else's life choices,” he said over the ringing sound of steel meeting steel.

“I'm just saying, that's not what I would do if I were following the motto,” Sheila said with a shrug.

“Oh? So what would you do, then? Quit your job and write full time while leeching off a random boy toy?” Roy quipped with more venom than he had intended.

Sheila scowled at him. “No. I would make time to write. Or, if I couldn't do that, I'd at least try to plan out the book whenever I had the opportunity. I'd work on it somehow, at least once a day, until I got that precious 'free time' you assumed you would have after getting a stable job—which really wasn't a one-hundred-percent guarantee, if you think about it.”

Roy hammered at the nail until it was completely in and looked at Sheila. “Explain,” he said, now less annoyed and more curious.

Sheila took out another nail and held it below the previous one. As Roy resumed hammering, she went on to explain as told, “What if you met a guy, settled down, and got married after you got a stable job? You would be so strung out about the wedding that you wouldn't even think about writing. And then there would be the inevitable post-marital stress and fighting, and then you would be thinking about adoption... You'd have no time, because it would never magically land in your lap until you were old and wrinkly.”

“Hey, what's wrong with writing a memoir when you're old and wrinkly?” Roy interjected, if only to be contradictory.

Sheila snorted and grinned at him. “Actually, I think I'd like an LGBT novel written by an old gay guy. I take everything back, go ahead with that plan. A hundred percent approval.”

Roy snorted back. “You know I would've been that one old guy who couldn't shut up about back when he was a kid,” he mused.

“And every time you try to bring up your novel, everyone in the retirement home would groan collectively,” Sheila added with a smirk.

Agatha cleared her throat and nodded. “Right. Sorry.” Without further delay, she approached the door and knocked.

There was an abrupt pause in the conversations being held inside, but they resumed immediately after one of the patrons proclaimed, “I’ll get it!” Agatha shifted anxiously from foot to foot as the muffled click of someone’s heels drew closer, until finally they stopped right behind the door. Agatha stared, waiting for it to swing open, but instead a little slot toward the top of the door slid aside and revealed a pair of brown eyes. They blinked at her curiously through the opening.

“Hello,” the person behind the door greeted. “Password?”

“Uh...” Agatha replied intelligently. When the eyes simply blinked at her, she carefully shifted Faye to her other arm and gestured toward her. “I’m just here to drop off this little girl. She directed me to this place.”

The eyes narrowed at her. “And why would she ask you to drop her off? She has legs.”

“She got hurt playing tag with some other kid, so she can’t walk. You could ask her yourself.” Agatha looked at Faye, but the girl was hiding her face in her shoulder. “Right, Faye?”

Faye squirmed away from the eyes peeking through the door and muttered something into Agatha’s shoulder. “What was that?” Agatha asked with a frown. Faye repeated it more loudly, but it still came out muffled. “What? Hey, let go so we can hear you.”

Albeit reluctantly, Faye obeyed and faced the door with averted eyes. “...I’m sorry, Aunt Sheila...”

The brown eyes peering at them through the door widened slightly. “Oh, baby, it’s okay! Come here.”

The opening in the door slid shut and, after several bolts and locks were undone, the door itself finally swung open. Immediately, out came a tall redhead woman in black heels, spreading her arms out wide to retrieve Faye from Agatha. Agatha clumsily handed her off and released a deep breath as the weight was finally lifted from her arms. The redhead woman seemed to carry Faye with no problems, however, and even managed to maintain her balance perfectly in her high heel shoes. She smiled widely at Faye and kissed her cheek, leaving a smudge of red lipstick on her face. Faye giggled and looped her arms around the woman’s neck in a similar fashion to how she clung to Agatha, though she was clearly more comfortable with the woman.

The redhead herself was made up nicely, with dark maroon lips and just enough blush to emphasize the contours of her face. Her hair came down her back in curls that were dull and frayed from the lack of proper hair care, but Agatha couldn’t help but admire them regardless. She wore a black turtleneck that came down to her elbows and gray slacks with buttons at the cuffs; simple, yet altogether an oddly stylish outfit for someone who was living in the middle of nuclear winter. Then again, perhaps the woman’s wardrobe simply consisted of many stylish things. Amelia would have liked her, she mused. She was, after all, always trying her best to look good with what she had.

“Thanks for taking care of my niece,” the woman said after properly smothering Faye with affection. “And sorry for whatever trouble she caused you. Kids, you know? They live through a catastrophic apocalypse just once and they think they’re invincible.”

Agatha grinned a bit, sheepish. “It’s cool. I wasn’t really busy doing much, anyway,” she confessed.

The woman appraised her for a moment, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, have we? What’s your name, chica?”

“Agatha. Agatha Liu.”

“Agatha...” the woman repeated, sounding out her name into carefully separated syllables. “That’s a cute name.” The woman took Faye into one arm and stretched out her free hand. “Mine’s Sheila. I run a bar here with my brother, Roy.”

Agatha took her hand and shook it. “Oh, that’s cool,” she said without thinking. Immediately after the words came out of her mouth, she lost a bit of her confident momentum and blushed; she was relying far too heavily on that one stock phrase, and it was quickly becoming a bad habit.

Sheila just smiled, and then beamed suddenly. “Hey, you know what? You can tell your folks to stop by and barter with us sometime. We accept supplies, fuel, souvenirs--anything, really--in exchange for food and services. Sometimes we can even offer a place to stay,” she said. There was an ominous crash behind her, followed by a short pause and nervous laughter. She leaned in and lowered her voice to say, “We don’t have any vacancies at the moment, but as soon as these two bozos take off I think we’ll have enough room.” She winked. “Do you have anything you can trade? Something you can bear to part with?”

Briefly, Agatha was reminded of Natasha’s attempt to ‘barter’ with her over the boat and decided that avoiding that line of questioning was probably for the best. “Uh...no, that’s okay. My parents...aren’t with me right now,” she answered slowly, choosing her words carefully.

Sheila frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re traveling alone?” Agatha nodded mutely and waited for her frown to grow even deeper, but instead she just raised her eyebrows. “Really? Wow, I’ve gotta say, that’s impressive for your age. You must’ve been just a few years older than Faye here when the bombings occurred. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Agatha shook her head. “Well, I haven’t been traveling alone all my life. I just started recently,” she confessed.

Sheila looked between Agatha and Faye, who was growing more and more visibly uncomfortable as the conversation progressed. “One moment, sweetie,” Sheila said to Agatha before temporarily kicking the door shut.

Agatha waited impatiently, again shifting from foot to foot as time went on. She could feel the blood between her legs beginning to spread to her inner thighs and shuddered, pressing her legs more tightly together. Even if they did have a pad for her to use, she didn’t have anything on her that she could trade off. After all, Natasha would kill her if she let anything happen to the medical kit. There wasn’t anything on the boat for her to use, either, so she was stuck bleeding through her clothes until either Natasha and Ryan returned or Penny and the others caught up with them, whichever came first. Either way, her clothes were doomed to be ruined, and her extra set was still in the middle of drying.

The door creaked as it was reopened, snapping Agatha out of her thoughts. “Sorry about that,” Sheila said, her arms Faye-free. “I had to take Faye to her daddy. Poor girl’s going to get a real verbal lashing for going out too far into the city again. He’s such a drag, honestly.” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, then brightened again. “But he told me to thank you.” Agatha just smiled uneasily, her thighs still pressed together oddly. Sheila noted her discomfort with a raised eyebrow and nodded at her. “What’s that, the pee-pee dance?”

Agatha’s face colored quickly. “...Do you guys, um, have a bathroom or something?” she asked, partially sidestepping the question.

Sheila hummed thoughtfully. “Well, normally I’d have to charge you to use our facilities, but I suppose that the bandages you used on Faye’s leg could be considered your payment. Plus, to be honest, I’d really prefer it if you didn’t piss all over my front porch,” she replied.

Agatha brightened. “Really? That’s great, thank you!”