Author's Notes:

No time to diddle, straight down the middle.

All things considered being back at work the next day wasn’t so bad.

Certainly, it was a lot less confusing than anything else that had happened recently. Almost meditative just going through all the motions, really. And dayshift is easy anyway. A lot of time to just stare into space. Barring the regulars, obviously, but they rarely require that much attention.

Kind of a pisser that helping out Adagio didn’t immediately solve all of the problems. If anything, it’s just created newer, different problems. Especially the problem of keeping from something Sunset, now. That was probably the biggest one.

Technically I hadn’t done anything yet. Right then I’d done exactly what I’d told everyone I’d do: got Adagio out and also helped her find the others. I’d done my part! But I had agreed I would keep helping Adagio and doing so secretly. So it worked out the same as if I’d done nothing.

That got me frowning, at least until I remembered just how forlorn Adagio had looked and how nicely she’d asked me.

Probably best not to think about it too much. Just set out glasses and stand by the bar and look like you’re busy, there’s a good lad. The day’ll be over before you know it and you can go back home again and sit in the peace and quiet and not have to worry about anything, at least for a little bit.

“Hi!”

A sudden, piercing voice jolts me, the same kind of jolt you get when you’re drifting off to sleep and manage to wake yourself up. I’m disoriented and the next thing I know Sonata has appeared in front of me, bouncing happily in place and waving in my face.

“Hi! It’s me! Adagio’s busy doing something and she said that you were at work but that your work was, like, super boring and that I should come keep you company!”

This was unexpected.

“Uh, she did?”

“Yep!”

I kind of expected more, but Sonata just smiled that big, slightly vapid smile at me and went no further. I took a quick glance around and found the bar basically empty, barring a single regular in a corner who couldn’t have given less of a shit about what I was having to deal with if they’d tried. I looked back to Sonata again.

“You seem better,” I said.

“Oh yeah, much better, thanks!” She said, then she leant in and lowered her voice, meaning I had to lean in too. “I was kinda pretending, just so Aria would be nicer to me but shh, don’t tell anyone!”

“Secret’s safe with me, Sonata,” I said and she beamed, hopping up onto one of the stools. I was forcibly reminded of when I’d brought Adagio along, and wondered whether Sonata would start dancing too. I rather hoped not. It would be difficult to explain if I had to.

Fortunately, Sonata seemed content enough to spin in place and start to mess with the little plastic box of straws and stuff.

“What is Adagio doing, exactly?” I asked and Sonata just shrugged, continuing to mess with the straws and stirrers and napkins until I pulled them out of her reach, whereupon she just started kicking her feet against the bar.

“Don’t know, didn’t tell me. Said it was something important though, and I should do as I was told and stop asking questions. So here I am!”

She threw her arms up gleefully at the conclusion of this sentence.

Sonata was very, very cute. Kind of tiring already, yes, but adorable. You’d hardly know she was some sort of down-on-her-luck emotion devouring, mind-manipulating creature from another world.

“What do you do here? Do you just stand there behind that thing? I can kinda see why that’d be boring,” she said, head tilting, as though a different angle might shed better light on my employment. I blinked at her.

“It’s a bar?” I said, though I could tell that this illuminated nothing for her.

I had to remind myself that while Adagio and buddies might look like regular girls they, in fact, were not. Were from an entirely different world in fact. So it stood to reason that their frames of reference might be a little out of sync with mine.

Come to think of it, Sunset was much the same. But according to what she had told me, Adagio and co were basically the equivilant of monsters of legend back from where she was from. So who knew?

You’d think they’d know what a bar was, though! How long had they been here? Maybe Sonata had just never thought about it. I wouldn’t have been surprised, actually, looking at her then.

I could only work with what I had, which was Sonata in front of me asking a question.

So I went with just answering it.

“It’s pretty quiet right now but the idea is people come in and buy drinks? Alcohol, I mean. Not, like, the cafe down the way. Though we do do coffee.”

“Ooh! I’ve heard of alcohol.”

“I’m not surprised. But yeah. Beer and stuff. Cocktails are pretty popular, though that’s generally more in the evening. Happy hour and all that, you know?”

Not my wheelhouse, not my shift, typically. Not anymore at least.

“Cocktails?”

Sonata, I want to pat you on the head but was I going to have to explain everything?

“Mixed drinks? Usually with raunchy names? Screaming orgasms?”

“What’s that?” She asked with a gasp.

Was she fucking with me?

Even if she was I wasn’t going to rise to it and so just explained what went into a screaming orgasm, or at least what went into the house version of one. Half and half, Kahlúa, etcetera. It had been a while since I’d been called upon to make one. Like I’d told her, more of an evening thing.

Sonata seemed enraptured all the same.

“Ooh, I want a screaming orgasm! Can I have one?” She asked.

Seriously, was she fucking with me? I couldn’t really tell. Girl was just so bubbly and enthusiastic it was difficult to get a read on her. To give her the benefit of the doubt I decided she was being sincere.

“Can you pay for one?” I asked back. Her face fell.

“No…”

I could tell what I was going to do before the thought had even finished in my head, and I cursed myself for it. Idiot. Soft idiot.

“Should have guessed that, really. I’ll get you this one. One!” I said holding up a finger and Sonata brightened again immediately.

“You will? Thanks! I didn’t even have to make you do it!” She said, delighted.

“No, no you didn’t…” I grumbled to myself as I turned to put the thing together.

I’m such a bloody pushover. If someone had a mind to they could probably play me like a fiddle with barely any effort at all. Lucky for me I didn’t know hardly anyone and certainly no-one with anything to gain from doing that. A free drink to a pretty girl withstanding. I think I could survive that, at least.

Really am a softy, though. Even gave Sonata more whipped cream on top than I was strictly meant to. Could get in trouble for that sort of thing.

“There you go,” I said, sliding it over the bar towards her before turning back to actually pay for it. Out of my own money! Soft idiot, again. Once I’d done that I found Sonata doing exactly what she’d been doing when I’d seen her a few seconds before: staring at the drink in wide-eyed wonder.

“You are allowed to drink it, you know,” I said.

“Oh!”

She picked it up and tried to drink it normally, cream or no. This had predictable results and I gently eased it back down to the bar before things got worse. Sonata had got cream all over herself. Me, sighing, handed her a fistful of napkins and pointed to the straw I’d already helpfully provided in the drink itself.

“Sorry,” she said, biting her lip and having another, more successful go after cleaning herself up.

Why, exactly, had Adagio sent Sonata at me? I suppose she was making my day more lively, at least, but still.

“Mmm!” Squealed Sonata appreciatively. “Mmm mmm! This is good!”

She was making alarmingly quick progress through the thing. I could understand why. Delicious and non-alcoholic as they tasted they were, still, cocktails. Sonata did not look like a particularly hardened drinker. I didn’t want to have to walk her back home. You never know...

“Maybe slow down a little on that,” I said and she looked at me quizzically. “You take it slow you’ll enjoy it more.”

I think she believed me because she did slow down, so there was that.

Sonata made for interesting company. Ditzy as anything, but so wonderfully relaxing in that she didn’t really expect anything from me at all. Her whole world appeared to be just that moment, just then, and about everything else she was blissfully unconcerned.

And I thought I was relaxed!

Didn’t get a whole lot of out of her regarding Adagio and Aria and magical battles and such. She knew about it, having been there, but didn’t seem to have been paying much attention at the time and couldn’t really remember anyway, not seeming to think it was that big of a deal.

I got the overriding impression that Sonata was just along for the ride, the ride being whatever way she happened to be pulled along in. Again, I saw more of myself in her than I was really comfortable with.

But I’ve had worse days at work.

She nursed the cocktail along pretty much all the way until my shift ended, her presence there causing no end of confusion for the incoming night-shift folks but eh, what can you do. Once I’d got all my stuff and got outside again she was there, waiting.

“Uh, well, I’m going home now Sonata. Thanks for hanging out with me, even if you were just doing it because you were told to.”

“That’s okay! Your work is kinda boring. I can kinda see why Adagio would think you’d need company. And thanks for the screaming orgasm, too! It was great!”

She rushed in for a hug before I could really process what she’d said and I found myself with my arms pinned to my sides and the air crushed out my lungs.

“You’re nice! I see why Adagio likes you,” Sonata said, stepping back again.

I may have blushed at that, but wouldn’t have admitted it. Just nice to be appreciated sometimes.

“Heh, sure. I’ll probably see you around, huh?”

“Hope so! Bye!”

And with that she practically skipped off. I couldn’t help but watch her go. Odd girl. Did she even exist, really? Could anyone like that really exist? She gave me a wave and rounded a corner and then was gone. I shook my head at it all and made to head off.

I then almost walked smack into two other people.

“Oh, terribly sorry, miles away,” I said. Then I saw who they were.

Sunset’s friends. The pink one and the rainbow one.

Shit.

“Ah, you again,” I said, hoping that maybe they hadn’t seen any of what had just happened.

“Screaming orgasm?” The pink one asked no-one in particular, tapping a finger to her chin and squinting at nothing. The rainbow one was just glaring at me.

“You’re that guy that the dazzlings suckered into helping them,” she said, sparing a glance up the street to where Sonata had been a moment before.

“Yes yes, we’ve been over that. Look, you guys are Sunset’s friends, right?” I asked. I sounded calm asking it but I was actually bricking it and making the words up almost as soon as they were leaving my mouth.

Felt like I’d been caught out.

My apparently casual dismissal of what had clearly been meant as a wicked-sick burn and also my sudden bluntness plainly caught the rainbow one off-guard and put her on the back foot.

This manifested as the monosyllabic response of:

“Yeah?”

This didn’t give me a whole lot to work with, but there you go. I kept going.

“I, uh, well, I’m kind of in a fix and I kind of need some helping out and she’s the one I’d normally go to for that but this time I kind of need her to not know I need help. If you follow,” I said.

The rainbow one folded her arms.

“We don’t,” she said, flatly.

“I do! I think? Maybe,” said the pink one.

“It’s nothing you have to do, it’s more like something you don’t have to do,” I said.

This did nothing to make either of them look any happier about the things. Not that I’d really expected it to. I wouldn’t have liked hearing it! Probably could have worded it better, but I was starting to sweat a little.

“Yeah?” The rainbow one said again. She was very good at saying it, to be honest. Could convey a lot with one word and an eyebrow.

“Yeah, could you maybe just not mention that to her? What happened there? Just now?”

The rainbow one looked even more like she wanted to hit me in the face, which was saying something when she’d started the conversation with the air of someone three steps away from assault.

“Why?” She asked.

“It’d help me out.”

“We don’t know you, man, you’re just the guy Sunset talks about a lot,” she said dismissively.

“Well that’s as maybe, but - wait, she talks about me?” I asked, tripping up midway through.

“A lot.”

“A lot?” I asked. A lot sounded like a lot.

They both nodded. I swallowed. Wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Problem for another time.

“Alright, well, look - I told Adagio that I’d help her out a little just one last time but it’s kind of working out to take a bit longer than that so I’m kind of still doing that. A little. And it’d help me out if Sunset didn’t know that. Not because I’m not supposed to, you know. Just, uh, well she might take it the wrong way.”

“You’re going behind Sunset’s back on this thing? Whatever it is?”

“What? No! Not really. It’s not even anything! I’m just - it’d probably be better if she didn’t know I was still in contact with, uh, those guys. Which I’m not saying I am. I’m just helping. A little. But it’s not serious or anything.”

Oh God just stop talking! You’re making it worse!

Look, you can still salvage this. Somehow. There has to be the right handful of words that can be put out in the right order to make this sound alright. Because it is alright, right? You’re just trying your best. Just want everyone to be happy.

And why do the two of them look even more horrified and angry than they did a second ago?

“Guess who,” said the person who put their hands over my eyes and made me jump out of my skin. I recognised that voice, much as I also recognised those fingerless glove things. I knew who this was.

Now, Adagio? Now?! Why now? You couldn’t have timed it worse if you’d actually timed it to show up right this moment! This is the perfect moment to make me look the absolutely worst person!

“Ha, ha ha haaaahhiiiiii Adagio why, uh, why you sneaking up on me? Right now? Right at this moment? When you can clearly see these guys here?” I asked through gritted teeth as Adagio wound herself around me

“Who? Oh, hello you two,” she said, smiling at the other two girls whilst she hugged my waist. I tried to pry her off as discreetly as possible but she had an iron grip and I didn’t want to make any more of a scene than was already happening.

The pink one and the rainbow one said nothing to this. They just left, walked right off looking at me like I was an awful person, leaving me stood there with Adagio attached to me while I cursed inwardly and rubbed my face with both hands.

“Adagio…” I sighed. “As lovely as it is to see you again so soon I thought we were trying to keep this on the down low? This continued contact? You did see them, yes? Sunset’s friends? Why did you feel the need to come up on me right then? They saw Sonata, too!”

“They won’t tell her, don’t worry,” Adagio said, shifting around me without breaking contact so she was stood in front of me, arms still about me. Not that I could see her, of course, my hands still pressed to my face. I could just feel her there.

“How do you know that?” I asked, half-laughing at the sheer ballsiness of such an assertion.

“I just do. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine, don’t worry. Don’t worry.”

As ridiculous as it was I actually did feel my worry ebbing away. Just a little, just a smidgen, but still. Just something in her voice, I think. Did a good job of calming me down. I let my hands drop enough for me to actually look at her.

“You’re just saying that to calm me down, aren’t you?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

There wasn’t any denying this. Not with her so close and smirking at me. She had my number.

“Urgh, yes. It’s too late now anyway. They are going to tell Sunset about this, that’s going to happen. But, uh, she won’t be that mad at me, will she?”

Why was I asking Adagio? Because I had a feeling she’d tell me what I wanted to hear.

“Sunset will understand,” she said, and somehow I mostly believed her.

But then I always was an idiot.