sit in the car and i listen to static

"Of course you eat lunch in your car," Changeling says scornfully, leaned over just enough to glare at Augustus through the few inches of car window she keeps cracked so as to avoid overheating during her break (she prefers to keep the engine off as long as possible; she hates going to get gas). The longer fur on the sides of its dog ears rustles in the breeze; Augustus imagines them twitching in feigned irritation.

"Duh," she retorts lightly, unlocking the doors and waiting for her friend to clamber into the passenger seat before continuing. "The break room — if it can even be called that — is an affront. It always smells like John's weird soups. And the lights are terrible."

They aren't fluorescent, at least, but they are awful. Dim enough to be grating, especially since the room is small and windowless; barely enough space for the table, which is itself barely big enough to seat two people. Augustus can barely stand to linger in the glorified closet long enough to store her bag in a locker — she harbors absolutely no desire to stay long enough to eat in there.

Changeling fumes about this for a moment, because Augustus is correct and they both know it. "You look like a creep," it settles on saying eventually.

"You're the one who got in the car with me," Augustus replies neutrally, pausing to take another bite of her sandwich. She does not bother pausing to chew before she goes on to ask, "Your shift is not scheduled for another hour — why are you here already?"

The Changeling's posture goes stiffer than usual, chin tucking down against its chest. The ears in Augustus' mind's eye pin back against its skull unhappily. She feels the ghost of fur under the pads of her fingers, but restrains her desire before her hands attempt to reach out to fulfill it. Changeling does not like people grabbing its ears — this is a Rule that Augustus will not forget again.

(She had forgotten once, early on in their friendship, and had remembered too late — only after Changeling had shoved her back hard, recoiling from her with something wild in its face. "People used to pull on them," it had admitted softly once it had calmed itself down — an ordeal that had taken over twenty miserable minutes while Augustus sat on her hands and apologized. She is determined to never forget this again.)

"My mother was called in for an emergency shift," it explains tightly. "So she could not drive me at the correct time. She informed me I would simply have to wait inside the store until my scheduled shift arrived."

"Oh, gross, don't do that," Augustus supplies immediately, and then forces herself to course-correct, head twitching to the side. "Or, I mean, you could, like it is allowed, but you don't have to. My lunch break just started, so you can just sit with me instead."

The Changeling turns its head just enough to stare at her from the corners of its eyes. "Obviously," it says, and its tone broadcasts the implicit 'Idiot' so clearly that even Augustus can hear it. The whole thing makes her feel unbearably fond, though the feeling sits guiltily in her throat.

Her eyes blink hard — once, twice, three times. "Do you want some saltines?" she asks, swallowing back the emotion so she doesn't have to think about it. She shifts her legs so that they will not go numb underneath her, and holds the sleeve of crackers out in offering.

"Yes," Changeling answers, accepting them. It adjusts its seating position as well, bracing its weight against the center console to cross its legs in the limited space of the passenger seat, reaching back to make sure the tail clipped to its belt-loop doesn't get caught under its boots. Augustus' car is not very big, so she supposes it is a good thing they both like to sit very folded up anyway — at least it's an easier fit.

She still kind of wishes they could both be home and sitting on the Changeling's couch instead. Alas, they both have a three hour shift to look forward to before that becomes an option.

"I had forgotten how disgusting your car is," the Changeling is saying, clearly distracted from the saltine in its hand by the crumbs scattered inside the foot well beneath it, judging by the glare it is directing down there. "I am surprised that you do not have ants."

"Oh, I do," Augustus laughs, head twitching to the side as she points down at the gear shift where an ant is scuttling around over the center console as they speak. The majority of the debris has congregated there due to how Augustus typically sits when she eats here alone most days. It's like a cut-away gag in a cartoon, she thinks as Changeling redirects its glare to the tiny arthropod. (She pointedly does not think about it any deeper than this.)

"Gross," Changeling says. It very obviously takes a moment to examine the saltines for any similar insects. It doesn't have to worry, though — Augustus has gotten quite skilled at keeping them separate.

She shrugs. "There's not a lot of them," she offers, blinking hard. The consonants come out of her mouth softer than they might normally, but that is what the Changeling has earned for being so easy to let her guard down around. Augustus doesn't even feel the need to repeat herself with the proper enunciation — even at her most inarticulate, the Changeling has always seemingly been able to understand her. The thought settles very warm in her chest, and so she halts the train of it before it can go further, and watches the ant scamper off between two pieces of plastic paneling. She imagines it getting lost inside of the engine and getting burned up when she turns on the ignition — it's a little bit sad.

"Do you not vacuum?" Changeling demands.

"Yes, every Thursday." It's one of her chores, even though she has to use headphones to get through it right. "But that's inside; not in my car."

"Why not?"

Augustus readjusts her legs again, head twitching to the side. She finishes the rest of her sandwich and this time, she does delay speaking in order to chew and swallow. She had not been prepared to have a conversation about the state of her car; she typically does not even prefer to think about it most days — it's too difficult.

"I just don't like to," she admits finally, her tongue catching thickly in her mouth. Her hands feel stiff and ugly in her lap, and she shakes them out anxiously. She does not want Changeling to ask why again, she realizes, eyes blinking hard as she shifts her gaze out of the side window to one of the bushes outside, its leaves full of bees. If it does, then she will have to admit that she does not know why, and then if it asks her again, she will be forced to explain that it is easier to just ignore the mess and make sure the ants do not make it into her food than it is to figure out why she does not know why she cannot just force herself to do the task despite her undefined reluctance. It is too hard to think about why vacuuming the car outside is scarier than vacuuming the rooms inside.

(Augustus's emotions are always too big to look at directly. Even just trying to see and understand them is unbearably overwhelming, so it is better to just pretend they are not there at all. Better for her and for everyone else; nothing good comes from emotions that big, she knows this. And if the ignoring just makes things harder than they are supposed to be, then, well, not looking is basically the same thing as not noticing, right? So it is fine.)

Augustus knows that it's stupid to not just be able to do it — her dad tells her so all the time. She will not really mind if Changeling also wants to tell her it's dumb, but if it just asks Why, then Augustus will be forced to keep thinking about it just to still not be able to come up with an answer.

It is disgustingly uncomfortable, but the notion of admitting this to ask Changeling not to ask is even worse.

But Changeling is not asking. When Augustus clenches her hands into fists and risks looking back at her friend to see what it is doing, it puffs its body up in an exaggerated pantomime of irritation. The process is kind of fascinating to watch how each adjustment is made with deliberate intention — brows furrowed, shoulders up, arms crossed, mouth pulled down. She imagines its ears flicking forward as well. "Fine," it says, heavy on a sigh. Augustus blinks. "In this case, you should park in the driveway when you drive me home tonight. I suppose I will have to vacuum it for you."

Augustus' chest tightens, her whole body stiffening with emotion. She is so taken aback by this declaration that her mouth actually hangs open, as if she were some kind of cartoon character. "Really?" she asks, and is so distracted by the sensations in her body that for once, she hardly even notices how terribly the consonants smear in her mouth.

People never just offer to help. They get ask why, and then get mad when Augustus says she does not know why, and only maybe they will acquiesce once the conversation has caused enough stress to induce a meltdown. Maybe. Mostly instead, Augustus is forced to find the words to ask, and then continue to ask since she is typically ignored the first time, by people who presume that the resistance will somehow manifest an ability in Augustus to perform the impossible. No one ever just offers. She does not have a script for this.

"Do not read into this," Changeling instruct firmly. It is still puffed up in exaggerated irritation, but Augustus' brain imagines its tail wagging despite its best attempts to stop it. "This is a favor primarily to myself, to spare me the psychic damage I can feel myself sustaining with each passing moment."

Augustus takes a very deep breath and expels it, trying very hard to relax her body before she loses control over it. She stops thinking about anything other than the bees outside, the way they buzz clumsily around one another in confused, rhythmic patterns. "Thank you, Changeling," she says, and knows her tone comes out too soft for how her friend's scowl deepens, but she can still see how its humans ears have flushed a very dark red. There is an impulse to touch, to push, to explain, but Augustus knows that it is better to both of them to refrain from doing so. The emotions are simply too big; if she looks at them for too long, the dam will break, and that is no good. So instead she says, "Maybe then I'll remember to take the trash in the back out as well, for once."

This is a safer topic to think about — there is no mystery there. That truly is as simple as Augustus forgetting about the task, since the trash bag sits in the back seat, where Augustus cannot see it to remember to take it out when she returns home from work at night. She usually only thinks about it during lunch when she is throwing things away, and then forgets to write it down since her car doesn't have any post-it notes in it, and then forgets to think about it again until her next lunch break. This is also stupid, of course, but at least it is not overwhelming.

As intended, this new revelation catches the Changeling off-guard. It drops its irritated affect in favor of turning to survey the grocery bag on the verge of overflowing in the foot well behind it with a heated, "Jesus Christ."

The tension breaks, and Augustus falls back against her side window in a fit of giggles. It feels good in one of those hazy, undefinable ways she only really feels around the Changeling — settled into her body and very nearly comfortable there. For a moment, she even forgets to feel guilty about it.

Isn't that something?