ellectrical | (no subject)

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She's done this enough that she knows where to look in X's kitchen without having to ask. It's been about fifteen minutes she started, and various vegetables are scattered across the counters, one steel pot already on the stove. A look into the latter would indicate she's making soup, though it's not as simple as the kind X likes to order, nor is it coming out of can, the way Elle would normally choose.

At the moment, she's standing aside from the stove, using a large knife to slice up carrots across a cutting board. Elle's careful about it, the knife hitting the board at even and precise intervals.

(This really isn't her favorite part of cooking.)

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X looks up at Elle, head tilting every so slightly.

Her hands do not stop in their task, though. She's good.

"I am."

Beat.

"I do not know if everyone else is okay. On my team. But I am."

She hesitates.

"You are okay, too?"

She nods, finishing with the celery and tipping it in as well. The knife is set aside, and she takes the wooden spoon she'd left on the pot and begins to stir instead.

"It's nice."

Beat.

"Right now."

X finishes peeling the potatoes and starts in on slicing them.

Carefully.

She's still fast, though.

"It will change?"

Beat.

"When you reach your destination."

She gives another small shrug.

"I don't think it'll be the same."

X hesitates, pushing away a small pile of potato and starting in on a new one.

"You are worried?"

Her eyes snap to X, but after a pause, she shakes her head.

"I don't know."

After a still longer pause, "I know it'll happen. But it's not - right now."

"Okay," X says, nodding once.

She leans forward to dump some of the potatoes into the pot, too.

"There are other things I should ask?"

"No."

Elle looks back down to the pot, shaking her head again. She sets aside the spoon and moves back over to the counter.

"You're fine."

"Okay."

X tries hard not to sound tentative.

She succeeds, too. Mostly.

But when she stands up to throw away the potato peels, she bumps up against Elle's shoulder.

Just a little.

She returns the movement, slightly, as she reaches for an onion and places it on the cutting board instead.

(She's not so careful in how she slices this up.)

If it stings her eyes, she doesn't show much reaction. She slices it up far more finely than she did the others, taking first one half before moving to the other.

It's as she reaches the other half that she says, without looking up and with no particular note of inflection.

"I had sex."

X looks over at Elle, turning away from the trash can.

"Oh."

Beat.

"You wanted to?"

That seems to be the most important question, to X's way of thinking.

"Yeah."

That's simple enough. Though after a pause she adds, "That's why I did it."

"Okay," X says, nodding once.

"That is good."

Beat.

"You liked it?"

She's curious, a little.

"It was better than before."

She tips the rest of the onion in.

"Yes."

"Oh."

X absorbs Elle's answer.

"That is good."

She pauses by the oven to check on the bread. It is a finicky oven, on occasion. She has had practice.

She hesitates over the pot again, stirring its contents with the spoon. For a while, she doesn't say anything.

"One of them tried to - have a date with me."

Beat. "First."

X tilts her head very slightly, studying Elle for a second.

"Tried."

Beat.

"He was not very good at it?"

Elle doesn't look up.

"I wasn't."

X is silent for a second.

"You wanted to be?"

She sets aside the spoon, her eyes still down.

"I don't know if that matters."

X's expression goes blank.

"I do not understand."

This is not a lie. At all.

Elle stays silent for another moment, staring down at the stove.

"It's not just about - wanting things."

She abruptly looks up again, taking a step away from the stove.

"Sometimes you just can't."

"I know," X says, a little quietly.

"But sometimes there are other things."

Beat.

"It is not ineffective."

Not all the time, anyway.

Elle doesn't answer, but also doesn't look away.

Maybe now she's the one who doesn't understand.

X can try to explain, but she has never been very good with words.

"Other people do not always mind. That we are different."

At least in her experience. They're just --

Harder to find. A little.