Taco times

Lil, teeth freshly brushed, deodorant reapplied, had finally settled on wearing her comfy grey tee with the zombie cupcake over a longsleeve black t and blackjeans she already had on. She figured it didn't count as 'dolling up' if she was having to get half redressed anyway. When the headlights flashed into the driveway, she gave her dad quick hug and assurances that she wouldn't be out late and would call if necessary, and mde a quick escpae out to the driveway.

Once she made it out into the driveway though, the nerves hit. No matter how much she told herself that it was stupid, they didn't seem to be going away. A year ago - or even less than that - she would never had given credit to the idea that someone might find her interesting enough to ask out on a date, even a casual random one. That part of her wasn't gone, and it was screaning now hat this was a joke, or a mistake, and that she should just turn right around and head back inside rather than take the risk that the situation might be anything like what it seemed.


One foot in front of the other got her to the car door, which she managed to open without too much fumbling. If squeezing into the seat was a little awkward, she just reassured herself of what she told Addie, that if he wanted to get to know her, he could get to know that she was not at all times a graceful creature.

She gave him a look over, not quite ignoring her mistrustful instincts, but try at least to take them with a heavy dose of salt. "So," she said after what felt like an eternity but was probably just a reasonable normal pause, "Senor Sam's?"

"Oh, man, I haven't been to Senor Sam's in ages," Den said with a slight laugh. He was wearing a faded red hoodie and had a smudge of eyeliner around his blue eyes - apparently having gone to at least a little effort with his makeup. "I was thinking Milagros, it's way less shitty. But, uh," he added, glancing over at Lil, "if you want, Senor Sam's is okay."

Lil blinked. "Well, fuck. No one told me less shitty was an option!"

"Less shitty is definitely an option," Den said, backing out of the driveway. The streetlight glinted off the silver ring in his lip as he turned onto the street. "Nothing but the best for us. I mean, the best for under twenty bucks, anyway. Let's not go nuts."

"Well," Lil said dryly, "Not on the first date, anyway." Did she sound too suspicious? She probably did. She didn't think he was making fun of her, and she was pretty alert to that kind of thing, but it was hard to lower her guard. "So, uh, where is this place?"

"Near campus, on Siskiyou," he said. "Practically across the street from Senor Sam's actually. Probably the owners have a deadly rivalry."

"What! Noooo, that's not fair, it's been there the whole time!? I've been lied to!"

Lil shook her head, and then smirked. "Man I was right, you totally do graduate to better tacos!"

Den laughed. "I guess so, yeah. It was a proud moment when I walked across the stage with my tortilla mortarboard."

Lil snickered. "What, and the principal passed you a chimichanga?"

"Yeah, it was really fucking hot too," Den said, relieved that he hadn't made himself look like a total dork - or if he had, that at least that seemed to not bother Lil too much. "Burned like a son of a bitch."

He pulled into the restaurant's parking lot, finding a space near the door. It didn't seem too busy, and they were able to get a table without difficulties. "So, yeah, the tacos are really good," he said, barely glancing at the menu as though he'd been here a million times. "I like the carne asada best, but they're all decent."

"Man..." Lil looked over the menu, feeling strangely nostalgic for Redding. "My people! I knew Ashland had to have hippytacos. Now to see if they are *good* hippytacos...."

Once they'd ordered their food, a moment of silence stretched out. Den looked at Lil as if he was trying to decide what to say. "So... what do you like to do when you're not summoning ghosts or slaying the undead or whatever?"

"Uh." 'what's it to you' was probably not a reasonable answer to the question, consider the entire premise of this date. That she was on. With Den, who was looking a little awkward as she stared at him suspiciously across the table. "Look, sorry, this whole concept of 'someone is legit interested in hearing answers to these questions' thing is not a usually part of my world. I do art. I write things. I dabble in music, I study magic things and and I fuck around on the internet like any normal teenage girl."

Lil's eyes went wide and she grimaced in terror. "Fuck, that's not what I meant! Not actually fucking around - Just like - tumblr and shit!"

Not convinced that was any better, not certain how to proceed without making things worse, Lil settles into one of her standard dour glares.

Den stifled a laugh, and nodded. "No, I got it, it's cool. I'm not trying to freak you out or anything. We can go back to talking about the wacky magic shit if that's easier. That's pretty amazing too."

Lil's eyes narrowed at the last bit, but she let it slide for now. She shrugged after a brief pause. "Well... I was gonna say - fuck, you grew up here, how can you not have seen any of this shit before! But I guess there was some crazy shit happening last year that had things more stirred up than before, maybe. I dunno. Like, from my perspective Ashland has always been fucked up."

"I grew up in a funeral home," Den pointed out. "My perspective on what's fucked up might be kind of fucked up."

"Well, fair, I guess... I bet you must have seen some pretty weird shit, even if it was just ...normal weird."

"I guess you could say that," he agreed. "My parents used to hide the Christmas gifts in caskets. Empty ones, at least. And we always got those little fancy finger sandwiches in our lunch when there were leftovers." He paused, growing a bit more serious. "But then, like, people do messed up shit at funerals sometimes too. Emotions running high and all that. Fighting with their relatives, trying to pull the body out of the coffin, a suicide attempt once. We kids always had to stay upstairs and be super quiet during the funerals, or we'd get in shit. But we could hear when something went out of the ordinary. Once, they found out the casket was defective when they were lifting it into the hearse to drive to the cemetery and the body fell out through the bottom right on the steps. My mom slammed the doors to keep everyone inside until they could sort it out."

Lil grinned as Den recited the anecdotes. "Well, at least it didn't get up and try to run away. That they told you, anyway."

"Not that I know of. At least, until recently." He gave her a curious look. "You said you think this kind of stuff has always happened here - but it must be more lately, right? Or people would have known."

"I think so, yeah. There was this whole thing with fairies, and this guy who used to control the are who wanted to take it back. But now he's really gone and there is kind of a power vacuum - that's the short version." Lil made a face. "But like - fuck - how many people still haven't noticed anything? Plenty. Some of that is people who know shit just keeping their mouths shut, though."

The conversation paused for a moment as the waitress dropped off a bowl of chips and guacamole.  Den didn't waste any time digging in, but as soon as the waitress was out of earshot, he continued.


"You said fairies? I'm gonna guess you don't mean like Tinkerbell."

"Welll..." Lil shrugged, thinking of their little fan club. Someone had left a 'Q' in the pocked of one of her hoodies just the day before. "There's all kinds, I guess. But this was more like Old School Grimm Brothers stuff. Or maybe like the Shakespeare ones, only more badass."