Stay With Me

Evey came home a few days later, her eyes casted down to the 27" LCD screen of her camera after placing her bags in the hallway, knowing that Shakey would be kind enough to take them upstairs later. She smiled at some of the picutres, remembering the small moments before looking up and seeing Lexy sit backwards on the couch with her eyes full of tears.

"You're back?"

"Seems like it yeah," Evey shrugged, "should I leave again?" Evey pointed at the door and then started to walk backwards when Lexy came closer, her lower lip trembling. Before Evey knew it, she was holding her camera above her head so it wouldn't get damaged when Lexy threw herself around her neck in a bonebreaking hug.

"I missed you."

"I missed you too," Evey relaxed in the hug and kissed the top of Lexy's head, "but I was only gone for a few days, you can't have missed me that much."

"Jolyne made me do horrible stuff! Horrible stuff I tell you!"

"Don't tell me you actually had to do something!" Evey asked afronted.

"I had to do chores! Can you believe it?"

"Yes I can actually..."

Jolyne came out of the kitchen and looked up at Evey, immediately seeing that the girl had lost some weight during her trip and that she clearly had lacked the time to sleep. She sighed in disappointment and then retreated back into the kitchen, her mind fixed on getting some food into Evey's stomach so she could gain all the weight back in no time. Evey saw Jolyne move back into the kitchen and immediately realized what she was going to do.

"Jojo, I'm not hungry!" she yelled towards the kitchen, pushing Lexy off her for a moment and handing her the camera, telling her to be careful with it.

"Well you're going to eat anyway!" Jolyne yelled back.

Evey sighed and looked at Lexy from over her shoulder. The younger girl was staring at the picture Evey had last viewed, one of the daughters of the band had joined them during the photoshoot and Evey had taken the advantage to take some nice pictures of the girl.

"Who's this?"

"Blythe."

"As in...?"

"Yeah, that Blythe," Evey grinned, "seriously, that kid is so damn adorable, and Tim is a great father really."

"You had to go all the way to the Netherlands to shoot Rise Against? What in the name?"

"They're on European tour and I've contacted their manager before to ask him if we could arrange a shoot, so he did while they were so close."

"They're skipping Belgium?"

"This time they are yeah," Evey said sadly, "at least I managed to see them live and get some great shots of that concert."

"Free ticket?"

"More like staying backstage with Blythe and then just taking pictures from the side stage," Evey nodded grinning.

“So you were basically the babysit?”

“The kid took a liking to me yes, but I wasn’t her babysitter,” Evey corrected, “she tried to help me as much as she could, telling people to move and even took a few pictures herself of her father.”

“With your camera?” Lexy asked, not entirely convinced.

“Yes, but I helped her of course.”

“Why is a 5 year old kid allowed to touch that thing if even I’m not?”

“Because this is Blythe McIlrath we’re talking about,” Evey nodded before putting her camera back in the bag that hung around her right shoulder. Lexy pouted and sat down on the couch, ignoring Evey who sighed and shook her head.

“Evey, come and eat something will you?”

“Coming,” she sighed again and slouched over to the kitchen, knowing that it might take a while before Lexy got out of her pouting stage.
__

“I am Iron Man, fear me,” Evey faked a metallic voice and raised her right hand to Jolyne’s face, “pow pow pow!”

The girl grinned and turned back to walk further down the store, Jolyne chuckled at her enthusiasm over the Iron Man doll they had found earlier but ever since they had, Evey had been quoting one of the three lines the doll had programmed. And even though it was rather adorable to see, and funny when people looked strange at the girl and she just didn’t care, it did get annoying after a while. But she wasn’t going to say that to Evey, who seemed to have a lot of fun saying the line over and over again, trying out new hand positions every time she said it.

“You should’ve bought the doll, and then it could’ve been saying it for you.”

“It was too expensive,” Evey pouted, “I’m trying to watch my movie. Besides, let’s try to find you some awesome goggles and me that gay cowboy movie okay?”

“Oh yes, what was it’s name again?”

“Brokeback Mountain,” Evey nodded, “gay cowboys who go fishing together but don’t end up fishing but doing other stuff.”

“And why do you want it so badly? Except the gayness of it?”

“It has Heathus Christ, and even though I’m not such a big fan of him, he does make up for the whole plot of two gay cowboys fishing together.”

“Right…”

“Again, I am Iron Man,” Evey faked the metallic voice again and squinted her eyes at Jolyne, making her feel like she was looking through the eyelids of the real Iron Man mask, “pow pow pow!”

“And still I wonder why you didn’t buy that toy gun,” Jolyne sighed, “at least then you would’ve had a real weapon or something.”

“Oh please, you didn’t want one so I would’ve been left alone with it, and where’s the fun in that?”

“Well it was fun in the store,” Jolyne tried to keep back a smile but failed, “you’re a good actress.”

“You shot me!”

“You’re overreacting, you’re perfectly fine.”

“I am now, because I’m Iron Man!” Evey made the fitting sounds again and ran ahead of Jolyne who sighed and kept up her current pace, knowing that the girl would end up running back anyway in fear that she might have lost Jolyne along the way. She was just so predictable.

“It’s sad how Lexy didn’t want to come,” Evey sighed sadly when she reached Jolyne again after a few minutes. Jolyne grinned at her friend, proving her theory right. Evey looked weird t her for a moment and then jus tsighed again, putting her hands in her pockets and kicking an imaginary rock.

“Well we both can’t hep it, she had things to do.”

“But, what things?”

“I don’t know,” Jolyne shrugged, “but she’s missing a great time.”

“Yeah she is,” Evey nodded, “let’s go to the toy store again!”

“So you can once again stare at the doll?”

“Not only for that, I want to feel young again! Toy stores do that to me.”

“Fine,” Jolyne sighed, “but we’re going to eat a good burger afterwards.”

“Deal!”
_

“Ar matey! I got you now!” Jolyne poked her head aside to look into the isle of the toy store, in her hands a toy gun that was still wrapped but useable anyway.

“No you don’t! Iron Man always wins!” Evey’s voice came from behind her. Jolyne quickly turned around and shot at the girl multiple times.

Evey looked shocked at the attack and let her own toy gun fall on the floor before looking down to her chest with her mouth open. Jolyne smirked and shot again a few times, making Evey stumble back and actually encourage Jolyne to keep on shooting with her eyes. A few more shots later, Evey dropped herself down to the floor and played dead for a few seconds before shooting up into a sitting position, barking with laughter.

“That was fun!”

“You lost!”

“But to a worthy opponent!” Evey mocked bowed to Jolyne and picked up her toy gun again, trying to remember where she had gotten it from. Jolyne smiled at the girl who put the gun back and turned to her, her mood a lot brighter than the night before. Somehow, Evey had gotten another weird bout of feelings that ended up in her wanting to be alone, much to the annoyance of Lexy who had been particularly clingy that evening. It had only resulted in the two girls fighting before going to bed and Jolyne waking up in the morning to find Evey sleeping on the couch.

“You can stop pretending now,” Jolyne sighed, “let’s go and eat a burger now.”

“I’m hungry,” Evey nodded, resting her head on Jolyne’s shoulder and smiling up at her. Jolyne didn’t respond anymore and just kept on walking, letting Evey catch up herself after she had realized that her lean point had disappeared and she had almost fallen again.

It didn’t take long for them to find their way to the food court where Jolyne ordered a cheese burger while Evey immediately ordered some fries and a normal burger to go with the order. Jolyne looked at the girl for a moment with a disapproving look in her eyes before just accepting the girl was hungry.

“If I end up spraying all over you with salt, it’s the hyperness alright?”

“No, it’s you who clearly wants to be slapped.”

Evey didn’t answer to that and instead grabbed a few of the salt packs and placed them on the plate prepared for them. It took rather long in both girl’s opinion for their order to get there. When it finally did, they quickly hurried to a table and sat down, digging in their food seconds later. Evey grinned, starting with her burger and laughing when Jolyne grumbled that she was still hungry after one burger. Claiming she should’ve ordered two instead.

“Why didn’t you?”

“The girl might’ve looked at me rather weirdly, I did not want that.”

“Pft, pish posh.”

Ripping open one of the salt packets, Evey grinned and dropped half of it’s contest on her fries before smirking evil at Jolyne and ending up spraying the left over salt over the girl. Jolyne giggled and glared at the same time, something which Evey thought to be impossible. Thankfully, because of the table between them, Jolyne was incapable of hitting the girl, who then noted that she herself was also sprayed with salt by her own fault.

“You fail at life you know that?”

“No, I don’t, you do, you lost at the free demo’s of the video games we tried out, that makes your life more fail than mine.”

“I don’t think so,” Jolyne frowned, thinking about it before shrugging and staaling some fries from Evey’s plate. Evey didn’t say anything to this, afraid that she might get slapped for this anyway. They quickly finished their meal and before they knew it, they were back at the shopping mall, that was still swarmed with people.

“I wonder what the police is doing here.”

“I have no idea,” Jolyne frowned, looking at the cops passing by them.

“Maybe I should go up to them and go ‘I am Iron man, how can I be of your assistance?’ and have them tell me.”

“I don’t think they will honey.”

“Fine, then I’ll go up to them and be all ‘I am Pepper Pots and work under Tony Stark himself at Stark Industries. I demand to know what’s going on here’ and hope that they swallow it.”

“They’re police officers, they’ll know that you’re lying.”

“Well you never know,” Evey pouted.

“I do, now let’s go and do our groceries and then go home.”

“Good idea,” Evey yawned, “I’m getting tired.”

“You’re always tired.”

“It’s your lumpy couch’s fault that I’m tired today, don’t you always blame my anemia!”

“The couch isn’t lumpy!”

“Yes it is!”

“Stop whining will you?”

“Sorry ma’am, won’t do it again ma’am.”

“Good.”