[Founders] - Hunger

It’s hot, mid-summer, and even though the sun had gone down several hours ago, the air was still residually warm and humid. It was sticky heat, something that the Founder family (all except for June) tended to complain about endlessly when they weren’t coddled in Air Conditioned rooms.
They’d all been called down to Washington for some Skaianet meeting, one that even Joel was fuzzy on the details for. The flights had been nice, private jets and first-class for those who didn’t have the schedule to travel together, and the motel they were all staying at was likewise ‘nice’ in a non-offensive, fine-for-temporary-housing kind of way.

Remy was in clothes she normally wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, some simple pink-and-purple floral cotton pajama pants with a black sleeveless tank and a white-rose housecoat draped over her shoulders like a cape but tied at the waist. She was just outside her room, numbered 306, bare elbows leaning on a still-warm bannister as she puffed on a cigarillo. Its smoke smelled faintly of cherries.
	Likewise restless in the twilight of the evening was one Dawn Strider, who had been pent up in her room all day due to a late flight and a bad mood. She’d initially emerged from her room, 301, to go to the vending machine on the ground floor but had realized that there was someone standing in her way. This realization came too late to change her path.

“Oh, well, look who’s actually alive,” Remy said in her playful monotone, something Dawn was *fairly* apt at picking up. She seemed to be better at reading Remy’s tone than the majority of the other Founders. It was an interesting, if not mundane, superpower.
	“Against all odds. My flight was delayed so long I thought I’d die of old age at bag check.” Dawn replies back, likewise in a playful monotone. It made Remy’s dark lips hint at a smile. Dawn would take that as a win.

“What are you up to?”

	“Hungry, didn’t feel like spending money on delivery.” The shorter blonde comes to rest on the bannister beside Remy, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder but not wanting to impose or close the distance. Remy herself did, tilting her hip so that her shoulder rested against Dawn’s. The plush of her housecoat was warmer than the sticky air. Dawn didn’t complain, despite desperately wanting to.

“No? But you’re going to, what, spend five dollars on a bag of chips and a can of coke?”

“You’re wrong,” Dawn replies flatly. It raises Remy’s eyebrow and, after a directed exhale of cherry smoke, she turns her face back towards the Strider.


“Oh?”

“Pepsi. Coke is for sycophants.”

Remy laughs. _That was an even bigger win._

“Fair. You’ll rot your teeth either way, though.”

“You’re not in a position to be giving me a lecture in the middle of smoking, *mom*.” It was a joke that Dawn wasn’t sure went too far or not and so she anxiously, and from behind the fringe of her bangs, watched Remy from the corner of her eye. Remy only shrugged, tapping the ash from the tip of her cigarillo down over the side of the railing and towards the leaf-filled pool below.

“Is that what we’re doing, now? If that’s the case, I have some leftovers in my room that you’re welcome to swipe, *daughter*, to make sure you’re actually eating. What’ve you had today? Airplane peanuts?” If Dawn wounded Remy, she couldn’t tell. Maybe that was for the better.
	Remy stood up straight in a slow, stiff way that made her seem like she was in her late 30’s rather than barely 19. She shrugged her housecoat over her bare shoulders, turning the piercing Lavender of her eyes to meet the deep Amber of Dawn’s. “I’m heading back in. You’re welcome to join me if you want, we could have a Girl’s Night.” The offer was presented in the same disinterested flat as the majority of what Remy said. It was hard not to feel intimidated. Dawn was definitely struggling with that.

“Yeah, no, I think I’m gonna pass.” Dawn stood up too, stretching her arms above her head. “I was kind of dead-set on some Doritos and a can of Pepsi, raincheck?”

Remy gave a nod before she brought her hand to her mouth, dampened the pads of her thumb and forefinger against her tongue, and pinched the end of her cigarillo out in a hissing snuff and a *reactionless* fluid movement that gave Dawn confusing thoughts that she would really rather not dissect or acknowledge. “Suit yourself. Door’s unlocked if you change your mind, I might be in the bath when you come in but just make yourself comfortable and I’ll come join you after. I’ve splurged for a few Pay-per-view Movies, The Cabin in the Woods is queued up to go in about an hour.”
	And with that, Remy vanished back into her Room and the door clicked closed behind her, leaving Dawn in the wake of her expensive perfume and the burnt cherry tobacco. Dawn took a moment to gather herself, to look down at the last whispers of orange-and-pink sunset reflecting on the derelict motel pool, and to clear her head before she continued out towards the twisting stairwell down to the ground floor.

Hopefully nobody else was standing outside their rooms. Dawn wasn’t sure if she could handle another confrontation before she had her Pepsi.