Xaviers!

But it's too late, Shari is already reading it, having clicked through to it from the email.

"Huh. Is this... Oh. Oh! Well that's just... I mean... okay then!" she laughs. Not mean-spirited or even aimed at Alex, really, but it's the kind of laugh that makes insecure people feel it's at their expense. "That's certainly... creative, Alex!"

Alex snatched for her phone, silently cursing her obsession with writing explicit erotica.

Spider-Torch OTP.

"Shut up!" Alex hisses. "Why would you even read that?"

"I dunno. For the same reason you write it, I guess?" she winks, although she let's Alex take her phone back.

Alex grips her phone tightly. "Really don't think that's true," she mumbles.

"Oh come on, don't be embarrassed about something you enjoy. And you sure shouldn't risk breaking your phone over it." she adds, reaching over the table to poke Alex's clenched hands before she accidentally does the same thing to the phone that she did to her fork.

"Oh, gosh!" Alex says. She drops her phone and it clatters on the table.

"...You really don't think it's weird?"

"I mean, a little? But everyone's kinda weird, ya know. Now if you send it to them, that'd be weird. Or hilarious, depending on why you did it."

Alex smiles, "Yeah. That'd be...really, really embarassing? Probably."

"It'd be funny! You just gotta picture their faces as they read it. Which I know you can cause you got a pretty active imagination!" she says with a laugh.

Alex blushes again, "I just like to write. It's more of a...writing exercise?"

"That's cool. Everyone needs a hobby. At least that's what people keep saying?" she says, sounding oddly confused by the notion, as if she's literally just parroting something she's heard.

"You don't have any hobbies?" Alex asks.

"Not really, no. I dunno, never got a chance to, I guess?"

"Well, what do you do then?" Alex asks.

"Well, till I got here I spend most of my time trying to find a place to sleep and get enough food in my stomach." she says, almost comically patting her belly. "I guess you could count travelling as a hobby!"

"You've traveled a lot?" Alex asks, sounding interested.

"Yup! Been all over the place in Europe. Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany..." she starts rattling off countries, eyes rolled upwards as she recollects her journey. "Finland and Sweden were cool, really pretty landscape but way too cold, so I headed south. Plenty of places to hide on a Ferry, by the way. Poland was cool, met lots of Mutants on the road there. Most of them headed for Russia but after Finland that sounded way to frozen hellscape for me. That's where I got my jacket. Traded a bunch of food and a swiss army knife for it from a guy who'd grown all kinds of spikes and couldn't really fit it anymore. Spend a bunch of time in Berlin after that. Lots of communities of people trying to make do there."

"Oh my gosh, you're amazing!" Alex says.

"You probably wouldn't say that if you'd seen me before I had a chance to take a shower here for once." she chuckles. "But yeah, if you're willing to occasionally eat out of a trashcan then you too can tour Europe on a budget."

"Well, I think it's impressive at least," Alex says. "I've never been anywhere. Except here and back home."

"Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?"

"I guess so," Alex says. She smiles. "I've always wanted to just...go out there. Get away."

"Maybe this is my chance."

"I don't really know any different, but it's nice to just go wherever you want and do whatever you feel like. Showers are pretty nice though and the beds here are amazing!" she chuckles.

"I haven't really gotten the chance to try them out yet," Alex says obliviously.

Shari can't help but laugh at that. "Man, your mind's in the gutter more than you let on."

Alex blushes again. "No, it's not. I just meant...sleeping. Not...that!"

"Relax, I'm just messing with ya. If you really wanna go out there you might need to develop some thicker fur. Like so." she says and slowly sprouts thick black fur, pushing out from underneath her clothes as it rolls down her arms. Nevermind that that's not really how the saying goes.

"Oh, neat!" Alex says. "I'll bet that keeps you warm at night."

"Mostly! Winter's still pretty tough in some places, but it's pretty cozy, especially inside." she chuckles.

"Do you sleep outside a lot?" Alex asks.

"Yeah. There's not a lot of room in the shelters, usually and better I sleep outside when I at least got this..." she says, holding up her arms and shaking the fur, "...then some poor soul who's maybe got a jacket and a buncha cardboard."

"That sounds kind of rough," Alex says.

"It's not so bad. At least I'm not tied down like all those schmucks who sleep in their own home, right?" she grins.

"Right," Alex says. She doesn't sound very convinced.

"It's all I know." she shrugs. "It's really not that bad. Although having a room and a bed and showers is pretty cool."

"What happened to your....people? Parents?" Alex asks. "That's probably a really insensitive question. Sorry."

"Beats me." she shrugs. "I don't really remember that much. Like, I know my name and that I woke up with one hell of a headache under a bridge in Helsinki. Which is kinda weird cause I don't speak a word of Finnish. Well, I do know, cause it doesn't take that long to learn 'Got some change?' in a buncha languages. But you get the idea."

"That is weird," Alex agrees. "You only spoke English?"

"Yup! First I thought maybe it was an accident, then maybe some kinda elaborate trip to get rid of me. Either way I figure my parents are either dead or assholes." she muses almost casually as she counts the two options off on her fingers.

"Or looking for you," Alex says. "The world's a big place! Maybe... they're just lost?"