Xaviers!

"Shit... Would they have been if I gave you the extra money?"

"Believe me, you don't want to see what Brylcreem does to a moped helmet."

"Well fuck...

We'll get those first." She laughed.

"Use your magic box to get us to a sports store, co-pilot?" She asked Vic.

Victor fished his phone out of his coat pocket and tapped on the screen for a few moments.

"There's like... three motorcycle shops within ten miles of us, well two shops and a clothing store. The closest one's about five miles away in... Witham? And the clothing one is 8 miles away in... Chelmsford? Christ, for the country that invented English they didn't do a good job of applying it to town names."

"Witham sounds the more hilariously stuffy and better bet. The clothing shop might be secondhand and you don't want a secondhand helmet if you can afford a new one. Secondhand might be broken. Let's go there." She decided. She didn't think the likelihood of being stopped by a cop between here and there was high, and if it did happen, she thought she could talk her way out of it.

"Yeah, plus that place is a proper motorcycle shop. The might be willing to give your ignition trouble a courtesy glance over if we're spending money on helmets." Victor had one shoe on the footrest, the other still on the ground as he hooked his hands into the little not-seatbelt again.

"Good thinkin'.

Hold on!"

Emilie replied, starting the moped up and heading off in the direction of the bike shop.

Victor did just that, calling out what turns to take during the ride as he checked his phone every few minutes.

Emilie was great at following directions. And they made it to the bike shop without an issue.

Most garages would take a look over a vehicle for cheap to free if hopes the repairs the diagnostic tests done would find something wrong that the owner would then have fixed on the spot, but such was not so in this instance - nothing was wrong with the bike at all beyond its age.

But while they determined that, Emilie spent time figuring out what helmet to get.

Popping up from behind a display, helmeted Emilie proclaimed - " Hello. My name is Tony Stark and I'm an alcoholic. " -in a distorted voice towards Victor.

Victor turned around with a bit of the start, the boy more interested in some of the retro designs than anything newer and more threatening, especially if it involved goggles.

"Jesus, I bet he gets a percentage or licensing fee for that too. Though I'm kinda surprised you're not goin' full pickelhaube. I thought you were punk."

"Hey man, I never said I was buying this one." She said through the distortion.

"And part of being punk is doing things that society doesn't expect of you. Duh." The Auto-tune was making her even harder to take seriously than normal.

"Wait! This is you!" She proclaimed, grabbing one off the shelf and holding it up for him.

Victor turned it over, looking to see if it was actually something road-legal to wear.

"I dunno how the fuzz would feel about the eye holes, but I guess with a fin like this I wouldn't be driving. At least, you wouldn't want to be sitting behind me."

"We'll letcha practice on school grounds so nobody bitches about it. That way it won't matter.

And once I'm gone you'll get plenty of drive time."

Victor was about to try the thing on but stopped when it was about half way on his head.

"You're... planning on leaving?"

Emilie's shoulders slumped a bit as her voice got soft.

"I never plan on leaving Victor. It just happens. It's better to think of how my shit's going to get handled after I am gone."

Victor moved a little closer, so that they might not be so easily overheard.

"I don't want you to live your life like that Emilie. No one should have to, no matter the circumstances. I could be the one who gets hit by a bus tomorrow, or we could live for another 80 years when our bodies fall apart. I can't imagine how many lifetimes you've lived but I'd think you'd learn by now none of us are here forever, so we gotta enjoy the time we've got. Fuck the mess left behind, that's tomorrow's problem."

Emilie slowly removed her Iron-Man helmet so that what she was about to say wasn't distorted and loud AF. not everyone needed to hear her end of the discussion.

She seemed upset now, mostly she was upset by what she had to tell him, but she didn't think it would be a good time to put it off.

"I won't be growing old with you Victor. Even if I was here till you were eighty, I wouldn't be eighty in the same way. You'd just get older and older and I'd be just as I am right now.

I've watched you from a young man to the cusp of middle aged, and the whole while I stayed exactly the same. I can use make up to hide it or different, older looking clothes. Even undergarments that make me look different... but it's just cover up and the subterfuge only brings me into my late twenties at best.

And that's the problem I guess. I *am* here forever..."

Victor listened to Emilie in quiet contemplation, taking a few moments before he spoke.

"Well, I suppose then that it's lucky that looking young for our age runs in the family. Though I suppose I'll have to start moisturizing now. And earning some money, because when you have a fat wallet no one questions having a younger woman on your arm." A poor attempt at humour, but an attempt none-the-less. He turned the helmet over in his hands before he spoke again.

"So... forever-forever? What... changed?"

Emilie fought a sideways grin at the idea of Victor becoming a sugar daddy.

"No, I mean I am alive forever. Not 'here' here."

"Well, for all you know so's everyone else. Maybe the rest of us just forget our memories and start from square one the next universe over, and for some reason you don't and start a good fifteen years in. Energy can't be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed and whatnot. I dunno, I never took Physics. At least this time around."

"I look older than fifteen." She said, giving him a weird look and seemingly focusing on the wrong part of that concept.

"And while I might not look it, I've got enough years under my belt to know better than to agree with you."

Victor put the helmet on just in case.

"But not old enough to know that no grown ass woman wants to be called jailbait either."She smirked wryly.

"So you gettin' that one or we still lookin' ?"

"We'll keep this in the maybe pile for now?" Victor's voice was muffled. "What about you, you set to be Tony Snark?"

"Nah. Was once, but it didn't work out." Emilie said, putting back the helmet and going back to browsing.

"It's just as well. That thing probably cost more than your bike. Did you name it yet?"

"Nope. Can't name a thing till you know who it is." Emilie replied. "I dunno them well enough yet."

"Y'know, the school probably has some gear for their... sports teams. We could always snag a couple of those for free and get you a wicked jacket or somethin' instead."

"You gotta have bike ones. Anyways then we'd have to go home first then Chelmsford. Fuck that. We'll find something..."

---------
Emilie finally found one she liked though it was likely a bit cool for the bike in question.

Turned out the mod hadn't lied, the bike was fine. Emilie would pay for both the helmets as they left.

Victor had found the hood ornament helmet to be a bit out of his budget (or rather what he was comfortable letting Emilie pay for), and had opted for something a little more traditional. The fact that it involved goggles had nothing to do with his choice. It did help him look more the part at least.

With the bike having been giving the thumbs up mechanically, Emilie paid the people and hopped on the little scooter and announced - "To Chelmsford! And tacos!"

Two wheels, a tank full of petrol, and cheap bad food; sometimes life was pretty good. "Very well then Jeeves, let us depart."

Emilie started off in the direction of the city, taking them down some nice country roads just for the shits and giggles of it. She wasn't starving, and why not take in some countryside while they went?

The backroads were definitely bumpier than she intended on the moped, but... meh. Fuck it.

Victor grew up on a farm on a rural country road; he was used to a bumpy ride. At least it wasn't a bench seat in a pickup truck without a seatbelt on. So long as they didn't bust a shock absorber he was fine.

The trip was pretty enough, and by the time the two of them got there, Emilie had worked up an appetite.

"I'mma eat every fucking taco in this place." She stated through her helmet as she turned off the bike engine.

Victor put his goggles up, not bothering to take his helmet off yet as he was more concerned with getting off of the bike without tipping it over, even if it made him look like a bobblehead.

"Y'know what I haven't had in forever? A potato, sour cream, and cheese burrito. I wonder if they make those here."

Emilie pulled her helmet off and shook her hair around to get it roughly into the proper spot, spitting some out of her mouth.

"Dude, like.... Why not just have a baked potato and keep the tortilla out of it? Why you gotta implicate it in this?" She jokes.

"Hey, it's burritos. You feel like you can eat four, you get four different kinds. Also I can't eat a baked potato with my hands because I'm no longer 2."

Victor hopped up the steps and opened the door for Emilie, because Canadian.

"Oh, so you don't wanna adult yer food and want a good excuse to not have to." She laughed and let him open it for her without a fuss.

"If we weren't meant to eat with our hands God wouldn't have given us fingers." Sound logic that. Victor took some time to stare at the menu, as he didn't want to get to the cash and do a lot of "um" and "ah"ing.