Blath Gardens Apartments
New York City, New York
March 6th, 2024

“Hey..” Lucy spoke into the phone as it sat, pressed between her shoulder and her ear while she fumbled with the keys and unlocked the door to the apartment.

“I take it ye made it safe then, Lass.” Rogan’s voice came from the other end of the line as Lucy stepped through the threshold and turned the lights on. And then she saw it. The tape. The tape she’d found that day when Seb and her were grabbing a few things from his storage unit. Lucy had brought it back to the apartment and there it sat when she went back to Alabama.

She stopped when she saw it and wondered again if she should take a look at what’s on it. Part of her couldn’t stop the curiosity, however, the other part of her couldn’t believe she practically stole it from Seb’s storage, and wondered if she shouldn’t just give it back and forget the damn thing ever existed.

But… She just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Lucy?”

Lucy gasped, having forgotten that she was on the phone with Rogan when she’d walked in. “I-I’m still here. Just.. Just getting through the door. What were you saying?”

“I was just saying…again, that I’m still not sure I understand why ye had to go back to New York so early.”

Another thing Lucy wasn’t entirely sure of either. But she certainly couldn’t tell Rogan it was because of some tape that had his name on it and her obsession over the contents of said tape.

Lucy sighed. “I just wanted to.. I don’t know. Seb and I haven’t seen a whole lot of each other and I’d hate for us to lose our momentum, especially since we’re facing Ala–”

“Let me just stop ya right there, Lassy.” Rogan interjected, his voice sounding slightly less thrilled than it had just a few moments before, “I’m all for you and ye best friend getting together and makin sure you’re on the same page. Alan is no joke, I know. I just, I feel like there’s somethin more goin on and.. You’d tell me if there was, wouldn’t ya?”

“Rogan.. I guess I’ve just missed being in New York. We’ve barely been here since we opened the bar… Which I completely understand, don’t get me wrong. I just miss our life here sometimes too.”

Lucy took another glance at the tape sitting on the table in the living room. She moved across the room and sat down, grabbing it and reading the label over and over as she heard Rogan sigh on the other end of the line.

“You had to have known it would take a lot of our time when you…” his voice trailed off as Lucy read Rogans name on that tape for basically the millionth time.

“I know.”

“Then I’m not sure what you wanna–”

“Nothing. You’re right, I knew what it meant when I did this. It’s fine. And there’s nothing wrong with me wanting to spend a little extra time in New York either.” Lucy didn’t mean for her words to come out as pointed and snippy as they did, but regardless – she immediately noticed an increase in tension radiating from the other end of the line.

“Nothin wrong with that at all, Lucy.” Rogan replied quietly, “I best be gettin to the bar, got things to do before openin.”

“Okay, yeah, um.. I guess I’ll talk to you–” Before she could finish the sentence, she heard a click and then nothing. “Rogan? Rogan? Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me…”

Lucy hung the phone up and tossed it down onto the table, shaking her head in disbelief. She couldn’t believe he’d hung up on her like that. Rogan had never… She rolled her eyes and shook her head, her gaze once again settling on the tape that she held.

She felt drawn to it.

Like even though how she came about obtaining it was wrong, and dishonest – she couldn’t just give it back without knowing. That seemed even more wrong than everything that led to where she was in the moment.

So she reached out and grabbed her phone back off the table, momentarily staring at the picture of herself and Rogan that she’d saved as the background before unlocking the phone and typing a few things into it and holding the phone up to her ear.

“Hi, I was just wondering.. You don’t happen to sell VHS players, do you?”

 

Blath Gardens Apartments
New York City, New York
March 7th, 2024

“There’s no guarantee it’ll work and no refunds if you can’t figure it out… blah blah.” Lucy mumbled to herself as she sat in front of the television in the living room – mimicking the woman she’d met earlier in the day at the thrift store. Yeah, she went in there to buy a VHS player. Yeah, she knew it was ancient technology. She didn’t need some over the hill, judgmental ass woman looking at her like she was crazy for needing a tape player.

She couldn’t have been the first person in 2024 to have a VHS tape to watch.

Seb had the tape. Logic would dictate to Lucy that Seb had tried to watch it at one point. Why else would he still have had it? So that makes at least two of them.

Right?

Lucy shook her head as she did her best to plug the outdated player up to her newly outdated TV. These days, what isn’t outdated? Either way, she rose back to her feet, satisfied that she’d given the tape the best chance she could to work and moments later, she inserted the tape into the player and pressed ‘play’.

She could hear her heart beating out of her chest as she slid back on the floor and stared at the empty screen for a few seconds…

A few seconds became a minute.

A minute became a few minutes.

So she did what any normal person would do, she got up on her knees and moved closer to the television, nearly pressing her nose to the screen, looking for any sign of, well, anything.

Blackness stared back at her.

A wave of frustration rushed over her and she pressed ‘rewind’ on the player, hoping to hear the tape doing just that, but she was even more irritated to hear the click of a tape that was already at the beginning.

“I played the damn thing for almost ten minutes…” She mused to herself, wondering why the tape hadn’t needed to be rewound at all. So she ejected the tape from the player and looked at it, for what… She didn’t know.

“Fucking thing…” She muttered, shoving the tape back into the player and pressing play again. “Come on, come on… Come the fuck on…”

It couldn’t be a blank tape.

That didn’t make any sense to Lucy. Something told her it wasn’t, and as crazy as it felt, she knew there was something there.

Play.

…

…

…

…

And it’s there she sat, as seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours… Lucy just sat there, staring at a blank screen – anxious for the moment that it came to life. Anxious for the moment that she finds out what the tape means…

 

Blath Gardens Apartments
New York City, New York
March 9th, 2024

“Ridiculous.” Sebastian Everett Bryce sighed to himself as he stood, arms crossed, on the elevator that led to Lucy’s apartment. His BFF slash partner had told him that she’d be in New York early this week and that they should spend a day, or a few together doing BFF things.

Of course Seb accepted her invitation, what kind of partner would he be if he didn’t?

However, as he got back to New York and promptly texted Lucy to find out what she wanted to do – he was met with radio silence. Nothing. Not even a set of three bouncing dots came up to tell him she was drafting any kind of response. Seb knew Lucy well enough to know that that wasn’t like her.

That was, unless something was very seriously wrong with his BFF.

So Seb did what Seb does, he rode across town and made his way into and through the strange building that she and Rogan resided in. Momentary worry crossed his mind as he awaited the elevator’s arrival on Lucy’s floor. What if something else from her past had found her? What if things weren’t quite as good as Lucy had led him to believe they were?

The opening of the elevator doors startled Seb, but he quickly shook those terribly negative thoughts out of his head as he took a deep breath and stepped off of the elevator and made his way down the hall towards her apartment.

He stopped at the door and pressed his ear to it, hoping to hear any signs of life from within – but when he heard nothing, his heart rate began to accelerate once more and he knocked a few times at the door.

And then he knocked a few times more.

He knocked a bit harder and leaned towards the door. “Lucy? Are you in there?”

It was then, and only then did he hear the first signs that someone was indeed inside the apartment. Whatever was happening, it was muffled and he’d heard a few doors slamming and then footsteps as they rushed towards where he was standing.

“Who is it?” He heard Lucy’s voice from the other side of the door and Sebastian couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Your BFF, BFF.” He replied, crossing his arms over his chest just in time for Lucy to open the door and peer out at him from behind the door. Seb was shocked. “What in the world…”

Lucy sighed and pulled the door open the rest of the way, allowing Seb access. But Seb was more concerned at what he saw when he looked at his best friend. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed for days, her eyes had the darkest bags he’d ever seen under them, and while she always looked like she lived from thrift shop to thrift shop – she was currently taking dumpster chic to a whole new level.

“I’m sorry, Seb. I must have lost track of time…”

Seb’s eyes widened. “Are you quite sure you didn’t lose track of a bit more than that?”

“What do you mean….” Lucy looked confused as she moved away from Seb, grabbing her phone off the table and glancing down at the date before she let out a groan. “Oh my God…”

And now Seb looked even more confused than Lucy had.

“What exactly do you mean, ‘Oh my God’?”

His question fell on mostly deaf ears as Lucy took off towards the far end of the room, towards a mirror and took a glance at herself, to which she gasped. She left the room, leaving Seb to his own devices for at least ten minutes, if not more, and just when Seb was beginning to wonder whether or not he should leave, Lucy came back out looking a lot more put together than she had. Her hair had been brushed and smoothed down, she was wearing a much more presentable outfit and it was pretty obvious she’d caked a shit ton of make up over the bags under her eyes.

Seb opened his mouth to ask her if she was okay, but before he could begin, Lucy interrupted. “So, you wanna grab a drink or two BFF?”

 

Mr. Purple Bar and Lounge
New York City, New York
March 9th, 2024

“Okay, out with it.” Seb said finally, glancing over at Lucy as she stood – leaning against the glass half wall, the only thing separating them from a forty story drop to the pavement below. He could tell she was deep in thought about something, even if she looked like an empty vessel to everyone else as she stared at the skyline, her hair moving about in the soft breeze. “Lucy, what is going on for heaven’s sake.”

She took a short look over at Seb before letting out a sigh and taking a sip of her drink. “Rogan and I… We had a disagreement earlier.”

Seb leaned forward, relieved to have finally gotten something out of Lucy, even if it didn’t do anything to help him fully understand. “…Earlier today?”

At first, Lucy nodded her head – Stopping and pulling her phone out. “Yeah, I talked to him….and…” Her voice faded away as she scrolled and when she stopped, she absent-mindedly showed Seb the screen, displaying her most recent phone call with Rogan. “See? And I–”

“Lucy, this was from three days ago.”

Lucy pulled the phone back and took a second look at it and shook her head. “Jesus Christ. Three days…”

Now Seb was feeling a little concerned. “You mean to tell me that you don’t know where three days went, BFF?”

Lucy shrugged her shoulders, but through what could have been seen as indifference, Seb could see a bit of pink rise to her cheeks. “I.. I guess so. Wow.”

“Was it that bad? What happened?” Seb didn’t mean to press, but it must have been some argument for Lucy to lose three entire days and not even realize it.

“I just.. He didn’t understand why I wanted to come back here so early, and that upset me, because I knew opening the bar would take us away from here, but I guess I didn’t really realize how much. And I told him, I told him I missed it here and I just wanted to spend some extra time here and he hung up on me.” Lucy was tempted to mention that she’d felt the pull to come back here since she’d brought that tape back home with her – but she’d stopped herself.

She wanted to keep that part to herself, especially since the more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d sat there in the living room for three days, watching a blank television screen.

And it made her wonder if she’d missed something.

Maybe she dozed off and she missed whatever was actually on the tape.

“I..” Seb wasn’t really sure what to say, but instead he moved closer and laid a reassuring hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “These things happen, BFF. I’m sure you two can figure this out. You should call him.”

Lucy nodded her head. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

She downed the rest of her drink and before she motioned for another, she thought, momentarily, that she needed to head back to the apartment, to make sure that she didn’t miss something on that tape.

But before she could say something, Seb motioned to the waitress for another round.

“It’ll be okay, Luce.” Seb said, patting Lucy’s arm as the next round of drinks were delivered. “But are you going to be good for Monday?”

“Monday?” Lucy questioned at first, but quickly she remembered what Seb was referring to. “Oh, Alan? Yeah, Yeah.. I’m good to go. You don’t gotta worry about me. It’s about time we get Alan all to ourselves, huh?”

Seb chuckled. “It cannot be that simple. It never is with him.”

“It never is around here in general. I’ll be shocked if it does actually end up being him versus us. I’m not holding out much hope though.” Lucy took another drink and shook her head. “It would be fun though.”

“Right you are, BFF. But I’d much rather be able to focus on our next Cooperative challengers. This.. it feels like an opportunity to throw a wrench into the machine that is the Empire of Calamity. Our Creative director knows we both wouldn’t deny another shot at Alan and the world championship – and what better way for one of us to assert ourselves as a front runner than this opportunity.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “You really believe Deimos would… Nevermind. You’re right. He totally would pull something like this after what he just did a few weeks ago.”

The both of them let out a sigh. “However, we don’t have to worry about such trivial things, do we BFF?”

Seb’s question lingered in the air a bit longer than Seb would have liked before Lucy turned to him with a smile. “Absolutely not. I’m all in on this team. We’re not dense enough to let Alan come between us, especially after Travis Pierce tried to get between us. We’re better than that.”

“We’re better than all of them.” Seb replied smugly as he watched Lucy closely. He wondered if more was going on than Lucy was letting on, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask and help the powers that be with that wedge they’re trying to shove between them.

If Lucy wanted to talk about it, she would.

Until then, Seb hoped she’d hold it together enough to get through this week. One step at a time.