Bugger All [Lilly]

It was a good thing the Junction Museum of Science operated on free entry, otherwise Lucian’s plans for the day might not have worked out.

The President stood silently in front of a display case showcasing a rare mineral retrieved from some exotic planet Junction had long since added to its list of explored worlds. There were other people present, but this particular exhibition hall was one of the least populated of the museum. Understandably so, to be completely frank; rare or not, these rocks were no diamonds.

He checked the watch on his wrist; she should be arriving soon. Lucian had sent Lilly a text asking her to meet him at this location. The mineral exhibition hall was connected directly to the entry of the museum, so Lilly was unlikely to get lost or interrupted on her way here.

Lilly, Lilly, Lilly. Out of all of his teammates and subsequent allies, she was the one he was the least familiar with. Much like Cassiel, he’d really only recruited her due to their cooperation in the Fungeon, but at least he’d met with Cassiel before that happened; they still didn’t know each other in detail at all, but at least he knew something about him. All he knew about Lilly even now, however, was that she was shy, gentle, and somewhat cowardly. In fact, Lucian had picked up on something about her; bugs and insects freaked her out more than anything else.

Today was going to be a productive and Lilly-focused day for Lucian… if she decided to show up, that is. This little experiment was in part thought up as an excuse to get to know the young Jurnill, as was important for every efficient team, but it also had a second purpose; one that she’d be finding out soon enough.

“Hm?” The sound of gentle coughing caught Lucian’s attention, prompting him to look towards the source of the noise. “Ah, Lilly! Just the girl I was waiting for.” He returned the Jurnil’s smile as he approached her, his hands buried in the pockets of his coat. “I’ve been doing well so far, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry for summoning you so suddenly. I tried to contact you yesterday, but I was swamped with business and never got the chance.” By which of course he meant to say that he’d completely forgotten until he’d already gone to bed, at which point he couldn’t be bothered to get out of it and reach for his phone. “I hope you didn’t put anything important aside to be here, because honestly I feel like I made it sound more like an urgent matter than the friendly outing request it actually was.”

“It’s occurred to me, Lilly…” He began. “…that out of our entire team you’re the only one I don’t really know. Alice is my own daughter, James is my best friend, Cassiel and I are… acquainted to a degree, but I’ve never really met with you outside of seeker business. Well, unless you count the Fungeon incident as non-seeker business. So, for the sake of both the team and myself, I wanted to get know you a little better. I hope that’s fine with you.”

“Though… I notice you’re a little more distraught than usual.” Lucian was very quick to get a grasp on what kind of relation he had to other people, and after the events of the Permanence mission, he realized that though they knew very little about each other, Lilly had some degree of trust in him. “Is something wrong?"

"H-honestly, if anything I'm glad it wasn't for something urgent. Just a nice peaceful day out is kinda appreciated."

Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng.

And just like that, Lucian had already hit a stone wall. His original plan for the day was taking Lilly to the giant insect showcase to show Lilly that there was nothing to be afraid of and maybe help her come one step closer to overcoming her primal fear of them, but her tone of voice spoke a million-word essay about why doing that to her right now was a terrible, terrible idea. Lucian looked over his shoulder concernedly, taking a quick thoughtful look at the plaque on the other side of the hall that read “Giant Insect Showcase” with an arrow pointing to a hallway to the left, but…

“Sorry about being so specific with the meeting point. I just wanted to admire the mineral exhibit before we met up.” He lied, looking back at Lilly. “We could look at some exhibits together, or we could just grab something to eat at the cafeteria by the entrance. Your choice.” Of course, they could always just go do something else entirely, seeing as Lucian’s discipline had broken down entirely at the thought of stressing Lilly out even more. Normally this wouldn’t happen with the most pure-looking of children, but Lucian could only assume Lilly’s puppy-like anatomy messed with his orbitofrontal cortex. Dopamine be damned. “My treat on the latter, of course.”

"Alrighty then. Museum then food it is." He hurriedly concluded that part of the conversation so as to not risk giving away his original intentions for any longer. "Though I'd ask you to decide on what we should look at first. Science museums have always been too large for me to properly decide on what I want to see, so one that's collected data from across the multiverse is going to be a nightmare for me." Not entirely false, but it was mostly just Lucian trying to shift the burden of choice upon Lilly since ha hadn't planned this far ahead down this specific turn of events. "Either that or we could take a guided tour."

“Sure, that sounds good.” Lucian agreed before walking back through the hallway he came from, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to make sure Lilly was following him. Eventually, the pair made their way to the entrance, where Lucian spoke to the nearest available tour guide, beginning the most time-consuming activity of that afternoon.


A couple of hours later, and the duo had finally finished their tour and were now sitting at a table in the cafeteria. It was a good thing the museum was so incomprehensibly packed with displays that they had to split tours up into subjects, since otherwise the two would have had to see the insect section either way.

As Lucian sipped on apple cider and looked around, the thoughts he had about whatever it is they were discussing over lunch dissipated to make way for a brand new question: one he felt he might be able to use to rectify his earlier inconstancy, if he was lucky.

“Hey, Lilly?” Lucian asked, straightening himself. “Tell me about your homeworld.”