fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes, Sunday

Alluka had not actually realized anything was weird about the weekend. After all, she'd had a perfectly normal Saturday, which had involved a tea party with a bunch of toys and snacks and had left her room only to run to the bathroom.

Today, she left it to go to work. She did it on her ATs, since Ringo had told her she ought to practice more. And she brought a bag with her, to hold her bunny, and a whole bunch of things for the stereo.

"I brought you presents!" she announced to the stereo, once she'd gotten safely to work and turned the lights on and remembered to flip the sign to open. "I'll show you and you can pick which ones you like the best. Oh! What music do you want to play today?"

It took a while for it to answer, but Alluka was used to waiting, when it finally did make a choice, it was something upbeat that she'd never heard before. Nonetheless, Alluka was enthusiastic about it. "Great choice!" she said happily, pulling up a stool to the speakers and reaching into her bag. "Now, you're really pretty already, but I thought you'd like to change your look up a bit, so I brought you a bunch of stickers! I'll show you them, so tell me when you really like one, okay?"

She also had ribbons, and a set of playing cards so she could show the stereo a game later, so that it wouldn't get bored as easily. (It had to be boring being all alone most of the time; Alluka knew that feeling.)

Groovy Tunes is Open!

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Alluka giggled.

"Did, did that make sense, Ringo?" She wasn't sure if it did. "But I'll ask you."

Ringo giggled along with her. "You know, I don't know if it did. But maybe it makes enough sense to try, at least."

"Hey, when is your shift over?" Ringo smiled lazily. "I mean, I'm cool to hang out with you as long as you want, but the weather outside is great, and it'd be a shame not to get at least some AT time in."

"Soon," Alluka said, though she wasn't all that sure of it. Papa wouldn't mind if she snuck out early though, right? "Is it, is it okay if we go after my shift?"

"Of course!" Ringo waved easily. "I'm not in a hurry at all."

"Just don't want to forget to do that, too. Since, you know, you and I might not have a chance to do it later. Even if you and, um, me," the other one, "have tons of chances."

Alluka reached for her sheet of stickers. If they were going to leave soon, then she wanted to put a few more on the stereo first.

"It's okay, Ringo," Alluka said, "because even if we can't do it now, we'll do it in your future too, won't we?"

Ringo's smile saddened. "Not in a long while now, sadly."

Her fault, if she was honest. Sure, they couldn't really ride in Tokyo, but it wasn't like she couldn't go see Alluka and ride there.

Alluka looked up from peeling the rainbow sticker off.

"But why not, Ringo?"

"Things kind of got complicated back home. No one's supposed to have ATs anymore, so it's a lot trickier to ride."

"Well, that's silly," Alluka said, nodding her head. "ATs are fun."

"That's what I tried to tell everyone." She remembered those days. The TV appearances, testifying before the Diet. Years of public debate and policy arguments. And in the end, it hadn't mattered.

"But sometimes people let their fear make decisions for them."

She sighed.

Alluka consulted the stereo before placing the sticker on it.

"What's so scary about ATs?"

Thinking back, Ringo realized that this might be a tricky concept for Alluka, but she wasn't about to talk down to her friend, even an old version of that friend.

"You know how some things can be dangerous depending on who has them? Like, you know, weapons? Guns and knives and stuff? If bad people have them, they can be scary."

Alluka frowned as she thought about that. She didn't think weapons were scary. Daddy had said they were just tools and no one was scared of a screwdriver, were they?

But Ringo seemed like she really wanted her to understand so Alluka nodded. "Right," she said. "Because they hurt people."

That still didn't entirely sound like a con to her, especially regarding weapons, but... she was trying.

"They can. And sometimes people get scared of things that might happen. So they try to do what they can to make it harder for the things they're scared of."

Ringo smiled sadly. "So they try to get rid of whatever scares them, even if it won't really make them much safer."

Alluka shook her head. It didn't really make sense to her.

"What are they scared of with ATs?" she wondered.

"Well, if someone knows what they're doing, they can hurt other people pretty badly with a pair of ATs."

To be fair. That was true of quite a few things.

"But even a CD has sharp edges," Alluka said, tilting her her head confusedly. "Are you not allowed CDs either?"

"That's true," Ringo agreed. "Just about anything can be dangerous in the right hands. But some things are easier to be dangerous with than others, and those are the things that most people focus on."

"I don't know," Alluka said dubiously. "I think CDs are more dangerous than ATs when looked at that way."

The people in Ringo's world were all silly. Clearly.

"Most people can't use a CD to open those giant gates at your parents' place," Ringo pointed out, still remembering that little adventure so many years ago.

Wait, that had already happened, right?

"I guess so," Alluka said, though she'd never seen anyone try to open those gates with a CD either.

Someone in her world probably could, not that Alluka knew that.

"But I can't make ATs do that either."

"I can, though." Probably even more easily now that she'd had time to perfect some techniques. "And that's what scares people. Not everyone can be scary with ATs, but some people can be really scary with ATs."

Ringo sighed. "And they want to think that by just keeping anyone from having ATs, they'll be safe." As if there weren't other dangers in the world.

Alluka stuck another sticker on the stereo and then peeled a star off thoughtfully and offered it to Ringo.

"Does that mean you're not allowed to use them?"

"Well, I'm not supposed to." Ringo smiled. "Think that'd stop me?"

She leaned in to peer at the stereo, holding the sticker up to it without actually placing it. "Do you think this is a good spot?"

Alluka cocked her head as she listened to the stereo.

"Yes," she said, after a moment. "It'll be nice there. And no, I don't think you'd stop. That'd be boring."

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