Supernatural Taxes

14) We've got to stop meeting like this, people will talk

Atla sneezed atop her favourite tree near the green houses at amsterdam university. Sleeping here might be impossible after all without a jacket.

Still, she wouldn't go home either at this point out of principle... Atla squinted at the greenhouse below her, there was something wrong with it. She dropped down to investigate and found a missing stake pegging down one of the back corners of the greenhouse's canvas-mesh-cover-thing.

Haunting these ground long enough to be able to notice that difference was probably some kind of warning sign but right now Atla was just happy for warm Thanos free shelter.

She crawled through the opening. Inside was dark and humid but most importantly warm. The plants were kept in long trough-type structures that were arranged in rows. At far end of the greenhouse burned some lamps giving one trough of plants 24/7 light.

It would be bad if she forgot which part of the greenhouse cover was loose so she rolled under the nearest trough, wrinkled her nose at the smell of fertiliser and fell asleep using her arm as a pillow.

She'd leave tomorrow's problems to her future self.

•••

Around midnight a light blinked on outside the loose flap and a masked figure crawled through the web of nets, holding their phone in front of them for illumination. The intruder smiled at how lax their security was, they'd only had to remove the stake earlier in the day and return in the dead of night.

At this rate they would steal the plant with ease, they hadn't even met the ghost of Amsterdam-U, a hooded figure said to roam the campus after hours that only communicated in huffs and groans.

The thief was in, their target was somewhere in this greenhouse so there was no choice but to search each row of troughs one by one. Before starting they took a deep breath breath of that comforting earthy smell, but that made them sneeze three times in rapid succession, fricking allergies.

"—Mmmmrrrrrm?"

The thief's neck cricked at the speed at which their head turned to the raspberry bush in front of them. They peered at it suspiciously, laughed off their nervousness and turned keep searching.

—A hand grasped their ankle.

"Ah. A-a-a-a —Gaaaaaaaaah!" The thief kicked the hand away and retreived their pepper spray, screaming all the while, drowning out groans of pain

"Sh-sh-show yourself, fiend! Don't try any funny business, I'm armed."

•••

Atla extricated herself from under the raspberry bush, still groaning, why couldn't her day just end? She held her hands up in surrender at the weirdo who'd kicked her awake and was pointing pepper spray at her. Between the tips of ears showing behind the bandana face mask and the familiar scream she managed a tired deduction, "Nora?"

The elf opened her eyes, "Eh, Atla?" She coughed and deepened her voice, "—I mean, who's Nora, err, Cactus Girl?" She began backing away, wrong move.

Atla stepped in, forcefully relieved her of her pepper spray and caught her in a rear wrist lock, "Oh don't you dare," Atla whispered behind her ear. "I've had it up to here with Cactus Girl bullshit today, you aren't just going to kick me awake call me Cactus Girl and leave. What are you doing here?"

"I'm breaking and entering, the mask should make that obvious, what about you? Why were you sleeping under the raspberries?" She struggled vainly in the hold, trying to turn to look at Atla, "Also, please let me go, or do you want to hand me over to campus security."

•••

"So the commotion today was you again huh?" Atla had given her a condensed version of the incident with Piet and getting fired from work.