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solalunar-eclipse · 1 year

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Replay/Rewind/Restart

Chapter title: Ah, the Cache. Truly the most tsundere of Addisons.

AO3 Link

Getty | Cache

Summary: One fateful day, Cache stumbles across a Lightner who's found herself terribly lost and a long way from home. Neither of them could have predicted what happened next.

(Mild warning for lots of swearing from Cache)

Cache sighed tiredly, pulling on their denim jacket at the end of another long day’s work. It was their turn to close up the shop today, and they did so with practiced ease. As always, they saved the best part until last: checking on all of their pets one more time to make sure all was well.

They patted the aquarium screensaver fondly and gave the Tamagopets a brief once-over, making sure all of the little ones were present and accounted for. The blue birds had been slightly quieter as of late—Cache inspected them carefully, running through possible illnesses in their head. They’d have to have a word with Pixel about their diet tomorrow. The birds had been relatively picky as of late, and while Cache was willing to indulge them to some extent, they were not about to let any of their pets get themselves sick.

Next, they gave a bit of extra food to some of their more care-intensive pets, including the (mildly glitchy) purple primate-looking creature and the dog-cow hybrid they’d rescued off the street one day. On the other hand, they simply shot the Tasque kittens a flat look, muttering, “If I find out either of you little shits are getting up to no good, I will mark down your price, you hear?”

…the kittens didn’t need to know that they’d never actually do that.

Satisfied that all of their pets would be well for the night, they stepped outside and flipped the sign on the door to read Closed. Quickly, they locked the door, and then walked off, searching for some way to kill time. They had hours until they’d be expected at the Cyber Grille, after all, and…not many people to spend those hours with. Their cousin was busy most of the time, and Pixel wasn’t exactly up for socializing after working hard in the store all day.

The mint-colored Addison resigned themself to wandering the streets until they stumbled upon something interesting, brushing a few strands of hair out of their face to get a better look at their surroundings.

Most people, upon meeting Cache’s eyes, quickly looked away. Some even increased their pace a little bit—after all, they had built a pretty well-known reputation over the years for not taking shit from anyone. Only those who didn’t know them well were brave enough to look back or attempt a polite nod.

After a few minutes, Cache found themself in front of Pink’s store, and breezed in with their customary smirk already in place. “I’ll have the usual, Pink. To-go.” they said simply, earning a raised eyebrow in return.

“Oh, I see how it is.” he replied, casting a glance to the ceiling even as he turned to his shelf of tea flavors. “No ‘Hello, Pink’, or a ‘How are you doing, Pink’. Not even an ‘It’s nice to see you, Pink’! What is the world coming to these days?” Despite the Addison’s protests, he began to brew Cache their usual tea, pulling out a to-go cup and sliding a pale pink cardboard ring around it.

They leaned on the counter casually, clearly unbothered. “C’mon, Pink, you know me better than that. ‘Sides, I’ve got places to go, people to see, y’know?”

Pink scoffed lightly, handing over their tea. “I know for a fact that Getty is too busy for you to visit him right now, and I’ve never seen you come in here with anyone else besides him. Who is it that you’re planning on seeing, hm?”

Cache’s expression tightened abruptly, and they gripped their drink so forcefully that the cup nearly crumpled. “Yeah, yeah, fuck you too. See you around.” they muttered, stalking out of the store irritably.

Sure, they might not know many people, but Pink had no right to point it out like that! They weren’t some loser without any friends—they knew other people besides just their cousin!

Remembering the tea in their hand, they took a long swig of the drink as though it were liquor, hoping it’d ease the discomfort they felt. It didn’t help as much as they’d have liked, though. Getty was a great person, and they loved him dearly, but he didn’t exactly have a forceful personality. There was only so much his tea could do to cut through their frustration.

Before they knew it, the drink was all gone, and they eyed the cup in their hand with something approaching disappointment as they tossed it into the nearest trash can. They didn’t feel like they were going to explode at any moment anymore, but their afternoon had still been soured by Pink’s comment.

As they reached a street corner, they heard a massive clamor coming from down the road to their right, and looked over to see what was going on. A whole swarm of Addisons were clustered on the sidewalk, all talking with overlapping sales pitches and eager gesticulations, assaulting Cache’s eyes with a riot of color and sound.

They were just about to jaywalk across the street, already rolling their eyes at the eagerness of the other Addisons, when they saw just who the group’s target was.

A Lightner practically cowered in the midst of the group, their eyes darting about in distress as they struggled to cope with the situation escalating around them. They were fumbling in their bag, clearly helpless against the onslaught of salespeople so much more insistent and demanding than anything they’d expected, and—

—for the briefest of seconds, Cache remembered a much younger mint-colored Addison, stressed as could be, just trying to do things right and keep their head above water and Mr. Spamton, sir, please, if you’ll only give me just a moment—

“HEY!” they roared, storming down the street and shoving their way into the crowd. “Back the fuck off, assholes! Give them some goddamn room to breathe!”

The Lightner’s eyes met theirs, gratitude written all over their face. Some of the other Addisons hadn’t gotten the message just yet, though, opting to offer discounts instead, and so they whirled around, keeping themself in between the human and the other advertisers. “What part of ‘fuck off’ do you not understand?!” Cache snapped, fixing the others with the full force of their angry glare.

“I was just about to offer an extra-special deal—” one of them protested, and Cache practically felt you tense up behind them.

“No, you fuckin’ weren’t. You were about to leave. Capiche?” the mint-colored Addison growled, their hands curling into fists. They almost wished they’d brought security along with them. Almost.

Thankfully, that seemed to be enough for the remaining few to get the message, and they dispersed quickly.

Once the last of the salespeople had left, they turned back to you, frowning. “Why the hell didn’t you stick up for yourself? You know they’re not gonna leave you alone unless you tell them to, right?”

You shrank away from them, eyes wide and frightened. “I’m sorry—I really didn’t know—!” you said quickly, taking a small step backwards.

Damn, you were nearly as skittish as some of the poorly-treated pets they’d had to care for over the years. They backed up, settling into a slightly less confrontational posture and letting themself slouch a little. No sense in towering over you after everything you’d just been through.

“Oh, my bad. You’re new here, are you?” they asked, using a slightly less sharp tone but neglecting to offer you a true apology. “Well then, uh, hi, I guess. I’m Cache.”

“Mm-hm!” you agreed, looking up at them nervously. “Just arrived here today, actually. And, um—” you introduced yourself in turn, and they repeated your name once, just to make sure they’d heard you right. You were quiet.

“Oh yeah!” you added suddenly. “I heard you—well, I mean—I appreciate you not assuming, but I use she/her. Just…for future reference, and all. You know.”

Cache couldn’t quite decide what expression to make at that. It’d have been an asshole move of them to assume they knew everything about you just from the way you dressed, but the fact that you’d noticed sure was…well, it was something. “Cool. Guess it’s only fair I trade you back, then—they and them only. None of that ‘he’ bullshit, ‘kay?”

You nodded quickly in agreement. With the momentary lull in conversation, something else you’d said suddenly came back to them, and Cache studied you a bit more closely.

“Damn, so you said you really just got here today? No wonder you don’t know shit about Addisons, then. Free piece of advice—give ‘em an inch, and they’ll take everything you got.” they told you, letting some of their disdain bleed into their words.

You blinked, looking confused. “But…aren’t you also an Addison?”

“Gold star for you, got it in one.” they drawled sarcastically. “I’m not like those guys, though. Not into all of that kiss-ass BS.”

“Well, thank you for all of your help, Mx. Cache!” you said politely, smiling up at them.

They grimaced. “It’s just Cache. Fuck, that makes me sound all stuffy and shit.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” you gasped, but then shyly tacked on “...Just Cache.” You gave them a little grin which vanished as soon as it had appeared.

Cache flicked their eyes up to the green grid at that, which seemed to encourage you to continue. “Um, do you…know what time it is? It seems like it’s dark all the time here, and I can’t tell if my phone is right.”

The mint-colored Addison checked their own phone and gave you the time, which you confirmed on your own device. “So it is getting kind of late, then.” you said, mostly to yourself. “I guess I’d better go find someplace to stay. Thanks again!”

“Whoa, whoa, hold it a goddamn second.” they snapped abruptly, your words registering heavily with them. “You’re telling me you’re fuckin’ homeless right now?”

“Well, until I find a hotel…I guess so?” you said, giving them a slightly bewildered look.

“Do you even have any money to get a room with?” Cache pushed, trying to ignore the mounting evidence that their protective instincts were threatening to take over.

“I…” you began, rifling through your wallet, “…have some gold? I got some other kind of money earlier from a sort of battle thing, but I had to spend almost all of that on lunch. I’m pretty sure this should be enough for a night or two at a small place somewhere…”

“Okay, okay, I don’t know what the hell gold is, but I’m assuming it’s some kind of Lightner money. You at least know what Lightners and Darkners are, right?”

You nodded. “Yeah, a nice Virovirokun explained that to me.”

“Cool. So yeah, no, that’s not gonna get you shit. We only use Dark Dollars here, so you’ll need some of that if you want yourself a hotel room.” Cache explained.

They immediately regretted it when your expression crumpled, before you made a valiant effort to cover it up and put on a brave face. Damn their soft heart. They spat several choice words internally before gearing up to do something they just knew they’d regret.

Cache heaved a deep, long sigh. “Guess it’s a good thing I’ve got money on me. C’mon, let’s go hunt you down a hotel for the night.”

They whirled around and began to stalk down the sidewalk, hearing you rush to catch up with them after a moment. “You—you really don’t have to do anything like that!” you exclaimed, sounding as though you’d literally rather sleep on the streets than accept their money. “I can’t repay you, and I’m sure you already have your own things to worry about!”

Cache shoved their hands in their pockets and shot you an irritated look. “Listen, there is no way in hell I’m letting you spend the night in some alleyway, you hear me? Don’t think you’re gonna be able to change my mind on this, because you won’t.”

Your eyes widened even further somehow, and seemed to almost shine briefly in the city lights. “Oh, oh my goodness, thank you so much! That’s so nice of you, I promise I’ll—”

“You’ll nothing.” they insisted, glowering at a point just over your left shoulder. “I just don’t wanna be the unlucky bastard who’s stuck thinking about you out in the cold all night, you hear? That’s it.”

“O-okay…” you agreed, but you didn’t sound very convinced.

Cache refused to say anything beyond clipped directions for the rest of your walk to the nearest hotel, maintaining an absolutely scorching glare at the sidewalk. They yanked open the door, but held it in place with a hand until you had a decent grip on it, pointedly ignoring the shy smile and ‘thank you’ you gave them.

“You got a vacancy?” they asked the unfortunate receptionist, a person who looked vaguely fox-like—and who also immediately quailed at the look on their face.

“Um, yes!” he said, rapidly typing a few things into his computer. “What kind of room would you like?”

“What’s cheapest?”

“We have a small room on the third floor—I have the price right here.” He summoned a screen with the information, and Cache sucked in a breath. Their movie money was going to get slashed for this.

Their reaction was nothing compared to yours, however. “Cache!” you cried. “You really don’t have to do this, I’ll be fine, I swear!”

Your protests had the exact opposite effect as intended on them, actually convincing them to open up their wallet and slap several bills down on the counter without even haggling on the price. “I’ll take it.” they said, and the receptionist fumbled to hand over the key.

Cache walked you up the two flights of stairs and to your door, shooting looks at anyone who dared to give you a second glance for being a Lightner. Hesitantly, you unlocked the room, and then just stood and stared at it for a solid minute.

“Thank you.” you finally said, your voice sounding tighter than usual. “This…means the world to me.” You didn’t look at them as you spoke.

“I’ll come back tomorrow and find you someplace decent to get breakfast, ‘kay?” they said, not actually caring what your answer would be. “‘Till then, here’s a little cash for dinner. Don’t go blowing it on stupid shit. Understand?”

“You’re a great person, you know that?” you sighed, finally stepping inside the room. “I’ll…see you tomorrow, then. And thank you. Again.” Shooting them one last smile, you closed the door.

Cache stood in front of it, staring into space for far longer than they would’ve liked to admit. Eventually, they pulled themself together enough to make their way over to the Cyber Grille, but left far earlier than usual when even the alcohol wasn’t enough to ease their tension.

Despite what they’d said earlier, they still found themself thinking about you as they tried to fall asleep.

…

True to their word, Cache knocked on your door at a decent time the next morning (they did have a job to get to, after all). “Hey! You up in there?” they called.

A moment later, you pulled open the door, shooting them a small smile. “Good morning! How are you today?”

Cache blinked, readjusting as you inadvertently dragged their conversation onto a slightly new track. “Uh…I’m fine, I guess? You?”

“Oh, I’m alright!” you said brightly, but something felt off about it. “So, where are we going?”

“Just someplace down the street. They have donuts, should be good enough for now.”

“That’s more than enough!” You paused suddenly, seeming to remember something. “Oh yeah! I didn’t spend all your money yesterday, here’s some of it back.”

Now Cache was staring at you outright. “How the—never mind, I probably don’t want to know. Keep it. I have work today and can’t get you anywhere for lunch.”

Soon enough, they’d gotten you to the bakery and picked out enough pastries for the two of you to split. As they sat down across from you at a table outside, they neglected to eat for a moment, opting to study you instead.

At first, their stare was laced with suspicion. They weren’t normally this charitable, after all, and they were starting to feel thoughts creeping up along the lines of she’s just taking advantage of you, stupid and didn't you learn your fucking lesson last time?

As they watched you, however, they began to feel more and more like their heart was being stomped on repeatedly by whatever had happened to you. You didn’t hesitate to start eating the food, but you did so mechanically and listlessly, like you were doing it because you knew you had to and not because you were enjoying it.

Once you’d finished your first pastry, you looked up in surprise, as if you’d been so consumed by your own thoughts you’d forgotten they were even there. “Oh, sorry! I’m not always the best at conversation.” you admitted sheepishly. Cache quickly tore off a piece of their own donut and ate it, hoping you wouldn’t notice that they hadn’t even touched their food.

“Nah, ‘s good.” they said around a full mouth. “Honestly, I’m kinda impressed you haven’t lost your shit yet. I mean, you’re sitting inside the fuckin’ Internet, hanging out with an Addison like ‘oh yeah this is just a regular Tuesday’.”

Your smile grew slightly bittersweet at that. “I love it here,” you insisted. “If it were up to me, I’d never leave.”

Cache frowned. That…wasn’t what they’d expected. “What do you mean, ‘if it were up to you’?”

You sighed. “I don’t know how I got here, which means I don’t know how to keep myself from going back. I sure hope I get to stay for a while longer…”

Your expression fell briefly, before you seemed to remember that you were with someone and perked right back up. Your smile was slightly strained around the edges, though, in a way that made Cache’s heart ache.

“I hardly know anything about you, though, Cache. Where do you work? Do you like it there?”

They could have just brushed off your question with a noncommittal answer, closing off any potential of getting to know you, but there was something about you that made them want to keep you around. It was so long since they’d met anyone new who had this much genuine, well…everything. And there was something wrong, too, they could feel it. Despite what they might claim, they’d never been able to ignore anyone or anything that seemed helpless and in need.

“I own a pet store, actually. I can take you there once we’re done eating, if you want.” they said, trying extremely hard to make it seem like this invitation wasn’t a big deal. “It’s not bad. The little guys normally behave themselves, and it’s not like there’s anyone else who could take over and do the job right.”

You brightened up at that, clearly excited. “What kinds of pets do you have? Can…can I pet any of them?” you asked hopefully.

“Only if they let you.” Cache said, taking another bite of donut. “And I’ll explain all the different types to you once we get there.”

Once the two of you had finished eating, you set off for Virtual Pets. The walk there wasn’t very long, and by the time they had arrived, the store was already open. “Oh yeah,” Cache added, “I told Pixel to set up the place ‘cause I’d be in late—she works for me.”

“Did I make you late for work?” You sounded far more concerned than was necessary. “I’m so sorry!”

“Hey, stop worrying so much. I’m the boss of this place. What’s Pixel gonna do, fire me?” Cache insisted, smirking. They pushed open the door, catching the attention of the other Addison in the shop. “Pixel! I brought the Lightner I told you about with me, she’s here to meet some of the pets.”

You introduced yourself politely to Pixel (but still with an air of tension about you), tacking on a “It’s so nice to meet you!” at the end.

“It’s good to meet you too, hon!” she said kindly. “Cache told me they’d met someone new, but they didn’t tell me your name or that you were a Lightner until just now.”

Cache rolled their eyes. “Well, excuse me, I was kind of busy helping pipsqueak over here find an actual bed to sleep in for the night.”

“Wh—hey, what?!” you cried, giving them a slightly incredulous look. “Pipsqueak? I’m not that small!”

The mint Addison walked back over to you, straightening their posture and invading your personal space just to make it clear exactly how much taller than you they were. “Doesn’t look that way to me.” they said smugly. Internally, though, they were pleased. It was a lot better to see you indignant than anxious and sad.

You huffed irritably, before finally noticing the pets all throughout the shop. “Aw, hello there!” you practically cooed, darting over to peek at the Tasques with a genuine smile on your face. “Oh, they’re such cute little kitties!”

Cache bit back a laugh, not wanting to make you self-conscious right away. “Yeah, you say that now, but you should see them when it’s feeding time. Those little shits are brutal.”

“I’m sure they’re just hungry!” you protested, nearly pouting.

The rest of the pet introductions went the same way, with you making a stunning variety of high-pitched noises and Cache slandering all of their pets just for the sake of being contrary. Pixel threw in a comment here or there, but she mostly stayed out of your way, clearly still a little off-kilter in the presence of a new person who wasn’t a customer.

Eventually, you had to leave, since you insisted on finding a way to earn some money so you wouldn’t be a burden to Cache. They had told you it wasn’t necessary, because the last thing they wanted to watch you do was beat yourself up about something they’d decided to do, but you had insisted.

Once you’d left, Pixel turned to Cache and smiled at them. “You really like her, huh?”

Cache immediately scowled, stalking behind the counter. “She’s okay, I guess. It’d just be a shitty thing to ignore her when she has the self-preservation instincts of a fuckin’ Tamagopet.”

“That’s nice of you, Boss.” Pixel said, picking up her broom in a poor attempt at hiding her grin.

“Shut up.” they grumbled, turning their focus to the window and decidedly not worrying about how you were doing out there all by yourself.

Dammit, they didn’t even remember to get your phone number.

…

Over the next few days, Cache kept on checking in on you, although they didn’t need to pay for all of your meals anymore. You’d been getting into small scrapes here and there, which scared the hell out of them at first, but it turned out that you were actually quite good at helping other people solve their problems. You had been quite surprised the first time an Ambyu-Lance offered you a few dark dollars for helping them replace their needle, but it turned out that the people of this city were actually quite generous with their money when they were shown some kindness.

It definitely wasn’t enough to finance most of your needs, though, let alone pay for your own place. That was why you began to actively ask around at jobs to see if they were hiring, clearly assuming that anything would be better than continuing to feel like you were being a drain on Cache’s resources.

They continued to insist otherwise, still concerned for your well-being, but even they couldn’t deny that it was difficult to pay for all of their usual expenses and keep you at that hotel. So, a few days after you’d begun job-hunting, they had suggested something new.

“Listen, shortcake…” they began, tossing out one of their many new nicknames for you. (They’d warmed up to you quite a bit, finally willing to trust the fact that you were really as nice—and as in need of someone to rely on—as you seemed. They pointedly ignored the part of them that was eager to be that person, the person they hadn’t had. They also tried very hard not to think about the fact that they were getting closer and closer to giving in and adding ‘sis’ to their list of nicknames with each passing day.)

“I was just thinking, what if you moved in with me? Then we can start saving up cash to get you a place of your own.” they said, and immediately regretted how tense they sounded. “I mean, if you wanted to. I’m cool with whatever.”

You gave them a look that suggested you absolutely knew what they’d just done, and they silently cursed the fact that you were getting better at reading them so quickly.

“You really wouldn’t mind?” you asked hopefully.

“Am I not the one who literally just asked?” Cache shot back. “What about that makes you think I mind?”

“Fair enough.” you said sheepishly. “I’d love to, thank you.”

“No shit.” they muttered, internally shouting “Fuck yeah!” and hoping none of it showed on their face. “Alright, let’s get your stuff and move you in.”

You didn’t have much in the way of personal effects, having only been in Cyber City for about a week so far. As a result, it didn’t take very long at all for you to set up camp on Cache’s couch (they were somewhat guiltily glad that you’d insisted on that, because they knew their sleep schedule would be shot to hell if they took the couch).

After that, things began to move…both more and less smoothly than before, if they were being honest. It turned out that you were actually kind of a neat freak, and made it very clear that you disapproved of Cache leaving their things around the house, even just for a day or two.

On the other hand, now that you were living with someone you trusted, and had spent over a week in Cyber City, it seemed like some of the weight that had settled on your shoulders was finally starting to lift. One night, they’d found you crying on the couch, and hadn’t accepted any of your poor attempts to convince them you were okay. Instead, they’d managed to get you to tell them your story, and then promised you afterwards that nobody would make you leave if you didn’t want to. They would make sure of it.

Another good thing that came out of you living with them was that they could finally start going out to the movies again—and taking you on occasion, too. Your continued insistence on searching for a job, with its sporadic schedule, was still a lot better than Getty’s work hours had ever been, meaning that they got to go out with company far more often than before. On top of that, you had a wider taste in movies too, enjoying almost every single genre that they took you to see.

The first movie you’d ever gone to with them had been a simple superhero film, the latest in a truly massive franchise that they’d been looking forward to watching for a little while now.

You had stared at the line running out the doors (despite the fact that opening night had been three days ago), but hadn’t complained about the wait. If anything, you just seemed impressed. “Have you really waited in lines longer than this before, Cache Deposit?” you asked.

“Oh, absolutely. This is nothing.” they bragged. “You should’ve seen this place the day that one sequel came out—you know, the one for that sci-fi movie that’s been in the works for decades?” When you nodded in acknowledgement, they continued on. “I waited there for hours, but I got to see that movie eventually. Damn glad I did, too, the scenery alone made it totally worth it.”

“Wow, I wouldn’t have taken you for such a patient type.” you remarked, unable to keep the mildly sassy smile off your face.

“Oh, shut up! Don’t test me, shortcake, I will get one ticket instead of two!” Cache swatted you on the arm, but they were grinning too.

Once you both actually got inside, Cache insisted on getting a large bucket of popcorn for the two of you to share. They sat down in their seat, snatching up a few kernels, and turned to look at you just as the green glow of the preview rating screen came on.

The mint-colored Addison let out a quiet sigh, feeling themself relax back into the seat. They were in their favorite place, you were smiling as you watched the screen, and they had plenty of buttered popcorn.

This was perfect.

The movie went over well with you—you smiled and gasped at all the right moments, and you told them afterwards with genuine happiness that you’d enjoyed it. They couldn’t help but rant a little about their own takes on it (“the sidekick’s actor deserves so much credit, their facial expressions alone were amazing! And don’t even get me started on the color theory in that one scene—”), and to their delight, you listened intently and even asked them to elaborate on some of their points.

Cache invited you to plenty more movies after that, all different genres. Everything from mystery to comedies was fair game, and they even indulged you when you asked to see a couple of animated movies here and there. (They weren’t necessarily awful, it was just that Cache had some standards.) While some of them went over better than others, all in all, they had a great time with you.

…Except the one time they’d tried to drag you into a horror movie. You’d stepped out after ten minutes, and sheepishly informed them that you got terrible nightmares from that kind of thing. They teased you about it a little, but didn’t even complain about the money they’d spent on tickets. Instead, they took you home and played a few rounds of Super Smashing Fighters with you.

And if they let you win a few times, well, nobody ever had to know.

One night not long after that, they dropped the news over pizza that the two of you had finally put away enough money to start apartment-hunting for your own place. Cache felt a twinge of discomfort that they elected not to examine too closely, instead opting to finish by taking a big bite of pizza before they could say anything stupid.

“Would you be willing to shop around with me?” you asked. “You know Cyber City a lot better than I do, and you’re good with prices, too.”

That eased the twinge somewhat, and they offered up a more real grin in exchange. “Sure thing, sis. I can bring security too if you’re really looking for a discount…” they added, smirking.

“Cache! Don’t you dare!” you cried, fighting back laughter. “I actually want to find a place, you know! They’ll probably be too scared to even consider me!”

Cache rolled their eyes. “They’re wimps, then.”

You laughed softly under your breath and took another bite of pizza. Once you’d swallowed, you added, “Oh yeah! I can still stop by Virtual Pets whenever, right?”

“The day you’re not welcome in VP is the day I lose the damn business, understand?” Cache insisted, pointing at you with their own slice. “Always, and I do mean always come in if you want to.”

“And we’re still on for movies and Friday gaming nights?” you confirmed, mostly as a formality rather than a serious question.

“I’d be offended if you didn’t, shortcake.” they said, secretly feeling relief replace the last bit of discomfort inside them. It seemed that even though you were moving out, the two of you weren’t going to grow apart in the slightest.

(And they were absolutely right.)

…

About a week after you moved into your apartment, Cache sold their dog-cow hybrid to what appeared to be an eager couple looking for a nice pet. They seemed perfectly friendly and well-intentioned, so the Addison felt pretty comfortable making the sale.

They seriously regretted doing so now.

The hybrid was returned less than a week later, deathly ill after one of the children (because the couple hadn’t thought to mention that they had kids in the house) had fed her something she wasn’t supposed to have. Cache had been so distraught that they hadn’t even been able to find words to fling at the two, who damn well should have known better. Thankfully, they at least knew enough to get the hell out of the shop when they saw the expression on Cache’s face.

Several of the worst hours of Cache’s life passed next, as they struggled to keep their beloved hybrid alive. Thankfully, they eventually succeeded after several awful scares, leaving her to rest and recuperate in the back room. After taking a moment to recover for themself, they stumbled back to the door and flipped the sign over to Open, secretly hoping that nobody would come in for the rest of the day.

Pixel was currently in the back room, taking her own turn to watch the poor thing, but also more than a little on edge from their mood. They were too exhausted to do much else except sit at the counter, their thoughts swirling mercilessly.

They pulled on the hood of their jacket, pushing it low in an effort to hide the particularly brutal blend of despair and fury they felt at seeing any creature treated with such carelessness. Those parents should have known better than to keep dangerous foods in reach of either their pet or their children! Why did they ever have to make that sale in the first place?!

Suddenly, the bell over their door rang, and they shot upright, ready to yell at whatever sorry customer had dared to step inside now. They trained the full force of their glare at the person who’d just entered—and then they saw it was you.

“Shit, sorry…” they sighed. “Now’s not really a good time, shortcake.”

You frowned in concern. “Do you want to talk about it?”

They hesitated, glowering at the floor. “If I do, I’m gonna get pissy again.”

“Maybe you just need to get all the pissed-off-ness out?” you suggested, giving them a faint smile.

Cache sighed through clenched teeth. “You better be sure about this, ‘cause it ain’t pretty.”

You nodded, giving them your most determined look.

Cache stormed around the counter and began to practically bark their impromptu speech. “Okay, so guess what? Some dipshit family thought it’d be a great idea to buy a pet that needs a ton of special care and stick in a home with their two-point-five children, who apparently have exactly zero fuckin’ restraint at any given time. Today, they come back with the poor girl, barely hanging on, and have the guts to ask for a goddamn refund! I just spent hours keeping her alive, and I swear, if I ever see those assholes again, I’ll tear them a new one and I will not hold back.” they spat, their hands curling into fists so tight it hurt.

“Who the fuck does that? Who even thinks it might be a remotely smart idea to leave a new pet unsupervised with kids?! I just—I—shit! Ugh!” they cried, burying their face in their hands. “I just wish I’d seen it coming.”

Abruptly, all the fight left them, and they sagged backwards against the counter.

A moment later, they felt your hand brush their arm lightly, and they startled away from you before they realized what was going on. Thankfully, you didn’t seem offended, just held out your arms with a sympathetic expression on your face.

Cache checked briefly to make sure Pixel wasn’t nearby, and then crumpled into your arms, fighting back tears.

“Cache, you’re always so careful with all the creatures you have,” you began, rubbing their back gently, “but nobody—and I mean nobody—can be on their guard all day, every day. That’s just impossible. You did everything you possibly could, saving her and making sure those idiots didn’t get their stupid refund. She’s strong, she’ll come back from this, especially with you there every step of the way.

“You did nothing wrong, okay? They screwed up, but now it’s over, and you did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s all going to be okay now, Cache, I promise.”

They shuddered briefly, swallowing once before giving you a final squeeze and stepping back. “Thanks, shortcake.” they muttered thickly.

You gave them a small smile. “You want to get takeout and watch some awful movies at my place once you’re done with work?”

“Hell yeah.” Cache said, managing to muster up a slightly bittersweet smirk. “I’ll text you when I’m done, alright?”

“Text me before that if you need to vent some more.” you insisted, darting forward to give them one last quick hug. “See you later, Cache App.”

“That one was shit, pipsqueak! You hear me?” they cried (not meaning a word of it, of course) as you left the store. You merely shot them a grin in reply, waving your phone at them through the glass before taking off.

Cache sighed tiredly, pulling their hood off and running a hand through their hair as they turned to go sit back down behind the counter. And if Pixel gave them a smile later that was just a bit more knowing than usual, well, they sure as hell weren’t going to acknowledge it.

…

It had been a couple of months now since you’d first appeared in Cyber City—and in Cache’s life—and you were doing much better than you had been previously. Cache was happy for you, to be sure…but they still felt like you weren’t quite up to a hundred percent yet, and they had a suspicion as to why.

Sure, you had them and Lovebug, and maybe Pixel too, but at the end of the day, you were going home to an empty apartment with nobody to keep you company. And Cache figured that since you were too shy to do anything about it, they’d probably have to take the initiative.They even had a multi-step plan mapped out, because like hell were they leaving your well-being to chance.

Phase One: Figure out what kind of people you liked hanging out with (or even better, people you liked, period).

Phase Two: Get you to spend more time with them through any means necessary.

Phase Three: Integrate them into the friend group.

Phase Four: Get them to move in with you.

Phase Five: Enjoy seeing you happy.

Thankfully, not long after they’d made this plan, they saw the perfect opportunity to put it into action. Cache had dragged you out to a store that sold various music recordings, hoping to find something nice to listen to—and to get you to meet someone new.

After some carefully timed deliberating, they picked out an mp3 that they’d noticed within seconds of walking in the door, and strolled over to the register to check out. You hadn’t chosen anything yourself, much to Cache’s disappointment, but if they’d hung around any longer, you might’ve gotten suspicious.

As it was, they simply handed over their mp3 to the smiling violet Addison behind the counter. As he scanned the file, Cache glanced at his name tag, which simply read Exy. They’d heard about this employee in passing at the Cyber Grill the other night, and supposedly he was extra friendly and thoughtful. Cache hoped he’d live up to his reputation.

“Nothing for you today, miss?” he asked you politely.

You grinned sheepishly. “Sorry! I’m not very good at making decisions, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it!” the violet Addison insisted, smiling politely at you. “We’re open every day from eight to six if you ever have some spare time on your hands! Say, what kind of music do you listen to?”

“It changes from week to week, honestly.” you admitted. “I like just about anything!”

Exy finished charging Cache for their purchase, all while maintaining his conversation with you. “Well, stop by again soon, and I might have some nice recommendations for you!” He winked at you, and you colored slightly from all the attention.

(Cache very nearly broke their neck turning to stare at you when that happened.)

The moment they stepped out of the store with you in tow, you smiled at them. “He was pretty nice, wasn’t he?” you commented.

In response, they gave you their most shit-eating grin imaginable. “Ooooh,” they crooned, “does someone have a crush?”

“Wh-what?!” you stammered. “No! I just—I haven’t met many Addisons who are that thoughtful, aside from you and Pixel!”

Cache scoffed. “Don’t slander me like that, shortcake. You’re changing the subject, though! Do you think he’s cute?”

You blushed again. “I don’t know, maybe a little? He was definitely dressed nicely, I guess?”

“‘I guess’?” Cache repeated. “You’re killing me! Next you’re gonna tell me that nobody’s caught your eye the entire time you’ve been here.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s not true either! I have noticed one or two people, just not necessarily him.”

You immediately backtracked when Cache’s smile grew impossibly bigger. “I, uh, I mean…” you began, clearly trying to work your way out of the hole you’d just dug, but it was far too late for that now.

“No, no, no, sis. You can’t back out now. Spill! Who’s the lucky person that caught your eye?”

A more severe blush spread across your face at that. “You, um…you know the guy who works at the tea shop?” you mumbled.

“No way!” Cache exclaimed, still giving the Cheshire Cat a run for its money. “Him?!”

“Shut up!” you cried. “He’s just…he’s pretty, okay? That’s it.”

“Whatever you say, shortcake.” Cache said, pretending to drop it, but secretly moving on to Phase Two of their plan.

They managed to put it into action only three days later, which was sooner than expected. After all, if they’d invited you out to the tea shop too quickly after learning about your crush, you’d just assume they were making fun of you and refuse.

(They were going to make fun of you, at least a little, but that was unrelated to the plan.)

In what Cache considered to be a truly amazing display of self-restraint, they didn’t let a single hint slide either on the walk over to the shop or while you placed your order. They couldn’t help a brief smirk when you ordered the ‘house special’, though.

The minute they sat across from you with their own tea, though, they stopped even trying to hide it. “Sooo?” they began, giving you a look. “Is he as hot as you remember?” They at least tried to keep their voice low, for your sake.

You nearly choked on your tea. “What? Cache!” you cried, as soon as you’d finished coughing. “I thought we were just here to hang out!”

Cache did not soften a fraction at the idea that hanging out with them was better than eyeing up your crush. They didn’t.

“Well, yeah, that’s the main goal. But he’s a nice bonus, isn’t he?” they said, raising their eyebrows at you smugly.

You practically scoffed, turning back to your drink. “He’s a person, Cache, not just a ‘bonus’.”

They glanced over your shoulder and then smirked. “Why don’t you say that to him when he brings those pastries over here?”

At that, you sat bolt upright, twisting in your seat just in time to see the pink Addison beginning to head over with said pastries. Cache stifled a snicker, even as you glowered at them, the clear message behind it being If you say anything I will walk out right now.

That was okay. They could behave themself…mostly.

“Here you are!” Pink said warmly, placing the plate on the table with slightly more flair than usual. Notably, he merely gave Cache a nod, but directed one of his most charming smiles directly at you.

So it goes both ways, Cache thought, but (for once) wisely said nothing. Meanwhile, you were smiling up at him as you thanked him politely for the food. “Your pastries are honestly the best I’ve had.” you added, and Cache bit their lip to keep from grinning.

“Oh!” Pink exclaimed, seeming quite flattered. “And you’re the best Lightner I’ve ever met!” he shot back, with a mildly flirtatious wink to boot.

You blinked, clearly startled. “Aren’t I…the only Lightner you’ve met?” you asked.

Cache internally facepalmed. Just take the damn compliment, pipsqueak!

The pink Addison shifted in place somewhat awkwardly. “Fair enough…I highly doubt any others are half as lovely as you, though.”

You blushed at that, giving Pink a small smile. “Aw, thank you!”

“Anytime at all.” he said warmly, before returning to his usual spot behind the counter.

The moment he got back to tidying things up, Cache flicked their eyes between him and you several times, before whispering, “Damn, I didn’t know you were such a flirt!”

“I am not!” you hissed back. “I was just being nice, and so was he!”

“‘The best Lightner’? ‘Lovely’? Those don’t sound platonic to me…” Cache hummed, before finally taking a sip of their drink. It had cooled down slightly, but it was as nice as ever. A tiny, genuine smile flickered across their face (thankfully hidden by the cup) as the flavor hit them. Your tea was always just what they needed.

For your sake, they elected to shift the conversation to other topics, although they did continue to give you knowing looks and indicate Pink with their eyes every once in a while. Each time, you rolled your eyes or gave them a pointed look, but you didn’t seem too upset to them.

Phases Two and Three were going to take some work, but Cache was sure they’d be able to manage it eventually. It was worth it, for your sake.

…

One night after Cache had perhaps overindulged slightly at the Cyber Grille, you’d helped them get all the way home without incident, even though you were clearly upset. They knew you didn’t love it when they drank noticeably, but they figured that they deserved to cut loose every once in a while. Besides, they were the older sibling-type here, not you!

Once they’d climbed into bed, they sent you a brief text, just letting you know that they were alright and going to sleep shortly. It took you a minute or so to respond, but when you did, you didn’t berate them, instead opting to tell them that you were glad they were okay and you hoped they slept well.

Cache sighed, switching off their light. What the hell had they done to have someone like you walk into their life? Even when they worried you, you didn’t ditch them. They knew they could be abrasive, and that was how they liked it. But to know that you were always beside them, through both the highs and the lows…

…well, it was rare to find someone like that.

On a whim, Cache unlocked their phone and clicked back into their conversation with you, taking a look at the most recent photos you’d sent to them and vice versa. Selfies taken from a variety of goofily unflattering positions abounded, along with plenty of pictures of them and you at various places.

A shot of them, holding up two movie tickets that they’d been particularly proud of scoring.

Another one, you and Cache side by side, arms around each other in the back room of Virtual Pets. (You’d only noticed the bunny ears they were giving you after the photo had been taken, and given them a good smack on the arm for it. You had still kept the picture, though.)

Now you, sticking out your tongue at the camera as you hold up a game controller. That had been the night you thoroughly trounced them at your favorite fighting game, and you’d insisted that Cache needed a memento to remember this night forever.

On and on the memories went, until finally—

—the first picture you’d ever sent them.

They’d wanted to have something for your profile picture, insisting that it just felt wrong to see a blank grey circle every time you messaged them. At first, you had protested, insisting that you were terrible at taking selfies.

“So send me a shitty one then. =P” they’d replied. And duly enough, you soon sent them a selfie, just of you smiling awkwardly into the camera.

They’d given you one back, feeling it was only fair, and then promptly set your picture as your profile image. Of course, it had changed many times since then—they practically updated it every time you took a new picture, with or without them in it.

But that…that was the first visual record they ever had of you. Sure, there were texts that came before that, but this was proof that it was you, that you had existed in their life.

And somehow, they were lucky enough to get more proof of that every damn day.

Abruptly, Cache realized that their eyes were wet, and flipped over to bury their face in their pillow. They hadn’t meant to get all cheesy and gross about you, but you just meant so much to them. Embarrassing though it may have been, they couldn’t deny the truth—you were one of the very, very few people to have made it past their defenses and into their heart.

Cache growled, pushing themself up just enough to swipe at their eyes. They were not going to get all weepy over you, that would be stupid.

It was just…fun having a friend like you. That was all.

(That definitely wasn’t all.)

#deltarune #addison oc #deltarune addisons #i really thought this was going to be a 3k word story at first #OH HOW WRONG I WAS #as i said over on ao3 i have to thank eevee (the writer of the fic this is based on) for all of the advice she gave me #it legitimately saved this fic #also if you haven't heard yet:#BO[S]OF UPDATED GO READ THE UPDATE PLEASE I AM BEGGING YOU #IT'S SO GOOD...

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motherforthefamicom · 2 years

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why does getting a large following on the internet have to be so fucking miserable

#referring to a different site rn thank god i dont have that many followers here #but like. holy shit im so sick of it man!!!#ive been getting spammed with just the most stupid purposely offensive shit theres people drawing gore of my characters to spite me???#was practically getting cyber stalked for a bit #and i do literally nothing on there except share silly drawings i make and joke around with friends #thats all ive done for YEARS now just goof off and try to stick to my little corner of the site #like at the end of the day i dont care that much i guess its just some strangers online being assholes theres other things to worry about #but also like i feel like i should be allowed to be at least. a little upset about this. im really fucking sick of it yknow #i try my best to be level headed about this kind of stuff and just ignore it but like. man its frustrating to put up with #mikey says shit #vent #i guess??? mostly tagging that for blacklisting purposes #anyways well be back to the usual silly posting soon im just. really frustrated about this

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Monopolists are winning the repair wars

In 2018, dozens of states introduced Right to Repair bills. These bills are wildly popular among voters, but wildly unpopular among monopolists ranging from Apple to Microsoft to Google to GM to John Deere to Wahl. Every one of these bills was defeated.

Repair advocates regrouped for 2021. 27 R2R bills have been introduced at the state level. Every single one that came up for a vote was defeated, thanks to aggressive lobbying by an unholy alliance of the country’s largest, most profitable, least taxpaying corporations.

In 2014, a pair of American political scientists published a groundbreaking peer-reviewed paper analyzing 30 years’ worth of US policy-making that compared policy outcomes to public polling results.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B#authors-details

They concluded that general public sentiment had almost no impact on US policy making — but the political preferences of wealthy people and large corporations were hugely predictive of what laws and regulations we’d get.

Or, in poli-sci jargon, “Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”

The Right to Repair fight is a hell of a proof of this principle. It’s really hard to overstate the popularity of the idea that you should be able to fix your own stuff, or choose where you get your stuff fixed.

Take auto-repair. As auto-manufacturing has grown more concentrated, car makers have squeezed independent mechanics — as close to a folk-hero as the American imagination can produce! — to the margins.

After all, forcing car owners to use official service depots has huge advantages: manufacturers can gouge on service prices, they can force drivers to buy expensive original parts, and they get to unilaterally decide when a car is beyond repair and force you to buy a new one.

Drivers have a good intuitive sense that this is going on. That’s why, when Bay Staters voted on Massachusetts Question 1 (an automotive R2R ballot initiative) in 2012, it passed with an 86% majority!

Mass Question 1 is a really good example of how monopolists can arm-twist politicians into frustrating the will of the people. Immediately after the 2012 initiative, auto-makers set about retooling their cars to escape the new right to repair rule.

The 2012 rule forced automakers to give mechanics access to diagnostic info from cars’ wired internal networks, so Big Car moved all the useful diagnostic data to their cars’ wireless networks. Hence the 2020 Massachusetts R2R ballot initiative, which closed this loophole.

The 2020 fight over the Mass. R2R ballot initiative was fuckin’ wild. The car-makers ran some seriously freaky scare-ads, in which the ability of auto mechanics to read wireless diagnostic data led directly to women being stalked and murdered.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

I’m not making this up. The underlying premise was, “We turned your car into a hyper-aggressive mobile surveillance platform that incidentally gets you places. If we let other people see the data we’re nonconsensually extracting from you, it will put you in terrible danger.”

Thankfully, Bay Staters saw through this bullshit and passed 2020’s Question 1 with a 75% majority.

The thing is, people completely understand that they should be in charge of deciding who fixes their stuff.

They understand that the risk of poor repairs should be addressed through consumer protection laws (which also bind monopolists’ own authorized repair depots), not by having the repair market privately regulated by monopolists who have vast conflicts of interest.

This understanding has only deepened through the pandemic year, as authorized repair depots shuttered and vital equipment languished thanks to anti-repair laws and technological countermeasures.

For example, Medtronic’s workhorse PB840 ventilators couldn’t be refurbed without using a grey-market activation dongle that a single Polish med-tech homebrewed, encasing them in cases harvested from busted clock-radios and guitar pedals.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Medtronic — a med-tech monopolist that effected the largest corporate inversion in history to escape US taxes — argues that letting independent med-techs fix its products puts patients at risk, but this argument is every bit as flimsy as the auto-makers’ Mass. scare-ads.

It ignores three important facts:

I. Med-techs have always done this kind of repair. The change isn’t that med-techs are demanding the right to do something new — it’s that Medtronic leveraged its monopoly to foreclose on the industry-standard practice

II. Medtronic’s own security track-record is comically terrible. This is the company that makes pacemakers that can be wirelessly hacked from across a room to kill its user, whose software update system doesn’t even use cryptographic signatures.

If Medtronic is an expert on any aspect of patient safety, that expertise is certainly hard-won, derived from its long history of lethal patient endangerment.

III. If there is a problem with indie technicians struggling to fix Medtronic products, the obvious answer is to provide service manuals, parts and diagnostic codes.

The case for Right to Repair is incredibly strong. Not only does R2R protect consumers from ripoffs, it also provides local jobs — 1–4% of US GDP comes from the independent repair sector, almost entirely in independent small/medium businesses.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#r2r

Repair is an important environmental, labor and human rights story. As leaked internal memos demonstrate, Apple’s aggressively landfilling of devices (so customers buy more) is environmentally devastating and creates demand for conflict minerals.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/31/hall-of-famer/#e-waste-apple

The average American family loses $330/year because of the lack of access to independent repair, a $40b annual drag on the economy thanks to monopoly rents collected by monopoly firms.

To say nothing of the impact on jobs: landfilling a kiloton of ewaste creates <1 job; recycling that waste creates 15 jobs, while repairing it creates 200 good, local jobs that can’t be offshored (you don’t send a phone overseas for repair).

https://www.ifixit.com/Right-to-Repair/Jobs-Revolution

Then there’s the food security story: John Deere is an agribusiness monopolist that outraged farmers by claiming that they didn’t own the tractors they paid six figures for, merely “licensed” them on terms that forbade them from fixing their own machines.

Deere leads Big Ag’s anti-repair, forcing farmers to use official parts, preventing modifications that would allow third-party attachments, and collecting outrageous service call fees for a technician whose job is to unlock the tractor after the farmer replaces a part.

This policy means that farmers who fix their own tractors still can’t use them even if there’s a hail-storm coming and they need to bring in the crop. Farmers — who’ve been fixing their own gear since the first farmer built a forge next to their farmhouse — are desperate.

Some farmers download anonymously maintained Ukrainian firmware and overwrite the Deere software, creating unknowable risk of remote attack. Others have to maintain “backup tractors” they use for weeks while waiting for Deere to fix their equipment.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000400896/standoff-between-farmers-and-tractor-makers-intensifies-over-repair-issues

Just like Medtronic and GM, Deere claims that allowing independent service creates infosec risk — but just like its anti-repair comrades, Deere’s own infosec is a dumpster-fire, with tractors across America at risk of mass-scale cyber-attacks:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

The common thread joining these firms is monopoly: a lack of competition that allows them to extract billions from the public, and a cozy cohort of business leaders who can mobilize that loot to ensure that politicians and regulators don’t give the public what it demands.

American industry is experiencing a wave of monopolism not seen since the Gilded Age, and it affects every sector. Take hair-clippers — a category that exploded during the lockdown thanks to the newly created need for home haircuts.

The clipper market is monopolized by a single firm, Wahl. As I discovered — the hard way — Wahl has designed its newest clippers so they disintegrate if you try to take them apart to sharpen them.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1380554358824136706

Instead of sharpening these devices, you’re expected to buy a new $40 blade (for a shaver that costs $60 all in!), and throw out the old one — or, less realistically, you can mail them your razor for factory sharpening.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Wahl is part of the war on repair, sending letters to state legislators warning that letting people sharpen their own clipper blades could lead to fatal housefires.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4446374-Wahl-Opposition-Illinois.html

Two years ago, the FTC convened an inquiry on independent repair called “Nixing the Fix.” The Nixing the Fix report was released earlier this month, and it affirms everything that repair advocates have said all along.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/07/pro-act-class-war/#we-fixit

The FTC calls bullshit on manufacturers’ claims about cyber-risk, housefires, and whether getting your car fixed by your family’s beloved mechanic will lead to your murder. It broadly and firmly endorses Right to Repair.

Which brings me back to 2021, were every one of the 27 R2R bills that has been brought before a state legislature for a vote has been defeated, thanks to heavy corporate lobbying by monopolists.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-20/microsoft-and-apple-wage-war-on-gadget-right-to-repair-laws

These bills were voted down after heartbreaking testimony from ed-tech repair specialists who described the devastating impact that a broken laptop has on poor families whose kids are doing remote learning.

They were voted down despite the record, the public support, the climate questions, the food security issue, the human rights issues — voted down to preserve the monopoly profits of a tiny number of firms whose claim to being “American” is tenuous at best.

These tax-dodging, offshoring companies view the American public as an all-you-can-eat buffet, and disclaim any responsibility to the country — while still expecting its lawmakers to defend their interests, at the expense of the voters.

Image: Jcaravanos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E-waste_workers.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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fluffywings13 · 3 years

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Family On The Other Side

@korathefairy It’s a bit different then the prompt but its what came to mind and I desperately needed some Kei and Rody fluff! I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Rody would do anything for his brother and sister, anything, he means anything. Even if it meant crossing onto the wrong side of the law, he’d do it, they were the most important things he has in his other wise miserable life.

Usually he’s able to smooth talk his way out of situations where he could otherwise find himself waiting in a holding cell, but this officer, the one who brought him in, wasn’t like all the others he’s had the misfortune to have met. So now here he sits, in a holding cell, his brother and sister in an office across the room, too far away for him to get to them, contemplating his life choices.

In the back of his mind is a number, a number he’d been forced to memorize by his mother before her untimely disappearance, a cousin she had said, a cousin who’d help if they ever called asking for it. He lived in Japan, he was a hero (Rody wasn’t too fond of that idea but still—), she said his name was Keigo. Takami Keigo (he thought it weird that they referred to themselves with their surname first but who’s he to judge what’s weird and what’s not) and she was his cousin, he’d help, they only had to call.

The teen never considered it, never ever, up until the point he heard them talking about separating him from his brother and sister, that’s when he jumped up from his seat, startling Pino on his shoulder, and raps his knuckles against the bars of his cell. “I get a phone call, don’t I?”

…

Hearing his cousin’s voice for the first time (maybe second time—the tone of his voice brings back a distant memory from the back of his mind) is a strange experience. Keigo, what he’s been told to call him (“We’re family, squirt, call me Keigo”), has a deep voice. It’s not too deep but it’s deep. And smooth. It’s soothing in a way, just hearing him talk makes the tension he’s been carrying for the last six and a half hours wash off his shoulders (“Everything’s gonna be okay little bird, give the phone to the captain, I’ll make sure you kiddies are taken care of until I get there”).

Watching the Captain talk to their cousin on the phone is an experience, Lala holding his one hand and Roro holding onto his pant leg, watching the grown man wave his hands around animatedly as he disagrees with whatever it is their long distance cousin is instructing him to do.

Rody is sure shit’s gonna hit the fan until the Captain growls and gives a long drawn out affirmation to whatever is said to him, and the phone is slammed down onto it’s base. “Robinson!”

The officer who’d arrested him comes as he’s called for. “Yes sir?”

The Captain looks over at them with so much distaste that Rody can almost taste it, it’s that palpable, his brother and sister squeak and press in closer, he tries to maintain his carefree expression of nonchalance but Pino gives him away once again. “Take them to the Four Seasons.”

“Uh…Sir…” They all blink at the command. “Take them to the Four Seasons?”

“Yes,” he practically growls as he glares into the teen’s soul. “Their cousin set them up a room there for them to stay in until he can get here to take them in.”

“Surely their cousin—”

“Hawks.” The Captain cuts Robinson off harshly. “Their cousin is Hawks. Japan’s second ranked hero. He’s getting the next flight out to come pick them up. He expects to meet them at the Four Seasons. Get moving.”

…

The bed he sleeps in, Lala and Roro cuddled up against his sides, is the most amazing bed he’s ever slept in in his whole entire life.

Rody will never admit to how nervous he is to meet his hero cousin, not just any hero, no, his cousin was in the top three in Japan, the top five in the United Nations, overall a well known and well liked hero who’s personal life no one knew nothing about (he may or may not have tried to do some light cyber stalking after his brother and sister fell asleep), and this man was his distant cousin on his mom’s side of the family.

Room services delivers their breakfast at ten, after they’ve all woken up, paid for already, leave it to a hero to flaunt his money at them. Rody acknowledges that he may be being a bit harsh against a man he’s never met before, but he has history with heroes, well, more like a lack of history with heroes. The worlds saviors steered clear of their area because of the impossibility to garner the fame they’d need to get themselves established in the hero world, their name and such would flounder faster then a fish out of water.

So, perhaps, he does have every right to have himself set against heroes.

What have heroes ever done for him?

No hero was there when mom—

The teenager shakes himself out of his thoughts when someone knocks on the door, he supposes it’s him, their long distance cousin, the hero cousin from mom’s side of the family. Lala and Roro look away from the cartoon they’re watching as he stands, sparing them both a look that reads to stay where they are, he crosses the medium sized room slowly.

Peeking out of the peep hole, he finds himself watching a blonde man shuffling in the hallway, a backpack strung over one shoulder, and Rody blinks when the man’s head turns and they make eye contact. He has no idea how the other male knew he was watching him, but the way he smiles, he knows he does.

Carefully unlocking the door, Pino chirping nervously on his shoulder despite his silent attempts to get her to contain herself, Rody pulls it open just a crack to peer out at the man closer. “Keigo?”

The feathery haired man smiles at him and nods. “Hey cous, haven’t seen you since you were just a wee little bird, look at you now, so big.”

Rody flounders for a moment as he tilts his head. “You…We’ve met?”

“Yea, three times.” Keigo nods. “Once when you were a baby, still just a hatchling. Again when your brother was born. And the last time when your sister was born. I wasn’t—” The older male brushes his fingers through his locks. “Your mom, my cousin, she disappeared after that and your dad cut off contact.” He shuffles slightly where he stands. “I tried to get in contact a few times but it’s hard to accomplish when you live half way across the globe from who you’re trying to contact.”

“Rody!” The noodle haired teen huffs at the young voice that calls out to him from behind, Keigo grins, and both older males turn to see the owner of the young voice as little Miss Lala Soul standing behind her oldest brother curiously. “Is it him?”

“Yea,” stepping aside, he likes the fact that their older cousin looks to him for permission before entering, and nods at him to do so after a moment. “This is Keigo.”

“Cool! You’re Hawks!” Roro exclaims as he drops down off their bed in excitement. “What happened to your wings!”

“Oh, those old things?” The blonde man drops his backpack. “It’s not pleasant to fly with them via plane, so I put them in my carry on.” Both children, Keigo doesn’t miss the way the teen’s eyes light up in wonder too, watch in awe as his feathers come flying out of his backpack and two large red wings curl over his shoulders. “Never leave home without them.”

“They’re so pretty!” Lala whispers excitedly. “They look so soft.”

“Oh, I keep them all soft and smooth.” The winged hero curls one of his wings around for her. “You can feel it if you want.” He smiles when she giggles and reaches out hesitantly, eyes widening in awe at the softness under her fingers. “Soft, ain’t it?” Roro looks up at him curiously and he nods, feathers ruffling encouragingly. “Go for it kiddo.”

…

Keigo can feel the distrust.

He feels the distrust from his second cousin, technically his nephew, familial relations and titles were so complicated. The distrust emanates from his nephew, it’s palpable, and as someone who grew up in a part of a city where no hero spent the time to turn them around, he understands. He understands the way the youth hovers in the background, his little companion serving as a direct conjunction to his true emotions sitting upon his shoulder, as he interacts with the baby Souls.

“I worked for them.” Rody starts one night, late into the night, unable to sleep like his brother and sister did in their new home in a new county under the care of a new guardian. “For those—”

“If you think anyone’s going to judge you based on who you worked for, who you did things for, then you’ve come to the wrong place.” Keigo shoots that down real quick. “We all have to do things to survive. I know your dad was involved. I saw his name on the arrest reports. I’d be surprised if you weren’t drawn into it.”

The brunette takes a sip from the hot chocolate his cousin, though, Uncle is the politically correct term, made when he found him sitting alone at the island. “But—”

“Rody.” The blonde cuts him off softly. “My dad is one of the most feared men in Japan. I’m one of the most favored heroes. Our bloodline doesn’t define us. It’s the way we portray ourselves. The reason we do the things we do.” He takes a sip and gold eyes meet brown. “You did everything for your baby birds—”

“Is everything with you going to be a bird pun?”

Keigo snorts and grins. “You know it.” He shakes his head slightly. “I’m not going to hold what you did against you because you did it with pure intentions. Not everyone will be so understanding, but as far as I’m concerned, what’s in the past stays in the past, and we move forward each and every day.”

Rody falls into silence as he contemplates this, that was his out, figuring that the hero wouldn’t want to be associated with someone who tried to— “You said you used to visit when I was little?”

The hero snorts mid sip and coughs as he chokes, making the teen laugh, and the man glare at him mockingly for it. “Yea, I visited quite often, as much as someone who lived as far away as I did could, stopped visiting when you were four after your mom disappeared.”

He hums in contemplation. “Proof?”

“Oh, you want proof?” Keigo grins and the teen feels a sense of dread for his teenage pride. “I got a scrapbook. Wanna see?”

Despite his better judgement, Rody nods, and follows the man to what he aptly (and punfully) called his nest. In which he was told to get and waited a few minutes for his Uncle to follow, a thick old book in his hands, a scrapbook. “This is a big book.”

“Yea,” Keigo sets his half empty mug aside, lifting his left wing invitingly, smiling to himself when the teen slowly scoots in closer, a warm weight against his side. “Your mom liked sending pictures. Got hundreds. This is only book one.”

The flip through a few pages, Rody blushes deeply, grumbling under his breath as Pino tweets on his shoulder sleepily, when they come across a few pictures his mom sent of him as a baby who despised the invention of a diaper and pants and his Uncle pokes at him playfully over them.

Keigo doesn’t say anything, not wanting to disrupt the moment, as he flips through the pages and the weight against his side grows heavier and heavier, a head rests against his shoulder, and his nephew exhales softly as he finally allows himself to truly sleep.

He continues looking through the pictures for a few more minutes before carefully closing the book and setting it aside. His back’s going to kill him in the morning but having his nephew, so closed off and distrusting, trusting him enough to fall asleep against his side, under his wing, was worth it.

…

“Rody!”

The brunette looks up at the sound of his name, standing at his Uncles side, slightly behind him, playing a game on his new phone when he hears the call of his name. A cool lazy smile crosses over his features at the sight of a familiar head of green curls making it’s way through the crowd towards them.

“Hey Deku.”

“It’s so good to see you!” He forgot how tactile the other boy was, but after living with his uncle for a little over two months, he’s become quite accustomed to sneak attack hugs. “What are you doing here!”

Rody squeezes his friend for a moment before they part ways and gestures to the man at his side, Uncle Keigo conversing quietly with Eraserhead. “Uncle Kei had to come see Hobo.”

“Uncle—Uncle Kei--!” He sees the very moment Deku’s mind implodes. “Hawks is your Uncle!”

“Well technically—” the subject of their short conversation turns at his name, both civvie and hero, and slings an arm around his nephew’s shoulders. “We’re cousins, his mom was my cousin, so he’s my first cousin once removed, but it’s more common to refer to him as my nephew, therefore, yes, I’d be referred to as his uncle.” The brunette blushes and turns to glare at the traitorous man when he coos and squeezes him into his side. “Did my precious little baby bird make a friend?”

“Uncle Kei stop!” He can’t help but shove at the man, who merely laughs, and nuzzles his cheek lightly. Rody’s picked up on the avian qualities that came with his Uncles quirk. “You’re so embarrassing.”

“No, little bird, me being embarrassing would be me telling him about all the pics I have of you and your little too—” Rody elbows the man in the side harshly, harsh enough that the hero yelps and wheezes, and smiles slightly when all he gets are small chuckles in response. “Okay okay, I’ll calm down.”

…

“Little bird,” the hero stands before his steadfast nephew loosely with his arms hanging open. “You sure you don’t want a hug?”

“Positive.”

Keigo grins and turns to his nephew’s constant companion. “Pino?” The little bird tweets and hops and he nods. “Thought so too. C’mere.” Rody doesn’t fight it when he’s pulled into his Uncle’s arms, it takes a moment, but he slowly melts into the embrace. “Hugs solve everything.”

“I hate you.”

The hero brushes a kiss to the top of his nephew’s head. “I know you mean love. You love me. And I love you too.”

…

The first time his nephew breaks down, his wall crumbles and tears cascade down his cheeks, is a momentous occasion, not a good momentous occasion, and both boy and man are happy that it’s done when the youngsters are at school (Rody opted into online schooling), when it’s because news is broadcast about those used as test subjects for the ‘cause’ and a picture of the teen’s mom is flashed across the screen.

Keigo’s quick in changing the channel, but not quick enough, tossing the remote aside in time to catch his nephew, his cousin’s son, may she rest in peace, when his legs give out as a rough sob tears from his chest at what had been a brief but gruesome image of his mother and what she’d been reduced to.

Rody unashamedly sobs into his Uncle’s chest four months after they move in with him after he finds out what happened to his mom and just how she had died.

…

“Uncle Kei don’t you dare.” Rody challenges to the man curled around him from behind and hovering dangerously close to his neck. “Don’t. I swear to god.”

“Don’t what?”

The teen is not falling for the oldest trick in the book. “You know what.”

The hero hums interestedly as he blows lightly on the side of his neck and it makes him smile and shiver. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. What don’t you want me to do?”

“Uncle Kei.”

“If there’s something you don’t want me to do then you need to tell me so I know not to do it.”

He heaves a sigh, finding himself backed up into the corner of this oldest trick in the book. “Don’t nuzzle into my neck.”

Keigo grins lightly. “Why? You like it when I nuzzle you.”

Rody flushes despite the fact that it’s just the two of them in the man’s office. “Because it tickles.”

“Oh, I see,” the hero hums softly. “So I shouldn’t what?”

He sees no way out so he simply admits defeat. “Nuzzle into my neck.”

“Got it.” Rody’s still getting used to the physical affection from adults, but Keigo’s physically affectionate gestures are gestures he’s come to find he likes, and just succumbs to his fate. “Understood.” And unashamedly shrieks with giggles (for no one’s ears to hear but his Uncle’s) when the man nuzzles into the side of his neck.

#mha hawks #pro hero hawks #my hero academia hawks #mha takami keigo #keigo takami #mha rody #rody soul #extended family

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years

Text

The Miys, Ch. 150

I think for the time being, I am going to quit calling myself ‘late’ posting as long as I get the chapter up on the right day of the week *facepalm*. Bc I am barely keeping ahead, much less remembering to queue things up.

I am so, so sorry about that....

Fair warning before anyone @s me: The French is a joke, so if I got it super wrong I am equally sorry to the degree of which it’s wrong.

Unless it’s obscene. Then I want to know so that I can laugh with you, and I am LEAVING IT.

As always, shouts out to @baelpenrose, @the-raven-fae, and @charlylimph-blog!

Heaving an enormous Dutch oven onto a burner, I turned on the heat low and started chopping vegetables. After the first celery stalk, I glanced up at Derek, who sat across from Maverick in our living room. The quarters were shaped differently, which had distressed Derek initially, but the addition of his favorite blankets to the sofa had helped. Currently, he was completely distracted from even Mac: staring off into space, his fingers flying and flicking with a feverish, almost convulsive movement.

Maverick glanced up at me with a smile before following my gaze. “Yep, the cyber siege continues. He’s doing well, from what Zach told me.”

“I thought he was only supposed to attack human-managed systems,” I grumbled, thinking back to the cold shower I had been subjected to that morning. Turning back to the vegetables, I made short work of the celery before taking my frustration out on the carrots. Scooping the diced vegetables into a bowl, I started measuring out paprika, sugar, salt, pepper, basil, and oregano into another bowl. “Where’s Sam, by the way?”

“On the way,” Maverick promised. “With Terran-style tomatoes, he swears. And Derek is only attacking systems we manage. When BioLab 2 was set up, we had to take over water management, to protect the lab from any sort of contamination.”

The knife in my hand, brandished at three cloves of garlic, clattered to the work surface. “Seriously?” I glared at the tap, suddenly suspicious.

“Probably get water from the console,” he winced, nodding briskly at Derek, who nodded in confirmation without stopping his tapping and flicking gestures.

Groaning, I shook my head and crushed the garlic, removed the skin, and started mincing. All that was left was to wait on the tomatoes from Sam. The garlic was potent enough, and I wanted to avoid cutting any onion until absolutely necessary since Derek was clearly parked for the duration.

I was saved about fifteen minutes later when Conor and Sam stopped at the door. Sam waved cheerfully and held up the requested vegetables while Conor removed his boots. A quick shuffle later for Sam to remove his own shoes, and both came to the food prep area - too small to be considered a proper kitchen - to greet me.

First, Conor gave me a big, smelly hug and a kiss on my hair. “Did you already slice the bread?”

“Ew, you gorilla!” I laughed. “And I haven’t sliced any bread yet, I wasn’t sure how long I had and I didn’t want it to get too stale.”

“They’re toasties, love.” He shook his head with a grin before swatting me on the butt. “No one cares if the bread was a bit stale before you started.”

Over his shoulder, Derek’s head bobbed side to side. “I think someone disagrees.” I looked meaningfully past him. To Conor’s credit, he looked sheepish.

Sam squeezed around and handed me the tomatoes and gave me a hug. “Thank you for making soup.”

“I know it’s our favorite,” I winked before shooing him out of the area. “Not enough room for more than one in the kitchen. Y’all go unwind out there, and make sure you warn Derek that I’m about to start cutting onions.”

As he held up his hands and jokingly scurried away, I turned to the stove and started cursing myself. I’d forgotten to start boiling water. Snagging a small saucepan, I got a carafe of water from the console and started rectifying that, tossing in a generous pinch of salt. Gently, I cut an X into the bottom of each tomato and set them aside before peeling and dicing the onion. Immediately, the onion, carrots, and celery went into a food processor. “Derek, I’m about to be loud,” I called softly before counting to ten to give him time to cover his ears or step into the corridor. A quick blitz later, the vegetables were perfectly between a mince and a puree.

A quick swizzle of oil went into the already-hot dutch oven before adding the mirepoix and giving it a quick stir. As if on cue, Tyche and Antoine breezed through the door, noses twitching.

“I smell food,” she announced, stalking into the kitchen. One look at the ingredients was all it took. “Ooooo you’re making the tomato soup.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “I am, and you know I don’t have room in here for spectators, unfortunately.” Arching an eyebrow, I pointed the spoon in my hand at the table.

She wasn’t having it. “One of these days, you’re going to show me how to make that. May as well be today.”

“Nice try, but I need some secrets. Besides, the longer I argue with you, the more likely the vegetables are going to scorch. Scoot!”

She scrunched her face at me but acquiesced. As I scooped the garlic into the pot, I heard her change topics. “How much longer is the stress test? My music keeps getting mixed up with Antoine’s. I don’t mind it, but…”

Antoine smiled softly and shook his head. “But it is quite a shock to expect classical music and instead her rock starts playing.”

Personally, I liked both, but still shuddered at what he was talking about. Carefully lowering three of the tomatoes into the now-boiling water, I glanced at the sauteing vegetables and gave them a quick stir to check. “We have about six more days before the repairs start, maybe four more after that?”

Conor sighed. “I wish we could ask if anything important was being hacked, not just annoying environmental controls.”

“Plants aren’t dead yet,” Sam pointed out, tipping his bottle of water toward Conor in a practiced gesture. Everyone laughed when, rather than being reassured, Conor leapt to his feet to check on his ‘babies’ in the room.

Cursing, I dipped the tomatoes out of the boiling water and dropped them immediately into an ice bath. A couple pokes with my trusty spoon showed they weren’t overcooked, thankfully. “None of my information for work has been acting up,” I admitted as I started peeling them. “But Pranav advised that more critical data would either go completely missing or not show any signs of infiltration. We won’t know until after the test is over.”

“Lovely,” Tyche drawled as she watched Conor fretting over the plants. “So it’s all or nothing.”

I shrugged and dumped the tomato paste - admittedly, from the console - into the pan of other vegetables. When I stirred, I was satisfied that the carrots, onion, and celery had cooked down to where they were soft. “In a weird way, it makes sense. They’re testing for catastrophic data breaches, which would pull everything down, or for data theft, which you wouldn’t want to leave traces of.”

The corner of Antoine’s mouth quirked up as I dropped three more tomatoes into the pan of boiling water. “No hidden boba tea this time, that is reassuring.”

Hands still moving without hesitation, Derek whipped his head toward Antoine, paused, and turned back to where he had been staring. Derek’s version of a glare.

“That was Charly,” I responded in unexpected unison with Maverick and Conor. I smirked while dumping the already-peeled tomatoes into the processor with another pinch of salt. “Seriously, Derek had nothing to do with that other than divine retribution.” I paused for a moment. “Although I do have to admit that the cold showers do seem to track with what Charly reported.”

That only got a shrug from Derek, which was as good as an admission.

The conversation shifted again - something Conor and Sam were working on in the aeroponics labs that I had already heard multiple details on, plus repetition. Tuning it out, I pulled out the last three tomatoes, dropped them in the ice bath, and took a platter with a loaf of bread, sliced cheese, and butter out to the table. “Mav, can you start setting up the sandwiches?”

He went to stand, but Tyche shooed him back down. “I got it. She may not let me help make the soup on this one, but I can prep a grilled cheese with the best.” Staring me in the eye, she started cutting slices from the loaf defiantly.

I just laughed it off. This was the only tomato soup either of us liked, and she had been chasing me for the recipe for ages. It had become a running joke at this point, so without hesitation, I moved back to the food prep area, peeled the remaining tomatoes, and gave another warning that I was going to be loud. Some more blitzing later, the now-pureed tomatoes went into the pan of veggies along with the spices I had already measured out, the juice from one lemon, and enough water to fill the pan three-quarters full. Leaving that to boil, I moved the boiling water off the stove and swapped it for a grill-pan.

“Sophie!” Conor cried from the armchair where he perched. “You’ve seen the plants we’re growing in the lab! Tell them we’ve managed a crop of roots!”

I winced. “Jury’s out… I’m not sure how aeroponic potatoes are going to turn out, but I can confirm they are in the process of finding out?”

Tyche’s knife fell to the table, and she moved her mouth silently in a very accurate imitation of a fish before managing to sputter. “Air-grown… potatoes?”

The confusion on Antoine’s face was painful to look at. He started to speak before stopping himself and instead pulling up his datapad, jotting a message, and flicking it out to the room.

When I read the message, the confusion was so clear that I hurt my sinuses snorting. Des pomme de terre en l’air? Pommes aeriennes? Talk about being lost in translation…. “Conor, Sam… I think Antoine has the perfect name for those if they work out. Just sayin’”

Tyche snorted and shook her head before handing me the platter, with a stack of perfectly buttered bread, two slices of cheese between every other slice of bread. The soup had just come to a simmer, so I was stirring intently and just nodded for her to start grilling sandwiches. Several appreciative sniffs and twenty minutes later, six bowls of soup and six matching sandwiches - three cut vertically and three cut diagonally, because it mattered and was not a battle I was willing to fight - hit the table. Tyche politely placed the salt cellar and a pepper grinder on the table, although the glare she dished out to the collected group promised strong retaliation to anyone who touched them.

I held up half of my grilled cheese in a mock-toast. “To soup night!”

“To air potato soup, soon!” Maverick offered up with a grin, only for everyone to echo his sentiment with the exception of Derek - who just held up half of his sandwich with one hand and tapped away with the other, not even relenting to eat.

Frankly, as long as he spared a hand to eat, I couldn’t bring myself to care. He took these tests very seriously, and generally only stopped when he was completely asleep.

Everyone dug in, but it was only after my first spoonful that I spoke up. “Considering how long it took to make sure the tomatoes wouldn’t be poisonous, I’m not sure the potatoes will be ready before we get to Von.”

Conor and Sam nodded, as did Tyche and Antoine, but Maverick stopped with his bowl halfway to his mouth. Setting it down gently, he angled his head. “What do you mean, poisonous?”

“They’re nightshades,” Conor told him, as calmly as if he was telling us that water was wet. “Tomatoes are the only edible berries of that family, and potatoes are the only edible tubers, so we have to be extra careful.”

Maverick’s eyes grew wide and turned toward his soup. Tyche just reached out and patted his hand. “You’ve eaten this soup for years, and you love tomatoes. They’re safe, I swear. And Sam won’t let Sophia near the new ones until he’s completely sure they’ll be okay to eat.”

Sam nodded, shoving a soup-covered wedge into his mouth. “We’re growing them in simulated Von-light, hoping that keeps the roots from creating chlorophyll. If we’re wrong, there’s a forty-three-point-six percent chance they won’t grow at all, ten-point-five percent chance they will give you a stomach ache, eighteen-point-four percent they won’t taste good, and twenty-seven-point-five percent they will taste good and be safe to eat at the same time.”

“Meaning they won’t kill you, you might get a tummy ache, but most likely for this generation, they just won’t grow,” Conor translated.

“Hang on,” I held up my spoon. “What kind of stomachache are we talking here?”

The mad botanists looked at each other and made a few thoughtful faces. Finally, Conor nodded and Sam spoke. “Unripe apples,” he stated flatly. “But just unripe apples.”

“Oh, that’s not too bad,” I shrugged and crunched into my sandwich.

Derek finished his half-sandwich and blindly reached for another. He had it halfway to his mouth before he looked at it and dropped it back to the plate in alarm. You would have thought it tried to bite him rather than vice versa.

Antoine shook his head and reached past the vertically cut sandwich Derek had dropped and delicately handed him a diagonally cut one. “Here you go, friend.”

Glaring at the sandwich like it may betray him, he bit it viciously before going back to the screen he could only see in his mind, seemingly satisfied that the sandwich would not change into the offending shape.

I told you, it matters.

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#the miys #found family #humans are weird #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #earth is space australia #post apocalypse #post post apocalypse #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing

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thebachelordiaries · 4 years

Text

Clare seeks HIMBO: ‘The Bachelorette’ cast first impressions

The Covid-19 pandemic has been rough for the entire world, but Bachelor Nation faced some dark days too. Going eight months without a single new episode from The Bachelor franchise is something I would really like to not relive.

Fortunately, those dark days are over. Clare’s season has me sucked back in.

The quality of this image is atrocious.

Most of these men—presuming they followed CDC’s social distancing guidelines— haven’t seen a woman in months, are touch deprived, possibly unemployed and contemplating moving back to their hometown while stalking the housing market on Zillow. Everyone’s desperate. That makes for some pretty good TV.

This season features men ranging from ages 26 to 41. We’ve got a boy band manager, a grooming specialist, several men who look like they masturbate in front of full length mirrors and even more who probably want me to join their MLM pyramid scheme.

I’ve never been more ready to roast a bunch of men who have nightmares about going bald. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since March.

Let’s go:

AJ, 28, Software sales

AJ is the kind of guy who writes “Looking for the Pam to my Jim <3″ on his Bumble profile. His bio is generic and probably not reflective of who he is as a person. If I were Clare I’d swipe left.

Ben, 29, Army ranger veteran

“Ben's favorite indulgence is an ice bath.“ Well then.

Alexa, play “Run” by AWOLNATION.

Bennett, 36, Wealth management consultant

Bennett’s profile is the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen. This man says he is the total package but hasn’t always been "this successful and good looking.” But wait, there’s more: “According to Bennett, his high school girlfriend is the only girl he's ever had to work for.“

Can someone tell me what NYC neighborhood he lives in so I can blacklist it?

Blake M1, 31, Male grooming specialist

Blake’s just another stereotypical “29th round draft pick who sat on the bench of the practice team before getting cut, but claims he left the sport due to an injury on his own accord.”

Blake M2, 29, Wildlife manager

This Blake is an outdoorsy Canadian who seems pretty genuine and cool. Unfortunately, he has the face of someone who’d get sent home on night one. I hope I’m wrong.

Brandon, 28, Real Estate Agent

Just another boring hot person. Nothing to see here.

Brendan, 30, Commercial roofer

Brandan, not to be confused for Brandon, “loves some good true crime, working out and hanging out with his friends.” I can’t even make fun of this man. We have the exact same interests.

Chasen, 31, IT account executive

The Winklevoss twins are actually triplets and Chasen is their long lost brother. But more seriously, have you ever seen someone who looks more like their name than this man?

Chris, 27, Landscape design salesman

“Chris hopes to find a woman who is sharp and witty but also easygoing.” Chris, sweetheart, have you met Clare? Easygoing...? There’s still time back out of this before it’s too late.

Dale, 31, Former pro football wide receiver

Dale aggressively screams “Bachelor material.” I’d say he’s auditioning for that role but Matt James already scooped it up. Better luck next year, Daley.

Demar, 26, Spin cycling instructor

Demar is a “very popular spin instructor in Scottsdale and says he can get on that bike and spin to any beat thrown his way.” Imagine how many trophy wives Demar has f*cked?

Eazy, 29, Sports marketing agent

Eazy is very similar to Dale on paper. Except his name is Eazy so he automatically loses that battle.

Ed, 33, Health care salesman

“Ed is looking to find a woman who has natural beauty without looking overly fake.” Ed deserves to die alone.

Garin, 34, Professor of Journalism

Garin’s bio is giving me hubby material vibes. And maybe a little bit of a “gets eliminated on night one” vibe too.

Ivan, 28, Aeronautical Engineer

Ivan, what are you doing here? We’re in a recession. Please go back to your normal job before it’s too late.

Jason, 31, Former pro football linemen

“He is a former NFL offensive lineman who, after suffering too many concussions on the field, decided to prioritize his health and change the direction of his life.” A big, brawny HIMBO with CTE? I feel like he’s Clare’s type.

Jay, 29, Fitness director

There are too many things about Jay that I dislike and I’m trying to keep this brief. Jay says “it's time to take a break from worrying about others and focus on himself instead.” I am willing to bet money that this man has never made a woman c*m.

Jeremy, 40, Banker

Jeremy is the oldest contestant ever to come on "The Bachelorette,” which may seem like a monuments accomplishment but he’s literally only one year older than Clare.

He also “hates Instagram models, both male and female,” so he should have a lot of fun here.

Joe, 36, Anesthesiologist

Before I even saw his profession and location, I thought Joe looked like a doctor I’d find on a NYC dating app...and...uh...I probably did see him on there now that I think about it.

Anyway, this man has apparently been through seven stages of hell while on the front lines fighting Covid-19 in NYC so I definitely think he deserves to find love. Someone marry him please.

Jordan C, 26, Software account executive

I can already tell Jordan is going to get the “I’m young but mature” edit which means he’s probably not going to be good TV.

Too bad someone a tad younger (like Tayshia) wasn’t the Bachelorette. I feel like they’d make a cute couple.

Jordan M., 30, Cyber security engineer

I was going to say something mean but Jordan’s into cyber security and I don’t want my blog to be deactivated, so never mind. Cast photos are historically bad so I’m sure he looks much better in real life.

Kenny, 39, Boy band manager

I could go for the obvious drags regarding this man’s profession (or his sh*tty chest tattoo, or his suspiciously boyish face relative to his age), but I like to think I’m more clever than that.

I’d like to take this time to talk about men, who are obviously difficult people, who rant and rave about how they want an “easygoing” woman. Look into the mirror, bud. No, not the one you use to jerk off to your reflection; the mirror that looks into your soul. Out of respect for the rest of humankind, have some self-awareness. Or maybe just see a therapist.

Mike, 38, Digital media advisor

Mike is seemingly a decent catch, but I can’t help but wonder why he’s still single or how he never (accidentally or on purpose) impregnated a woman in his 38 years of life.

And now that I’m thinking about it, do any of these men have children? I have yet to see any mention of it in their bios. But there are eight men left to review, so there’s still time.

Page, 37, Chef

I spoke too soon. Page is a father! He also hates football! I’m a fan of this man. I was initially going to drag him for his name and say that Page is not a real name. PAIGE is a real name. PAGE is a piece of paper. I’m allowed to say this because we have the same name except mine is spelled the correct way. Based on my (mostly positive) review of his cast bio, I have decided not to hold his name against him.

Riley, 30, Long Island City

Riley, once married with children, would like to go on a family vacation that consists of touring every single MLB stadium in the country. If i were his wife, I would simply never give this man children.

Robby, 30, Insurance broker

No more Robbys on The Bachelorette. Society has evolved past its need for more Robbys.

This Robby described his dream woman as: “Incredibly athletic and able to throw back a few beers with him after a day of hiking. She has a sweet personality and won't mind that he spends his Sundays on the golf course.”

Someone please give this man a sex doll. He just wants a hole.

Tyler C., 27, Lawyer

“Tyler C. is a badass lawyer who says he is a businessman by day and a cowboy by night.” How does that make him a lawyer? Does this mean he’s into cosplay? I’m confused.

Tyler S., 36, Music manager

Tyler makes an honorable living off riding his brother’s dick success as a country singer. “He just LOVES his job!” Uh yeah, I would too if I had a low-show, high-paying job off the merits of nepotism. It’s the American dream.

Yosef, 30, Medical device salesman

Another dad! He’s totally going to pull the “girl dad” narrative. That saying is kind of sexist to me but the masses generally eat it up, so I’m fairly confident Yosef will get the "sweet guy” edit he’s looking for.

Zac C., 36, Addiction specialist

“He loves Philadelphia sports and dreams of sharing a Philly Cheesesteak with his future wife while watching the Eagles win a Super Bowl.” This man is so South Jersey it hurts.

On a more serious note, I don’t think anyone in recent history has spoken openly about their personal struggle with addiction on this show, so I hope Zac gets a chance to tell his story.

Zach J., 37, Cleaning service owner

Zach is seemingly obsessed with Clare already and hopes to introduce her to his mom as his fiancée. Since Zach watched Clare on Juan Pablo’s season, you’d think he’d know that Clare would first meet his mom during the final four hometown dates. Assuming he makes it that far. My prediction is that he won’t.

Final thoughts

After eight long months Bachelor Mondays are back!!!

Uhh....wait.

Actually, we now have the less-exciting Bachelor Tuesdays. Yeah, it definitely doesn’t have the same ring to it. But I’ll take anything at this point.

Here are my final predictions:

First impression rose: Dale. It just looks like he can turn on the bullsh*t charm

Final rose: Jason. Clare wants a HIMBO I just know it.

Bachelor: nobody (Matt James is The Bachelor)

Most likely to get engaged on Bachelor in Paradise: Blake M2

Most likely to get canceled online: Bennett

Most likely to get sent home night one but deserve better: Chris

Who are your favorite men cast on this season?

#The Bachelorette #abc #clare crawley #chris harrison #photo credit: ABC

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ducktales-wco-oo · 4 years

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[SteelMark] “ how much longer do i have to keep swallowing my desires for you.

- ✩ { @aflockoffeathers } ✩

{ ☆ } Steelbeak is definitely persistent... and confounding as Hell. Honestly, Mark still doesn’t know how he feels about the rooster. Their first few impressions had been FAR from the best. But since then, Steel has been... better? Aside from the whole breaking-into-his-house-and-watching-him-bathe thing. Then again, as someone who has cyber-stalked his fair share of people, he supposed he can’t judge him too harshly for his actions. Right? It’s pretty much the same thing, just irl. Doesn’t stop him from feeling on-edge about the whole thing, constantly peeking around doorways semi-expecting to be met with that handsome yet intimidating sight.

He can still recall how it felt for Steel to yank him up by his shirt, murder practically burning in his eyes.

Swallowing thickly, feathers ruffle as he anxiously grips his arm and looks off to the side, debating whether or not he should subtly inch towards his office doors. He doesn’t want to risk inviting the other’s anger again– a fear that Mark can’t seem to shake off, regardless of how much time passes since the incident and murder of his guards —but he also doesn’t feel very comfortable engaging in THIS conversation. In having to provide an answer to a question he doubts he’ll be able to dodge any longer... Does Steelbeak want a solid timeframe? A deadline? Normally, Mark is surprisingly good with those. Is surprisingly punctual and organized when it comes to certain parts of his life, be it meetings or coffee orders...

But this- ... this is uncharted territory.

❝ I- ... I don’t know, okay? ❞ Mark finally says after what feels like an ungodly amount of silence, even though it couldn’t have been more than a minute or so. Closing his eyes, feathers bristle as he huffs a frustrated breath and more urgently says, ❝ I don’t have a frickin’ clue. There. There, I said it. I said it and it’s out there and now- now you just... Now we gotta deal with it, I guess. ❞ Grip on his arm releases to run through his headfeathers instead, Mark opening his eyes to look up at Steelbeak through a wince, ❝ Look- Steelbeak... Puh-lease don’t get mad about what I’m gonna say, alright? Just- Please don’t hurt me... ❞

With that, a nervous chuff of a laugh slips out, gaze averted and fingers digging into his feathers as he rapidly murmurs, ❝ Oh my G... I shouldn’t even be having to say that, but I guess THIS is the dynamic. ❞ It’s not like he has much of a choice in the matter. From the start he’s just been along for the ride. Coughing into a closed fist, arms then move to hug himself, fingers tugging at the sleeves of his cardigan, ❝ You’ve been... You’ve been great lately. A real stand-up guy. Like- THE kinda guy I used to fantasize about having interested in me. Back when I was lonely and- and closeted as shiz and... heh, and everything just suuuuuucked... You were pretty much the dream guy. ❞

Cheeks dust with warmth at the embarrassing admission, mouth running on its own accord as he averts his gaze to the side, shuffling anxiously in place as a thread is torn free from his sleeve, ❝ But you’re also... intense as Hell. I mean- Dude, I half-expect to see you every time I turn the corner. And not gonna lie, I’m still only fifty-fifty about whether you’re gonna eventually grow sick of me and just- dump my body in a ditch or something. ❞ Frankly, he doubts that it’d be something even as complex as that. Steel would probably just end him here and now and leave his Janitor to clean up the mess, like what happened the last time people were killed in Waddle Headquarters. Shaking his head and waving his hands in front of himself, feathers ruffle as the parrot panics, ❝ Nothing against you! I KNOW I’m a lot and you are NOT the first person who’s threatened my life! Not even close! ❞

... ❝ I’m just.. I’m scared, alright? ❞

Swallowing thickly, he takes a small step back, heart pounding in his chest as blue hues raise to finally meet the other’s gaze, uncertain what it is that he’ll find reflected in it, ❝ I- I don’t know why you’re so into me... and I don’t know how much you actually DO want me or just- want to win. And- and what if when you finally do... get me... What then? Are you just gonna up and leave once you’ve finished using me? Or are you gonna stick around for a bit and THEN leave when I’m not worth being around anymore? ❞ Granted, one would think that Mark would want the rooster to leave him alone, and a big part of him does. But another part can’t stand the thought of being used... of knowing that he was used... Of allowing that to happen again.

❝ And... And if you for some reason really do like me-like me... I- ... ❞ Another swallow, another hitch of his breathing and ruffle of his feathers, eyes widening as the memory of being hoisted up flashes vividly in his mind. Mingling with other instances, from his father... from bullies... ‘friends’ and crushes alike... Threatening him, grabbing him, hitting him. Being afraid and always wondering when the next instance would occur, just anticipating someone revealing that they have no qualms laying hands on him either. ❝ I’m gonna make you mad again... I know I will. Heck, m-maybe I already have... and then- then you’re gonna get that scary look and- and I’ll get picked up, only THIS time... ❞ Voice shaking, Mark doesn’t even realize that his body is following suit, tears brimming in the corners of his eyes as he weakly states, ❝ You’ll hurt me. ❞

❝ And- And I can’t let people hurt me... Not anymore... ❞ He can’t be afraid again. { ☆ }

#(FUCK *yeets this at you from the depths of my drafts*)#ducktales-wco-oo #⭒ ˙ ˖ ✧ — ˗ˏˋ ❝ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ɪ ɢᴏ; ɪ'ᴍ ᴡᴀʟᴋɪɴɢ ᴏɴ ʀᴇᴅ ᴄᴀʀᴘᴇᴛ ❞ ¦ 「 Mark IC 」#⭒ ˙ ˖ ✧ — ˗ˏˋ ❝ ɪꜰ ɪ ᴅɪᴇ; ᴛᴜʀɴ ᴍʏ ᴛᴡᴇᴇᴛꜱ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴀ ʙᴏᴏᴋ ❞ ◌ ᴍᴀɪɴ ¦ 「 Mark 」#steelbeak tbt #aflockoffeathers #mark and steelbeak tbt #⭒ ˙ ˖ ✧ — ˗ˏˋ ❝ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴀʀɪɴɢ ᴅᴏ ʙᴀᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ʟᴜᴄᴋ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ! ❞ ¦ 「 RP 」

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authorjulianneday · 4 years

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TRIAL TUESDAY | October 20, 2020

Challenge: Combine Cyberpunk + Mythology

Word Count: 1946

This is a bit of a throwback. I wrote it back in 2018 for a contest challenge and have edited it off and on since. It combines the myth of the sirens and the cyberpunk/sci fi genre.

CYBER SONG

Siren.

Like some sort of whispered threat, it always loomed over the inhabitants of Tech City Newport. Only natural, she supposed. They lived so near the James River. Ghost stories and tales of terrifying merpeople eked into every form of media the humans had. Pathetic, really.

Symphonia reached the sewer exit her contact had mentioned. Heaving herself out of the water, she grimaced. Waiting for her tail to fully molt and leave legs beneath, she began reconnaissance. Even down in this water runoff zone, lines of electricity fed the ravenous city above.

Scales and fibers lay about her, and what remained, she peeled off with her clawed fingers. She hissed in pain. The molting left behind two skinny limbs, translucent in the low light of the tunnel. Legs. So ugly. And so primitive.

Her legs gained more pigment the longer she waited. Gaining her balance, she rummaged through the chest of clothes in the stash used by Sirens. The fabric scratched at her new skin. It felt so fake, so synthetic.

Synthetic described everything the humans touched.

As much as she despised the buzzing hum of electricity it certainly sounded better than what she would deal with above ground. The constant chatter of voices in the megacity made her ill. Why couldn’t humans be content with silence?

A rusted metal ladder led up into the streets. When the Sirens had first investigated the city fifty years ago, they’d made sure to locate a spot in seclusion. Or, as close to seclusion as one could get.

She closed her eyes. Symphonia listened intently for the distinct tone that each auditory implant gave off. She heard only one nearby. It would be all too easy. Symphonia began to hum, matching the auditory implant’s tone, until she had gotten control of it. She held the tone with her honeyed voice, moving from a hum to a song. In the song she wove words of exhaustion and sleep. A few moments later something heavy dropped against the ground nearby.

Symphonia used her claws to force open the sewer cover, a smile on her pale lips. She heaved herself up into the street and instantly became bombarded by neon lights, the stench of dozens of food stalls, and raucous noise. Her nose crinkled in disgust. Synthetic.

She glanced around. Every time she came to the surface, something changed, and this was no different. Symphonia saw a new sign for some kind of body mod. If only humans realized the modifications led to increasing ease for the Sirens to take them down. She couldn’t see the sky, but that didn’t surprise her. Only the greys and blacks of concrete and rubber loomed overhead. Tech City Newport knew only artificial light, no sun; it had too many buildings and overpasses and walkways.

Her last contact had told her to head to the subcity New Wave. Leaving the small alley and going out into the bustling metropolis of the world the humans had created, Symphonia grimaced. Smoke wafted through the air and obscured the corners of the covered walkway.

The sound of bullets rang through the air in the distance. Symphonia studied the nearby humans immediately, and seeing they felt no danger, continued on her way. It seemed like every time she stalked Tech City Newport, gunshots peppered the air like rain on the waves at home. Another synthetic version of beauty, perverted by the filth of the humans.

She passed a massive food court and again became assaulted by the stench of humans. The sound of the grills and sloshing drinks caused her to cringe. She felt it. So she began to hum to herself, using a calming tone to resist the cacophony around her. Passing a condiment bar, she grabbed a handful of salt packets and stuck them in her pockets for later.

Heading into the elevator, she selected “New Wave” on the touch panel.

Symphonia chuckled out loud. New Wave sounded attractive; too bad it was filled with Modders and their filth and no water at all. Modders could only make trash. Not only did it end up down in her home, but it spilled out everywhere in Tech City Newport.

As the elevator moved upwards, she watched out the sides. From there she could see down into the megacity. Humans waddled about on land on their funny legs or sped by in their cars.

“New Wave.”

As the doors rolled open and she stepped out, Symphonia looked around carefully. New Wave always attracted a bad crowd, and it made perfect sense that her target had holed herself up there. Dr. Josey McMillian, PhDs in biochem, biotech, and engineering. Brilliant woman, according to the sirens’ sources. Brilliant enough to never install an auditory implant.

Symphonia shied away from a screaming machine to her right as she rounded a corner. Sparks flew from a welder repairing a pipe. The slight hum of various auditory implants sounded around her. Pinpointing the exact frequency she needed took concentration. At first she heard mostly nonsense, frequencies from random Modders loitering around on the New Wave level. Most gambled, some waited for black market deals. But eventually she caught the note of a man she’d been tipped off to.

A drink sat unattended on a food cart. Symphonia swiped it. Lifting the lid, She casually leaned against a wall, acting as one of the passersby with nowhere to go, and discreetly dumped three packets of salt into the drink. She could feel the sweats starting, and her arms hurt a bit. Muscle cramps.

She took a drink and nearly vomited. It tasted terribly of sugar, but she downed it. She needed the salt. It wouldn’t take long for the salt to act. Until then, she relaxed. When her arms stopped hurting and her tongue didn’t feel as dry, Symphonia listened in to the implant frequency. It sounded close by.

With a nod to herself, she went around the corner, still sipping on the straw casually. A door stood not far away in a darkened corner. Not suspicious at all. A man stood guard with a large rifle in his hands. His obvious synthetic eye would pinpoint her as having no body mods momentarily. Time to go to work.

“Hello sailor…don’t be afraid…” She continued on quietly, making sure only he could hear the song. It wouldn’t affect anyone else and they would instantly make her out as a Siren. “Keep quiet…good man…yes…stay quiet…”

She took out a folded piece of paper. Symphonia moved up to the man and, seeing him hopelessly under her control, she offered him the fake note. She knew they could see her on camera. “Let me in…and smile…”

He did as instructed, letting the computer read his ocular implant. The sterile grey door slid open without a sound. Her new warrior followed without hesitation. She just had to maintain her song. As a second door opened, they walked into a well lit laboratory. Tanks of various solutions stood around the room and in one was suspended a blue haired, blue skinned mermaid. Her eyes were open, but unseeing.

Rage filled Symphonia. She’d known Fortisima had been captured, but seeing her there, held like a slave by those she should’ve been devouring… Her song halted.

A groan from behind made her turn. The man she’d been controlling looked at her. She drew out the gun she’d swiped and shot the Modder through the skull. His scarlet blood splattered all over the door. Not the plan, but she’d make it work.

Two adjoining doors flew open. Symphonia ducked behind a counter. She reached out and tore the dead man’s automatic rifle out of his clammy hands and loaded it. Though certainly not as practiced as the humans, she knew her way around a firearm. Practice made perfect. As she heard them shouting for reinforcements, she popped up and shot them both. One died, the other did not, his skin made of metal of some sort. She grunted in anger. Synthetics.

Whipping around and leaping over the counter, Symphonia let her claws come out. One slash, and the wires in his neck broke. Of all the mods, cyber skulls were the most disgusting. Blood and oil dripped down her hands. She could taste the iron in the air.

A bullet grazed her arm and she cried out. Using the man’s dagger, she threw it straight into the ocular implant of the aggressor. Then, she found his frequency and sang. The gun entered his mouth. Symphonia narrowed her eyes. He dropped to the ground, a hole in his head.

Another appeared behind. Trying to fire again, the gun clicked. Symphonia grabbed a new one. But as she went to test it, it wouldn’t fire. She grimaced. A coded gun. She sent it sliding down the corridor in anger and slashed his throat. Grabbing an explosive from the closest dead Modder, she threw it down the hall after the gun. It went off with a bang.

She reached down and picked up two modded magnums. The handles molded to her grip instantly. Broken bodies lay strewn about the corridor. A man who had lost his leg screamed, writhing on the ground. He clawed at his burnt face. Symphonia paused. With a sigh, she put him out of his misery.

Symphonia split the air with a shriek. It rocked the building, and several vials shattered on the ground. The men on the other side of the door cried out. Their auditory implants broke apart on the inside. Rendered deaf, they staggered about disoriented.

A woman shook her head. Black haired, blue eyed, no body mods to speak of, and only momentarily dazed. She screamed at the disoriented soldiers and kicked one. Her lab coat had been stained with blood. “I paid you louses for protection!”

“Poor protection.” Symphonia’s voice lilted across the room as she stood in the doorway. Before anyone else could react, she’d taken out half the men, leaving four groping for their weapons. Symphonia leapt forward, dodging the doctor’s bullets, and used one of them as a human shield. His body filled with bullets. She threw him at the woman. In her effort to sidestep, she hit her head on a table.

Symphonia turned on the remaining three. One she sang to, and a second became another shield. Riddled with bullet wounds, Symphonia slit his throat. The last two died screaming.

Pain shot through her arm. The small bullet wound from earlier bled down her pale skin. Symphonia tasted it. She needed more salt, more ocean water. As the doctor reached her weapon, Symphonia kicked over a metal table. It crashed into the woman.

With the doctor pinned, Symphonia stood over her. She disposed of her weapons. It would only take a swipe of her claws to end the woman’s life. “Any last words?”

Through heaving breaths, the woman laughed. Blood clogged her mouth. With a last spit, she just shook her head. “Whatever your mission is? It’s a failure. Your friend is dead.”

“You were my mission.”

Her target died without a scream.

One last duty remained. No human could be allowed to retain the body of a mer. The woman’s blue tail had already molted away from the lack of liquid, but her naked body still had a tint of blue. In the back of the laboratory, tubs of gasoline for the Modders sat unbroken. She grabbed two and soaked the entire place, pouring the last bit over Fortisima.

Symphonia lit the trail of gasoline from the entrance and watched as it engulfed the lab. Her only safety lay in the water. Away from the Mods, away from the synthetics.

#writeblr #cyberpunk #writing #science fiction #mythology #mermaids #authors of tumblr #trial tuesday #genre challenge #prompted

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justjessame · 4 years

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A Reluctant Hero Chapter 21 (FINAL)

JD and I settled into our new life together with more ease than I think I’d ever cohabitated with anyone before. Well, maybe Kelsey, but she lived in the guest apartment, so did that really count?

I signed the papers that my lawyer had drawn up in preparation for taking Roger to court for revenge porn and cyber stalking, since he’d somehow managed to get into my email account to steal my contacts. He also let me know that he heard from the college where Roger was a professor and they were also planning on taking action against him for his less than adult reaction to a breakup. I guess poor Roger really didn’t quite understand how unpopular being a dickhead could be.

Kelsey and I visited, if not in person then virtually, almost every single day. I preferred in person, if only to get to hold, feed, and even diaper little Gideon. She kept asking, after she confirmed that I was actually marrying JD in the not too distant future, when she could expect a sibling. And I was losing the ability to feign irritation at her constant poking.

“Can we say ‘I do’ first?” I asked, cradling my grandbaby to my chest, and yearning for my own. “We’ve fast tracked so damn much, Kels, can’t we do SOMETHING more traditionally?”

She had the nerve to laugh. “I hate to tell you, Ani, but you and Dad and the word ‘traditional’ are pretty foreign concepts.” I rolled my eyes. “Just give me a sibling and Gideon a playmate, we’ll plan the wedding while you get down to business.”

That had me laughing, which is how JD found us when he came in from stacking more wood for his daughter and grandson. We’d packed his things into a moving truck before he noticed that the woodpile was getting low, so off he’d gone to play Paul Bunyon.

“What did I miss?” He was in the kitchen washing his hands so he could take Gideon in his arms, without wood dust and dirt mussing up our little guy. “Hey, buddy, grandpa’s back.” He looked up to see me watching him intently and his daughter still fighting hysterical laughter. “Seriously what did I miss?”

We were on the road, me feeling happy that we had the moving truck to keep him slow and easy on the drive back to our house, when he chuckled. I looked over to see his dimple peeking at me. “Down to business, huh?”

I snorted. “Practice makes perfect, right?” I shook my head. “Is she right?” I don’t know why I asked, of course she wasn’t. We should do the wedding, give me a chance to prepare myself to be a wife, then a mother, right?

He sighed, his laughter gone, but not his good mood. “Guess it depends on what you want, Ani.” Shit, leaving it up to me was no help. “I love you, the marriage part is just a formality to me.”

“You’d be alright if we started really trying? Now?” I felt the truck swerve a touch and bit my lip. “Not NOW now, JD,” I noticed that he had both hands on the steering wheel, and his fists were tight. “But now, as in when we get-”

“Home?” I swear I felt him hit the gas and started worrying that we’d be dead before we got there.

We did. We started actively practicing to make a baby, instead of, you know, roleplaying the practice. Wait, that sounds wrong even to me. I stopped the birth control. We didn’t start counting days until I was most fertile, but we did make sure that we were very hands on in our new goal. Hands, mouths, tongues, and other body parts on, actually.

And as we tried, I planned. While the marriage was a formality, I felt it was an important one. I knew that we didn’t need a huge event, that both of us would be happy with a simple ceremony at home, with our family around us. That’s what I planned. A small, intimate wedding at home. Dinner afterward, with happiness and to reaffirm what the people closest to us knew already.

As the day came closer, I have to admit, I didn’t pay attention to my menstrual cycle. Why would I? The birth control I’d been on had stunted my cycles, so I hadn’t had an actual period in years. The first month after I had stopped, I decided the missing period was my body returning to normal with residual hormones keeping it at bay. The second month I didn’t even notice, but the third month was when JD asked me about it.

“What?” I’d been writing, after lunch and he was sitting nearby reading. As always, I’d gotten distracted by my work so he had to ask again. “My period?” I had to think about it. “I just stopped taking my-”

“Three months, Ani,” he offered, moving so he could kneel beside my chair. “We’ve been trying for three months.” Shit. “I think we need-”

He left to buy a pregnancy test and I sat in silence, shocked that I’d missed missing my cycle. I could argue that I had a lot on my plate. I was writing a new book. I had gone to court to face down Roger, happy when at the last minute his attorney accepted a deal that would keep him firmly away from me and let the entire thing fade into the past. I was planning a wedding, simple as it was, and it was coming up in a week. Surely I could get a pass for fucking missing something so important. Right?

I read the box and took a deep breath. “It says that morning is the best time to take it, since the hormone is strongest then?” I looked up to see that he hadn’t bought just one, but three. “Or I could take one now and then another in the morning, just to be sure.” His smile told me that was his hope. Shit.

He waited in our bedroom as I did what one does when taking a pregnancy test. I left the stick on the counter, and joined him. He’d propped himself up against the headboard and looked completely at ease, but he had experience with this and I didn’t. I paced, after telling Pandi to start the timer for three minutes. JD watched as I wore a path in the floor, back and forth, back and forth.

“You do want this, right?” I looked up to see how uncertain he looked and felt my heart clench. He thought I didn’t-

“Oh, fuck,” I moved to our bed and crawled up to straddle him. “JD Richter, of course I want it, I just can’t get over how fucking stupid I was for not noticing that I’d missed it.” Cupping his face between my hands, I leaned forward so our foreheads touched. “I get distracted so damn much, but this is fucking important.” He laughed, moving his face so he could kiss my lips.

“As long as we’re together, we’ll figure it out,” I shook my head as Pandi told me time was up. “Let’s go see if we’re going to start thinking up names.”

Standing in front of the fireplace that I accidentally threw his shirt in, looking far more pulled together than most people would think JD Richter could look, I stepped closer and took his hands in mine. The minister said the same words that had been said so many times for some many years and our family watched as we were finally married.

We had a week to process the test results. To decide what came next. To decide where to go from there. And here we stood. A band on his finger that matched the one he placed on mine. Gideon made baby gurgling noises behind us, as we shared our first kiss as husband and wife.

Dad, Dorothy, Kelsey, Gideon, the minister, Molly Wood and her son Ethan, all joined us at our dining room table. A table that JD had sanded and stained new himself. That was holding a cake, and a dinner that I’d managed to create before we said our ‘I dos’. I had been startled, when a few days before, Molly had contacted JD. I was more surprised when he asked her to join us for our wedding, but after meeting her and hearing my dad and her talk together, I knew that any worry I might harbor was unnecessary. She was happy in her new role, with her son, and she wanted to offer her own happiness for our commitment.

Dad insisted on toasting us. Which led to Kelsey’s, then Dorothy’s, and even Molly said a few words. JD’s eyes met mine, he lifted my hand to his lips and after I nodded, he gave my knuckles a small kiss and stood up.

“Ani and I want to thank you for sharing our day with us.” I smiled as Dad’s hand touched mine from my other side. “When I met Anilea, even under the less than optimal circumstances,” I bit my lip to keep from giggling at how ‘less than’ that first meeting was. “I knew she was it for me.” My eyes burned at his certainty. “While we celebrate Ani now sharing the same last name as most of the people seated at this table, we wanted to share something else to celebrate-”

Kelsey’s eyes widened, and her grin grew. “I knew it,” she said, stopping JD in his tracks. “I freaking knew it.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, Kelsey,you get your wish,” JD was trying not to laugh. “If you have a preference for brother or sister, I think you have to take it up with-” His words were drowned out by the shouts from Dad and Dorothy, happy shouts, but shouts nonetheless.

In one day, I went from Anilea Ampstead, to Anilea Richter wife and expectant mother. And I wouldn’t have it any other way, even if I had to catch an asshole humping a teenager on my dining room table to meet the man of my dreams while completely shitfaced. At least it will make one hell of a bedtime story to tell our little one, right

#JD Richter x OFC #Extant #After the Series #complete

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mischiefandspirits · 4 years

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Iron Legion (24/?)

Never let it be said that Tony Stark ever does things by half. He might have grown up with little family, but he wasn’t about to keep it that way.

Tony Stark was seventeen when his first child was born, and that was just the beginning.

For Masterpost, Timeline, AO3, and Fanfiction

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Web-Warriors, Part 3

“For the record, if you had just told me Tere-”

“Peter.”

“Peter -- sorry -- was Spider-Man, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“If you had just told me you and Red Widow had concerns, this wouldn’t have happened. I’d have given you what I’ve got on Oscorp and we could have all been on our way.

“Please don’t call her that to her face,” Ross sighed.

“Why not? Her getup has to have been inspired by a red widow spider.”

“She already wants to pick a fight with you, don’t make it worse.”

“Can’t say I don’t feel the same. She’s been stalking my kid and now she attacked him, all while accusing me of human experimentation.”

“If she knew he was yours, she wouldn’t have worried. We all know how protective you are of your undisclosed number of children.”

“Doesn’t matter. And you know how many kids I’ve got,” Tony argued, waving away the statement.

“I know about the legion of robots you claim as children and the two human ones, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got more hiding in the wings.”

Tony opened his mouth to point out that the AIs were his kids, fuck you very much, when the other part of the statement registered. “I’ve only got one human kid.”

Ross didn’t even look up from whatever he was working on. “Stark, if you didn’t want me to know Ms. Parker was yours, you shouldn’t have introduced her with the same surname as the woman who led to our association.”

“Coincidence.”

“She’s Peter’s sister.”

“You spies are too nosy.” The elevator chimed and Tony turned to face it. “Speaking of nosy spies!”

“Stark,” Drew greeted as she stepped into the penthouse’s living room. Her glasses were once more glasses and she’d ditched the jacket for a simple red tank top.

“Spider-Woman.”

Drew scowled and Ross said, “I warned you not to go at him like this.”

“Are you the reason Vision was able to intervene before I could question the kid?” she shot back at the agent as Tony turned the video screen to face her.

“I’d be insulted you’d think I would let the Spider-Baby out without a babysitter, but I’m too busy being insulted you’d think I would not only try my hand at making a super soldier, but that I would use a child to do it,” Tony tutted.

“Not a child,” Peter muttered from behind her.

“I didn’t go into this thinking that,” she said, coming forward to sit down across from him.

Vision and Peter followed, the former choosing to stand nearby and the latter dropping down next to Tony.

“But then the evidence started piling up. The kid’s decked out in your gear and he was brought into the accords mess by you. His sister is the head of your security’s cyber division and spent some time working with the Avengers. The kid spends practically every weekend here, for feck's sake, and pops in randomly during the week on top of that. What was I supposed to think?”

“That his sister is like family to me so when we found out he was the one running around Queens in a spider onesie I brought him into the fold and made sure he had the gear and training to keep him out of trouble until he either got it out of his system and stopped or was old enough to join the big leagues.” Peter’s eyes lit up and Tony held up a finger. “No Avengers until after college.”

“Nebula didn’t even go to college,” Peter muttered. “And neither did Vision.”

“Nebula’s not an Avenger and Vision still isn’t legally a person yet. I, on the other hand, have three to seven doctorates and Rhodey has three masters. I expect you to at least beat him, though I know you could beat me if you actually tried.”

“Three to seven doctorates?” Ross asked.

“College isn’t a requirement for the Avengers,” Peter said with narrowed eyes.

“Lost track of a couple of diplomas a few years back. I’m sure I could ask Rhodey or look online to figure it out, but I don’t care enough to,” Tony waved the CIA agent off. “I can make it a requirement if you’re going to fight me on it.”

“Are they always like this?” Drew asked and Vision shook his head.

“Only when Peter’s status as an Avenger-in-training comes up.”

“Mr. Stark, Mr. Parker, can we focus please,” Ross pleaded.

“Sorry,” Peter said and Tony rolled his eyes.

“Fri, bring up what we’ve got on the OZ formula.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

“OZ?” Drew asked, looking over the files that began popping up on holo screens.

“In development at Oscorp. Its a combination of a few things, most of which we think they dug up from the S.H.I.E.L.D. dump. Its main base, though, is composed of Extremis as well as the Araneae serum developed by HYDRA scientists Jonathan and Merriam Drew. No relation, I’m sure,” Tony added sarcastically.

He honestly had thought there was no relation until Vision had informed him of her spider getup.

Peter’s eyes widened, but neither Vision nor Drew reacted.

“This is all you found?” she asked.

“I only looked deep enough to make sure Peter would be okay. I wasn’t going to give Osborn of all people a chance to accuse me of corporate espionage.”

“I’ll look into it,” Drew said. “It looks like they’ve only been working with animals, but I doubt it will stop there.”

“Knowing Osborn, you’re probably right.”

“Please keep me in the loop this time,” Ross requested with a sigh.

He sighs a lot. Maybe Tony should try and get him a vacation.

“So are we still fighting then or can we talk about the explosion we saw?” Peter asked.

Tony bumped their shoulders together. “P.L.A.T.O. looked into it and the FBI is dealing with it. That’s all you need to know.”

“Was it those guys with the weird weapons?”

“Either way, it’s not your business.”

“Take it slow, kid,” Drew said. “You’ll appreciate it once you get to the big time.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“And then he fell into the pool.”

Peter groaned as Harley burst out laughing.

“Oh man! Pete, you should have introduced me to your school friends so much sooner!”

“No, I shouldn’t have,” Peter muttered, waving at a man who called out to him as he swung past. “Come on, can’t we talk about something else, like how I got the winning question at nationals.”

“I’m sure Liz found it flattering that you got so distracted by her beauty,” S.I.L.K. offered.

“No offense, S.I.L.K., but I still can’t believe Iron Dork built you as a mom friend AI,” Harley chuckled.

“I still can’t believe Iron Man built Peter a personal AI!” Ned said excitedly. “Could I take a look at the code?”

“NED!”

“Well, I never!”

“I changed my mind. What kind of guy asks to see a lady’s code like that?”

“I-I-What? I didn’t, I mean -”

Peter snickered and flipped over to land on a roof. “We’re kidding. Mostly.”

“Code’s personal. Even D-Tony doesn’t poke around in any of the AIs’ codes once they’re live unless something’s wrong and they can’t fix it on their own,” Harley explained.

“Their code is like their mind and spirit. It’s what makes them who they are.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize,” Ned apologized, sounding sincere, if still a bit confused.

“It’s alright, Ned. You’re still learning,” S.I.L.K. responded in a gentle voice.

“Speaking of AIs, guess who finished the you-know-what for PV.”

“PV?” Ned asked as Peter gasped.

“You got Anapistula working?”

“Yes, I got the stupidly named thing working.”

“It’s a great name! Anapistula is -”

“Yeah, yeah. Did you get the coordinates?”

“Kid, where are you?”

“Who the,” a beep sounded, “was that?” Harley yelped. “Wait, S.I.L.K., did you just censor me?”

“Agent Drew, you do not have the authorization to be on this call?” S.I.L.K. said instead of answering him.

“Agent Drew? You mean Spider-Woman?” Ned gasped.

“There are random children o- Nevermind. Kid, get to Bush Terminal Park as fast as you can. Vision will meet you there. There’s trouble on the Staten Island Ferry and we could use your webs.”

“What’s going on?” Peter asked as he swung off the building.

“Agent Drew hung up. Multiple emergency services have been called out to the ferry’s location. Reports say the ferry is under attack by an enhanced with wings. Agent Drew and a few FBI agents are on the scene.”

“Is it Wilson?” Harley asked.

“There has been no identity given.”

“Which means no. Everyone would know if one of Rogers’ gang showed up.”

“Dude, are you going to team up with Spider-Woman and Vision to fight a supervillain?” Ned cheered.

“Maybe. I’ll call you guys back later,” Peter said as he got near the park.

“Aw, but I wanted to be your guy in the chair!”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, you runt!”

“Next time don’t sell me out, you traitor!” Peter shot back at Harley. “S.I.L.K., end call, please. Vis!”

Vision turned and caught Peter midair. “Hello, Mr. Parker.”

“Hey Vis,” Peter said, shifting so he was sitting bridal style in Vision’s arms. “I told you, it’s Uncle Peter. Or just Peter if we’re not there yet. What’s up with the Ferry?”

The android turned and flew out over the water. “I’m not certain. Agent Drew just said she needed our help at the ferry. She attempted to reach Mr. Stark, but he is still in India due to his delayed departure so I answered instead.”

A weak shock wave hit them and Vision sped up.

“Woah!” Peter gasped as they came upon the ferry just as it started to pull apart in two. “S.I.L.K., give me an X-ray of the boat and target all the strongest points.”

He let himself fall and started firing webs as soon as he was within reach.

“Great job, Peter,” she congratulated after he’d gone from one end of the ferry to the other. “You are ninety-eight percent successful.”

“Ninety-eight?” Peter asked, watching as she highlighted a pillar.

He heard some people start to cheer for him just before a few of the webs snapped.

Peter immediately dove back in, shouting “No”s as he grabbed a snapped web and shot off another, trying to pull them -- and therefore the halves of the boat -- together.

Spider-Woman dropped down in front of him, grabbing the webs. “I got them, kid. Tie them together.”

Once he’d done that, he helped her back over to one of the sides. “What happened?”

“Later. Just try and keep this thing together as long as you can while Vision and I evacuate everyone.”

Peter nodded and swung away. He shot a few webs then sent Droney up so S.I.L.K. could monitor the whole boat and prioritize the areas based on web instability. With her help, he flipped around the boat laying web after web. He’d occasionally see Spider-Woman flipping around or Vision floating by, but focused on his job unless he needed to swing down and catch someone that had fallen between the halves.

“Alright, that’s everyone,” Spider-Woman said, landing on a web next to him. “Time to go.”

“What about the boat?”

“It’s a lost cause. Damage Control’s sending a team to drag it up.”

Peter nodded and shot a web towards the end of the boat where the emergency boats were waiting.

“Maybe I should get Stark to make me some of those,” she joked as she followed him.

“I, uh, I actually made them. The webs are my formula and I made the original shooters. Mr. Stark just helped me modify them for more web options.”

She smirked as they landed on a rescue boat. “Leave it to Stark to find a supergenius super soldier.”

Peter blushed under the mask. “I wouldn’t say I’m a super genius.”

“Uh-huh. You need some combat training though. Stark showed me some of your fights. You rely too much on the webs and acrobatics. You’re stronger and faster than most of the guys you’re going up against, you need to learn how to use it. You also need to trust in your spider instincts more.”

“Spider instincts?”

She tapped his head. “I know you’ve got them. I saw the way you looked at me when I got your mask off. It’s like a sixth sense, though it’s really just your brain processing the information your other five are giving you faster than your human mind can keep up with.”

“You mean my danger sense? So it’s more like a spider-sense!?”

“Sure,” she snorted.

“Can you teach me? How to use it, I mean,” Peter asked, bouncing slightly. “Vision’s been helping me train, but our powers aren’t exactly the same.”

“Neither are ours. From what I’ve seen, you’re a bit stronger and dexterous, though not as fast and you don’t have venom blasts. I think your healing is better than mine as we-”

“Wait, venom blasts!?” Peter gasped, his bouncing increasing. “Can you shoot venom!?”

“Not exactly,” she chuckled, setting her hands on his shoulders to make him stop. She pulled one hand back and held it up between them.

Lighting crackled across her fingertips.

“Woah!”

“It’s -”

“Bioelectricity!” Peter cut in. “Spider’s use it to give their webs static charges, though I don’t think any can produce that much at one time! That’s so cool! Why can’t I do that? I mean, I can fake it with the taser webs, but that’s it.”

“Right, supergenius,” she muttered. “Probably because of whatever else was mixed into your batch.”

“That sucks.”

“Are you alright, Peter?” Vision asked as he floated down next to them and Spider-Woman dropped her hands and stepped back.

“I’m good. You?” Peter asked.

Vision nodded. “None of the rescue boats have any injuries to report aside from some minor bumps and scratches.”

“That’s good.”

“So what happened?” Peter asked, looking between them.

“The FBI has been tracking those weapons you found and they got a tip that there was going to be a sell on the ferry. They also heard rumors that there was an enhanced with the dealers so they reached out for backup, just in case. Since I was in the area and have signed the accords, I offered to help.

“The arrest was going fine until the enhanced showed up. He had robotic wings like Wilson’s but bigger and bulkier. Probably built for strength over speed. That’s when I called you two in. The wings were bulletproof so we needed air support. I was hoping that between your webs and Vision we could take him down, but one of my blasts caught the weapon he was using and it overloaded causing,” she gestured towards the sinking ferry. “He and his buddy took off during the commotion.”

“Sorry we couldn’t get here sooner,” Peter said.

She smacked his back. “Stop worrying, kid. You did good.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I hate you.”

Peter rolled his eyes as Harley groaned into the phone.

“First Dad lets you be a superhero, now you get to train with a secret agent. I swear, when I finish Gryphon, the first thing I’m going to do is use it to kick your butt.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Did you get the coordinates or not?”

“Uh… Yep, putting them in now. You know, we’re probably going to at least be on a watch list if we do this. Doesn’t that go against your whole pure and innocent aesthetic?”

“If it works like it’s supposed to, then no one but her will even know.”

“And if it doesn’t then we’re going to be hunted down by a fur-”

“Who are you talking to?”

Peter looked up as Michelle pulled one of his earbuds out of his ear. “Oh, uh, hey Michelle. What are you doing?”

“Liz wanted me to remind you about the photoshoot tomorrow for the yearbook. She said if you miss it, she’ll take Flash to the dance.”

“I-What!? Really?”

“No, I just wanted to see what face you’d make.”

Peter blushed as Harley snickered.

Michelle put the earbud up to her own ear.

“So who are you ta-?” she started to ask just as Harley said, “Is that the girl in your nerd club that you called scary?”

“Harley!” Peter hissed, barely keeping his voice down enough not to get the librarian’s attention. “I didn’t call you scary.”

“Can she hear me? Because you did call her scary.”

“A little. I said you could be a little scary sometimes. I didn’t mean -”

“Do I scare you, Peter?” Michelle asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I, uh -”

“Good.”

Harley laughed and said, “I like her. Hey, Michelle, right? Do you have a date for your school’s homecoming dance?”

“Harley, you literally haven’t even met her!”

“Yeah, but I need an excuse to give Dad so he’ll fly me out to New York to beat you up.”

“I’m game,” Michelle said with a shrug.

“What!?”

“Cool.”

“What is happening?”

“I’m going with your phone friend to homecoming so he can come to New York.”

“Keep up, Pete.”

“You two don’t even know each other?” he reiterated, letting his head fall onto the keyboard of the computer he had been working on before Michelle interrupted.

“Calm down. It’s not a date,” Michelle snorted, rolling her eyes. “We’re just lending each other a hand. He wants to come to New York and I want my mom to stop badgering me to find a date for the dance.”

“Glad to be of service.”

“Have Peter give you my number,” Michelle said, dropping Peter’s earbud.

“But I don’t have your number.”

“Yes you do, check your phone.”

Peter checked his contacts. “When did you add yourself to my phone?” he asked, looking up. She was gone. “See, this is why she scares me a little.”

“This is even better than meeting Ned.”

“Harley, you don’t even like dating! Why did you ask her out?”

“Three reasons. One, I can bring you Ana so you can pass her off to Joe for the delivery. Two, I can kick your butt. And three, I get to say I got a date to your homecoming before you did.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Besides, like she said, it’s not a date. We’re just using each other.”

“Please tell me you realize how wrong that sounds.”

“It’s only wrong if both parties aren’t aware and consenting.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Seriously, runt, get a date. Embrace your inner Stark and ask out that Liz girl you’ve been crushing on. I can’t be the only one going to your homecoming.”

Peter ended the call.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the record, before anyone can say anything, Harley and MJ are going as friends. As hinted, Harley’s aromantic. He just wants an excuse to come to New York and MJ just wants to mess with Peter.

IDK if Jess's costume was actually designed after a red widow, but it's a heck of a coincidence if it wasn't.

The 3-7 doctorates joke was a reference to the comics where at on point, Tony says he has three doctorates, while at another he says seven. Not sure which is canon so I decided to make Tony unsure too.

#sm: homecoming #peter parker #jessica drew #harley keener #iron family

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