How I Met Your Mother
by Meimi

Prompt filled for Ruaki.

"There's nothing wrong," Hope grumbled as he plopped down on the couch and looked anywhere other than at his parents. "Everything is perfectly fine."

Nora shared a long, skeptical look with Bartholomew. They'd gone into this knowing that Hope would make it as difficult as possible, but well, teenagers, just had to keep at it until he listened. It was for his own good anyway. "We're just worried about you, honey. That's all," Nora said pleasantly as she turned back to their son, who still refused to look at them. "It just doesn't seem right for you to not have any friends."

"I don't like anyone at school," Hope explained almost petulantly as he flopped back against the couch and glared up at the ceiling.

"I know, baby, and I understand completely. It's hard to be surrounded by incompetent idiots all day," Nora said soothingly as she fetched her teacup from the coffee. "We just don't want you to turn out like your father, that's all. He had no friends whatsoever until I came along."

"Hey!" Bartholomew blurted out, "I did too!"

Nora just gave him an unimpressed glance as she started stirring her tea. "The A.I. you were programming on your computer doesn't count."

Bartholomew scowled, crossed his arms, and looked away. "It was a good program! But I had other friends too."

"Yes it was, dear. And you certainly get points for not making it a girl," Nora said sweetly, then took a careful sip from her teacup and smiled appreciatively.

Hope blinked curiously in surprise at that little tidbit of information. "Dad made an A.I. back when he was in school?"

"Ah, yes," Bartholomew laughed self-consciously as he reached up and scratched at the back of his head in embarrassment. "It really wasn't all that good of one, but it was a learning experience."

"That's pretty cool." Hope leaned forward eagerly, with what would no doubt be a myriad amount of questions poised on the tip of his tongue.

"Yes, he did," Nora cut in irritably and waved her spoon menacingly at the both of them. They could nerd out later, right now was parent time. "But the point is, your father had no friends until I came along. And it was a good thing too. I swear, our first meeting was less than desirable. Here I was transferring into a new school and there's this schmuck teetering around the hallway carrying way too much crap and dropping stuff left and right." She gave Bartholomew another unimpressed look then. "You still haven't answered my question, you know. Why the hell didn't you have a backpack to put all that crap in?"

Bartholomew winced and started picking at invisible lint on his shirt. "I just didn't think about stuff like that."

"Mhmm," Nora nodded knowingly at him. "That's about what I thought." She pointed her thumb at him as she announced gravely to Hope, "Be glad that I rescued this idiot that day, otherwise he would've broken his neck and you would've ended up with a much different father."

"Nora!" Bartholomew was definitely whining now.

The smirk she leveled at him was nothing less than superior. "Admit it, you wouldn't have gotten anywhere but six feet under if I hadn't started looking out for you."

Bartholomew deflated at her words. "I'm no fool. But you have to admit that you were the one who started stalking me first."

"Of course I did," Nora said breezily, completely unashamed of her teenage antics. "And who wouldn't want a sexy looking girl like me keeping an eye on them."

"Yes," Bartholomew grinned bashfully, his cheeks brightening to a light pink, "You were quite the looker. Still are."

"Exactly." Nora smiled and nodded in obvious pleasure at his agreement. "And that's really the point of this conversation, Hope," she said pointedly as she gave their son a rather commanding stare, "Between your father's intelligence and my good looks, which you have inherited, you shouldn't have any problem rustling up some sycophants to hang off your every word."

"Uh," Hope shrunk down and just stared at his mother, "I thought we were talking about me having no friends."

Nora shrugged easily. "Friends, servants, slaves, it's all the same. They should be eating out of your hand, not the other way around."

Hope looked over at his father pleadingly, but Bartholomew merely shook his head. Nora was a wonderful woman, but she had some odd ideas about how the world should work.