Yayyyyyyyyy fluffies! *tumbles exuberantly down the stairs*
Angel Star Ninja: No worries, it's all uphill from here! They've sort of said everything they wanted to say, Nya's slowly coming to accept what she's learned about Kai, Kai's patiently waiting for her to come around . . . They'll work it out eventually. :)
Guest 1: Thanks! Yeah, things always come to a head eventually, misery or not. :S Haha, I'm pretty sure Kai really doesn't like Meep all that much. He just sort of grudgingly acknowledges that aliens are okay sometimes, when they're being particularly nice to him. :P Ohhhh, I see! Heh, sorry about that. Yeah, she's getting a little impatient, actually. Jay hasn't been keeping her updated as conscientiously as he might. XD
Guest 2: Well, I can't make any promises. ^_^'' I like Kailor too, but right now there are kind of some obstacles to it . . . most of them imagined, but still. There'll definitely be some rocky patches, if nothing else. Say, ever heard "Fire Meet Gasoline," by Sia? I can never shake the feeling that it'd be the perfect song for those two. P:
Sept 11
10:49 PM
Patrol circuit: Zane and Lloyd (completed)
Status conditions: None
Although they had gone to bed for real this time, it was a while before most of them went to sleep. After their weird pattern the day before, most of them had trouble drifting off—except Cole, who would have happily kept a ten-hour sleep schedule if he wasn't stuck with the ninja lifestyle. He was out cold within minutes.
One by one the others drifted off too, until only Jay remained. He rolled over and over in his bunk, wrapping himself up in his bedsheets, but his eyelids didn't grow even the tiniest bit heavy. As the minutes wore on, he drifted in and out of a waking dream, getting no actual rest value out of it.
At last he rolled over and swung his head over the edge of the bunk.
"Cole," he whispered.
"Mmmmm?" Cole gave an unwilling groan, prying one eye open.
"What if there were turtles?"
Cole blinked the glue from his eyes and squinted at Jay blankly.
"What?"
"What if there was another universe, somewhere out there, and it had us. But instead of us, we were turtles! What if there was that?"
Cole stared for a moment, his still-sleepy brain processing this tidbit.
"This is what keeps you awake at night?" he said at last.
"It's not keeping me awake, I was already up and I just now had that thought," said Jay.
"Well, stop having it," mumbled Cole, rolling over and pulling his pillow over his head.
"But what if we were turtles?"
"Then that would be great."
"But I don't want there to be another me that's a turtle!"
"It would be awesome, trust me. Turtles are silent."
Jay made an annoyed noise in his throat. Realizing that sleep wasn't about to happen, and that Cole wasn't coherent enough to discuss the grim reality of turtle AUs, he slid out of bed and padded to the door. Maybe some late-night video games would wear him out. Meep whisked up next to him as he slipped the door open, evidently satisfied that Kai was asleep and more interested in being where the action was. Or maybe just where Jay was. There was a flattering thought.
Once out in the hallway, Jay realized that a light was still burning in the central control room.
"Nya? . . . " He peeked around the door.
"Oh, hi Jay," said Nya, looking up. She was laboring over the tangled innards of one of the sirens she'd taken apart a few days ago.
"You're still up?" said Jay, slipping into the room.
"Yeah. I was gonna call the Constrictai miners, remember? I figured this was easier than setting the alarm and dragging myself out of bed at midnight." She yawned, stripping coating from a wire. "You have patrol tomorrow, though. You need sleep."
"I can't," shrugged Jay. "You, uh . . . want some company?"
Nya seemed to hesitate, but her smile afterwards was genuine.
"Sure. I'd love that."
The night seemed to fly by. Studiously Jay coaxed Nya away from her memories of that evening, hoping he could help her move on. They discussed turtles, worked on their spaceship to their hearts' content, got distracted when the aliens began to sing their duet again, tried to teach the aliens how to build card houses, failed miserably, played three rounds of Go Fish, and programmed a pair of floppy drives to play the Peanuts theme song. It was unclear why they chose to do so; they may have been more sleepy than they were willing to admit.
Twelve-thirty found them camping in the control room, somewhat drunk on sleep deprivation. They were again trying to fix the broken sirens, but they weren't making much progress—mostly because they were laughing themselves sick over Starfarer fanfictions in the meantime.
"How culd yo do ths to my, Alexia?!" intoned Jay, blowing his nose overdramatically into an oily rag. "Yu never loved my!"
"No!" intoned Nya, clutching her heart. "I stil lovr yu, Frtiz!"
"Frrtizzz." Jay broke character, choking. "I . . . I can't."
"Silence, Frtiz!" Nya chucked a loose wire at the back of his head. "Don't be jealous of the beautiful Alexia's beautiful pronunciation skills. Frtiz."
Jay, still laughing, flopped sideways across the swivel chair and allowed himself to lean all the way back, till his head dangled almost to the floor. For a while he hung that way, watching Nya fiddling with siren components. It was good to see her smiling for real again. They'd been struggling to keep up a fake normalcy all day, but after that had violently disintegrated—after they'd let themselves be dunked into the full extent of misery and let it run its course—he could see the promise of better times glinting in the distance.
"Rrrrgh." Jay snapped out of his thoughts at Nya's frustrated growl. She tugged at a singed wire. "This circuit keeps blowing! It worked fine before . . . "
"Try a germanium and a silicon 3A diode, in parallel," said Jay idly.
Nya, eyebrow raised, inserted the named components.
"You're right, it works!" she said, surprised. "Not bad . . . "
"Eh. Sorta comes intuitively," said Jay, drawing out a twist of blue lightning between his finger and thumb.
A bit of silence. Nya put together a few other bits and pieces.
"Y'know, I don't give you enough credit," she said at last.
"It's nothing much," said Jay, blushing slightly. "I mean, you should hear Zane talking about ice formation. Or Cole—well, he's all dirt between the ears, but he does know a lot of stuff about rocks and soil structure and stuff. It just—"
"Not even just that," interrupted Nya, shaking her head. "I mean about everything."
"Uhh—" Jay tilted his head, rocking the upside-down world.
"I mean, I've known you for ages, and I never even knew you were this good at building things," said Nya, fiddling with a tiny screw. "And I definitely didn't know you could, well . . . be there for someone, like that. Like you were for me, like you are for the aliens. You're more serious than I gave you credit for."
"Ahh, d-don't mention it," stammered Jay, swinging right-side-up and hoping his blush would get mistaken for blood draining to his head. "It's not like I've ever, y'know, acted like anyone worth taking seriously."
"Still." Nya gave him a quick smile. "I'm . . . glad I got to know you better."
"H—hey, right back atcha," said Jay. Inside he felt like he was going up in fireworks, and it was all he could do not to blurt out something embarrassing and probably uncalled-for. Somehow he restrained himself to just smiling back and sliding down to join Nya on the floor, grabbing a pair of pliers.
But it was good to be here. With her. Really good.
An hour later Jay jolted awake to the sound of the central computer's ringtone. He looked around frantically for a second, scattering siren components about, and realized Nya had been snoozing in the swivel chair nearby. She was now also blinking her way awake, already fumbling for the "answer call" button.
"Wait, wait!" Jay grabbed a dozing Meep and shoved him under a nearby tarp to hide him. Nodding, Nya punched the button, and the video flickered into view on the screen. It was a bit dark and grainy, but you could clearly see the stocky form and glowing eyes of a Constrictai.
"Good evening, Misssss Nya," he said. "Err—did I catchhhhh you at a bad time?"
"Haha, no, no, sorry," laughed Nya, rubbing her eyes. "We were just dozing off there. Hi Scrubble! This is Jay."
"Evening." Scrubble nodded amiably.
"Hi." Jay smiled, surprised at how natural it felt to be sitting up past midnight chatting with a Serpentine. Who was underground, too, from the looks of it.
"So, how's the wife and kids?" asked Nya, settling back and covering a final yawn.
"We're all fine, thanksss. But I thought you'd like me to cut right to the chase, ma'am—we may have found the tunnels."
Nya gave a startled screech and nearly fell backwards out of the swivel chair. Jay caught her by the shoulders. She blinked up at him for a second with a sheepish smile, then shot back upright.
"You found them?! That's wonderful! Where?!"
"We're not sure just yet." Scrubble sounded like he was trying not to laugh. "But we always do preliminary sssoundings—"tapping," we call it—to check what the digging ahead will be like. We were tapping in a side tunnel about an hour ago, and there seems to be a rather exssssstensive open space a little deeper underground."
"So you think the tunnels are nearby? Can you dig towards them?" asked Nya eagerly.
"We're already on it," said Scrubble. "Right now we still need mosssst of our—ahem—snakepower on the main job—"
"Of course, of course, I understand," said Nya. "Don't skip out on your job to do this!"
"—we have a few extra handssss, don't worry," said Scrubble. "Anyway, a few of the boyssss have agreed to stay after the end of their shift and dig full-time. We esssstimate we should reach the tunnels in eight hours or lesssss."
"Scrubble, you are the absolute best," said Nya giddily. "All of you!"
"Hey, we want thosssse Technicians caught as much as you do," said Scrubble drily. "We use a lot of electronic equipment in this operation, and we lose a lot of electronic equipment to their operation. If you ninja are willing to go down there and trouncccce them for us, we'll gladly do the digging part of it." His stubby fangs glinted white through the fuzzy darkness of the video. Jay assumed that was a smile—but the tiny hint of derision in the way Scrubble pronounced "ninja" wasn't lost on him. Old habits died harrrrrrrd.
"Well, either way we wouldn't stand a chance without you," said Nya. "We owe you one."
"Noted," said Scrubble. "For now, we're going to keep digging. I'll contact you once we know for sssssure what we find down there."
"Thank you!"
The video fizzled out. Nya and Jay turned to each other for a second, then gave twin whoops and spun each other around the room.
"Finally! Ha ha! Finally a—oww!" Jay let go of Nya's hands and jumped back, favoring one foot. There were still some loose siren components lying around. Nya tried to steady him, but instead he stumbled into her and somehow succeeded in dragging them both down. They wound up sprawled on the floor side by side, laughing helplessly. Meep surveyed them from his spot underneath the tarp, vaguely disapproving. They had woken him up.
"What are we so excited about?" giggled Nya, rubbing her face. "We don't even know for sure that those are the Technician tunnels. It could just turn out to be an old limestone cave or something."
"Don't say that, you'll jinx it!" protested Jay.
"It could totally be a limestone cave," said Nya, just to be contrary. "Limestone." She giggled again, then shook out her head and got hold of herself. "Okay, I'm starting to think the word 'limestone' is funny. Definitely time to get some sleep."
"Ugh, me too." Jay yawned, dragging Meep over by one leg and tucking him under his arm. "Say, should I tell the others about this?"
"Could you wait for me? So we could tell them together?" said Nya. She nudged him playfully. "Knowing you, you'll get all excited and tell them we've found the tunnels for sure, instead of bringing up the limestone."
"Okay, okay, I'll wait." Jay considered, then snickered. "You're right, it does sound funny."
Nya sat up, laughing tiredly.
"We realllllllllly need sleep."
They crept quietly down the hall, hoping not to wake the others at this unholy hour. At the bunkroom door they were forced to part ways. Somehow they were both a little reluctant.
"Promise you'll wait?" whispered Nya. It was such a rare flash of vulnerability; something prickled warmly in Jay's chest.
"I promise," he whispered. "G'night . . . "
"Night."
A beat.
"Liiiiiiiiiimestooooooone," whispered Jay sinisterly, and they both muffled their laughter all the way to bed.
Despite everything, Jay was still the first to wake up in the morning. He was just too excited. Squinting at the alarm clock, he settled back down, deciding to wait the few minutes until the alarm rang. Zane, he noticed for the first time, was curled up on the floor. Poor sap must've had a nightmare and forgotten to get back into bed.
In the bunk below him, Cole began to stir.
"No . . . " he mumbled. "No!" The stirring became more vehement. Jay swung upside-down to check on him, then dropped lightly to the floor and nudged the earth ninja.
"Chill out, Cole. Easy," he murmured.
"No!" Cole jerked away so violently that Jay yanked his hand back, startled.
"Blood all over the place . . . " the earth ninja slurred, shaking his head.
"I know, man, I know." Jay patted his arm, not wanting to stir him up further. "Easy. It's all fine, don't worry. Go back to sleep."
Just then the alarm clock went off. Cole shot bolt upright, hitting his head against the top bunk. Jay winced. Meanwhile Cole, gasping, looked around with wild eyes for a moment, registering where he was. Jay waited patiently for reality to sink in. Around them the others dragged themselves awake, groaning, as the alarm continued to beep. Lloyd stumbled to his feet and groped for the snooze button, then looked with sleepy bewilderment at Zane on the floor.
"You 'kay?" said Jay at length.
"Yah . . . Ugh." Cole rubbed at his head gingerly and cast Jay an awkward, bleary glance. "I . . . wasn't saying anything stupid, was I?"
"No stupider than usual." Jay smiled and nudged him gently. Meanwhile Meep bumped his way through the half-open door, attracted by the alarm tone, and glomped himself to Jay's head, chirping a greeting. Then, noticing that Cole seemed unsettled, he jumped on the earth ninja instead. Cole caught him reflexively, but stiffened and gave a violent shudder. Jay quickly figured out what he'd been dreaming about.
"You've got some serious traumas, pal," he said sympathetically.
"I do not."
"Take it easy. He's not bleeding, promise." Jay took Meep back, disentangling the affectionate critter's legs from Cole's pajamas. Cole rubbed his head again, grumbling away his embarrassment.
"Next time we change the sheets, I want the top bunk. My skull's wearing out," he said. Then he suddenly blinked at Jay as if seeing him for the first time.
"Wait. Did I just dream it," he said, "or were you asking me about turtles last night?"
"I, uh . . . may have mentioned something along those lines," said Jay carefully. Looking back, he wasn't quite sure what his train of thought had been. Or why an alternate universe full of shelled reptiles had unsettled him so much in the first place.
"Wow. Middle of the night, and you wake me up to worry about turtles," said Cole, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What goes on in your head, Jay?"
"It's—science." Jay huffed, folding his arms. "And philosophy. And—and stuff."
"And turtles." Cole chuckled.
"Ohhh . . . hush, you. Now hurry and get up, Nya and I want to tell you guys something." Jay stood up to leave, then turned back to address the room as a whole. "Oh, and Nya says we're running low on water, so it's Navy showers from here on out."
Groans all around.
"Hey. It's that or drinking chalk-flavored roofwater," said Jay sternly. "So unless you like that stuff—!"
And with this ultimatum, he swept off.
Over breakfast, the Bounty's two inventors shared their news. Everyone was extremely excited at such a huge possible breakthrough—although nobody could quite figure out why Jay and Nya collapsed into laughter in the middle of trying to explain about limestone caves.
Technically Jay and Kai were supposed to go out for their patrols. However, few earthly forces could have convinced them to leave—not with news like this on the way. Everyone fidgeted and paced, hoping every second to hear the musical ringtone of the Bounty's computer. Nya turned the volume all the way up, but she still didn't dare go outside to work on repairs.
Itching for something to pass the time, Lloyd dragged Jay aside for another valiant attempt at pranking Kai. They figured things had settled enough by now.
"Not that I make a habit of looking ahead or anything," said Jay, as Lloyd unscrewed the top from a superglue tube. "But what if we can't get it off again? It'll be kind of annoying to have it fixed permanently to the sink."
"Relax, Nya's got nail polish remover." Lloyd squinted in concentration, trying to squeeze glue onto the handle of Kai's hairbrush. "I made sure to ask, that stuff removes superglue like—why is this not coming out?"
"The tips always get clogged," said Jay glumly. "That glue is useless now."
"Ugh," muttered Lloyd, squeezing the tube harder. "Come on, there's tons of it still in there! I've just gotta—"
The tube burst open. By great good fortune no glue splashed into Lloyd's eyes, but it did succeed in coating his hands and the hairbrush he was holding.
"Oh . . . shoot." Lloyd, wide-eyed, hastened to yank the hairbrush out of his gluey hand. Instead he stuck his other hand to it as well. "Yikes! Get it off!"
Jay, not thinking, grabbed the brush and tried to pull it free. Obviously he got stuck to it as well. In the natural panic that arises from realizing you're stuck, he succeeded in fixing his other hand to Lloyd's wrist. Things continued to escalate.
After a few moments Kai came into the room, probably planning to brush his hair.
"Woah!" he stopped, startled. "Uhh . . . guys?"
"Not. A. Word," gritted Lloyd.
Kai's mouth twitched, but to his credit he didn't laugh.
"Uhhh . . . " he said at last, as Lloyd and Jay continued to struggle. "Should I get Nya?"
"No!" yelped Lloyd, somehow managing to affix them both to the doorknob. "We've got this!"
"Iiiii don't think you've got this," said Kai, watching the proceedings with a mix of fascination and unease. "Seriously. Don't feel like this is a big deal, I can totally get her. She and I are pretty cool by now."
"That is not the point," Lloyd hissed. By now he and Jay had accumulated several toothbrushes, the toothpaste, the exploded glue bottle, a book, the aforementioned doorknob, and of course each other. Lloyd kicked the door in frustration, and that stuck as well.
"Yeahhhhhh." Kai backed towards the hallway. "I'm getting Nya."
I warned you guys about these fusion dances!" grumbled Nya, dabbing nail polish remover judiciously over the trapped ninjas' hands. "You're lucky I got polish and remover for a fancy event and only used them once. I should have enough to get you free of everything."
"This is really getting disappointing," said Kai, watching. "You didn't even give me a chance to screw it up for you this time."
"Apparently they thought this was better than having to deal with you," said Nya. Her tone was what you'd call acerbic, but there was the tiniest hint of teasing in it. Lloyd and Jay, despite their embarrasment, caught each others' eyes significantly.
Eventually Kai wandered off. Lloyd cleared his throat.
"Say, Nya," he ventured. "Do you think maybe . . . you could help us come up with some way to prank Kai?"
"Really?" Nya smirked. "Two guys, having so much trouble pulling off one successful prank that they have to ask a girl for help?"
"Hey, I don't see what being a girl has to do with it," said Lloyd, shrugging. "And you know Kai best! You'd be a perfect accomplice."
"You're just trying to make us get along again, aren't you," said Nya flatly.
"Uhh—" Lloyd blinked, taken aback at how quickly she'd seen through him. "Sorry . . . "
"No, it's fine," sighed Nya. "That's . . . kinda sweet of you, really." She was quiet for a moment, brushing on more polish remover. "You know what, maybe I will help you. My dork of a brother realllllly needs a comeuppance by now."
Now that sounded like their typical sibling-to-sibling attitude. Jay and Lloyd beamed at each other.
"Okay, jokesters," said Nya at last. "That should do it."
"Phew," sighed Lloyd, stepping back and flexing his hands. "That's a relief. Thanks, Nya."
"Sure thing," said Nya, smiling wearily.
Jay didn't say anything. Nya raised an eyebrow at him.
"You've been awfully quiet all this time. Everything okay?"
Jay shrugged, nodding. Nya and Lloyd looked at each other, then back at Jay with wide eyes.
"You didn't . . . " said Nya.
Jay looked away, clearly (and silently) furious. Lloyd sputtered into laughter.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry," he groaned, as Jay gave him a death glare. "Oh my gosh Jay, how did you manage that? Did you bite the glue?"
The lightning ninja glared harder.
"Oh, Jay," sighed Nya, rubbing her forehead. "C'mon. Let me see."
Jay backed away, blushing, but Nya advanced upon him doggedly and gently pried his mouth open.
"Okay, your tongue is stuck to your teeth," she said. "Gosh, Jay, I don't know what to do now. I'm not sure if I should be putting nail polish remover in your mouth, that stuff is nasty."
Jay gave a muffled growl, his face still bright-red.
"I guess for now you'll have to wait for it to work free," said Nya. "Don't pull too hard or anything, we don't want any injuries. If it doesn't come free on its own, I'll have to think of something else. Think you can handle it for a while?"
Jay groaned, hanging his head, but nodded. He was going to be hearing about this.
A/N: Hehe. Did you ever hear that story about prisoners (or sometimes it says new military recruits) being forced to dig holes and then fill them right back up again? I do that to myself sometimes, plot-wise. I've been throwing dirt back into this hole for chapters an' chapters now, and I just can't seem to fill it. XD
It'll fill up eventually, tho. Ohhhhh yes it will. *applies hints more harder*
Floppy drive music is a thing, by the way. Check my profile for links!
Also, I finally threw together a picture of what Nash looks like! Roughly. I hadn't even been sure what he looked like myself, before drawing him. XD But anyway, link to that is on my profile too!
