Summer seemed to have yielded its final battle to autumn, letting in a surprisingly cold snap that had left a series of now-dead bugs on the windowsill woefully unprepared. Mab wrapped the cardigan tight around her middle, tracing the shape of the banister before bracing the stairs.

"Shit!" she stumbled, ankles all mixed up as a gray ball of fur wiggled and ran around her feet, batting at one with five sharp razor blades. Her uncle's gray cat hissed angrily as it retreated to the shadows, spitting threateningly for good measure.

"Your cat hates me," Mab grumbled as she slid into a seat at the kitchen island, accepting the offering of her morning medication and a warm cup of coffee.

David lifted a plate, offering scrambled eggs. "She hates me too."

Mab shook her head, turning down the eggs. Her stomach wasn't up for it this morning. "Then why keep her?"

David shrugged, adding the eggs to his plate. "Because she's my cat? I don't know. She's always been here, and it would feel rude to kick her out." He leaned over the counter, shoveling eggs into his mouth even as little bits of it got caught in his beard.

Mab's face twitched in a vaguely disgusted look but she managed to hide most of it. "Has she ever let you pet her?"

David snorted at the idea. "Christine doesn't like being looked at, you think I'm going to try to touch her?"

"I think at this point she's not really your cat; you're more like her jailer." Mab wrapped her cardigan tighter; trying to close a gap over her collarbones that seemed to be letting all of her heat from bed disperse too quickly.

"Are you cold? I can turn up the heat."

"I'm fine."

"I can make some toast?"

"David," Mab snapped, "Just-" she took a deep breath before continuing, "what do you want, Uncle David?"

Her uncle pressed his palms together, eyes shining. "I have an idea."

"Oh no," Mab groaned, looking up at the ceiling and silently praying for strength.

"It's a good one!" he defended.

"David, not again."

"No, I did the research this time, it's real."

"I'm not saying you didn't-"

"So just listen!"

"Alright," Mab leaned back, pulling the coffee close, "I'm listening."

"Okay," David started, snapping his fingers a few times and shuffling through a pile of papers on the counter, "okay…"

"Some time today?" Mab pressed.

"Got it! Okay - so, New York is revitalizing its Poet Laureate program; they got a new endowment but the applications close today."

Mab tilted her head, confused. "And you're thinking of applying?"

David beamed. "No, I think we should apply. Two applications are better than one!"

Mab's face fell flat. "You're kidding. You have to be kidding. I'm an editor, not a poet."

"You are a poet," David insisted, "you have a Masters-"

"David!" Mab yelled, slamming her coffee back down on the counter, cracking the handle. "Shit," she swore under her breath, "I'm sorry."

David's face fell. "Let me," he said, taking the broken mug and leaving a dish towel on the spilled coffee.

"I just… I don't have the spoons for it. I've got like…" she counted on her fingers. "I've got like… six spoons' worth of mental energy to spend today, and like fifteen in errands that I have to run this week, not to mention my meeting with Mariah-"

David smoothed his beard with one hand. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Good luck. I really hope you get it," Mab encouraged.

David pivoted ideas, trying to make up for it. "If you're feeling tired, Andrea's instructions said I should give you-"

"I'm going upstairs now." Mab stood up, abandoning her hopes of coffee. She paused at the foot of the stairs, but kept her eyes down on her slippers. "I know you're trying. And I do appreciate that."

David nodded. "I'm going to turn up the heat a bit, so don't get surprised if the radiators knock a bit."

Her smile was at once apologetic and appreciative. "Thanks." She took the stairs up slowly, leaning on the ancient banister more heavily than a normal person might.

David didn't know how his sister had managed to turn out such a contrary daughter. Andrea had been so full of life; unconcerned with marrying even as she grew more and more pregnant. She'd laughed off the idea as unnecessary.

They'd fallen out of contact after Mab was born, Andrea preferring to move around every few years to give Mab 'a broader upbringing', but they still spoke every Christmas over the phone and occasionally flew out for birthdays. He'd gotten a vague sense of the complication surrounding Mab's health, but had no idea of the true breadth until his sister had called about two years ago, asking for him to sign on as Mab's secondary medical proxy. Andrea had pancreatic cancer, and just wanted to be prepared in case the worst happened.

The pair of them had moved back to New York, into a small house far out on Long Island. David hadn't seen Mab in maybe ten years so it came as a bit of shock to see her toll up to the brownstone in a wheelchair. It's just for bad days, she'd explained, and the look in her eyes openly dared him to make any further comment. She'd barely softened to him in the mean time between her arrival in New York and her mother's funeral. In that way, Mab reminded him a lot of his cat, Christine.

David cracked his knuckles as he turned on his ancient computer. "Okay, I can figure this out," he repeated a few times, finding the application website with only a few wrong turns.

Welcome to the application for the New York Poet Laureate Residency, funded by an endowment from the September Foundation. Please read the instructions for application carefully, as no repeat applications will be considered.

Name of Applicant:

"David… Dumont…" he typed, hunting-and-pecking for the keys. He got halfway through typing before the autofill on his computer highlighted the relevant fields all over the page, and tapping the enter key successfully added his address, email, and phone number.

Sample of works (please limit to a single poem or other written short form work).

David opened up a file on his desktop, scrolling through his favorite works from the last decade. He opened a few, tsked at his older writing style, and continued on. "Ah, that's definitely the one!" he declared, skimming the content and satisfied himself that it was appropriate.

His smile slipped as he recognized a stanza as one he'd gotten a little more help composing.

Cracks in the walls
let in a foggy discontent
muddled by burdensome shadows.

David glanced at the ceiling, listening to the shifting of wood as the old brownstone creaking in tune with Mab's wanderings and Christine's scuttled movements.

"No," he mumbled to himself, "she said no, David."

David attached his poem to the application, and scrolled through quickly to make sure everything had attached properly.

Muddled by burdensome shadows.

Mab looked so much like his sister, even with her disapproving gaze. She shared a particularly wry wit that had made Andrea such a hit at parties growing up, even if Mab kept it fairly reigned-in out in public.

He paused over the submittal button. "Oh, to hell with it," he mumbled. He refused to be accomplice to her hiding from the world. He couldn't deal with the idea that his sister would be disappointed from the afterlife if he didn't at least try.

He scrolled back up in the form, deleting his attached poem and diving into a different file on his desktop. Mab-app-dctrt, he found it easily, and squinted at the screen until he found the right PDF. Prayer-for-parity .pdf

David glanced up at the ceiling again, as if he could feel Mab's angry disapproval radiating through the old building's frame. But she wouldn't be so angry if she won, right? They wouldn't have to worry about affording rent or groceries, or even about affording the laundry list of medication that kept her moving. She really was an amazing writer, even just idly, and New York should have a chance to read her works.

Before he could chicken out, he dragged the PDF into the submission box, scrolled to the bottom, and his submit.

Mr. David Dumont, thank you for your application to the New York Poet Laureate Residency. You will receive a confirmation email within the next 24-48 hours with a processing number you may use to look up your submittal on our website.

David's eyes widened in horror. "Oh, shit."

"Oh shit what?" David spun in his desk chair, sitting in front of the monitor as Mab snuck up on him in the corner of the tiny dining room that served as his office.

"Nothing!" He replied. "Pop-up ad!" He raised an eyebrow as Mab draped a scarf around her neck. She was dressed to go out, grabbing her cane from the stand next to the door. "Where are you going?"

"Mariah called; she needs me to come in for an hour or so. Client's upset about some of the notes I made on his manuscript. Have you seen my gloves?" Mab asked, peering around his office.

David could see them from his angle. "On the radiator - they were drying from that day it rained. Do you need me to go with you? Are you sure you don't want your chair?"

Mab dismissed the idea with a hand. "Mariah's paying for a cab since it's last-minute, so I just need my stick. I should be back for dinner. Do you want me to pick up anything from the corner on my way in?"

Prayer-for-parity .pdf

"P-pears," David stammered.

Mab smiled. "Pears it is." Her smile drifted into an expression of concern. "Are you okay? You look a little pale."

"I think Christine ran off with my favorite pen," he lied immediately.

Mab rolled her eyes, pulling her gloves off the radiator and slipping them on. "I told you; that cat is a menace."

"Don't be mean about my cat," David defended Christine's honor against the made-up crime, "she has plenty of redeeming qualities!"

"Once any of those redeeming qualities involve purring, petting, or other proper cat behaviors I'll reconsider my opinion," Mab promised. "Try to get some work done this morning, Uncle David; I'm sure Mariah is going to ask."

David gulped nervously. "Lie for me."

Mab laughed, grabbing her keys from the bowl. "We'll see."

Two burly men stood in the half-dark bus depot, both staring with arms crossed at the inner workings of a wheelchair lift of a public bus.

"What the hell did you even do to this thing?" Ambrose asked. Paul's friend, and one-time mentor at the depot, was supposed to have seen almost every type of damage those public transit buses could handle.

"Couldn't tell you if I tried?" Paul replied. "Think you can fix it?"

"Fix it? That automated crap'll take your hand off if you don't do it right." Ambrose sucked his teeth. "It's brand-new! You know they're gonna chew you out if they find out."

Paul's heart raced and he felt a little light-headed at the thought. He couldn't afford to be out of work right now. "The new system's got bugs, right? They're probably gonna come around with parts-swaps in a couple'a weeks; I just gotta limp it along until then."

Ambrose seemed skeptical. "If you say so, because that screw-lift looks completely stripped to me. You're gonna drop someone if you're not careful."

Paul sighed, waving for Ambrose to give him a hand putting the cover panels back in place on his bus. "Why'd they have to change 'em all out, anyway? Old buses were working just fine."

"Well," Ambrose grunted, holding the panel in place while Paul slipped the screws into their holes. "If the governor doesn't spend his budget, you think they're gonna give him any more money? Gotta spend money to make money, you know."

The screwdriver slipped out of the head and dove for Paul's hand. Practice with tools saved him from a fleshy gouge to the hand. "Aren't they rolling in it with the Raft?"

Ambrose kicked the panel to get the final seating right, and nodded his approval at Paul's handiwork. "That shit's Federal. They make better money on transport days. Big fat check for every super they turn over."

"Where'd you hear that?" Paul asked, alarmed.

"Some shit Nancy watches - bunch of old ladies sitting around a table yammering about stuff they don't know anything about." Ambrose groaned as he checked his watch. "Speaking of old biddies - I'm gonna catch hell if I don't get home. See you tomorrow, Paulie."

Paul jangled his keys in his pocket, chewing on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. He'd figured out how to properly work the lift, but the damage he'd done to the delicate system during siad learning seemed significant.

But it would be okay, right? The more he thought about it, the more he'd heard that all these new types of systems came way overbuilt for their use. He nodded to himself, thinking back he also knew that they also came with redundancies. Being so brand-new, there was no way he'd broken it so badly it would fail any time soon.

A/N: I did notice that in my earlier chapters I mistakenly referred to Secretary Ross as "general". My bad. Not as bad as David's accidental plagiarism. Whoops. Hopefully, that won't have any consequences, lol.

Two chapters in two days? Y'all so spoiled.

I love my reviewers! cameron1812 and Victoria650!

PLEASE REVIEW!

Edited to add in the name of the PDF that fanfiction removed.