Heya Descendants Twisted here saying sup! Thank you so much for all of your continued support and to Dobby and FC, thanks for being so boss and commenting on every chapter when we posted them in bulk. That takes some hard core commitment and we really appreciate you. To Ghost of a Smile, thank you for your endorsement of our work we always appreciate new support.
Late the next morning...
Uma hums happily as she walks up to the doors of her mother's chip shop, smiling and well rested after her treasure hunt the night before. She grabs the two swinging door and pushes them open, might as well get this part over…
But instead of a mess, or T's dead body, she finds the dining area sparkling like it never had before. She narrows her eyes. How? "T?"
"Sup?" T calls from the back window.
"Why are you in the kitchen?" Uma tilts her head in confusion as she starts walking towards the back room.
"Scrubbing the oven." T calls out.
"No offense," Uma leans up against the arch frame, "but how are you still alive if you've been back here?"
T shrugs, "You're mom told me to clean it. She's clam hunting right now-Though I'm sure you knew that."
"My mom…" Uma blinks and points at herself, "My mother knows you're here?"
T nods. "She eventually figured it out."
"And she told you to come into the kitchen?"
"No. She told me to clean the stove."
Uma rolls her eyes, "Which is in…" She prompts, gesturing by rolling her hand at the wrist.
T blinks "Oh I thought it was back of house… Then yes she told me to clean the kitchen."
"Yeah, it's called that too…" Uma narrows her eyes, "Have you been here all night?"
T shrugs, "I left for a bit, then came back to finish before your mom showed back up." He scrapes a knife full of grease from the bottom of the stove into a bucket.
"And you…" Uma narrows her eyes as she scrutinizes T, "Didn't get dunked for your efforts?"
"Nope." T takes another scoop of grease and scrapes it out.
Uma folds her arms over her chest and taps her foot, he was lying. And it wasn't just the wet hair and damp clothes that gave it away, "Oh really?"
"Yep." T agrees, continuing to scrape.
"Whatever, you're fucking lying," Uma shrugs it off as she smiles, "but I'm in a good mood so I'll fucking deal with it later."
"What is up with you and your fucking family?" T looks up at her. "Is it a smell? A tell? Something with eyes? What is it? And why does it make you guys so angry?"
"Instinct." Uma shrugs, "And if you made my mother angry and are still alive, well, I'd tip my hat but I don't have one."
T scoffs, "It wasn't your mother." He ducks back into the oven to continue his task.
Uma narrows her eyes and walks over to stand behind him, "Then who'd you piss off?" She asks as she bends down.
"Shorter list would be who I haven't pissed off." T admits as he pulls back out of the oven.
"Who in my family have you pissed off?" Uma asks, rolling her eyes at T's semantics.
"Oh." T blinks. "Uncle." He shrugs.
"Uncle?" Uma asks with a furrowed brow, "You don't mean Senior?"
"Do you have more family here? I need to know." His eyes sweep over her in concern. "So I can avoid them."
"What the fuck?" Uma hisses, outraged that this was the first she was hearing of this, "When did you piss Senior off?"
"Is this really the place for this conversation?"
"Usually, because you're not a fan of later."
"Huh." T frowns. "Fair. Not a fan of now, either though." T scrapes out another pile of gunk. "However since they're working together it would probably be for the best to talk later."
"They're-" Uma shuts up as one of her mother's tentacles rise out of the water, depositing a net basket full of clams. "You promise later?" She demands through her teeth as she starts to back out of the room.
"Promise." T quickly agrees before he turns back to his task.
Uma turns and runs back into the dining area, slapping her apron on before she starts setting up trays on the pass through window.
"Heya scary boss lady." She grimaces as T greets her mother.
"T. Why isn't that oven done yet? And what have we learned about talking without being spoken too?"
"Right!"
"Uma? Are you finally back you lazy girl?"
"Yeah mom." Uma rolls her eyes as she bows her head. Great. Not even a minute into her shift and its already started. She purses her lips. It wasn't like she could tell her to fuck off like she normally would.
"Well look how polite you when one of your rats are back here. I'll have to do this more often."
She was never letting Harry and Gil sign up for shifts again. What the fuck had T done last night? Just no. Fuck no.
The restaurant falls into silence until T chirps out 'next?'
"Hmmmm, well I suppose this will do." Uma flinches when her mother purrs and T squeaks. Squeaked. T squeaked? She would have found it amusing if it wasn't for the circumstances. She wasn't even sure what to associate with that noise with, she'd never heard him make it. Was it pain? Or fear?
"Unless you think you could collect more clams or shrimp." Ursula laughs.
Uma frowns at the thud before her eyes widen at the splash, "Moooom! Don't drown-" She blinks when she sees all eight of her mother's tentacles working around the kitchen, but none holding T under the water. "What the-"
"That one is just interesting. I say jump and he guesses how high." Ursula chuckles as she pushes the emptied fishing basket back into the water, "It's been highly amusing all night. I don't even know if he knows what he's looking for. Isn't it delightful?"
"Well, I'm sure he'll bring back something…"
"Yes, he's been very obedient after I taught him some manners."
T. Obedient? In her fucking dreams maybe. What the fuck had her mother done to him? He seemed fine when they were talking. Didn't want to answer a damn fucking thing. And talked around her in circles like usual. Damn it.
"So my little guppy, what were you doing last night that was so important that you left without telling me?"
"Um-Sleeping?" Uma says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Could T not hack it." And how the fuck had she gotten his name? Gil had called the kid Dagger for years apparently. So how had her mom learned it in a few short hours. It hadn't been like this the last couple of times T had cleaned for them- Sure he'd never cleaned it this well… But there was a story here that she wanted fucking badly.
"Hack it?" Ursula laughs, "Honey please… Try on the days you can't hack it I want him. Not exceptions."
Uma blinks. "What?" He wasn't even part of her crew. How the hell did this happen?
"Turns out when you're silent and just do what I say work actually gets done." Ursula drawls cattily.
"Huh." Maybe T was her mother's ideal worker if that were the qualifications. It was just weird. "Fuck you, I get plenty of shit done around here." She rolls her eyes.
"Uh huh… Keep telling yourself that dear." Ursuala rolls her eyes, "But the adults need to get back to work now, so are you staying to work or going back to your ship to play pirate?"
Uma stomps her foot, one hand coming to her hip. "I'm here ain't I?"
"Then get to work!" Ursula shouts as she whips a tentacle out at her daughter.
Uma lets out a frustrated growl as she dodges the tentacle, but turns back to continue what she was doing.
She and her mother both turn to look when they hear a wet thud, "So, found things- They bite, And kinda burn? I guess…. So I assumed that's what you wanted."
"Hmmm…" Ursula slides over to peek inside the basket, "You caught eels, electric eels…" She chuckles wickedly as she turns to laugh at Uma.
Uma face palms. She couldn't blame him. She really couldn't. If a OV told her to go find something-She'd assume it would something painful too. But who the fuck would willingly catch a whole fucking basket full? Fucking T. Beginning and end of list. She shakes her head.
"Damn it!" T frowns, already turning back to the hole. "I wasn't sure if they were like supposed to be alive or not, but I beat them over the head with this." He throws a clam to the floor. "Give me like fifteen more minutes, I can get this right." He dives in.
Urslua chuckles as she reaches in and grabs T before he can swim off, "This-" She holds up the large clam with another tenticlue, "Is a clam. Find me more like this."
"Heard." He salutes her, eyes widening when she drops him again before he dives back under the water.
"See." Ursula chuckles again, "No idea what I wanted, but still managed to bring up a good haul. And now he knows what clams are."
Seriously? She was going to have to have a conversation with T later to make sure he was actually okay. It was hard to tell sometimes with some of his oddities, but she really couldn't imagine him actually being okay with being treated like this.
And another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the dust!
So what did you guys think of this installment? Were you shocked? Or amused by this chapter? Do you think T minds being treated this way? How do you think we're writing Ursula? And the dynamics of T and Uma's relationship, or at least how its developing? Are you surprised T's just rolling with being ordered around by an OV?
Let us know in the comments below!
Much love and appreciation,
Twisted
