3. Death Threats and Wireless Threats

Squish.

Squish.

Squish.

"This is so fun," Reneey said, grinning. "It's like so squishy, and it's like gel, you wanna squish it till it pops!"

"Please don't," Lyn said with an exasperated sigh as she simultaneously stirred a pot on the stove and checked the progress of the roast chicken and vegetables in the oven. "Or not if you want dinner anytime before sunrise, anyway. Those things are murder to clean up. Don't ask how I know that."

"Can I squish it after dinner?" Reneey asked with her hazel eyes turning huge and her bottom lip popping out.

"... Reneey, put it in the fridge," Lyn said with a distrustful sort of sideways glance.

"But my lip hurts! ... Yeah, it totally does! It really, really hurts! It's like a stinging pain... like... getting burned and then needles shoved into the burning skin, I'm so not making this up!"

"Obviously not. Which completely explains why you can't decide if it's a stinging, burning, or stabbing pain."

"... It's a combo?"

"Put it back in the refrigerator, Reneey."

"Wwwwwhhhhyyyy?" Reneey whined.

"Because it's not even freaking cold anymore! You've had it for four hours!"

"Well, maybe it's cold to me but it's hot to you!"

"... Reneey, put it in the dadburned refrigerator."

"You can't make me damn it!"

Lyn responded by snatching the coldpak out of Reneey's hands, dropping it in the refrigerator door, and then closing and leaning against it with a glare. "You were saying?"

Reneey pouted, twitched, and finally snapped, "Mean!" Then she paused for a second and muttered, "Can I get another, then?"

"If Hiei backhands you again, you can have another on the condition that you tell no one where I hid his body."

"Youko once backhanded me," Reneey said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I wouldn't tell him why I locked myself in my room for about five days, so he got mad that I wouldn't tell him and he backhanded me. His nails hurt like a fucking bitch! I swear, if there were no Yukina with her healing powers, I would be sporting about five scars on my lips."

"... Note to self, kill Youko regardless of whether I have to because I had to kill Reneey and Hiei when they wouldn't stop bickering."

"You would kill me!?" Reneey blinked, then got up and pointed at Lyn. "MURDER! MY MOM IS A MURDERER!"

"Y'know," Lyn said, without turning around from where she was again stirring something on the stove, "I realize that neither your mom or Youko were obviously very good at manners... but it's rude to point. And to yell in the house. But you're never gonna stop doing that, so whatever."

"Dude," Reneey said, twitching. "Isn't hitting people and making death threats considered being rude?"

Lyn looked over her shoulder and grinned crookedly. "Only if they don't deserve it."

Reneey grumbled some curse words under her breath and sat back down. "Hey, I just realized something... You're like thirty-something on your birth certificate! You're old!"

"You know what's scariest about that?" Lyn mused, blinking. "Thirty-one is only five years younger than my mother."

"Yeah... this is scary," Reneey muttered. "So do I like get a bedtime or something?"

"Sometime before dawn is preferable," Lyn said with a smirk. "You don't want people to think you're a vampire, do you? ... Actually, knowing you, you probably would, so strike that question. Just go to bed around midnight. Hide under the covers and stay awake for all I care, but just go to bed."

"Fine, but don't except me not to be on my laptop or texting people," Reneey said, shrugging. "So what do you plan to do to Hiei if he comes back?"

Lyn just shook her head and said, "Better not to tell you. That way you can't be called as a witness for the prosecution in a worst case scenario."

"Fine, whatever," Reneey said as she took out her cell phone and started texting people.

---

Pretty soon it was five minutes before midnight, and Reneey was still texting.

"... Hey, Rea, mind checking what time it is for me?" Lyn asked pointedly.

"Busy," Reneey said, not looking up from her cell. "Cathy wants to go out with Jason, but Rachel, who is Cathy's best friend, also wants to go out with him; but she already has a boyfriend, Chad, so Rachel's best friends are starting rumors about Cathy, so Cathy's best friends are planning to egg Rachel's house. Oh, and there's this party next Friday that I already said I'm going to, k?"

Lyn shook her head as if to shake everything she had just heard out of her head. "Reason number four hundred eighty-nine why I do not miss school. And you can go as long as it's at the house of someone I've met, there are parents there, and you're home by midnight. And if I find out about alcohol or anything similar, I'll weld the windows shut on your room and lock you in until you're ninety. But anyway, it's almost twelve, Rea..."

Reneey looked up and blinked, then did an innocent smile. "Uh... so... Lyn... wanna meet my best friend Annie tomorrow?"

Lyn sighed heavily and nodded. "All right, fine. If you go to bed! It's almost midnight."

"Well, you know I'm not going to sleep! Why do I have to go to bed?"

"So I can go to bed," Lyn said, rubbing her temple. "You know, and know that you're not setting fires or breaking things that don't belong to you."

"Oh please! What are you gonna do if I don't go to bed at midnight?" Reneey snapped, rolling her eyes.

Lyn raised an eyebrow. "Are you forgetting that today's 'mom' was yesterday's BFF? I can cancel the wireless internet any time, Reneey. I only ever used it to talk to you and write fanfiction, neither of which I need it for now."

"Uh, hello -- cell phone internet, duh."

"And whose name is that in, giving that person power to cancel it?"

Reneey groaned and got up. "But don't expect me to actually sleep!" She walked to her room and slammed the door shut.

"Yeah, me either," Lyn muttered almost inaudibly, casting a glare at the nearest window which was completely void of annoyed-looking demons with gravity-defying hair. "Note to self: torture first, ask questions later, kill last."