So, I was gonna upload this last Sunday, as usual, but shit happened.
Question: What kind of shit, Zara?
Answer: The shitty kind. Unimportant to most everybody, but pretty important to me, so yeah. But it's over, and everything turned out fine.
Question: You…you wanna talk about it?
Answer: No.
Question/statement: I have cookies. And I wanna help.
Response: See above.
So why didn't you update until Thursday?
I planned on updating yesterday, but my computer was being a troll and wouldn't let me. So here we are.
Anyways, this is filler, but here it is. Filler carries us to other places, right? But it does get interesting later, I swear!
Mia-Teresa-Davenport: "She…she wanna cookie for that or something?"
ShyMusic: Probably. He enjoys bombs. :P
AllAmericanSlurp: "Did…did you just call me 'Dougie boy?'"
"Douglas-"
"No, no, Hellcat, it's cool. Since when am I a '90s sitcom character?!"
DarkestKing: Yes. Yes to all of this.
Anyways, let's do it. Bree?
"Zara doesn't own Lab Rats or anything you recognize. If you don't recognize it, it's probably hers."
"Waking up first. Friend's house: Sit there and wait for them to wake up. Best friend's house: *Smashes them with a pillow* Wake up! I'm hungry."
Unknown
"We're not going to take this sitting down. We are fighting back."
Gray Davis
Bree
A thing about Sam was that she tended to show up at random - uninvited - and just walk in the front door like it was nothing. In fact, that was exactly what she did. Drenched in rain with lightning arcing across the sky behind her, Sam threw the door open with a devil-may-care grin and asked what was for breakfast.
Honestly, when Chase had said he made a friend who was a girl, Bree hadn't been expecting one who didn't act much like a girl at all. Aside from taking good care of her hair and wearing a bit of makeup, she didn't seem all that interested in fashion and beauty. As for talking about boys, Sam just wrinkled her nose at the whole idea of conventional dating. Something about it being like trying on shoes and throwing away the ones that didn't fit or something like that. The only silver lining there was that Sam wasn't going to be dating one of her brothers.
She could do better. Much better.
So Bree didn't have a new friend in Sam. But at least she fit in with the other section of household: The men. She was often crude and unashamed of things that would make Bree herself blush, blanch in horror or shake her head in disappointment. Bree had even almost had to forfeit breakfast once when Sam and Douglas got into an intense discussion about guns and the difficulty of shooting something in the eye.
Poor squirrels.
And, since Chase wasn't actually awake yet, Bree had been elected to talk to Sam while Adam went upstairs to coerce Douglas into making them some pancakes. The two girls stared at each other awkwardly, unsure of what to talk about at all. After a moment of tension, Mr. Davenport finally turned on the TV to help.
Bree was grateful when the noise an MMA match filled the room. Whoever had been watching the TV last night at least had good taste in programming. Bree liked watching the fights, oddly enough. They were good for learning new moves. That, and the fighters were often quite appealing to look at.
Yes, MMA was one of the few sports Bree actually enjoyed.
A moment passed before Sam spoke up, pointing at the television. "Rousey would beat them both."
"Who?" Bree asked, frowning.
"'Rowdy' Ronda Rousey? First woman ever to sign a contract with the UFC?" Sam elaborated, her expression disbelieving. "You never heard of her?"
Bree shook her head, so Sam spent the next several minutes explaining just who Ronda Rousey was, including her fourteen second victory over Cat Zingano.
Suddenly, Bree was much more interested in Rousey.
As she resolved to look up more about the fierce woman, an annoyed roar sounded from upstairs, followed by a loud crash. Tasha looked towards the ceiling while scrambling some eggs, the yolks sizzling every time she moved them in the pan. Her very expression was one of worry and slight exhaustion, since something went wrong at least once a day around the house.
It was really early for a conflict to have broken out, though. They usually waited until after lunch.
Mr. Davenport sighed and closed the newspaper he was reading, laying it on the table before he turned towards the stairs and called, "Don't make me come up there!"
Seconds later, Douglas trotted downstairs, yawning. "What kind of a threat is that?"
"One that should make them behave," Mr. Davenport huffed. When a low growl reached them, he sighed. "I will ground you boys! Try me!"
Douglas snorted, rubbing his eyes a bit as he shuffled by the couch. "Don, you don't control shit around here."
Sam laughed a bit, high-fiving Douglas as he passed her. Tasha, meanwhile, smacked Douglas' shoulder with a wooden spoon. "Watch your mouth," she chastised. "And don't undermine Donald's authority."
Douglas rolled his eyes, but started digging around in the cabinets for some pancake mix. Bree grinned. Although he usually made pancakes from scratch, he could still work magic with instant mix and a few extra ingredients.
Leo was the next one down the stairs, Ysthry half-asleep on his shoulder. He gently took the little imp and set her on the couch between Sam and Bree, where Ysthry promptly curled up and nodded off fully. Poor little dragon just wasn't a morning imp. As for Leo, he nodded at Sam before sitting at the kitchen counter, rubbing his eyes.
When Oly came flying through the air and landed on the counter, though, she effectively woke Leo up. "It wasn't me this time, Master!" she squeaked excitedly, pointing up the stairs. "It wasn't me this time! Half-Breed and the Charmer broke it!"
"Get off the counter," Douglas huffed, pouring some of the pale mix powder into a bowl.
Undeterred, Oly winced and jumped off the counter before she resumed her excited hopping on the floor. "They did it! Not me!"
Tasha sighed. "Fine, I'll bite: What did they break?"
Oly's answer was cut off by Adam, who stumbled down the stairs with a painting around his neck, his face right where a horse's tail had been. Yahn guided Adam by telling him where the next step was, since Adam couldn't see his feet through the picture.
Bree started laughing. Sometimes, Chase was too clever. Essentially, he had made a pun with the painting. Without words, he had successfully called Adam a horse's ass.
Beside her, Sam smirked, obviously understanding the joke, too. Leo rolled his eyes, otherwise ignoring the situation. Tasha forgot that she was cooking completely, abandoning her eggs to Douglas as she crossed the room to help Adam free his head and save as much of the painting as she could. When Adam was finally freed - a disconcerting rip of canvas sounded - Mr. Davenport groaned. "That cost $25,000."
Douglas snorted. "You paid $24,990 too much for that piece of crap."
Adam rubbed his neck, obviously relieved. "Why was Hellcat sleeping in your room instead of you?"
"He fell asleep there," Douglas answered simply. "And, knowing you, you poured a cup of water on him to get him up, didn't you?"
"I thought he was you," Adam muttered. "It's dark in your room. Especially when it's raining."
"Why didn't you turn on the light?" Bree asked.
"Because darkness is better," Sam supplied.
"Because I didn't think of it," Adam answered while he picked up Yahn.
Tasha frowned, putting the painting down against the wall. "Why did he fall asleep in your room?"
"We were doing research," Douglas huffed, pushing the eggs onto a plate a tad violently, causing a bit to land on the counter instead. "Is that a crime?"
Tasha held her hands up innocently as Chase finally trotted downstairs, his hair and the fur on his ears still visibly damp. His tail twitched with exhausted irritation as he scooped Ysthry up - she hissed - and set her on the top of the couch before plopping down on the cushion between Bree and Sam, curtly grunting, "'Morning, Sam."
Sam patted his shoulder. "It's about time! I've been here for hours, waiting just to see you."
Chase snorted. "You just wanted to walk around in the storm and decided to steal some breakfast."
"Pretty much," Sam admitted shamelessly, grinning. "But after breakfast, I wanted to show you this deer that some car hit. I was thinking that we could-"
"So, what kind of research were you and Douglas doing last night?" Leo interrupted, already looking a bit sick as he imagined the possible things Sam was about to describe.
Chase flicked his ears dismissively. "How to build a bomb small enough to hide easily yet powerful enough to blow up City Hall." After a second, he quickly added, "Not that we're going to blow up City Hall. You should totally not be worried."
Douglas was smirking when Mr. Davenport shot him a glare that could undoubtedly wither flowers.
"And when we were done with those plans," Chase continued as if most of the room wasn't shocked and worried, "we were getting information on the Hunters. Lots of code breaking. Learned a ton of secrets. Don't know what we're going to do with it, but we'll figure it out. Hey, maybe we could set that bomb off at their headquarters. Right, Douglas?"
Douglas suddenly looked a bit hesitant, but he didn't draw attention to it. "Maybe."
"Where did you even get that kind of information overnight?" Sam asked, tilting her head.
"Because we have someone on the inside now," Douglas answered.
Mr. Davenport let out a long sigh of relief. "So you didn't shoot Kevin last night. Good. I wasn't in the mood to hire a lawyer."
"Couldn't pull the trigger," Douglas muttered. More loudly, he went on. "Anyways, long story short is that the Hunters found a way to force him to cooperate with them. Don't ask how. You won't get an answer. Just know that he's spying for us now."
Great, Bree thought. Just trust the Hunter to switch sides immediately. That'll turn out well.
There we have it, guys. The next chapter.
It does get interesting. I promise.
Until then, feel free to review. Or don't. Meh.
And enjoy.
*Bows and exits*