Knock knock

"Mmh, five more minutes," I groan out, face down in the softest pillow known to man.

The annoying knocking goes away for a few peaceful moments, letting me relax back into dreamland, right before the shutter to my bed opens and lets in blinding light that I groan at.

"Wakey wakey Drake," a familiar voice speaks up, but I just try to bury myself deeper into my blanket to cut off the burning light, "Fine then, since you don't want it I'll just eat your share of breakfast."

I've never woken up so fast in my life, twisting out of my blanket and bodying Dad out the way I sit myself down on the dinner table in a blink of the eye.

"Looks like you need to build some more muscle Brandon, can't have your son bullying you like that," Mom says with a giggle as she steps over her husband groaning on the ground and places plates of eggs, jerky and toast for all of us, at least their cheapest equivalents.

I salivate at the breakfast we only get to splurge on every few months, but I yelp from the slap I get on my hand when I reach down for the food.

Turning to Mom, I plaster on the best puppy-eyes I can get out but all I get is a raised eyebrow for my efforts, "You knocked him down, now you have to wait for him to drag himself up."

"Oh I think I pulled a muscle! My old, poor body can't handle the pain!" The man wails from the ground as he slowly stumbles to his feet, the pain he's trying to convince of us utterly failing given the shit-eating grin on his face that I scowl at.

I stare petulantly at him with my arms crossed as he stumbles around the table, purposely taking his sweet time which Mom notices and starts giggling when she glances at me. I only dig in when Mom gives a nod when he sits down, less I get another slap for my troubles.

We eat in silence for a bit, savouring the realest food we can afford before Dad speaks up.

"So how've you been Drake? Didn't get a chance to ask but whenever we called you sounded busy, and you usually come back from work before us, but we haven't seen you all week," he asks with a leading tone.

I swallow the piece of jerky I snapped off before answering with some trepidation, "Yeah, about that, I may have gotten fired from work?" I wince when both of their heads snap to look at me.

It takes a few seconds before they finally react, "Wait what!? How?" Mom questions, some panic in her tone.

I knew in the beginning that the news would be bad. The debt my parents took to pay off the procedures I needed as an infant was heavy, it's only after all these years of never missing a payment that we're close enough to pay it off fully. But that was only because I started working, before that my parents were barely living with most of their paycheck going into payments so going back to that would be horrible for us.

I give the short story about what happened at work, my manager getting himself killed and our subsequent firing for robots.

"Ok, ok… not to worry, we- we just need to get you another job," Dad slowly lets out, breakfast forgotten as he tries to keep calm, but I know that he's rapidly thinking of a solution.

"We could talk to them, try and get an extension? We've never missed a payment on the loan, that has to mean something."

"No, they don't care, they'll just waste our time and find a way to add onto it. Larua, didn't Elizabeth say her cousin's factory was understaffed a few months ago? Do you think you can talk to her and-"

"I already got a job!" I cut off their rapid conversation with a yell.

Both stare at me for a moment before releasing a breath of relief and slump in their seats.

"Good god Drake, you couldn't say that earlier!?" Mom lightly scolds.

"Don't worry Laura, we just jumped the gun and assumed the worst," Dad waves her off with a relieved laugh, "So where did start working then son?"

I plaster a wobbly smile on my face, something that Mom notices given she narrows her eyes at me, "So its not really something that gives me a… regular paycheck per se," I quickly spit my next words out before Mom can cut in, and given Dad lowers his coffee mug he won't be interfering this time, "But it pays really well! Look, this is what I got after a weeks work!"

Pushing away from the table, I dive to my bed and grab the envelope I hid and hand it over to Dad. Though looking a little suspicious, he dumps the cash onto the table and I feel a little smug when his brows shoot to his hairline and Mom's jaw dropping in the corner of my eye as they both stare at the stack of eddies.

"Wha- how?" She whispers out as Dad grabs the stack and flips through them; disbelief still plastered on his face.

"Like I said, it's not as constant but how much I make is worth the wait, and that's not even all of it, I had to take half of it out so I could… do some things that'll help with work."

"But this is 300 eddies, what- where are you working that gives you 600 eddies in a week!? That's nearly as much as I make with overtime!" Dad asks with some wonder and concern. To be fair I didn't make 600 off of just getting third, a lot of that came from Marv's bet, both of us making a killing even with him wanting me to have the lion's share of it.

"Its just… some gigs I do around y'know? Marv knows some people that need some stuff done and he got me some work with them."

I know that neither of them believe me, I studiously ignore Mom's glare and focus on Dad who stares at me for a minute, something working itself out in his head.

"Drake," he slowly gets out, "Are these… gigs you're doing dangerous? Because you don't need to go that far, we took that loan so you could live, neither of us want you to die so soon," he softly asks with a healthy amount of concern in his tone.

I take a moment before answering, "Not any more dangerous than living in this city is."

He stares into my eyes, trying to see if I'm lying. I'm not. This city really is that dangerous, hell we're actually on the safer end compared to most cities, and apparently seeing the truth, he gives a slow nod. I feel Mom's hand slide over mine, her hand calloused after so many years working on the oil field and she gives it a squeeze, her face though is firm.

"Never put eddies above you alright? We did this all for you, you're our life, don't throw it all away for something that we can easily deal with, you understand?"

I squeeze her hand in response with a small smile, something that gets a smile out of her as well before she stands up, "I'm going to bake something to celebrate this!" She says jubilantly as she steps around the table, giving me a kiss on the cheek before heading over to the kitchen.

Dad runs his hand over his hair with a sad sigh, "Listen to your mother okay? She's right, like always," he ends with a grin that I match.

"I want cookies!" He suddenly yells out as he stands, toppling over his chair and rushes to follow Mom, surprising her given her yelp and the smack I hear, along with the wail of pain from Dad.

Grinning, I stand to follow them. Although I don't see them much, they always care about me, I'm not going to make their sacrifices for me in vain.

"Uh oh," I stare at the soot covered spark plug I pulled from the engine and sigh, tossing it into the trash to the side before diving back down to get the other three out.

Thankfully the plugs seem to be the only thing that caused the near catastrophic misfire during the race, a quick look through the engine when I came into Pietro's showed everything being really worn and close to replacement, but I can hold off on these more expensive and time-consuming replacements when I get more eddies to spare.

Tossing the last one out, I take a quick look at Marv working on the brake pads low to the ground, he's a quick learner and only needed me to show him how to replace a pad once before he went at it. I'll need to double check just to make sure, but it looks like he's taking his time doing it and it looks good, so I leave it to him and the music he's blasting through some earbuds.

Dodging around Pietro's brothers milling around the garage, I head on over to his 'office', a corner of the shop that he took over to act as the manager/sales rep. Apparently he's not a mechanic like the rest of his siblings because, and quoting this from one of his brothers, 'he's a leadhead with all his brain cells put towards running that mouth of his.'

"Ah Drake my friend!" He welcomes with a smile when he notices me, "Need some parts from your dear choom Pietro? Or do you finally accept my offer of taking that rust-bucket off your hands and give you a proper ride?"

I give him a deadpan stare for his latter bit. Somehow he had gotten word that I was the driver that got third in the race two days ago, and since then he's been trying to take my car out of my hands for a more 'street-race worthy' ride. It might've worked but what he was offering me was a pittance for my ride and I'd have to pay thousands more eddies still for his 'discounted' ride. Though that Quartz was damn fine, one of the best frames to mod around.

"Still not for sale Pietro," I droll out, "but I do need some parts, four new spark plugs for a 240T," I emphasize on the 'new' bit, knowing how he gets most of his parts.

"Oh? Found your misfiring problem did you? Good on you, and yes just as you demand I do indeed have new plugs for you," he rolls his char over to a door leading further back and disappears through it.

Leaning against his desk I idly glance at his computer screen as I wait and immediately turn away in slight disgust, who the hell watches that many X-vids at the same time? And at work with their siblings around to boot!

"Here we go!" I hear him exclaim through the door along with a rather loud crash with it.

Kicking the door open with bang, he carries the boxes through and drops them on the desk, "Four brand spanking new iridium spark plugs for you my dear choom, much more durable than others in the market and it'll handle anything you throw at it for a long, long time. That'll be a hundred and fifty eddies."

My eyes narrow at him as he grins at me unrepentantly, "I could just walk over to the NeonPulse a block away and get it there for its actual price you know?"

His face immediately twists in anger as he slams his palms onto the table, "No! Never go to those corpo asslicking bastards! I'll eat my own arm off and dive into the sewer before I ever send someone to those putos!"

I stay quiet and make sure to keep my grin hidden as he rants on and on about their competition, and to be fair to Pietro, everything he's saying about them is true and I'll never step in there if I want to keep any of my eddies… but I don't need to let him know that.

"-and I'll flatline his cat next time it decides to sleep on my car!" He huffs out before needing to take a second to get his breath back.

"Sooo… 80 sounds good?" I speak up after wiping off some of the spit he spat out during his rant.

I get a glare in response to my offer, but I grin as he reluctantly nods in agreement. Gleefully slapping down the bills I scoop up the boxes and toddle away… and turn right back around when I remember something.

"Say… mind if I saw a spoiler off one of the rust buckets you got out back?"

Due to prices being weird in 2077 so I'm basing things off RED and my assumptions though exact amounts won't be too important other than frames of reference. Materials are more expensive due to all the wars, corps, etc… along with an eddie being about double a US dollar so that leads to everything being much more expensive with lower wages.