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fedoraspooky · 23 days ago

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Chapter 12 - Boopin' Buttons

Having to return to work soon, Tikki wants to make sure her new roommate can look after himself while she's away. She also teaches him about video games, for enrichment!

~*~

Spooky

It took... A little bit longer than it probably should have, but thankfully Matchstick figured out quickly that he probably shouldn't be attempting to put everything Tikki handed to him on at the same time. When the bathroom door opened again, he shuffled back out wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, both of which were a simultaneous and strange combination of being both very loose on his frame and too short for him as well. The shirt showed about an inch of midriff and the sweatpants stopped partway down his shins, making them look more like a comfy pair of somewhat long capris. None of that really seemed to bother him, though, so much as how the shirt seemed to keep catching on his back... at least he wasn't wearing anything tight enough to pull on it.

Mystic

Tikki turns around- and has to fight a smile for a moment.

“Oh- wow yeah those don’t fit you,” she says, her ear fins falling in defeat, despite the fact she was smiling. “Still, it’s something. It’s a good thing you’re probably not going outside for a while, snow or otherwise. I can grab you some outfits after work tomorrow.”

Work?

“Oh, right,” Tikki says, snapping her fingers in realization. “I forgot to mention- I have to go back to my work shifts tomorrow morning, so you’ll be by yourself in the house. Do you know how to use a phone of any kind? Because if not, I can teach you in case of an emergency. And I might need to prepare some meals for you in advance, since we haven’t gotten around to cooking lessons yet.”

Spooky

Don't fit? But... He was able to wear them. And it did feel more comfortable than the shorts he escaped with, even if he wasn't as used to this.

-Wait, Tikki was going away?? He looked back up at her with an alarmed expression, but then he remembered the times he saw her leave in her blue truck... Was that where she was going? Work?

His initial alarm gave way to uncertainty, and he shook his head 'no' when asked if he knew how to use a phone, walking back over to her from down the hallway. He was now hugging the bundle of clothes underneath one of his arms, since he'd left his pillow on the couch.

Mystic

Tikki nods, pursing her lips.

“Yeah, I figured not. I’ll show you how, in case you need me for anything important.”

She gives him another shoulder pat upon seeing the sudden fear in his eyes.

“Believe me, I’d much rather stay home and make sure you’re okay and adjusting. But if I don’t keep going to my work shifts, I won’t make any money, and then we can’t keep the place.” Tikki sighs. “I was able to get out of it for a couple days because of my curse flare-up, which my boss thinks is a medical condition. But normally, I work five days out of the seven day week, for eight hours per day. You’re going to be spending a lot of time by yourself during the day- but don’t worry, I’m not going to force you to sit bored and do nothing all day. You’ll have things to entertain yourself.”

Spooky

That sounded like a lot of time... But money seemed pretty important. He'd been reminded plenty of times that a lot of it had been spent on him, usually whenever he misbehaved. Or how much he was going to make for them whenever he was finally forced to follow instructions. It still felt like a nebulous concept, tied directly to how 'good' he was being somehow, so to hear it talked about in a way that had nothing to do with his behavior was strange. Guess he really didn't understand it after all...

Still, it seemed like it was needed, or else the house would be taken away? That was a scary thought. What would be big enough to take away a whole building...?

When she came to the end of her explanation, he tilted his head. Things to entertain himself? Like rocks and sticks? It was kinda fun to see how far he could throw stuff... Or holding a twig or a stick in his hand and slowly burning it to watch it crumble. He knew it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try that with anything in here, though it would be a lie to say he wasn't curious about how a wooden chair would crumble... That was way bigger than a stick.

Well... She did have books, too. He looked over at the bookshelf, though his face crinkled somewhat as he remembered the one he'd tried to read. There really wasn't anything great about that ‘gatsby’ at all, shit was just confusing...

Mystic

Tikki follows his gaze to the books, and snickers.

“Oh, you don’t have to read if you don’t want to, though that’s certainly an option.”

She moves toward the big black screen, opens the cabinets underneath it, and rifles around for what appears to be a set of blocky plastic boxes. They’re attached to cables that go to the back of the screen.

“You could draw- I have plenty of paper and drawing stuff- watch television, or play with these video game consoles.”

Spooky

Going off his expressions, he seemed to recognize what drawing was easily enough, though he had no idea what the electronics were. He didn't pay the monitor much mind, since he already had seen those before and knew it was a screen, albeit one that wasn't powered on at the moment... But what were these things down beneath it? They had a lot of shiny buttons, and unable to curb his curiosity, he reached around Tikki started poking at them just to see what they did.

Mystic

"It's not on yet," Tikki chuckles, not doing anything to dissuade him from poking and prodding at the controllers or console. "You will use those to control the game, though, so you're on the right track."

She grabs a small remote from a table by the couch. He'd seen a few of those before, when scientists would click their little buttons to turn screens on or off, or alter things on the screens themselves like magic.

She pushes a button, and the television screen clicks on, producing light and noise he'd never witnessed in his life! This was wildly different from how the screens looked in the lab. This big screen had moving pictures of people, plants, animals, and he could barely understand any of it.

"Oops, not on the video game port," Tikki says, clicking another button. "Forgot I had it on the news."

The screen clicks to a black background with green text in one corner, which reads 'VGA'. Tikki kneels down to push a button on top of one of the consoles, which lights up, and the screen follows shortly after. It goes from showing nothing but black to a vibrant, smooth display of some sort of menu. It read 'Console Input- Super Nintendo', and had an empty window in the center.

"This is the console screen. The box I just turned on is the console that you load games into the port," Tikki explains, indicating the slot where the cartridge was to go, before pointing to the controller he was poking. "And that's the controller! You push the buttons on it to move around and select stuff. And this-"

Tikki has a big smile as she reaches into the cabinet again, and pulls out a box full of small grey cartridges and plastic boxes with discs in them.

"-is my game collection. See any you like?"

Spooky

The sudden visuals and noise coming from the big screen as it came to life gave him quite a start, and he immediately backed up and ducked behind the couch. It all vanished before he thought to flee the room, though, and he was left staring dumbstruck at a blank screen again with three letters in the corner. What just happened...?

Watching her pull out the box, he glanced nervously at the screen like he was half expecting it to raise its voice at him again, then back at what she was holding. When it remained as it was, though, he ended up approaching again and peeking into the box. These were games...?

...Well, some of them were kinda gray like rocks. He reached in and picked one up at random, immediately finding it wasn't as heavy as a rock either. Also, it had a picture on it... Some kinda round pink thing? Didn't look like any animal he'd ever seen, and he tilted his head a little and squinted at it as he tried to make sense of it.

Mystic

“Ooooo, Kirby! A fine choice!” Tikki grins, reaching over and taking the cartridge from his hand. Kneeling down, she slots the cartridge into the port on top of the console.

The window on the screen fills with a colorful image of the same pink orb, which had a big cartoony mouth and tiny eyes, surrounded by stars and puffy clouds. Tikki presses a button on the controller, and the screen makes a happy ‘brring!’ sound, before going black again.

When it loads up again, big bubbly text says ‘Kirby Super Star’, with the little pink dude wearing a colorful hat and surrounded by more stars. It says ‘Press Start’ in flashing letters.

“The game is in the cartridge, which the console loads up on the screen,” Tikki says, watching as the screen loads up a demo level, showing the little pink character running around, jumping and- floating? It could float, apparently! And then it starts- eating things? Upon eating another thing that was walking around, the pink thing gains a hat and a sword, which it uses to start smacking other things.

Spooky

He gave a little snort as he watched. That... was surprisingly violent, and kinda funny since it looked so cute. This little dude was just walking around eating other little dudes like it was no big deal, and now he had weaponry somehow? He got so wrapped up in watching what was happening in the demo level that he forgot it was supposed to be a game of some kind.

Mystic

He suddenly feels plastic being inserted into his hands.

Oh- Tikki just handed him the controller. She presses a button in the center that says ‘Start’, and the demo level disappears to show a brand new level screen. The pink dude wasn’t moving this time.

“Press buttons on that,” she says with an amused smile on her face.

Spooky

Why wasn't he moving...? He glanced between the screen and controller, before hitting a button, and the pink thing scooted forward just a little before stopping again.

...Wait. He poked at another button on the other side of the plastic thing, and sure enough the pink guy moved again, jumping this time. His eyes went wide as he realized what was going on- he was making the guy move! With the buttons!!

Needless to say he started pressing more of them to see what they did, which quickly turned into button mashing to see what would happen if he hit multiple buttons at once. Hah! Pink dude looked super confused- whoa wait he's flying! What- how did he do that?? He looked down at the buttons trying to figure out which one did the flying thing.

Mystic

Tikki snorts a laugh.

"Good job, you're figuring it out already! Welp, have fun saving the planet of Popstar."

And with that, she turns on her heel and heads off to her room, grinning the whole way. She had to go get changed out of her pajamas, and start making a plan for meals for the week.

Spooky

He gave a small nod in response, but was otherwise completely absorbed in playing, his eyes never leaving the screen.

After figuring out the movement well enough, he started to explore the level, mostly inhaling enemies and spitting them back out until by sheer accident he figured out how to swallow them and get abilities from them. He caught on quick and was feeling pretty confident, until suddenly a huge tree started attacking him! He panicked because he couldn't eat it, and the tree having hollow, empty holes for a face was pretty unnerving too. Swallowing the apples didn't seem to do anything either, and he died before he could figure out what to do.

Mystic

Tikki lets him continue to enjoy the game- even the parts that would have been frustrating, like losing all of his lives and restarting from scratch. All that mattered to her was that it kept him engaged for a bit. A good sign that he wouldn't be bored to tears while she was gone during her workdays. It was also very encouraging in terms of his cognitive development. If he could piece together how to play a video game, his reasoning skills and learning capability were pretty good! His practical application of language and math was a bit behind- maybe at some point, they could move into actual educational lessons...?

Augh- there was the older sister instinct kicking in, again. She missed her siblings in the ocean. This kid wasn't family; she was helping him because he was a lost soul who was taken advantage of and needed help, and no kid deserved to be on their own.

...it was very endearing, though, watching him laugh whenever he made Kirby dance in confusion.

A few hours later, and Tikki- now in her day clothes- was in the process of making sandwiches.

"Any luck beating Dedede yet?" she pipes from the kitchen.

Spooky

Almost as if on cue, there was a small "huh?" as he took his eyes off the game for a moment, followed by Dedede's theme song getting cut off by the little death jingle that played. He made a frustrated noise, and the fight music started over.

Funny, for how much timidity this kid showed when confronted with unfamiliar stuff, he could also be pretty stubborn. He kept dying, but instead of getting upset to the point of giving up, he just tried again. That was encouraging, at least!

Mystic

Tikki giggled.

“Oops, sorry.” She loads up several sandwiches onto a plate for him, and one on another for herself. “Didn’t mean to throw off your groove. Maybe next attempt, you take a break for lunch? Can’t play games well on an empty stomach.”

Spooky

It took a moment of confused button mashing for him to remember how to pause, but the presence of food reminded him he was hungry- Hammer guy could wait.

So excited was he to get to his lunch, he nearly tripped over the couch when hurrying over.

Mystic

"Whoa, don't fall over!" Tikki says with a gasp that turned into a breathless laugh. "The sandwiches aren't going anywhere, and I don't want you to hurt yourself."

She hands him his plate. This time, it doesn't have any utensils on it.

"I figured if nothing else, you might be able to learn how to make a sandwich for the times I'm gone," Tikki says, taking her own plate to the actual dining table for once. "It's very easy- you just layer food between bread, and bam, sandwich. I don't know what you like, though, so I made several kinds."

Spooky

He scarfed them all down in a matter of bites, licking the crumbs from his face with a big grin. He apparently enjoyed all of them, which was good- he wasn't picky at all. Not surprising, considering the kind of stuff he'd subsisted on before... But at the very least, it would make keeping him fed on a budget a lot easier.

"Put stuff in bread," he rasped, trying to see if he got her instructions right. Seemed easy enough, as long as he knew where to find the stuff he needed. From what he could tell all the food came from the room with the counters though, so shouldn't be too hard to find something to put in some bread.

Mystic

"...I don't know why I continue to be concerned for your diet," Tikki says, munching her own sandwich with a smirk and a shake of her head. "You haven't turned down a single thing I've offered yet."

She eats in comfortable silence for a moment.

"So- how are you feeling today?" she asks, curious. "I'm sure these past few days have been kinda... overwhelming, for you."

Spooky

He stopped licking the remaining crumbs from his plate and pondered her question, nodding a little. It had been a lot to take in... It felt almost like too much at times. But confusion aside, there hadn't been anything bad that had happened to him since he'd been in this house. There was a little nervousness that came with being in a building at first, but... He hadn't been forced to stay in one room, and he was allowed a surprising amount of freedoms, to the point where he wasn’t even sure what to do with them all. She'd even given him the option to leave if he wanted to.

A few days ago he'd never thought he'd be in a house, cleaned up, and wearing clothes. It was kind of surreal. Still... it was nice.

"Better," he said after a few moments, having found a word for it. He felt better.

Mystic

Tikki offers him another smile, taking another bite of her sandwich and swallowing before she continues.

"That's the best I could hope for, I suppose," she said, keeping her attention on her plate.

...

"...Sorry, I'm not used to having company for this long," Tikki says, feeling awkward as she avoids eye contact, scratching behind her neck with one hand. "I didn't really... let myself have any, for a long time. For obvious reasons."

Spooky

Understandable, though it still sucked. Tikki was nice, even when she was the silver beast... But people got scared easily.

"...S' ok."

He wasn't exactly used to it either. He'd been told plenty of times that there wouldn’t be anybody nice on the outside, that he was dangerous and they'd want him destroyed. And as shitty as that was, he'd kinda started to think they were right for a while, there. It... didn't really occur to him that there would be anyone else like him out here, that'd be able to relate at least a little bit. Sure, she could blend in enough to go to town, but her transformations still clearly limited her in a lot of ways...

And the worst part was, he couldn't really say any of this shit to her because his throat didn't wanna fuckin' work.

"Wwish m'fuggn... voice wasn' broke," he grumbled, frustration evident as he frowned down at himself.

Finally had someone to talk to after who knows how long, and he couldn't fuckin' do it. Not for more than a few seconds at a time, at least not without feeling like he was gonna cough up a lung.

Mystic

Tikki gives a small start, before turning her head to give him a wry smirk.

“Aha, got a sailor mouth on you I see,” she snickers. “Good, I was worried about how much I’d have to censor myself around you. I hope you put those swears to good use against the assholes that ‘worked’-” she lifts her hands to do air quotes “- on you before. God knows they deserve so much worse. And don’t worry about your throat- just take it easy, drink more hot drinks, and it’ll heal up real fast.”

She didn’t want to think on it for too long. If she let herself get pissed off, the beast might come out.

Tikki finished the sandwich, and stood from her chair, stretching her back with a pop of vertebrae.

“Okay, now that you’re over here and fed, maybe I could help you learn how to wash dishes? I did some thinking, and laundry is a bit more complex, so for now we’ll start with easy stuff. You’ll need to be able to do your own dishes while I’m gone, or we won’t have clean plates and cups to eat and drink from.”

Spooky

Despite any frustration about himself, he clearly was trying to force an encroaching smile back down at hearing her call those Aria scientists 'assholes' after she'd spent this whole time not cursing around him. Awp, there was the telltale sharp exhale of a suppressed chuckle, too.

He nodded. They definitely deserved worse. Especially that lying fuck, Rainer.

The dishwashing suggestion was a welcome distraction before his thoughts could spiral into something more violent about what he wished he could do to them, and he nodded quickly, getting up. While he didn't have a beast form to worry about, he did have to consciously loosen his grip on the plate in his hand, feeling like it was gonna break into pieces if he didn't.

He sighed as he followed Tikki to the kitchen. Why did everything have to be so damn fragile...?

Mystic

Tikki spends a good amount of time teaching him how to clean the dishes. Trepidation naturally followed the turning on of the kitchen sink, but then she showed him the water flow was controlled by a pair of handles, and could be hot or cold just like the bath. Again, he had total control over the water flow, and it was destined for the drain, nowhere else in the room. She showed him how to get soap, and how to scrub the plates and cups before rinsing them, and where to put them on the rack to dry.

It took a few tries to get down, but Tikki quickly figured out he was a visual learner, and demonstration worked wonders on getting the instructions across. She remained patient the whole time, even when he accidentally broke a plate. She just scooped it up the shards in a towel and threw them in the trash, joking that ‘we don’t need a stabbing weapon today, but something to keep in mind if the dinner is a little too raw’. Turns out the task of washing dishes was indeed relatively simple to figure out.

“Alright, that’s the last of them,” Tikki says, wiping her hands on a towel. She gives him a smile. “Thanks for helping, Sticks. If you wanna get back to your game now, you can go ahead- I’ll make another mug of cider for your throat.”

Spooky

Even though it was a little frustrating at first, especially when his first attempt to scrub a plate led to him applying too much pressure and breaking it down the middle, he powered through it. He still didn't really like putting his hands in water, but at least it wasn't enough to cause a panic. On the bright side, he figured out how to clean without breaking stuff pretty fast after that first attempt, and... Maybe it was learning a new skill, or the repetitive motions of gently scrubbing dishes helping him get his mind off things, but as he carefully put the last mug on the rack and stood back from the sink, he did feel at least a little better.

Toweling off his hands, though, he noticed the skin on his hands looked kind of weird and dull afterwards, returning to their normal sheen about halfway up his forearms, the transition definitely more noticeable than when he'd gotten out of the bath. Uhh, was that supposed to happen...?

Well, it... didn't hurt or anything from what he could tell, so after a brief moment of inspecting his hands, he shrugged it off and went back over to the couch to continue the match against hammer guy.

Mystic

Tikki didn’t comment on it, but she had spied the thin streams of dark… something… trailing off of his arms into the sink. It had the shiny quality of an after-rain oil slick, before it got sucked down the drain with the rest of the dishwater. The fact that he acquired an almost mitten-like pattern to his hands once he dried off was quite noticeable, and surprising. What was that about? Huh.

Deciding it wasn’t an issue for now, Tikki resolved to keep mental tabs on it, but leave him be. He had enough decompressing on his plate to manage for now.

Tikki lets him spend the rest of the day chilling out, enjoying the game console. In the meantime, she cleaned up the bathroom, having finally seen the mess he’d left it in after the bath. It wasn’t horribly dirty, but the towel had dried into a stiff crust like a cracker, and the splashed water left marks on the tile floor.

The only time Tikki interrupted his fun was for a brief lesson on how to use a phone. The concept of a phone was practically magic to him, even with his basic understanding of common tech he’d seen around the lab. She taught him the standard emergency number- which was very easy, but risked getting attention he might not want- and her own number, which was a lot longer, but would only call her directly. His fingers were a bit larger than the buttons on the landline phone, but in a pinch, he could probably do it.

Evening drew close, then night again. Dinner was a bowl of some kind of yellow soft stuff in golden sauce, which was hot and delicious! And from what he saw- very easy to make, too. Another recipe he might be able to get a handle on?

Spooky

It had proven to be a pretty eventful day, if only because of his introduction to so many new things. Some were easier than others- He'd struggled somewhat with memorizing Tikki's number, so she'd written it down for him on a piece of paper next to the phone just in case. His hands had also regained their normal sheen by dinnertime, so he didn't think any more about it as he shoveled said dinner into his mouth like coal into a furnace.

After that, Tikki helped him make sandwiches for tomorrow, showing him where the bread and the stuff to put in the sandwiches was. She put the sandwich she made in a plastic bag, then put that in a brown bag along with some other stuff. Apparently that would be for her to bring to work to eat later, so he needed to leave that bag alone if he was hungry. The other sandwiches were his lunch for tomorrow, though, so it wasn't like he was gonna go hungry, either.

Finally bedtime rolled around, and as he was climbing back onto the couch with his blankets and pillow, he heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom. The door was open, so when he peeked in, he saw Tikki scrubbing at her teeth with some kind of... plastic stick? Buh? Was she washing her teeth like the dishes??

Mystic

Tikki continued brushing for a few moments longer, before one of her ear fins twitches. It twitches again, this time more noticeably in his direction, and she pauses, feeling eyes on her. When she glances towards the door, she’s treated to her house guest watching her with the most baffled look on his big owl-eyed face.

Tikki quickly leans toward the sink as she snort a laugh, trying not to spit toothpaste. Wiping her mouth with a towel, she chuckles.

“Right. Brushing teeth is a new thing, too. Alright, big guy, get in here.”

She scoots aside to make room at the sink, and digs in the cabinet below for a plastic package containing a second plastic stick of the same design, but red instead of green like hers.

Spooky

Blinking, he shuffled over to the sink. When offered, he took the small stick in his hand. Noticing the bristles at the end of it, it clicked that those were what she'd been scrubbing with on the green stick. What was the weird foamy stuff, though? Was she foaming at the mouth? He'd foamed at the mouth before, but it wasn't a good thing...

He gave her a look of confusion mixed with concern.

Mystic

Tikki takes the end of the brush, but doesn't remove it from his hands- instead, she takes a bottle and squirts a bit of some kind of white-and-green paste onto it, before capping the bottle again.

"That's toothpaste. It'll taste like mint, but it's not edible. It's for cleaning your teeth, and getting excess food and plaque off. Taking care of your teeth is important if you want to keep them- otherwise you'll get painful cavities and need to have the teeth removed, it's not fun at all."

For a second, it sounded like she was spouting total bullshit, but her delivery didn't sound like she was lying. Concerning.

"I don't know if you will need to worry about that too much, considering you uh-" Tikki searches for the right word for a moment "-roast everything you eat. But it might help, and it's better to be safe about it. Just, uh, brush your teeth fast. I don't know if your weird lava mouth will melt the brush."

Tikki picks up her own brush again, and starts cleaning her incredibly sharp set of chompers.

"Wghen yur dun, shpit id oud," she says past the toothbrush, before spitting the foam into the sink. She grabs a cup, pours some water into it, and starts gargling, which also ends up in the sink once she's done.

Spooky

Fast? Uh, okay.

His lips drew back as he bared his teeth- primarily human in shape, save for some very large, sharp canines that had mostly up to this point remained out of view- and scrubbed as fast as he could.

Mint was definitely a new flavor- he wasn't sure if he liked it or not, but it did have an interesting effect of making his tongue feel a little weird, and the air feel colder when he breathed in. He almost stopped there, though Tikki showed him he was supposed to get both sides of his teeth, so he opened his jaws and scrubbed the other side as well.

When he spat out the foam, it landed in the sink with an audible sizzle. Same went for the water he gargled with- seemed that happened with any liquid that remained in his mouth for long enough. Brushing fast was probably a good call...

Mystic

When he's done, Tikki is staring.

"Are you secretly a vampire?" she jokes, snickering. "You got big ol' fangs, Sticks. Planning to hunt some ring seals with those canines? Heheh- I'm one to talk. I have shark teeth."

Then she reaches up, and gives him a brief noogie on the forehead with one fist.

"Proud of you, kid. You're learning really fast, and soon, you'll be able to do all kinds of stuff all on your own!" Tikki tosses her toothbrush into a cup by the sink, which seemed to be its dedicated storage. "I'm gonna turn in for the night. You have a good sleep, whenever you get to it- I'll probably be leaving for work before you wake up tomorrow. Stay indoors, it's supposed to snow a lot, and you don't have any winter gear yet."

Spooky

The fuck's a vampire? Was she teasing him?

He gave her a confused frown, though it gave way to a grin and that quiet, chuffing laugh when she noogied him, and he saw it for the playful gesture it was. Yeah, okay, she was just teasin'.

He nodded, and he turned to put his brush in the cup as well. She didn't need to tell him twice to stay indoors, his natural shadowy camouflage was rendered completely useless in snow, and he wasn't a fan of cold!

Each retiring to their respective rooms, he crawled onto the couch and snuggled back in that corner between the back of the couch and the arm of it. It took a little bit more to get comfortable since his shirt kept pulling at the rock on his back as he tried to get settled. He was half-tempted to take it off, if only it didn't help keep in his body heat...

...Hm. While he wasn't really used to sleeping in any other way than upright, maybe he should try something else until he felt comfortable... He changed his position, trying to lay where he was more draped face-down over the back of the couch. Wasn't perfect... but the couch cushioning was soft and wasn't too different from hugging his pillow as he slept, and he was still sorta upright... And most importantly, it kept pressure off his back. He pulled his blankets up, held Slithers close, and after some time, he somehow managed to actually fall asleep.

~*~

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