Fixer-Uppers [all day]

[momslilassassin]

Ben had gotten turned around a few times today (come on, like he wasn't going to stand on the green pipes to see what they did) and kept ending up on the far side of the island, but he finally got to the shop with time to listen to one more of the audio recordings Dink had given him before Ender's normal arrival time.

Ben's coping techniques for dealing with the weekend were a little different, yeah.

Chamrajnagar's voice was the first one heard today: "We've had our disappointments in the past, hanging on for years, hoping they'll pull through, and then they don't. Nice thing about Ender, he's determined to ice within the first six months."

"Oh?" Graff replied, not sounding remotely concerned.

"Don't you see what's going on here? He's stuck at the Giant's Drink in the mind game. Is the boy suicidal? You never mentioned it," Chamrajnagar answered, sounding frustrated.

"Everybody gets the Giant sometime," Graff said blandly.

"But Ender won't leave it alone. Like Pinual." That was an unfamiliar name and Ben frowned, leaning in a bit to listen more closely.

"Everybody looks like Pinual at one time or another," Graff said. "But he's the only one who killed himself. I don't think it had anything to do with the Giant's Drink." Giant's Drink? Ben was lost. Hopefully he'd pick up context as they went along.

"You're betting my life on that," Chamrajnagar retorted. "And look what he's done with his launch group."

"Wasn't his fault, you know," Graff said, and Ben couldn't stop himself from replied aloud. "No, it was yours."

"I don't care. His fault or not, he's poisoning that group. They're supposed to bond, and right where he stands there's a chasm a mile wide."

"I don't plan to leave him there very long, anyway," Graff said and Ben rolled his eyes.

"Then you'd better plan again. That launch is sick, and he's the source of the disease. He stays till it's cured," Chamrajnagar ordered.

"I was the source of the disease. I was isolating him, and it worked," Graff said and if Ben had been a more overdramatic person, he would have fallen from his chair in pretend shock of Graff admitting to doing something incorrectly. Of course, Ben reflected, Graff didn't think what he'd done was wrong.

"Give him time. To see what he does with it," Chamrajnagar urged.

"We don't have time," Graff insisted.

"We don't have time to rush a kid ahead who has as much chance of being a monster as a military genius."

"Is this an order?" Graff asked.

"The recorder's on, it's always on, your ass is covered, go to hell," Chamrajnagar snapped and Ben actually liked the man for a split second.

"If it's an order, then I'll--"

"It's an order," Chamrajnar snapped. "Hold him where he is until we see now he handles things in his launch group. Graff, you give me ulcers."

"You wouldn't have ulcers if you'd leave the school to me and take care of the fleet yourself," and to Ben's ears that sounded almost petulant.

"The fleet is looking for a battle commander. There's nothing to take care of until you get me that."

The transmission ended and Ben blew out a long breath. Every time he heard one of the recordings, he had to fight the urge to go find Graff and hit him, but it had stopped him from moping about what had happened over the weekend for a little while, so it was kind of a step forward. Sort of.

Fixer-Uppers was open!

[OOC: Audio stolen from OSC and is NFB!]

Comments

[endsthegame]

Ender had about a hundred plans in his head with 'avoid Ben' as a main objective, and he'd shot every single one of them down on the knowledge that it would only make things worse.

Barring his scheduled trip to New York with Tony this weekend, anyway, but there was a reason he'd waited a while to schedule it.

Besides, there was enough going on with the island today to give them something to talk about. "Ho, Ben," he said, coming in at his usual time, holding his usual bag of lunch. Normalcy. "The island's gone a little weird."

[momslilassassin]

"Just like you predicted," Ben said with a tiny smile. "Who'd you call?"

[endsthegame]

Ender tossed the bag at the counter. "No one," he said, "Though this does feel like a job for the Fandom High phone tree."

[momslilassassin]

Ben rummaged through the bag and emerged triumphantly with a sandwich. "Have you run into anything really weird?"

[endsthegame]

"Besides the floating brick right outside the door?" Ender asked, taking his own sandwich.

[momslilassassin]

"Yeah, besides that," Ben said. "Tony and I went jogging this morning--well, I jogged, he wheezed--and saw a really weird flying duckturtle."

[endsthegame]

"Well, I guess that means I won't have to call Tony and tell him we probably won't be going to New York this weekend," Ender noted.

[momslilassassin]

"You were going away?"

Breathe, Ben.

[endsthegame]

"Tony wanted to go back to New York for a day, maybe two," Ender said, doing a good job of not sighing like this was exactly what he'd been afraid of. "And I don't want him to wind up breaking into Stark Tower like he keeps threatening to. Breathe, Ben."

[momslilassassin]

"I'm fine," Ben lied, looking annoyed with himself. "Sorry. Stopping breaking and entering is good."

[endsthegame]

"I'm not going anywhere for longer than a weekend any time soon," Ender said. Which was what he'd made himself promise to himself. "I don't have anywhere else to be."

[momslilassassin]

It was a little sad how much better that made Ben feel. "Okay," he said. "Hate for you to miss prom and graduation, too."

[endsthegame]

"I think the school would frown on those absences, anyway." He quirked a little smile. "Besides, people I know are graduating as well. I'm not going to skip out."

Despite any urges to the contrary.

[momslilassassin]

Ben reached out to ruffle Ender's hair and stopped his hand halfway there, blushing furiously and feeling like an idiot. "Good," he said said lamely. "Tahiri would be upset."

[endsthegame]

Ender had a minor flash of a memory of a different occasion where Ben had gone for a ruffle. He blinked that back. He wouldn't give into it.

"And I don't want to make Tahiri upset," Ender agreed, meaning it on more than one level, not that he'd admit to it out loud. "But Tony assured me the hotdogs in New York were pretty good."

[momslilassassin]

"I didn't know you were that interested in hotdogs," Ben said and why did that sound like a euphemism today? Why?

[endsthegame]

"I'm not," Ender said, "But Tony is. And it's an easy way to convince him that he really only needs to point his lab out to me from the outside."

Please don't keep riffing on this hotdog thing, Ben.

[momslilassassin]

"Very smart, kreetle," Ben said. "Bring me back a souvenir?"

[endsthegame]

"I'll do my best," Ender said, dryly, "Once the recent bout of Fandom weirdness dries up."

[momslilassassin]

"Watch out for the flying turtle-ducks," Ben said. "One of them zapped me back into the lobby."

[endsthegame]

"Flying turtle-ducks," Ender echoed. Then sighed in light exasperation. "Well, clearly we should have seen that one coming."

[momslilassassin]

"It comes alphabetically after 'flimsy pants', which would get us to the last invasion," Ben agreed.

[endsthegame]

Oh sure, bring that one up. "Grand," Ender said, rubbing at his temple. Partly because he realised he was being kind of ridiculously careful every time he talked to Ben now, and it was definitely affecting the quality of said conversation. Partly just because this was ridiculous and a little dumb. Flying turtle-ducks? "It just sent you back to the lobby? No side-effects?"

The Sidewalk Out Front

[fh-goombaland.livejournal.com]

Conveniently shimmering into being sometime after Ender arrived.

Has a brick floating in the air about six feet off the ground.

It would sure be terrible if anybody bumped their head into that...

Re: The Sidewalk Out Front

[momslilassassin]

Ben blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then went out to investigate. "Why is there a floating brick?"

Because asking a stupid question would help.