Fixer-Uppers, Monday

[endsthegame]

After extricating himself from Tony, Ben, and Tony's lab that morning, Ender had made his way down to the store rather quickly. As far as recent bouts of Fandom weirdness went, this one had been downright unpainful.

It had left Ender with some old memories resurfacing, but none of them were that bad, and while he tried not to dwell on Battle School too much usually-- right now it was doing a good job of finally wiping away some of that weekend where he'd been much, much older.

"I feel funny," Jane told him, as he sat down and set up shop. "Like someone was squeezing my network cables for a while there."

"It's just Fandom," he told her. "You get used to the occasional squeeze."

And so, he got back to work.

[[ open! ]]

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[momslilassassin]

After the longest shower ever (he hadn't needed Ender and a shovel to unstick him from where he'd fallen asleep last night, but it had been far closer than he'd like to admit), Ben stopped at the Thai place and made his way to Fixer-Uppers for lunch.

"Ho, kreetle."

[endsthegame]

"Ho, Ben," Ender said, glancing up from his laptop. "What've we got?"

[momslilassassin]

"Thai food," he replied. "I couldn't handle another burger, chicken strip or piece of pizza today. I wanted food that made me feel like a grown up."

[endsthegame]

"Ate too much at Karla's party?" Ender hazarded.

[momslilassassin]

He shuddered. "Yeah. I don't even generally like that much sugar, either."

[endsthegame]

"The vagaries of Fandom," Ender said, wisely. Though really, this one hadn't been so bad. "But let's get a look at our adult-appropriate lunch."

[momslilassassin]

"I just told the guy behind the counter to give me what he likes to eat," Ben said, emptying the bag onto the counter, "so I don't really know what anything is."

[endsthegame]

"I should make you try everything first," Ender said, picking a box. "Just to make sure none of it's poisoned. Though, on the other hand, I do speak Thai..."

He studied the lettering on the box.

[momslilassassin]

Ben grinned at him. "Did you learn that from a car movie too?"

[endsthegame]

"Actually, I learned that in Battle School," Ender said, "We had a lot of South-East Asian students."

Like Suriyawong!

[momslilassassin]

"Like Suri," Ben replied. "Is he still working with Peter?"

[endsthegame]

"Last thing I heard," Ender agreed, deciding the contents of his box were edible, and fished something out with his chopsticks. "Suri did always commit if he felt the principles of an operation were right."

[momslilassassin]

"Speaking of the principles behind an operation, any new propaganda from Petra?" Ben asked.

[endsthegame]

"I haven't seen anything come down the pipeline," Ender said, poking around the box. "It's been a quiet week, the preictable weekend madness aside. It's almost enough to make me paranoid."

Not that he was ungrateful for the lack of extra strain on his friendship with Ben this week. Which was almost a novelty at this point.

[momslilassassin]

Ben, with typical Skywalker attention to life-threatening situations, grabbed a box at random and dug in without looking.

"You don't need help to be paranoid," he said teasingly. "And you might be one of the few people who loosened up as they got out childhood."

[endsthegame]

"I don't have the fate of the world riding on my shoulders anymore," Ender pointed out. (Just the fate of a whole species.) "That'll do wonders for your joie de vivre."

[momslilassassin]

Ben waggled his free hand. "Just the fallout from it."

[endsthegame]

"But the advantage of fallout is that it can be spaced out at your leisure," Ender said, "while you master the art of horrible jokes and annoying your roommate."

[momslilassassin]

"You've excelled at the second part," Ben told him with a grin.

[endsthegame]

"I live to annoy," Ender told him, "As any decent seventeen-year-old should." He took another bite of his noodles. "You were a little louder this time."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded. "I was comfortable with you," he said.

[endsthegame]

Ender smiled a little. "But you and young Tony should never be allowed to coexist together," he said, less seriously.

[momslilassassin]

"Oh, those poor, poor machines," Ben groaned.

[endsthegame]

"I thought you were both being incredibly dumb," Ender offered, "And I can't help but agree with that assessment even now..."

He slipped some food into his mouth with the chopsticks.

[momslilassassin]

Ben finished chewing before sticking his tongue out at him. "Brat. I was four."