fandomtownies | Devil's Nest, Monday, April 8

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Devil's Nest, Monday, April 8

Jack had a junior helper at work today. He'd suggested to Hannah that a nightclub owned by a vampire might not be the best place for a child to spend a day, but that argument didn't hold much water when the child in question could point out her fathers regularly took her into war zones. (She stayed on the ship, far from any trouble, but once Hannah realized she was winning she'd decided not to supply that detail.)

There was the usual enormous pile of paperwork to take care of, so Jack set Hannah up in the lounge with a set of crayons and a coloring book. She thought it was babyish, but that was okay: Jack had also absentmindedly left his phone with her, and he was never very creative about passwords. As soon as she was sure he was busy, she planned to do a little investigating.

Satisfied his daughter was reasonably content, Jack settled himself at a table where he could see her as well as the door. Tiny (and a child who looked exactly like a miniature Tiny, goatee and tribal tattoo included) could mind the bar.

A sign outside the club read, Specials Today: $4 milkshakes while the kids are still around. Hard liquor half off after they leave.

[OOC: There was gonna be OCD but my connection hates me. Let anarchy rein, and feel free to mod your service from Tiny & Tiny II.]

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"I'll... have a strawberry milkshake."

That short pause brought to you courtesy of Kaidan realizing Hannah was here. Appreciated the specials today, though, Jack, so thanks.

Jack was distracted by the club's phone just then, so Tiny II made the shake and brought it over, trailed by Hannah.

"You should get a peanut butter one," she suggested. "It's the best. Hi."

Though Hannah would be more than willing to take a sip just to test the strawberry. She was generous like that.

Kaidan's eyebrows crawled up his forehead. "Peanut butter milkshake?" he asked, taking the shake offered to him and sitting down in one of the booths. "Did... you come up with that one?"

"Maybe?" Hannah scrunched her nose as she crawled into the booth opposite her father. "No, wait. EDI thought that ice cream was good and peanut butter was good, so they'd be good together."

"I think you need to be careful about the advice you take from Edie," Kaidan said carefully and took a sip from his milkshake. Through his straw. Like a grown person. "I'm not sure that's healthy."

"But peanut butter has protein," Hannah argued. "And EDI's great. You'll see when you meet her."

"Maybe, but it doesn't go in a milkshake." Admittedly, it would've been helpful if he had some kind of nutritionist's advice or... something. "Who's Edie, anyway? A friend of mine? Or does Jack know her?"

That was a complicated question, and Hannah had an idea explaining to her dad that her favorite babysitter was an AI would not go over well. He was touchy.

"She's Joker's girlfriend," Hannah explained carefully. "She'll work with you on the" -- she caught herself before she said Normandy -- "in a while. I can't tell you anything else. Yet."

Frowning, she added, "It's weird that you guys don't know what I know."

"Guess I should've seen that one coming, huh," Kaidan said philosophically. He sighed quietly. "I don't exactly know the, uh, protocol about this either. Actually, I'm kind of... I have no idea how this happened, you know?"

This was not an excellent time to talk about your feelings, Kaidan. Not that that ever stopped you.

Hannah assumed he wasn't asking about the state-of-the-art reproductive technology that had led to her existence -- not that she was supposed to understand that quite as well as she did, anyhow. Which didn't make the question easier to answer.

"Dad -- other-Dad -- followed you home," Hannah said dryly, sounding older than she was. "You fed him and he wouldn't leave."

She shrugged. "'Swhat he says when you say that at home. Can I have a sip of your shake?"

Edited 2013-04-08 16:30 (UTC)

After the week they'd just left behind them, Kaidan wasn't so sure that was the exact kind of phrasing he'd been hoping to hear about... anything Jack-related. With the kid showing up he hadn't actually had the time to make sure that nothing was, uh, awkward with any of the people he'd been, uh, awkward with.

Which was awkward.

"Sure," he said, pushing his shake towards her. "Look," he added, "I can get this is really weird for you. I mean-- I'm not going out of my way to make it worse, but..."

Hannah took a long slurp of the shake and licked her lips before she gave any response.

"I'm okay," she said, settling the drink delicately back in front of Kaidan. "You just seemed surprised, not mean or anything."

"It... is kind of weird," Kaidan admitted. "I mean, Jack's a friend. And I can't say I've thought that far ahead--"

No, seriously, Kaidan, your ten-year-old child was not the person to have this conversation with.

"...How's the shake?"

Hannah wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed Kaidan had cut himself off. Whatever he would have said was almost certainly too grown-up for her, but that just made it even more interesting.

"Good," she said, forming her lips into a sunny smile. "Not as good as it would be with peanut butter, but good."

"That's something we've got down, then," Kaidan said, smiling a little. He was just going to try and let the awkward go for now. "Even if it doesn't have peanut butter. Or, uh, whatever you wanted to put on your sandwich yesterday."

And lo, an eight-year-old appeared. "Can I have three vanilla milkshakes with extra extra whipped cream, please?"

Hillary was enjoying her week of not having Mama around. Tiny Mom let her do whatever she wanted. And what she wanted was to get milkshakes.

"What are you even going to do with three milkshakes?" Jack asked, signalling Tiny to make them anyhow. "Are these to go?"

Hillary nodded. "One's for me," she said, ticking it off on her fingers, "one's for my Mama when I get home tonight, and the other one's also for me, but I have thirteen dollars and I really like milkshakes."

She presented the cash in question to Jack by dumping some crumpled bills and quarters on the bar. Sorry, Jack.

Jack quickly counted the money, then shrugged. "Just don't drink the ones for you too fast," he advised. "Can I ask who Mama is?"

"Her name's Leslie, but she doesn't live here," Hillary summarized. "'Home' is through a portal. My other mom is April, if you know her."

"I do," Jack said slowly. "I can't say she strikes me as the maternal type."

That wasn't upsetting for a kid to hear at all, was it?

"She's not now," Hillary agreed. "She told me to go wander so she could nap."

"And you wandered into a nightclub," Jack noted, and gestured vaguely to the booth where Hannah had set up camp. "That's Hannah, if you want someone more interesting than I am to talk to."

Éponine had company on her mail route today, too, only she wouldn't go so far as to call it helping. Good God, no; Rambouillet kept trying to go through all the mail, and while she wasn't categorically opposed to reading other people's correspondence her son thought he was much better at it than he really was. (Plus, he kept complaining that it would be much easier to open envelopes if he had his own knife like Papa, and if they had proper wax seals instead of this stupid glue stuff.)

She looked significantly annoyed when she came in; the 12-year-old with the cane and the fancy clothing who trailed along after her kept trying to reach into her mail bag, and she kept swatting his hands away.

"/By God, if you don't stay where I can damn well see you, so help me,/" she growled at him in argot. (Even if Rambouillet never resorted to criminal slang himself, she should have known that he'd be fluent in every dialect of it, because that was just like his father.)

She'd noticed the sign on the way in, and looked about as hopeful as she ever did. "After they leave? Is that for certain?"

"I think we have until tonight," Hannah piped up, before Jack could answer. She'd come over when she saw Eponine and Rambouillet enter because they were even more interesting than Jack's saved text messages. "Hi. I'm Hannah."

"She's mine and Kaidan's," Jack explained, raising an eyebrow. He didn't understand argot as a Parisian would, but between the little he knew and Eponine's tone, he had the general idea. "And I think she's right. The children usually stay two or three nights. Of course, sometimes it feels longer than that..."

Before Éponine could say anything, Rambouillet tipped his cap to Hannah with a flourish.

"Charmed, mademoiselle. You can call me Rambouillet."

He just grinned smugly, but he sounded disappointed when he asked Hannah, "Only tonight? Really?" He hadn't even gotten to explore the sewer system yet.

Éponine sighed. "God, you really are just like your father," she told Rambouillet, but managed half a wry smile at Jack. "It's been an endless two nights already."

"Who was his dad?" Hannah asked, smiling over at Rambouillet. To him, she added, "I know. I want to stay longer too."

There was so much to learn from the past! Hannah had barely explored the Devil's Nest at all!

"Papa's Montparnasse," Rambouillet jumped in, proudly, before Éponine could say anything, but he glanced over at her with a reproachful look. Please, did she think he was actually going to tell just anyone what exactly Papa did? He wasn't stupid. "You wouldn't know him. He's not here."

In a confiding tone he added to Hannah, "I want to at least explore all the shops before I go, and try some more of the food here."

Without paying for it. That would be a bonus.

"Try Chinese food," Jack advised, eying Rambouillet slightly. He was curious about that look the boy was giving his mother. "It's fantastic. The shops on the island aren't anything special, though the general store's interesting."

Éponine was not thrilled about that look herself, but hopefully she'd have time to come up with a way to explain it.

"There isn't anything in the shops that'll be that interesting," she said (pointedly, and for Rambouillet's benefit in the unlikely event that he'd listen), "but yes, I suppose we'll make a visit over to Ching Tai. It's not something he's quite as likely to get at home."

That was a concern, though. If it made him want to come back . . . well, she didn't want to worry about that right now.

"And you, monsieur? As impossible as all of this seems, how's fatherhood suiting you?"

Hannah looked interested in the answer to this.

"Easier than it was last year," Jack said guardedly, aware of his daughter's attention. "Last year there were 15-year-old telepathic triplets and a fourth one as well, so just having two is -- almost refreshing. Even if I don't quite see how I get there from here, as it were."

"You had different kids before?" asked Rambouillet, and he looked like he couldn't decide whether to be relieved or jealous when he added, "I haven't got any brothers or sisters. It's just me."

Éponine grimaced. "And I can't see how that would have happened, either, though . . ." She glanced at Hannah, then at Jack. "I'm a bit more confused about how that happened for you."

Not that she'd ever had formal biology lessons, but . . .

"I did, with different other parents," Jack nodded. "All only children except the triplets -- at least, as far as I know."

He ran a hand along the nape of his neck as he tried to come up with an answer to Eponine's question. "The truth is, I don't know either," he admitted. "Kaidan's from the future. Who knows what they can do there? Or else the stork brought her."

Hannah looked exasperated. "Seriously, Dad? The stork?"

Rambouillet burst out laughing so hard that Éponine clapped a hand very firmly on his shoulder in a futile attempt to get him to be quiet. "No one ever believes that," he said in the lofty tone of someone whose parents did not believe in (or maybe just didn't care about) age-appropriate information. "Might as well not bother trying to spin that tale for kids."

"'Specially spacer kids," Hannah said. "I'm not even sure what a stork looks like, but I really don't think they fly to the Citadel."

To Eponine, she added, matter-of-factly, "Dad's right, though. It's a whole long science thing if you want a baby with two fathers. I guess you guys can't do it yet."

"Hardly." The only thing that bothered Éponine about this was her inability to wrap her mind around the scientific aspects of it, by the way. "God, this is all so strange -- Rambouillet, get back here!"

She'd made the mistake of releasing her hold on him; he'd started to sneak off to the side, possibly with the intent of seeing what Jack had in his pockets, but he froze, leaned on his cane, and tried his best to look nonchalant.

Éponine glared at him. "I wouldn't mind a drink or three after all this."

"Can I --" Rambouillet began.

"You can ask your father when you get home." Excellent parenting there, 'Ponine.

Jack laughed. "You can have free drinks whenever you get back here," he promised. "I'll probably be drinking myself."

He eyed Rambouillet, and shifted his posture so he'd look a bit less like an easy mark. He might be wrong, but something about the boy had him wanting to check the tip jar and count the silver.

"Maman isn't old enough to drink here," Rambouillet piped up, because he was not above petty revenge on his own family. "The laws here are stupid."

He hadn't noticed the tip jar yet! Luckily.

But this was why Éponine hadn't taken him to any restaurants that used actual tableware.

"They are, but you're a brat for telling me. I can't serve her if I know for sure she's underage." Jack was not above telling off someone else's kid, it turned out.

To Eponine, he added, "I never thought to ask your exact age. I could get you a very nice soda?"

And if some vodka or rum made it in to the cup, that was simply a bartending accident.

Éponine managed a grateful nod at Jack before rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't mind, right now. As for anything else, I'll just pop 'round to Caritas later tonight -- after he goes home."

Her gaze drifted over toward Hannah. "Your father's lucky to have you instead." Not that she expected a child of hers to be easy to deal with.

Hannah smiled disingenuously. Like she hadn't spent the hour before Eponine came in snooping in Jack's text messages, after a morning blissfully poking through the house medicine cabinet.

"He might be," she said. "Or maybe I just don't get caught."

Éponine was about to say something when Rambouillet cut in. "That's the idea! You're not supposed to get caught; 's what Papa and Maman always say."

Éponine mostly looked like she wanted to shake him.

"Then you need to look less like you're trying to be sneaky," Hannah said placidly. "If you look like you're up to something, you're gonna get caught."

Jack was making a mental note to check the silver at home, too.

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Devil's Nest, Monday, April 8

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