Strawberry #1 // But after all they're only children
Author: C
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 982
Story / World: Cause AU, Colorless
Challenges: Strawberry #1: strawberries.
Characters: Cat Hydan, Case, Sam Jones.
Toppings / Extras / Other: Chopped Nuts, Whipped Cream.
Notes: This is based somewhat transparently (well, would be transparent if one of my parents read it) on how I react to US grocery stores -- "KIWIS, LOOK THERE ARE KIWIS - AND CANTELOPE - AND CORN - but none of it smells like food..." I was also hungry when I wrote this, and I think that shows? Ah well. It's still pretty typical for these two, and. And Sam has a lot to get used to (and I think the degree to which he's embarrassed of the fact that his brain basically goes "Oh? Someone needs a parent-type-thing? SAM TO THE RESCUE" is adorable).
Oh, and as for Cat's enthusiasm? You try living somewhere with a climate vaguely similar to Minnesota or southern Canada in a world with absolutely terrible trade routes and tell me you wouldn't be head-over-heels in love with the amount of year-round veggies we take for granted.
Sam’s beginning to regret this.
The logic that started it, he tells himself firmly, was and remains infallible: he seems to have volunteered to take care of these two, mostly due to being plausible as a guardian and having a spare room. The girls - Cat and Case, and the latter with his surname could have been a reason in itself to take this on, albeit a terrible one - are, at least biologically, teenagers; teenagers eat, he has no food, and they could be picky or have an allergy or something (Cat didn’t even know what the word meant and Case has been staring at him like she thinks he’s going to punch her, but still).
Also he rather likes grocery stores at eleven-thirty at night. And food, that too; it’s probably six kinds of irony that he likes cooking, and then there’s the stereotype that comes immediately to mind and makes his eye twitch. His own excuse, basically, is that he always did like chemistry, and both this and the other thing, the murderous version of it, can be seen as - he insists that his mind see them as - extensions of that.
(It can give one something of a mental block about almonds, though, having both of those areas of interest in one’s head. Just theoretically. Sam himself doesn’t panic reflexively at the taste of them, of course.)
He’s been following about seven paces behind them, Cat dragging Case onwards, Sam quietly glad the store’s deserted. The combination of exasperation and amazement with which Cat’s been treating things would be hard to explain, and this before encountering the bits of store with actual fruits and vegetables, things she’d recognize as edible.
At these Cat lets out a definitely enthusiastic shriek and runs forward. “Look!” she shouts. “There’s - look, spinach! And apples!” She turns to face Case (who’s been standing uneasily where Cat left her) and Sam. “What’s wrong with the yellow ones, then?”
“It’s just what they look like,” Sam says, laughter half-in his voice; at least he has a good idea of what to look for now.
“Yellow?” Cat sounds dubious, and keeps sounding it as she picks up broccoli. “What’s these tree-things?”
Case’s footsteps are almost soundless, so that Sam takes near as long to notice her at Cat’s elbow as Cat herself. “There’s albino ones too, see.” Her voice is virtually a whisper.
“Hey, yeah!” Cat glances back at the spinach (and Sam), wrinkling her nose. “Is this stuff real? Only it doesn’t smell like anything.”
Sam startles himself by laughing, no halves about it. “It’s real, no worries.”
“Huh,” Cat says. She looks to where Case had been standing only to find that the girl is somewhere else, holding a package of strawberries and looking worried.
Cat immediately drops the piece of broccoli she had - thankfully it falls right back where it’d been - and, reaching Case in three too-long jumping strides, takes her hand. Case’s knuckles turn white, Sam notices; her face is a similarly ashen sort of brown.
“What’re these things?” she murmurs, sounding like she’s about to apologize for the fuss. “Only I remember this girl who ate something like them, and- A-and I think she had yellow hair?”
“It’s okay,” Cat whispers, and glares at Sam like she thinks this is his fault - or, more probably, like he’s the only one she can find to blame right now, innocent and perplexed or not.
He realizes with a pins and needles sort of jolt that Cat must be mostly in Case’s head right now, or Case in hers (he’s not too sure how it works; no one is). He was warned, after all, that her powers centered so much on touch, skin-to-skin. The insane degree of intimacy implied just in that she’s got her fingers locked around Cat’s hand (holding it like a lifeline, he thinks, talk about emotional support; and they’ve known each other for, what, weeks?) makes his head spin, and he feels rude and out of place.
Then Case looks up from her hands with an uncertain sort of smile on her face and the tension mostly disappears. “Sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I felt very strange there for a second, I really do apologize. Promise it won’t happen again.”
She has one hand on her sternum pretty innocently, like she’s got her fingers on a necklace. Sam wonders if she’ll have a mental block about what’s tattooed there as well. He knows that this will happen again as surely as he knows he should play the responsible barely-an-adult and do his best to prevent it, thinks the two things in the same mental breath and leaves them braided around each other pretty much permanently; he says only, “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
She and Cat stay hand-in-hand (it seems to be a security measure) when they go back to asking what the lumpy black rocks (avocados) and impossible spiky things (pineapple) are; Sam notices these things.
They leave bearing spinach, onions, garlic, broccoli (to prove to Cat that the “little trees” are food), carrots, mushrooms, and baby tomatoes; a pretty good haul, Sam thinks, not even counting the small pineapple purchased for much the same reason as the not-actually-bonsai-trees broccoli. Also cherries, and half a chicken; Cat seemed enthusiastic about that as well.
Case and Cat each take one bag, making sure to keep one hand each free. The food lasts three days where it would have taken Sam twelve.
Well, for complete accuracy, it lasted around two hours into the fourth day as well.
In the back of his mind - somewhere he wonders if Case can get to, really - Sam is duly amused, but he keeps an eye out even so.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 982
Story / World: Cause AU, Colorless
Challenges: Strawberry #1: strawberries.
Characters: Cat Hydan, Case, Sam Jones.
Toppings / Extras / Other: Chopped Nuts, Whipped Cream.
Notes: This is based somewhat transparently (well, would be transparent if one of my parents read it) on how I react to US grocery stores -- "KIWIS, LOOK THERE ARE KIWIS - AND CANTELOPE - AND CORN - but none of it smells like food..." I was also hungry when I wrote this, and I think that shows? Ah well. It's still pretty typical for these two, and. And Sam has a lot to get used to (and I think the degree to which he's embarrassed of the fact that his brain basically goes "Oh? Someone needs a parent-type-thing? SAM TO THE RESCUE" is adorable).
Oh, and as for Cat's enthusiasm? You try living somewhere with a climate vaguely similar to Minnesota or southern Canada in a world with absolutely terrible trade routes and tell me you wouldn't be head-over-heels in love with the amount of year-round veggies we take for granted.
Sam’s beginning to regret this.
The logic that started it, he tells himself firmly, was and remains infallible: he seems to have volunteered to take care of these two, mostly due to being plausible as a guardian and having a spare room. The girls - Cat and Case, and the latter with his surname could have been a reason in itself to take this on, albeit a terrible one - are, at least biologically, teenagers; teenagers eat, he has no food, and they could be picky or have an allergy or something (Cat didn’t even know what the word meant and Case has been staring at him like she thinks he’s going to punch her, but still).
Also he rather likes grocery stores at eleven-thirty at night. And food, that too; it’s probably six kinds of irony that he likes cooking, and then there’s the stereotype that comes immediately to mind and makes his eye twitch. His own excuse, basically, is that he always did like chemistry, and both this and the other thing, the murderous version of it, can be seen as - he insists that his mind see them as - extensions of that.
(It can give one something of a mental block about almonds, though, having both of those areas of interest in one’s head. Just theoretically. Sam himself doesn’t panic reflexively at the taste of them, of course.)
He’s been following about seven paces behind them, Cat dragging Case onwards, Sam quietly glad the store’s deserted. The combination of exasperation and amazement with which Cat’s been treating things would be hard to explain, and this before encountering the bits of store with actual fruits and vegetables, things she’d recognize as edible.
At these Cat lets out a definitely enthusiastic shriek and runs forward. “Look!” she shouts. “There’s - look, spinach! And apples!” She turns to face Case (who’s been standing uneasily where Cat left her) and Sam. “What’s wrong with the yellow ones, then?”
“It’s just what they look like,” Sam says, laughter half-in his voice; at least he has a good idea of what to look for now.
“Yellow?” Cat sounds dubious, and keeps sounding it as she picks up broccoli. “What’s these tree-things?”
Case’s footsteps are almost soundless, so that Sam takes near as long to notice her at Cat’s elbow as Cat herself. “There’s albino ones too, see.” Her voice is virtually a whisper.
“Hey, yeah!” Cat glances back at the spinach (and Sam), wrinkling her nose. “Is this stuff real? Only it doesn’t smell like anything.”
Sam startles himself by laughing, no halves about it. “It’s real, no worries.”
“Huh,” Cat says. She looks to where Case had been standing only to find that the girl is somewhere else, holding a package of strawberries and looking worried.
Cat immediately drops the piece of broccoli she had - thankfully it falls right back where it’d been - and, reaching Case in three too-long jumping strides, takes her hand. Case’s knuckles turn white, Sam notices; her face is a similarly ashen sort of brown.
“What’re these things?” she murmurs, sounding like she’s about to apologize for the fuss. “Only I remember this girl who ate something like them, and- A-and I think she had yellow hair?”
“It’s okay,” Cat whispers, and glares at Sam like she thinks this is his fault - or, more probably, like he’s the only one she can find to blame right now, innocent and perplexed or not.
He realizes with a pins and needles sort of jolt that Cat must be mostly in Case’s head right now, or Case in hers (he’s not too sure how it works; no one is). He was warned, after all, that her powers centered so much on touch, skin-to-skin. The insane degree of intimacy implied just in that she’s got her fingers locked around Cat’s hand (holding it like a lifeline, he thinks, talk about emotional support; and they’ve known each other for, what, weeks?) makes his head spin, and he feels rude and out of place.
Then Case looks up from her hands with an uncertain sort of smile on her face and the tension mostly disappears. “Sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I felt very strange there for a second, I really do apologize. Promise it won’t happen again.”
She has one hand on her sternum pretty innocently, like she’s got her fingers on a necklace. Sam wonders if she’ll have a mental block about what’s tattooed there as well. He knows that this will happen again as surely as he knows he should play the responsible barely-an-adult and do his best to prevent it, thinks the two things in the same mental breath and leaves them braided around each other pretty much permanently; he says only, “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
She and Cat stay hand-in-hand (it seems to be a security measure) when they go back to asking what the lumpy black rocks (avocados) and impossible spiky things (pineapple) are; Sam notices these things.
They leave bearing spinach, onions, garlic, broccoli (to prove to Cat that the “little trees” are food), carrots, mushrooms, and baby tomatoes; a pretty good haul, Sam thinks, not even counting the small pineapple purchased for much the same reason as the not-actually-bonsai-trees broccoli. Also cherries, and half a chicken; Cat seemed enthusiastic about that as well.
Case and Cat each take one bag, making sure to keep one hand each free. The food lasts three days where it would have taken Sam twelve.
Well, for complete accuracy, it lasted around two hours into the fourth day as well.
In the back of his mind - somewhere he wonders if Case can get to, really - Sam is duly amused, but he keeps an eye out even so.