Wonderfalls - May 21 Deadline!
Title: Hello Kitty
Author: entwashian
Rating: PG
Pairings: Jaye/Eric, Mahandra/Aaron
Summary: Jaye's new watch features an anthropomorphic cat. Wacky fun! Also, who is these Peter Petrelli person, and why is he stalking looking for Mahandra?
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: It's fanfiction, people.
Author's Notes: Post-series for Wonderfalls, non-specific timeline for Heroes.
I chose the "insane" level prompt (I KNOW, RIGHT?!), which was this: "The story starts during a jailbreak. During the story, someone is mistaken for someone infamous. The story must have a nanny at the end. A character will drink something alcoholic. A character will wake up, and the action has far better results than expected." -- this is probably a better summary than my actual summary...
Hello Kitty
With a flick of her wrist, Jaye killed the engine of her car and turned slightly in her seat to fix a steely glare at the man riding shotgun.
"Remember, this is a stealth operation. We go in quickly and quietly, grab our people, and get out again."
Peter eyed her warily. Back at The Barrel, she seemed to know what she was doing, but now it seemed like what she was doing was planning a black ops mission. "You sound like you're expecting trouble," was all he said.
"Yeah, this establishment and I have a kind of complicated history," Jaye replied, in an attempt to sum up her relationship with the local police department. She popped the latch of the car door, "If there are any incidents," she tapped the face of her red plastic watch, "just let me handle it."
******
Fifteen Hours Earlier
Jaye's day was off to a bad start before it had really begun. Her alarm clock wasn't scheduled to go off for two hours, yet here she was, facedown into the mattress, with a pillow over her head. And, oh, yeah, her watch was singing. Some annoying, catchy pop song that wasn't even in English, though that wasn't the disturbing thing (okay, that wasn't the most disturbing thing).
Jaye had tried the no-larynx argument on the wax lion, but pointing out the impossibility of its existence hadn't stopped his chatter. So she was pretty sure that this licensed character wouldn't be bothered by the fact that it (she?) didn't have a mouth. Jaye scooped her watch off the bedside table with the intention of drumming up some sympathy through a bleary-eyed blank stare.
"Heh-roh!" trumpeted the cheerful, white, disembodied feline head, in a heavy Japanese accent.
"You've got to be kidding me." Jaye fervently wished she hadn't let her mother talk her into getting a watch 'like a normal, responsible adult' almost as hard as she wished that she'd have chosen Badtz-Maru. At least he had attitude.
******
Usually she wasn't spoken to by inanimate objects until later in the day, when she was in public, and the potential humiliation factor was increased exponentially, so Jaye surmised with dread that the day ahead of her was set to be filled with wacky (mis)adventure.
By the time she reached her first break at the gift shop, she hadn't heard a single peep further-- from the Hello Kitty watch, the wax lion, the barrel bear... anyone. And that would be so like fate, wouldn't it, abandoning her when she had finally been growing used to the idea of anthropomorphic objects telling her what to do.
As soon as her shift was over, Jaye dove into her car and headed straight for The Barrel. She really needed a drink.
******
What she really needed was a sympathetic ear to whine expostulate to, but her brother was still the only person who knew about the voices, and he wasn't answering his cell phone.
Mahandra could always be counted on to make sympathetic "right on, sister!" comments when appropriate, even if she wasn't listening to a single word Jaye said. Providing, of course, that she was around.
Jaye scanned the bar as soon as she entered. No Mahandra in sight, so Jaye crossed the room to where her boyfriend stood, polishing the counter.
"Wasn't Mahandra supposed to be working tonight?"
Eric shrugged. "She never showed."
Jaye huffed. "Some friend. Never around when I really need her."
"Well, I'm here. How can I help?"
Jaye eyed him suspiciously. "What's your job again? 'Tending' something?"
"What can I get you?"
"Surprise me."
"You hate surprises."
"Well, maybe tonight I might like one."
His automatic response to that statement was a grin, but Eric managed to repress it (mostly), and wandered off to fulfill his bartending duties.
Jaye watched. Even if getting up that morning had been a mistake, at least she had a boyfriend with a hot ass. And who really did know his way around a bar, she decided a few moments later, as she emptied the glass of whatever-it-was he had given her.
This familiar routine had a calming effect, and Jaye actually relaxed for what must've been the first time all day.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a guy who'd just entered the bar. He was of average height & build, and had boyishly floppy brown hair that he tried to keep swept to the side and tucked behind his ear. Jaye hated him instantly.
Not because of how he looked, which was all right if you were the sort of person who went for the puppy-eyed look, and, okay, if she were honest with herself, Jaye was, but really hated him because he had a photo clutched in his hand, and was thrusting it at random people, gesturing and apparently asking questions.
The icy knot of dread reappeared in Jaye's stomach. The guy looked like he could use some help. Helping was bad! All 'helping' did was constantly get her into some big, messy mess. But he wasn't having any luck with the other patrons of The Barrel, who kept shaking their heads as he worked his way through the room, toward Jaye. She snapped her gaze forward, only to find the wall-mounted bass trophy directly in her line of sight. Jaye silently willed the fish to remain mute.
Eric had finished with the other customers and was heading back toward Jaye, but was intercepted by the guy with the photo, who was now standing only a couple feet away from her. She kept her eyes ahead, carefully studying absolutely nothing, hoping that the bass had telepathic powers, and would STAY shut up.
"Say hello!" a perky voice said from the vicinity of her wrist.
Jaye moaned and bumped the counter of the bar with her forehead. "I don't want to!" she bit out.
"Say hello!" the cat on her watch insisted.
"You can't make me!" Jaye wasn't too sure about the truth of this claim, since so far, the universe had indeed managed to 'make' her solve everyone else's problems. She was still willing to argue about it, though.
"Excuse me, did you say something?" Great, they guy had finished ordering his drink, and in the subsequent silence, Jaye had managed to attract the attention of the very person she was trying to avoid.
"Umm... hi, how's it going?" Jaye knew how false the smile she flashed him must have looked, but she held it, anyway, since it was the most innocent expression in her arsenal.
A bizarre twitch crossed his own features, but apparently he was desperate for help, because he held out the photo, anyway. "I'm looking for this woman. Have you seen her?"
It turned out to be a photo of a painting. There was a woman, but her back was to the viewer, and she was framed to the far left, and the painter had focused more on her surroundings... a cozy looking bar with someone's fishing trophy mounted on the wall...
Okay, so it wasn't a bar, it was this bar, and the woman had curly dark hair and dark skin, and a shirt Jaye could've sworn she'd seen somewhere before... in fact, she'd seen that exact scene before!
"It was three days ago. Mahandra had red wine spilled all over her shirt by some b--" she broke of mid-sentence. "Wait, did you paint this? Are you a stalker?! I've dealt with your kind before, mister!" she threatened.
"Whoa, no, nothing like that!" the guy held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "My name's Peter Petrelli," he paused, as if waiting to see if she'd recognize it. "A friend of mine, Doctor Mohinder Suresh, is working on the Human Genome Project.” His hair had fallen across his forehead as he backed away from Jaye inch by inch, and he brushed it away impatiently before continuing.
“My whole family is involved in the project, and I think that she - Mahandra - may be a distant cousin of mine, so I was going to ask her to participate.” Peter flipped the photo down onto the bar. “This was the best picture anyone had of her, though,” he said disgustedly.
Eric had returned with Peter’s drink, and flicked one eyebrow upward at Peter’s story. “You’re related to Mahandra?”
“I think so. On my father’s side. My great-grandmother was a Satsuma indian.”
“You mean Native American.” Jaye glared at him and pursed her lips. His story seemed legitimate, right down to the ⅛ Satsuma heritage that Mahandra claimed, but something about it still seemed off.
“Say hello!” God, that stupid watch was like a broken record! The ice clinked in Peter’s glass as his hand froze, drawing Jaye’s eye, and she found herself wondering if her cheap plastic watch was waterproof. She was guessing/hoping not.
“Shut up!” Jaye said out loud, still looking at her wrist, but she heard Peter’s mouth click audibly shut, as though he’d been about to say something. She turned to face him as she spoke her next bit.
“Look, I’m sure you’re very nice and have probably traveled a considerable distance to be here, but the truth is, even if I believed your story, Mahandra has this major, major needle phobia. So she wouldn’t be able to give a blood sample or whatever, anyway.”
Peter opened his mouth again to say something, but Jaye decided to head him off. “So there’s really no reason for me to help you out, is there?”
“Because I said so.” The bass turned its head to speak to her, which was ridiculous, since fish have eyes on the sides of their heads, so now it (he?) was looking somewhere to her right, instead of at her.
“Nope, absolutely no reason,” Jaye continued brightly.
“Say hello.” The bass’s fish mouth drooped lower than usual, even as a cell phone began to ring somewhere in the bar and Peter began to choke on his drink. Jaye hopped off her stool and began to pound him on the back, and the cell phone continued to ring.
“Will someone answer that already?” she called out. Eric was still standing nearby, so Jaye took the opportunity to blame someone. “Is that you?”
“No, I threw mine over the falls. Besides, I think it’s actually you.”
“But I don’t have a… oh…” Jaye trailed off as a fuzzy memory popped into her mind. Eric saying something about how she was always running off at weird times to weird places, and worrying about her, and wanting to make sure that she was safe, and giving her a cell phone. That was over a week ago. She’d chucked it into her messenger bag and forgotten about it. In which case, should it even be ringing? Didn’t cell phones and that sort of thing need to be recharged?
“Say hello!” Miss Kitty drew Jaye out of her musings, and Jaye dove for her bag.
“I was wondering when you’d remember.” They were words of exasperation, but Eric seemed more amused than anything. Blindly fumbling around in her bag, Jaye somehow managed to locate the phone at the bottom and pull it out in time to answer it.
“Hello?”
******
“That was Mahandra,” Jaye addressed Eric. “She needs me to go pick her up.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Peter had survived the near-choking, and was now being ignored.
“No, you’re working; I’ll be fine.”
“You’re using that fake-innocent voice again, which means you’re up to something.”
“What? No! There’s a distinctive lack of something going on! There’s a… nothing!”
At this juncture, someone sitting further on down the bar signaled for a refill, and Eric said he’d be back shortly.
As soon as his back was turned, Jaye leapt off her stool, grabbed her jacket and bag, addressed Peter briefly with a “Bye! Nice meeting you!” and bolted for the door.
Peter hurriedly left some money for his drink, swiped his photo off the bar, and followed her. As soon as he was far enough outside to see that there was no one in earshot but the two of them, he called out, “That fish just talked to you, right? Or am I going crazy?”
Jaye paused with her key still in the car door. “You’re… chosen, too?”
“It wasn’t just the fish, was it? It was the watch, too, with the cat.”
Jaye just looked at him for a moment over the roof of her car. “Get in,” she finally said.
“Okay. So, what was your name?”
******
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight: you and a bunch of others like you are genetic mutants with secret superpowers, some of which can be used to cause catastrophic events, and some of which can be sued to help stop catastrophic events. And you’re the special one who can absorb anyone else’s power. And you think Mahandra may have a superpower, too, since she’s related to you. And that I have one, too, which is why you heard the cat and the bass fish: by absorbing my power.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“So please explain to me exactly what you think my ‘superpower’ is.”
“Well, from what you’ve told me, the objects that have spoken to you have all known what’s going to happen before it actually happens. I think part of your ability to see the future, and the objects are just the way it manifests itself, since that’s what’s least confusing for you.”
“So what you’re saying is that you think I’ve been subconsciously torturing myself for the past several months, because it’s easier for me that way.”
“The last guy I knew who could see the future couldn’t really see it, either. It only manifested itself through his paintings, which even he couldn’t always interpret. He was also a heroin addict. Glimpsing the future does mess with your mind a bit.” Peter looked out the window at the passing cityscape.
“Oh, please tell me this isn’t going to lead into one of those chicken-soup-for-the-soul, moving-personal-experience thingies.”
“It’s not.”
“Well… good.”
******
Jaye’s mission turned out to be not so difficult, after all. Yes, Mahandra and Aaron had been picked up by the police for wandering around drunk in the middle of the night, and for some reason, weren’t carrying their ID’s. However, they weren’t being formally charged with anything, and had just been thrown into the drunk tank until Mahandra was sober enough to call Jaye.
Aaron, however, was still tipsy, and needed some help getting out to the car.
“They think I’m Stephen Hawking,” he whispered into Jaye’s ear, snickering as they left the station.
“Why would they think that?”
“Because he told them.” Mahandra didn’t sound amused, but Aaron snickered again.
“Stephen Hawking is a lot older than you,” Jaye said.
“And in a wheelchair,” Peter chimed in.
“And has a robot voice,” Mahandra added.
“And is kind of a genius,” Jaye finished.
“They’re laypeople, what do they know?” Aaron said, waving his arm imperiously.
“Clearly not a whole lot, if they let you out of lockdown,” Jaye admitted, as Aaron slowly oozed into the backseat of her car. Mahandra slid in next to him as Peter took the front seat.
“So, Jaye, who’s the new guy?” Mahandra finally asked.
“Oh, Peter was actually looking for you,” Jaye replied. “But that’s this whole other thing we have to talk about later, ‘cause right now I need to drop everyone off so I can go home and get some actual sleep.”
“You should stay for breakfast,” Aaron said. “It’s Yvette’s morning at the house, so there will be pancakes!”
“Really?” Mahandra said. “I haven’t seen your nanny in forever.”
“She’s not a nanny, she’s a housekeeper!” Jaye protested.
“She makes pancakes from scratch. With blueberries in them. She’s a nanny,” Mahandra rebutted.
“Okay, fine, she’s a nanny. But since Mom and Dad are out of town for the weekend, you’re spending the night at their house so I don’t have to drive any more places, and you will have pancake privileges in the morning. So she will, in fact, be your nanny.”
“Jaye! I cannot stay in the house alone with him! If your parents find out….”
Jaye sighed. “Fine, I’ll go pick up Eric, bring him back, and we can all have a big sleepover party.”
“With pancakes!” Aaron interjected.
“Yes, with pancakes,” Jaye snapped. She was never letting her brother touch alcohol again. Being the responsible one made the axis of her world all tilt-y.
“What about Peter?” Aaron frowned. “He’s practically family now, what with the whole jailbreak thing.”
“You have no idea how true that may be,” Jaye muttered. “Yes, Peter is staying,” she added loudly, glancing over at the person in question. Peter’s eyebrows were creeping up his forehead towards his hairline, but he offered no protest.
“And I guess I’ll have to call Sharon, too,” Jaye sighed. “You know how she’ll get if she thinks we’re leaving her out. Anyone else I should invite, while we’re on the subject?”
“Fat Pat?” Mahandra had the temerity to suggest.
“NO!” Both of the Tylers in the car were in perfect accordance on that issue. Jaye caught Peter’s eye and shrugged apologetically.
‘This is just how things are,’ the gesture seemed to say.
“Yvette?” Peter asked, eyebrows raised. Jaye grinned, maybe the first real smile he‘d seen from her.
“Her real name‘s Cindy.”
Author: entwashian
Rating: PG
Pairings: Jaye/Eric, Mahandra/Aaron
Summary: Jaye's new watch features an anthropomorphic cat. Wacky fun! Also, who is these Peter Petrelli person, and why is he stalking looking for Mahandra?
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: It's fanfiction, people.
Author's Notes: Post-series for Wonderfalls, non-specific timeline for Heroes.
I chose the "insane" level prompt (I KNOW, RIGHT?!), which was this: "The story starts during a jailbreak. During the story, someone is mistaken for someone infamous. The story must have a nanny at the end. A character will drink something alcoholic. A character will wake up, and the action has far better results than expected." -- this is probably a better summary than my actual summary...
Hello Kitty
With a flick of her wrist, Jaye killed the engine of her car and turned slightly in her seat to fix a steely glare at the man riding shotgun.
"Remember, this is a stealth operation. We go in quickly and quietly, grab our people, and get out again."
Peter eyed her warily. Back at The Barrel, she seemed to know what she was doing, but now it seemed like what she was doing was planning a black ops mission. "You sound like you're expecting trouble," was all he said.
"Yeah, this establishment and I have a kind of complicated history," Jaye replied, in an attempt to sum up her relationship with the local police department. She popped the latch of the car door, "If there are any incidents," she tapped the face of her red plastic watch, "just let me handle it."
******
Fifteen Hours Earlier
Jaye's day was off to a bad start before it had really begun. Her alarm clock wasn't scheduled to go off for two hours, yet here she was, facedown into the mattress, with a pillow over her head. And, oh, yeah, her watch was singing. Some annoying, catchy pop song that wasn't even in English, though that wasn't the disturbing thing (okay, that wasn't the most disturbing thing).
Jaye had tried the no-larynx argument on the wax lion, but pointing out the impossibility of its existence hadn't stopped his chatter. So she was pretty sure that this licensed character wouldn't be bothered by the fact that it (she?) didn't have a mouth. Jaye scooped her watch off the bedside table with the intention of drumming up some sympathy through a bleary-eyed blank stare.
"Heh-roh!" trumpeted the cheerful, white, disembodied feline head, in a heavy Japanese accent.
"You've got to be kidding me." Jaye fervently wished she hadn't let her mother talk her into getting a watch 'like a normal, responsible adult' almost as hard as she wished that she'd have chosen Badtz-Maru. At least he had attitude.
******
Usually she wasn't spoken to by inanimate objects until later in the day, when she was in public, and the potential humiliation factor was increased exponentially, so Jaye surmised with dread that the day ahead of her was set to be filled with wacky (mis)adventure.
By the time she reached her first break at the gift shop, she hadn't heard a single peep further-- from the Hello Kitty watch, the wax lion, the barrel bear... anyone. And that would be so like fate, wouldn't it, abandoning her when she had finally been growing used to the idea of anthropomorphic objects telling her what to do.
As soon as her shift was over, Jaye dove into her car and headed straight for The Barrel. She really needed a drink.
******
What she really needed was a sympathetic ear to whine expostulate to, but her brother was still the only person who knew about the voices, and he wasn't answering his cell phone.
Mahandra could always be counted on to make sympathetic "right on, sister!" comments when appropriate, even if she wasn't listening to a single word Jaye said. Providing, of course, that she was around.
Jaye scanned the bar as soon as she entered. No Mahandra in sight, so Jaye crossed the room to where her boyfriend stood, polishing the counter.
"Wasn't Mahandra supposed to be working tonight?"
Eric shrugged. "She never showed."
Jaye huffed. "Some friend. Never around when I really need her."
"Well, I'm here. How can I help?"
Jaye eyed him suspiciously. "What's your job again? 'Tending' something?"
"What can I get you?"
"Surprise me."
"You hate surprises."
"Well, maybe tonight I might like one."
His automatic response to that statement was a grin, but Eric managed to repress it (mostly), and wandered off to fulfill his bartending duties.
Jaye watched. Even if getting up that morning had been a mistake, at least she had a boyfriend with a hot ass. And who really did know his way around a bar, she decided a few moments later, as she emptied the glass of whatever-it-was he had given her.
This familiar routine had a calming effect, and Jaye actually relaxed for what must've been the first time all day.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a guy who'd just entered the bar. He was of average height & build, and had boyishly floppy brown hair that he tried to keep swept to the side and tucked behind his ear. Jaye hated him instantly.
Not because of how he looked, which was all right if you were the sort of person who went for the puppy-eyed look, and, okay, if she were honest with herself, Jaye was, but really hated him because he had a photo clutched in his hand, and was thrusting it at random people, gesturing and apparently asking questions.
The icy knot of dread reappeared in Jaye's stomach. The guy looked like he could use some help. Helping was bad! All 'helping' did was constantly get her into some big, messy mess. But he wasn't having any luck with the other patrons of The Barrel, who kept shaking their heads as he worked his way through the room, toward Jaye. She snapped her gaze forward, only to find the wall-mounted bass trophy directly in her line of sight. Jaye silently willed the fish to remain mute.
Eric had finished with the other customers and was heading back toward Jaye, but was intercepted by the guy with the photo, who was now standing only a couple feet away from her. She kept her eyes ahead, carefully studying absolutely nothing, hoping that the bass had telepathic powers, and would STAY shut up.
"Say hello!" a perky voice said from the vicinity of her wrist.
Jaye moaned and bumped the counter of the bar with her forehead. "I don't want to!" she bit out.
"Say hello!" the cat on her watch insisted.
"You can't make me!" Jaye wasn't too sure about the truth of this claim, since so far, the universe had indeed managed to 'make' her solve everyone else's problems. She was still willing to argue about it, though.
"Excuse me, did you say something?" Great, they guy had finished ordering his drink, and in the subsequent silence, Jaye had managed to attract the attention of the very person she was trying to avoid.
"Umm... hi, how's it going?" Jaye knew how false the smile she flashed him must have looked, but she held it, anyway, since it was the most innocent expression in her arsenal.
A bizarre twitch crossed his own features, but apparently he was desperate for help, because he held out the photo, anyway. "I'm looking for this woman. Have you seen her?"
It turned out to be a photo of a painting. There was a woman, but her back was to the viewer, and she was framed to the far left, and the painter had focused more on her surroundings... a cozy looking bar with someone's fishing trophy mounted on the wall...
Okay, so it wasn't a bar, it was this bar, and the woman had curly dark hair and dark skin, and a shirt Jaye could've sworn she'd seen somewhere before... in fact, she'd seen that exact scene before!
"It was three days ago. Mahandra had red wine spilled all over her shirt by some b--" she broke of mid-sentence. "Wait, did you paint this? Are you a stalker?! I've dealt with your kind before, mister!" she threatened.
"Whoa, no, nothing like that!" the guy held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "My name's Peter Petrelli," he paused, as if waiting to see if she'd recognize it. "A friend of mine, Doctor Mohinder Suresh, is working on the Human Genome Project.” His hair had fallen across his forehead as he backed away from Jaye inch by inch, and he brushed it away impatiently before continuing.
“My whole family is involved in the project, and I think that she - Mahandra - may be a distant cousin of mine, so I was going to ask her to participate.” Peter flipped the photo down onto the bar. “This was the best picture anyone had of her, though,” he said disgustedly.
Eric had returned with Peter’s drink, and flicked one eyebrow upward at Peter’s story. “You’re related to Mahandra?”
“I think so. On my father’s side. My great-grandmother was a Satsuma indian.”
“You mean Native American.” Jaye glared at him and pursed her lips. His story seemed legitimate, right down to the ⅛ Satsuma heritage that Mahandra claimed, but something about it still seemed off.
“Say hello!” God, that stupid watch was like a broken record! The ice clinked in Peter’s glass as his hand froze, drawing Jaye’s eye, and she found herself wondering if her cheap plastic watch was waterproof. She was guessing/hoping not.
“Shut up!” Jaye said out loud, still looking at her wrist, but she heard Peter’s mouth click audibly shut, as though he’d been about to say something. She turned to face him as she spoke her next bit.
“Look, I’m sure you’re very nice and have probably traveled a considerable distance to be here, but the truth is, even if I believed your story, Mahandra has this major, major needle phobia. So she wouldn’t be able to give a blood sample or whatever, anyway.”
Peter opened his mouth again to say something, but Jaye decided to head him off. “So there’s really no reason for me to help you out, is there?”
“Because I said so.” The bass turned its head to speak to her, which was ridiculous, since fish have eyes on the sides of their heads, so now it (he?) was looking somewhere to her right, instead of at her.
“Nope, absolutely no reason,” Jaye continued brightly.
“Say hello.” The bass’s fish mouth drooped lower than usual, even as a cell phone began to ring somewhere in the bar and Peter began to choke on his drink. Jaye hopped off her stool and began to pound him on the back, and the cell phone continued to ring.
“Will someone answer that already?” she called out. Eric was still standing nearby, so Jaye took the opportunity to blame someone. “Is that you?”
“No, I threw mine over the falls. Besides, I think it’s actually you.”
“But I don’t have a… oh…” Jaye trailed off as a fuzzy memory popped into her mind. Eric saying something about how she was always running off at weird times to weird places, and worrying about her, and wanting to make sure that she was safe, and giving her a cell phone. That was over a week ago. She’d chucked it into her messenger bag and forgotten about it. In which case, should it even be ringing? Didn’t cell phones and that sort of thing need to be recharged?
“Say hello!” Miss Kitty drew Jaye out of her musings, and Jaye dove for her bag.
“I was wondering when you’d remember.” They were words of exasperation, but Eric seemed more amused than anything. Blindly fumbling around in her bag, Jaye somehow managed to locate the phone at the bottom and pull it out in time to answer it.
“Hello?”
******
“That was Mahandra,” Jaye addressed Eric. “She needs me to go pick her up.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Peter had survived the near-choking, and was now being ignored.
“No, you’re working; I’ll be fine.”
“You’re using that fake-innocent voice again, which means you’re up to something.”
“What? No! There’s a distinctive lack of something going on! There’s a… nothing!”
At this juncture, someone sitting further on down the bar signaled for a refill, and Eric said he’d be back shortly.
As soon as his back was turned, Jaye leapt off her stool, grabbed her jacket and bag, addressed Peter briefly with a “Bye! Nice meeting you!” and bolted for the door.
Peter hurriedly left some money for his drink, swiped his photo off the bar, and followed her. As soon as he was far enough outside to see that there was no one in earshot but the two of them, he called out, “That fish just talked to you, right? Or am I going crazy?”
Jaye paused with her key still in the car door. “You’re… chosen, too?”
“It wasn’t just the fish, was it? It was the watch, too, with the cat.”
Jaye just looked at him for a moment over the roof of her car. “Get in,” she finally said.
“Okay. So, what was your name?”
******
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight: you and a bunch of others like you are genetic mutants with secret superpowers, some of which can be used to cause catastrophic events, and some of which can be sued to help stop catastrophic events. And you’re the special one who can absorb anyone else’s power. And you think Mahandra may have a superpower, too, since she’s related to you. And that I have one, too, which is why you heard the cat and the bass fish: by absorbing my power.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“So please explain to me exactly what you think my ‘superpower’ is.”
“Well, from what you’ve told me, the objects that have spoken to you have all known what’s going to happen before it actually happens. I think part of your ability to see the future, and the objects are just the way it manifests itself, since that’s what’s least confusing for you.”
“So what you’re saying is that you think I’ve been subconsciously torturing myself for the past several months, because it’s easier for me that way.”
“The last guy I knew who could see the future couldn’t really see it, either. It only manifested itself through his paintings, which even he couldn’t always interpret. He was also a heroin addict. Glimpsing the future does mess with your mind a bit.” Peter looked out the window at the passing cityscape.
“Oh, please tell me this isn’t going to lead into one of those chicken-soup-for-the-soul, moving-personal-experience thingies.”
“It’s not.”
“Well… good.”
******
Jaye’s mission turned out to be not so difficult, after all. Yes, Mahandra and Aaron had been picked up by the police for wandering around drunk in the middle of the night, and for some reason, weren’t carrying their ID’s. However, they weren’t being formally charged with anything, and had just been thrown into the drunk tank until Mahandra was sober enough to call Jaye.
Aaron, however, was still tipsy, and needed some help getting out to the car.
“They think I’m Stephen Hawking,” he whispered into Jaye’s ear, snickering as they left the station.
“Why would they think that?”
“Because he told them.” Mahandra didn’t sound amused, but Aaron snickered again.
“Stephen Hawking is a lot older than you,” Jaye said.
“And in a wheelchair,” Peter chimed in.
“And has a robot voice,” Mahandra added.
“And is kind of a genius,” Jaye finished.
“They’re laypeople, what do they know?” Aaron said, waving his arm imperiously.
“Clearly not a whole lot, if they let you out of lockdown,” Jaye admitted, as Aaron slowly oozed into the backseat of her car. Mahandra slid in next to him as Peter took the front seat.
“So, Jaye, who’s the new guy?” Mahandra finally asked.
“Oh, Peter was actually looking for you,” Jaye replied. “But that’s this whole other thing we have to talk about later, ‘cause right now I need to drop everyone off so I can go home and get some actual sleep.”
“You should stay for breakfast,” Aaron said. “It’s Yvette’s morning at the house, so there will be pancakes!”
“Really?” Mahandra said. “I haven’t seen your nanny in forever.”
“She’s not a nanny, she’s a housekeeper!” Jaye protested.
“She makes pancakes from scratch. With blueberries in them. She’s a nanny,” Mahandra rebutted.
“Okay, fine, she’s a nanny. But since Mom and Dad are out of town for the weekend, you’re spending the night at their house so I don’t have to drive any more places, and you will have pancake privileges in the morning. So she will, in fact, be your nanny.”
“Jaye! I cannot stay in the house alone with him! If your parents find out….”
Jaye sighed. “Fine, I’ll go pick up Eric, bring him back, and we can all have a big sleepover party.”
“With pancakes!” Aaron interjected.
“Yes, with pancakes,” Jaye snapped. She was never letting her brother touch alcohol again. Being the responsible one made the axis of her world all tilt-y.
“What about Peter?” Aaron frowned. “He’s practically family now, what with the whole jailbreak thing.”
“You have no idea how true that may be,” Jaye muttered. “Yes, Peter is staying,” she added loudly, glancing over at the person in question. Peter’s eyebrows were creeping up his forehead towards his hairline, but he offered no protest.
“And I guess I’ll have to call Sharon, too,” Jaye sighed. “You know how she’ll get if she thinks we’re leaving her out. Anyone else I should invite, while we’re on the subject?”
“Fat Pat?” Mahandra had the temerity to suggest.
“NO!” Both of the Tylers in the car were in perfect accordance on that issue. Jaye caught Peter’s eye and shrugged apologetically.
‘This is just how things are,’ the gesture seemed to say.
“Yvette?” Peter asked, eyebrows raised. Jaye grinned, maybe the first real smile he‘d seen from her.
“Her real name‘s Cindy.”