Rise in Revolution (Chapter Twenty-Two)
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldri
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Celebration
Warehouse 4, Sector IAL. January 31, 2272. Time instance 842N.
Jimmy sighed as she dug through another wooden crate. Nothing. Damn! She shut the lid and turned around, only to see someone drop in front of her, shouting “BOO!”
Jimmy shrieked and fell backwards, slamming her head against the crate. Gali laughed for a brief moment before she became concerned and helped Jimmy up. “Are you okay?”
“Yes!” Jimmy swatted at her. “That was so rude!”
“Sorry.” Gali grinned sheepishly. “I had been sitting there for about ten minutes. What are you looking for?”
“Anything made of colorful cloth. Geek’s birthday is coming up in a few days and Tanadin put me in charge of locating or making some decorations.”
“It is?” Gali grinned. “That’s great, I’ll make a gift of something for her. Why are you in charge?”
Jimmy sighed. “I think it’s so that I don’t get near Tac. I did apologize for the pun thing, but I think she’s still mad at me.”
Gali patted her shoulder. “I think she’ll forgive us eventually. But that...was kinda not okay. We really took it too far.”
“Too far,” Jimmy agreed. “Come on, help me look for some colorful stuff to decorate with.” Her eyes locked with Gali’s and they grinned, scampering off to look through crates.
Several hours later, they had located some materials that they could use and worked together to carry them back to Jimmy’s room, where she’d be making the decorations themselves. Both of them giggled under small mountains of cloth as they walked, trying not to bump into anyone and only succeeding as other people avoided them.
Nine fell in step beside them. “What are you guys doing?”
“Making decorations for Geek’s birthday,” Gali told him. “Want to help?”
“A birthday? We’re throwing a party?”
“Yeah! It’s not every day that a demon turns five hundred and something!” Jimmy grinned at him.
A smile spread across Nine’s face. “Hell yeah!” He took some of the cloth from them and helped to carry it down the street, following behind Jimmy as she led the way. They got an odd look as they entered the building from the man behind the desk, but he shrugged it off. They took the elevator up and let Jimmy open the door before coming into her room and setting down all of their materials on a table.
“Oh, heck. I don’t have scissors.”
“I am scissors,” Nine informed her, holding up one of his robotic hands as a small blade shot out the end of his index finger.
Gali and Jimmy grinned at each other.
“These are going to be the best decorations ever.”
~~~
Tanadin knocked gently on Jimmy’s door several hours later. “Jimmy? You have those decorations done yet?” When she heard giggling within, she knocked again. “Jimmy?”
The door opened. “Oh, hi, Tanadin! Nine and Gali are helping.”
They waved. Tanadin waved back.
“We’re, uh, doing more messing around than working though.” She grinned sheepishly.
“I figured as much. How much longer do you need?”
“Maybe half an hour. Hey, while you’re here, do you think you could singe the edges of some of these? We thought it might be cool.” Nine held up a cut strip of cloth. “She’s from hell, after all, and I don’t think I trust Fan around open flame.”
“...Yeah, that’s probably a good plan.” Tanadin transformed and came inside, shutting the door behind her. “Show me what to singe. And Gali, don’t even think about pouring that glass of water on me.”
Gali pouted.
“Come on, Tanadin, let her be a giant butt to you occasionally,” Jimmy protested.
“No,” Tanadin said cheerfully. “Although, we might have found your butt.” She pointed at Gali.
Jimmy straightened up. “How dare you.” She crossed her arms, pretending to be offended.
Nine cleared his throat. “Singe?”
“Right, right.”
~~~
Emma looked up as she heard footsteps in the Black Market. It was late, so she wasn’t expecting anyone to come in. She waved to the new arrival once she realized that it was Tanadin before going back to her book. She barely noticed Tanadin sitting down at the same table as Seven after retrieving a book as well.
Seven had been in the Black Market all day, reading. He had gotten through a half dozen of Kyir’s books so far, and had been disturbing Emma with the occasional question about something in what he read- usually some kind of social interaction that was beyond his understanding.
At the end of her chapter, Emma glanced up at Tanadin and noticed she looked tired. She frowned. “What have you been doing today?”
Tanadin looked around before speaking quietly. “Working on Geek’s birthday party. It’s a pain in the ass to organize all of these idiots.”
Emma nodded, understanding. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Make sure Jimmy and Gali continue to be productive instead of accidentally flirting,” Nine suggested as he sat down at another table. “Even I could tell that there was something going on there as we were working.”
Emma snorted with laughter. “Who do you think will confess first?”
“Neither of them. This has been going on for at least a year now,” Tanadin mumbled.
“How do you accidentally flirt with someone?” Seven asked, looking up from his book and frowning. “It seemed like a very deliberate, if confusing, action.”
Nine shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. You just kind of have to...do it. Or watch it happen and want to punch someone.”
Seven looked at him blankly. “Share...the...video logs?”
“Video logs?” Tanadin asked, looking at him oddly. “What do you mean?”
“We’re always recording,” Nine explained. “It’s more reliable than human memory and when we were connected to the control center, it could access our video logs.”
“Always recording, huh?” Fan’s voice drifted from the corner. “How often do you rewatch your night with Tanadin, Seven?”
“Huh?” Seven’s voice rose several pitches, as if indicating his confusion level.
Tanadin groaned. “Fan, I told you, that’s not what happened.”
“No point in lying, Seven’s got the logs!” Fan giggled.
“Go home, Fan, you’re drunk!” Emma called.
“...Nooooooo?”
“Go home,” Tanadin agreed. “Go to sleep.”
“Dun wanna.”
“Fan.”
“Noooo.”
Nine sighed and got to his feet. “Do I need to carry you home?”
“No.”
“Then get. Up.”
Fan reluctantly got to her feet, swaying as if the room was moving. “Baaad...idea. Bad idea.”
Nine sighed and picked her up, ignoring her protests. “Where’s her room? I’ll take her home, if only to make her leave you guys alone.”
Tanadin told him, and they left.
Seven watched them go, still confused, before shrugging and going back to reading. Emma and Tanadin exchanged looks, giggling quietly, before going back to reading as well.
~~~
It was around dawn on February fourth when Emma walked into the Black Market. People were everywhere, scrambling to set up last-minute decorations and moving things around. Emma located Tanadin and grabbed her arm.
“How does Geek not know about this?”
“Nine kindly offered to get her out of the Black Market around midnight last night and we’ve been busy ever since. He’ll be bringing her back in another couple of hours so we need to hurry.”
Emma raised an eyebrow. “What do you suppose they’ve been doing?”
“I don’t know, how would I have any ide- Emma no.”
Emma giggled. “Are you sure that was a selfless act on his part?”
“Nine is probably about as interested as Seven with that kind of thing!”
“What?” Seven looked over at them from where he was reading a different book. “What about me?”
“Nothing, Seven.” Tanadin waved him off. He looked at her suspiciously before going back to reading.
Emma kept laughing. “Nine’s probably had a good time.”
“Leave the poor guy alone! He probably hasn’t!” Tanadin hesitated. “Oh gods, what if they did?”
Emma snorted. “They probably haven’t, knowing Nine and how Geek kinda freaks him out. In that case, why did Nine volunteer to keep her busy?”
Tanadin shrugged. “He’s a selfless guy. He’d rather feel uncomfortable than have all of our hard work to keep this a surprise go to waste.”
They stopped talking as Sub shoved a homemade party hat into Emma’s hands. “Put this on. We’re all wearing one.”
“Who made these?” Emma asked, looking it over.
Sub grinned. “Fan and I did!”
“That explains why they look like someone coughed glitter and pufferfish toxin all over them. They look great.” Tanadin put hers on. “Good luck getting one on Seven.”
“Yeah, well.” Sub handed Tanadin a second one. “Have fun.”
“What? Why me?”
“Because you need an excuse to talk to him!” Fan put in as she walked past. “Besides, he likes you.”
“No, he doesn’t! He’s not interested in anything like that!”
“Aww, poor Tanadin. Get turned down?”
“No!”
“So he does like you.”
“What? No, I don’t...no! Fuck off, Fan!” Tanadin threatened to throw the party hat at her before crossing her arms and approaching Seven with it, deciding to just ignore Fan’s laughter and Emma’s giggling.
~~~
Nine dismissed his internal alarm when it went off, informing him that it was time to return Geek to the Black Market. He tapped her shoulder, making her look up from the book she was going through. “Hm?”
“There’s something I want to show you.” Nine got to his feet. “Come on.”
Geek shrugged and shut the book. “Alright. Why couldn’t you earlier?”
“It wasn’t ready earlier.” Nine motioned for her to follow and left the building that they were in. He had spent the last several hours doing almost- almost- everything he could think of to keep Geek out of the Black Market. Asking for advice on the tunnels, asking about demons despite knowing quite a bit about them already, explaining various things about cyborgs, playing a couple of card games (a few of which he lost on purpose to try not to make his advantage due to being a cyborg apparent), sitting in an old abandoned building reading, whatever.
Geek still freaked him out a bit, but not as much as she did before. She seemed to be just a regular person, really. Just with horns. And wings. And a scary book that summoned tentacles and fireballs. And-
He decided to stop himself right there, silently glad that he had deleted a certain video log from a couple weeks back. Yeah. He wouldn’t be forgetting that anytime soon.
Geek fell in step beside him as they walked, but he didn’t really register it until her hand brushed against his, very briefly. He immediately looked over at her but she didn’t seen to have noticed. Nine decided to ignore it, figuring that it had been an accident or that she didn’t mean anything by it.
Probably.
Geek looked at him curiously when she realized that they were approaching Kyir’s house. “What are you wanting to show me?”
“You’ll see.” Nine opened the door and stepped inside, leading the way down the tunnel into the Black Market. It was pitch black, although that wasn’t a problem for Nine’s robotic eye- or, most likely, for Geek’s demonic ones.
The moment Geek stepped into the room, the lights came on and everyone popped up from behind various furniture. “SURPRISE!” Sub cast a small wind spell that shot a vortex of confetti Geek’s way that Nine quickly stepped to the side to avoid.
“Happy birthday!” the rebels chorused, before laughing at Geek’s dumbfounded expression.
“I forgot my birthday again,” she mumbled. “Again! For the thirty-second year in a row.” She shook it off and grinned. “Thanks, guys.” She suddenly turned to Nine, suspicious. “Is this why you got me out of the Black Market?!”
He grinned. “Yep! I volunteered to distract you while these guys got everything set up.”
Geek shook her head in wonder. “And I wasn’t even suspicious. Wow.”
“Talk later, eat cake now!” Hawk called.
“Yeah, Tanadin and I worked hard on that!” Emma told her. “We only have five candles, though. We couldn’t really scrounge up five hundred.”
“Is that why my kitchen is destroyed?!” Kyir demanded, turning to glare at them. “Tanadin, I told you to stop fucking with my kitchen!”
“Woops!”
“Guys, you didn’t have to do anything, especially not incur Kyir’s wrath!” A grin lit Geek’s face as she spoke, however, making her protest sound very empty.
Tanadin grinned. “We know! We just wanted to. We even got Seven in a party hat!” She pointed.
Seven was indeed wearing a party hat- over his normal hat. He looked very ridiculous, and seemed very confused, but seemed fine with just standing next to Tanadin and nodding occasionally.
“Most of us got you shit, too, Geek, but I’m demanding that we eat cake before I fork mine over,” Kyir told her. “I’m starving. I’ve been up all night decorating.”
Nine grinned to himself as Geek stepped further into the room to progress the birthday celebrations. He had no recollection of what cake was, but by the excited expressions on everyone’s faces, he was going to like it.
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Date: 2016-05-13 11:15 pm (UTC)“I am scissors,” Nine informed her, holding up one of his robotic hands as a small blade shot out the end of his index finger.
Nine the walking Swiss army knife ladies and gentlemen.
“How often do you rewatch your night with Tanadin, Seven?” Did I miss something? When did Seven spend the night with Tanadin?
“Most of us got you shit, too, Geek, but I’m demanding that we eat cake before I fork mine over,” Kyir told her. “I’m starving. I’ve been up all night decorating.” Why do I get the feeling that Kyir is air quoting and shuddering at the word 'decorating' XD
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Date: 2016-05-15 06:35 am (UTC)I really like the one with Nine being scissors. A lot.
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: 2016-05-15 03:28 pm (UTC)Nine is a swiss army knife XD
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Date: 2016-05-15 02:42 pm (UTC)also kyir totally did
and we'll never know whatever the hell happened there with tanadin and seven
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Date: 2016-05-17 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-14 09:37 am (UTC)Our interactions are spot on ngl
GJ (::)(::)
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Date: 2016-05-14 09:37 am (UTC)-Emma
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Date: 2016-05-14 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-14 12:57 pm (UTC)"She's always drunk!"
Fan: Shrugs.
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Date: 2016-05-15 06:34 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: 2016-05-15 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-16 10:38 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
Sadie lady bouncing about
Date: 2016-05-16 11:29 am (UTC)