video; spam

[anewlanguage]

[Cain has flour on his cheek, and he's in the kitchen, taking a break.] Y'know, worldwide there's room for comfort food after a real shitty day. I'm takin' requests.

Me, I always went for pierogis. Stayed in Poland just long enough to learn how to make 'em. [And to kill a diplomat. But. You know.] Kid seemed to like 'em pretty well, too. Pretty sure tastes change, though...

Anyway, give 'em here, give me all your requests.

Comments

[anewlanguage]

Sure but bein' a pacifist doesn't mean you have to let 'em shoot you. Could teach you how to run, best places in a room to hide if someone's shooting.

[deadly_ned]

I can run....pretty far.

Just so long as it isn't open space within which to put bullets in my open back.

[anewlanguage]

Hah! Nah, you'll be all right, kid. I'll show you how it's done sometime.

[He finishes beating in the ingredients.]

Do we frost this when it's done?

[deadly_ned]

It's not necessary, but you can.

Does she like frosting?

[anewlanguage]

...I couldn't tell you. Can we frost half?

[deadly_ned]

We can frost half.

[anewlanguage]

...Put a lil' bat symbol on it. I bet she'd like that.

[And maybe it'll show her that he accepts who she is now, and what she does. Even though it's opposite him.]

[deadly_ned]

A bat symbol.

[anewlanguage]

Yeah. Bat. [Making a 'bat' with his hands, making bat noises]

[deadly_ned]

....I don't think that's what a bat is supposed to sound like.

[anewlanguage]

[Pfffff]

We'll get her to show you.

[deadly_ned]

Bats are a little terrifying. You don't find bats terrifying?

[anewlanguage]

Nah, they're great target practice. She's a superhero, likes to dress up as a bat to scare people. More terrifying than it sounds. Plus, she never got to do Halloween, I figure some part of her's making up for lost time.

[deadly_ned]

No, that actually sounds completely terrifying. I never want to see that happen in real life. Bats are terrifying and bat-people are infinitely worse.


Good. She shouldn't. Halloween is the worst holiday.

[anewlanguage]

[He laughs, because Ned, for a man who makes sweets for a living you are really good at finding the downside.]

Yeah? Why's that? I'd have thought Halloween would be a great time of year for a pie maker.

[deadly_ned]

It isn't. Wasn't. The piemaker part has little to do with it and the reason Halloween is an awful holiday - the worst holiday - is more to do with the Young Ned part than the Piemaker part.

Halloween was the day I found out my father had found a new family and was never coming back. That was the day I last saw him. Twenty years, seven months, twelve days ago. I was nine.

[anewlanguage]

[He looks down at their project a moment.]

Sorry to hear that. ...Speaking from experience, there's no father who knows what he's got. None I've met anyhow.

[deadly_ned]

He found two new sons he liked better. My half brothers.

And then I found out he abandoned them too, so he's a serial abandoner. And I haven't spoken to him since that Halloween. Longer.

[anewlanguage]

What'd he do for a living?

[It's morbid curiosity. It makes no difference, he's sure, but any asshole who abandons his kids is either too flakey to have a job, or too in love with it to have a life.]

I sure as hell wouldn't talk to him either, if I was you.

[deadly_ned]

I don't know what he did for a living. He was away most of my life before that. We didn't talk about him and then my mother died.

I didn't. I wrote angry notes to my future self telling myself never to forgive him.

[anewlanguage]

[Being the father in his own 'bad father' equation, that stings. Which is fine. Good, actually.]

Did you listen to your past self?

[deadly_ned]

Through his design or mine, I didn't see him again. So I don't actually know.

[anewlanguage]

Well, see him or not, you can still hate him.

[deadly_ned]

I do still hate him. I worried for a long time that I would forget and forgive but it hasn't...gone away. Maybe I don't want it to go away.


I'm sorry. These aren't...wardenly things to say.

[anewlanguage]

I steer clear of the wardens who don't have a bitter bone in their bodies, Ned, you can't trust someone who's got no passions.