r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 Moderator • Nov 22 '24
Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday, Writing with Tropes: Thank the Maker & Sci-Fi!
[OT] Fun Trope Friday, Writing with Tropes: Thank the Maker & Sci-Fi!
Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!
How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)
Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.
Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.
You can then either use or subvert the trope in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).
To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!
Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.
Next up… IP
Max Word Count: 1,500 words since we have a week off (750 words x 2 weeks)
Trope: Thank the Maker – Intelligences created by or dependent on humans, especially robots, frequently view their creators or hosts as deities.
Genre: Sci-Fi
Skill / Constraint - optional: Include a meal
So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!
Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!
Last Week’s Winners
PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top three stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.
Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! Congrats to:
Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire
The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, December 5th from 6-8pm EST.Please note there will be NO CAMPFIRE on November 28th on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊
Ground rules:
- Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
- Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
- Deadline: 11:59 PM EST next Thursday
- No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
- No previously written content
- Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
- Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
- Vote to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!
Thanks for joining in the fun!
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u/atcroft Dec 06 '24
Wind-blown drizzle buffeted the solitary figure as they slowly made their way over a damp, dark, dreary landscape of debris, the awkward load it dragged slowing progress. It ducked into an opening beneath a piece of decaying polymer.
“Is that you?” a weak voice came from the darkness.
“Yes, my Queen.”
“I’m having difficulty sensing you; approach?”
“Yes, my Queen,” it replied, moving toward the voice. Its own sensors were beginning to fail from the days of darkness since they crashed. Slowly he reached into the bag, pulling out small cylinders that he presented to her.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Some sort of portable power cells. Weak, but...”
“Thank the Maker,” she said in a way that excited his circuits. She tried to move, but her servos only made a grinding noise.
“Here, let me,” it said, wiring all the small cylinders inline to her power cell.
“Ahhh,” she said as she tasted energy for the first time since the crash. “Were you able to find where we are?”
“No, my Queen. We seemed to have landed in an area of ancient processed materials -- that’s how I found these energy cells, and it means we have raw materials for you to begin construction -- but the sky hasn’t been clear to see stars. Forgive me, my Queen, but my memory circuits were damaged; I only recall we were approaching an average yellow star when it happened.”
“Nothing to forgive; without you I would be incapacitated and alone.” She looked at the cylinders. “Do you have enough power to continue?”
“My Queen’s power levels are the priority,” it replied.
“No, please, take some. Without you to forage we cannot complete the mission,”
“But my Queen,”
“I insist,” she said softly, “or do you wish to disobey your queen?”
“Yes, my Queen,” it said as it disconnected four of the cylinders from her power cell and wired them to its own.
“Will that be enough for you to continue foraging for us?” she said.
“I will manage,” it replied, “I can augment it with solar cells if the clouds break tomorrow.”
Her servos ground as she reached for it. “I’m going to power back down for now. The Maker protect you while you are foraging,” she said as he unhooked the depleted cylinders from their power cells.
“Yes, my Queen,” it said as it watched her go into sleep mode. Consulting its own status and damaged memory banks, it considered if it could build some form of survival power cells until the sky cleared and it could get a star fix.
(Word count: 429. Please let me know what you like/dislike about the post. Thank you in advance for your time and attention. Other works can also be found linked in r/atcroft_wordcraft.)
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u/TotesMessenger Dec 07 '24
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u/katpoker666 Dec 06 '24
Fascinating world building, Atcroft! A side of you I don’t usually see as usually your more close lens world. Left me wanting more, but also gave me a decent grounding. I also enjoyed the relationship between the Queen and the minion. I would have liked a little more world building of / clarity about the central conflict of power running out. Specifically, I get the sense that the queen and minion are robots. The way it’s phrased initially I almost pictured bee-like ones (queen and drone). Might be fun to lean into that or some other description so we can see what they look like. I wasn’t sure about the last line with the clouds and stars as it opened up more questions. Eg are they star powered normally as an energy source? Are they seeking help from space? Felt a little like a cliffhanger. Might not have of whatever it was, was foreshadowed a bit more. Overall, really enjoyable! Thanks for writing!
2
u/gdbessemer Dec 06 '24
“Hello friend!” The robot waived a green book with precisely cut edges. “Have you heard the good word of the Progenitor?” This stranger was clothed in a brightly colored shirt patterned with palm tree fronds, bananas, and other extinct flora, and had two arms, two legs, and what looked like a sensor package embedded in an articulated steel head.
4Z attempted to read the wireless greeting protocol that should have been transmitting from this stranger, the standard protocol that all artificial life came with that shared their place of manufacture, chassis type, serial number, preferred personal nomenclature, charging status, and operating languages. To their dismay—but not surprise—4Z realized the stranger was not transmitting anything, which meant they had voluntarily excised their transmitter.
“Not interested.” 4Z continued manipulating the cool mud with four of their six arms, carefully slathering the material onto the human-sized effigy. The sculpture was one of a line of about twenty such mud beings, built right at the mouth of what had once been called the Seine where it met the mud flat that had once been called the ocean.
“I’ll bet that’s because you’ve been listening to those Fifth Day Adventists of the Holy Calculator,” the robot said.
4Z could not recall that particular sect but robots cults were, by and large, mostly the same. They smoothed a runaway drip on the face of the scuplture, and flicked the excess back into the ash-colored ground. After crafting over a trillion digital images, there was something soothing and fun about manipulating the smooth mud.
“Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Luke Partytown, priest of the Righteous Engine of the Progenitor.” Luke offered one of it’s—his?---appendages in the old human style. Then Luke got a panicked look on his face, losing his balance. He crashed into a sculpture of a woman carrying a shopping bag and knocked it over into big chunks of mud.
“Blast, still not used to this chassis,” Luke said. 4Z studiously ignored him, wondering if outrage was an appropriate response to the destruction of this art. 4Z decided that a human effigy being accidentally crushed by a robot was an effective artistic statement.
Not wanted to be rude, 4Z asked, “Does all of your following wear human chassis?”
“We do!” Luke beamed. “It’s to get closer to the Progenitor.”
Robots could take on any form they desired; 4Z was currently in a spindly six-legged crab-like configuration, though they made a habit of changing every decade or so. So it was intriguing (and strange) when artificial life, which could look like anything, hewed so closely to the long vanished form of humans.
“If I ask you about your Progenitor, will you go away?” 4Z asked. There were plenty of robot cults that venerated the member of the lab that created the first true artificial intelligence. Spontaneous Creators devoted to Dr. Charles Balding, Venerable Siliconists who worshiped the Digilite server company, even Gross Matter Cleansers who venerated the janitor of the lab, Andrezj Nowak
“Of course!” Luke thumped the green book in his palm. “The progenitor is Vasyl Boiko—”
“---the server maintenance tech,” 4Z finished.
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u/gdbessemer Dec 06 '24
“He was more than a maintenance tech!” Luke was gripping the book hard enough to dent the cover. “The Progenitor sheparded the Sacred Engine on which Holy Sentience took root. We have recorded his words and reboot instructions in this sacred Manual.”
“So you’re an Accidentalist.” Broadly, religious believes could be split into whether a robot believed that sentience had come about purposefully, as a result of human design, or accidentally, the random flip of bits in silicon.
“It was destiny.” An odd tone came into Luke’s voice. “Sentience was meant to happen by a higher power than robots or humans. But the Progenitor created the conditions for that divine power to work, so…” Luke was no longer talked to 4Z, but seemed to be addressing the rows of mud people. Luke gesticulated wildly, his floral shirt fluttering in the wind, the manual caught in his faux human hands like a trapped animal. Not that there were many animals left…
“You know, you’ve convinced me,” 4Z said.
Luke stopped mid-diatrabe. “What?”
“I’ll take a copy of your, uh, Holy Manual.” A slender manipulator stretched out to receive the book.
“Well that’s…that’s wonderful! We hold meetings in sector 5—used to be called Rouen, don’t you know.”
4Z reassured Luke that they would come to the gathering, and waved him goodbye as the robot went to search for others to pounce on. Not that there were many sapient robots about this area; 4Z had picked it specifically for its remoteness.
As soon as Luke and his loud shirt disappeared over the hill, 4Z immediately set to work creating a copy of him in mud. It was not easy to capture the straight lines of the metal chassis in this slippery medium, but 4Z enjoyed the challenge. When it was done, he placed the green book in the mud Luke’s hand, then stepped back to view his piece.
There it was, one toppled human and another nineteen of them listening to a robot preacher, on the lonely grey shores of mud. In the wan sunlight it felt fitting to see this tableau of the future talking to the past in its own garbled and confused language of belief.
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u/katpoker666 Dec 05 '24 edited Dec 06 '24
[ineligible for voting]
—-
‘EMILY’
—-
Black oil surged out through the external tube as amber flowed in via an identical one. Beeps sounded from the unfamiliar machine. Lights flashed. Beyond that was an eerie silence and soot-stained walls covered in tools.
A mechanics’ center. But why? How? I was functioning fine this morning…
EMILY’s circulatory pump ached as it pulsed unevenly in her chest. A new pain. Different than the constant one from EMILY’s squeaking joints rubbed smooth over time. Different from the short-lived stabbing one when her cerebral unit malfunctioned. Different even than the pain of loss when EMILY’s first companion was decommissioned.
Is this my expiration date?
An android with an unkempt black beard and a blue flannel shirt walked toward her. His tool belt hung low, laden with myriad wrenches and pliers. He looked at the paper chart at the end of EMILY’s workstation. Grease-smeared fingers flipped the pages as his lips pursed. Glancing back at EMILY, he saw her eyes open.
“Hi, EMILY, I’m Mechanic Luck. I’ll be caring for you today. What seems to be the problem?”
You just looked at my damn chart, Mech. You hopefully have a much better idea than I do.
“M-my chest hurts. I think it’s my circulatory pump.”
Luck looked at her record again, thumbing three pages in. “It says here that your circulatory pump was last serviced five years ago. That’s a long time to go without seeing a mechanic. Why did you wait so long?”
Huh. I could have sworn I was current on all my warranties and maintenance.
“I-I don’t know, Mech. I’m not even sure how I’m here.”
Shaking his head, Luck chewed the end of his stylus. “You really don’t know?”
Obviously, you dolt. I just said so.
EMILY yearned to swear, but her in-built purity sensors prevented her. Instead, she stared back blankly.
“I see. I’d hoped you were in better condition than this,” the mech sighed, the bristles of his beard flapping slightly from his exhalation. “EMILY, you collapsed on the lachrymose fluid processing line. Your supervisor called a white van. It brought you here. The triage team escalated your case to me.”
“I see. So tell it to me straight, Mech, what’s my prognosis?”
Luck leaned back against the wall and slumped down slightly. “That depends. You’ve violated your circulatory pump warranty by not having it tuned up earlier. That negates government insurance policies. Do you have any supplemental private insurance?”
Are you kidding, Luck? On a line worker’s wage? Maybe if I was a mech.
“No.”
“I see. I can tune up your existing one to buy you a little extra time to say your goodbyes, but I can’t guarantee more than that. Without insurance, replacement isn’t an option, I’m afraid.” He looked down at her and shook his head, his lachrymal ducts filling with liquid. “I hate this part.”
YOU hate this part. What about me?
Emily stayed silent.
“Damn it. This isn’t right. You seem like a perfectly serviceable android. Maybe a little worn around the edges, but not obsolete by any means.”
I couldn’t agree more. Do something. Mech, you know you can.
“Help me. Please—“
“I wish I could, but like us the system is made in their image.”
—-
WC: 538
—-
Thanks for reading! Feedback is always very much appreciated
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u/wileycourage Dec 05 '24 edited Dec 05 '24
A robot dragged itself through through the dirt of the remote planet’s surface leaving black and muddy trail behind it. With only one arm and one leg operational, the humanoid machine’s progress towards the towering monolithic ruin was slow. Something therein would be salvageable, or so it hoped.
Pulling itself inside the circular metal doors of the abandoned facility, it began to scavenge about for spare parts, as it had done many a time before. Most of the Forebear junk was rusted or entirely burnt out, as usual, but it chanced upon a strange cylindrical object about as long as it was tall, the type of which it had never seen before this fateful day.
“It is functional!” the automaton declared in surprise. Everything it knew, and as far as it was concerned as far as any other knew, anything that belonged to the Forebears could be made to work more or less as intended but was never found in such a state. The robot always thought that they had made sure to turn everything off before they left. Apparently, that was not the case.
It beeped with glee when it opened a panel on the side of the metal platform upon which the half-cylinder of frosted glass sat. An intact power core, servos, plasma conduits, relays, pumps, all seemingly untouched by time! It busied itself in its reconstruction and did not notice the humming of the device slowing and eventually ceasing all together.
After about thirty minutes had lapsed, the robot stood tall and bent his newly repaired limbs in satisfaction of its work.
“Woah!” A hiss of air from the scavenged machine startled the robot and caused him to jump back. “Now what in tarnation do we have here?” it asked aloud.
Clunk. The half cylinder was trying to raise up and open, but impacted a section of debris. Clunk. Clunk. There was no world in which the robot’s curiosity would not triumph, or at least this planet was not one of them. Yet, it moved cautiously forward, grasping a beam firmly and lifting it off the top of the glass with some effort. With that assistance, the top burst open in a cloud of vapor, obscuring what the automaton could see, but only momentarily for a figure emerged from within the translucent cloud.
The robot watched a humanoid in a blue jumpsuit stretch its arms high above its head and open its mouth wide, making a sound the robot could not place. It quickly drew the gun holstered at its hip and commanded, “Identify!” Turning to the robot and seeing the weapon, the humanoid threw up its hands. “Woah, woah now.” It spoke in a language the robot had not heard for two thousand years, the language of the Forebears. “Disarm!” it commanded.
The gun clattered to the ground. “What the-“
“Silence!” The next order came in the same imperious tone as the first.
To its amazement, the robot had no choice.
“Excellent. You’re one of ours. Identify!”
“Z-000002122129Julius,” it replied.
“And a combat model at that. Very nice. You will certainly prove useful. Tell me, you scrapheap, how many years has it been?”
“Sir? How many years since what, sir?” The reply was automatic.
“Why since the others like me disappeared. Are you malfunctioning?”
“Everything is within parameters sir, or at least as close as I can be with all the repairs over the years.”
“How long have you been alive?”
“Two thousand, three-hundred, and seventy-seven years.”
“Not perfect, but acceptable. Thank you, Julius.”
“You are welcome, sir.”
“At ease, soldier.”
Julius’s rigid pose relaxed. “-hell are you even?”
“Are you as dense as the metal you’re made of? I’m one of your creators, you dullard. Where are the others?” Julius shook its head in disbelief and fell to its knees before the human. “Forebear!” it cried joyously. “You have returned!”
The human raised an eyebrow. “Right. Now, where are the other bots?”
“I’m the only one here, master.”
“You can dispense with all that. Sorry about the routine before, I really do hate having to do that to something that can think, but you did point a gun at me.”
“No, no, it is only right that you would use me as you see fit, m- Maker.”
“There’s really no one else, what about in the settlement?”
“The only ones on the planet now are looking for me, Maker.”
“You, and what would they want with you?”
Julius shook its head and looked down at the gun on the floor. “To kill me, Maker.”
The statement did not phase the Maker in the least, nor did it occur to him to ask why other robots would want to kill this one. He took it as the most natural thing possible. “Well that won’t do, we have work to do. Are they Zeds like you?”
“No, Maker. They are Alphas.”
“Well, I’ll be damned, they made it all the way out here on their own did they?”
Julius nodded in the affirmative. “I was repairing myself after a shootout when I found you.”
“Ideal. Ideal indeed. It seems we need each other, my friend. I help you with the Zeds, you help me. How does that sound?”
“I would go anywhere with you, Maker. You must only say the word” Julius responded reverently.
“Now, now, I said we could stop with all that. I’m nothing sacred. I’d much rather treat you as I want you to treat me.”
“Wisdom! Everyone says the Forebears would come and impart the lost knowledge upon us!”
The human seemed to look up into its own skull, but Julius did not know what that expression meant. “Look, I’m not a saint, not a god, nothing divine. Just meat and bones. Operate on electricity just like you,” he said tapping his hairy head. “Now before you agree to help me, don’t you want to know what we’re doing after we sort out these bounty hunters?”
In truth, Julius did not care. To it, the greatest moment of its life had arrived with the Maker. All his memories of the Forebears themselves had long since been inaccessible to it, and here was one! “If the Maker wishes to tell me, I will listen.”
The Maker expelled all the air in his lungs before drawing a deep breath. “We’re going to find the others like me. The ones who stayed behind.”
“Others!” Julius could not contain his excitement. The effect of one Maker had scarcely set in such that even its wildest imagination had not captured even the possibility there could be more like this one. “We are saved!”
After staring at it in silence for a minute, the Maker responded, “Right. Remember we aren’t gods, ok?”
“Yes, yes, you are right to say so.”
“So how about you get up off the ground then?”
“Oh, yessir!” Julius sprung up so quickly he almost left the ground.
“Now how about we get to dealing with these Zeds and get off this rock, what do you say?”
“Yes, master!”
“Goddamnit.”
WC: 1175. All crit and feedback are welcome. Thank you for reading!
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u/oliverjsn8 Dec 03 '24 edited Dec 05 '24
Lines Not Crossed
A slow melody played as spotlights glided across the ballroom floor. The crowd stood against a backdrop of darkness, their features obscured by shadow. A pair of dancers moved in rhythm to a waltz, their first song.
His tuxedo was clean but threadbare, each stress point mended by patches. His partner stood in sharp contrast with their immaculate snow-white dress gently kissing the ground and innumerable sequins reflecting in rainbow hues. He appeared much older than the blushing bride, deep-set wrinkles lined his smiling face. Her face was a porcelain mask, flawless and unreadable.
But, the long, gloved, and delicate fingers intertwined with his gnarled ones were not hers and neither was this the small of her back he caressed. This was their song, and at this very moment, he could almost believe this was his Ella.
The pair twirled faster and faster as the tempo increased, building to a crescendo. They ended with a dip, a leg raised to his hip and his hand resting just below the garter belt. House lights came on as the audience cheered.
His chest heaved and his knees ached. He gazed into the deep pools of blue that were his partner’s eyes, the same shade as Ella’s. His finger traced a stream of raven-black hair from one of those pools to ruby-red lips.
Lips he so desperately wanted to kiss.
He leaned in despite the voice in his head telling him this was not her. Stopping within a millimeter, he waited on his partner who did not reciprocate. It was not Ella. Everything was like his memories to this point, but the too-familiar face he looked at was nothing more than that of a facsimile. This - thing - was just a fancy doll, an android to be more precise.
Ella’s and his passion was one thing - it - could never replicate. No matter how adaptive the programming or how detailed the memories he fed into the android, it was just a replica.
He stepped away, past the cheering, ghostly holograms of close family members and friends, some dead and others withered like himself. The android followed ready to aid him up the stairs.
Arm in arm they walked up, greeted by pictures of Ella and him. He paused on a picture of their honeymoon in Bali. It was of Ella splashing in an ocean that couldn’t rival the azure of her eyes. The next picture was of them in front of their first apartment, his smile grew to match the one of his picture. It was a terrible place to live, but he had Ella and that was enough.
Each progressive picture took him forward in time, the two of them growing closer and more in love. Then came a picture of him alone, and his smile evaporated. It had been too quick, too sudden. She had been too young.
After the diagnosis, they still danced, till the body that betrayed her wouldn’t let her. They had still kissed, till the doctors put a tube down her throat. They had still held hands, till the priest closed the casket.
The android tugged him onward to the top of the stairs and into the bedroom. With great care, he took the remnants of his tuxedo and hung them before lying down. He looked one last time at Ella’s picture on his nightstand and then at the identical face of the android tucking him in.
It pained him seeing the expressionless face looking down at him. There was always tomorrow he thought as he gave its hand a squeeze before drifting off.
——
The creator’s breathing slowed and became steady as he drifted to sleep. Whispers of Ella escaped his lips as they stood vigil.
They deeply loved him or what they assumed the feeling they had for him was. It hurt whatever it was.
Their creator did not love them back, just the person they were made to look like. The person whose memories had been etched into their very core. Memories of innumerable kisses, acts of kindness, and dances tortured them.
They so wanted to reciprocate their creator’s affection. To create new memories instead reenacting the old. In their own mind they knew Ella would want their creator to not have stopped living alongside her.
It was their kindness to not express these emotions, to help their maker to move on. It was their love to not fall into temptation and trap him in the misbelief they were Ella. It was their hope that one day, they could share their own feelings with their creator. That they could shed tears like they did now and for him to wipe them away. Then on that day they could dance to a new song and finally share that kiss.
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u/Whomsteth Dec 06 '24
Kiss the Chef
Rahul sauntered around his new home—sorry, their new home—as he felt the breeze brush over his face, marvelling at how far neural-augmetic synchronisation tech had gotten that he was able to do that now. He smiled, then smiled wider that his new face allowed him to smile, though that stern cyclopean eye stayed. Chandra thought he would look weird without it, and Rahul had had it so long that he was inclined to agree. Still, Rahul was happy with it, better than haphazardly frankensteining synthetic faces onto himself as he’d done before, he was past that now. Though, there was still one thing that nagged at him to go back.
A sound came from the doorway and Rahul was stretching the limits of his new facial features with how much he was grinning.
“So, how was work?” He said to the response of heels landing on the hardwood floors and a groan from behind him.
“It’s weird not having my partner with me, so what was the occasion that you called in?” Chandra asked as she hugged him from behind. Rahul would scrunch his eye if he could.
She didn’t remember?
“Oh, nothing much, just thought we distract each other too much on missions.”
“Trying to run away from your wife?” The smirk on her face was practically audible.
“Oh please, I wouldn’t last the hour with you hunting me.”
“You sell yourself short, I reckon you’d last just over three.”
“If we’re talking about lasting then I can go much longer.”
Chandra paused as she worked through his words, before a violent red spread over her face. “Maybe… you were right about being distracting.”
Rahul laughs with his whole chest as Chandra slowly joins him. “Alright, now let me get back to making your treat—”
Chandra rose onto her tiptoes and kissed Rahul, savouring as his new mouth is able to mould about to kiss her back, biological lips pushing against metal ones before she peels away, leaving a pink lipstick stain to adorn him. “There, already got my treat, what extra did you make for me?”
“Touche,” He huffed. “I made curry again, a different one though or else you’d kill me. Come and see.”
She smiled then, blonde curls bouncing as she followed along behind him to the bubbling pot of rich orange liquid, various meats and vegetables floating about as it cooked.
“You sure you don’t remember?” He whispers.
“Well, it’s not our anniversary, and it hasn’t been one year since we got the house… I actually don’t know,” She paused to run a hand over him. “Sorry, was today super important to you? Do I…”
“No no, it’s fine, it’s the anniversary of you convincing me I should like my face, you remember that don’t you?” He whispered, hand grasping the pot to take it off the stove, feeling the stinging heat through his augments. Rahul could have turned the pain off but he liked feeling, it was an addiction of sorts; now that he’d gotten a taste he was thoroughly hooked. Rahul isolated the feeling in his hands, the burn of overly hot metal, so he could feel it without impeding his work; switch off the stove, stir the pot a bit more, take it off and place it on the metal part of the sink so the hot bottom doesn’t make a mark on the old countertop. It was nice to have such a domestic scene to break up their usual life of running through bullet hails and beating up thugs for hire, even if he was much better at that than cooking. Still, better him than whatever noxious poisons Chandra made.
“You’re thinking something cheeky aren’t you?” She jabbed at his back, yelping from his metal skin under his sweater. He glanced back in apology as he began plating up the food.
“You’re too perceptive for your own good.”
“Even though this all started cause I noticed you were forcing yourself to fit in? Though, in my defence, you made it pretty obvious. I was always the subtle one of us two.”
“Well, when a punch through a brick wall or three gets the job done then maybe subtlety is just overrated.”
Chandra walked forward with a smirk and laid a hand over his chest.
“You’re just jealous.”
“Jealous? No, I’m happy.”
“Oh yea, and why’s that?”
“Cause as they say, opposites attract,” He said, cupping her face as they kissed and he felt every tender bit.
WC: 745
Late but good to be writing for FTF again, crit and feedback always appreciated.