Chapter Forty-Three – Comfy Morning Rituals

Chapter Forty-Three – Comfy Morning Rituals

“Indentured servitude isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. After all, the person in charge of an indentured person–the use of the word ‘slave’ should be avoided at all times–is legally obligated to care for that person.

Servitude just means that someone is willing and able to serve in order to pay off their debts! That’s it!

–American IS Bureau pamphlet, 2047

***

I woke up when the bed shifted and lazily made my ears twitch. My new ears let me sense things with a sort of echolocation, and that meant that I didn’t need to turn my head and open my eyes to see what was going on.

Someone very pretty was climbing into bed, bare feet slipping in and brushing past my calves. They were a little cold, but I didn’t mind much. She laid herself down behind me and wrapped an arm around my middle.

Lucy usually liked being the little spoon, so I enjoyed the reversal while I could.

“Are you awake?” she whispered. It tickled the base of my neck in a very pleasant way.

“Mmm,” I replied as I shifted back a bit.

I was sore, so the movement wasn’t all that comfortable. Some of that soreness was the fun kind–Mister Tentacles had gotten a workout–but some of it, especially around my gut, was a bit strange.

Installing that artificial organ thing had been almost traumatising. If it wasn’t for Lucy’s careful ministrations afterwards I might have found the whole thing awful.

Lucy placed an arm over me and pulled me in closer. She was only wearing an oversized shirt, which made the snuggling a whole lot more fun. “Where were you?” I muttered.

“Checking on the kittens,” she replied. She sounded as if she was already nearing sleep.

“Mmm,” I agreed.

At some point my breathing became even, and I dipped back down into sleep.

I woke up a second time when Lucy started snoring into my ears. It was a reverberating noise, only broken up by the occasional snort.

Sighing, I turned over and faced her. She was sleeping with her mouth open, and looked incredibly dumb with her hair poking out this way and that. I made sure to take a picture with my cybernetic eye.

I wanted to stay under the blankets, and just sleep the entire day away. The counter in the corner of my eye telling me it was eleven could get bent for all I cared.

But I really had to piss.

I wiggled out of the covers, trying hard not to wake Lucy up, until my feet touched the floor. It was warm, because of course the hotel had heated floors. I padded to the bathroom and did what I had to do. By the time I was done, sleeping was no longer an option.

My boots were tossed across the room, and I was too damned lazy to fetch them. I just found a shirt in one of the drawers, then some underthings and I moved out of the room.

I wasn’t alone to get up so early.

Katallina was filling a bowl with some milk. I watched her for a moment, then found my own bowl and set it next to hers. I grabbed the cereal, shook the box to make sure it wasn’t empty, then took the milk when she was done with it.

We crunched away for a bit before she interrupted the quiet by pointing to the box. It had Longbow’s face on it, of course. “When’s that going to be you?” she asked.

“When I’m desperate for cash,” I said.

“There’s a meme of you online,” she said.

I blinked. “What?”

“Yeah. There’s this van, and you do a thing to throw it off the side of this building, but you almost fell off with it. They’re memeing it.”

I groaned and chewed harder. I was going to have words with Longbow. “How did you sleep?”

“Alright,” she said.

Wonderful conversationalists, the both of us. “Cool, cool. If any of the kittens give you trouble, you tell me, alright?”

Katallina nodded, which I figured was good enough.

I had just about finished when Lucy trudged into the kitchen while wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “Hey,” she said. “You’re up?”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sleep well?”

“No. It got cold after you left.” She looked at my bowl, then scowled and opened the fridge. Soon enough she was burning eggs on the stove and there was bread being roasted in the toaster. “What’re you doing today?” she asked.

You have an appointment in a few hours.

I blinked. “Right, I have an appointment this afternoon, in like, a bit. Want to come?”