14
Summoner - Chapter 14 - SomeoneYouWontRemember - Parahumans SeriesChapter 14Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
"That's his power, or at least that's what my power says about his power. See why he's such a problem? You said you had a plan to take down Coil if I cooperated. Pass it by me." Lisa sleepily mumbled to her new leader.
She didn't like badmouthing the dead, and honestly, she kind of missed Brian, but Taylor was proving less friction-inducing already. It was like suggestions were just suggestions and not some kind of dick-measuring contest to see who was the actual leader.
"Oh. It's kind of simple, actually. I have a power that turns me into invisible gas. Contact him and tell him you want to go back to working for him. I follow you to his hideout, grab him, Master him into being our puppet, and bam. He's ours, his mercenaries are ours, his territory is ours, his money is ours. I'll probably give it to you to manage because you seem like you'd be far better with this kind of stuff, and frankly, I don't trust anyone else and I have way too much stuff to do so I can't do it myself. You'll still give me spending reports though." Taylor said plainly, yet still far too energetically for this time of night, and Lisa yawned, rubbing tears out of her eyes before squinting.
"... I hope you understand I don't want to manage his resources without keeping some for myself?" She half-stated, half asked, because she knew full well that in her current situation, Taylor could just say 'No' and that'd be the end of her plans to gather resources for the eventual split.
"Yeah, sure, just don't act like his resources would be yours instead of the team's, and you can keep a chunk of whatever income he's got, I don't mind. You've already earned it with all the information you've given me on Coil."
Lisa hummed, feeling a slow smile form on her face.
It was rather whiplash inducing, to go from going to sleep with tears in her eyes every night, slowly going insane from hearing the same twenty songs on repeat every day, all day, every shift making a thousand things ache and burn, to just…
Sitting on a comfortable bed, discussing a future she didn't expect to have after Lung, with a girl her age, whose face she could actually fucking see and name she knew.
And that thought brought her back to Coil and what he'd taken from her. Bitch's dogs were ugly bastards, and Rachel wasn't the easiest to get along with, but it was fucking difficult not to admit to attachment to her and Brian after so many days working with them. And if Coil hadn't used the Undersiders and thrown them away at the slightest sign of trouble, they wouldn't be dead.
"I honestly don't care about the money as much as I care about getting rid of fucking Coil…" She grit out, her teeth grinding against each other, her brows furrowing into a vindictive glare as she imagined shooting the bastard's brains out.
"He'll never be a threat again after I get my hands on him, don't worry. I'll Master him so thoroughly that we could tell him to kill himself by shoving a bat wrapped in barbed wire up his ass and he'd do it in a heartbeat." Taylor said casually, and Lisa let out a groan of disgust and sympathy mixed with laughter because damn that was fucking creative and nasty as shit.
And endlessly reassuring.
"Fucking ew. Also, thank you, T. As for the plan… I'm honestly kind of offended at how simple the plan is, and how likely it is to work. The trick is his stupid… timeline bullshit. Getting him after he's converged them. We need to grab him right after he's completed a plan or goal of his."
"Or, I just use the orb and turn his power off." Taylor said with a vague wave of her hand, which she dropped onto the bed a second later.
"Yeah, but if you use that without giving him a chance to react, we have no idea which of his timelines will become the current timeline. Hell, you might accidentally make an alternate reality for all we know. If it's random, he might end up accidentally going to his safe timeline right when we're about to get him, and he'd know about us. Don't be too dependent on your powers, it's not great for you when they end up being useless in a very random situation. Like how my power is useless when talking to you."
Taylor shuffled, hummed. Sighed.
"Fuck, you're right. But we don't have a way to know when he has completed a plan or a goal. Even if something odd happens, we don't really have much of a way to know if he is involved. Guess we put that plan on the shelf for now, at least until an opportunity comes. If I can find his moles in the PRT, I might be able to find him and take him without putting you in any danger too, which would be ideal…" Taylor trailed off, and then sighed and got up with a small groan, flickering oddly for a moment, then stretching like a cat with her hands to the ceiling.
"I feel like we've exhausted both ourselves and all our topics of discussion, honestly. Any more would just be useless fretting. I'll go sleep on the couch, don't forget to burn the clothes, and lock the door when you come back up here. Also your cover story is that we are old Winslow friends before you started getting bullied for being my friend, your family is abusive as shit so you ran away, you messaged me last night with your situation at three AM, and you only plan to stay here until you can get a job somewhere. I might also be able to change how you look with a power, permanently, as a disguise, but that can wait for tomorrow after you've met my dad. He knows I have powers, he'll go with it. Good night Lisa. And don't comment about the piece of the sink that is obviously glued back on, please." Taylor finished, before waving backwards over her shoulder as she opened the door, and turned to walk down the stairs to the living room.
Lisa groaned miserably as she rolled over onto her front, stumbled upright as she pushed off the bed, and went to grab her dirty discarded clothes and the gas can from the floor.
It was slightly overwhelming to think that over the course of yesterday, she'd set up a drug operation, formed a partnership with villain cape mercs to sell it, then went to save a psychic girl and ended up with a desperate teenager in her team that was now sleeping in her bed as she prepared breakfast.
A very lavish, over the top, excessive breakfast, but fuck it, she had guests, Lisa's cheeks were a little sunken in from malnutrition and she could guess the same had happened to her ribs under that hoodie, and Taylor herself was going to need a fuckload of food the coming days.
She was still researching proper nutrition and cross-referencing it with a couple thousand years of lived experiences, but her shopping list and diet plan so far was…
Quite fucking ridiculous. She couldn't even afford any of it until she began going to either the Wards or selling her stuff.
If she had the budget, her breakfast would be two salmon cuts, fried, a green salad, two carrots, and bone soup broth to wash it all down. Her lunch would be four steaks, baked beans, a slice of bread, two large fruits of some kind. Her dinner would have been an entire bowl of dried fruits and nuts, cale, broccoli, and another steak.
Just for one day of eating, that was like… more than sixty bucks. A lot more. And to convert all that into energy and muscle, she'd have to work her ass off. Which was expected, but she wondered if it was too much, from both a consumptiory and economical perspective. She was pretty much tripling her food intake .
Regardless, with her allowance, the money next to the front door, and her sixty bucks, combined with about eighty combined years of some kind of cooking experience, she'd been able to make a breakfast fit for a five star hotel.
She'd also bought another few burner phones and card packs with what was left of her money after her grocery run, so now she could give Lisa a pack of enchanted ones, just in case.
As she turned the soft-boiled eggs into perfect half cuts and sprinkled them with flaky salt, she idly found herself wondering about the usual.
Plans, powers, combinations, Legends.
Even enjoying breakfast would likely be hard when it felt like she should have gone to her bunker and made a dozen other useful things by now.
Eventually, everything was ready and under tinfoil hats to keep them warm, so she went up the stairs, and after confirming the time was close enough to when her dad left for work anyway, she banged on his door.
"Dad! Wake up! Breakfast is ready!" She called, then paused, almost chuckling as she realized she sounded exactly like her mom had when Taylor was a kid and she was still around to cook them breakfast.
With a soft, wistful smile, she walked a bit down the hall, and banged on her own door.
"Lisa! Up, wake up!" She called, and heard a miserable groan on the other side.
Yes, she'd only slept for four, maybe five hours, but they had stuff to do and she wanted them all to eat together. Not so she could make them all bond or something, but to give her dad the impression she had friends to rely on to help soothe his worries when she'd break off, and to smooth the talk of Lisa's stay a bit by having her at something as domestic as breakfast, as if she was a part of their family.
"If you don't get up I'm just going to come in there and drag you to the bathroom and dunk you in the bathtub! You're gonna stink up my bed!" She called, and another groan, even louder and more miserable, followed by the shuffle of clothes.
"'M up, boss, fuc…uhfnu… damn iiit. " Lisa mumble-whined through the door, and she couldn't help but smile.
This felt less like having an employee and more like having a little sister, honestly. One that was a bit off and playing into the light mood to stave off the uncertainty she felt, but still a little sister. Even if Lisa seemed the type to verbally roast her over the coals for the comparison.
If her power worked on her, which it didn't.
"Go take a shower, and come down to eat with us, I'll have explained it to my dad by then." She called out, and was about to turn away when the door unlocked and swung open, revealing a slit-eyed Lisa that looked like a drugged, half-dead chihuahua, stumbling in place as it tried to glare at her.
"Cute. Go shower."
Lisa mumbled something completely incomprehensible as she stumbled past her.
Her dad stared at the veritable, covered-up feast on their usually empty kitchen table, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. He groggily turned around, squinting at the stairs.
"Wait, did you leave the shower on…?" He mumbled, and she hummed.
"No, I did not. Come here and I'll tell you more." She lightly wiggled the coffee cup like trying to lure in a cat with a treat.
"I feel like you're either trying to bribe me or have bad news to tell me." He murmured, and stumbled forward to accept the cup of coffee she was offering.
She shrugged.
"A bit of both. An old friend from Winslow texted me late at night yesterday. Or, pretty much sent me an entire essay to explain herself. Long story short, her family is really abusive so she ran away, and she's kind of homeless right now. Her family isn't looking for her, don't worry." She tried to reassure her suddenly awake dad, and he frowned at her in complete and utter confusion.
"Her family- looking- what- I don't care about that. Is she alright? Was she an actual friend or…" He trailed off, before taking an aggressive sip of his coffee that screamed 'please give me energy', vaguely gesturing with his free hand in the direction of Alan Barnes' house, she could guess. Emma's house.
"No, actual friend. She stopped hanging out with me when the bullying started to spread to her too. Good thing she did, honestly. Her home life was shit enough already, I don't know if she'd have managed her school life turning into a hellhole too." She commented, and ignored the sudden grimace on her dad's face, and she did not exactly need Evelynn to know he felt guilty as hell about all that. She ignored it.
"And as for if she's alright… Well, she's doing better than I'd have thought, but you can ask her yourself. She's in our shower." She jerked her thumb up to the ceiling. Her dad paused, blinking at her.
"Yes, I brought her in here yesterday at night. She was kind of waiting outside in the cold without shoes and I'm surprised she doesn't have hypothermia. She's going to stay in my room for a week, or maybe a bit more, we're not sure. Probably just until she can find a job to rent some hole in the wall apartment and figure out where she's gonna go from here. Her name's Lisa. I might change her appearance using my power to make it easier for her family to not find her even if they come looking, so don't be too alarmed?" She shrugged.
Her dad opened his mouth, his brows furrowing. Then his mouth closed.
He put the coffee cup on the table.
"Okay, I'm not saying you did anything wrong, because you didn't, but next time, I'd like a warning."
She made a dubious sound.
"I thought about it, but I felt like waking you up at like two or three AM would not exactly be appreciated, and it's not like anything would have changed by you knowing it a couple hours earlier, I don't think." She said.
Pain flashed through her dad's expression, and she wasn't sure why.
She missed being Evelynn.
But down that road lied madness, or just… more of it, really, so she stayed as herself.
"Right, okay. I'm going to be locking my door at night and keeping my wallet on me for a while, no offence, but she's free to stay as long as she needs. We could even remodel the basement for her if she decides to stay long term, we're not going to kick her out into the streets if she can't find a place to go." Danny said, gaze wandering, likely wondering about the logistics of supporting two teenagers on one meager salary, and a sudden thought struck her as she realized how quickly he accepted it, how his words were unlikely to leave any other adult's mouth, as far she could think at least.
Who on Earth Bet just accepted their daughter's distant, 'old friend' into their home on what he implied might be a semi-permanent basis, already wondering how to make them both comfortable, while being a single parent? In Brockton Bay ?
Danny was a really good man. Her dad was a good man. That was the thought that suddenly struck her, and she was filled with both pride and a bittersweet feeling. Her dad was a good man, which was why it was important she kept her distance when it all came to a head.
Of course, she didn't intend to completely ditch him, not now that she knew she was somewhat immune to Thinker powers that might somehow be able to connect him to her and exploit it. She could only pray that that extended to the Simurgh and that she would not be targeted to become Mannequin 2.0 by the bitch arranging his horrid death.
The problem of her dad, it had… many, many solutions, all dubious and many leaving a sour taste in her mouth. But not all.
Danny would soon live in an empty house, but he didn't need to lose a daughter.
He might have to live with knowing his daughter would send him a monthly text or two through unidentifiable phones that would have no reply function for him to speak back, and which would likely vanish after a month or two at most, he might have to contend with knowing she still cared about him through anonymous checks in the mail and short letters he would have to burn at the end of the night, but she didn't need to completely abandon him and just hope he wouldn't kill himself. Because yes, she had considered the possibility yesterday while thinking about... a lot, and it was frighteningly possible.
And if she had to Master him to enforce complete and utter secrecy and separation, so even if he got drunk, or Mastered, or just had a breakdown, he still would not say anything to connect him to her, would never speak her name, would not blurt out something that would put a giant target on his back? If she had to pull away the haze of depression around her mother's death, and leave him with a dull ache and happy memories, a path that came to an end but would not be forgotten, allowing him to tread a new one?
She could live with that.
"Taylor?" He asked, and she smiled, one that was genuine, a little optimistic.
When she first resolved herself to pull away, she'd had thought of something more drastic, more uncaring. It felt a bit shameful to think back on her original plan of just completely vanishing. This was better, safe for both of them without being borderline cruel.
"Just thinking. Anyways, Lisa should be down soon. Let's sit. Act natural, by the way, please? She doesn't seem like a fan of pity. Roll with the flow and all that."
He nodded, and sat down. She quickly plucked off the tinfoil covers on her creations, little sandwiches and cheese spinach pie slices, fresh cut breads and german cheeses and slices of ham artfully placed on their plates, small clusters of cut-in-half softboiled eggs, pancakes of both Shuriman and American recipe, and pretty much everything she could come up with for any taste.
Even if neither dad or Lisa ate much of this, she theorized that she probably had to eat like a solid half of this anyway, if she was to start seriously improving herself.
"This… wow. This looks amazing. Were you always this good at cooking?" Danny asked, puzzled and awed, and she shrugged.
"Had practise in the Asylum. It wasn't like they kept me in a room all day, you know." She lied, and he nodded with a sound of pleasure as he tried a piece of spinach pie.
Well, that one she'd just bought and cooked in the oven, but whatever, he didn't need to know that.
As she sat down and began piling her plate, her dad made an exclamation that usually meant he just remembered something important.
"Well, that reminds me. The request you made about machinery and the like, learning about tools, their uses? The guy I know replied. He's willing, for a fee. It's nothing big, so if you're sure you want to go and learn about this stuff, I'll give you the address and a bus map for how to get to his workshop?"
She smiled, a fake one just to show she was pleased.
"Yeah, it would help. I could make some really useful stuff if I actually knew how to use what tools to manipulate materials in certain ways, at least without wasting huge amounts of money and time. Thanks dad, saving me a lot of trouble here."
He smiled a self-pleased smile, and nodded.
Eventually, about a fourth of the way through their breakfast, Lisa came down, and blinked, before gesturing to her dad and giving her a questioning look behind his back. She nodded, not quite sure what the question was but roughly aiming to be supportive. Lisa nodded back, and adjusted her overly baggy clothes to something a little less harried, fluffed her half-dried hair a bit, and confidently walked up to the table.
Her dad turned, and smiled.
"Ah, it's uh, Lisa, right?" He asked after putting his fork down, and extended a hand up for a handshake.
"Yes sir." Lisa said with a catlike smile, shaking his hand as she pulled the chair out with her other hand, then plopped down and without much ceremony, began piling food onto her plate as if she'd been starving.
Which, actually, she might have been.
"So uh, did Taylor tell you...?" Lisa leadingly asked with a wave of her fork, and her dad nodded.
"Yes, she did. You're free to stay here for however long you need, so long as you follow some basic house rules. If you can't find a place or can't figure out what you want to do, we could remodel the basement a bit so that Taylor can have her space and you can have yours too. And of course, if your parents come here to ask for you, I'll pretend I never saw you." He smiled reassuringly, and Lisa's smile turned a little more genuine, even if her gaze shifted to her plate.
"A good cook, and a good man. Surprised that you're-" Lisa began, and briefly paused in both motions and speech, before giving her a mildly offended glance, for some reason. "-such a good cook, honestly. Most men can't cook for crap." She continued without letting her pause stretch.
Danny rubbed the back of his neck as he thrust his fork towards her.
"Actually, Taylor made all this. Guess she wanted to give you a warm welcome. She could be a famous chef, if nothing else."
Lisa popped an egg into her mouth and smiled like a smug cat, making a dubious hum.
"I don't knowww… could use a bit more salt." Lisa spoke through the tail end of her egg bite.
She blinked at her, frowning.
"It's perfectly salted."
"My tongue disagrees."
"Your tongue is the abuse victim of over-salted foods."
"Nope, that's me, my tongue has tasted nothing but the best." Lisa fired back without missing a beat, and she watched her dad's brows raise in shock at the nonchalance.
"I should have just given you bread and milk instead of trying to be nice." She grumbled, and shoved a little sandwich bit into her mouth, genuinely feeling a little offended at Lisa's wrong critique. She spent like two precious hours of her life making this stuff.
Lisa's smug exterior melted a little, and a more genuine smile replaced it.
"Hey, I'm just poking, it's perfect. Thank you. This looks like more effort than I'd ever put into a breakfast. Or twenty." Lisa said softly, and threw another bit of soft-boiled egg into her mouth.
Oh.
Then Lisa turned to her dad.
"So. I have to admit, me and T weren't the closest of friends, and it's been a while. Any embarrassing stories, any funny childhood blackmail material?" Lisa asked, and Taylor rolled her eyes in dismay.
Still, she smiled through most of the breakfast, and found that Lisa's uncanny ability to turn a breakfast between her and her dad into a normal, talk-filled event, without an ounce of awkwardness, was a power in and of itself, and she found herself feeling the familiar pleasant emotions she had once felt when making a new friend was a somewhat normal occurrence.
Thankfulness, that desire to be around them, that faint protectiveness.
And also a bit of dread, actually, because while she really enjoyed having a normal, lively breakfast, she felt vaguely exhausted by the end of it, and exhaustion was not pleasant.
Being so social was strangely tiring.
Eventually, her dad left for work, and she was filled to bursting, so it was just her and Lisa cleaning the dishes and putting everything back in the fridge.
Once they were done, Taylor sighed.
"Okay. Now, I'm going to take you to the basement, put a blindfold on you, and change how you look with a shapeshifting power I can't use on myself for some bullshit reasons that don't matter. We can change you back any time you want or feel safe enough. Any preferences? You're already beautiful, honestly, so we can only downgrade pretty much, or pick a different flavour." She vaguely gestured with her hand.
Lisa laughed.
"Damn, thank you. But uh… I always wanted to see how I'd look like as a ginger chick with slightly curly hair and freckles, actually. And a slightly longer neck. That sound good?" Lisa asked, and she nodded.
"Alright, down into my dark dungeon of doom." She droned sarcastically, and Lisa put the back of her right hand on her forehead as she tilted her upper body back, leaning away from her.
"No, boss! Woe is me! Thy seeketh to defile thine perfect form!?" Lisa said, pitching her voice like an actor of an ancient drama.
"Oh my god. " Taylor groan-laughed out as she put her hands on Lisa's shoulders and pushed her forwards, finding herself wondering how Lisa made it so easy to smile, so quickly.
Notes:
I'm not that great at humor, i dont think, and character interactions can be a tad stiff for me, but i hope i got this kinda "little sister employee" atmosphere kinda right
and that i got Lisa right, she tends to be one of the hardest characters for me to write, ya know?
sorry to the shippers, no romance shall be found here until further notice
also i've uploaded my stories like 5 times in 3 days i think i'm just going stir crazy and pouring it out onto wordy word words
the feds looking at my search history probably think im a serial killer with the kinda sht im googling for these stories
go check out my other fic too, 'Mom Militia', or else.
uh, see u soon, again