The Adventures of Dupli-Kate and Finley

Finley:

I laughed when she said that. "He's not around often enough to make doing him a hobby...unfortunately." I told her. We'd really only had sex that one night and that was it, but he was busy doing things for his job, and I was trying to be understanding of that. "But yeah, I mean outside of that, and school... I play videogames... I get drunk in my room and post really stupid selfies with false eyelashes?" I summarized briefly. It was kind of a sad existence, now that I thought about it, spending most of my life in front of a screen or trying to get sloshed. And not even at parties, because I wasn't really invited to go to parties. Getting drunk to put myself infront of another screen. I guess that I hadn't had all that much to look forward to IRL outside of classes and videogames up until Joel started being a thing and I started having money to do stuff with. "Before I had a steady income I was considering trying to figure out how to make money being a stripper or something, but I got that settled so it's not a thing anymore..." I added, trying to make my life seem a little bit less... empty, but like... It just kinda was. At least it had been. The past few weeks had done a lot to change that up, but up until I became an interdimensional human trafficker I really wasn't doing a whole lot.

Kate

She glanced back at him in surprise. "Well, that's... relaxed, I guess. At least it's not too stressful." She grabbed a box. "Doesn't sound so bad."

Finley:

"Yeah, college is plenty stressful all on its own, I try not to add to that with you know... a whole bunch of other stuff." I told her, picking up another box. "I'd rather just enjoy myself when I'm not scripting something for class or working."

Kate

"That's reasonable. We should go out for a drink sometime." She took the box back in through the door. "Also, if you want any posters or new furniture, just ask. I'll see what we can do."

Finley:

"That would be fun, yeah." I agreed, following her back up to the house. It would be nice to actually drink somewhere that wasn't the dorms, where I didn't have to be careful about getting caught with the stuff, as it was a dry campus, technically.

Kate

"Yeah. Meg'll be happy to drink in with us tonight." She put the box down on his bed. "I don't think there's much left. Do you want a hand unpacking?"

Finley:

"That would probably make it go faster, yeah." I told her, opening up the computer box to start setting that all up. "Thanks again." I added, because like, really, everyone was being so nice about letting me stay here and it was really unexpectedly awesome.

Kate

"No problem." She began opening boxes and taking things out. "You know... I'm not sure where you want all of this, sorry."

Finley: 

"Well, uh... I dunno really either yet, so just kinda... Clothes in the drawers, books on the book case... posters on the bed til I decide where they should actually go?" I shrugged, kinda just looking forward to getting things outta the boxes.

Kate

"Works for me." She opened a box of books and began stacking them on the shelves. "I'm not much of a reader, 'specially not compared to Meg. What are these about?"

Finley: 

"The blue one is about running Windows 2003 on HP Proliant Servers, a few of them are Java books, The red one is Python, and the weird one from the seventies is about Pascal. There are a couple of them that are about Ubuntu and Linux, but I'm not as big a fan as some of the other guys in my class... Also there are a few on hair cutting." I told her, trying to remember if there were any more books with me. Most of the books I was buying recently were about coding and stuff, or servers or something of that sort.

Kate

"I... I'm not sure I understood a lot of those words." She shrugged.

Finley: 

"...Oh. Sorry, uhm... It's mostly books on computers. And like... how to write computer programs and stuff." I summarized. I should have been used to just reducing my computer knowledge down to 'computer stuff' but it was still one of those things that I forgot was necessary in most cases.

Kate

"Right. Sorry." She continued stacking the books. "This is why I need someone to help run the computers and things around here. I'm not very good at it."

Finley: 

"Well, I'll be happy to help. I do a lot of computers." I told her. I really did. It was one of those things I really enjoyed, being able to type something up and make a thing happen or a series of things or, you know, running your accounts through Sweden so that you never have to pay taxes, it was all so empowering. I liked it a lot.

Kate

"Great!" She grinned. "Well, I'll give you some privacy to get set up. Lunch is in an hour or two, okay? It's your choice whether or not you turn up to meal times, but try to let us now, okay?"

Finley: 

"Sounds good- I forgot to eat breakfast today, so I'll be ready to eat whenever." They were going to feed me too? This was literally the best decision of my life, moving off campus to live with Kate and Meg. 

I got to work plugging in my computer to let it run its start up stuff, and went on to wrestling my sheets onto the mattress. Those were the two most important things to get done by tonight- a place to sleep and a computer.

Kate

She left the room and found Meg in the kitchen making... well, it smelt like cookies.

((Shall we fast-forward until lunchtime?))

((yeah bro)) 

Finley: 

I got my bed put together and started unpacking my clothes before it was time for lunch, and headed out to go see what was cooking. "Somebody told me to stop unpacking for a while cos there'd be lunch?" I asked, and indeed the whole kitchen smelled like cookies. ...I would eat just cookies for lunch any day.

Kate
She sighed theatrically, trying to hide a smile. "Meg decided she was going to cook lunch for us today and, well, I'm usually the one who cooks around here."

Meg
"If you don't like the cookies, you don't have to have them." She shrugged and pulled another tray out of the oven.

Kate
She smiled and kissed Meg on the cheek, swiping a cookie from the tray as she did so. "Ah, shit on a dick, they're still hot!" She tossed it from hand to hand.

Finley: 

"Wait does this mean we're eating cookies for lunch? Because like, that sounds like the best suggestion ever." I asked, because seriously. Cookies. For lunch. I didn't know what else could be said about this.

Kate

She shrugged. "Yeah. Looks like that's what's happening now." She took a bite out of it and gasped. "Agh!"

Finley: 

"Isn't that still really hot?" I asked, a bit concerned that Kate was eating food that was going to scold the inside of her face. 

I gingerly took some cookies off the sheet and set them on a napkin to cool, excited to eat them but not willing to burn my tongue.

Kate

"Yeth, it fucking ith!" She fanned her mouth. After a moment, she managed to swallow it. "Jesus Christ, that was stupid of me."

Finley: 

I laughed at the situation, cookies for lunch burning the inside of your mouth... it was like... It was nice, and normal and family like, and I was happy to be here experiencing it all instead of at college where things were all... ehhhhhh. "Was it worth it though? Because sometimes you just need to stuff your face with cookies and it doesn't matter how hot it is." I knew this feeling well, as it didn't just apply to cookies. Sometimes I ended up drinking half a hot coffee before it was cooled properly and scalding the inside of my mouth, or also pizza, hot cheese on a pizza was irresistible.