Expo Spork & Mari - Vignettes



Spork was splitting their attention between their laptop and the stove. It was efficient, alright? And they didn’t want to put their full focus on their actually-important task, because then they’d end up putting it off for even longer, and they really needed to get it done. They had, like, a week to figure out how to either convince their parents that they were totally still in college, or that they were… ugh, graduated? Working a full-time job? No, they hadn’t worked a day in their life, that one would never work.

But they needed to come up with something, because there was only so long they could lie about classes they weren’t actually taking. The end of the semester was rapidly approaching, and with it the expectation that they would send their parents their quarterly status report. It had been the lowest they could bargain them down to, and now they were regretting giving them even that much. Just like they always did. Why hadn’t they already cut ties with them, again?

They frowned in the general direction of their laptop, flipping their melt before it could get too burnt and then tapping the still-warm spatula against their palm as they pondered the same predicament that had been hanging over their head since they’d made the brilliant decision to cut their losses and drop out of college mid-semester. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, in their defense. But maybe they could’ve planned it out a little better.

Funny, how easy it was to realize that when they were running on more than three hours of sleep, mixed drinks, and cigarettes. Hilarious, even.

They poked at the crunchy bread in the pan in front of them, head tilted to the side as they listened for the sounds of the secret third conundrum they were facing. Mari was working in her lab, but they were sure that the smell of food would draw her out of her science-daze soon. And then she’d poke her head into the kitchen, where they’d have a kickass toasted sandwich waiting for her, and they’d have dinner. Together.

That was a thing now. Spork still wasn’t entirely sure how they felt about it. Yeah, it was reassuring to know that Mari wasn’t subsisting on the thrill of scientific discovery and coffee alone, but with that and the way she kept accidentally-on-purpose falling asleep in their bed more nights than not, things were getting bewilderingly… domestic.

It was weird. They felt like they’d missed a chapter, and now they were reading an entirely new book, one where Mari didn’t complain about the extra crunchy (read: burnt, because they got bored and walked off midway through) nature of the meals they’d taken to throwing together when they didn’t feel like ordering takeout. One where it was Spork’s room that was a safe haven from the outside world, and they only gave token protest when she tucked her cold feet up against their legs, or, hell, where she didn’t threaten to smother them when they snored in her ear. They woke up with their arm thrown over her or their face pressed into her back, and neither of them talked about it, just got ready for the day.

And the weirdest part was that they didn’t fully… mind? Like, if Mari had been literally any other girl they’d have already deemed her too attached and shuffled her off to join their ever-growing list of broken hearts, but, well, it was Mari. They’d told her about every girl on that list. She knew what they were like, how they worked. Didn’t work. Whatever. The point was, she was in no danger of getting her wires crossed and thinking that Spork was in love with her, so it was fine.

The sandwich was done. They scooped it out of the pan and onto a plate, then put a second one on to toast. Halfway through dinner, and they were no closer to solving either of their problems. They sighed, and put the spatula down for a minute so that they could poke around on their computer. Maybe a solution would randomly pop up if they just tabbed around a little bit more. They could hope, right?

 


Mari’s plan was working.

That in and of itself wasn’t surprising. Mari took great care to ensure her plans were carefully thought out from the get-go, and usually had one or two contingencies in place should things get dicey. No, the surprising part was that Spork had yet to figure out that they were the subject of her plan. Despite their lack of vision, they were incredibly perceptive when it came to other people doing things that could be construed as helping them. Spork hated being helped, a lifetime of being coddled and babied against their will had poisoned that well long before Mari could remember.

And yet, they seemingly had no idea that Mari had been working tirelessly to bring about their recovery. The primary reason, she figured, was that she’d been moving glacially slow. Well, that and she avoided anything that was blatantly helpful. She didn’t tell Spork to stop getting wasted every night, she just finished her work early so she could spend the evening with them, or chatted with them while she worked. She didn’t tell them to stop smoking like a chimney, she just made it so she’d notice if they left to smoke, and made sure that Spork knew that too, discouraging them from taking so many smoke breaks.

So far things were promising. Spork was less cranky, they didn’t run around in a state of perpetual intoxication anymore. They showered more regularly, had tidied up their room, and just seemed to regain some of that light they’d had when they were both younger. Mari had even seen them eating a salad at one point. Granted, it was mostly chicken and mayonnaise sandwiched between two slices of toasted bread, but she’d seen a piece of lettuce in there, and that was progress.

As much as she joked to herself, Mari couldn’t claim that the only reason she kept up with this plan was for Spork’s benefit. She felt fuller, somehow, like there had been some crack inside her that she’d been ignoring for a while that had recently been patched up. Mari wasn’t sure if it was just the distance that had been between the two of them after high school, or if it was something new. They’d hardly spent a night apart, shifting between bedrooms before she’d made the executive decision that if they were going to sleep together, it had to be in Spork’s room. Her bed was just too small for it.

She hadn’t realized how much had changed until the first night she’d woken from a nightmare, one of the typical indicators that she’d been pushing herself too hard. They were a regular occurrence around finals week or when approaching a major deadline, times when coffee was her water and schoolwork was her air.

Mari at least had a system for handling it. It took her about a half hour to properly settle back down, but she hadn’t had an opportunity to follow through with it that night. No sooner had she woken with a gasp then she felt an arm around her, strong and smelling faintly of cigarettes and cologne. Something in her softened, then, her heartbeat dropping almost instantly as she buried her face in their shoulder and fell back asleep.

Mari wasn’t sure what this was. They’d always had sleepovers as kids, but something felt different now. Somewhere in the eating meals together and sleeping regularly in the same bed and the damned thoughts that occasionally crept into her head that she immediately shoved out, something had changed. A line had been crossed that she wasn’t really sure they could go back from.

She was distracting herself from that problem by focusing on a more pressing and far less messy issue. Spork had dropped out, hadn’t told their parents, and now they were going to find out. Or at least, they were if she didn’t figure something out.

The immediate and easiest solution was just to go no-contact. Simply cut out the parents and Spork wouldn’t have to explain the situation. Hell, Spork wouldn’t have to deal with their overbearing birth-givers ever again. That was a recipe for disaster, though. For all her incompetence and negligence of Spork’s true wants and desires growing up, Giselle would scour the entire country if her precious child ever stopped talking to her.

That meant she was going to have to try something a little more unorthodox. The idea that Spork was living with her would at least make whatever story she sold Giselle go down easier. That woman trusted Mari and her mother with Spork’s care and wellbeing more than anyone else, perhaps even her.

The smell of something hot and cheesy coming from the kitchen pulled Mari out of her ruminations. She blinked a few times in confusion at the materials spread in front of her. Oh right, she was supposed to be doing homework. Her stomach growled in protest at the fact she wasn’t moving towards the smell and she gave into its cries, making her way into the kitchen and perching atop one of the stools at the world’s most inconvenient dining table.

There was a plate sitting there with an unburnt sandwich, and Mari claimed it for herself, dragging the plate over and biting into the still-hot sandwich with a satisfying crunch. Spork’s cooking left a lot to be desired, but they sure did make a mean melt.

“How do you feel about working for an organization advocating for accessibility options for the blind?” She asked after her first bite. She took another, letting the question sit before adding. “Correction. How do you feel about lying about working for an organization advocating for accessibility options for the blind?”

“Further correction. How do you feel about lying to your parents about all that?” Her sandwich was somehow already half-gone. Funny how good food could taste when someone reminded you to eat it. Hilarious, even.

“Y’know, hypothetically.”

 
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“I- wha?” Spork jabbed a finger into the mute button on their laptop with more force than was, perhaps, strictly necessary, cutting off their screenreader’s (annoying, robotic, vaguely Australian) voice. Then they pressed another key and paused it properly, just in case they wanted to go back and actually listen to the page later (they doubted it, but they’d rather pause it now than have to fiddle with it or, heaven forbid, start over).

They moved back to the stove so they could flip their sandwich, but not before throwing a confused, squinty look Mari’s way. “You’ve known me for how long?”

Their expression cleared with the correction, turning contemplative. Well, they did tend to enjoy lying, just as a general pastime. And it wasn’t like it was unusual for Mari to be the one to suggest particularly outlandish fibs. (This was because, although she might try to fool everyone into thinking she was the practical one between the two of them, she had a devil in her ear whispering ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ And it wasn’t even Spork. Not all the time.)

“You think that would work?” The question was posed with their attention still on the stove, poking at the sandwich in the pan and willing it to toast faster. They were trying to gauge the probability of their parents blindly accepting what was, to them, a big ol’ whopper of a lie, but they weren’t a super-genius like Mari. They couldn’t weigh all the variables with the half-second’s notice they’d been given. “Like, unhypothetically?”

There was a little furrow between their brows, a slight frown tugging at the corners of their lips. They hadn’t asked Mari to help them with this. They hadn’t even mentioned it, not since they first showed up at her place. Had she really been thinking about it all this time? Working on a solution, in that quiet way she did where she only presented her results when they were sure to be watertight? That was… kind of sweet, actually. But also suspicious. Very suspicious.

Further investigation was required. They reached over to turn the burner briefly to a nice blasting heat and then completely off, plating their sandwich and joining Mari at the world’s worst breakfast nook. (It was just a weird L-shaped counter that they’d shoved two stools against, but it was marginally better than the couch or Mari’s work desk. 80% less scrap metal than the latter, at least.)

They clattered their plate onto the counter and hopped onto their stool, one foot solidly on the floor beneath them and the other sneaking around the corner of the counter to hook around her ankle and prevent any thoughts of escape. They took a bite of their sandwich, hasahafing and chewing only slightly before asking in a deceptively innocent voice, “How long have you been working on that?”

 
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