Room 204 [morning]

[momslilassassin]

Prom had been fun and the evening after prom had been even more fun (Ben liked Ender in uniform, so sue him), but being fairly bright Fandom students who had been at the school for four years, both guys had remembered to put some clothing back on before falling asleep just in case.

Ben was curled into Ender now, sleeping in for once (so...past sun-up) and enjoying a weekend where he had nothing planned.

[OOC: You know the drill by now, folks! For the boy, then the visitor.]

Comments

[momslilassassin]

Ben was quiet for a moment as he digested that. "Home's with people, not places," he finally said.

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"Easy to say until you get terribly attached to a place," Val said wryly. "But I think that's true for us. For the most part."

She had been getting used to Lusitania.

[momslilassassin]

"We stay somewhere long enough to get attached?" Ben asked.

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

She wasn't touching the real and most recent answer to that with a ten foot pole. "Well, the story goes that at one point, Ender had you and Aunt Valentine hopping onto the nearest available passenger flight whenever he got bored," she said. "Until passenger craft became more common, and then you made him buy a 'hunk of junk' you worked on for a long time and I am intimately familiar with. So..."

[momslilassassin]

Ben grinned. "Please tell me it flies better than the Falcon."

And wasn't as heavily armed...

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

Val wiggled her hand, then rolled her eyes. "Completely different systems of physics, dad."

[momslilassassin]

Ben sighed. "Still no jumping to light speed, huh? That's depressing."

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"Not unless you'd like us to get flattened into a singularity the size of a pea," Val said. "It's not depressing. It depends on what you're used to."

[momslilassassin]

"I'm used to getting from one side of a galaxy to another in a couple of weeks," Ben said.

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"You could say," Val mused, "That that's terribly boring. The most interesting oddities of culture develop in a relative vacuum."

[momslilassassin]

"I bet we're our own oddity of a culture," he teased, though his mind was already racing through the many ways that would be true.

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"You're definitely odd," Val said, giving him a little shove. "But I suppose we are. Not really this, not really that."

[momslilassassin]

"How Ender prefers it anyway," Ben said with a smile.

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"We like it, too," Val accused. "Sometimes."

She peered at the door. "Do you think he's sitting outside, listening in and waiting?"

[momslilassassin]

Ben closed his eyes and checked. "Not yet, but I wouldn't put it past him. He's not trying to avoid you, you know."

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"I know," Val murmured. "I'm just used to him being... warmer, I guess. More honest."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nudged his shoulder into hers. "He's still getting used to the idea he can be happy at all, I think. Getting a glimpse of long-term stability is a little overwhelming."

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

Val smiled a tiny bit. "I don't know," she said. "I always got the impression that the stability was actually very important to him. Or at least being able to offer it to us... to you."

She finally gave in to her paranoia and reached out, sensing where Ender might be-- still a little down from where they were, but moving.

[momslilassassin]

Ben looked touched. "He did that for me?"

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

"I don't know if you've noticed," Val said, sounding a little dry, "but dad tends to take the things he chooses to commit to very seriously."

[momslilassassin]

Ben's cheeks went pink. "Well, yeah. I'm still getting to being one of those things."

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

Val sighed exasperatedly, and made a good show of plastering herself against Ben's side. "We love you, dad," she said.

It sounded an awful lot like there was an unspoken 'stupid' there.

"Even if you are a complete tolo-face."

[momslilassassin]

"There's a new word," Ben said. "I'm going to assume it's very complimentary."

He kissed the top of her head and hugged her back. "It sounds like a good life," he continued more quietly.

[bend-in-time.livejournal.com]

There were the finer details about Lusitania, which complicated things; but those were matters she couldn't discuss. "I don't have a lot of complaints," she murmured. "Though if you do get there, be sure to remember to hit Kol in the head a few times during training. It can't hurt."

[momslilassassin]

"Did he get Ender's stubbornness?" Ben guessed.