//------------------------------// // Additional: Pizza // Story: Home // by Cackling Moron //------------------------------// “You can sit next to me, you know,” Lyra said, patting the space next to her on the sofa and scooching up so that there was more of it, hopefulness written across her face. “Or, you know, anywhere,” Bon Bon said rather more languidly, indicating that there were other spots available. And there were, too. Their place was not lacking in comfortable places to sit. In spite of the obvious wide choice of proper seating options James had for whatever reason elected to sit cross-legged on the floor and politely waved off both suggestions, much to Lyra’s muted disappointment. He did not notice this, though, as he hadn’t quite dialled in on pony faces yet. Bon Bon did notice. “No thanks, here is good,” he said. James had been delighted - not to mention weirdly amused - on discovering that ponies, too, ate pizza. His level of amusement had baffled Lyra and Bon Bon, whose house he was in to eat the pizza that they as a unit had ordered. With Equestria being officially deemed ‘Safer than most’ by Expedition Command, the active security detail was reduced and those few that did remain were left either protecting the Dimensional Borer itself or else accompanying the few research and diplomatic parties that got sent out, neither with any real expectation of action. Or at least, any action worthy of the name. James - having been off-duty anyway - had been left at even more of a loose end than he had been before, and when Lyra had bumped into him completely-and-totally-by-accident and offered the opportunity of just hanging around at hers doing nothing he had practically leapt at the chance. Later, Bon Bon had come home from work, and not long after that pizza had happened. James had had much worse days. “Pizza, man. Can’t believe that,” he said to himself, shaking his head as he leaned over and picked up another slice. “Really don’t get what the big deal is,” said Bon Bon. “It’s just…” James tried to find the words, waving his slice around as he did so. The slice flopped and he frowned at it briefly before rolling it up and taking a bite. “We hop onto a big dimension-tunneling machine, plunge through however many layers of worlds filled with weird shit or stuff that wants to kill us, end up in a place with cute talking horses who also have pizza. Heh, man. I don’t know.” “We’re not cute,” Lyra said, trying her best to look as serious and non-cute as possible, achieving entirely the opposite result. Had she been within arms reach James wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from giving her a ruffle on the head. She was, however, out of range. So James did what he felt was the next best thing: “Well, you are from where I’m sitting,” he said with a wink and Lyra was forced to concede, mostly because she blushed and had to look away, hiding it by magically hoiking the pizza box over so she could shield her face with it. “Nice line,” said Bon Bon. Her day had been sufficiently tiring so that she wasn’t so much relaxing on her chair as melting into it, a flopped puddle still vaguely in a pony-like shape. James shrugged. “Not a line, actual truth. You guys are all just so adorable. And friendly! So fucking friendly. And you inexplicably speak English. And you have pizza! I might see what the rules are on moving here permanently, this place is great,” James said, leaning back and resting on his palms. “What? Move here? You can do that?” Lyra sputtered, her surprise almost enough to make her drop the box. This caught both Bon Bon and James off guard, as it was so sudden and so loud that neither of them had seen it coming. They exchanged a silent look before both turning to Lyra. “Uh...maybe? I don’t know. I wasn’t - uh - I mean, I was kind of kidding,” he said. Lyra’s face fell. “Oh.” James could not fail to notice the change this time. It was like being stabbed in the gut. And James would know about that. Never had James seen anyone eat pizza quite so morosely. He had no idea what had just happened or what he could do to fix it, if anything. He looked to Bon Bon again, for silent help, but she was equally stumped and could only shrug helplessly at him. “But I’m curious now, so I might ask. Just to see, you know? I mean, they have been talking about, uh, setting up some manned stations on a couple levels so me staying here might not be, you know, completely impossible,” James said, tentatively. Lyra’s ears flickered a little, perking up again by inches. “Would you stay here? If you could?” She asked. “Well, I mean, yeah. I don’t see why not. Technically now I’m living back on Earth - ‘technically’ - it’s just most of my time is on the Borer because, well, the job, you know? So I don’t see what the difference would be as far as they were concerned. Certainly wouldn’t matter to me. Be quite nice coming home if home was here and not, ah, well, my town is a shithole, heh. I’m probably missing a couple details but, uh, yeah.” James was kind of a happy-go-lucky sort of a chap as regards the fine details of life. He tended to focus on things as they came along and as they appeared in front of him. The problems of tomorrow were future-James problems, and most things would probably work themselves out alright-ish in the end. So he felt absolutely no turmoil at the prospect of uprooting himself for pastures new and entirely unknown. He’d deal with problems as they came up one way or another. That, and he really did know for a fact that there was already murmurings here and there about the possibility of settling up on some of the places they were discovering. Nothing official yet, just the sort of thing you heard here and there. And not just the manned waystations or robot-mining operations people were interested - he’d already heard one or two people talking about moving in proper, settling down. It was plainly an idea people were starting to get excited about. Given the state of home, James couldn’t say he was that surprised. Lyra looked moderately less morose at his slapdash answer, and she’d also polished off her slice, settling herself more comfortably on the sofa and giving the space next to her a conspicuous look, which James missed. He was thinking. “Would you, uh, would you mind? If I started living here? Just, you know, hypothetically?” He asked, attempting to sit casually but being suddenly very aware of his arms and where he might want to put them. This made casualness impossible and he ended up fidgeting. “No!” Lyra said too loudly before clearing her throat and trying again. “No, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t think anypony would. Would you mind?” She asked, directing the question to Bon Bon, who was too tired to do anything other than give a noncommittal grunt and what might have been a shrug. This was taken to mean ‘No, I wouldn’t mind’, which was more-or-less accurate. “You falling asleep there, Bon Bon?” James asked, noticing that she was starting to slide off the sofa, jerking awake suddenly as her weight approached the point where she was about to tip onto the floor. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, propping herself up only to almost at once begin slipping again, this time failing to catch herself and falling off the sofa with a soft thump. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said, shooting to her hooves and then yawning. “Bed might be an idea,” she said, realising then that she was facing away from the other two and turning in place. “Alright you crazy kids, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said, swaying a little before wending a slightly unsteady way out of the room. A moment later, hooves could be heard ascending the stairs. Glancing out the window James noticed just how dark it was starting to get outside. He had entirely lost track of time, it seemed. “Ah, I should probably be heading off too, I guess. Let you get some rest and stop bothering you,” he said, standing up. “You’re not bothering me,” Lyra said almost at once and James chuckled, trailing into a yawn as he stretched, arms bumping on the ceiling. “Nice of you to say,” he said, going up on tip-toes for the full-body stretch experience. Once he finished, he found Lyra staring at him, and not in a way he’d had her do it before. “What happened?” She asked. “Hmm?” James was confused a moment and then looked down as Lyra’s eyes did likewise. She appeared to be staring at his belly. “Uh, what are we looking at here?” He asked. Lyra hopped off the sofa and moved over to him, raising a hoof to point at his stomach. “When you lifted your arms up your shirt rode up. You got a bandage there, a big one. What happened?” James twigged what she was talking about and hoiked his shirt back up a little to expose what it was she’d been talking about. The dressing was not particularly significant, being as how if it had been he wouldn’t have been allowed to walk around. But it was still there, and it was pretty big. “Oh, that. That’s nothing,” he said, frowning down at himself. “Looks like a pretty bad nothing to me.” “Nah, honestly it’s not a big deal,” he said, pulling his shirt down again, yelping in surprise a moment later when Lyra latched onto his hand with her teeth - gently, but still - and dragged him over to the sofa she’d been sat on. This time, he actually did sit where she’d been wanting him to. “Did you get that because of your job? Being a guard?” She asked while James wiped his hand on his trousers. “Expedition security and, well, yeah, how else would I have got it?” He asked, though his reluctance melted in the face of Lyra’s silent, imploring stare. “If you must know, Lyra, it’s a scratch. Just a small one. This thing came at me, I didn’t see it until it was too late and it got me. But only a little bit. It’s fine.” Lyra was less than convinced. She pressed a hoof against his stomach and James hissed, wincing. “Sorry!” She gasped, pulling back. “It’s okay,” James said, still wincing though doing a good job of smiling through it. “You said it was fine!” Lyra said mortified at having hurt him. James just shrugged. “Well, it is, yeah, just not totally yet. Still a little tender if you poke it. It’ll be fine soon, then you can touch it as much as you want.” James considered his choice of words there and shook his head, concluding: “Could have been worse. I’ve had worse,” he said. James rather hoped this would put an end to this line of discussion and they could get back to talking about happier, breezier things. Lyra though wasn’t quite done yet. “Worse like what?” She asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing. James had the feeling he’d somehow put his foot in it without realising how. “Oh, really, it’s not that big of a deal. This job is actually probably safer than my last one. Though would that count as a job? Not sure...uh, don’t worry about it, Lyra.” “I want to know,” Lyra said flatly and James sagged, defeated. “Fine, fine. Let me think…” he scratched his chin. “First place we ended up - the very first place - was alright enough. No locals to speak of, but lots of native life. Most of it pretty benign. Had these weird little shark-dog things though, and one got me. See here?” He held up his arm and turned it and Lyra saw, or rather noticed, the blotchy ring of faded marks midway up the forearm. The more she looked, the more of them she could see. Obvious teeth marks, now they’d been pointed out to her. Once James was certain she’d seen - it was pretty obvious when she had - he lowered his arm again. “Couldn’t quite get through the suit but those things had a bite on them, did a number on my arm. I mean, really bad. They fixed it up though. Works perfectly now, see?” He wriggled his fingers and sighed, pushing them back through his hair. “So that’d be the oldest I got from this job, my first one. As far as new goes though the scratch is the most recent,” James said, lifting his shirt again to look at it. This, though, revealed a couple other things that Lyra hadn’t noticed the first time. “What about that?” She asked, pointing at another dressing a little further up and on his side. He twisted and peered down, raising the shirt higher. “That’s a burn. Not a bad one.” “And that thing?” “Stab  wound. Didn’t go too deep. That one’s from back home, s’pretty old  Some bastard stuck me - in broad fucking daylight! Just in the street! And I was tooled-up! Idiot. There’s a shrapnel scar on my back somewhere that’s from home, too.” Lyra did not know what shrapnel was and did not feel like finding out. “This here?” She asked, pointing to a dark, blotchy mark that had started going a little greeny-yellow just around the edges. He had couple of those but she was pointing to the biggest one. “Just a bruise. Most of the rest are bruises. One on my arm up here too, see? The suit stops most things getting through and takes the edge off the impact but it’s only so much. The scratch was a lucky one. Well, unlucky for me but you get it. The burn was from a, uh, well we call them Outsiders? Not sure what they are yet. Suits don’t do a whole lot against them. Rare though. Don’t worry about it.” Lyra frowned. “This job of yours seems pretty dangerous.” “Ah, that’s just because you can’t see the marks that boredom leaves!” James said, as though this was a joke. Lyra did not get it and he cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s alright, really. Most of the time everything is totally calm. Just sometimes it’s not. Kind of why I’m there! For when it’s not calm. Got to keep people safe, you know?” “You keep yourself safe though, yeah?” She asked, those golden eyes locked to his. He had to look away and swallow. “Course. Can’t keep the others safe if I’m not safe.” “That’s not what I - “ she said, grunting in irritation when she realised she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say. Annoyed at this, she shuffled across the cushions towards James and snuggled up against his side, to his muted surprise and unconcealed delight. Pushing in underneath his arm she peered up at him. “Couldn’t you do something less...risky?” She asked. James had not expected ponies to be quite so soft or quite so warm, and was unsure of what to do with his hand. So he just left it sticking out awkwardly into a space somewhere near Lyra’s side, where it had ended up after she’d wriggled into position. He couldn’t say he didn’t like it. “Heh, not really. I’m not bright enough for most of the other roles they have on the expedition. Most of my experience is this sort of thing. It’s fine, really. They can patch me up good, put me back together again,” he said. “I just don’t like the idea of you getting hurt is all.” “Very nice of you to say. You haven’t known me that long, though,” James said. With her so close he was suddenly gripped with the fierce desire to just prod the end of her horn. He didn’t, though, as he guessed that this would be some sort of faux-pas. He made a note to ask her about it at a later date. “Well, I can’t get to know you better if you get really badly hurt, can I?” Why she didn’t just say ‘killed’ was a mystery to James, but ponies could be a little funny about things like that. This at least he had picked up on. He supposed it was a cultural thing, though he didn’t really understand it. It wasn’t really his job to. “True, true. Tell you what, I’ll make a special effort to stay in one piece just for you, alright?” “You better,” Lyra said with a firm glare, but a firm glare from a pony only made James want to start dishing out hugs and - for whatever bizarre reason - belly rubs. He refrained from doing so and instead yawned again. “Oh man, I’m knackered.” Lyra did not know what this meant but assumed it meant tired, and she saw an opportunity. “You could stay here. If you wanted, you know,” she said, pressing most insistently into his side. James paused mid-yawn and opened one eye. “What?” He asked. “I wou- me and Bon Bon wouldn’t mind if you stayed over a night, it’d be no trouble. Uh, assuming you’re allowed to do that?” She really hoped he was. “Uh, you mean crash on the sofa or something?” He asked. “Sure, yes, that,” Lyra said. She hadn’t actually thought far enough ahead to get into the details, though her mind had been making a few unhelpful suggestions about sleeping arrangements she had chosen to ignore. James’ one seemed the better one. James stared into space as he thought about this. “I guess?” He said, scratching his head. Lyra beamed. “You can?” “I can’t see why I couldn’t. Just got to remember to check my location in at some point, and I can do that easily enough.” He tapped his head then, though Lyra had no idea what this meant. As with everything else she had no idea about she decided to just let it pass for now. She’d ask him about it later. “Great! Uh, I mean good. I can get you some blankets and some pillows and-” She made to get up and go get these things but James - moving quick - held her in place, his idle hand actually now coming to rest on her side. “You don’t have to that now, we can just sit here a moment, right? I’m quite comfortable,” he said. Lyra - again blushing, again hiding it - settled back. “Yeah. Me too,” she said. And so they sat. And then fell asleep. Some time after they did this, James jerked awake. “Nngh, what? Where?” He grunted, blinking, looking around. For a second or two his brain fumbled for answers to these questions when it found itself not back on the Borer, where it might have expected to wake up. Then it recognised the cosy room in which it found itself, and then it remembered. Didn’t answer why James couldn’t move his arm though so, squinting and still blinking his bleary eyes, he looked. And there saw Lyra. She was wrapped tight around his arm, all four limbs and even her tail, too. She was fast asleep and smiling, and James felt his gut lurch. “Eh, whatever. Didn’t need that arm anyway…” He said quietly, closing his eyes again. - Later, they woke up together, because someone was knocking at the door. Lyra gave a yelp at the noise and fell off the sofa with a thump, while James was a little more subdued. “Did you hear that?” Lyra asked, head popping up. James rubbed his eyes. “I thought I dreamt it,” he said. Then the knock came again. Both of them looked at one another, then out to the hall, then back again. “I’ll get it,” Lyra said, hopping up and going to do just that, leaving James sitting on the sofa feeling groggy. Birds were chirping outside and the sun shining in was not helping him get his bearings any straighter. Outside in the hall he could hear talking, but his brain was still too fuzzy to make anything useful out of it. Lyra reappeared. “It’s for you,” She said. She looked a little shellshocked and James was immediately on edge, drowsy as he was. “For me?” He asked. She nodded. His sense of foreboding grow and he stood, stepping out from the lounge and into the hall to see what was what and who was who. “Good morning, James,” said the visitor. Standing just on the other side of the doorway, wearing a suit of all things, was something man-shaped but which was not a man. This much was clear from the head of the thing, which was cuboid and elongated and from which several wires wound their way down, disappearing into the immaculately pressed collar of the thing’s shirt. Standing behind this man-shaped something at a discrete distance was a pair of fully suited up, fully-armed security personnel. One gave James a brief wave but James’ attention was focused entirely on the thing that had spoken to him. James knew who this was. “Oh shit,” he breathed, blanching a moment later when he realised he’d said it outloud. “Hullo boss,” James said, snapping off the expedition’s rather uncomfortable looking proprietary salute which the thing rather lazily returned. “No need to be formal, James. This is a friendly visit. Just wanted a quick chat,” the thing said. James glanced to the security personnel briefly and then did his best to relax. It wasn’t all that easy. “Sorry, Let’s, just a little shocked to, uh, see you here. I thought you’d be in the capital.” James had forgotten what Canterlot was called. “Oh, I am. But I’m also here, talking to you. Just a small chat, like I say.” “A chat?” James asked, swallowing. He hadn’t heard of anyone else being met in the morning for a chat before. Not that that meant it didn’t happen, of course, but if it did then why would no-one have ever mentioned it? Because it was bad, presumably. He swallowed again, though his throat was painfully dry. “Yes. It was noticed that you did not return to the Borer last night - which is perfectly acceptable. We were simply curious why that be. We were a little worried when you failed to check in your location.” James cursed inwardly for having forgotten that. It would have taken literally two second but he’d just fallen asleep instead. “Sorry boss. I mean, sorry Let’s. I just - just lost track of time, fell asleep.” “I see. Presumably falling asleep here for good reason, as opposed to falling asleep anywhere else?” “I’m friends with the local what lives here. Uh, pony that lives here, I mean. Lyra. She’s nice. We were just talking and we must have, uh, well yeah. Lost track of time. Sorry, Let’s.” “It’s quite alright, as I say. We were merely a little concerned. It is good that you are making friends. Making friends is a big part of this whole expedition. I take it was Lyra who answered the door?” “Yes, Let’s.” “Good, good.” A lull in the conversation. “And are you happy, James?” Let’s asked. “Yes bo- Yes, Let’s. Very happy,” James said quickly. The sweat trickling down his back was starting to make his shirt stick in places. “Good, good. That’s all I wanted to know. The welfare of the crew is always a concern to Expedition Command and to myself.” “It’s pretty great here,” James said, gesturing rather lamely to the glorious, sun-shiny day out in Equestria. As he did so birds flew past and so did a rather alarming errant swarm of brightly-coloured butterflies. He couldn’t have timed it better. “It is, it is. Well, carry on, James. Though next time maybe keep us a little better informed of your whereabouts, hmm? You can check in anytime and anyplace, remember.” “It won’t happen again, boss.” “James,” Let’s said, inclining their head a little .”No need to be formal. We shall see you back on the Borer in due time, I am sure. Until then have a good time and a safe time.” Let’s then gave a smart nod - which James returned - turned on their heel and walked off, the security personnel in tow. James watched them go for a polite length of time before quietly and firmly shutting the door, resting flat against it and taking a breath. On returning to the lounge he found Lyra not looking at him. “What was that?” She asked, face pressed to the window, having to lean to get a good enough angle to keep watching the departing humans and departing whatever-Let’s-was. James, dabbing at his shirt and grimacing at how damp it now was, reached up with his other hand to find the spot on his skull to tap to check in his location. “That was, uh, the Governing Intelligence of the Borer come to see if I was doing okay. Uh, Lyra, you wouldn’t happen to have a shower you wouldn’t mind me using, would you?”