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Korvo’s dramatic sigh reverberates around the room, hand coming up to wipe the sweat off his brow. He sets his scrobilizer down on an empty part of the dashboard of his ship. A few of the buttons weren’t calibrated correctly, and he had to take the entire thing apart to fix it. Hours of work, and there wasn’t much to show for it considering most of the ship was still broken.
Still, it’s one more thing to cross off the seemingly endless list. It’s time for a break.
Dusting his hands off on his robe, he makes his way downstairs, heavy boots making a loud thud with each step. This catches Terry’s attention, who turns his head to look over the top of the couch at Korvo. He offers a wide, toothy smile and waves in greeting.
“Korvotron! How ya doin’ man? Come sit with me! I’m in the middle of watching The Bye-Bye Man . It’s super scary!” He emphasizes his last statement with a melodramatic shudder.
Korvo rolls his eyes, but joins him anyways, flinching away when his partner yells out an unnecessarily excited ‘Hooray !’ Terry snatches the remote from the coffee table and turns up the volume, bringing his legs up to hug his knees to his chest.
Every now and then, a so-called ‘scary part’ will come on screen and the green alien screams each time, promptly covering it up with an awkward cough or nervous laugh. To try and help him feel better, Korvo points out every plot hole, inaccuracy, or special effect flaw he can spot.
That only serves to annoy Terry, who defends the movie to Hell and back, which snowballs them into full blown arguments. Eventually, they’re waist deep in a horror movie marathon, their shouting matches tapering off to hushed bickering.
At some point, Terry had gotten up to get ice cream, and is currently shoveling spoonful after spoonful of Rocky Road into his mouth. His eyes are wide, focused intently on the movie in front of them. Korvo’s attention, however, is on the spoon in Terry’s hand. A soft, plush tongue darts out to lick the back of the utensil, and the blue alien can only wish it was something else instead.
His mind wanders for too long, cheeks flushing purple, so he decides to tear his gaze away from that sinful mouth to stare blankly at the TV instead. This movie was Terry’s pick, Fantasy Island , and Korvo hates it so far. As much as he likes seeing humans in pain, the entire plot seems arbitrary at best. Their Pretendo Deck could come up with better simulations any day.
He’s about to open his mouth to say as much when Terry suddenly gasps, dropping his ice cream and his spoon. His hand shoots out, landing on Korvo’s and squeezing it tightly.
“They killed J.D.! He was my favorite!” Terry whines, eyes still glued to the screen.
Meanwhile, Korvo is gawking at their joined hands. His chest tightens, blush darkening. It’s already been a few minutes and Terry still hasn’t let go. Affectionate gestures like this occur pretty often, but never for long periods of time. Korvo isn’t sure what to do with himself.
Terry helps him decide, absentmindedly turning his hand over so he can intertwine their fingers, which tosses Korvo straight into an internal crisis. It takes another moment or two for him to finally reciprocate, his thumb stroking over soft green knuckles.
This disrupts Terry’s attentiveness, his head turning to look at their hands. For a split second, Korvo is afraid he pushed it too far, that his friend will snatch his hand back and berate him.
Instead, he earns a smile. The pupa specialist even scoots closer, head resting on the scientist’s shoulder. The relief Korvo feels forces a small smile out of him as well, cheek resting on the top of Terry’s head for the remainder of their movie marathon.
And if they fall asleep on the couch in this position, it’s no one’s business but their own.
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Jesse wakes sometime mid-morning with a seemingly unquenchable thirst. She quietly slips off her bed, taking her blanket with her. It drags on the floor behind her as she walks. She tiptoes down the stairs to ensure that she doesn’t wake anyone in the house, should they still be asleep.
Weekends are her favorite days in the Earth calendar. It means no school, no bullies, and no mean teachers to ruin her mood. The best part, by far, has to be being able to wake up late.
The house is quiet as she stalks through it, cutting through the living room to get to the kitchen. Before she makes it there, a loud noise makes her stop in her tracks. It sounds like… snoring? Specifically Terry’s, since she knows for a fact that Korvo and Yumyulack don’t snore.
She investigates further, shuffling around the couch to find none other than who she suspected, laying on top of Korvo. Her hand flies up to her mouth to cover it, concealing the enthusiastic squeal she would have let out otherwise.
This makes her blanket slip off her shoulders, and she swiftly bends down to pick it up, carefully laying it over the two older Schlorpians. Terry stirs in his sleep, causing Jesse to freeze. Thankfully he doesn’t wake up, only snuggles closer to Korvo, nuzzling his face into his neck.
Ogling them for a few more moments, she finally leaves to the kitchen, quietly pouring herself a cup of water and taking it back to her room with her.
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Yumyulack is the next to wake, his signature frown already on his face. His night terrors have been keeping him up for the past few days, and he wasn’t able to sleep with Terry or Korvo last night to help him. Something about a movie marathon.
So, forced to sleep in his own bed, with Jesse unbothered on the other side of the room, it’s understandable that he wakes up in a bad mood. Kicking off his comforter, he rolls out of his bed in search of breakfast. He takes his phone with him so that he can scroll through random shopping sites, adding a random item to his cart that he’ll forget about until it arrives in the mail.
Once he’s at the bottom of the stairs, he looks up from his phone to see the TV still on, playing whatever movie it had queued up for the night. On his way to turn it off, he spots Korvo and Terry on the couch.
The taller of the two has his head on the other’s chest, mouth open and snoring, drool dribbling out of the corner of it. Korvo has both arms circled posessively around his partner, one leg hanging off the edge of the sofa to make more room for Terry to lay.
If Yumyulack were a better alien, he’d have looked the other way and gone back to bed. But his hunger outweighs his kindness, so instead he reaches out to shake them awake. Korvo opens his eyes first, blinking the grogginess out of them as Terry groans, refusing to open his own.
“Hey. Are you gonna make me breakfast or not?” the replicant asks, putting his hands on his hips.
In that moment, Korvo seems to realize where he is, a shocked gasp escaping him. He tries to wiggle his way out from under Terry, but his green counterpart holds him tighter, keeping him in place as he replies.
“Make your own damn breakfast.”