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fandomweekly2022-04-21 07:50 pm
[#133] Caprice
Title: Caprice
Fandom: Crossover - Danganronpa & Resident Evil
Rating/Warnings: T - Mild Language
Bonus: No.
Word Count: 997
Summary: Creation as a family affair suits them.
Lucas licks the pad of his thumb and turns the page.
And, fish-eyed with a shark-grin, Ibuki’s got the bigger anticipatory reaction to where he’s going next than Miu, who stares half-comprehendingly back at her and Lucas from her lap. Ibuki drums her heels against the end of the bed and leans against Lucas to peer at the book.
Which has been turned upside-down.
“And then?” Lucas continues, in his singing-crow voice, the corners of his mouth riding upward. “The li’l frog… fell riiiiiiiiight off the branch…” He draws a line on a page with his fingertip, from the inverted word “oink” - the story stopped being about a pig on approximately the second page - to a smiley-faced watercolor sun. “...Splwoosh. Straight into a great… big… skillet.”
Ibuki’s eyebrows shoot up, and Lucas looks down at Miu, gasping loud through a mouth shaped like a zero. He holds that look, and Ibuki’s grin narrows as she watches to see if Miu imitates him; the tot comes close enough when she shrinks and grimaces, brow scrunching over big blue eyes like her poppa’s.
Ibuki muffles a cackle into a snort behind her hand at the thought that even she thinks your face is spooky! - and she shoulder-checks Lucas a couple of times to egg him on while he begins to gesticulate, his voice picking up in volume word-by-word. “She looks around - but don’t see anybody nearby! So she goes… eh!” He shrugs. “And she floats around on her back, enjoyin’ the heat! – Except waiiiiiit a minute… Where’s that heat comin’ from…?!”
It’s Ibuki’s turn to throw a gasp at Miu - whose head has lolled aside. “Where, where?” she asks her, rhetorically.
And when she looks back at Lucas, she finds that his eyes are wide and bright and pale with wicked delight.
“Kwwwrsshhhhh!” He smashes his palm down onto the book. “A big nasty vulture lands, right in front of her! He throws his head up! ‘N he laughs!” He demonstrates, helium-high, and continues shrilly. “‘Lookee what we have here!’ he says! ‘Why don’t you keep on chillin’ there… while I… heat things up ‘n get ready for supper?’ And he reaches out his great biiiiig vulture claw… and turns up the heat…”
“She,” says Miu, and both Ibuki and Lucas blink and turn to her with interest. The whippersnapper points and carries on, in her subtle hybrid of accents. “She pulls out a gun ‘n shoots it at the sky and makes the clouds cold…”
As the line of Lucas’s mouth begins to twist, Ibuki coos - grabs the kid’s hands and holds them up. “And what’s a word that rhymes with ‘flail’?”
“Scale…”
“Hail!” Ibuki gives Miu’s forearms a little tug, re-raising them with a fling. “Froggy-buddy makes it hail ‘n cools down the pot! Hoo-rah!”
“You gals are cheatin’, you know that?” Lucas says, almost primly, to whatever extent a man like him can say anything in such a way.
“Mm-mm! It’s a momma’s job to provide an assist!” Ibuki wears her self-satisfaction on her face; lets it double when a quick side-glance reveals that Miu’s mirrored her.
Lucas’s nose twitches before he draws his grin up wickedly; nods hard. “Awwright! Awwright - but then!” He holds up an index finger - then claps his palms together. “The vulture slams a lid down on the pot - and he takes to the sky! ‘God damn it!’ he says! ‘Guess I gotta take this one home!’”
“The frog,” says Miu, scowling and pulling her arms free of Ibuki’s hands, her eyes suddenly steely. “The frog takes all the parts of her gun outta the inside and - and - and she shocks the water and the metal for the pot.” She slams two fists into her lap. “And the vulture - gets shocked, too, ‘cause he’s touching it.”
Ibuki squawks a laugh out loud. “Whaddya think about that, Poppa? Ibuki didn’t help her with that one! Give yourself some credit - some of why she’s so good at this has gotta be ‘cause she’s got the blood of not one, but two super-geniuses in her brain…!”
“The brain does need a lot a’ blood…!” Lucas says, nodding, his tone drifting along a high edge. “But! Now, is she really that good at this?! ‘Cause, Li’l Miss Miu, your froggy buddy just fried herself in that water! Makin’ things nice and easy for Mister Vulture and his dinner date with himself!”
“Nn-nh!” Miu shakes her head viciously. “She - she got’s a rubber suit!”
“Awh, does she, now!” The whites of Lucas’s eyes show all around the irises. “Well! Fine, then!” He snaps his fingers. “She zaps the lid o’ the pot! ‘Shit!’ the vulture hollers! ‘N he lets go a’ the pot! Unlucky for you, that leaves the froggy free-fallin’ through the air! Lemme hear it, Miu - what’s she got for that one, huh?! And Ibuki, no cheatin’!”
Ibuki grins her broadest and salutes, bouncing the girl on her knee while she chews her lip and blows bubbles in her contemplation. “No problemo!” she says. “Don’t’cha mind me! Ibuki’s saving all her best ideas for when it’s her turn to run storytime!”
She means it.
Lucas has an un-grandiose approach to his children’s stories, relatively-speaking - just as in his inventing, he assembles them as problems to solve out of bits and bobs he finds pleasing or exciting or otherwise grabbable from the ol’ mental scrap-pile. Natural and scientific - which, hey, seems to suit Miu fine.
But how she loves trotting out her ballad-big tales, full of dragons and demons and ghosts and big rewards and haunted bad-ends! Loves seeing what they trot out when she raises the stakes!
They, because she trusts Lucas not to feed Miu lines or hijack the girl’s role far less than she trusts herself.
But unlike him, she doesn’t mind a bit of “cheating” - creation as a family affair suits them, anyhoo.
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