Inception

Chapter 67: Love is Cookies

Lena was not allowed to go to grandma's. Neither was Leno.

However, the brass did compromise. Rather than lock her away in more or less the dungeons of first division, she was sent to the labs, where Cromwell and Yoji had been summoned to work with her.

She cried on seeing them. She'd been anticipating a room full of scientists looking at her like either a specimen or a bomb. Cromwell and Yoji, on the other hand, treated her no differently than before. Yoji even hugged her, non-physical contact as he was.

"We best get to work," said Cromwell, his rarely used voice low and solid as stone. He'd angled himself to block the view of her from the rest of the scientists.

"We have a lot of tests," said Yoji with a little smile.

"On me?" she asked.

"Only the ones you were planning on doing anyway," said Yoji. "Come come! We have our own corner and everything!"

Forget corner, they had their own room. A testing chamber the size of a baseball field, meant for firearms or other large scale experiments. An entire wall was made of glass for those in the observation room, which was narrow only because one wall had been made up of a long desk, where several rather formidable computers had been set up, along with their various knickknacks.

"This is for us?" It felt too much like a reward to be true. There had to be a trap somewhere. She'd just blasted a new canyon outside this district. True, not of her own free will, and not knowing that it would happen, but still.

"Yup," said Cromwell.

"Yep!" chirped Yoji.

Funnily enough, seeing the black cameras in the corners of the room like hanging spiders helped Lena feel better. They'd still be watching her. That made sense.

They'd only gotten started writing down the list of what they'd need to look into and the tests that would involve when the metal door of the observation room hissed open and Soshiro stepped through, dressed to the nines in his uniform, but with the uncharacterist sheath of his swords dangling at his hips. He held two grocery bags.

"Hello, my darling nerd," he said. "I have snacks!"

"Aren't you supposed to be back at third division?" she asked, not that she minded. Her heart did a little leap at the sight of him.

"How can I chop off arms from all the way over there?" He crossed the space to where her and the other scientists sat on the floor and put the bags next to her. "And someone has to make sure you eat."

Lena checked her phone. Sure enough, her meal schedule app had started dinging for her to eat. She hadn't even noticed.

"I got some complimentary tea for the old fogies here." Soshiro slipped out said bottles of tea and handed them to Yoji and Cromwell, both of which thanked him. "But for you, my sweet, I've got monju, strawberry milk, a bag of chips, some carrots if you're feeling particularly healthy—"

"You're going to make me fat! I just need to snack, not a full course meal!"

"Good. More to love. And I got a cookie! Because I got this image in my head of you eating it like a hamster and couldn't get it out."

"I'm not eating it like a hamster."

He just waved the plastic wrapped, pink sugar monstrosity in front of her face.

"Mmmm, cookie."

She scowled and snatched the cookie. Desserts before the main course, after all.

"Why'd your little kaiju not fix your hypoglycemia anyway?" he asked, settling down on the floor with them despite his clean pressed uniform and surely having more to do.

"I have a better question," she peeled open the cookie and got a face full of the smell of icing. "Why haven't you been demoted for threatening to cut off arms and insisting on staying here?"

"Because I got a Gigi," he smirked. "And connections. Ashiro and Okinogi need me. Apparently, I'm really good at chopping up kaiju."

"Yeaaaah."

"But Gigi's saved the lives of just about every old fogi on the high table, so they had to listen as she put them straight. Apparently, I am a noble hero who is just defending his future wife—"

Lena choked on her cookie.

"—from being inhumanly experimented on like a Nazi experiment rather than being allowed to prove useful to the cause."

Cromwell was grinning so hard Lena worried his lips would split.

Yoji was smiling too, though at somewhere around Lena's knee.

At least they both pretended to be working on the list.

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Okay, gossip gossip gossip...just let me ruffle through my brain for a good story.

When I try to seduce my husband something goes wrong in my head. Instead of being sexy, I turn into a stand-up comedy routine. Not as in I do sexy stuff so bad. I mean, I start making all the PG jokes about cheese puffs and pretending to be a starfish on the bed that screams for the conservation society if he tries to move me.  And the harder I try to turn it off and do something normal, like, I don't know, wear lingerie or say sexy stuff, the harder my husband ends up laughing.

*sigh* Somehow that makes him like me more. Freak.