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Chapter 9: Playtime

After taking a moment to gather her bearings, Riley followed Andrew out of her bedroom, turning right towards the play room. Timmy was already present, busy squirming on the sofa and holding one of the controllers.

"Can we plaaaaaay now Andy?" He asked, sounding a bit exasperated as he looked up at Andrew. She could finally see his features for once, and he seemed to have inherited the spot from Ella and overall shape of the snout from Rick, along with wider stripes on his tail.

"Fine, fine Timmy, sorry for making you wait for so long. Hope you don't mind Riley joining us!" Andrew smiled as he slid a disk into one of the consoles and sat down on the far end on the couch, his tail curled up around him and laying on his lap.

"Is Riley gonna play toooo?" Timmy followed up, looking up at her hopefully as she sat down on the free space, opposite to Andrew.

"Oh no, don't worry, I think I'm just gonna watch for now."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know how to play." She shrugged and chuckled, leaning further into the soft couch.

"Why?"

"Why not?" Andrew chimed in, barely holding back a giggle himself as he short circuited the poor four year old's brain.

"What?" Timmy blinked and looked around at his amused siblings, both trying to pretend they weren't. After taking a moment to gather his confused thoughts, he slid down from the couch and waddled into the corridor, his tail waving high behind him, Andrew calling him out-

"Timmy, I think Dad is a bit busy right now. How about you ask Riley to help you out with the gamepad?"

The what.

He turned around and scrambled back up on the sofa as the TV turned on, showing some splash screen Riley was too distracted to read as he turned towards her, looking adorable as he looked up at her-

"Rileeeey, can you help me out because Dad is busy?"

"Uhhh, I'll try, but I've never even touched a 'gamepad' before, so you'll have to explain it to me first."

Timmy just tilted his head in confusion, Andrew picking up the cue to step in-

"Timmy, can you hold the gamepad for a moment?"

He picked up one of the controllers and held it in front of himself, right paw holding it from the right, thumb covering all the buttons on the right side, with the left paw holding it from the bottom, thumb on the right... wiggly thing.

"He's just a bit too small to hold it the normal way, so usually dad comes around to help him with the left stick, like so-"

Andrew slid his left hand around, holding the left side of the controller firmly, his thumb on the left wiggly thing, guess it's called a stick.

"Come and give it a try Riley." He followed up as he took his hand away.

After a moment of hesitation she tried to mirror him, sliding in her left hand and gripping the warm plastic, her hand a bit too low to do anything but grip the thing.

"Lemme help a bit-" He gently corrected her grip, moving it upwards and lifting the thumb onto the stick. It felt a bit weird, her hand was not that big either and she almost had to lean towards Timmy to actually hold it somewhat comfortably.

Andrew noticed, taking a moment to think before coming up with something obvious in hindsight-

"Well, usually Timmy sits on Dad's lap for this, dunno how comfortable you'd be with that."