crossover_chick | Happy Birthday Gigs!

I MEANT to make a separate post earlier today, but got distracted. ^^; It's still your birthday, though, and I have fic! (Hell, I technically have TWO fics, but only one is specifically for your birthday.) Behold!

"Daddy. Daddy. Dad-dee."

"That doesn't seem to be having much effect, Victor."

Victor glanced up at his wife, standing in the doorway. "Well, it's not hurting anything either, is it?"

"I suppose not," Alice allowed, smiling. She joined him and Chester on the floor, being careful not to knock over any of Chester's many block piles. "Goodness, but you two have been busy. . .how about 'Mummy?'" she added to their son. "Can you say 'Mummy,' Chester?"

Chester stared at her -- then laughed and swept a hand through his latest tower, sending it clattering to the floor. Victor couldn't help a laugh too. "Yes, yes -- the blocks are much more interesting than your parents hounding you to speak," he admitted, picking up a block at random. He pondered the 'A' carved into its side. "We're just -- well. I actually don't know how long this usually takes."

"I asked Aunt Susan -- she said that my cousin Jerome didn't speak until he was almost two," Alice said, finding a 'V" block among the chaos. "Stephen, Terrence, and Lionel all started chattering around their first birthday, though. Considering Chester's just shy of his, perhaps we're pushing him a bit early."

"Ba ba ba," Chester said, reaching for her block.

"Yes, here you go." Alice handed it to him. "And it's not like he has any trouble making himself understood, either," she added as he very seriously placed it atop another block.

"True," Victor admitted, adding his block to the growing tower. Chester clapped and started searching for another. "But it would be nice to hear actual words, instead of just babble. He's just so close -- I guess I can't help being impatient."

"So am I," Alice assured him. "I'm deeply curious as to what his first word's going to be. But there's nothing we can do to speed the process up." She smirked. "Besides bark 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' at him regularly, I suppose."

"Da duh!"

Chester held up a block in triumph and placed it atop his tower. Then he promptly kicked it over, laughing hysterically. Victor snorted, shaking his head. "What a strange child you are," he teased, tickling Chester's sides.

"Ruff! Ruff!"

A cold nose poked its way into Victor's armpit. "Ah! Oh -- I see you're up again," Victor said, scooching away from the probing snout. "Good nap?"

Lightning barked and slipped under his arm, licking his face. Victor scratched him behind the ears. "Yes, you're a good puppy. . .how about that, Chester?" he added, turning the corgi around to face his son. "Can you say 'puppy?'"

Chester tilted his head. "Puppy," Victor repeated, stroking Lightning's fur. "Doggie. Lightning."

"Ruff!" Lightning wagged his tail, then leaned forward to give Chester a few licks. Chester laughed and clumsily patted his head. "Litning!"

Victor froze. What the -- that -- that hadn't sounded like his usual babble. "Lightning?" he repeated, a hopeful note in his voice.

"Litning!" Chester threw his arms around Lightning's neck, giggling as the dog immediately took the opportunity to nuzzle his ear. "Litning!"

Victor gaped for a moment, then whipped his head around to look at Alice. She too was gawking at the pair, eyes wide. "I. . .all right, I confess -- of all things, I never expected the dog's name," she said.

"To be fair, he's currently the only other member of the household who's Chester's size," Victor said, grinning as child and corgi began rolling together on the floor. "Chester probably feels a kinship with him."

"Litning!" Chester agreed, roughly rubbing Lightning's back. Lightning retaliated with a big slurp up his nose. "Ah!"

"Careful with him," Alice said to the pair generally, smiling. "And that's true. As first words go, it's certainly not bad." She reached over and ruffled Chester's hair. "But I expect 'Mummy' next."

"Or 'Daddy,'" Victor agreed, poking Chester's nose.

Chester looked at each of them in turn. "Litning."

"Right, yes, we get it, you prefer the dog. . ."

I know you love the Secundus-verse, and -- feeling a bit inspired by your story about Alien Lisa helping Victor and Lightning adapt to the changes a new baby wrought upon the household -- I decided to share some family fluff from later on in the timeline, when Lightning and Chester are genuinely friends. I thought it would be sweet to have Chester's first word be the dog's name. :) And it's just generally cute to write Victor and Alice playing with their son and dog and being a family. :) Good change from some of the more dramatic stuff they go through.

Other fic of the day is also Secundus-related: the "birth" Scene From Secundus! Which has been rewritten a bit to reflect some changes made when I did the scene from Victor's perspective in "Secundus 2." I doubt the two will ever fully match up, as I might make MORE changes during the second and third rounds of editing, but they should be a lot closer now. Anyway, it's more family fluffiness, for the most part, and we can always use that with Victor and Alice. :)

Rest of the day has been a pretty typical Saturday, if a hot one. Not that I experienced much of the heat -- I stayed inside with the air conditioning running. I'm not prone to want to go out and about during heat waves. My parents did, though -- picked themselves up some new pie plates and fancy jars at a yard sale for an anniversary present to themselves. I sent them a nice e-card, which they appreciated. They also ended up getting a Gregg's cheesecake for dessert -- proper cheesecake, not a sampler platter. It was tasty, especially with some chocolate sauce poured over the top. :D And there's enough left over to have both on Dad's birthday (July 5th), and the anniversary of buying the house (July 7th). So that's pretty awesome. :)

Other things of note:

-->Cleaned my room -- aaand managed to snap the head off one of my Scraps "toys" trying to dust them. >.< And then got nail glue all over my fingers when I tried to glue it back on. Mom eventually fixed him with some hot glue, but damn. I hate that all those collectibles are so fragile. At least Mom and I are skilled in repairing them now.

-->Watched another episode of "Super Sim" -- James decided that killing people "unnaturally" was too difficult (as the game doesn't count fire as an "unnatural" death -- apparently only emotional deaths count, like dying from a rage-induced heart explosion) and has shifted focus back onto the actual POINT of the challenge, such as maxing DJ Mixing skill and actually doing some stuff from the City Living aspiration. XD He also totally forgot who Max's grandchildren were for a bit and was utterly confused when one called him XD Poor guy. . .and I'm only up to episode 65. He still hasn't gotten any major expansions past City Living yet. So much Super Simming yet to come. . .

-->Edited another piece of "The Technicolor Phase" -- definitely have to keep on top of that now that I'm posting it! Did the new version of the wedding rehearsal -- which, really, is mostly like the canon version, except that Victor gets distracted by a couple of different things. Interesting to explore his thoughts during the whole mess, poor guy. . . AND I think I've got a way to at least slip in Bumby's death scene from A:MR into the fic. I've always been a little sad that the nature of the AU means Corpse Bride gets basically totally rewritten while the Alice games are barely touched. . .this helps to even things out a tad, I think.

-->Finished off BioShock 2! Which throws a LOT of nasty splicers at you at the end, let me tell you. Fortunately I had my bees (seriously, best plasmid), my frag grenades, a lot of health kits, and my lovely daughter ready to kick ass. But yeah, finally got the "lifeboat" launched, and got the "all good" ending (despite killing two of the three major NPCs -- apparently sparing Grace is enough to convince Eleanor I like to forgive people. Oookay then). I admit, I actually cried just a little when Eleanor extracted Delta's essence and said goodbye to her old world. It's just -- as frustrating as the game could be sometimes, I really did like the characters, you know? It was a good story, and I'm glad I played it.

And, of course, I'm not quite done yet -- there's still the DLC story "Minerva's Den" to go through! Which I got for about 3 bucks thanks to a Steam Sale. Picked up the "Season Pass" to BioShock Infinite while I was at it, since that was all of the DLC for that installment for ten bucks. Now I should be set, BioShock-wise! And just in time for some extra free time in my life, too. . .

-->Watched Helloween's latest Dark Souls Remastered set (Thicckoskia has conquered THREE bosses, completing the Undead Asylum, the Depths, and Blighttown! Not without some pain -- the enemies were mean to Hells today, not following usual patterns -- but there were no embarrassing falls down ledges this time, so a win overall) and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes set (can be summed up as "Snake discovers he was being played by pretty much everyone he knew and trusted for their own agenda" and "Liquid likes flipping around, being dramatic, and the sound of his own voice." I mean, the amount plot-dump monologuing he does alone. . .). Good stuff!

And I'm currently doing the RP thing on tumblr -- in fact, I owe somebody a starter, so I gotta get back to that. Night all!