NOVEL NEXT Chapter 50 - One Last Thing
Water gently poured into the sink as I cheered, proud of the handiwork Uncle Rick and I did. I had fun twisting the handles and showing off how no water leaked out from the top.
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[House Upgrade! Water now flows where it should, back in the drain. Congrats, balance is being restored in the house.]
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Uncle Rick's hand patted my back like I was a teenager again. "Great work. I'll finish checking all your shut-off valves in the house. Just handle the household situations."
I stopped playing with the sink and laughed. "Your puns are horrible."
"Dad! What is it?" Tristan came running through the bathroom doorway. "Do you need towels?"
He already had two freshly cleaned ones in his hands that dragged on the floor.
I put on a serious dad tone. "I do need one. Can you come over here next to the sink?"
Uncle Rick knew what I had planned and backed out of the room with a smile, pausing at the safety distance of the door.
Tristan got right up to the sink, and I put my palm on the bottom of the faucet, fiddling where the water came out. "Mind turning it on? I need to check the pressure."
The innocent child listened. I instantly sprayed him with water, getting me and the rest of the bathroom with it. A little more water play wouldn't hurt it. He tried pushing my hand out of the way to get me back, and I let him. The water dripped down my beard and my clothes got damp. With more restraint that I had, Tristan turned it off, his shirt soaked. Uncle Rick put his phone down, done taking pictures and was chuckling.
"I got you good!" Tristan cackled, threatening to turn it on again.
With only my hands as a defense, I put them up. "Haha, you did, and I got you. Thanks for the towels."
"I'm trying to help clean up messes! I even got my cars back in the garage." He pointed to the hallway.
The traffic jam from before was gone. "Thanks man. That's really responsible for you to do that unasked."
"You never ask me!" Tristan blurted out.
He meant I never asked if he needed any help. I just cleaned up after him.
"I'm going to work on doing it more often so you can have fun in the game too with your classes," I declared to him. I'd be their team player, not their leader.
We made our way to the kitchen. Elaine sat on the couch in the living room watching some nature documentary about vultures. The game must've sparked that interest, one that I wanted to hear about from her.
I pulled out an instant pot meal from the freezer, tired from all the chores of the day and taking the easy option. I needed to unwind after all of this. Accomplishing everything on my list felt amazing. I crossed off the laundry. There was just one load left in the dryer. Thanks to Rick and Tristan, the sink was done. The kids got their homework done and even helped with cleaning the house.
It'd been sunny all week, but today, the sun shone brighter in the home.
Uncle Rick walked by with his tools, heading to the laundry room. I called out to him. "Do you want to stay for dinner?"
The older man eyed the meal being dumped into the cold oil and skillet. I turned on the heat when he replied, "Nah. It was good talking to you."
"I'm going to get better at talking and listening with everyone." I promised him, saying it loud enough that Elaine turned to look at me.
It was my promise to her and Tristan to talk about their mom, and how it was for me growing up. Uncle Rick waved goodbye again after he grabbed his tools and left.
Tristan talked to me while dinner cooked about how Naiad planted a big stick in the yard, but Ghost took it and ran away from them. Mid-sentence, the tv captured his interest as the big birds cried out. He rapidly fired out questions asking on they could fly and why they didn't hunt. Elaine answered with ease, even a few of my own questions.
"Can we get one? Elaine can keep it in her room." Tristan asked while he walked over to the dinner table. I just finished putting all the plates down.
"No, you can't own a bird like that," I answered.
Both kids came over and ate.
"Naiad does." Tristan picked at the noodles like he was performing surgery, avoiding all the cooked onions and vegetables that were sticking to them.
"In the game! That's not reality," I reminded him. "They can't be that neat of birds if they eat road kill."
Elaine waved her fork around. "According to the show, they are actually. They're immune to a lot of illness because of their diet choice." Elaine ate a few bites of the dish.
"You want to go see one day?" I asked her.
"Yes! I want it on my arm! Wait, no shoulder." Tristan jumped up, flinging a noodle to the ground that Ghost pounced on immediately.
"I would like to see one. But how?" Elaine looked at me directly, looking for an answer that was truthful to match her hope.
Rick told me that kids are just like little adults at times. Too afraid to speak up and say what they really need, and will choose to grumble in the sink aisle and wonder why no one is helping them. Elaine wanted to go camping. She's been looking at plants and nature documentary, she was speaking up. I wasn't listening enough.
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"I'll look around. Let me know what you want to do, camping? But like not in the game, we can do it in a real forest. The nature reserve isn't too far and we can do a weekend trip there." I leaned in closer and whispered. "The plus side is when we forget anything, we can easily come back and grab it."
She smiled at that thought. "That camp ground is booked for the summer already."
Elaine wanted it so much she had already started researching it. She probably had a plan at the start of the week, but I didn't listen. "There are some more remote camp grounds we can go to. The ones without running water."
"What?" Tristan said overly loud. "But we just fixed our sink!"
He made a valid point, but I was going to keep my promise. "You'll love it. We can do a mud fight and catch a bunch of bugs. We can do it tonight and check out the river."
"Can we do it after we finish the Root and Seeds of the Problem quest?" Elaine twirled a noodle up right before chomping down on it.
Those were words I expected from Tristan.
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[Error processing request…. Reprocessing... It is unclear if I should award a new quest or a reward.]
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I replayed the conversation in my head. I said we would go camping, and now she wants to go in the game. What level of 4D chess was this? She really did just want to play the game, but didn't want me to make her do it, it had to be her choice and her controlling the situation that she made me do what she want… yeah it made no sense and wasn't going to look back at it. My brain processing speed was going too slow as Elaine waved her hand at me to answer her.
"Yes," I replied, "we can do the game as long as you have truly finished your homework and report?"
"Done!" Tristian replied.
"Research complete. I'll read over it tomorrow to confirm it's good," Elaine reported.
"Wow, you're better than me double checking your work." I took a bite of my food and noticed both kids stopped eating, waiting for me to answer. "Yes, we have time to game tonight if you two want to do it then."
Triangle ate his noodles super-fast, no longer avoiding the vegetables. Naiad raced to finish before him.
"Woah, slow down before you choke," I told them, but then realized I had to join in.
He didn't listen, inhaling everything on his plate. Then the strangest thing I had ever seen happened: he scooted out of his chair and put his dishes away in the sink. Pausing long enough to confirm, he put the plates in the right locations.
"Let's go!" Elaine put her emptied plate in the sink.
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[You've listened enough to level up! +1 to your relationship with each child. Relationship boosted! They will now occasionally eat their home-cooked meals.
Bonus reward! They aided in dishes.]
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Warmth filled my chest at how well dinner conversation went, seeing their smiles and joys. This moment was going to happen a lot more. Family came first.
I jotted down on my phone to look into camping tomorrow, to make sure I didn't forget. I glanced at the list on the fridge, seeing Beth's written in chore that I ignored. A step toward recovery was recognizing the day to day. Looking at the small growth and acknowledging the journey and adventure to come.
And knowing to ask for help. I grumbled and messaged my therapist, a quick email asking to schedule an appointment.
If I wanted to avoid slipping in the game, I had to repeat my mantra.
"It's not my game."
Both Elaine and Tristan were in the gaming room by the time I put my dish in the dishwasher, not wanting to be outdone by a seven-year-old.
"Come on, old man!" Elaine taunted at me.
"Oh my back, it aches. It popped. I need to lie down." I aged my voice up and made it sound like I smoked a pack a day since I was twelve.
"Are you alright?" Tristan's heavy footfall charged to me as I pretended to hobble down the road. "Do you need a hug?"
"I'd never say no. Thanks, man." I squeezed him tight and answered in a normal voice. "All better."
He took my hand, an offer I couldn't say no to, something he hadn't done in almost a year.
A smile stretched across his face as he said, "I want to play."
"Yeah, me too, together with you two." I looked between them both. We were going to have an adventure.
Tristan wiggled into his seat, giving me the thumbs up as we settled into the pods. The darkness took over as the blue screen lit up my face. I was anxious and excited to get back in, not to play for me, but to know what my kids would do today.
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[Quest! Play alongside the kids, no matter what.]
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"Bubble blast!" Triangle shouted his move as Goldy hit me with a blast of water. It was like a power pressure hose threating to take my skin off.
"Ow! Ow!" I shouted as I turned around so it hit my shield on my back.
"I got you good!" Triangle repeated his words from earlier.
Naiad and her pet bird, Kerry, stayed away from the water play. I was glad to be part of it. Once he was done, I went over to my menu and prepared to the launch the stream.
A system notification popped up.
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[Notifying your 100k subscribers know you are now online.]
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The number of subscribers was a smack in the face harder than the bubble beam attack. I slammed the shutdown command, hoping it would stop soon. It was a stupid habit to launch it every day. Especially since I knew 100 hundred thousand people were watching me to turn me and family in to Pantheon.
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[Your stream has ended. Due to suddenly shutting off your stream just as it started, you will now have to wait thirty minutes before turning it back on. If you immediately shut it down again…]
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The last notification was pointless. I will never turn the stream back on again. I disabled the streaming feature on my program, creating a barrier to prevent a dumb mistake like that happening again. Naiad and Triangle were still in the guild, safe from the Pantheon, but we couldn't sit here like ducks forever. They would get us.
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[Congratulations! You've finally got rid of the old you and are ready to be fully available to your children.. you know, the 14-year-old and 7-year-old. You should've done this YEARS ago.]
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Naiad glowed with a smile on her face and pointed to her full quiver. "I'm all set to go plant this seed."
Kerry grunted out, "You should've planted that demonic seed instead of that other one in the forest. This one excretes the magic and smell of underwood is potent. It could actually create magic."
The game was already trying to sidetrack me. I raised my hand to get their attention. "That is something we need to talk about, but I don't want to risk forgetting. You remember when that uh, 'mean' person showed up yesterday at the herbalist shop?"
Triangle raised his hand to talk. I gave him the go ahead. "Ma'am Q sells fish food."
"Yes, that… I thought she was your herbalist teacher? Wait, hold on answering that question. I need to stay focused. Alcender was the player's name. You helped blow up the shop with him in it. Well, he found us because I was selfish with my gaming stream, and Alcender used it to find me -which put you both in danger. I am so sorry for that."
"Like a water stream?" Triangle inquired.
He walked closer to me, vanishing into the part of my vision I still couldn't see. This might be a permanent debuff at this point.
"Not a water stream. Like a big camera pointing at me in this game, that anyone can hop on and watch the video of. Like a video call to your grandma. A lot of watchers who don't talk to me." I explained. "I was too excited, too proud to shut it down, but now no more and I wish I did it sooner, so you didn't get hurt and I'm sorry."
Squatting down, I saw him in my vision finally, and reached out to hug him. Naiad came over and patted my back.
"Thanks. We're going to have to deal with it. Ready to go then?" Naiad asked.
The words made me feel lighter that she and Triangle were ready to move on. My vision narrowed, focusing only on the loved ones whose faces swam into view; nothing else mattered. "With both you here at my side, yeah, I am."