Lynx never thought of himself as particularly sentimental, but after his mother's death he finds himself uncomfortable in his childhood home. He wants a fresh start, and as luck would have it a few properties have recently come up for sale. He ends up moving into the house next door.
The colorful little kitchen is cramped, compared to what Lynx grew up with, and so are the four bedrooms...
...but the living room is open enough for this impressive gaming setup.
Mariposa, who invited herself in and doesn't seem to want to leave, is quite vocal about hating it. She was attached to the old house.
"You should get new furniture at least! This stuff was left by the previous owner. It could be haunted! Plaid means haunted," she rambles angrily.
Lynx pulls her into a hug and smiles suggestively. "But this couch is bigger and comfier than my parents'..."
Mariposa places her hand between his legs. "Well... if it makes you happy, I can try to get used to it. Like, no promises or anything."
The work placement program for Sim Nation foster kids shuffled Mariposa into a career as cleaning staff... at the hospital. So that's a potential disaster Lynx doesn't want to think about.
The science and medical buildings are a joint rabbithole in Aurora Skies.
Mariposa shows up for work at the crack of dawn, without fail, but sometimes forgets what she's supposed to be wearing.
"Do you know they have science labs in here?" she asks nobody, as she does a final circle around the building before she can enter. Her morning ritual.
"Of course," Sanna Warbler responds cheerfully as she exits her own carpool. "I'm a receptionist at Landgraab Industries. Do you have a question about our labs?"
Mariposa doesn't even look at her. "They run fish-robot cross breeding experiments in the same building where they deliver babies."
"Ssssort of," Sanna says carefully, "but definitely not in the same room. We have very safe procedures. You don't need to worry!"
"Yeah, I'm going to expose all of this illegal sim experimentation. That's the only reason I accepted this shitty job cleaning bed pans. I think Fish Kid was born right here in Aurora Skies."
"Oh," Sanna says blandly, as she inches away. "Okay."
Mariposa finally glances at Sanna. "You look different, Mina."
"Mina is my sister," Sanna clarifies.
Lynx works here at Cuisine & Contracts, as established.
He couldn't afford a car, but he doesn't want to ride bicycles his whole life like his parents did, so he has this... thing... now, instead.
Every evening he gets home to find Mariposa has let herself in, despite him locking all the doors and windows. He's not sure how she keeps doing this, but at least she has hot mac'n'cheese waiting for him.
He can't make himself call the cops on someone who made him dinner.
It would just seem rude.
There are other, very tangible benefits of not calling the cops.
They piss away most afternoons gaming.
Lynx fills up the downstairs study with arcade cabinets.
Mariposa thinks skilling logic will help her advance in her career.
"People have made it from bed pan cleaner to world renowned surgeon before," she says.
Lynx types away at his computer, coding new things. Always coding. He's been promoted a few times already, having gone from game tester to programmer in short order, and is angling to be technical director someday. "No they haven't," he says.
She rolls her eyes. "Why is this stupid fox rug in here?"
"It's my programming den, I can have whatever the hell I want in here."
"It's just, you moved out of your perfectly good family home so you could have a fresh start, but you took STUFF from the home. So it's not very fresh."
"It comforts me. It was my nursery rug." Lynx is comfortable saying things to Mariposa that he wouldn't be comfortable telling any other person.
"Stupid, crafty fox... thinks it's better than me..." she grumbles.
Maybe he should just get a dog instead. Dogs listen.
Managing a household alone blows. Things in the fridge are always going rotten. Bills need to be paid. The bathrooms needs to be cleaned. Two bathrooms instead of one bathroom seemed like such a great selling point for this house, but battling mold has become Lynx's nightmare.
"T'ch. Move over. You're useless," Mariposa tells him, when the dishwasher breaks and he's at a total loss as to how to deal with it.
She squats down and begins repairing the thing. Lynx wants to have respect for this, but mainly he's staring at the all too pleasant curve of her rear end.
"You gotta know how to handle these things," she says, "you know, for survival situations. You never know when you might get stranded in the woods. Out there beyond the lakes? That's an area not fit for sim habitation. You have to be prepared."
Lynx's eyes go half-lidded. "Prepared for all the feral packs of dishwashers roaming the wilds?"
"Yes dumbass. It'd be a good idea if you prepared. I don't want the future father of my children getting electrocuted by a stray dishwasher."
"Children? Father of your children? Who is this man?" Lynx glances at the giant box of instant ramen on the counter. "Surely not the guy who subsists off of ramen and mac'n'chee."
"Two types of noodle is better than one," she says. "Always diversify your portfolio."
"Just so we're clear, I would make a bad father and you would make a bad mother."
Mariposa glares over her shoulder at him. "I would make a great mother."
Sometimes Brooke Valstrom comes over to game. She and Lynx had a lot in common as childhood friends, and they have both ended up in the same career as game developers. So what looks like trash talking each other here is... um... work research???
Lynx just hates it when Brooke talks about her boyfriend. She's still with Chen Ahere, who is still a petty, jealous slob with raging insecurity issues. Brooke talks endlessly about his filthy habits around their apartment, and about his overbearing family, and about how she has to lie about hanging out with only female coworkers or Chen will go nuclear... and yet she wants to marry this guy.
"You're beautiful and you could do better," Lynx grumbles.
"He has good qualities," Brooke brushes off Lynx's concerns.
Maybe Chen Ahere does have good qualities. Maybe they are enough to outweigh the bad. Maybe Lynx is getting an unclear picture of Brooke and Chen's relationship because Brooke is just venting in what she thinks is a safe space. She never goes into any detail about how good he is, but she has endless stories about how big of a jerk he is.
Apparently she broke up with him more than once, and he always won her back with grand gestures of love even though his initial reactions were to tell her she was unworthy of love and nothing without him. Things he did not really mean, Brooke clarifies. Things he said in anger.
"It's like he's always trying to isolate me. He has all these elaborate plans about what to do in our free time, so like I never have any unless I lie to him about needing to do stuff for work..."
Lynx glowers at his controller. "You know this guy is a bunch of red flags, right? Why are you lying to him? Why are you lying to anyone? Do what you want, and he can deal with it."
"I love him," Brooke says. "I don't want to hurt him."
Lynx knows exactly how that feels, because he wants to call Brooke an idiot right now, but he doesn't because he loves her and he doesn't want to hurt her.
_____________________________________________
Etc.: Do you like Lynx's new house? I downloaded it from here.
