Alexei! Tell me about your family and/or friends. Any partners? Anyone you hate? Also, what does a typical day look like for you? - @emmettspace
Alexei's usually stoic expression morphs into a small smile as he thinks of his family.
"I used to be only child." he starts, "With mother who died when I was young and father who worked a lot. I was raised by babushka that lived in apartment above us. She was nice, but little bit senile. She died from gas leak when I was twelve. We took in her cat, he was also senile and peed everywhere. I think he missed his babulya. He found his way back to her a year later. I was alone from then on, until at sixteen I had my accident..."
He gestures at his left arm and leg, both of which had been replaced with high-tech prosthetics.
"I wound up in America, California. Now I have many siblings. I can't tell all details, but the woman who helped me get to USA brought me to her friend, Eren. He does robot prosthetic for animals, she thought Eren could help me too. Because I was only sixteen it was easier for me to stay if he adopted me, so he did. He knew how, he'd done it before. Tyler, my first brother. Genius kid who also did robotics and coding. He is same age as me and very smart, made lots of improvements to my left side. They were designed to make me very strong, but they used lot of energy. Tyler almost fixed that. I still use lots of energy for these, but it's not as extreme as before.
'Then we met Sylvester, but he prefers Sly. He is shapeshifter, can turn into animals. We live on big ranch and one day Sly made his home in stable for horses. We thought he was normal cat, but turns out he wasn't. Eren adopted him too. Sly didn't like it at first. We think he was raised by cats, but he warmed up eventually. He doesn't like strangers much, but at least we finally convinced him to eat at the table with everyone.
'I'm making it sound like there's only men at home, but it evens out. Eren's friend who brought me to him, we call her Andy. She lives on ranch too. And Eren has girlfriend, Skye. She was professional home cook he hired before they started dating. Now she cooks for whole family and has his credit card. Her spaghetti with meatballs is my favourite spaghetti with meatballs.
'And lastly our little sister, Keavy. She joined us shortly after Sly did. Her parents died in incident we were involved with—We use our abilities to fight crime, by the way—Eren felt responsible and she was glued to Sly like emotional support cat. She is doing a lot better now, trying to get into vet school. Only cries sometimes because it's not easy to get into vet school. We tease her for it, she puts too much chili in our food. You know, normal stuff."
He shrugs, still smiling.
"I would say my siblings are my friends. Between school and super hero adventures I don't have much energy for friends left. And we're mostly siblings on paper only, but get along like friends? It's hard to put into words. And...I do have partner actually. It's uh...it's Sly. There was no big romantic moment like in the movies, it just gradually happened as he warmed up to us, I guess I also warmed up to him."
He thinks a second about the next question, repeating it quietly to himself.
"Do I hate anyone...?" he murmurs, before shrugging, "Hate is strong word and strong emotion. I don't have enough energy to waste it hating someone, though Tyler has a friend from East Coast who comes close. He is friendly and also very smart, but he always suggests to add weapons to my arm. I never asked to have half my body replaced with machine built for war, why would I want rocket launcher added to that?"
He waves his good hand dismissively, sitting back with a sigh, the joy in his expression and voice earlier now fully gone.
"Typical day..." he wobbles his hand, "It varies. Sometimes lot of pain, no energy, I don't even leave my room. On normal days I wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, come home for lunch, nap, dinner, homework, repeat. Except every other Thursday I also see therapist before school. On good days and weekends I try to exercise also, or help Skye with shopping. She always stops at sandwich shop on the way home and treats us both, which works better than therapy. Either the sandwich or Skye's spaghetti with meatballs, it's strong tie, but both are still better."
He stifles a yawn in his hand.
"Sorry— Was that last question? I need to nap now, we'll talk more next time. Spaciba."
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Shoutout to @illustriousshadow for Tyler's annoying (read: beloved) unnamed friend! All other characters mentioned belong to moi.
Read more about my borg son Alexei, a character from the Heroes series, books 1 & 2 available to read over on @heroescore Tags: superheroes | sci-fi | story driven-whump and more
Big thanks to @emmettspace for the questions, hope you enjoyed the read!