James and Nebula

James jumped at the sound of his phone. Hadn't Nebula smashed it on the wall? He turned his head to see the sphere vibrating. Hesitantly, he grabbed it and started turning it around. Three buttons...and two switches. How does it even work?

As he turned it around, Nebula walked by while eating a handful of seaweed and shrimp, and pressed the middle button. When it stopped vibrating, James figured he must have answered. He continued turning it, trying to find the microphone.

Eventually, his mother's voice rang out clearly. <Jamie? Are you there?>

Might as well try. "Y-yeah, sorry uh...new phone. I'm still...getting used to it."

<Are you sitting down?>

"Yeah but now I'm worried..."

He heard her take a deep breath. <Honey...your sister is pregnant.>

"...What?!"

<We're certain we know the father...>

"I don't know if I like where this is headed.

<Archie is...the only uh...man...that she's been with in more than a year.>

"That's possible?!"

The next shock came from Nebula, who let out a triumphant sounding, "Hah!", before covering his mouth with wide eyes.

"...WHAT?!"

<James, who is that?>

Nebula sighed. "Well, that's out now...sorry. I got excited about being right." James couldn't help noticing he sounded like a snarky kid, though he had the trademark vibrating Novaxan voice.

"You...but...when?!"

Nebula waved the question away. "Doesn't matter. Ma'am, could you keep the pregnancy confirmation and bring that and your daughter here in three days? That's when alpha will be here next."

<Oh, James, you didn't teach this one too...>

"No!"

Nebula interrupted, "No, I taught myself. Let's focus here, okay? Alpha will be here then, and it's the best time to tell him."

<I...don't really understand but we had already planned on being there for the check-in I suppose...>

"Good! See you then, miss.", Nebula said cheerfully and hung up. James stared at him for a while. He flickered yellow and blue. "...Look if this is about-"

"You can speak english. And we've been struggling. And you could have just made it easy...the entire time."

"In my defense...the last Nova you talked to went through hell."

"How is that my fault?!"

"You should have called someone."

"She'd have gone back to those people!"

"No, alpha would have asked why she ran, they would share hearts like they did, and you wouldn't both be trying to keep yourselves together like broken morons...even if you are."

"Excuse me?"

"And now I'm stuck in the middle of my entire pod looking at me for their future and forsaking my only living family member, or helping my sister un-break herself with you and telling my pod to go spawn."

"Hey, now."

"So sit back while I help you fix each other, and hopefully keep my pod from letting themselves die out in the process.", Nebula finished with an arrogant scoff and grabbed the television remote. He fumbled with it before figuring it out, swapping through channels soon after.

James sat back, processing everything as best he could.