Family Newman

The world reassembled itself around John exactly the way it had been when he had made the barrier, only darker. His phone went off several times in succession as soon as John fell back into reality, crashing every train of thought he had. Checking it would have to wait, however; the kitchen light was on and John didn’t want his parents to see him in the state he was in. Something told him that tattered pants, shoeless, armored, and covered in blood was a bad look to be caught in. Thankfully, his neighbors were not the nosey sort.

John bolted for the left side of the house; it had only one window on the first floor, the bathroom, and it was dark. More importantly, this side had the garden hose. Stealth ticked on, easing John’s concerns as he tentatively reached for the spigot. He turned it slowly to avoid the handle squeaking, just enough to get a gentle flow, and picked up the hose to aim at his face.

The stream of water was a bracing shock to his system, absolutely frigid from the January chill. Still, it was a welcome cold, one that washed the fatigue away with the dirt and sweat of the last hour or so. He drank too, several mouthfuls of icy cold that he could feel run down his throat, every bit as refreshing as the bottled water commercials claimed their brand was. Who knew that ordinary water could be so invigorating after so much physical exertion? Most people, really, but John had made a habit of avoiding such things for most of his life.

A few splashes of water later, John turned the hose off and took stock of his appearance. The pants and shirt were ruined, but re-equipping his blazer covered the worst of the shirt’s bloodstains, and his shoes were fine after a little dusting. All of his injuries had disappeared despite his single digit hp, and a quick check with his phone’s camera showed that his hair was only slightly more of a mess than usual. Overall, he looked passable, provided he stood behind waist high objects.

If life was a cover based shooter, I’d be in the clear.

Cleanup done and phone already in hand, he decided to check what all the notifications were about. Curiously, he had a bunch of texts and two missed calls: one from his mother, the rest from Liam. While all of the texts were from Liam, it was the call that roused his suspicions the most; Liam never called. John’s friend was of the mindset that phone calls of any kind were terrible and awkward experiences to be avoided at all costs. Even when receiving a call, he’d most often let it pass and text immediately after rather than pick up. John didn’t know of anything short of an emergency that qualified as an exception to this rule.

[Liam S.]: hey got a sec?

[Liam S.]: hey

[Liam S.]: hey

[Liam S.]: dude

[Liam S.]: dude where are you?

[Liam S.]: answer your damn phone

[Liam S.]: (ᕤಠ益ಠ)ᕤ

[Liam S.]: whenever you get this

[Liam S.]: if anyone asks

[Liam S.]: i was with you tonight okay?

[Liam S.]: no questions

[Liam S.]: text me when you stop jacking off

[Liam S.]: wash your hands first

I know I’ve been having a grand, magical adventure in my backyard, but what trouble would you possibly get into? What the hell would you need an alibi for?

Now that I think about it... I just disappeared for over an hour. I probably need one too.

[John N.]: sorry, some shit came up.

[Liam S.]: ( •̀д•́)

[Liam S.]: FINALLY!

[John N.]: your secret is safe with me, whatever it is.

[John N.]: just do the same for me? I was with you tonight.

[Liam S.]: k

[Liam S.]: but we have to talk

[John N.]: can it be tomorrow? I’m tired af

[Liam S.]: yeah me too

[John N.]: cool

“I’ll just add that to the schedule tomorrow,” John sighed. “Right between getting interrogated by Wentworth and being scolded by Moira. I don’t know what for, but I’m sure she’ll find a reason.”

Stealth ended as John unlocked the door and stepped into his unusually dark house. The kitchen was the only room with any lights on, and not even the main ones at that. Only the lamps hanging over the kitchen table illuminated Brenda Newman sitting below, nursing a lowball glass of amber liquid in one hand. She looked up at the sound of the open door in a mildly panicked surprise before switching to a blatantly **** smile. John pretended not to notice the half empty bottle of bourbon she slid behind her purse, but he could feel something heavy settling down inside his chest.

“John, you’re home!” she said with a curious mix of relief and anxiety. “I didn’t know you were out. Where have you been?”

Thoughts of heading to his room immediately and changing crumbled away at the sight. John knelt to pick up his backpack from where he’d left it earlier that evening and held it in front of his waist before walking down the hall.

“Sorry, I was at Liam’s,” he lied. “I had headphones in, so I only realized you called when I was already on my way home.”

Brenda nodded absentmindedly but said nothing. John fidgeted. The atmosphere was dominated by the elephant in the room, or rather, the lack of one. Both Newmans broke eye contact and silence fell over them, both hoping the other had nothing more to say. Only the gentle hum of the refrigerator broke the quiet, almost deafening in its isolation.

“Mom?” John looked back to his mother. “Where’s Dad?”

Brenda met her son’s eyes fleetingly. In that brief moment John could see how bloodshot and puffy they were, smudged with hastily removed mascara. It seized his heart.

“Korea,” she all but whispered. Her eyes fell back to her drink. “He’s not coming home today- or tomorrow.”

“What?” John rushed to the table and dropped his bag. “What happened? I thought everything was going great?”

“It was,” Brenda scoffed, emphasis on ‘was.’ “Dad was at the airport when he got an emergency call from the CEO himself. Something happened, Jeongsoft wanted to cancel their end of the deal just as it was being finalized.”

“Oh, shit.” John’s eyebrows rose. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Brenda swirled her glass, listless. “Something to do with a lousy handshake and red ink. You know how Jeongsoft is, they’re ridiculously traditional.”

“Okay, so he’s doing some last minute renegotiating, right?” John felt that was not the case, but he could hope. “We’ll have him back in, what, a week or two?”

There was a pause as Brenda closed here eyes and shook her head.

“Four months.”

“What!?” John’s hands hit the table, stunned. “Four months? That’d make him gone almost a year! Why the hell do they need him for four months?”

“Because,” Brenda sighed, “he was only able to salvage the deal by agreeing to be the project manager.”

“Why Dad? That’s not even what he does!” John shouted, as if his mother had any control over the decision.

“Because your father is too damn good at his job,” Brenda said, flat. She gripped her glass tight and downed the remainder of her drink in one gulp. “They said he’s the only one who respects their company enough to do it. It’s him or no one.”

John’s chest swelled with a discordant storm of emotions: anger at the company for being so rigid and the guy who fucked up, but also at his father for accepting, even as he drifted in the grief of their continued separation. John missed his dad, he was the only person in his life who had never spoken to him with that look of pity in their eyes. It was a look he knew well, the one that said a person saw past how pathetic he was. He appreciated it, really, but looking past his wretched existence meant they acknowledged it. Only his father never showed the slightest sign that he pitied John, not from lack of caring but from some sort of paternal virtue that John could not understand.

His eyes felt hot but shed no tears; his mother had already cried enough for the both of them.

“That’s,” he muttered. “That’s not fair. What about us? He has a family, they have to know that, right? So why do they keep taking him away? Why does he keep saying yes!?”

John heard a shuffling and felt his mother’s hands wrap around his. He fidgeted, worried on top of everything else that she might see his legs if she leaned any further across the table. With a sharp inhale, he raised his gaze to finally meet her eyes again.

“I know,” Brenda hushed. “I know, believe me, I know. But don’t think for one second that your father works so hard because he doesn’t want to be here, he loves you as much as I do. Everything he does is so we can live the life we do, in a city as great as Springfield.”

“We do live a nice life- without him,” John griped. “Is it really worth it?”

“Listen, Johnny. Neither of us knew how involved it would be, but before he got this job, when you were just a baby, we lived paycheck to paycheck with three jobs between us, in a basement apartment, with debt up to our eyeballs. I miss my husband, but I don’t miss that.”

“It’s still not fair.”

“No, it’s not, but,” the hints of a smile crept onto Brenda’s face as she talked, “there is some good news. Dad was already getting a bonus for this job, but now they’ve quadrupled it, and that’s on top of the paycheck he’ll be getting. We need to do a little math, but when Dad gets home, we think he might be able to retire.”

A tiny flutter of joy snuck into the still turbulent mess inside John.

“You serious?”

“Absolutely.” Brenda nodded.

John tempered his expectations. This was not the first time he’d hoped to keep his dad home for good, no reason to set himself up for disappointment again.

“I am somehow skeptical,” he replied dryly. Brenda squeezed his hands.

“It’s a very big bonus, John.”

“Uh huh.” John looked askance.

Brenda sighed.

“I don’t blame you. It’s just a possibility, but it’s a good one. I want him back too, you know; I kinda swore to spend the rest of my life with him after all.” Brenda smiled and held up her wedding band.

John wasn’t so sure his father was holding up his end of that bargain but smiled back anyway.

“Just a few more months, John,” his mother reassured. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

Somehow the conversation had gone from him worrying about her to her soothing him. He felt inadequate as a son; his mother had taken care of him but he wasn’t there to prevent her from drowning her sorrows in a bottle. John let go and stepped around the table to do the one thing he felt he could do to make up for it, pants be damned. He wrapped his mother in a hug and squeezed her tight.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Johnny.”

Brenda was still smiling when they let go, despite a bit of fresh moisture around her eyes. She grabbed John by the shoulders and made an attempt to swing things back to an everyday atmosphere.

“Okay, enough of that. Did you eat at Liam’s? We’ve got some leftovers I can throw together if you’re hungry.”

He was starving.

“Yeah, I ate,” John lied, again. For now he just wanted his mom to be able to relax; he’d sneak something to eat later. That and he still needed to get away from her before she looked down. He slunk around the table again and lifted his bag. “I should probably do my homework; it might take me awhile.”

“I’m sure it won’t.” Brenda smirked. “Not with your brain. You’ll be on your computer playing Warsmash or whatever within an hour.”

“Tonight might be a little different.” John smiled back. “I’m gonna get to it.”

“Good luck slaying the dragon!” Brenda called after him as he trotted down the hall. He stopped halfway up the stairs and leaned over the railing to listen. He heard Brenda sigh and the scrape of glass over the countertop. He held for a silent moment longer before he heard the quiet thunks of the cabinet opening and shutting. John released his breath in relief; he had one less thing to worry about.

John nudged open his door and stumbled over to his bed to collapse on top of it. He sank into the quilt and spent a few moments trying to figure out which thoughts to process first. Eventually, one dominated the others and he sat up.

I really need to pee.

One trip to the bathroom and a much needed shower later, John was back on his bed, clad in a t-shirt and fresh boxers.The shirt was a crappy old hand-me-down from his dad, a concert shirt from the 80’s for some time-forgotten hair metal band. It wasn’t something he’d ever wear outside, but it was perfect for sleeping in.

The shower had given John some time to think: about his day, about his powers, and about what had just happened. He’d set aside his unresolved feelings concerning his father and focused on his mom. It was rare that she drank, let alone at home, let alone… alone. John couldn’t remember much of it himself, but she had admitted during the Newman family’s obligatory **** and **** talk that she’d had a brush with alcoholism when John was younger. She hadn’t been used to Dad being gone so much yet and raising a wildly imaginative kid alone had taken a toll on her. It was supposedly something resolved and buried years ago, but tonight considered, maybe it was only mostly buried.

John sighed. Today he had gained magic powers, been scared shitless by two different women, gotten laid after giving ****, scared shitless again by Moira’s father and his creepy butler, then almost died fighting some horny Kobolds. At no point until the fight with Lazakall had John even remotely considered what it would all mean for his mom; he was too busy swallowing the reality of it for himself. Now it was all he could think about: having to lead a double life, hidden even from his own mother. There was no way he would turn around now and give up on his promise to save June, but learning that her son was going to fight literal demons to rescue his art instructor would give Brenda a heart attack. She couldn’t know, not for a long, long time.

How hard can it really be though? All I have to do is not die, right?

John sighed.

I’m going to need to learn how to fight.

If there was anything John had learned from his first Boss battle, it was that he had been and still was woefully unprepared for combat. He couldn’t spend the rest of his adventuring days chucking books and cum-soaked rags at his enemies, not if he intended to survive fighting someone who wasn’t a sex obsessed lizard. Hopefully the teacher Moira’s dad had promised would be able to show him a thing or two, and with any luck his powers would mean that learning wouldn’t require much physical exertion. He doubted it, however; the Goddess seemed to enjoy watching him struggle.

The secondary concern on that front was John’s lack of combat Skills. He had one, Sneak Attack, but it was neither reliable nor reusable. John tapped listlessly on his list of Skills and Spells in review. He had a lot of utility in his repertoire, but what he needed was a consistent source of DPS and none of them helped. Checking seemed pointless, but John’s attention snapped back into place when he reached Observe. Tapping it had opened a window he’d never seen before.

“Okay then, what’s this?”

Displayed before him was a list of names and items. Each of them, he realized, was someone or something he had used Observe on today; the goth girl on the bus, his ring, Moira, Wentworth’s letter, Lazakall, and everything in between were all listed along with a timestamp. Surprisingly, Wentworth’s entry was even more glitched to hell than it had been earlier, and June’s was missing. He frowned when he found it nested with Nazrinn’s, a reminder that he had not actually seen June in person since before winter break, at the earliest. Regardless, the most curious thing was Moira’s listing. It had an extra entry.

-
Moira Brighton
Level 17 Human Paladin
[Warden of the Golden Rose]
The Shield Warden of the Golden Rose, in training. A taciturn and blunt girl who sometimes struggles to contain her emotions despite years of strict discipline. Hopes to one day be worthy of the role passed on to her by her mother.
RP: 6
-

John’s brow furrowed. He had only Observed her twice, and both were before he had unlocked the target summary. On top of that, her RP was different and a few of her status effects were missing. For a moment, John was concerned for his memory.

Hang on… is this live?

As if to confirm John’s suspicion, her RP score briefly flickered between 5 and 6 right before his eyes. John blinked to be sure and scrolled through the list of entries, none of which had a similar readout. Why did Moira, and only Moira, have a live stream? And why was her RP in the positives? Her demeanor towards him hadn’t changed much after the meeting. If anything, she seemed upset at the fact that Lord Brighton liked him- according to her, at least. John still didn’t buy it.

Oh yeah, the quest I got said it would raise my RP with members of her order. I guess that procced when I completed it.

The mystery deepened when John opened his quest log; the quest was not complete. That made no sense, John had gone to their house and talked to the leaders of the Order directly. How could that possibly not count towards the objective? John tapped the window a few times as if it would remind the quest to complete itself, which it did not. He groaned. If the quest wanted to be specific about what it wanted, the least it could do was to have more detailed objectives. John hoped the open-ended nature of his quests for Vanessa and Frank weren’t so uncooperative; he was really looking forward to completing them. The thought reminded him that he had never actually looked at the rewards. They hadn’t mattered at the time, the objective was its own reward, but now he was curious.

-
<Quest>
Dethrone the Bitch Queen
Humiliate Vanessa Hawthorne in front of an audience.

+$1,000
+2 CHA
+10% Penis length
+200 EXP
-

John’s mouth fell open in disbelief.

“A thousand bucks!?”

John lurched into a sitting position. One thousand dollars as a reward for doing something he wanted to do anyway. He’d have to work full time for over a month to get that kind of money, but the quest would just hand it to him the instant he fulfilled the requirements! The more modest reward of fifty bucks from Frank’s quest did little to dampen the shock; Vanessa’s alone was enough to fund his gaming for months to come. John daydreamed for a while about how many games he could buy, or if instead he wanted to pick up a new video card or processor, maybe a liquid cooling system. Thinking about it, John remembered that he had made nine hundred dollars in one day, mostly through completing a low-level instance.

If this is the kind of money I’m getting at the start, what kind of insane amounts am I going to get by endgame? This is fucking awesome!

The thought of never actually having to work a day in his life cleared away all of John’s lingering doubts and frustrations. Sure, fighting monsters was work in a technical sense, but it beat the hell out of being a mindless office drone or a retail wage ****. After all, it was the kind of stuff he pretended to do for fun, what better way to make a living could he ask for?

John’s excitement soon fell away to exhaustion. It was late and he’d just had the most harrowing day of his life; it was little wonder that his arms and legs had begun to feel like lead the moment he stopped using them. John yawned, closed his windows, and rolled over. He could do his homework on the bus tomorrow, sleep demanded it to be so.