Yeah, My Fridge Broke {Tink}

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink smiled excitedly when Marceline said that she had used the internet before. Sure, it sounded like it had been a while, but really, could it have changed that much? A wheel was still a wheel rather it was made of rock, wood, or rubber. She then noticed the dark-haired woman looking around as if expecting to find a computer magically sitting there. The blonde woman shook her head. “No, I don’t have a computer here. I don’t think either of my housemates has one either. I’ve never really spoken to them, so I don’t really know. But maybe…” The words trailed off as Tink started pushing on her talking device. She knew from her trips to the mainland in recent years that some cell phones had internet access, and her device did look an awful lot like a cell phone. Unfortunately, after several moments of pushing buttons and searching about, she came up empty. “It’s no good. We’ll have to go to the library and use the computers there.”

Feeling somewhat anxious about actually leaving the house, Tink patted her hair and looked down at what she was wearing. She was an absolute mess! It was a wonder Marceline hadn’t said anything. Her hair was a massive bird nest, her cheap, white t-shirt was stained with pizza sauce and cherry juice, and if she was totally honest with herself, she kinda smelled. All of these things had gone mostly unnoticed in her recent depressed state, but now that she was going outside in public…. Well, she wanted to look presentable. “Uh, I’ll just go freshen up a bit before we go.” She blushed with embarrassment. “You can put your stuff in the fridge, and I’ll meet you in the front yard in ten minutes, okay?” Rather than wait for an answer, she rushed off, practically running out of the kitchen.

In her room, Tink took a quick shower and washed and brushed her hair. Then, she put on her cheap, blue jean shorts and a cheap, green t-shirt, followed by her green pixie shoes. Then, she was running through the house again, checking that all the lights were off and that all the windows were locked. She also cleaned up the kitchen a bit, downing the last of her water, putting the glass in the sink, and putting back what hadn’t been used. Then she patted her pockets, making sure she had everything she needed. House keys? Check. Talking device? Check. Then she was locking the front door and stepping outside for the first time in at least a few days. She walked over to Marceline with a smile on her face. “Okay, let’s go,” she said with an excited little bounce.

[Marceline Abadeer]

No computer? That was weird. Though, admittedly, Marceline wasn't completely positive that she had a computer at her house. It really wasn't her thing, even with the potential to buy things online, and she still was roommate-less, at least for the time being. Marceline was hoping to get stuck with another transient or something. Fate was usually kinder to her than most; probably because Fate had enough fun playing around with other characters, err, people or something.

And yeah, Marceline had sort of noticed the grungy look, but she'd also known that she'd essentially barged in on someone else's house. Marceline didn't always look her best when she lounged around the house. Heck, even now she looked slightly disheveled, with basic jeans and t-shirt herself. Wasn't like the two of them were about to go on a date or Tink was some sort of princess. Marceline simply nodded at the comment, though the time frame did made her chuckle. "Ten minutes? Man, and I thought I was quick," she drawled. She sucked another cherry before moving to stash the rest of her goods away.

Ten minutes. With that much time, Marceline probably could have scoped the place out a little more. She was half-considering it anyway. The girl seemed slightly out of it, and those people were always the ones with interesting stuff squirreled away. In the end, the only reason Marceline didn't opt for snooping was the whole favor thing. Bad tact to abandon someone who was doing you a solid and all. So instead the musician simply waited by the front door, humming and singing under her breath while Tink prepped.

"Oh yeah, that's definitely better," said Marceline, her tone teasing, suggesting both truth and sarcasm at once. The vampire queen simply smiled and gestured for Tink to follow. Like Marceline really knew where the library was; she wasn't some kind of egghead.

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink smiled a bit shyly at Marceline’s comment, her cheeks turning a soft rosy pink in slight embarrassment. Of course, it was clear that the other woman was just teasing, so she didn’t comment on it. Instead, she fell into step beside her as they walked down the street. She had no idea where the library was. She hadn’t even been at Tenebrae a week yet, and she spent most of her time in her room. Marceline seemed to know where she was going though, so Tink was perfectly happy to walk along and enjoy the company.

Wallking through the new town made her remember how she had first come to Pixie Hollow. She’d been greeted by her fellow tinkers who had taken her to her new home, pointing out things of interest along the way. None of that had happened here. Once the suits had questioned her, they’d left her alone to sort out herself. She felt lucky she hadn’t gotten lost on her way to her house, but now that she was exploring the town, she felt very curious about what was around her. She kept expecting Marceline to give her a tour or at least point stuff out to her. When none of this happened, the former fairy started to wonder about the other girl. “So have you been in Tenebrae very long?” Her talking device said after she typed in it for a moment. She feelt it was a harmless question, just something light to break the silence. “I haven’t been here long, not even a week, and most of that has been spent in my house.”

Although Tink didn’t say why she’d spent the time in her house, she felt it would be easy to guess. To be honest, she was afraid of this new world. Sure, she’d been to the mainland plenty of times, and it was very much like this. In fact, she thought this must be the mainland, and that was what made her afraid. The mainland was nothing like Neverland. While she didn’t like to discuss it, Tink had seen the darker side of the mainland. Screams in the night, fires blazing wildly, and even people hurting other people. Part of the reason she didn’t want to leave her house was that she was worried something bad might happen to her. She had only left today because of Marceline. The dark-haired woman seemed strong and confident to her, and she felt safe walking beside her.

[Marceline Abadeer]

It hadn't even occurred to Marceline to do any tour-guiding, not that she had the knowledge to do so. If so, she probably would have given a world class tour, accuracy not guaranteed. Instead, the lanky girl opted to shove her hands into the pockets of her jeans and whistle a tune, clearly enjoying life and strolling alongside a cute little blonde. And why wouldn't she?

Still, Marceline looked over at Tink at the question. She ended up chuckling shortly after though, nodding. "Sounds like you've probably been here longer than me. I got dropped in a few days ago, give or take. They all kinda run together," Marceline rose her hands up, intertwining the fingers and staring at the mess for a few seconds before nodding. "But I'm a quick learner: I'll have this place down in no time."

Marceline paused then, considering. "So neither of us really knows where we're going, right? You wouldn't have, like, super gadget finding powers or an awesome intuition, would you?" asked Marceline, turning to look at Tink. "Cuz if not, we'll have to rely on my luck ,and that's only, like, sixty percent accurate, give or take about forty percent."

A fangy smile punctuated that last remark.

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Okay, so neither of them knew where they were going. This wasn’t really a bad thing. As stated previously, Tink had rarely left her house since arriving in Tenebrae. She was actually amazed by how picture perfect and neat everything was. At least, she was for the first half hour. After that, she started trudging along as her feet started to ache. Now, she really missed flying. Normally, she’d be able to just zip around for long distances. Here in Tenebrae? No, she was expected to walk. She sighed and lifted her head, looking around her at where they were. As she did so, she saw a woman about their age walking not too far from them, and she had a book. Books came from libraries, right? Maybe the woman was going to the library. The young blonde woman nudged the dark-haired one and pointed at the woman with the book. She paused for a moment to type a message into her talking device. “Let’s follow her,” the device chirped after she pressed the SAY button. “Maybe she’s going to the library.”

Without waiting for a response, Tink started walking after the woman. Luckily, the woman had walked further away, so it wasn’t that obvious that they were following her. Also luckily, they’d only been following her for about five minutes when she walked into a building. In front of the building was a sign that read Tenebrae Library Public Entrance. Tink smiled proudly, glad that her plan had worked. She was a little put off though by the size of the library. It seemed to be absolutely massive. Still, a library was a library, and she was glad they’d finally found this one.

Feeling tired after her long walk, Tinkerbell went into the library wearily and breathed a huge sigh of relief as the cool, air conditioned air hit her hot face. She instantly moved towards a bank of computers and sat down. As she was walking towards them though, she saw some doors with a sign next to them that read Library School Exit Students and Staff Only. Oh, so this just wasn’t a library. It was also a school. She filed that information away and focused on the task at hand.

true to her word, Tink did know how to use the computer. Unfortunately, knowing how to do something and having done something before were not the same thing. It took the former fairy at least ten minutes to find the website called Tenebrae Online Shopping: Find everything you can’t find at the mall!. Once she found it though, it was easy to type in vintage fridges into the search bar. Soon, she was staring at a long list of vintage style fridges; some were even brand new. She clicked on a selection and turned to face Marceline, her expression clearly and innocently asking the other woman what she thought. There was a bit of a miscievious twinkle in her eye though. The fridge in question was actually very bright orange, and if her clothes were anything to go by, orange was not Marceline’s color. Tink’s shoulders shook with suppressed giggles at her little joke.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline too noticed the bookworm, though she half-dismissed the boring girl after a first glance. The vampire had been there, done that, and there was really only one bookworm she was at all interested in engaging with on any level. When Tinkerbell made her suggestion, however, the lights went on for Marceline as well. The fangy grin returned and the vampire was soon nodding and motioning for Tink to take off. Not that the cute little blonde needed Marcy's indication, given how she just sort of took off. Again: Marceline was hardly complaining. It gave her quite a nice few of a cute little thing hurrying off, and who couldn't watch that for some time?

The vampire did catch up soon enough, hurrying to the library. that thought alone made Marceline chuckle. "I usually avoid these nerdy places. Of course, my ex is usually hanging out at them. Or a lab, so, yeah, that's probably why," Marceline dragged her eyes over the building. She was half tempted to mention that she'd sort of picked up most of what she really needed to know anyway. That happened when you were as old as she was. In fact, she was pretty sure that she'd lived in a library for a while,  but there were a few centuries that got a little fuzzy.

They were in soon enough, and Marceline helped locate the computer with great speed. She still wasn't entirely used to the machines here, since the ones in Ooo were decidedly different (in fact, Marceline couldn't quite remember off-hand if there were any besides BIMO that worked anymore), but she knew enough to locate. Marceline's main task was to stand behind Tink and let the blonde work through things anyway. There was still a bit of a fangy smile at the name of the internet shopping network. Man, were they desperate to make sure that they didn't get access to anything in the outside world. What was really odd though was that they were still pulling merchandise from outside Tenebrae. After all, wasn't like they had an unlimited quantity of this stuff, and they certainly weren't pulling vintage fridges from the fairly new development. Struck Marcy as a way of looking into the outside world. That barely interested the lackadaisical vampire though: she was quite happy here. So long as she got a steady inflow of food and guitar strings, she was cool.

Not so cool with the fridge selection though: "Yeah, pastels aren't really my thing," half a lie, but she wasn't about to dig. "They got anything in dull colors? Or, I unno, silver or something? Steel gray maybe," Marceline clicked her tongue against her teeth before leaning over, purposefully causing as much bodily contact with Tink as possible. the vampire clearly knew more about working a computer than she'd let on though: she worked the mouse with practiced skill.

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink sighed. Apparently, her attempt to joke around with Marceline had failed. It didn't bother her, not really. She usually didn't joke around. Maybe it was because she didn't get most jokes, like Sil's dew drop joke. Tink rolled her eyes at the memory. It hadn't even been a good joke. She felt certain that if someone told a good joke, she would laugh. Enough about jokes though. Marceline had obviously not noticed her joke, and that was that.

Tink had let go of the mouse as Mareceline leaned forward. She watched as the other woman scrolled through the fridges. Yes, she noticed the physical contact, but it didn't really have any effect on her. She just thought she was in the way, so she scooted over a bit. As a fairy, she never really felt any level of physical attraction to anyone, usually all you got was a kind of emotional attachment. It seemed the same was true here in Tenebrae, at least she had yet to meet anyone who made her heart flutter just based on looks.

While Marceline was looking at the fridge colors and styles, Tink was looking at what was wrong with them. A few times, she saw one that could be easily fixed, only to discover that the color was wrong. She was about to suggest that Marcy could look on her own and just call her back when she found something. Tink hadn't been to the library yet, but now that she was here she kept thinking about Helena telling her about a certain book. She could go look for it and come back when Marceline had found something she liked. That was when Tink saw a fridge that might work. It was a dull copper color but brightly polished, and the only thing wrong with it was a broken thermostat. That should be fairly easy to fix. She pointed at the fridge, her expression hopeful.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline could sense Tink's ill-ease. It wasn't as though the fairy was being too overt about it or anything, but the vampire had spent several centuries around people. At least a portion of that had been spent bothering and pestering people to see what kind of reactions she could get, and Marcy had definitely learned to notice the signs. Fidgeting, looking annoyed, they were all there. So the vampire knew she'd have to wrap things up pretty soon even before the fairy outright pointed.

The vampire followed the fairy's suggestion, her eyes locking. Nice color, apparently it didn't have much wrong with it. At least, Marceline assumed that the one thing wasn't that much; she wasn't the expert here. But if the fairy girl had said as much, then it was probably true.

"What, you like that one?" asked Marceline. She clicked her tongue on her teeth and gave a wiggle. "I dunno; we could still spend, like, a couple more hours browsing and stuff..."

She let it hang for a few moments, her eyes flicking to Tink every few hearbeats. Eventually, the vampire chuckled. "It's cool. That one looks totally math, and if you can fix it, then let's do this thing," Marceline nodded and moved back, figuring she could let Tink do the whole buying thing or something. Who was paying for this anyway? Well, Marcy was pretty sure she could afford a broken fridge, if she had to...

[Lillian Tinkerbell]

Tink made a face at Marceline complete with sticking her tongue out at the dark-haired woman. It wasn't so much that she was annoyed. It was just... well, she hadn't really gotten used to Tenebrae yet, and she wasn't sure about how to feel. This whole outing was taking a lot longer than she'd thought it would. Sure, they hadn't been at the library long, but it had taken them ages to find it. Marceline was only kidding around though, and Tink gave her a tentative smile when she said the fridge was cool.

Then the former fairy was back in control of the mouse. She thought this was kinda weird. Wouldn't Marceline want to finalise payment and stuff herself? After all, it was her new fridge. It wasn't like Tink was going to pay for something she'd never use. She was just fixing it as a favor because she was kinda getting bored. Normally, she'd probably charge people to have her fix their stuff. She'd been given a job at the repair shop in the mall, and that was kinda the same thing. Still, she assumed Marceline already knew this. She also assumed that the other woman had seen the price tag of $200, so she just clicked on the BUY NOW button.

This lead to a new page, which read:

PAYMENT OPTIONS

Here at Tenebrae Online Shopping we value convenience above all else. Rather than pay with a card or bank account, all you need do is enter your name or house number. The payment will then be taken out of your earnings in small installments until it has been paid in full.

Below this, there were three options with little check boxes next to them.

OPTION ONE: Individual Payment -- Only you will use this item.
OPTION TWO: Household Payment -- This item will be used by everyone in your household.
OPTION THREE: Shared Payment -- This item will be shared among two or more people.

Tink read the options carefully, but wasn't sure which to click on. Sure, Marceline had ruined the house's fridge, but that didn't mean this one was going to take its place. For all she knew, The woman planned to hoard the fridge and make her housemates pay to use it. Or maybe she realized that it was her fault the fridge had been ruined and intended to do the responsible thing and pay for it by herself. Tink just couldn't be sure. She hadn't been around Marceline long enough to really know her. She decided it would be best to let the other woman pick, so she lightly tapped Marceline's shoulder and nodded at the computer screen.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline had taken to absently staring around the building, taking in the various sights. It was mostly boredom and restlessness, which Marceline was definitely not suited to. She could hear Tink flicking through things and figured that the tinker knew what she was doing. Marceline was just about to turn and ask how it was going when Tink actually tapped her on the shoulder. The vampire turned to the fairy: "All done? Or--ah," Marceline leaned forward, looking at the screen. Her eyes flicked over the text, taking in her options. It was really tempting to charge it to everyone that she lived with, especially since it was sort of the shared fridge and all. Then again, Marceline wasn't sure she even lived with anyone else, and it had been her that bought the stupid thing. If all else failed, she could just charge her roommates to use it. That should go over well.

"Should prolly go with option one," said Marceline, tapping the screen. "I don't have any roommates anyways, and I sort of torched the fridge, not them," she shrugged, then chuckled. "'sides, I could always charge admission, eh? Half a coin to do your milk, a full coin for each dish of leftovers, and a fiver for each dish of broccoli."

Marceline clicked her tongue against her fangs again. Another chuckle, and then she reached for the mouse. Marceline clicked her way through the options, dropping the fridge into a cart (and didn't that image nearly make her giggle), hitting the right information (though Marcy's typing was rusty, which made the process last far longer than it needed too), and getting everything through. "So, looks like they're gonna charge my account. Maybe there's a discount for first time offenders," Marceline chuckled again, then stretched, lifting her arms high into the air. "ready to head back to our homes? Or were you planning on taking me out to dinner first? Gotta warn you, I can get real handsy on a first date."