Work Text:
Stew
When Callie desquids in Octo Valley, she takes a deep breath of the clean breeze and can only smell seaweed stew. Her stomach growls. It's a good sign. It smells just like the seaweed stew.
Still, she keeps the little speaker Marie gave her pinned to her hat. The hut isn't much, even after Gramps put it back together, but she lets herself in.
Gramps is standing at the hotplate, stirring. He turns when he sees her. “Callie! How's my pinkest grand-daughter?”
Callie's laugh freezes in her throat, but she forces it out anyway. “I, uh... I've been better, Gramps. And I'm getting better. Did... did Marie talk to you? I asked her not to, but...”
“She didn't tell me much, squiddo.” Gramps sets a bowl of seaweed stew in front of her, or what looks like seaweed stew, and puts another bowl by the other chair, a rickety wooden thing that wobbles underneath him. “But that you went through something kinda terrible, and hadn't recovered all the way. But she said you'd still love my seaweed stew, so we can talk while we eat.”
Callie almost laughs. That's so like gramps. And... and he didn't call her his 'favorite' grand-daughter. His pinkest. “It's... kinda complicated.”
He leans forward. “I'm all ears.”
Okay, before she loses her nerve. Callie pats the stew with the back of her spoon, takes a deep breath, and blurts out, “Octarian Hypnoshades use flashing lights and speakers to trap whoever wears them in whatever world the people controlling the shades want and I wound up wearing some they were a fan gift but I thought I was filming a TV show when really I was giving them the zapfish security systems and trying to kill Marie and I'm not sure if they're off all the time which gives me some panic attacks and,” Gramps comes around the table to hug her.
Callie takes a deep breath, then another. A third. “Tricks on your mind are worse than tricks on the body,” Gramps says, “because learning to trust anything again takes so very long. You have to undo any learning you did. Are you fine? Physically, I mean?”
“Kinda,” she says. She's not telling him about the tattoo, not yet. “I mean, I didn't eat much, but that was, I mean, they gave me about the same amount of food everyone got. But none of what it looked like matched how it tastes.” She pushes him away and rubs a hand over her eyes. “It's one of my tells, now. For what's real.”
He squeezes her again, then lets go. “We can use that, then. We'll make sure every agent has candies on them. Work out a signal.”
That's just like him.
Isn't it? Or is it just her weird, screwed up brain's memory of him?
Callie reaches for the stew as he sits back in his chair, puts a spoonful in her mouth. The rich gravy, carrot, potato that's somehow lava when the rest of it's just hot, just like it should be. Just like it always is. She breathes with her mouth open, fanning it with both hands, and barely manages not to spit out the potato.
Gramps chuckles and gets up. He returns with a glass of juice for each of them, her favorite, and Callie uses it to cool her mouth.
It's... it's okay.
It's really him.
And, now that she thinks about it, she never saw him when she had those on. Only heard his voice on the phone. When he didn't talk quite like this. She'll ask him, later, what his thoughts are. How to avoid it next time.
Maybe she'll even discuss the tattoo.
“Eat up, now,” Gramps says. “Put some strength in that ink!”
And Callie does.