revivalproject | This is Your Birthday Song It isn't Very Long

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This is Your Birthday Song It isn't Very Long

WHO: Omega, Dustin, and a mothkitten
WHERE: Certainly not near Dustin's workshop
WHAT: It's never too late for a birthday, right?
WHEN: Some nebulous date during this month
WARNINGS: Dustin.

Are you in?

The message had been vague but Omega had hoped it was enough to get an answer. Dustin had made it clear enough to her that he didn't want people knowing where he lived, and so she was trying to be extra careful about heading over.

It helps to treat it like a mission, and she puts all her sneaking and trying to be stealthy to practice as she looks for places to use as cover. Even once the row of buildings comes into view, she doesn't head over directly, moving to a spot where she can get a glimpse of Dustin's workshop while getting off the main road. At least the snow's been melting, so she hasn't had to worry about leaving tracks. On the downside, things were muddy, so she'd taken extra care where she stepped along the road while carrying a covered box in her hands. Her sling bag is certainly getting its mileage, a few pieces of dinnerware wrapped and tucked inside, along with one slightly pudgy mothkitten who unlike his siblings has rather decided he likes going along for the ride than poking around to explore.

While she waits for an answer, Omega looks for a place to sit, dusting off a broken section of wall in the shade of a ruined building before she sets her box there and clambers up to sit beside it.

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Dustin has this unfortunate habit of putting his foot in his mouth whenever he talks to Omega, and it's starting to look like he's headed in that direction again.

"--I mean, sure," he stammers, sweeping a hand into his hair. Again, facts are much easier to address right now, so that's what Dustin focuses on as he settles into a flustered ramble. "It's not like we have standard ingredients for making one, so you probably had to improvise. The eggs and flour at least have good substitutes, but--chocolate? Replicator? Is it not actually chocolate?"

"I had to improvise and used the gels from the ship. It's not really a flavor I'm familiar with outside of this place otherwise." Omega looks a little concerned then, wondering if that would be reason enough for Dustin not to want to eat it. "The batter tasted like the ones when Radley and Jon showed me how to make a cake though."

Her eagerness shifted into an awkwardness as she continued to stand there with the box. "...you...don't have to eat it if you don't want to," she eventually says, trying not to look disappointed.

"Ah, yeah. I guess that would work," Dustin murmurs, brow furrowing. "The texture wouldn't be as much of a problem if it's mixed into other ingredients, although that might explain the lack of structural rigidity if the chemical composition is significantly changed from the--"

But Omega cuts him off before he can get too far into that tangent. Dustin's eyes widen briefly and his gaze snaps back up, looking momentarily panicked.

"--What? No!" he blurts. "I mean--yes. Yes, I want to eat this. If you've already sampled the batter, the finished product is probably also acceptable."

Abruptly, Dustin thrusts his hands out to accept the box, his expression flat to the point of looking wooden.

Briefly startled, Omega stares up at him as he tries to get his point across. She glances down at the surprised prrrt? from her bag, breathing a sigh of a laugh as the sleepy mothcat pokes his head out.

"Well, all right," she says as she regains her composure, looking back to Dustin to present the box of cake. She's found her smile again, and once she's handed the box over, she moves to gently nudge Tumble aside so she can pull out the bundled plate and utensils out of her bag. "I brought these too, just in case."

Dustin takes the box. Once it's been transferred over, his thoughts and feelings settle into more familiar curiosity - something much easier for him to handle. He pulls back at the edges of the container so he can get a better look at the cake's sides and bottom, mentally assessing if eating the whole thing in one sitting would make him sick, and is about to poke a finger into the icing to sample it before Omega once again interjects.

"Hmm?" Dustin glances up, owlishly looking the bundle over. "Oh--nah, not needed. I have my own stuff."

He has a metal spoon and a wide bowl is what he means, which is good enough for him. Dustin continues with a shrug. "Besides, those are covered in mothcat down. I'd have to sterilize them."

It's still quite passably chocolate flavored. Omega might have licked the rest of the icing from the bowl once she'd finished with the cake itself.

"I did wrap them," she points out, but she's not going to argue it. She gives Tumble a look before laughing a little as the mothcat yawns in response. With a shrug, she moves to scoop out the greenish, winged furball from her bag so she can return the bundle to its place.

"Well...I guess we'll be on our way then."

Dustin gives the mothkitten a brief, wary sort of look, pulling his box of cake a little closer to his chest to dissuade the creature from getting any ideas, but relaxes quickly. The animal is half asleep; chances of him leaping up to dive into his food are slim.

"Sure," he murmurs. And he almost leaves it there, save for one persistent, nagging thought.

I've got to pay her back for this.

"--Wait," Dustin interjects a moment later. "When's your birthday?"

Tumble is by far her laziest squad member. Omega gives him a fond scratch under the chin, deciding she'll just carry him back. She's about to turn then, glancing back at Dustin.

"Oh... I don't know, actually," she admits, but she isn't embarrassed to admit it. "I guess it would have been marked by Kamino's standard, but we've been traveling between systems and now I'm here, so I'm not really sure how long it's been any more."

Dustin had anticipated an answer similar to this, so he doesn't seem disappointed to hear it.

"Yeah, I get it," he explains with a shrug. "I had to do some conversions for mine, too - my birthday's usually in autumn, not winter, but that's by Earth's standard and relative to when it would've been before I was brought here. I could give you an estimate, maybe? If you remember how long it's been since you last kept track on Kamino, and you know how long their days were."

"Well...I'm thirteen now. I'm not sure what Earth's standard is, but a day cycle on Kamino is twenty-seven hours, and it takes about four hundred and sixty-three days for one orbital period. I don't know how much that helps though."

Omega hugs the mothcat as she thinks. "Tech would be much better at this than I am," she sighs. "I think a Galactic Standard year would be three-hundred and sixty-eight days, and those are based on twenty-four hour days."

Edited 2023-03-21 18:16 (UTC)

"It helps," Dustin murmurs, letting his head dip slightly as he starts to crunch the numbers. His eyes flicker for a second. "A Kamino year passes on Agra 10 every 417 days - rounding up - and a Galactic Standard year would be roughly every 294 days. At that point it becomes a matter of preference, I guess. Do you measure your age in Kamino years or Galactic Standard years?"

"I never thought to ask," Omega admits, resting her chin on top of Tumble's head. "I assumed Kamino. I never thought I'd be allowed to go anywhere else, and the Kaminoans rarely left their homeworld."

But then things changed, and she never wanted to go back. But Kamino is still the closest thing she can ever call home, and the same went for all clones.

Dustin nods slowly, adding a mental checkmark next to the other conversions running in parallel in his head and discarding the rest.

"Then the next step is...hmm." He frowns, arcs a heavy eyebrow. "You don't remember how many days it's been since your thirteenth birthday, and where those days were spent, do you?"

Dustin knows for himself, of course - down to the hour. But he's well aware that his situation is far from standard.

"Not exactly..." she says, even as she tries to give it some thought. "A lot happened between then and now. It's easy to lose track too, going through routines even before everything started changing. But it's not like I ever celebrated or anything. It was more of a side note, whenever another year went by. Kaminoans aren't known for socializing very much, and everyone else on Kamino are clone troopers busy being trained."

Dustin dismisses Omega's explanation of her lack of Kaminoan birthdays with a wave of a hand (the one not currently cradling the box of cake to his chest). The fact that she's never celebrated hers before is hardly relevant to him; all that matters is that he knows when to celebrate it now, so that he can appropriately pay her back.

"An estimate, then," he presses. "It can be symbolic if you'd like, I don't care. As long as one is established and it isn't too outlandish, I'll accept it."

Omega thinks about it as she snuggles Tumble. There really wasn't anything terribly symbolic to refer to. Notices of another year for her usually came in the form of Nala Se informing her of such before they went and resumed routine, and those were only more recently. When she was younger she'd spent most of her time stuck by herself in the chief scientist's private lab while Nala Se was busy.

"Hm..." It wasn't so immediately close to her last 'birthday' but if time here is throwing things off anyway, on top of everything else, she's not going to worry about it too much. Besides, it's symbolic enough to her. It's when she'd finally been reunited with Clone Force 99.

"About five and a half months, roughly. The last two and a half are since we left Kamino."

Dustin nods once, though the way his eyebrows furrow says that he's not satisfied yet.

"Average days in a month on Kamino, and by Galactic Standard?" And then because this still isn't enough, Dustin immediately follows up: "And how long have you been here? I can work with seasons, if that's an acceptable approximation for you to remember."

"Difficult. Kamino doesn't really even have seasons to keep track, and most everyone stays indoors because it's usually stormy. The entire planet's covered in water. But a galactic standard month is...seven standard weeks, and one of those is five standard days."

At least she can remember those sorts of numbers. There's lots to learn during their travel times, even when you're going through hyperspace.

"How long... Hm. Well...when I first got here it was really warm. And the last season of snow was the second one I experienced here."

Dustin's brow manages to knit further together. Lots of estimations. This really isn't ideal, and if he were in Omega's situation he'd be furious of the lack of details available to him about something as trivial - but no less essential - as keeping time. But he can tell that she doesn't care nearly as much as he does about the outcome, so Dustin does his best to convince himself to care a little less, too. He manages, if only slightly.

"Okay..." The boy ducks his chin, eyes flickering again, but this time he gives Omega the benefit of mumbling through some of his thought processes. "Assuming the same day-to-week and week-to-month metrics hold on Kamino - a very rough assumption, but it's what we have...account for one and half years of Agra 10 time, gloss over off-planet travel..."

Another moment of silence, before Dustin abruptly glances up again.

"--You're actually fourteen and a half years old, by Kaminoan standards," he explains. "Well, fourteen-and-seven-tenths, but we're rounding enough already. Your fifteenth birthday should be in roughly 121 Agra 10 days."

Time simply didn't mean too much to her in the way that it just emphasized the loneliness of her situation. She had no idea as to what purpose she might've had. She wasn't created to be a soldier. Her days once she was old enough were spent mainly assisting chief scientist in the labs. It hadn't been until she'd first seen those who would become Clone Force 99 brought to Nala Se's private lab for the experimental mutations that she'd found something to seek, a quiet promise to herself. True it wasn't much more than that a determination to find them, to meet them again at the time, but it had since become so much more.

Dustin's questions make her feel a little bad for not being able to provide more solid answers, and given how testy he tends to be, Omega half expects him to chew her out for some reason or another. ...except he doesn't. And then he actually manages to do some calculations. It's almost like he's casting a magical spell as he goes over the key points to converting things. Her face lights up as he gives her a number, and even more so, a day she can mark as a birthday. Tech would certainly say it's just basic mathematics but it's still amazing to her.

"One hundred twenty one days..." she marvels before nodding. "I'll remember it."

"Me too," Dustin says, matter-of-fact. Of course he will - it's literally impossible for him to forget things. "If the seasons continue in the same pattern that I've observed, it should be roughly mid-summer."

There's a beat.

"...What do you want for it?" he asks tentatively. Dustin is certainly aware of the concept of surprise presents, but he's always found the practice a bit strange. Wouldn't people be happier if you could make sure that you got them what they needed, rather than having to guess? He always has been.

Mid-summer. When it's much warmer. Omega rather likes that. Perhaps not so much the heat exactly, but the days were nice and there are things one can do to cool down at least. Sunlight's been a welcome thing ever since she'd set foot on a planet other than Kamino.

The question has her blink. "Huh? What do you mean..?"

"I mean, like..."

Dustin's face flushes and he glances away, and for a moment he considers abandoning the question entirely. This is stupid. Omega doesn't even celebrate birthdays - why should he even explain the minutia of a symbolic gesture that doesn't mean anything to her? He's just wasting both of their times.

And yet, she'd thought enough about it to do something for him, hadn't she? A debt remains unpaid.

Dustin lets out a flustered breath. "--You know--birthday presents," he explains with an impatient wave of his free hand. "It's a...tradition...thing. Whatever. Listen--if nothing else, you made me a cake, so, I'm going to pay you back. What do you need?"

It didn't mean anything to her because she'd never heard of the concept until Peter had told her about it, and really, it had only fixated on cake and celebration. She thought it was nice, having something to celebrate, and cake seemed an important element to it.

Omega waits patiently as Dustin tries to work out what he wants to say. She doesn't mean to be difficult, she doesn't do these sorts of things in expectation of having a favor returned to her. So when Dustin finally gets his words out, she can't help but look a little confused.

"I made you a cake because I wanted to. Even if it's just a private celebration, and well, late. This wasn't a job, so I don't expect payment."

Dustin holds a hand up to interrupt her, his expression flat.

"I want to pay you back," he says slowly. "I'm going to make something for you whether you like it or not, so. You can either tell me what you want, or I can guess."

Omega returns the look, perhaps surprisingly. It doesn't last, softening with a faint smile.

"I want to be friends. I'm not sure if that's something you want though. You seem to like keeping to yourself. And that's fine, but..." She shakes her head. "Anyway. If you really want to make something for me, then surprise me. You do amazing things. I don't know what I should want or can think of anything I really need that isn't the rest of my brothers."

This isn't really the response Dustin is expecting. Rather, he anticipates pushback about the present - even people who regularly celebrate birthdays seem to get annoyed when asked what they want for them - but he certainly wasn't expecting this to turn into some kind of lecture about friendship and almost overbearing praise. He doesn't know what to do with it. His face blanks.

"I..." For the second time this conversation, Dustin feels the overwhelming urge to just close the door and go hide in his room, but he manages to fight it back again in favor of growing curiosity. A hand sweeps into his hair and stays there, massaging his scalp. "...I don't get it. Why?"

Funny thing is Omega's not even trying to lecture. She's being completely honest. But then that's probably what makes it more difficult for Dustin.

She tilts her head at him, the mothkitten she's been cuddling seeming to mimic the pose, if unintentionally.

"Why...do I want to be friends with you? Well...why not? I haven't been able to make any before I left home. I wouldn't have been able to meet any of the people I have here, and...I don't know when they might go back home, or if I might go back home, so...I want to get to know them while I can.

"You aren't the easiest person to talk with, but you're not afraid to speak your mind. You're cautious, like you don't want people to see who you really are, and it's hard for you to trust people. But that's okay. Around here especially, I can understand that reasoning. I can't make you trust me or want to be friends, and maybe you actually like being alone... but if you ever want to not be..."

Omega abruptly buries her face against Tumble's fur. That really wasn't an answer, was it? "...I don't...have a good reason, really. I didn't think it was something I had to explain."

Yes, exactly that. Dustin is the picture of earnest attentiveness as Omega explains her rationale - even though, in the end, it doesn't really answer his question in the way he was expecting. His whole life, Dustin's thought of all of the reasons why people wouldn't want to be friends with him; he was either too serious and analytical to make friends his age, or too rash and immature to be considered a peer of the adults he used to look up to. As he got older, Dustin gave up trying and leaned into all of those things to drive those potential friends away, so that they wouldn't continue to bother him while he pursued other, more fruitful endeavors.

Why not was never a part of that equation. It almost sounds foolish, given how many incidents Dustin can think of where he's made Omega visibly unhappy, compared to the very few where she's actually, genuinely smiled at him. But he does trust her, and he knows she's being honest, and that's...weird. Really fucking weird. How the hell does he handle something like this?

Poorly, is the answer. "No, that's...enough," Dustin mumbles. "I don't really get it but--fuck. Sorry. Just--forget I asked. I'm gonna go eat this before it goes stale."

Dustin abruptly pivots, making to close the door behind him.

Maybe it's because she'd been expecting to be inevitably shut out that Omega doesn't feel so bad once it finally happens. If anything, she thinks she's made some strange progress. She can hope, anyway.

"If it doesn't taste all right I'll try better next time-!" she blurts, right before the door closes. There she stands for a moment, wondering if she'd said anything wrong again. Her thoughts are interrupted by the mothkitten as he shoves his head at her chin.

"All right Tumble. Let's get you back to your siblings." She turns to start away from the shop row, casting one last look back at Dustin's door before she starts heading back.

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This is Your Birthday Song It isn't Very Long

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