Gaia

"And stay here."

Eli had dragged Mari back to the little studio and slammed her own front door in her face. She didn't understand what she had done wrong. It's not like she bothered him. He hadn't even noticed she was there, at first. She had been doing a perfectly wonderful job of staying out of his way. But apparently, he didn't like people coming over without his say-so, even if they didn't even want to deal with him. He'd even taken the popcorn away. She sighed and sat down on the edge of her pullout bed, looking around. There was nothing to do in there. She didn't even have a real kitchen.

She huffed and zipped up a jacket over her tank top, putting her hood up. She was going to get her popcorn back, at the very least. She quietly made her way back to Eli's penthouse, taking a small device out of her pocket. It was a surprise Eli hadn't confiscated this one, with her master key. He probably didn't realize what it was since all of Andy's gadgets looked so damn jenky. It probably just looked like random pieces of metal welded together. She inserted the thin end into the card reader lock of the house, and waited a minute until the device beeped a couple times. When she pulled it out, it started whirring from the inside. Mari could only pray that it didn't overheat and explode in her hand like it did the last time she tried to use it. She still had a tiny burn scar from that. She wished it could make more than individual building keys, but only Andy knew how to make elevator keys. Thankfully, it didn't blow up. Instead, it spit out a tiny card, identical to the one he had for his home.

She swiped it and the door clicked open. She entered as quietly as she could, holding back a startled scream when Reuben suddenly appeared in the dark, eyes glowing.

"Good evening, and welcome back, Miss Gold," he greeted.

"Shhhhhhh, thank you Reuben," she whispered. "Is Eli sleeping?"

"Would you like me to wake him?" Reuben asked.

"Absolutely not," Mari told him. "Thanks, Reuben. I'll take it from here."

Reuben gave her a slight bow before going back to sleep mode, which was even scarier than the glowing eyes. He just stood in corner of the room stiffly, with his eyes dark. Mari let out a relieved sigh and snuck back into the kitchen. She found the popcorn. At least, she found the empty back that WAS her popcorn.

"Bitch," she whispered. "He finished my popcorn."

She opened the fridge and blinked a few times at the bright light inside. It was full of leftovers, for the most part. There were some fruits, but they were all lab-created fruits. Even Eli wasn't rich enough for organically grown fruits, she supposed. She grabbed a bowl of blueberries and started popping them into her mouth, wandering around the room as quietly as she could. There was a serious lack of decoration, and Mari decided that it was up to her to fix that later. If she had a house like that, there would be a lot more decoration.

She ended up on the side of the house she hadn't been to, which consisted of Eli's personal bedroom and bathroom. She poked her head in out of curiosity and found him sound asleep in the biggest bed she'd ever seen in her life. She found herself sneaking inside to check out the closet, which was bigger than her apartment as a whole. He was pretty organized with his suits and shirts organized by color. Just for shits and giggles, she moved a white shirt with the blue ones, and a navy suit jacket with the black ones. That'll sure show him. She snuck back out to his bathroom, jaw dropping. She'd seen a bathroom like that in a magazine once. The bathtub alone was the size of a swimming pool. She sat on the edge of it with her blueberries and started sniffing the soaps and shampoos. Each one smelled like heaven.

"What the actual fuck?!"

Mari nearly dropped the bowl when a startled yell snapped her back into reality, startling her too. Eli was standing in the doorway with bags under his eyes and basketball shorts. He quickly pulled a grey tshirt over his head, as if he was embarrassed to be shirtless in front of Mari. She hadn't even been paying attention, to be honest.

"Don't yell, people are sleeping," she told him.

"You're back?" he whisper-yelled. "What did I tell you about staying in your own place?"

"It's quiet and boring and lonely," Mari whined. "Look, I don't know how often you go to Ground level, but it's cramped as fuck and noisy. How am I supposed to sleep there?"

"I don't care, it's not my problem," he growled. "Get out of my house."

"I wasn't even bothering you," she argued. "I was just eating blueberries and sniffing your soaps."

"Did Reuben let you in again?" Eli questioned.

"No, it's not his fault," she said.

"Then how did you get in?"

"The door was open," she lied.

"That door closes and locks automatically," he said. "How did you really get in?"

Mari sheepishly held her key up to him, though she kept the device that made it hidden. He snatched it out of her hand, examining it. He eyed her suspiciously, then snapped the key in half and tossed it into the trash.

"That was extremely unnecessary," she told him.

"You can't come into my house without permission."

"But I'm not even bothering you."

He opened his mouth to say something, but only a frustrated growl came out. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her along again. He seemed to have a habit of dragging her around lately. She pursed her lips and dropped onto the floor again.

"Peaceful protest!" she called.

"Are you shitting me, Mari?" he groaned. "At three in the morning?"

"Peaceful protest!" she repeated.

"Fine. You know what?" he sighed, pulling a blanket off the couch and dropping it over her head. "You can sleep on the floor. Right over here. But if you move a fucking muscle, I swear I will have you sent to Grelhurst faster than you can say 'My Bad'. Understand?"

"Understood."

"Not a move. Not a sound. Don't even breathe."

"Deal."

"You said something."

Mari snapped her mouth shut and didn't move. He stared at her for a few moments, then shook his head and went back to bed, muttering something about lack of privacy. Knowing someone else was near, Mari slept a little easier that night. She woke up early on her own, folding the blanket up and leaving before Eli woke up. She showered and got dressed, this time in a tight little black dress with shiny red heels. She didn't mind looking like a supermodel every single day. This wardrobe wasn't going to be hers for very long, so she was milking it.

Eli woke up maybe twenty minutes after she let herself in, fixing his tie. He looked from her to her outfit, then back up to the two mugs of coffee she held in her hands. She gave him a bright smile and handed him one, which he took hesitantly, as if he expected it to be poisoned. He didn't loosen up until he took a sip and saw that it tasted fine.

"What is that aftertaste?" he asked. "Pineapple?"

"Yeah, I was playing with the settings on the coffee machine," Mari shrugged. "I wanted something totally different, but this is better. I asked it for coffee and it spit out heaven."

Eli nodded slowly, still looking at her somewhat suspiciously. She ignored him, sipping her cup of coffee and flipping through a magazine on the counter. It flipped to a page with Ella Stellar on it, staring back at Mari with a sultry look in her eyes. She truly was a glamorous person. She had several crazy mods, which was what made mods so fashionable in the first place. Her eyes were a bright violet and there were pink and gold stars tattooed in metallic ink at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was a different color in every kind of temperature and lighting, ranging from platinum blonde to blue to a sunset orange. Her nails were long and filed like claws, painted a neon purple shade that almost glowed. She always had some kind of animal with her, too. They were all bots, of course, but some of them were exotic to the point that Mari wasn't sure they ever existed in the wild, even a hundred years ago. Her blue tiger was her favorite, and she posed alongside it like her favorite accessory.

"My brother says he'd let her sit on his face if she wanted to," Mari told Eli. "What about you? Do you think she's pretty?"

"Not really my type," he shrugged. "Too unnatural."

"If I could have a mod, I'd get a metallic tattoo," Mari said. "Like a dragon or something on my shoulder."

"Don't," he said. "You'll regret it. Trust me."

"Do you have a tattoo?" Mari asked, raising a brow.

"Of course not," he said. "I just know too many people who've gotten them and immediately regretted it."

"Sure," she smirked.

"You have a brother?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Mhm. Twin brother," Mari told him, figuring it wasn't much of a secret anymore. "We were womb-mates. Get it? Like roommate, but womb-"

"Yeah, I get it," he sighed. "He's still on ground level?"

"Yeah, our parents started out middle class, but didn't make it through that virus outbreak," she told him. "You know the big one that wiped out like a third the population? Anyways, some law said that they couldn't leave their house and stuff to us, so we ended up going down like ten floors to the group homes on the second floor. And it just went downhill from there."

"I see," he said. "Sorry about your parents."

"That's okay," she shrugged. "It's hard to feel sad about someone you never knew, or hear about. Anyways, what's going on today? More papers for me to not organize?"

"Not today," he said. "Today you get to pick up my dry cleaning."

"Okay but I don't want to," she said.

"Okay, but you have to," he said, mocking her whiny tone. "Here is the tag for the cleaners. Directions are on the back."

He handed her the tag, as well as a key and a card.

"What's this?" she asked.

"My credit card," he said. "You have to pay for it with something. You want to use your own money?"

"No," she said, examining the credit card. "Okay, bye then."

He stopped her by grabbing her arm, giving her a warning look.

"I'm checking the statement of the card," he told her. "If I see any extra charges on there, you'll pay for it. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes. "Relax. I'm not going to go off and spend your mountain of cash."

"Be back in an hour. It shouldn't take longer than that."

"Fine."

"An hour, Marilyn."

"Okay."