For daemonmuses. Week 2.

[acts_of_gord]

"Gordon."

Six-year-olds take things very seriously. Building a machine that you designed all by yourself is not an activity you want interrupted. Gordon Freeman resolutely ignored his brother's voice and continued tightening screws.

"Gordon," Jay called, a little louder this time.

"He's coming this way," Sati reported, skittering across the surface of the bowl of water set aside for her. The daemon had shifted into a water strider's shape a few hours ago.

"Does he look mad?" Gordon asked without looking up. The tennis ball cannon was his project. He'd seen a potato gun on TV and really, really, really wanted one. So had Jay. Mom had said no wasting food. Gordon had gone downstairs and found a can of tennis balls. It wasn't his fault Jay had gone off to sulk instead of doing something about what he wanted.

"Don't think so," said Sati doubtfully, flaring her wings and taking off for a brief moment's flight. "Vanhishikha's wagging her tail."

Gordon nodded and put down his father's screwdriver. As Sati settled back to the water he started opening the first bottle of butane. "Think Mom sent him?"

"I don't know, Gordon," Sati said. She resumed her skittering. "I hope not."

He smiled, ducking his head as he did so. Sati knew exactly what he was thinking: please don't let Mom know what I'm doing! She'd probably just make him stop, or say he was playing with fire or something.

"Almost done," he said, and started pouring the butane into the cannon's fuel tank. None too soon, either, because Vanhishikha started barking the moment the lop-eared daemon caught sight of him. If he hadn't had the neck of the bottle down the tube he'd have spilled the stuff all OVER himself. Vanhishikha was loud.

Sati flickered into the form of a dragonfly, rising from the waterbowl to dive at the dog daemon's head in remonstrance. "Buzz off," Jay said, and stepped past the two quarreling daemons to get to his brother's side. "Hey, Gordon! Are you almost done with that thing?"

"Go away, Jay," Gordon said with a sigh. Not that it helped. His brother was four years older than him and about a foot taller. If he wanted to be somewhere, he'd be there, whether Gordon wanted him around or not.

Sure enough Jay just grinned at him. "Nuh uh," he said, and settled cross-legged on the ground next to Gordon. "I wanna see you use this thing."

That was new. Normally Jay just got in the way. He didn't understand anything.

That couldn't mean anything good.

"Why?" Gordon asked warily, taking a moment to slide his glasses back up his nose.

"Because." Jay grinned lazily.

Sati gave up on her challenge to the dog daemon and soared away to land on Gordon's shoulder. "You never like anything I build," Gordon pointed out.

"That's 'cause you always build lame stuff," Jay returned. "This is cool."

Sati's wings vibrated fiercely, but Gordon gave her a tiny shake of the head. She didn't need to get involved with this. "Are you gonna tell Mom on me?"

"Not unless you blow yourself up," said Jay. "Or me."

Six-year-old inventor or no, it was hard to argue with that kind of logic. Especially since Vanhishikha had just gone from scrawny reddish puppy to half-grown Rottweiler and padded over to shove her nose under Jay's arm, bright eyes on Gordon all the while. "'kay, I guess," Gordon said grudgingly. As he picked up the ball cannon's control box he added, "But don't touch anything."

"If it works I wanna shoot it once."

"Don't touch anything," Gordon repeated, louder this time. "It's mine. You can't have it."

"I don't want it, I just wanna shoot it!" Jay made a sudden grab at the control box. "Just once!"

Gordon jerked his hands back swiftly. "No! Get away from my invention, Jay!"

FTHOOOMP, said the machine, silencing all arguments, even the daemons'. Then: FTHOOMP again. As the third tennis ball flew towards the windowless side of the garage, Gordon looked down and saw that he'd accidentally flipped the 'on' switch. But that didn't matter, did it? It worked. "It worked!" he cried. "Jay! Jay, my invention, it worked!"

His brother, was staring at him with a horrified expression. "What?" Gordon said. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Uh.... Gordon?" said Jay, his voice high and strangled. "Did you, um, put Sati into one of those tennis balls or anything?"

"Huh? No, I- AAAAAAAAAAAUGH!" The control box dropped from Gordon's nerveless fingers as it occurred to him that Sati was missing. "Sati! Sati! Where are you?"

Vanhishikha started barking. Jay started yelling at Vanhishikha. Gordon started hyperventilating. The tennis ball cannon continued to fthooomp!. Really, it was all far too much to allow a daemon who'd suddenly shifted to a shape less than a millimeter long to be heard. By the time Sati made the crawl from Gordon's shoulder to his ear in her new shape, Barbara Freeman had come out to put a stop to the butane-powered shenanigans after all.