Fray-Adjacent

"There's a card?" the deliveryman offers. "It's addressed to a X--" He squints at it. "Xander? Harris. Or Bridge Carson."

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"That's him!" Bronwyn points, still cuddling the kitten. "Well, just the Xander part because Bridge is my other daddy and he's still asleeps. See Harris and Carson 'cause that plus that equals me! You want me to go get him? He needs to meet the kitty anyways! I'll go--"

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At the deliveryman's pained look, Xander puts a hand on Bronwyn's shoulder. "We can get him in a minute, hon. I'll take the card." He holds out his hand.

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"It just says payback's a--" The guy looks down at Bronwyn as he hands over the card. "Uh."

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Bronwyn peeks up at it. "That's a bad word. It's not a nice thing to say about a kitty."

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"I don't think it's talking about the kitty," Xander tells her, rolling his eye at the card and tucking it into his pocket.

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"Have a, uh... nice day."

Xander eyes the delivery guy to see if he's snickering as he shoulders his messenger-bag and heads down the hallway, but he doesn't seem to be.

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"Byeee!" Bronwyn waves. While bouncing. The kitten squeaks, so she bounces a little bit slower, and cuddles it with both hands, leaning her head over to talk to it.

"HI, kitty, I'm Bronwyn! Bronwyn Harris Carson and my Aunt Parker sent you so you can live with me and my daddies 'cause we gots a little 'partment but there's still room for a kitty even if I can't gets a baby brother yet..."

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Xander's bending down to grab the box of supplies -- and the empty kitten-box, but when he hears that, he straightens up and herds Bronwyn into the apartment, shouting "BRIDGE!" as he shuts the door behind them.

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"Daddy, loud!" Bronwyn says again, and the kitten squeaks its agreement.

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"Who wha huh?" Bridge shuffles blearily out of the bedroom. "There was shouting," he says.

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"Daddydaddydaddy look!" Bronwyn holds up the kitty, who an adult might notice looks a little alarmed at the zoom effect.

Also loud does not count if it's you and not Daddy. Obviously.

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"That's a cat." Blink. "You have a cat." Blink. Turn to face Xander. "She has a cat." Blink. "*Why* does she have a cat?"

And then he's reaching out to give the kitty ear-scritches, because who can resist that little face? Or, really, *both* of those little faces.

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Xander facepalms again. "I'll give you three guesses and a clue: starts with an M, ends with a shoe."

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Bronwyn bursts into giggles at that. "Daddy! You made a RHYME that time!"

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"He's a poet and he didn't know it," Bridge contributes.

"Parker?" he doesn't *really* need to guess.

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There is a non-dirty version of the response to that. He'll remember it in a second, really.

Oh, right. "But my feet show it. They're longfellas."

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"Aunt Parker sended it!" Bronwyn confirms. "It was a secret, and I was bein' a sneaksy spy like Aly said so I listened and waited and didn't say anythings."

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"...Pizza was a lot easier to deal with," Bridge says plaintively.

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"Ooh, can we have pizza?" Bronwyn asks. "I bet kitty wants some pizza!"

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"Pizza for breakfast?" Bridge says with a shrug, looking over at Xander.

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