[R] Slumberless Party (Ainsley/Dana) (Fin)

[SpaceSalt]

"Dad."

"Dana."

"Dad. Daddaddaddaddad."

"What is it Dana?" Charlie Caffrey, ever patient, didn't seem to have his nerves tried at all at the constant harassment as Dana tugged and babbled. He was, however, carefully removing cupcakes from the oven and was not especially attentive.

"Are the cupcakes ready?"

"Well," Charlie paused and looked at the pan in his hands and then back to Dana, raising an eyebrow. There was a bit of a silent pause before she finally looked at them with a flippant, "Oh." Followed by, "Okay, just checking!"

She then continued her patrol by running down the hall way and busting into Evie's room, totally ignored because she was wearing headphones.

"My friend is spending the night so don't be a butthead later, okay?!" She announced with all the authority she could. Evie was nonresponsive, because she had no idea Dana was even behind her.

"Okay," Dana concluded with a nod.

She had been an absolute terror preparing the tiny Caffrey household for her first sleepover.  

[Appeal]

Ainsley's sister Bell was easy to get along with because frankly she didn't seem to particularly care what Ainsley did so long as she didn't kill herself, you know? Perhaps trust and understanding went a long way. However, Ainsley had certain morals and they meant that she worried enough for the both of them. If Bell didn't come home when Ainsley expected her then Ainsley would panic. She knew what the city was like, and it was that concern that made Ainsley such a responsible young lady.

With everything settled, Ainsley was left to her excitement. She'd never stayed over at Dana's place before and it was very exciting. All the things they could do while left to their own devices in the middle of the night! It might not have been her first sleep over but it was definitely very exciting.

Everything she might possibly need and then some packed into a cute bag shaped like a bunny hanging gingerly over her back, Ainsley stood at the Caffrey's porch. Swaying back and forth, Ainsley's delicate hand knocked on the door.

 

[SpaceSalt]

The door swung open with enough force, Dana had to stop it from busting through the door stop and breaking the wall with the handle.

"Hi!"

And then her dad edged past and down the sidewalk. He had s**t to do with one of his charities, and Dana threw up a hand to shout out in the same tone, "Bye!"

"Cupcakes are cooling down, pizza's on the table, and Dana," He turned and looked deadly serious, "No internet."

He gave Ainsley a bit of a wave of acknowledgment and a warm smile before he made his way to his car. "You girls have fun."

"Yeahyeahyeah, dad, whatever," Dana snorted and grabbed Ainsley by the wrist to tug her inside, "My dumb sister is home but she's being a nerd so it's no problem. Come on, I'll show you my room. It's really cool."

The Caffrey home was one story, tiny three bedroom home, with the kitchen, dining and living area consolidated to one small and over stuff space and a grand piano that had no business being in it. The walls were littered with photos and knick knack shelves and overall it was very 'lived in'.

"I have a bunk bed an' I cleaned most of the stuff off the bottom bunk so you don't have to sleep on the floor or nothing."  

[Appeal]

"Hello," she said softly, moving aside for Dana's father to walk by.

"Thank you for allowing me over Mr. Caffrey, please take care," she said as she waved back to him before Dana pulled her inside of the house. She smiled at her friend and immediately gave Dana a hug before her eyes found the walls of the house. It was all very homely, unlike her home with her sister. It was an obvious difference. Neither Bell or Ainsley had the presence of a father around, and certainly no mother. It was them against the world.

"I have a bunk bed, sort of," she said with a giggle, following Dana through the house with her eyes on all the things everywhere. "It doesn't have a bottom bunk though so I am unsure if that would even be the proper term for it."

 

[SpaceSalt]

"Wow, really? When I was kid I liked to hang sheets and make clubhouses out of my bottom bunk but I am too mature for that stuff now," Dana reached through the cutaway wall separating the kitchen and living room to steal a cupcake, even though it was too hot to frost, and stuff it in her face.

"Ah! Ha--... aeeay, is way is ah' roo," She babbled incoherently through an open mouth full of gooey cupcake as she led Ainsley down the hall to open the door to her cluttered room.

"Eare..." One gulp and she could fan off her tongue and talk again. She grabbed a pile of midly worn laundry and stuff it in the closet. "You can put your stuff there!"  

[Appeal]

Ainsley nodded her head softly to Dana in reply to her question about the bunk bed because it was simply a reaffirmation of what she had already said. Whatever she opened her mouth to say after that was absolutely lost when Dana stuffed a cupcake into her mouth and then proceeded to talk to Ainsley again. Absolutely repulsed by it, Ainsley's mouth hung open until her good grace could bring her jaw to close.

She didn't understand what Dana was trying to say and when she looked at her friend's face in attempt to see if she could make it out, her hands quickly covered her mouth as if to stop something from coming out. She could see the chewed up cupcake in there! Ladies were supposed to chew their food with their mouths closed, and most important they were supposed to hold their tongue until nothing lay upon it!

Thankfully Dana didn't linger around and simply continued to lead Ainsley to her bedroom until she managed to finish the cupcake. With words she could finally understand, Ainsley entered the room and sat her bag rather gingerly on the floor. It wasn't as simple as that though, tediously toying with it until it sat perfectly aligned with the floor and wall and didn't have a stitch out of place. Finished that, Ainsley looked at Dana with a smile before her eyes fell to all of the things in Dana's bedroom.

"Good gracious me, you have so many things here!"

 

[SpaceSalt]

Ainsley's strange mannerisms were alien to Dana, but she decided it was best to shrug them off instead of harp on them.

"Do you know any games? I gotta admit, I'm grounded from most fun things. Can't even get on the computer without the wifi password," She huffed. "Are you sure your parents are okay with you staying the night?" Dana's father wouldn't thought twice, honestly, and certainly never would've allowed it without formally meeting Ainsley's parents beforehand.  

[Appeal]

Ainsley didn't know any games off the top of her head nor could she crack a wifi password for her friend so she shook her head in response. However, the question about whether or not her parents were fine with her staying the night she had an answer for. She was pretty sure her parents were fine with whatever her sister decided was best, as they had been for three years now, and Bell probably relished in the idea of having the house to herself for a night.

"Everything is fine," she reassured her friend.  

[SpaceSalt]

"Well I'm gonna go get some pizza!" Dana announced, running the short distance down the hallway to the dining/living/kitchen area. "I was thinking maybe some senshi stuff or somethin' too," She admitted. "You're my only senshi friend I know in real life," Because senshi time obviously wasn't real life.

"So it's kinna weird, you know?" Like they were obligated too. But Dana was too immature to realize that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

And this also applied to cramming whole pizza slices into one's mouth.  

[Appeal]

When Dana announced she was going to get some pizza, Ainsley followed her. While Dana ran to the kitchen, Ainsley walked at a very leisurely pace. It got her to the kitchen with enough time to witness Dana shoving a whole slice of pizza into her face. Ainsley had this feeling of deja vu before she sighed slightly with a smile. Oh, her friend.

"May I have a piece?" She asked thoughtfully.

"We could go explore our homeworlds," she suggested, her hands crossing over each other in front of her.

 

[SpaceSalt]

"Sure!" Dana exclaimed with a full mouth, grabbing a paper plate off the stack near the pizza boxes. She swallowed and needed a moment to recover from nearly choking.

"We usually only get cheese because my sister is super lame and won't eat meat, and then we can't agree on any toppings so." She shrugged a little hoping Ainsley wasn't hoping for more and finding herself oddly self conscious of her environment. She felt like she had to explain away everything with either the oppressive force of her dad or her sister.

"Oh... what's a... homeworld?"  

[Appeal]

Ainsley accepted the paper plate and inspected it, wiping the surface of it off. It was as clean as it was going to get but there was a light grey mark on the top that prodded at Ainsley's senses, causing her to try and wipe it off repeatably until eventually she settled on sitting the piece of pizza off to the side of the paper plate on the opposite side of the mark.

"This is more than enough," she said, taking a small bite of the pizza. She took her time to chew the amount in her mouth fully until she swallowed it.

"Oh! You don't know?" She asked, pondering on the meaning for a second. "We all have homeworlds in space where we get our power from! If we use our phones, we can go there!"

 

[SpaceSalt]

Dana stopped dead in her tracks, desperately trying to find something way back there in a dark, forgotten corner of her mind. A useless piece of information a cat shared with her ages ago.

"Oh. Oh! OH!" She pulled out her senshi phone. "Sheena! She said if I find the button I can go to my constellation, but it didn't make sense then."  

[Appeal]

"Yes, if you power up and really concentrate while you press that button it'll take you to your homeworld!" She explained, pointing to the big middle button with one hand while she shuffled the paper plate holding the pizza into another.

"We shouldn't power up in the house though, someone might sense us and then target your family," she noted carefully.

 

[SpaceSalt]

Dana stopped and looked up and glanced around, as if she was going to spot any negas in her living room. They were two senshi, being babysat (If one is using the term loosely, since Evie hadn't come out of her room all day) By a second senshi. She was especially worried about anyone in the neighborhood busting in.

"It'll just be real quick," She concluded, giving the phone one last look. How hard could it be?