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esp_dragonFandom: Noblesse
Summary: Not having something to keep Tao busy was weird. He had all this time, so what was he going to do with it?
Notes: Set post-season 5.
Written for milkteaghost, who needed something to cheer them up. They asked for Tao harassing people with his cables.
Just to clarify – I headcanon that Tao keeps his cables within his body, so he's always got access to them.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Family
Word count: 2,486
Status: Complete
Tao span in his chair. He'd finished all his usual checks and nothing suspicious had turned up; he'd also finished making his latest security program and now had to wait for Boss' green light before implementing it.
Which meant he was done for the day.
Not having something to keep him busy was weird. He had all this time, so what was he going to do with it?
Tao continued to spin in his chair. It was fun, but that wouldn't keep him entertained. Hmm.
He stopped, turning his attention back to his PC and switched the feeds from the school to the ones inside the house. A quick scan and yep, everyone was present and accounted for.
Tao sighed, leaning his elbows on his desk. So now what? He wasn't built for the quiet time; he was still used to the hectic fast pace of battle, needing to keep track of at least six different things at once while making snap decisions that determined their success or failure of a mission.
This was slow.
Humming, Tao lifted a hand and twined one of his cables around his fingers. It had been a while since he'd brought a cable out just for fun and.
He paused, staring up at the feeds in front of him and then at the cable in his hand.
He grinned.
Well, he did need to practice using his cables more and this was the perfect exercise to have some fun with them.
He spun his chair around, his arm outstretched towards the door and coaxed more cables out.
There was the familiar flex and pulling sensation along his skin as his cables flowed out and he directed them outside the door. When they were there, Tao went back to his feeds, seeing the miniature black wave rippling across the floor.
Hm. That was a bit obvious. If he was trying to be sneaky, he was failing straight away.
Tao grouped the cables together so they became one thick cable and made it move along the skirting boards to be less obvious. There. That was better.
He closed his eyes and hm. If he was really trying to practice, he wouldn't use his feeds, for the off-chance a place didn't have cameras (not likely), or he couldn't hack into their system (even less likely).
He would keep the feeds on in case there was something he needed to hear though. Tao turned so he wasn't facing the monitor and leaned back on his chair, sliding his hands behind his head.
He took a breath and then exhaled, extending his senses outwards. The steady pulse of the PC behind him was like a heartbeat he could feel almost dancing along his skin. Takeo's energy was one Tao could pick out anywhere, and he was with someone a few corridors away from Tao. From the way the other person's energy flared every few seconds, Takeo had to be sparring with M-21.
Tao cast his attention upwards and counted four other people. Noble energies were different from humans – they were muted in terms of movement, but they were also more solid, Tao seeing their faces more clearly, their power packed into their bodies. And then there was Boss, whose energy spilled out of his body, blurring his shape; only Raizel-nim was the same, both their energies almost filling the whole of the living room together.
Boss, Raizel-nim and the puppy were the closest to Tao after Takeo and M-21. He would go for Takeo and M-21 later, since they were the most likely to try and stop him when they found out what he was doing.
Getting to the living room wasn't hard and Tao mused what he could do. With Boss and Raizel-nim, it was a success if he got anything past them, so his mission here was to get his cables across the room without being noticed.
Tao opened the door and neither Boss or Raizel-nim turned towards the sound. Good. Using the door, Tao curved his cable around the edge to climb up it – Boss had better eyes than Takeo when it came to anything being out of place in his house. It was safer to go the ceiling route.
Boss was in the kitchen area while Raizel-nim was sitting on the sofa and Tao hummed the theme song to the latest spy movie he watched as he pushed the cables into crevices to make sure they stayed in place.
He froze when Raizel-nim tilted his direction in the cable's direction and he slumped, huffing. Damn. Caught.
Raizel-nim didn't say anything, looking back at something in his hands (from the way he was holding it, it had to be another gaming manual). So he'd failed getting past one person, but he could still get past Boss without being noticed!
Scrunching his eyebrows in concentration, Tao moved his cable bit by bit, trying to make the least amount of movement possible. Boss was chatting with Raizel-nim about his latest round of experiments and Tao inched his cables forward every time Boss turned his back or made noise moving something.
Tao was over halfway through the room when Boss left the kitchen area, walking towards Raizel-nim. Tao stopped, shrinking his cable as much as possible and hiding it behind the blind headrails – there was no way Boss could see him now!
Tao watched Boss walk towards Raizel-nim, carrying something in his hands. Except, before Boss reached him, he stopped. And then lifted his gaze towards where his cable was.
E-eh?
"Tao, what are you doing?"
How had Boss done that? He hadn't moved when Boss was looking! The only - …wait. Tao frowned, studying where they were again.
Boss couldn't see Tao's cable from that angle, but Boss' aura just brushed his cable. Could Boss feel what his aura touched?
"Tao?"
Whoops. Better respond. 'Hey, Boss,' Tao tapped in morse code on the headrails. 'I wanted to practice using my cables.'
Boss sighed. "Very well, but don't case too much trouble."
'I won't!'
Since he'd been caught by both of them, there wasn't much point in being secretive anymore so Tao dropped his cable to the floor again.
Right beside the puppy, who yelped and skittered away.
"Ah, shh shh, I'm sorry!" Tao said, waving his hands in the air, and dammit, the puppy couldn't see or hear him. Instead, Tao laid the cable flat in front of the puppy, wiggling one end.
The puppy stayed where he was for a few seconds and then came over to his cable. Tao kept moving that one end and the puppy tried to pet it with a paw. Tao let it happen, knowing the puppy couldn't damage his cable.
With a light bark, the puppy dropped into a play bow and Tao chuckled, putting his hands behind his head again.
It was different from playing with the puppy when he could see him with his own eyes, seeing the flare of energy in the puppy's body instead before he moved. It helped though, and Tao patted the puppy's head when he sat down, panting.
Tao sent his cable over to the kitchen area and opened the cupboard where they kept the puppy's food.
"Don't give him too many," Boss said. "We're going to have dinner soon."
'Will do, Boss!' Tao tapped out. He split his cable into more and looped the extras around two treats and pulled them out. That should be enough.
The puppy perked up when Tao brought the snacks over and rushed towards his cables. Chuckling, Tao threw a treat in the air. The puppy caught it and curled up to eat it. Heh, okay, so he only needed the one.
Hm… He could put the treat back or he could carry it around with him. It would make things harder but it was good practice for if he needed to sneak something out without being noticed.
Decision made, Tao collected his cable from around the room and slithered out again. Carrying the treat was easy – it only used up a small portion of his cables that it didn't change their movement much, and it was light too. The only problem was if he flexed too hard and broke it in half.
Miss Seira and Regis were on the balcony, but Tao paused outside M-21's room. Hmm… Well, that's what he could do with the treat.
He opened M-21's door and sneaked in. He'd been in his room enough times to have memorised where M-21 put everything and so long as M-21 hadn't left anything on the floor, he would be fine.
A minute later, Tao left M-21's room, snickering to himself after leaving the treat on M-21's pillow.
Miss Seira and Regis were still – no, Regis was turning and Tao raced to hide his cables again. Regis didn't notice, his walk unfaltering and Tao wound a cable up a floor lamp that was at a perfect height.
As Regis walked part, Tao swung the cable over and brushed the point of his hair. The momentum of the swing carried the cable back to the lamp and he bunched it up where Regis couldn't see it by the time he span around.
Regis didn't move, staring back up the corridor before shaking his head and going into his room.
So that left Takeo and Miss Seira. Maybe tap Miss Seira on the shoulder? Except Miss Seira was already walking in his direction and it was too easy if he did the same thing twice.
He unwound his cables from the lamp and followed Miss Seira up the stairs. The problem was how he was going to do this when he was behind her? He still hadn't thought of what to do by the time she reached her room. Damn.
She left her door open.
Huh? It wasn't ajar, where only one cable could fit through the space, but enough for someone to walk through.
"Are you coming in, Tao?"
…Damn, caught again. His track record was pretty shoddy so far.
He twined his cable into her room and hm. He hadn't spent as much time in Miss Seira's room as Takeo or M-21's, and she didn't have a lot of electronics in it either, making it harder for him to navigate.
He bumped the cable into a few things before Miss Seira walked over and he followed her footsteps. Tao sighed, tapping the back of his head. He could still move around rooms pretty well, but it would be a good idea if he made some cameras that he could fit onto the cable heads.
Miss Seira patted something and after Tao poked around it, guessed it was a chair. He wound the cable up the legs, leaned it onto the backrest and then flopped it forward onto the table.
Miss Seira sat opposite him and reached for something. Tao sighed when he remembered what she kept on that side of the table and pulled more of the cable onto the table.
Wait a minute, he wrote with his cable and then opened his eyes again when she nodded. He stretched, hearing his joints crack. His chair was good for leaning back on, but that position wasn't the best idea. Maybe next time he should lie down instead.
He stood up and made sure nothing had happened while he'd been busy. Nothing was out of the ordinary on the feeds and he switched to the school. Everything was normal there too. Okay, good.
He left the room and collected his cables as he passed them.
To get to Miss Seira's room was a straight path up the stairs once he left the lab, but he was trying to be sneaky. So he went down the corridor instead, away from the stairs and he opened the window there, wriggling out the space he made. He grasped the window lintel and pulled himself up.
Tao peered down at his slippers. Uh. He could leave them inside, but then he would have to scale the outside of the house again to get back to the same window. Which he could do, but it was a lot faster if he brought his slippers with him.
Tao wrapped his slippers up in cables and slung them over his shoulder as he closed the window and started climbing his way around Boss' house. The neighbourhood was dark and Miss Seira's room was on the side away from the main road anyway, so there was no chance of anyone seeing him.
Miss Seira's room was on the third floor and...which window would it be? Ah, that one.
He knocked on her window with a cable as he held onto the window sill and after a pause, the window slid open. When Miss Seira poked her head out and looked down, Tao waved with a laugh.
"Can I come in?"
Miss Seira smiled. "Of course." She went back into her room and Tao hauled himself up and perched on the sill to get his slippers on before sliding into her room.
"Sorry for the wait!" he said, picking up his cables from the table and reabsorbing them back into himself. "So!" Tao said as he plopped himself into the chair his cable had been on, still tugging his cables back from around the house, "which colour were you thinking of?"
Miss Seira sat in the chair opposite him and touched the nail polish bottle in the centre.
"Oooh, gold! Okay." Tao nodded, picking it up and shaking the bottle. "So how's your day been?" Tao asked as he got the brushed off the excess before starting to paint her nails.
While they talked, Tao kept a dim awareness of his cables around the house, making sure they were still moving towards him.
There was someone going up the stairs next to the cables.
Tao tilted his head, still listening to what Miss Seira was saying as he opened his senses again.
It was Takeo.
Uh-oh. If he made any movements, Takeo would see it, so he would wait for -
Takeo slowed, ducking his head to peer at the stair banisters.
Shit. Tao unwound his cable, zipping it back up the -
And caught. Damn.
Takeo brought his cable up to his face and Tao made it fall limp.
'Funny,' Takeo tapped on the cable's head. 'What were you doing?'
'I was bored,' Tao tapped back.
Tao felt Takeo's sigh. 'We're training downstairs, if you want to join.' A pause. 'It'll keep you out of trouble.'
Tao thwapped his hand since Takeo couldn't him stick his tongue out. 'Fine. 30 minutes.'
Another pause. 'What are you doing.'
'I'm doing Miss Seira's nails and we're catching up!' Nothing suspicious there.
'All right. We'll see you downstairs.'
'Yup!'
Takeo let go of his cable and Tao drew it towards him again, returning his attention back to Miss Seira. "Repeat that – did he really-?"
____________________________________
A little unsure about the ending, but that's also where it wanted to end.
Summary: Not having something to keep Tao busy was weird. He had all this time, so what was he going to do with it?
Notes: Set post-season 5.
Written for milkteaghost, who needed something to cheer them up. They asked for Tao harassing people with his cables.
Just to clarify – I headcanon that Tao keeps his cables within his body, so he's always got access to them.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Family
Word count: 2,486
Status: Complete
Tao span in his chair. He'd finished all his usual checks and nothing suspicious had turned up; he'd also finished making his latest security program and now had to wait for Boss' green light before implementing it.
Which meant he was done for the day.
Not having something to keep him busy was weird. He had all this time, so what was he going to do with it?
Tao continued to spin in his chair. It was fun, but that wouldn't keep him entertained. Hmm.
He stopped, turning his attention back to his PC and switched the feeds from the school to the ones inside the house. A quick scan and yep, everyone was present and accounted for.
Tao sighed, leaning his elbows on his desk. So now what? He wasn't built for the quiet time; he was still used to the hectic fast pace of battle, needing to keep track of at least six different things at once while making snap decisions that determined their success or failure of a mission.
This was slow.
Humming, Tao lifted a hand and twined one of his cables around his fingers. It had been a while since he'd brought a cable out just for fun and.
He paused, staring up at the feeds in front of him and then at the cable in his hand.
He grinned.
Well, he did need to practice using his cables more and this was the perfect exercise to have some fun with them.
He spun his chair around, his arm outstretched towards the door and coaxed more cables out.
There was the familiar flex and pulling sensation along his skin as his cables flowed out and he directed them outside the door. When they were there, Tao went back to his feeds, seeing the miniature black wave rippling across the floor.
Hm. That was a bit obvious. If he was trying to be sneaky, he was failing straight away.
Tao grouped the cables together so they became one thick cable and made it move along the skirting boards to be less obvious. There. That was better.
He closed his eyes and hm. If he was really trying to practice, he wouldn't use his feeds, for the off-chance a place didn't have cameras (not likely), or he couldn't hack into their system (even less likely).
He would keep the feeds on in case there was something he needed to hear though. Tao turned so he wasn't facing the monitor and leaned back on his chair, sliding his hands behind his head.
He took a breath and then exhaled, extending his senses outwards. The steady pulse of the PC behind him was like a heartbeat he could feel almost dancing along his skin. Takeo's energy was one Tao could pick out anywhere, and he was with someone a few corridors away from Tao. From the way the other person's energy flared every few seconds, Takeo had to be sparring with M-21.
Tao cast his attention upwards and counted four other people. Noble energies were different from humans – they were muted in terms of movement, but they were also more solid, Tao seeing their faces more clearly, their power packed into their bodies. And then there was Boss, whose energy spilled out of his body, blurring his shape; only Raizel-nim was the same, both their energies almost filling the whole of the living room together.
Boss, Raizel-nim and the puppy were the closest to Tao after Takeo and M-21. He would go for Takeo and M-21 later, since they were the most likely to try and stop him when they found out what he was doing.
Getting to the living room wasn't hard and Tao mused what he could do. With Boss and Raizel-nim, it was a success if he got anything past them, so his mission here was to get his cables across the room without being noticed.
Tao opened the door and neither Boss or Raizel-nim turned towards the sound. Good. Using the door, Tao curved his cable around the edge to climb up it – Boss had better eyes than Takeo when it came to anything being out of place in his house. It was safer to go the ceiling route.
Boss was in the kitchen area while Raizel-nim was sitting on the sofa and Tao hummed the theme song to the latest spy movie he watched as he pushed the cables into crevices to make sure they stayed in place.
He froze when Raizel-nim tilted his direction in the cable's direction and he slumped, huffing. Damn. Caught.
Raizel-nim didn't say anything, looking back at something in his hands (from the way he was holding it, it had to be another gaming manual). So he'd failed getting past one person, but he could still get past Boss without being noticed!
Scrunching his eyebrows in concentration, Tao moved his cable bit by bit, trying to make the least amount of movement possible. Boss was chatting with Raizel-nim about his latest round of experiments and Tao inched his cables forward every time Boss turned his back or made noise moving something.
Tao was over halfway through the room when Boss left the kitchen area, walking towards Raizel-nim. Tao stopped, shrinking his cable as much as possible and hiding it behind the blind headrails – there was no way Boss could see him now!
Tao watched Boss walk towards Raizel-nim, carrying something in his hands. Except, before Boss reached him, he stopped. And then lifted his gaze towards where his cable was.
E-eh?
"Tao, what are you doing?"
How had Boss done that? He hadn't moved when Boss was looking! The only - …wait. Tao frowned, studying where they were again.
Boss couldn't see Tao's cable from that angle, but Boss' aura just brushed his cable. Could Boss feel what his aura touched?
"Tao?"
Whoops. Better respond. 'Hey, Boss,' Tao tapped in morse code on the headrails. 'I wanted to practice using my cables.'
Boss sighed. "Very well, but don't case too much trouble."
'I won't!'
Since he'd been caught by both of them, there wasn't much point in being secretive anymore so Tao dropped his cable to the floor again.
Right beside the puppy, who yelped and skittered away.
"Ah, shh shh, I'm sorry!" Tao said, waving his hands in the air, and dammit, the puppy couldn't see or hear him. Instead, Tao laid the cable flat in front of the puppy, wiggling one end.
The puppy stayed where he was for a few seconds and then came over to his cable. Tao kept moving that one end and the puppy tried to pet it with a paw. Tao let it happen, knowing the puppy couldn't damage his cable.
With a light bark, the puppy dropped into a play bow and Tao chuckled, putting his hands behind his head again.
It was different from playing with the puppy when he could see him with his own eyes, seeing the flare of energy in the puppy's body instead before he moved. It helped though, and Tao patted the puppy's head when he sat down, panting.
Tao sent his cable over to the kitchen area and opened the cupboard where they kept the puppy's food.
"Don't give him too many," Boss said. "We're going to have dinner soon."
'Will do, Boss!' Tao tapped out. He split his cable into more and looped the extras around two treats and pulled them out. That should be enough.
The puppy perked up when Tao brought the snacks over and rushed towards his cables. Chuckling, Tao threw a treat in the air. The puppy caught it and curled up to eat it. Heh, okay, so he only needed the one.
Hm… He could put the treat back or he could carry it around with him. It would make things harder but it was good practice for if he needed to sneak something out without being noticed.
Decision made, Tao collected his cable from around the room and slithered out again. Carrying the treat was easy – it only used up a small portion of his cables that it didn't change their movement much, and it was light too. The only problem was if he flexed too hard and broke it in half.
Miss Seira and Regis were on the balcony, but Tao paused outside M-21's room. Hmm… Well, that's what he could do with the treat.
He opened M-21's door and sneaked in. He'd been in his room enough times to have memorised where M-21 put everything and so long as M-21 hadn't left anything on the floor, he would be fine.
A minute later, Tao left M-21's room, snickering to himself after leaving the treat on M-21's pillow.
Miss Seira and Regis were still – no, Regis was turning and Tao raced to hide his cables again. Regis didn't notice, his walk unfaltering and Tao wound a cable up a floor lamp that was at a perfect height.
As Regis walked part, Tao swung the cable over and brushed the point of his hair. The momentum of the swing carried the cable back to the lamp and he bunched it up where Regis couldn't see it by the time he span around.
Regis didn't move, staring back up the corridor before shaking his head and going into his room.
So that left Takeo and Miss Seira. Maybe tap Miss Seira on the shoulder? Except Miss Seira was already walking in his direction and it was too easy if he did the same thing twice.
He unwound his cables from the lamp and followed Miss Seira up the stairs. The problem was how he was going to do this when he was behind her? He still hadn't thought of what to do by the time she reached her room. Damn.
She left her door open.
Huh? It wasn't ajar, where only one cable could fit through the space, but enough for someone to walk through.
"Are you coming in, Tao?"
…Damn, caught again. His track record was pretty shoddy so far.
He twined his cable into her room and hm. He hadn't spent as much time in Miss Seira's room as Takeo or M-21's, and she didn't have a lot of electronics in it either, making it harder for him to navigate.
He bumped the cable into a few things before Miss Seira walked over and he followed her footsteps. Tao sighed, tapping the back of his head. He could still move around rooms pretty well, but it would be a good idea if he made some cameras that he could fit onto the cable heads.
Miss Seira patted something and after Tao poked around it, guessed it was a chair. He wound the cable up the legs, leaned it onto the backrest and then flopped it forward onto the table.
Miss Seira sat opposite him and reached for something. Tao sighed when he remembered what she kept on that side of the table and pulled more of the cable onto the table.
Wait a minute, he wrote with his cable and then opened his eyes again when she nodded. He stretched, hearing his joints crack. His chair was good for leaning back on, but that position wasn't the best idea. Maybe next time he should lie down instead.
He stood up and made sure nothing had happened while he'd been busy. Nothing was out of the ordinary on the feeds and he switched to the school. Everything was normal there too. Okay, good.
He left the room and collected his cables as he passed them.
To get to Miss Seira's room was a straight path up the stairs once he left the lab, but he was trying to be sneaky. So he went down the corridor instead, away from the stairs and he opened the window there, wriggling out the space he made. He grasped the window lintel and pulled himself up.
Tao peered down at his slippers. Uh. He could leave them inside, but then he would have to scale the outside of the house again to get back to the same window. Which he could do, but it was a lot faster if he brought his slippers with him.
Tao wrapped his slippers up in cables and slung them over his shoulder as he closed the window and started climbing his way around Boss' house. The neighbourhood was dark and Miss Seira's room was on the side away from the main road anyway, so there was no chance of anyone seeing him.
Miss Seira's room was on the third floor and...which window would it be? Ah, that one.
He knocked on her window with a cable as he held onto the window sill and after a pause, the window slid open. When Miss Seira poked her head out and looked down, Tao waved with a laugh.
"Can I come in?"
Miss Seira smiled. "Of course." She went back into her room and Tao hauled himself up and perched on the sill to get his slippers on before sliding into her room.
"Sorry for the wait!" he said, picking up his cables from the table and reabsorbing them back into himself. "So!" Tao said as he plopped himself into the chair his cable had been on, still tugging his cables back from around the house, "which colour were you thinking of?"
Miss Seira sat in the chair opposite him and touched the nail polish bottle in the centre.
"Oooh, gold! Okay." Tao nodded, picking it up and shaking the bottle. "So how's your day been?" Tao asked as he got the brushed off the excess before starting to paint her nails.
While they talked, Tao kept a dim awareness of his cables around the house, making sure they were still moving towards him.
There was someone going up the stairs next to the cables.
Tao tilted his head, still listening to what Miss Seira was saying as he opened his senses again.
It was Takeo.
Uh-oh. If he made any movements, Takeo would see it, so he would wait for -
Takeo slowed, ducking his head to peer at the stair banisters.
Shit. Tao unwound his cable, zipping it back up the -
And caught. Damn.
Takeo brought his cable up to his face and Tao made it fall limp.
'Funny,' Takeo tapped on the cable's head. 'What were you doing?'
'I was bored,' Tao tapped back.
Tao felt Takeo's sigh. 'We're training downstairs, if you want to join.' A pause. 'It'll keep you out of trouble.'
Tao thwapped his hand since Takeo couldn't him stick his tongue out. 'Fine. 30 minutes.'
Another pause. 'What are you doing.'
'I'm doing Miss Seira's nails and we're catching up!' Nothing suspicious there.
'All right. We'll see you downstairs.'
'Yup!'
Takeo let go of his cable and Tao drew it towards him again, returning his attention back to Miss Seira. "Repeat that – did he really-?"
A little unsure about the ending, but that's also where it wanted to end.