2 Chapter 2: Dinner with the Family, pt. 1

The young man, having decided to get started with his evening, grabbed his phone from the bedside table before moving towards the privacy curtain hanging from the ceiling. Slightly lifting the curtain to one side, he passed the threshold into the hallway. On one side of the hall was his uncle and aunt's bedroom, with a separate bedroom that was used almost solely for storage. The other side of the hall leads to the stairwell, the only way down from the second story.

The young man stopped just after entering the hallway before turning back towards his room. He grabbed a small black and silver metal box off the bedside table, then double checked to see if there was anything else he had forgotten. Aside from a bottle of flavored sparkling water, he confirmed there was nothing else of import, before returning to the hallway once more. This time however, he ran into his aunt as she was heading downstairs, like him.

"Hey Drake, just woke up?" She greeted as he let her enter the two person wide stairwell before him.

"Morning Myrias... Nope, I discarded the need for sleep when I became a cyborg..." He half-heartedly joked back in response, intentionally using her full name.

"Uh-huh, whatever floats yer boat I guess, and how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Myr? Will you stop using my full name already? You know I don't like getting called like that... It feels like I'm in trouble or something..." Myrias threw back a careless remark before she caught his use of her name.

"How long will it take for you to just use my nickname?"

"How long will it take for you to stop hating me using your full name?" Drake asked as the two reached the bottom of the short flight of stairs.

"Probably never?" Myr replied exasperatedly.

"Then that's how long it'll be till I start using your nickname..." Drake laughed as he fulfilled his requirements for being a smartass.

"Alright, if that's how you wanna play, then how about I just call you Drakon from now on in return, huh?" Myr snarked back, certain of her victory this time.

The two were now walking side by side through the living room, since it's far more spacious than the somewhat narrow stairwell. The family living room could be classified as just having a general run-of-the-mill layout; with a couch up against the wall on the right, a recliner to the left of the kitchen doorway that was located just past the couch, and a relatively large flat screen tv against the windows with their curtains drawn, blocking out a great majority of the sunlight. A pellet stove in the opposite corner from the kitchen entrance, just to the left of the tv, added the finishing touches.

"I wouldn't mind to be honest haha, I've always liked my full name, it sounds like dragon," Drakon, usually referred to as Drake, replied as he let out a lighthearted chuckle at his aunt's attempt at revenge.

"Grrrr...! Just you wait, I'll get you to stop using my full name if it kills you!" Myrias capitulated as she sent a couple playfully serious slaps towards Drake's arm, taking advantage of the excess space.

"Hahaha alrighty, I shall eagerly await your attempts, milady..." Drake laughed as he gave a slight, yet still exaggerated, bow towards his aunt, shrugging off the slaps that suddenly got a little stronger.

With nothing more to add other than one last "harumph", Myrias walked ahead of Drake towards the kitchen to help prepare the meal, as she was often wont to do. Drake gave one last chuckle as he sat down on the couch, pulling up the metal box he had almost forgotten in his bedroom.

The somewhat small metal box, slightly bigger than a pencil box, has a 3 digit pin lock on its front that helps to secure the contents. The walls of the box's exterior are made with a plastic-like substance that's solid black in color, with the edges being encased in a silvery-white metal to assure stability.

Drake opened the front lock, not bothering with the pin since he always leaves it on the right numbers just because it's faster and easier for him. On one side of the box's interior was a small removable nylon pouch that could be opened with a zipper that stretches along all sides but one, and an even smaller built-in net that held a number of diabetic pen needles used for injecting insulin. Naturally, on the other side of the box, placed within built-in elastic bands, were two pen shaped objects, one blue-ish green, the other a blaring orange; these were the two different types of insulin Drake needed on a daily basis. Pulling out the nylon pouch, Drake unzipped the zipper, spread the pouch open, and flattened it out on his lap, exposing its contents.

Within, on one side of the pouch there was a second built-in net, this one had a zipper and only contained a number of small lancets, the needles diabetics use to poke their fingers. On the other side, there was a small electric device that's used to read the user's blood sugar levels paired together with a little container of test strips. With practiced hands, Drake pulled out a test strip and inserted it into the device before he undid the second zipper, pulled out one of the little demons, and inserted it into its set slot in the lancing device itself.

Without any hesitation whatsoever, due to his high level of familiarity with the process already, Drake applied the end of the device to one of his fingers, pushed the button on the side that activates the device, and listened to the quiet sound of the lancer performing its assigned task. Drake replaced the lancer on the flattened pouch before applying pressure to the newly injured finger above the pin prick, milking his finger for its blood before applying the sanguine drop to the end of the strip sticking out of the device in the pouch.

The result was far higher than Drake had been hoping for, but not nearly as bad as it's been in the past. Drake, along with one of the pen needles, pulled out one of the two pens to go with it, the bright orange one for fast correction. He slipped the pen's lid off, twisted the needle onto its tip, uncovered all the plastic safety guards and, once again, unhesitantly stabbed the needle into a spot on his stomach; in this case, he chose a spot about two inches to the right of his belly button. He then proceeded to inject the correct amount of insulin needed to get his blood sugar back down to normal, as well as the amount to prevent it from jumping again due to the meal he's about to eat.

Since today was a Thursday, there's only one meal to expect today, and he already knew exactly how much to correct for it, so any added calculations were unnecessary, which allowed him to finish injecting relatively quickly. Once he had completed the injection, he deftly began cleaning everything up, throwing away everything that gets thrown away, and leaving all the sharps and blood contaminated items in the case to drop in his sharps container once he gets back upstairs. No sooner had he closed the diabetic kit than he heard Myrias call out that dinner we finished.