Chapter 1.2: Attention is Like Oxygen

   'Iggy...I'm waiting...!' Pandora called. Displaying her usual lack of tact, she had changed into her sexy night clothes and sprawled herself across their double bed, to try and catch her husband's attention. Unfortunately for her, he seemed far more interested in experimenting again on the chemistry table; hopefully this time with less singed body hair. He had been working himself to exhaustion night after night, determined to learn the chemistry table's secrets, and neglecting his wife in the process. That night was no exception, much to the irritation of Pandora.

   'Can't you see I'm busy?'

   'I could be busy too, if you got your fucking ass over here!'

   'Not tonight! I need to work.'

   'Fine! I'm going to go to sleep then. Asshole!' Pandora spat, and dived beneath the bedcovers.

   He awoke the following morning with a punch to the arm. His wife was already awake and climbing out of bed, visibly furious. 

   'What's the matter with you?!' she started. 'Why won't you sleep with me?!'

   'Because you're a nagging harpy, who won't let me be!' Ignatius retorted.

   'I'm your wife! You knew before we got married that I hate being ignored, and now ever since we moved into this shithole, that's exactly what you're doing! I need attention from you!'

   'You always need attention,' Ignatius evenly told her. 'I think you value it as much as oxygen.'

   'You are so wrong.' She faced away, holding her hand up in disgust.

   'Really? Talk to the hand? That's incredibly immature.' He sighed. 'If you want to get more of my attention, perhaps give me an incentive to stay around you, because so far since our arrival, you have been nothing but insufferable, and I mean even moreso than usual.'

   Pandora wheeled around, seeing red. Ignatius reached out to try and grab her, prevent her from doing anything silly, but was not quite fast enough. 

   A second later he was crumpled on the floor in excruciating pain.

   'Crazy bitch,' he wheezed.

   The rest of the day passed with little confrontation, luckily. Pandora occupied herself by talking to her reflection in the mirror. She called it "practising her charisma". Ignatius called it "being vain", albeit not to her face. He had clambered out of bed to use the bathroom in the small hours of the morning, and heard a peculiar noise from outside. 

   Tugging on some clothes, he stepped through the front door to investigate, and much to his surprise found a pointy-eared, green skinned space woman. 

   'Who goes there?' he demanded.

   The woman turned around, staring at him with her blank, full black eyes. He tensed up, bracing for a fight. 

   ...But instead, the "visitor" decided it would be more prudent to hold up her hands and chatter away in a strange and foreign language, in a put on child's voice. Not too sure how to react, Ignatius simply blinked a few times in complete and utter bewilderment.

   'Get out of here, you babbling outer space fool!' he commanded, brandishing a hand at her.

   He had no idea if his words were understood, but it was clear from her reaction that at least his body language was universal.

   He pointed at her, ready to chase her off when she simply glared, clenched her fists, and stormed off. She beamed into a spaceship that took off to the skies and was gone within seconds.

   '...At least she didn't help herself to a television workout,' Ignatius muttered, heading back inside.

   Wand in hand, clothes actually on her and not on the floor, Pandora stood. She held the sliver of wood tightly in her hand, facing her foe. Her vs him. A battle of wits and magic. To the victor, the spoils and to the loser, nothing but humiliation. She took a deep breath. 

   Success! The bug that rested on her table had been transformed! Into absolutely nothing! Her spell had backfired. Damn. Oh well, at least she had that fucking bug off the table now.

   Ignatius was keeping his distance again. He had made a few new purchases, and wanted to give them a try. The brand spanking new alchemy station, along with several planters, had been placed inside the garage. It seemed like a waste to leave it empty. After all, neither of them owned a car because neither of them needed one. Brooms were so much more effective, and so Ignatius decided the garage would, at least temporarily, be a nice little work space for him. Pandora gave no protestations as she did not really need a place to work,since as she was still in the lower rungs of the film world, all she needed to do was let herself be bossed around and schmooze with all the celebrities. 

   Not the prettiest planters in the world, he thought, but they were cheap, and money was still a little on the low side for his liking. It was a good start. 

   Although while he was mixing a potion, a sense of deja vu swept across him. He had a feeling of foreboding, and was almost positive something was going to go wrong -

   He let out a cry of surprise, and coughed, clutching his head. Ugghh, the bright green smog smelt disgusting; he gagged a little, fanning as much of it away from him as possible. Once it died down, he investigated both himself and the station. A reaction that volatile surely must have left its mark somewhere. Hands seemed normal. Nothing looked out of place at the station. Head felt fine. Oh well, maybe just a toxic green alchemt fart was the only thing that happened. He shrugged and went back to mixing, feeling nauseous.

   Next potion attempt: also a failure. Okay, even Ignatius knew when to call it quits. The station was not happy with him for now and it was time to stop before the entire thing went up in his face. 

   In the living room, he found a startling scene.

   '...You're reading? I didn't know you could read,' he "joked". 

   'Ha-fucking-ha. Of course I can, numbnuts. My boss told me to read this boring book,' Pandora moaned, not looking up. The sooner she got through the boring walls of text contained within each page, the better, and she did not need her snarky husband to give her any distractions. 

   Ignatius turned to the fridge, pulling out something to eat. He sat down at the small table, aware of eyes boring into his skull. He glanced up, feeling uncomfortable. Pandora still had her nose buried in her book. He looked the other way. Oh God there was a strange man in the house, staring at him!

   'Who is this?!' he yelped, jumping out of his chair.

   'Huh?' Pandora sighed. 'Oh for fuck's sake. That's...what'shisname. Our live in maid.'

   '...When did you hire him?'

   'When you were busy.'

   '...Does he have to stare like that? I...don't think he's even blinking. Or paying attention to our conversation. Does he have free will? Thought?'

   'Oh my God, will you shut up.'

   Ignatius let out a small irritable noise. He withdrew a poisoned apple from his pocket, and resisted the urge to force it down his mouth's wife to get a few extra moments of peace and quiet. Instead he put it on the table, ignoring the unwavering gaze of the maid, and whipped out his wand. After some fancy hand flailing and a few sparks of magic, he waited to see what he had transmuted the fruit into. 

   Nothing happened. 

   His shoulders sagged in disappointment, and gritted his teeth when he heard a familiar cackle. 

   'What was that?! Oh my God, that was the most pathetic display of magic I have ever seen. At least when I fail, the thing I cast on disappears!'

   'Congratulations, you wasted precious resources.'

   'It's more magical than "behold, this apple shall become...the same apple!"'

   Explosion imminent.

   'Just shut up,' he snarled, not wanting to get into yet another fight, even though it seemed unavoidable. 

   'Don't tell me what to do! I hate that, remember?!'

   'Learn how to be a proper wizard! You're focusing all your attention on so many things, and you suck at all of them! Getting into shape, alchemy, growing stuff, using that stupid chemistry set, sex - you're not practising on one of those enough to get any good! Especially the sex.'

   'I've got better things to do than listen to this.'

   '...Gross. There's wax on your finger. Hey! Don't turn your back on me!' Pandora fumed, and wheeled her husband around. 

   'Enough!' he roared, temper finally completely lost. 'Enough is enough. I am so close to walking out of that door and never coming back! You know what, I'll just settle for your shopping money. Give me your purse.'

   'Wait, what?!'

   'Give me your purse!' Ignatius barked. 'Now.'

   'You're not taking my money, I need that.'

   'For what? We have plenty of food, we have a cheap maid and bills our wages can easily cover, we don't need to pay for travel. No, you just "need" it to splurge on more clothes and beauty products, most of the money used from that from my pay cheque. Empty your purse.'

   'You're a fucking asshole,' she hissed, forking over several hundred simoleons.

   'I know. But you're even worse.'

   Pandora looked crestfallen. Ignatius was uncertain that it was genuine upset at angering her husband; he was suspicious that it was simply faked to try and garner sympathy. Well tough, she could not have it. 

   I knew I should've picked another house to work at, the maid told himself. Too late now. 

AN: The alchemy reaction was really boring. Just a green fart cloud and that was it. No toadification, not even a negative moodlet; I was super disappointed. I should've manually added the toad moodlet myself and pretend it happened >__>. The only time he got a negative moodlet from an alchemy fuck up was when creating a potion immediately afterwards failed. So I've no idea why Toxic Fart Cloud did nothing. Oh well.

Also, Pandora's pink dress, and Ignarius' black shirt with sunglasses, and black shorts are their work outfits. Pandora got a black and purple vest and dark brown 3/4 length leggings, and uh...no shoes. Ignatius' doesn't bother me enough to really require a change, but Pandora's just looked silly as fuck.

Yeah, I'll pass.

There was also a fight scene between the "happy" couple that I put towards this generation's "gotta have a weekly fight" roll, but I can't remember exactly what prompted it. It wasn't straight after an argument; judging by the pictures they had gone to bed and gotten back up again the next day, so I left it out. I think I'm going to start writing chapters up as soon as I've gotten the pictures so I don't forget all the dialogue and whatnot that goes through my mind whilst playing. 

And also, just in case anyone asks, the maid is from the live in maid service from Mod the Sims. I can't remember exactly what it says, but I'd guess that it took a random pudding NPC floating around the game and shoved them into maid service but I could well be wrong. I don't recall it being safe to edit via MC so I had to leave him puddingified, since I couldn't really go online to double check. So yeah. Legacy pud. He randomly stopped showing one day, so I can only assume that a certain bleached blonde bitch made him quit. But he didn't take his pay so that suits me fine. Thanks Pandora!

CAS STOP FUCKING WITH ME.