Just a continuation of the Exosuit prosthetic limb captions from a while back 🙂

The Welcome Home party was much belated. For over a year since coming back from the war, Jack hadn’t felt like seeing people - just his carer visiting twice per day - and the apartment had become a mess in that time. The guests were due to arrive in the evening. At first, he set the exosuit to autonomous maid mode, but switched it straight back to manual after just a minute and began scooping up the beer cans and hauling out the black bin bags by hand. His own hands. It just felt good to be able to again.

Every guest got a big metal hug on arrival. They were excited to see the new prototype limbs.

“You look like a million bucks! Glad my tax dollars are finally being spent on something useful!” one friend chuckled. “Does it come with a bottle opener?”

“As a matter of fact, it does,” Jack laughed. “Let me get you a beer.”

With the arrival of Amy and Maeve, there was suddenly competition for the most interesting piece of metal in the room. He insisted on seeing the gold wedding rings, which they flashed excitedly. He apologised for having missed the wedding ceremony, but they brushed it aside. They were far more interested in the exosuit. He found himself double-teamed, firmly cornered on the sofa as they began to grill him on the prototyping he’d signed up for and the technical specifications.

“And it uses an ExoDyne Size-12 Data Umbilical for the external pilot?” asked Amy.

"Um, I think so. Not that they've used that function yet. It sounds like you know more about the tech than I do," Jack laughed.

“Oh, I just love machines,” Amy smiled.

Jack shifted nervously as her finger gently circled the docking port on the back of his neck. She looked down.

“All this military funding and they could only afford to give you a loincloth?”

“It's just until the nerve endings heal around the circuits. They don’t want clothing rubbing against the exposed flesh.”

“So every still works down here?” she asked, gripping the military-issue loincloth.

He yelped and swatted at Amy's teasing hand, aware that her wife was standing right behind his shoulder. “Yes! It all works perfectly fine, thank you! Why don’t I get you a drink?” he squeaked, trying to squirm out of her grasp.

“Actually, there’s something we hoped you could help us with,” said Maeve. “Ever since the wedding, we’ve been talking about starting a family. But my family are religious and very old fashioned. They want us to do things the traditional way. No IVF. Conceived naturally, with love, just between me and Amy. And, well… we did just happen to have this ExoDyne Size-12 Data Umbilical lying around…”