tushanshu_logs | october gave a party

Entry tags:

october gave a party | open, with starters

Characters: Gene and Kitty, and YOU!
Date: Throughout October
Location: Keeliai and the rest of the shell
Situation: October frolics for my unhiatused crew.
Warnings/Rating: None initially, but subject to change.

A. [Gene] House Iron Dragon | early October | closed to Tony and Pepper
The letters from the previous month have been weighing heavy on everyone, and Gene and Tony have decided to talk to Pepper about certain things that their letters had mentioned. Time to bring her in on another secret.

B. [Gene] House Iron Dragon | October 25 | closed to Tony and Pepper
Gene's done a good job keeping his birthday a secret. Apparently? Not good enough.

C. [Kitty] Sky Sector | early October | closed to China
Kitty's meandering around the city, listening to her iPod, and trying to get a handle on the place. Right now, she's looking at the pottery one of the artisans has made with some interest.

D. [Gene] Fire Sector | throughout October | open
Gene has been doing his thing in the city, teaching at the dojo and living his life. He spends a lot of time in the Fire Sector. Come say hi!

E. [Kitty] Wood Sector | early October | open
Kitty's been settling into the city nicely, and today she's made the Wood Sector her subject of study. She's occasionally testing the trees, climbing on them a little, and might be found up in one, just watching the world go by.

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After Tony's birthday party, where Gene had adamantly refused to reveal his own birthday, Pepper and Tony had put their heads together to try and figure it out. They'd compiled hints and clues remembered from high school, and narrowed it down to late October. And when Gene took the 25th off from work at the dojo and had oh-so-subtly inquired as to Tony's plans for that day several times, they'd made an educated guess.

On the morning of the occasion, Tony is, very unusually, up and out of bed before Gene. When Gene comes downstairs, he'll see why: there is a generous stack of fresh chocolate(ish) chip pancakes sitting on the table, garnished with berries and a little toothpick flag that reads "Happy Birthday!" Busted, Gene.

Tony's up before Gene, which is quite strange. Probably something to do with his work at the College, which is about as far as Gene pursues that train of thought before coming down the stairs.

When he gets to the table and sees the pancakes and birthday flag, he stares at them for ten solid seconds before looking up at Tony, his expression unreadable.

"What?"

Tony's at the stove when Gene comes down, preparing a pot of tea. He turns around, beaming, his enthusiasm only slightly dampened by Gene's cryptic response.

"Well, we had to guess, so I hope we got it right. Or close, anyway. It was mostly Pepper - she remembers all sorts of random stuff from high school." It's kind of scary. It's like she's always mentally compiling dossiers on everyone she meets. Which is, actually, probably not that far from the truth.

Tony brings the teapot over to the table and pours two mugs of it. "I got this new tea, too. It's some fancy blend that the tea store recommended when I told them what kind of stuff you like."

Gene's utterly flummoxed, and doesn't really make an effort to hide his utter confusion when Tony turns back around with the tea.

"No, wait, what? I..."

No, no, no, this doesn't make sense. This isn't right. Nobody cares about his birthday. Nobody's cared since he turned six. Zhang hadn't cared. If he'd bothered to retain the fact, he'd probably have made Gene's life worse that day.

"...I don't get it," he finishes, somewhat lamely. "This is, uh, nice, though. Thank you."

"Don't get what? It's your birthday. We weren't going to ignore it. I already missed it once, so I've got to make up for it this year."

Misreading the source of Gene's confusion, he asks, "What, did we get it way off? We can just call it a really belated party for your last birthday."

"No, I mean..." He waves a hand vaguely. "I don't get birthday stuff. Not for a while, this is...really, really not what I'm used to." Beat. "Also why I was trying to keep it quiet."

Tony looks suddenly less certain. "Is... is it okay?" he asks, fidgeting with his mug. He'd wanted this to be a nice surprise, and now he's worrying that it's an unwelcome one.

"You and Pepper set up that party for me, so I wanted to do something for you, too." He smiles again, though a little more weakly this time.

"It is, it's good," Gene says hurriedly, "I'm just, this is..."

In a stunning development, Gene's a bit lost for words.

"You really didn't have to," he says at last, his voice quiet.

"Sure we did," Tony says, brightening again. "Friends celebrate each other's birthdays." He sidles over to Gene and kisses him on the cheek. "Boyfriends definitely celebrate each other's birthdays. So you'd better get used to it. And you'd better start on those pancakes before they get cold."

Gene sits in front of the pancakes, still a little bewildered. "Okay."

They look good. They smell good. They might even taste good, which would be awesome. Apparently Tony had learned from his breakfast robot mistakes. (You had better not have used salt instead of sugar, Tony.)

He cuts into one, spears a chunk of pancake and a berry, and eats it.

"Wow. This is good." He smiles. "Thank you."

Pepper didn't manage to get up quite so early, but she bounds down the stairs looking slightly disheveled. It's obvious she just woke up and threw some clothes on, because she could hear the both of them talking.

"Aw, you started without me?" she asks a little incredulously, but it's obvious from the look on her face that she's teasing. "Happy Birthday, Gene!"

Pepper hugs him from behind, which is actually a clever ruse for distracting Gene from the gift she's placed on the table next to him.

"Wow, Tony, have you been taking cooking lessons from Gene? These look awesome," she chirps.

"I wanted to break it to him easy," Tony jokes, except he's totally not joking and that had very much been his intention. Gene might not have appreciated being ambushed with a surprise party as much as Tony had. He can still get a little twitchy when people are paying unexpected amounts of attention to him.

Tony looks supremely pleased by the praise of his pancakes. "Nope. I've been practicing," he says proudly. In secret! Experimenting on pancakes in the dark of the night! "Though I don't think I'm Top Chef material yet."

With a sheepish smile, he holds out two plates of decidedly less attractive pancakes. Clearly, not all of this morning's attempts had made the cut.

You still get pancakes, Pepper, but the birthday boy gets the pretty ones. And the tiny pancake birthday banner.

If Gene was confused before, he's even more confused now. Hugging? Presents? This feels like some kind of trap, even though he knows it isn't.

"Thank you," he says quietly, still a bit flummoxed, and continues cutting up his pancakes.

"Oh, fine," she replies, but she's not actually irritated. Tony had pointed out that she should probably stop trying to rig the house with confetti and noisemakers because that would probably only spook Gene, and she gave in. Her enjoyment of parties does not mean other people around her absorb it by osmosis.

Pepper takes the minorly disfigured pancakes without complaint; as long as they taste good she doesn't particularly care. Speaking of food, there's a decent chef's knife waiting for him on the inside of that wrapping paper.

"You're welcome," she says cheerfully after take a bit of the ugly but delicious pancakes. "But it's your birthday, so you don't have to say thank you because this is what you do for someone on their birthday. Anything you wanna do? I know you don't have work."

~~Don't spook the Wushu Gold Tiger if you like the current arrangement of your face.~~

Now that the pancakes are distributed, Tony reaches into the cabinet where he'd stashed his present, and sets in on the table next to Pepper's. It's a medium-sized wooden box - not ornate, but obviously high-quality. Inside is a similarly understated but expensive ceramic tea set.

He sits down and starts pouring appalling amounts of syrup on his pancakes. "I took the day off too, so we can do whatever you want."

China often finds excuses to be in one area of the city or another, mostly so she can keep an eye on things herself, and in this instance she and Kitty happen to be in roughly the same area.

The girl seems a peculiar one. Mostly because of the cat ears. China reaches across her field of vision to pick up a different piece of pottery carefully, turning it over with interest. If Kitty's paying attention, she may notice fading bruising on that wrist.

In a moment she sighs, and puts the piece back. "I see your eye's been caught," she comments to Kitty, idly leading for elaboration.

"So 't has," Kitty says cheerfully, noticing that the voice belongs to Wristy McBruisealot. "I'm rather taken with it. It reminds me a lot of raku firing." And she only knows what that's called because it makes really pretty things. She turns the kirin figure over in her hands again before turning to the kedan artisan. "All right, buddy, I'm sold. How much?" The quoted figure of three juulan doesn't break the bank, and she hands it over. The shopkeep looks a little disappointed, like she could have asked for more if this Foreigner wasn't even going to bother bartering. She wraps up the figure in a strip of fabric to protect it before handing it back to Kitty.

"Y'all right there?" she asks, tucking the figure into her bag.

Edited 2015-10-30 03:08 (UTC)

"So it does," China agrees. The artisan's work is pretty enough, though nothing she plans to take home with her today. She watches the bargaining, or lack thereof, without offering commentary, and waits until Kitty's tucking the figure away to add, "You could likely have bargained her down."

A pause. Why is the girl asking if she's all right? Ah. "This?" China asks, lifting the same hand. "It's nearly healed."

Pepper has been having a rather intense week or two, what with everything that happened with China and Raine and Bakura. The house feels... well it's starting to feel like home. She likes that.

When she gets home, Tony and Gene are waiting for her. The last time Gene was waiting for her, the conversation hadn't exactly been sunshine and butterflies, but there... probably isn't a reason for the same kind of conversation, right?

"Hey guys. What's up?" she asks, heading for the kitchen for a snack.

This conversation isn't exactly going to be sunshine and butterflies either, but it's not bad - just... complicated.

Tony moves to stand in the doorway of the kitchen while Pepper makes herself a snack.

"So, you remember when people were getting those weird letters, right? Well... Gene and I both got one. And we thought we should tell you, because... we want you to know what was in them. They weren't just about Keeliai. They talked about what happens when we go home."

"It's nothing bad," Gene clarifies. "It's just...important. If these letters are telling the truth, I mean."

He's still not sure they should tell her - he likes having the secret being just for him and Tony - but it's fair, and he does want Pepper to know, deep down. Better than having her freak out about them all over again, anyway.

Pepper freezes when Tony mentions the letters. She looks over her shoulder after a moment, glancing from one to the other, and then gives up on making the snack for now. She turns and moves closer, so she can see them both properly.

"I got one too," she begins slowly. And when you tell me something important, I'm supposed to listen. "It didn't have a lot about home, not anything specific at least, but... What did yours say?"

"You did?" Tony's eyebrows lift. "What did yours say?" No, wait, she just asked him that, he's supposed to answer first. Backtracking: "Wait, sorry. Ours said..." Shit. Backtracking a little further.

"Okay. First we need to tell you that... we may have figured out a way to keep our memories." There we go.

"We've been here for a couple years, and we didn't want to just forget all of that. So we thought, if nobody here can figure out how to get us home with out memories, well... Gene's got these rings of ultimate reality-altering power, so..." Tony chuckles, a little nervously, and glances at Gene.

Skulduggery heard the radio message. He didn't respond to it at the time, partly because he was too busy, and partly because Gene had made it abundantly clear in the past that he was fine and didn't appreciate being badgered.

But Skulduggery kept an eye on him. And one afternoon, after classes ended at the dojo, he happened to be outside when Gene came out.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said. There wasn't any real effort to hide an ulterior motive, but neither was there any attention drawn to it. There didn't need to be. Armour and past mistakes aside, Skulduggery liked Gene. "I didn't realise you were teaching."

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october gave a party | open, with starters

B

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C!

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A

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D | About midway through October