tushanshu_logs | october gave a party

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

october gave a party | open, with starters

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