Fifth Floor Common Room; Early Sunday Evening [ 02/15 ].

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle had decided that she didn't want to take any chances and have something weird happen to her on the way to radio because she was going all over the place, so she was going to play it safe and just hang out a while in the common room. She had with her a very healthy dinner of sugary cereal seasoned with sugar and with chocolate milk instead of regular milk, and sunk comfortably in the cushions of the couch with the bowl in her lap and her feet up on the coffee table. The TV was on CNN, and she was having maybe way too much heckling the commentators.

"That's stupid!" she informed one guy. "And you're old, anyway."

It was, she felt, very good radio prep.


[[ I've spent almost all day away from the computer and now wants to plaaaaaay. Open! ]]

Comments

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

This wasn't Ned's floor but Ned's floor was quiet so he'd gone up a few floors until there was noise associated with someone he knew. Thankful that he didn't feel as awkward anymore, he stopped in the door way and asked, "Who's old?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"At least," Turtle said, "seventy three point five percent of anyone on CNN. There's at least a twenty-six point five percentage allotted to younger, attractive people in a futile attempt to draw in a younger, hipper crowd."

She glanced over and gave Ned a smile. "Hi, Ned. How goes it?"

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"The weekend has been busy but it hasn't been bad," he said, smiling back. "A dance back to back with a holiday and I'm ready to sleep for a week. How are you?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

A little green alarm clock on wheels zipped into the common room and stopped in front of the TV with an inquisitive chirp, then turned and whistled cheerfully at Turtle.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Good," Turtle said, nodding. "Just relaxing a little bit before I have to go in for radio. I figured, with everything going on and yet I'm still in one piece and not temporarily traumatized by something, I'll play it safe and stay put at the moment."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Less risk of turning into someone and getting married?" Ned teased. "This weekend has been relatively weird free. It's almost refreshing."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Well, this was a little different. Turtle raised her eyebrows at the alarm clock before giving it a little smile. "Hi," she said, before checking the time on it to make sure it wasn't there just to tell her she was going to be late or anything like that.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Clocky chirped back, an excited little beep! of greeting; the time on its face might have been a minute off from what was onscreen, but other than that it didn't look like it was trying to tell her anything important.

Down the hallway, a voice called, "Okay, okay, I'm up, geez!"

Clocky chirped again, as if to say "How does anyone sleep in that late on a weekend?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle made a face at the getting married quip, but it was one teasing Ned right back. "It was; thankfully, these things come in waves, so there's always a recovery period."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle's head tilted slightly, eyes drifting toward the door, toward the voice in the hallway, and then they returned to the alarm clock. She looked impressed. She looked like she was wondering where she could order some of these in bulk to start selling at the store.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"There you are," Katchoo said from the doorway, glaring at Clocky, who was completely unphased by the look. "Are you happy now?"

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"I hope you haven't just jinxed us to an unending wave of weirdness because of that," Ned said, wincing. "I can make due with the giant hat on my head but if I grow a tail or suddenly turn into an ostrich, I might have to ban you from pies."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"I take it he's yours?" Turtle guessed, with a bit of a grin that she couldn't much help.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Aw, you'd be a cool ostrich, Ned!" Turtle insisted with a chuckle. "And those don't sound too bad either, you know. Or maybe I've just been at this school waaaay too long."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Clocky tweeted indignantly, like it thought she'd clearly gotten that backwards.

"Yep," Katchoo confirmed with a sigh. "Sadly."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Awww," Turtle said, "but it's cute."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Wheeeeeeee! Clocky whirled around in a celebratory circle at the compliment, and Katchoo rolled her eyes.

"That's what everybody says, but nobody else has to deal with the damn thing following them everywhere," she grumbled. "I hate clocks."

The sound Clocky made, once it stopped careening in circles, was very much like a raspberry.

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"I'd be the ostrich that sticks my head in the sand and stays there until the weird passes," Ned replied but then frowned. "But, if I did that, I'd turn back into myself with my head in the sand and that might be dangerous."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"But..." Turtle said after a moment, pointing a little to the door. "You actually followed it, just now."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"...how do ostriches breath with their heads in the sand, anyway?" Turtle asked, because, clearly, that was the important matter here, not Ned's possible death from drowning in sand.

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"I...don't know," he said, frowning upon realizing that. "Maybe they have...another place they breathe out of? Or they can breathe sand?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Don't put logic into this," Katchoo complained over Clocky's smug beeping. "Usually it follows me to work. Hell if I know how it manages the stairs, but there you go."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Uuugggh." Giggling a little,Turtle started to rub her nose with her palm just thinking about it. "That'd be so weird!"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Well," Turtle said, shrinking in her seat a little as she bit her lip, and applied more logic, "if it's following you to work, it's going down the stairs, which is easy. It's if it follows you back that would be cause for wondering, but maybe someone helps it?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"I try not to ask," Katchoo said. "It hurts my brain enough that my damn alarm clock is pretty much alive."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Well, they have to be able to breathe somehow," he said and laughed. "I have never actually seen an ostrich stick its head in the sand though so maybe that's all a myth?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"And...how long have you been going to this school?"

Turtle had to ask, to be honest, even if it did just have her wondering if maybe it was simply that she'd been going to this school too long.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Well," Turtle chuckled, "when you turn into one, you can tell me all about it later."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Since last summer," Katchoo said, eyeing her warily. "What? The whole magic thing still throws me."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"You're not wishing that on me, are you, Turtle?" Ned asked, suddenly paranoid that he was going to become an ostrich.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"But that," Turtle pointed out, nodding the the alarm clock, "probably isn't even magic so much as it is really finely honed technology and artificial intelligence."

There was a pause.

"It seems more like advanced technology and AI, anyway."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Of course not, Ned," Turtle assured him with a slightly apologetic smile. "But you're talking to a girl who's turned into a turtle more times than she'd like to admit. Sometimes the animal thing just seems inevitable."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure it was when Francine got it for me, though," Katchoo maintained. "Semi-sentience wasn't on the list of features in the user's manual that came with it."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Do you suffer any...after effects from that?" Ned asked, curious. "Kaylee was an animal once too and she slept on my shoulder."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle arched an eyebrow, eying the alarm clock and privately wondering if that was the sort of thing you could sue a company for.

"Huh."

There was a pause.

"It's still cute," she figured. "It's a heck of a lot better, anyway, than an alarm clock in the form of a big giant demon dog who'll drown you in her drool if you don't wake up on time."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Oh, god," Katchoo said feelingly, then warned Clocky, "Don't get any ideas."

Beat.

"Demon, seriously?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Probably not literally," Turtle admitted, very reluctantly, "but close enough she may as well be."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Don't need to be a demon to be evil," Katchoo muttered half to herself. "Yeah, okay, clock, that's a point in your favor. Happy now?"

Bzzt.

"Ingrate."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Probably don't need to be evil to be a demon, either," Turtle offered, because even when something probably wasn't said to her directly, she still probably had an opinion about it.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Huh. Yeah, that's probably true," Katchoo had to agree. "Stupid blurred lines."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Get a lot of those here," Turtle continued, musing over her cereal. "It just helps to let some of them go, and, for the other ones...make very clearly defined contracts."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo looked at her curiously. Turtle didn't look, at first glance, like someone who'd accepted that things weren't so black-and-white, but she was right. This place was a little surprising that way.

"Yeah, that's about all you can do, huh?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle had also almost three years of weird shit happening to her under her belt. It changed your perspective a little.

"Exactly. There are two approaches to a situation: letting it control your reaction, or you controlling your own reaction. The moment you start letting it control the reaction, you've lost."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Clocky whistled and rolled away to keep an eye on the TV; this conversation was going a little deep for it.

Katchoo's jaw worked silently as she tried to formulate a response. "That's kind of assuming control is always an option, isn't it?"

Katchoo wasn't really a devout believer in control.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle grinned a little. "I had this conversation," she noted, "with someone else not too long ago. It grew really tangential, so I'll just say that some level of control is always an option, even if it's just control to the point of looking at a situation and realizing that you haven't got a lot of control in it."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Okay, that I'll give you," Katchoo conceded, not willing to go into more depth than that. "Pretty impressive argument."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Thanks." Turtle preened. "I'm going to be a lawyer."

She figured that would explain everything.