Fifth Floor Common Room, Sunday morning

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

The robot babies just wouldn't stop crying. Well, they would, and Squall had sort of gotten good at making them shut up, but they just started back up again a few minutes later. He'd tried Silencing them, but although that helped him not break the stupid things, it probably wouldn't do good things for his grade on the assignment. Better that he hear them and deal with them, then. Whatever.

It was either desperation or inspiration that prompted Squall to summon Carbuncle. Maybe a little of both. At any rate, there was now an adorable little Guardian Force keeping the things entertained while Squall sat and glared at the TV. And as an added bonus, the robots would also be impervious to magic for a little while afterward.

Squall's NEXT problem was that he couldn't find anything to watch that didn't suck. Big surprise, there.

Comments

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"Does everything on the TV suck again?" Proto asked with a sigh as he wandered into the common room looking for something interesting to do...

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall shrugged. "Does it ever NOT suck?" Still, he flipped through channels as if that would magically change.

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"Hey, sometimes there's that thing with the swimsuits." Which could be... any number of things, really...

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

George was bored, which was not all that unusual, and so George was looking for people, which was slightly more unusual. She could sit around and glare at walls with the best of them, but something brought her to a common room today.

She'd probably regret it.

She stood in the doorway, staring at the .... green .... sort of ..... the ...

"What the shit is that?!"

Yup. Regretting it already.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"If it was any good, you'd remember its name," Squall pointed out.

He looked over at Carbuncle and the robots just to make sure everything was okay. More or less. They weren't crying yet, so that was a win.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall shrugged. "The news, I think. Or else a very realistic, boring sort of show." He changed the channel again and ended up on QVC. "What do you want, anyway?"

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"I don't see how the name can be important when there are swimsuits."

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall grimaced. "You're just going to let the television pander to your hormones and instincts? That's lazy and stupid. Whatever."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"No, dumbass," George snapped, pointing to the green fuzzy whatever-the-fuck-it-is. "Some monster thing is about to eat your robot babies!"

He was pretty blase for a guy who'd been unwilling to take the direct route to failure. That being, the hammer to the face.

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"What's wrong with being lazy every so often?" Proto asked in something like amusement.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall sat bolt upright and looked over at the robots, a little worried. If anything happened to them...

"Nah, they're fine. That's Carbuncle."

And it had managed to keep the robots from crying for an astonishingly long time so far. Way to go, Carbuncle!

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

What kind of question was that?

"What's wrong with you? ...Besides, with the sort of week everyone's had, swimsuits are a bad idea."

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"Why?" Proto asked with a frown. He'd just spent more time than he usually did with Makita, and that had been pretty awesome, really.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

...And this would be Squall mentally crossing Proto off the short list of people in Fandom that might be potentially helpful in a fight. "Your powers of observation," he snorted, "SUCK."

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

Proto's eyebrow rose doubtfully in Squall's direction. "What? You've got a problem with having more sex than usual?" What was wrong with Squall?

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Okay. He didn't even care that some furry freak creature-thing was going to eat the robot babies.

"That's your pet?" she asked. "Don't they have rules about what kind of pets you can have in this fucking dorm, anyway? Like, normal ones? Ones that aren't going to kill people in their sleep?"

It didn't look especially vicious. And it couldn't exactly kill her. Not the point.

"You're letting a pet babysit?"

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"What, am I the only one here that sees that thing?!" George asked.

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"Which thing?" Proto asked, seemingly unperturbed by... well, anything at the moment.

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"It's not a pet," Squall corrected. "It's a Guardian Force. I Summoned it, and it's keeping the robots from being upset."

Carbuncle looked over at George and blinked its big, huge, cute widdle eyes at her.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Okay. Either she was hallucinating, or everyone else at this school was fucking insane.

"The big, green furry thing that's baby-sitting those robots," she said, pointing.

A pause, and then she frowned. "I can't believe I just said that sentence."

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"I've got a problem with the island messing with people's heads," Squall answered grumpily. "I've got a problem with being made to feel things that I wouldn't otherwise feel. And I've got a problem with the lack of willpower everyone seems to be showing."

He also currently had a problem with blue balls, so he was a little cranky.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Great," George said. "What the shit is it? Other than some demonic creature you can summon to do your bidding."

Okay, it was cute. That was probably a trap.

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

"Eh, it's harmless."

Proto had a very special definition of 'harm', apparently.

[make-the-shot.livejournal.com]

Proto was totally laughing. "It is a pretty ridiculous sentence," he agreed. "But consider this: I've heard weirder ones here on the island." Sure the green thing was weird, but... hello, Fandom!

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"That's pretty much it," Squall told her. "It also makes me stronger and lets me cast magic." He shrugged.

Carbuncle, for its part, did a flip in the air and then bounded over to sniff at George.