Second Floor Common Room, Thursday Afternoon

[lockestheway]

Okay, so Peter's plan to get some bodyguards had been waylaid by the enormous volume of work that had come crashing down on him the past few weeks. What little free time he'd had he hadn't exactly wanted to spend going around politicking with the student base, but now that he finally did have a day with only minimal work to do, well...

He'd gone out into town and bought two bags full of pastries from JGoB's, and brought them back up into the common room. Now there they were, spread out across the coffee table, Peter lounging ever-casually on the couch.

If that didn't bring in some potential bodyguard candidates, he didn't know what would.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[walkswithcoyote]

"Now those smell good," Mercy said, following her nose to the common room. "Is this for a club or something?"

[lockestheway]

"No, I just thought I'd do something nice," Peter said brightly.

That was a complete lie.

[walkswithcoyote]

Which Mercy could completely smell.

"Uh huh. Did you have a personality transplant while you were gone?" she asked lightly.

[lockestheway]

Peter chuckled. "No," he said, "But I did get my priorities in order."

His main priority in this endeavour being 'making sure nobody can try to assassinate me again'.

[walkswithcoyote]

Mercy grinned. "Well, that's a good thing then. So, what are your new priorities?"

[lockestheway]

"Make sure the fine people of Fandom don't run and flee my company when I'm around," Peter said smartly, and offered her a pastry.

[walkswithcoyote]

"I'm not much of a one for fleeing," she said honestly, but took a pastry. "Thanks."

[lockestheway]

"Ah, see," Peter said, grinning, "That's my plan working."

[walkswithcoyote]

"You're right," Mercy said with as straight a face as she could manage. "Peter. You are my best friend now."

[lockestheway]

"Now you're overselling it."

[walkswithcoyote]

"Too true," she admitted with a smile. "Besides I imagine you already know that while everyone probably has their price, a delicious pastry isn't quite there."

[lockestheway]

"Depends on what you're trying to buy them for," Peter said, shrugging idly. "Right now I'm trying to get some goodwill. Pastries seem like a reasonable price to pay."

Still looking for potential bodyguards, Peter.

[walkswithcoyote]

"Goodwill you can have," she said with a smile.

[nottrivial]

Peter was so, so sneaky.

Alec was on his way downstairs when he happened to spot this little display, and, because it seemed Peter knew how to motivate teenagers like no other, completely fell for it.

"Are these to share?"

[lockestheway]

"Sure," Peter said, looking up with a practiced (and very political) friendly smile on his face. "Dig on in."

[nottrivial]

"Thanks." Alec carefully selected something small, then brought it over to the couch to eat. "I'm Alec. Are you... new?"

By now he was pretty sure he recognized most of the students at Fandom, but then, he wasn't accounting for people who hung out in their rooms on video calls all day.

[lockestheway]

Peter shot him a mildly amused look. "I've been here off and on for over a year," he said, "We must've missed each other a few times."

[nottrivial]

"Oh." Fail. "Sorry. I don't actually get out that much."

[lockestheway]

"You and half the people in these dorms." That was practiced friendliness, yes. "That's why I figured I'd try and lure some people out with the smell of food."

And attempt to convince them to want to defend Peter with their life.

[nottrivial]

Alec nodded. "It's a pretty good strategy." Since he was here and all. "I mean. Obviously."

[lockestheway]

Peter was going to take the 'socially awkward' bits as a good sign that this one would be easy to get on his side. He just nodded - obviously! - and said, "So what's your name? I'm Peter."

[nottrivial]

Somewhere, another socially-awkward Peter minion -- who was probably still asleep -- was feeling oddly flattered.

"Alec," Alec said. "Lightwood. I got here early this summer, so I'm still mostly new."

[lockestheway]

"Not new enough not to know what this island's all about," Peter said sympathetically, and picked up a pastry himself as an exercise in purposefully mirroring being companionable.

[nottrivial]

...He was so good.

"Right," Alec agreed. "I think that one week in the other reality cleared that up for me pretty quickly."

[lockestheway]

Well, he was a politician.

Peter winced sympathetically. "Yeah, that was a bad one," he said. "I was actually elsewhere during the summer-- of course I wandered in right as that was going on."