fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [05/10].

Entry tags:

Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [05/10].

Astrid and Troy both had sort of failed to spread the word to the new kids about Monday Morning Breakfast, but, then again, they'd just sort of adopted the tradition, so they didn't have nearly as much stake in it as Wayne had. In fact, they had so little stake in it that Astrid knew Troy was pretty much out the moment he realized he had a first period class and that he'd have to get up earlier to fit in it before he went. Which was understandable, first period classes were generally why Astrid stopped going to breakfast, but she figured she could at least give it a try to keep the tradition going if there was any interest in it.

She didn't consider herself as good of a cook as Wayne, and she'd definitely never cooked much for other people, just herself, and it was simple things, because you didn't get too complex when you were barely tall enough to reach the stove and was only cooking because it was one of those weeks where your mother sort of forgot about things like feeding you. But the effort gave her something to focus on that wasn't her mother or her empty room, so she was all in, wondering if Wayne would criticize her for her less-than-perfect pancakes or just be proud that someone was keeping his breakfast tradition going.

Probably both, she s'posed.

[[ open breakfast is indeed open! ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Miles had been up early to go out on his morning run until he smelled food coming from a familiar common room.

And since it was the first week of school, Miles figured it was best to break in any newbies by crawling into the room on the ceiling.

“Morning!” He called out cheerfully. “Howareyanow?”

Well what else should you say on a Monday morning?

And Astrid, as one of the few who didn't make Wayne twitch by consistently getting it right, couldn't help smiling a little at that, even if Miles was getting some lifted brows for his entrance.

Sometimes, it was just too early to deal with classmates crawling on ceilings! Even if, at this point, there was something oddly comforting in the fact that it was even a thing. Maybe if only to prove to herself that she wasn't crazy after probably convincing Clare that she absolutely was.

"Good," she answered back, and she'd have felt weird about it if it weren't for the confidence she had that Wayne would have approved, "n'you?"

“Pretty good,” Miles said flipping down from the ceiling and heading to the sink to help with the dishes. “Just smelled some food coming in here and thought I’d see who was taking over the Monday breakfasts.”

"It was supposed to be me and Troy ~~in the mooooorn~ing~~," Astrid said, with the faintest roll of her eyes as she tried to not burn one of the pancakes she was working on, "but he got a first period class, so I don't really see that happening."

Which was honestly fine, because she could see too many ways in which that could go wrong.

"I'm definitely open to help if you want to pitch in, though. I think I've only even got a quarter of what he usually had done ready right now..."

"I'm always happy to pitch in," Miles replied, as he started cleaning up some of the dishes. "I tried to help Wayne a few times but he seemed pretty possessive of the process. Maybe next week I'll make some of my Mom's empanadas."

"That sounds great, actually," said Astrid with a hopeful smile. "If you don't mind. I was kind of thinking it would be nice to mix it up in here once in a while."

Now that King Wayne had been forced to abdicate from his breakfast throne...

"I already feel Wayne's scowl coming down from the Canadian border from you saying that," he teased. "Plus there were always the random ingredients that showed up. I wonder if the island will do the same to you."

Let him scowl! His reign here was over!

Astrid grinned at Miles a little. "I'd almost feel insulted if it didn't."

Just as long as it didn't pick one day to just fill the whole fridge with nothing but milk, she should be fine, she felt.

"You might regret saying that," Miles pointed out. "Next week all the eggs are going to turn into ostrich eggs just because you said that out loud."

It's almost like the island could read the narrative.

Funny how it did that sometimes.

"I'll be sure to check the store for any oversized woks when I'm in on Friday," Astrid decided. "Ostrich eggs just sounds like all I'll have to do is make fewer omelettes."

"Well that's probably a good idea," Miles agreed. "After all I've experienced since coming here, it's just best to be flexible and roll with it."

Astrid's smile went a little softer at that, because with everything she'd experienced since coming here? Some things were much harder to roll with than others. But she did try not to think about those things, and it made rolling with ostrich eggs a bit easier, anyway.

"Yeah," she agreed. "You never know what you'll get here, so it doesn't hurt to be ready for anything. Even if that anything is finding out which places in town deliver this early in the morning."

It wasn't that Clare was avoiding her underwater basket weaving class as much as she was pretty sure that course was code for something horribly dull like the study of medieval popes or stuffy British monarchs and besides, she was famished.

"Are you making pancakes?" she asked, looking hopefully into the pan.

Well, then, wasn't she going to be (hopefully) pleasantly surprised!

"I am making pancakes," Astrid confirmed, giving Clare a smile that she hoped would sort of earn some forgiveness for all the necessary crazy talk at the picnic, and tilted the pan a little so Clare could see better to prove it. "Would you like some? I've also got some bacon and toast, but I haven't gotten to the hashbrowns or eggs yet."

Seriously, though, how did Wayne manage to make all of that by himself every week? Astrid was definitely going to need to do this a lot more to get up to his level.

Then, her Big Sibling instincts took over a little as she asked, "Sleep well, Clare? How are you liking your new room?"

"It's massive," Clare said happily, "and so far completely demon free!"

She was on the lookout, Astrid.

Excuse Astrid for a moment, as that was a very impressive answer (once she sort of worked out what had actually been said) coming from a newbie, and she was a little surprised but exceptionally pleased to hear it. Maybe she hadn't done so badly with this one, after all!

"And let's hope it stays that way," she noted, then waved a hand at some of the food that was collecting on the counter as she was preparing it. "Help yourself to breakfast, though. There's coffee and hot water for tea if you're into that, and juice and fruit and stuff in the fridge, too. Are you excited to start your classes?"

"I've been absolutely dying for a cuppa," Clare admitted. "And yes! My classes are very cooking oriented, so maybe I can help you with breakfast after I learn what on Earth I'm doing."

"That would be great, actually," said Astrid, after a moment to figure it out, although she wasn't exactly sure if she got it right. But that was definitely one thing about being exposed to a lot of different languages and accents growing up, it wasn't hard to get used to other people's. "Monday morning breakfasts are kind of a tradition around here, and the guy who used to run the whole thing graduated, so it sort of fell into my lap to carry it on. It would be nice to kind of steer it towards more of a group effort, I think.

"What all are you taking?" she then asked. "Maybe we'll have some classes together."

"I have basket weaving--that can't actually be real--and exploring cuisine today," Clare said, pulling out her schedule, "culinary crimes tomorrow, phys ed on Thursday, and philosophy on Friday. How about yourself?"

"We actually have a lot of classes together," Astrid noted. "I'm in basket weaving," which she had no doubt was absolutely real but she wasn't going to spoil that for Clare, that really shouldn't be spoiled, "and the cuisine one, and philosophy. But then I have the haiku class and the future history of science."

Both of which were on Tuesday so she might have to talk to Lucille about her flower shop shift, but she'd worry about that later.

"How would the future history of science even work?" Clare wondered.

Astrid opened her mouth to answer, and then realized that this was probably something she should have gone over on Saturday, and so she stopped a moment, first to finish up what she was cooking so she didn't get too distracted and burn the place down, and also just to make sure she found the best way to put it.

"Well," she offered, considering that at least Clare seemed open to the idea of potential demons or at the very least had an incredibly dry sense of humor that even she had to be extremely impressed by at this point, "some people are actually from the future, around here. Some people are from the past. So Mr. O'Hara, who's teaching the class, is from the future and knows about technologies that some people from the current time or the past wouldn't know about. At least, that's what I figured, from the course description. I mean, I'm actually one of the people from the past, myself, so even the technology here is from the future for me."

"You don't look like you're from the past!" said Clare, also unaware she was from the past.

"I also don't look like I'm forty-four years old," Astrid offered, "but that's what my driver's license says..."

And to be fair, fashion was cyclical, so a lot of what Astrid owned by way of clothes that weren't just assimilated by being in the future were now considered vintage chic.

She eyed Clare a little bit before adding, "It's 1994, back where I'm from."

"But that's only a year off," Clare said. "People are really that twisted about the difference between 1994 and 1995?"

Oh, Clare.

There was a pause.

And perhaps a lift of her eyebrows, because when did she become so accoustomed to this sort of thing that her first thought was wow, so we're practically from the same time instead of wow, time travel is real and surprisingly casual?

"We're only a year off from each other," she noted, and it was still hard to not feel like that was actually pretty cool. "From here, it's a lot more than that. It's actually 2021 here."

Which still sounded like a fake number.

Especially since there was still no apocolypse and flying cars.

Even if one of those things was probably much closer than the other.

"Catch yourself on!" Clare said. "It's not 2021! We'd all be living on the moon!"

Astrid was now convinced that it was impossible to hear someone say catch yourself on like that and not be amused.

"Actually," she said, "it's Mars that they're trying to colonize now, but they haven't quite gotten there yet. Half the people here are from space, anyway, so they're probably wondering what's taking us so long in the first place."

"Half of the people are from space," Clare said, then gave an appraising look at Miles. "So he's---"

"Actually not," Astrid offered. "I don't know too much about Miles' whole thing, if I'm honest, but I do know he's from Brooklyn." A slight pause, to consider Clare's accent. "New York. But my roommate was from space. She's graduated now, so she actually went back to space, but it's an entirely different galaxy than ours, a completely different universe."

"Maybe my roommate is from space," Clare said, thinking. "She said she lived in the woods!"

Astrid wasn't quite sure she followed the logic of that, or maybe she just hadn't followed exactly what it was Clare was saying. It was kind of a toss-up.

"Maybe," she allowed. "Who's your roommate? Maybe we could ask her."

Clare logic was, funnily enough given the conversation, not exactly Earth logic.

"Her name is Malia," Clare said. "She's quite terrifying, honestly."

"Morning!" Miles said cheerfully where he was standing. On the ceiling. "Howareyanow?"

He wasn't doing Wayne's accent justice but it was very important this tradition continued.

"Sorry, I didn't catch a word of that," Clare said in an equally thick accent.

"How are you now?" Miles said slowing down his impersonation of Wayne. "It's a traditional monday morning greeting from the guy who used to do all the breakfasts around here."

"Ohhh," Clare said. "So it's something I need to say in order to get food?"

"Nah, you can say whatever you want," Miles replied cheerfully. "I'm just trying to stick with tradition."

"So you and the lad that just graduated were very good mates, then?" Clare guessed.

"Well I wouldn't call ourselves best friends, but he was incredibly giving," Miles explained. "Wayne came off sort of gruff but he'd be here every Monday fixing breakfast that he usually paid for all himself."

"I'd have to pay for all of this if I made it?" Clare said. "I'd need a job. Maybe two. Is there an advert board around here where people also put up their dead cat posters?"

There was a long pause there as Miles wondered if Clare actually said 'dead cat posters' or he misheard that somehow with her accent.

"Well, actually the common room always seems to have food show up. And any time you order any food from town they always give tons extra," Miles explained. "But you can usually find a job at any place in town. Turtle and Canary always seems to be hiring."

...

"Did you say dead cat posters?"

"Aye," Clare said with a nod. "They always say 'missing' on them, but honestly. If it's still up there nine months later?"

"Well there's nothing wrong with holding out hope," Miles said frowning a bit. "I mean, maybe someone took them in and haven't been on the same street?"

Clare shrugged. "Generally not something that happens in Derry."

Poor kitties.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [05/10].

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject