FLUFF BREAK

[acautionarytale]

Astrid hadn't been kidding when she said this house had plenty of room. It's a big, sprawling, two-storey... thing on a corner in a residential district that's slowly putting itself back together. Sure the place looks a little worn on the outside....

...But on the inside she's managed to make it an actual home. The place used to belong to a Loyalist couple who, sadly, no longer need it. Astrid has, interestingly, made a habit of appropriating abandoned Loyalist property, mainly because the current provisional governmant considers them forfeit. First come first served, and it seems the Fringe team won't ever have to pay for anything again in this area. So she moved out all the Loyalist propaganda and managed to get in some real furniture and decor. It's a warm and inviting and roomy place that needs explored.

Comments

Over here, we shall coddle some toasters, Peter.

[acautionarytale]

Astrid has set up a little corner of the vast living room with a sofa and a few comfy chairs and half the blankets and pillows in town, it seems. It's warm and cozy and quiet, just the place for recovering from just about anything.

[tookhishand]

Donald feels at this moment at time he's at least upgraded from being a talking toaster to something fuzzier and cuter, like a strange robocat.

Astrid's source of money is curious, how can she afford all of this? Especially the massive amounts of food and hot sauce October can put away. He's on the sofa, pondering money and bald men and Walter and bald children as the after-lunch medication kicks in.

[acautionarytale]

That is curious, isn't it?

Nearby, October is bundled into a recliner, snoring gently. He'd taken Donald and Astrid at their word, and has spent most of his time eating and sleeping. He'll most likely peruse that map of the quad-state area that's sitting on a nearby table as soon as he wakes up, but Astrid isn't rushing that at all.

The selfsame Astrid walks in, now, with a couple steaming mugs in her hands, and a reddish-brown kitten trailing after her. Said kitten bounces up onto the sofa. Astrid, meanwhile, stops and offers a mug to Donald with a smile. "Cocoa?"

[tookhishand]

He can still be useful, he's decided. He'll rescue the Calender Team and... see about doing all he can to put the world back together. Walter's off, taking care of his son, and he's here, helping Walter's family.

Bold cozy thoughts. Cocoa. Yummy. "Thank you."

...Kitten. "I haven't seen any cats more than a decade. Where did you find him?"

[acautionarytale]

Astrid nudges Donald's feet aside so she can sit on the sofa with him. The kitten, meanwhile, has discovered a new hyoomin on the sofa and oh my gosh, must love the new hyoomin lemme get fuzz and purr and cute all over you, hi, hi, hi, hiiiii.

"I think it's more that he found me. I was out picking up some groceries the other day and he followed me home and wouldn't take no for an answer."

And over here, we shall find a wee home for Grumpy Peter.

[acautionarytale]

"Told you there was space," Astrid says, a slightly proud smile on her face. "There's also a basement that isn't cold and damp, but I hope you don't hole up in there."

Harrumph

[emotionisweakness]

"This will do fine," Peter says quickly. Truth is, he will likely need a larger basement-type space soon for his continued... studies. But he's not going to do that here.

Rather than immediately make himself at home, he continues to stand just inside the doorway. What he says next sounds positively dragged out of him, if sincere.

"Thanks, Astrid."

She's gonna put up a sign: 'Beware The Grouch.' Because she loffs youuuu.

[acautionarytale]

It's a nice, spacious room with plenty of light and a lovely comfy bed. And window benches. How can you not love window benches? Astrid looks up at him, her smile a little wibbly.

"You're welcome, Peter."

And then, impulsively, she hugs him.

Abandon All Shoes Ye Who Enter Here

[emotionisweakness]

The window seats are a little much, but the room does remind him of the place he stared with Walter. Makes what heart he has left twinge a little, actually. Astrid hugging him doesn't make it any easier to deal, but after an awkward freeze moment he slowly, stiffly, returns the embrace. He hasn't hugged anyone in a long time.

"You don't have to worry about me," he says again quietly.

Or Maybe Just Donald.

[acautionarytale]

"I know," she murmurs against his chest. "But I'll probably do it, anyway. I worry about people. It's what I do."

She then lets go of him with an only slightly awkward throat-clearing sound and a smile. "Do you need anything?"

And in The Fyoo-char, we have a blender and ingredients and... a thing wot plays music!

[acautionarytale]

Well, Trygstad managed to get almost everything. There's the scientific equipment, sure. There's a blender and an array of cooking implements. There's a mini-fridge stocked with all the things Walter had asked for. And... there's... a thingee. With speakers. And controls. And a note apologising that this isn't a record player but that its memory has over three thousand tracks of music from the dates specified.

Maybe there's a user's manual somewhere that, hopefully, is not in Norwegian.

Re: And in The Fyoo-char, we have a blender and ingredients and... a thing wot plays music!

[because_its_cool]

That's fine. He has a really lovely little machine that translates most everything from one language text to another language, spoken by a sexy female Norwegian. Walter can master most scientific equipment quickly, can disassemble dense equasions and come up with hypothesis that sound insane but are actually, and disturbingly in some cases, right. For all that, Astrid's iPod perplexed him, and this is like unraveling the mysteries of two universes.

It takes a while to get things going. After half an hour of listening, poking around, and grumbling, music is filling the pristine new lab. After a short turn in the centre of the room, a bit of singing, and an attempt to dance with the mass spectrometer, Walter leaves off to take stock of the ingredients.

"Two strawberry milkshakes coming right up! None of that protein sludge, either. Fresh strawberries." He squints at the label of one of the bottles. "And real milk! We're in for a treat, young Michael."

Grinning widely (and a bit wildly), he begins mixing.

Re: And in The Fyoo-char, we have a blender and ingredients and... a thing wot plays music!

[acautionarytale]

iPods are made to confuse people. Astrid never told him how long it took her to learn how to use it....

Michael had wisely stayed away when Walter decided to fight with this machine. He knew Walter would win, but he also knew it'd be a pitched battle, with many casualties on both sides, as nothing is as epic as the conflict between man and music machine. Indeed, the thing had taken umbrage at Walter's fumblings and had spat out noise from radio stations in Korea, Mexico, Russia, and Akron, Ohio and a number station in Antarctica before finally grudgingly surrendering its playlists. And even then the volume control had been extremely shirty. And then the thing kept going into hibernate mode every five minutes.

It was only after Walter gave it a solid dose of percussive maintenance that it decided to co-operate.

Michael came out of hiding to watch Walter dance, a slight smile on his face. He is of the opinion that more people should dance with scientific equipment.

He draws close to watch Walter prepare the milkshakes, eyes wide and curious.

for the grumpiest lil Peter

[tookhishand]

Lunch, medication, nap, dinner. He's having a sandwich. Sliced meat and cheese and a side of teaching the cat to beg. Kitten meows, meat is placed on the floor. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

Peter, you have to come out and eat sometime, and if you don't, he might bring you a sandwich to break the ice.

[emotionisweakness]

Yes, Peter has to eat. So it is that he emerges from his cave, automatically ripping the sign off the door that just keeps reappearing despite his best efforts ("Beware the Grump"? Really, Astrid?) and makes his way into the kitchen slash dining room, only hesitating briefly when he sees it's occupied. The sign, crumpled into a ball, goes into the trash.

"So that's why it keeps following me around the kitchen," he observes, watching the interaction between Donald and kitten out of the corner of his eye as he assembles his own sandwich.

[tookhishand]

"It's unfair to expect him to eat food I wouldn't touch." Sharing is caring. He knows so much about reptiles and practically nothing about cats.

"And he's an endangered species, he should be spoiled."

[emotionisweakness]

"I'm sure he appreciates it," Peter says dryly. Sandwich made, he's unsurprised when the kitten makes a mewing beeline toward him, as if on cue. He can't help smiling a little. It's hard to be in a bad mood when a kitten is winding itself around your ankles, looking for bits of overprocessed ham.

"He's not the only endangered species in this house, is he?"

Movie Night! IT'S MOOOOOVIIIE NIGHT!

[acautionarytale]

There are bowls of snacks on the coffee table and there is an Astrid prowling the rooms looking for as many people to come and watch a movie with her as she can scrape together.

You know you wanna.

[tookhishand]

One Donald O'Connor is in his room, putting his thoughts down on paper. Yes, he's beginning another notebook. He had two decades of notebooks, now gone.

[acautionarytale]

Astrid knocks on the doorframe, peeking in. "Hello? I'm not interrupting, am I?"

[tookhishand]

"Possibly." he says in an 'no-one-cares-go-ahead-I-like-it' way.

wibbly wobbly timey wimey hospital-y... wospital-y? Donald on painkillers!

[acautionarytale]

Astrid remembers the phrase 'There's Walter on drugs and then there's Walter on drugs.' She wonders just what painkillers in this part of time will do to Donald. Only one way to find out.

So in the door she goes, peeking round a curtain to see if he's awake.

We're all over the place.

[tookhishand]

Someday, there may be a strong painkiller developed that doesn't turn you into a goofy babbling weirdo... and no one will want to use it, because that's no fun.

He's drifting in and out, still on enforced bedrest. Time's flying by from his point of view, thanks to the wonderful meds, and right now, he's semi-conscious and ready to goof it up.

If this keeps up, we'll be stuck existing, like the Calendar Team.

[acautionarytale]

Astrid would have to agree on the lack of fun bit.

"Hi, Donald," she says softly. "How're you feeling?" Before he even has a chance to answer, she crosses to his bed and peers at the machines. Then some little part of her mind that sounds a lot like Walter tells her to look at Donald's chart. So she does.

who are you to tell me to exist, you're not my real dad

[tookhishand]

"As...trid?" She seems to be here a lot. Keeping track of the days and nights is far too complicated this week!

No change in meds. He's healing, there aren't any surprises. They're overcrowded, there's no time for much note-taking.