fandomtownies | Strokes of Genius, Wednesday (9/16)

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Strokes of Genius, Wednesday (9/16)

Starting the morning off with a phone call from Toronto was not what Katchoo would have preferred over a cup of coffee and a couple of toasted bagels with garlic-and-herb cream cheese spread. It'd been nice to hear Emma's voice again, except for the part about how damn wavery it was.

("Here ya go, kid, guaranteed the best bagel in L.A.! Not as good as New York, but you don't get mugged for it!"
"Smells good."
"Eat up, Chewie! We need to put some meat on that scrawny butt of yours!")

. . . maybe not bagels. A blueberry muffin and a tall dark-roast drip from the Perk were just going to have to suffice instead, and if Katchoo's sketches today seemed to have a timekeeping-device theme, well, it was what it was. The idea of beating up on the clay again didn't seem too appealing, but there had to be something else to do.

Something that didn't involve the preserve. God.

[OOC: All we need is music, sweet music, there'll be music everywhere -- they'll be swinging, swaying, records playing, dancing OCD-free . . .]

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Arthur would agree with her on that preserve note on the basis that the preserve had no decent game to speak of, but otherwise, he wouldn't be able to understand any of her objections to the idea if he tried.

He was, in fact, going to come here and distract himself - he felt like he needed a distraction, for reasons that had little to do with anything acute happening and being more of a symptom of the current insanity that was his life - by opening the door, wandering in, and greeting her with a cheery, "Katina."

Hey, it was just that Katchoo didn't trust the preserve not to randomly swallow anyone and crap 'em out in a different world again. She was on board with the "current insanity" factor, though. Sadly.

"Arthur," she responded, toneless as he was cheery. This was getting to be a regular thing, wasn't it? Almost like clockw -- veering away from that simile. "Who put happy dust in your Wheaties this morning?"

"Supposedly the same person who tore you away from your clay," he said, thoughtfully, glancing across the counter.

Katchoo added a little texture to the sand in the bottom of an hourglass on her sketchbook page, then started in on a human figure trying to smash the hourglass with a giant version of one of those little medical reflex-testing hammers. "It went on strike. Something about taking that kind of beating not being in the contract."

"And you let it get away with that?" Arthur inquired, leaning on the counter as was his wont. "You certainly don't keep discipline around here, do you?"

"I don't," Katchoo said, thinking of the $12.33 in her pocket she was going to have to stretch until next week's paycheck, "get paid enough for that."

The would-be hourglass smasher, as a few more pencil lines on the paper were starting to make obvious, was going to fail miserably.

Arthur shrugged, and leaned slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was she was so focused on. "How was the week?" he inquired, idly, as he attempted to identify the lines.

"Quiet. Mostly." She spared an aggrieved glance at her phone for throwing a wrench into that this morning, and did a little shading work on her sketch -- which looked like a monochrome surrealist glimpse into a mad clock-hoarder's attic on the day a disgruntled neighbor decided to go ballistic. "Got Monday and Tuesday completely free."

To do things like smash her radio and steam about on-air speculation on her best friend's sex life, and wonder where the hell half her brushes and paints had disappeared to when she wasn't looking.

"Maybe too quiet," she went on, which was code for 'too lacking in sufficient distraction from the black hole of suck.'

"I do keep telling you you should try going hunting," Arthur pointed out, pulling away from the sketch mostly because he couldn't make heads nor tails of it no matter how he looked. "Although if you ever do, don't take Merlin. He's rubbish at it." Which had never, ever stopped Arthur from dragging him along every single time. The bumbling had started off equal parts amusing and aggravating. By now, it was comforting, really.

He strolled along the counter, lightly, giving the inside of the store another searching look. "Or you could always try joining us at the reserve. Work up some actual fighting skills." Oh, you were going to swallow that one some day, Pendragon.

Katchoo actually burst out laughing, yes. Sort of derisively. "This island's got enough people on it with a hero complex. Why should I crowd the field?" She tapped her pencil against the counter, taking a moment of pride in the drawing's effect. "Hell, I might go for that hunting thing. Maybe a different kind of game, though . . ."

"I'm not saying you need to save anything. But it would be helpful to learn, in case you're ever in danger," Arthur said. Okay, there was a little earnest under the idle, arrogant distance. At that last bit, though, he paused. "There's no different game," he said, not comprehending, "The best you can find out there are blue hedgehogs."

There was! Kind of like peering into a murky pond and catching a quick flash of a bright orange carp in the water. Something like that, minus the pond scum. Aww. She kind of wanted to pat him on the head for that.

"Blue hedgehogs. Shame the island's too small for neon-yellow bison," she drawled. "Not what I meant, though. Was thinking more along the lines of . . . Grey Goose."

"While I admire your staggering ambition in the face of your actual talents," Arthur said, slowly, "I think you'd need more training at the crossbow for that."

"I've got better aim than you think," Katchoo replied, smirking. "Meant the kind you drink, though. Or, y'know, whatever the hell else if vodka's not your thing. Think of it like hunting. Point's the same."

There was a pause. "Katina Choovanski," he said, throwing her an amused, if mildly baffled, look. "Are you asking me out on a night of hitting the local watering hole? Whatever will the squirrels think?"

"Rum-soaked fuzzy little bastards'll think whatever the hell they want to," she retorted. "When's it ever stopped 'em before? 'sides, if we head out to the mainland, they won't hear a goddamn thing, will they?"

. . . aside from reporting this conversation. Whatever.

"That might work," he allowed, then smirked. "Although I look forward to listening to a radio jockey speak the tale of how much you fancy me."

At which point a snigger might have actually underscored that he didn't actually believe that. ...Or wanted to. He'd met wee Morgana, yes.

"Comedy gold," Katchoo replied, snorting something that might generously be termed a laugh herself. "We all know monkeys'll fly out my ass first."

Katchoo, don't say things like that on this island.

"You should try that," Arthur said, generously, "Might give me something to hunt. But all right. Someone's got to keep you from falling over, I suppose."

Bear with Katchoo a moment, while she gawked at him.

"Oh, god. That was disgusting, you know."

Arthur grinned at her. Angelically. "Please, Katina," he said, "I'm as clean as the driven snow. Especially when faced with a lady."

Somewhere, Merlin was having trouble keeping from laughing, he was sure. Which was an idea that might've actually made him grin all the worse, but hush, it wasn't like Katina could read his internal narrative.

Katchoo's internal narrative had moments of extreme tl;dr, so it was best not to clog it up with other people's anyway.

And she had no idea why she had the vaguest sensation that there ought to be an ominous clap of thunder out of the blue right about now.

"Most people're drunk off their asses when they call me a lady," she said, snorting at the angelic expression because come frikkin' on, now. "Hell if I know what that says about you."

"We're not drunk yet," he assured her. "Although I do have the magic reserves to get to, in a few minutes." ...Not that he was looking forward to that. "Two thoughts that link together quite well if Merlin winds up trying to turn water into wine or something--" Now he was babbling. He took a moment to compose himself, settling his hands on the desk. "When?"

"Can he do that?" Ha. Babbling, and a hilarious if fleeting mental image of Merlin as Jesus on the side of one of those candles. Mercifully fleeting -- any longer and her brain might shatter into tiny pieces. "Tomorrow? Get the feeling I might need it after Ethics."

"Tomorrow it is," Arthur said, choosing not to dignify the other part with an answer - partly because he didn't know, thank you. "If you survive Ethics."

"If? If? Whaddya mean . . ." Katchoo trailed off there, realizing that was actually a completely valid hypothetical. Crap. "We're on, then. Leave the crossbow behind, will ya?"

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Strokes of Genius, Wednesday (9/16)

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