Book Haven, Monday

[notmyownage]

Say what you would about the excessive horniness, it had at least made things interesting -- if frustrating. Today, Claudia was back to spinning around in her chair.

Sure, there were books to be shelved but she would totally get around to doing that later.

Book Haven was open.

Comments

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"I see you survived last week just fine," Peter said, wandering into the book shop. He had a smug smile on his face. "Nice to see you, actually. Been a while."

[notmyownage]

"I did," Claudia agreed. "Can't say the same for any of my electrical equipment." She shrugged, sitting up straighter in her seat. "You, too. Haven't seen you since, what, Scully and I uncovered your redhead conspiracy?"

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

Peter barely held back the urge to make an 'electrical equipment joke. "Wait, wait, I believe you mean the time you and Scully confronted me about your redhead conspiracy. I can't have a redhead conspiracy, I'm not a ginger."

[notmyownage]

Hey, this was the girl who responded to TMI-honesty-day with "I should build a vibrator". An electrical equipment comment would have been totally fair.

"Maybe you had a conspiracy against the redhead conspiracy?" She couldn't remember. "Well, either way. How's it going?"

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"Pretty good," Peter had to admit. "I've not had anything I can truly complain about. In fact, I think I'd come off a little ungrateful if I did complain."

[notmyownage]

"Wow. I'm pretty sure most people don't let that stop them."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"Probably doesn't," Peter said. "But it was that good of a week, really." He smiled. "So what've you been up to, other than making friends with electrical equipment?"

[notmyownage]

"I'm guessing less than you have." Claudia shrugged. "Mostly just classes and a personal project or two. Hey, you have any experience with advanced hacking?"

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"That's a little out of my expertise," Peter said. "I'm also not exactly an expert on computer systems from ten some years in my future."

[notmyownage]

Claudia blinked. "Sorry, I keep forgetting about that." She did it with Scully, too. "Well. I'll get it worked out eventually." Hopefully before her brother, like, died alone and scared in teleportation limbo.

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"Can I ask why you need a heavy-duty hacker?" Peter asked, honestly curious.

[notmyownage]

Claudia sighed, then looked around and lowered her voice. She wasn't about to go spouting this out loud without some random truth curse looming over her head. "I might be needing to get into a top secret government facility."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"I'm in," Peter said, without missing a beat. "I'll try to see if I know anybody who knows anybody."

Yes, he'd just invited himself in on it, but he was honest and earnest, too.

[notmyownage]

"I just need help getting past the firewall. Once I've gotten into the security system, I'm going in alone."

Yeah, she hadn't mentioned that part to Scully or Jake yet. Mostly because they'd probably prefer to knock her out and tie her to a chair than let her physically go in solo.

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"You're going to at least have somebody monitoring you or have an extraction team on stand-by, right?" Peter said, sounding very authoritative for a guy who'd only read those terms in books and watched it on TV.

[notmyownage]

Well, no, that hadn't been part of her plan. Her plan pretty much amounted to "go in alone and guilt Artie into helping save Joshua", which she pretty much just thought would save on friends getting arrested and possibly, like, charged with treason if it all went badly.

". . . I'll work that part out when I get to it."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"I can see this is well planned and is utterly flawless," Peter said. "Well, I won't tell you you can't, but I will tell you that I know you'd be doing this for a good reason, so I'm willing to help."

[notmyownage]

Dammit, why'd he have to be all diplomatic and sense-making in his smart-assery?

"And if I go with a back up team -- offsite -- I'll definitely get your input on it. I don't want anyone else getting in trouble for me. This is way bigger than just busting into an old basement lab at a university."

Joshua had done enough of that, himself.

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"Well, if we ever need to do that, I think we can go find my father's," Peter said. "But thanks. I'm guessing whatever it is, it's pretty big, so I only want to do what I can to help and not make a mess of things."

[notmyownage]

"We actually already did that part. My brother's, up in Minnesota. And I appreciate it. Jake and Scully get all 'rar! protect!' if I talk a lot about it."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"As a friend, I'm allowed concern, but not much more," Peter said. "You're a grown young woman, I've got exactly zero authority in how you choose to live your life."

[notmyownage]

"See? Thank you! Exactly!" Why didn't more people see it like that?

Probably because she was fifteen.

Right.

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

This was also because that was his argument in reverse if anyone tried to meddle with his life.

"Because most people tend to think they deserve the right to tell people how to live and think," Peter said with a shrug. "For various reasons. And they're all wrong."

[notmyownage]

"I never knew you had such strong convictions."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"I'm a big believer in free will," Peter said. "And a big believer in not letting people tell me what my limits are." He grinned. "Limitations are for other people."

[notmyownage]

"Other foolish people. With much less ambition."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"The kind of people that like flipping burgers and coming home for their daily dose of reality TV," Peter said. "Not that I'm judging them, except, wait, no, that's exactly what I'm doing."

[notmyownage]

"My sixth foster family was like that. They deserve to be judged."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"We shall shun them," Peter said with a chuckle. "Never met them, but now I'm shunning them. Suits me fine, if you don't like them they're not worth liking."

[notmyownage]

"Well, if you ever have to meet 'em, I know just how to deal with 'em. For instance: they really hate it when you perform unauthorized maintenance on their washing machine."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"Were you trying to make the fastest spin cycle in the west?" Peter joked.

[notmyownage]

"Well, you know, that is my secret dream."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"It's a good dream. It'll revolutionize laundry days every where," Peter said.

[notmyownage]

"They put your name on statues for that, you know."

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"This statue commemorates the great Claudia, patron saint of front loaders," Peter said with a chuckle. "I like it."

[notmyownage]

"All lesser saints shall bow before her."