fandomtownies | The Boards, Monday Morning

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The Boards, Monday Morning

Jonothon had woken up with practically every ~~NPC~~ child on the island sleeping in his theatre this morning. Every. Last. One.

This had set off quite the chain of events. First, he'd had to feed them. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to have to make that many pancakes again for the rest of his life. And then he had to make a trip to the church to leave a sign on the door, directing any actual caretakers of these children to the Boards to pick them up. The kids had followed him on that trip like two rows of little baby ducks, which had been adorable, at least. And then came more feeding, because apparently children were bottomless pits.

And he had to do all of this without coffee, since he'd given that away yesterday in order to keep Korra from burning the building down.

Now, if anyone were to stop by the Boards, they'd find Jonothon half-draped over a chair, tiredly reading printouts of children's stories that he'd found on the internet for the few remaining children while he waited for their families to collect them.

Once they were all gone, he was going to sleep for about a month.

[Open Boards, naturally! If you left a kid with Jono, feel free to stop in or handwave picking him up. Poor Jims. I'll be a little slow while I'm at work, of course, but around-ish all day.]

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April was indeed going to stop by the Boards today! With a couple of coffees, some doughnut holes in a paper towel, and a mildly surprised expression on her face.

"Dude, you're surrouned by babies."

"If you love me at all, April, you'll kill me," Jono replied, with a somewhat strained smile on his face.

For the sake of the children.

"There were at least three times this many this morning when I woke up. Is one of those coffees for me? I'll sign you my soul on a scrap of paper if one of those coffees is for me."

Edited 2012-11-05 17:48 (UTC)

"Sure is," April said, handing one over to him. "The decaf, of course."

She was totally lying.

"What the shit happened here?"

Jono took a moment to work up a decent pout at that, but he made grabby hands for the coffee all the same.

"Fandom happened here," he sighed, shaking his head. "Spent the weekend thinking I was a priest or some such nonsense. Woke up this morning with about thirty children in a makeshift 'orphanage' all wondering why they're not at home."

He looked around at the small group of kids collected.

"Their parents are trickling in here and there to get them out of my hair. I wasn't made to be a father, April. Not even remotely."

Because he let the children walk all over him, yes. He was a sucker for big sad child eyes.

April sighed. "This island is on crack," she shared, popping a doughnut hole in her mouth. "I go home for two days and you go all ~~meta for~~ Annie."

If only it were that simple, April. If. Only.

"Are all the kids who wound up here still alive?"

"Alive and well, with no lasting damage so far as I can see," Jono agreed, sounding thankful about that. "This will have me thinking twice about putting on productions with small children in them, I'll tell you that much. Really, I think the most scarring thing that happened to me over the weekend was that I bottle-fed a fully-grown man."

And the mental image of Coulson leaping from the bassinet was going to haunt his nightmares forever, alongside mutant concentration camps and burning faces. So, thanks for that, Phil.

"No more Toddlers and Tiaras horror show, got it," April said, tossing a doughnut hole Jono's way. "And dude, I so do not need to know about your freaky sex life."

Please don't say it wasn't a sex thing, Jono. That was way grosser.

Jono opened his mouth for a moment in order to say just that, hesitated, and then shut it again without saying a word, popping the doughnut hole into it, instead.

"Duly noted," he said, once he had swallowed. "That's not really where my interests lie when I'm in my right mind, anyhow."

Thank goodness. Bottle feeding?

"Give the bottles to chicks instead of dudes?" April said with a mock-understanding nod.

"The bottles I tend to give to the ladies are made of glass and come with decent alcohol," Jono countered. "And they're generally capable of burping themselves when they're done drinking."

That was one of his requirements for dating. Self-burping.

"'s good criteria," April decided. "You should add a rule about no spit-up."

"Generally, spit-up stops being an issue about the time they can wipe themselves," Jono replied, "which is also a basic requirement for dating me."

It wasn't that he was shallow. It was more that there was no way in hell that he was changing anybody's diaper for them after the age of... maybe two? When did people generally potty train, anyhow?

"Oh no," April said, with about as much sarcasm as a person could fit into two syllables. "Does that mean since I barfed after six chocolate cake vodka shots last New Year's Eve, an epic romance between us is off the table?"

"Please, luv. Do try to sound less heartbroken about it." Jonothon understood that it might be difficult, but it just could never be. "Exceptions might be made for those who make a concentrated effort to not puke on me, but there's a limit to how much trial and error I'm willing to undergo."

A beat, and then he sniffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Besides, April, I'm not exactly in the market."

So no epic romances to be found here.

"Aw, shucks," April said, with a sarcastic little gesture of defeat. "Don't tell me, one of the babies got picked up by some hot single mom? Maybe a sassy blue bartender?"

Guess who'd been casually observing your bar antics on the Citadel, Jono. Go on, guess.

"Her name is Aylia," Jono said, completely shamelessly. Yes, he was the sort of person to remember the names of his one-night flings. "And to the best of my knowledge, there were no little blue asari children in among the gaggle this morning, no."

"So what then?" April was kind of intrigued. "You actually dating the space chick now?"

"No," Jono replied, shaking his head. "I'm still as single as I was before the field trip. That was just a... an interlude. I can't exactly see me going there all the time, and she's got better things to do than come here. But, well..."

He shrugged a little.

"We were both interested. For an evening, it was worth it."

Color April confused, then. She popped another doughnut hole in her mouth before prompting, "So you're off the market because...?"

"Because there's no way in hell I've got my head on straight enough for anything more serious than a casual night spent with somebody I'm never going to see again," Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders and suddenly looking very interested in the illustrations of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. "And I'm not going to ask any potential girlfriend to be my emotional backbone just because I'm a mess."

"Huh." Well then. "Smart. More people should think like that."

"Most people aren't half as screwed up as I am," Jono pointed out.

Because emotional damage meant smarts, apparently.

"'s not about being screwed up," April dismissed, tossing the lid to her coffee cup across the room so she could get the last sip out of her cup. "But I have this theory that only, like, ten percent of people are qualified to date anyone. Except pretty much everyone thinks that includes them, so."

Jono watched the lid fly across the room and sighed, making a hard-light duplicate of himself to pick it up. Because really, April. Really.

"Most people don't want to be alone," he pointed out as his duplicate made a face before putting the lid in the bin where it belonged. "They don't stop to think about things like emotional commitment. They just want to be validated... to know that someone out there thinks they're good enough."

April was totes mature, Jono. Don't even. Don't even.

"Well, it's dumb," she declared. "Emotionally-commit yourself."

"If you're going to date, that's generally the idea," Jono agreed. "Or at least know what trouble you're getting yourself into before you agree to it."

Like, say, if you were going to date someone with as many issues as Jono!

... Don't do it. It never ends well.

"No, I mean, like, yourself," April clarified. "Never mind. Whatever. People are dumb."

"People are dumb," Jono settled on, giving April a wry smile. "It's one of the few things people do well, without fail."

"Please tell me Jims is here," Rilla said, looking panicked.

"If he's the little one you left at the church on Saturday, then he's right over there, sleeping," Jono replied, pointing to...

... Well, it was apparently at one point a manger for the baby Jesus, from some nativity production or other. But it had worked at the time, especially since Jono was sort of drowning in rugrats.

"Bit of a crazy weekend, again, hm?"

"A bit," Rilla said as Jims reached out his arms, babbling about "Willa!" "I thought I was married to Bruce, of all people. And he was supposed to buy me a unicorn."

"He'd have a bit of a trek, I'd imagine, finding one of those for you," Jono mused, sitting back and smiling a little at the reunion. "Apparently I went and joined the priesthood, which is all well and good, except that I'd probably find a way to muck it up terribly."

Especially considering the sort of person that he was, on weekends like these.

"Glad that it's over, now, at least. And that people are coming to pick up their little ones."

Never reproducing. Jono was never reproducing, if he could at all help it.

"Thank you so much for taking care of him," Rilla said. "I really am not such a thoughtless person when I'm in my right mind, I promise."

"No worries, Sunshine. I don't think anybody can really be held responsible for the things that went on over the course of the weekend. No harm was really done in the end." Jono turned a little smile toward Jims. "And he's less of a handful than most of the children that were running around here today. You're doing a good job with him, luv."

Rilla blushed. "Thank you," she said. "I'm just trying my best so that I can return him to his father once the war is over."

"Well, then he'll be off to an excellent start on the rest of his life," Jono decided, smiling back at Rilla, now. "The little lad is lucky to be in such capable hands. I think most people your age wouldn't have it in them, luv."

Goodness knew Jono didn't.

"Oh, it's pure stubbornness," Rilla said. "My father didn't think I could, so naturally I had to."

And at that, Jono couldn't help but chuckle.

"Really, there's no better incentive," he decided. "The 'I told you so' at the end is going to make it that much better, I should think."

Rilla reached up to pat the ~~horrible~~ extremely garish green hat she was wearing now that she could no longer pretend it was summer. "My stubbornness has gone the other way on a few occasions, too."

Jono wanted to be able to say that he'd seen worse hats. But, well...

"Using your powers of stubbornness for evil instead of good?"

Which, really, was often the more fun option.

"Used my pocket money in a way my mother didn't approve," Rilla replied with a wry laugh. "So I told her I'd wear the hat four three years or until the war was over, whichever was longer."

She hated the hat so, so much.

The hat was a bit... gaudy. Jono gave it a once-over, a little smirk on his face.

"You're on the losing end of that one, aren't you?"

It was going to be a three-year hat, Rilla. Unless you bought that hat over a year after the start of the war.

"Sadly, I've seen worse."

X-Men.

"You have?" Rilla, don't look so happy about that. "Really?"

Jono gave a solemn sort of nod.

"Fishbowl battle helmets should be a privilege, not a lifestyle choice."

Sorry, Juggernaut. Except... not sorry.

"Should those even be legal?" Rilla asked warily.

"Given that the fishbowl of doom look is courtesy of some sort of demon of rage and destruction," Jono mused, "no, probably not."

Didn't you feel better about your hat already?

So much better!

"...demons aren't known for their good taste?" Rilla finally offered.

Jono suddenly couldn't help but think of a certain giant four-eyed demon's loincloth.

...

"You know, I haven't actually met a pure-blooded one yet who is."

Because. Loincloth.

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The Boards, Monday Morning

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