fandomtownies | The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (10/6)

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The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (10/6)

Well, Steph seemed to have a pink kitten on her hands for the next -- she had no idea how long, actually, now that she thought about it. Hopefully not more than a few days?

Honestly, though, it was pretty good timing; she'd already had this morning's storm-related nightmare interrupted by a kitten pawing at her face, and then she'd had to get up and go find something more suitable for Vi to eat in her current state, which had kept her from thinking too much about the dream, and yeah. Not that she expected that Vi would have let her wallow in broodiness for too long in human form, either, but how was she going to stay trapped in a feedback loop of her own worst thoughts? Because Vi was riding Little Bot (in his pirate ship getup, of course) around the store, with Saffron following and meowing at him repeatedly as if to say he had better not let his passenger fall overboard, and how was that not going to cheer her up at least a bit?

Damn, I actually kind of worry about Little Bot if that does happen, though...

Steph wasn't in her best mood ever, but the Magpie Emporium was open and getting more Halloween-themed by the hour as she worked at a fever pitch to decorate it, apparently, within an inch of its life.

Like, even the beholder cardboard standee had extra pointy hats hanging from some of its eyestalks, though it still had a couple of eyestalks free for that purpose.

[OOC: SP because hell week continues, but open!]

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At some point in the afternoon, Watts came in, bearing a tray from the Perk with a couple of mochas.

There was a bit of balancing and an “Ah! Whoop…” as he managed to get his hat off and onto one of the non-bedecked tentacles.

“Good afternoon, Miss Gingrich,” he greeted, holding out one of the cups towards her. “It’s the kind with chocolate in it,” he said. “If it’s not to your liking, don’t worry about it.”

"I am never going to turn down chocolate, basically ever," Steph assured him, with a smile that took an extra split second to get up to speed as she came over to get the drink. "So thanks. How's it going?"

A very short pause, then: "Steven doing okay? I didn't see him at superheroing class yesterday, and..." The radio notes had been kind of confusing, but not so confusing that she hadn't been concerned.

Don’t think he didn’t notice that, Steph.

“He is, yes,” Watts said honestly, because while Marc was still quiet, his brief appearance yesterday coupled with dinner had seen Steven’s mood improved significantly. Watts was also touched at her concern, though not particularly surprised. “It’s- yesterday was a holiday in Jewish tradition. Not- the joyous kind. More the solemn contemplation and prayer kind. Abstaining from activities like attending classes is part of the observation.” And would have happened regardless of Steven or Marc having any specific issues regarding the holiday, so Watts felt it best to focus on that.

Edited 2022-10-06 10:44 (UTC)

Damn detective instincts!

"Good to hear," said Steph, sincerely. "And that makes sense. Yom Kippur, right?"

“That’s the one,” Watts said, Watts confirmed. “You’ve heard of it?” Look, he was from 1909, he wasn’t accustomed to that.

"Up until about two years ago," Steph said, then paused for a quick sip of coffee, "I was running a game campaign with a few people I knew in Seattle. A couple of my players were Jewish; we always ended up taking a couple weeks' break around the High Holidays for them."

“Ah,” Watts nodded, as he meandered over towards the dice, picking up a few to roll about in his free hand. “That makes sense.” Particularly now that he knew what a ‘game campaign’ was. “I’m still only learning myself, since discovering my parents were Jewish. This is the first chance I’ve had to do anything approaching celebrating properly.”

Edited 2022-10-06 17:57 (UTC)

"Never a bad time to start, I guess. Recent discovery?" asked Steph, thinking that it sure sounded like she kept adding people to her missing parents club.

Watts nodded. "Rather accidentally. I- overheard a song, while I was working on a case a few years ago. Remembered my mother singing it to me when I was younger. The fellow who'd been helping me out pointed out that it was in Yiddish, and that must have meant my mother was Jewish." He'd done a little digging after that and had confirmed the fact.

Steph had been sort of idly nodding along at first, but by the end of the explanation she was watching Watts with keen interest.

"That is, genuinely, one of the coolest stories that I've ever heard," she told him, then screwed up one side of her mouth in a sheepish sort of grimace. "Sorry you had to learn about it that way, though. Can I ask... what happened? No pressure at all to tell me, though."

“To my parents?” Watts asked, because maybe she meant with the case.

Why was she asking about this now? Probably just because it was... kind of nice to remind herself she wasn't the only one who'd ever gone through that particular kind of shitty experience.

"Yeah," Steph said, a touch hoarsely.

“Cholera, I think,” Watts said. “Or possibly influenza. I was- very young. I don’t remember much about them, and my sister-“ he shook his head. “Well, she didn’t care to speak of it.” Had barely tolerated him for the few years she’d stuck around before deciding she didn’t want him anymore and left him in the care of their landlady.

Edited 2022-10-06 21:33 (UTC)

"Damn. I'm really sorry," Steph told him. She picked up a small tin of dragon-shaped cinnamon candies and ran her thumbnail all around the seam where the top and bottom halves joined. In a quieter, rougher voice she added, "I feel like I know so few people with their families intact."

His own family had been shattered so many times that he’d come to accept the idea of one as something that was merely temporary.

“Is that what’s got you feeling down today?” he asked.

Steph started to bring the cup of coffee up to her mouth again, but froze halfway there.

"How did you --" She was pretty good at not broadcasting her emotions most of the time, but... right. Detective. She shook her head. "Yeah, actually."

"If you'd care to talk about it," Watts said. "You can confide in me." She'd always been kind about listening to him when he'd needed to get something off his chest, he'd be glad to repay the favour.

Steph hesitated for a second, because it wasn't like she needed a bunch of people to know about this, but the only person here who did know everything was currently tiny and fuzzy and... well, the whole point was that she was trying to remember that she wasn't alone, right?

She nodded and reached behind the counter, lining up a half dozen or so tiny rum bottles. Hopefully that'd be enough to satisfy her, er, colleagues.

"My mom," she said, a little halting but pushing through any hesitance. "I mean... it's not the same, she was there when I was growing up, but there was a really bad storm that hit our town and..."

She made a gesture with both hands, sort of a 'washed away' sign.

"It'll be seven years, next week. It's always a little rough."

Seemed to be something of a theme this week. "I'm sorry for your loss," Watts said sincerely. "You were- close?"

It was the worst kind of theme week.

"Very." Steph kept her composure pretty well overall, but her voice broke just a little bit. "She was really Catholic, but I think she had me figured out even before I came out to her, and was never anything but supportive. The last time we talked was when she called to tell me she was taking shelter from the storm."

There were reasons that a lot of the time, in her dreams, the storm always sounded like it was being filtered through a cell phone call.

Steph smiled wryly. "Needless to say that didn't work out."

“Needless to say,” Watts echoed sympathetically. “But to me it sounds like- she would be pleased to know that you’ve grown to be such a compassionate young woman.”

Steph managed a smile -- well, with one side of her mouth, anyway. "Thanks," she replied. "If you'd seen the way I used to get this time of year, you might not have thought so, but it's been a work in progress."

She set the candy tin back down into its display box and nodded to him.

"Do you think your mother would've been glad to know you figured out your heritage eventually, anyway?"

"I- I think so? I hope so," Watts said. "Hopefully not too upset with me for not looking into it more seriously until now."

"No way, dude, I mean that's like... thousands of years of tradition going way back," Steph said seriously. "That's a lot to get into on your own, later in life. I don't think anybody would blame you for not wanting to just dive in right away."

She tilted her head for a moment.

"Steven's helping you get... acclimated, I guess? To learning?"

Not to mention if Toronto's extremely Protestant Board of Control found out they had a Jewish detective... he'd already had to worry about being found out as gay, no need to add more fuel to the fire.

"Yes," he said, with a fond smile. "He's been- very patient with me. Answering questions and the like."

Yeah, that would also be a totally understandable reason.

"What, Steven? Happy to answer questions about things that are super important to him? I'm not surprised somehow," Steph said with a brief answering smile. "He's cool that way."

"In many ways," Watts said. He was about to say something more when Little Bot (and his passenger) bumped into his feet. "Say," he looked down at the bright pink kitten. "Who's this?" Saffron (and her general disdain) he was already acquainted with, of course.

Saffron practically radiated disdain of a very distinctive variety. It was weird how you could think 'ah yes, I know the back of that cat's head well,' but there it was.

"This," Steph began, and reached down to scoop up the kitten -- whose tiny tail was puffed out like a miniature bristle brush, all of a sudden, and while her ears weren't laid back they were definitely twitching to the sides. "Is -- Vi, it's okay, it's just --"

Oh, right. Everything Vi had ever said about Piltover's Enforcers and the way they treated people from the undercity, not to mention the whole prison thing and the way she always seemed to go out of her way to avoid passing the station... when she squirmed out of Steph's hands and darted behind the counter, Steph didn't try to stop her.

"Sorry," was all she said with an apologetic expression, though, because none of that was her story to tell. "I guess she just startled herself. She's not usually a cat, though."

"Not... usually a cat," Watts echoed. Yes, he'd been vaguely aware of how that was a thing that happened to people here, but he'd not seen it in action before now. "Vi," he added. "Your-" he was well aware, yes, that radio often mentioned Steph and Vi together the way it did he and Steven, but modern terms still felt awkward when he tried to voice them.

Steph grinned briefly. "My favorite person in the world." Which was pretty much an answer, given the look on her face as she was watching in the direction the kitten had gone. "And she does not like being small and fuzzy."

Her poor couch. Her poor, poor couch.

"No," Watts nodded. "That much is evident."

"Saffron's already tried to bathe her twice today," Steph added, "and if you thought actual kittens were loud and complainy about that? That's nothing in comparison."

She had video, even.

"Such an assault upon her very dignified person? I'm not at all surprised," Watts said solemnly.

Steph's laugh still wasn't quite wholehearted, but it felt genuine. "Hopefully it won't last too long," she said, then paused and asked, "You've been warned... uh, given the heads-up, right? That this can happen to people sometimes?

Watts, meanwhile, was just pleased he'd managed to make her laugh at all, considering what she was currently dealing with. He nodded. "Stark was briefly a koala over the summer."

And Steph genuinely appreciated any and all efforts at making her laugh right now.

"I remember that," she said, and tossed him a d20 out of a new set she'd just gotten in earlier in the week. The sharp-edged sets always felt different in the hand, and she was kind of curious as to whether he'd find it more or less satisfying to roll around than the standard round-edged kind. "I had a stint as a cat myself. I think right around the same time? Weird coincidence."

He fumbled a bit to catch the die, glad he'd placed his own coffee down on the counter or there would have been mocha everywhere as a result.

"What was it like?" he asked, as he used his thumb to roll the d20 back and forth over the pads of his fingers.

That would have been tragic, for both the mocha and that area of the store.

"Honestly?" Steph chewed on her lower lip for a moment. "It was kind of nice, on one level, not having to worry about problems bigger than where you're going to take your next nap or whether the humans are going to remember to feed you on time. Kind of nice to have a little vacation from your own brain sometimes, you know? On the other..."

She shook her head.

"If I wasn't making up stories and creating music, I don't think I'd really be me, and it's hard to do that without opposable thumbs or being verbal."

Watts nodded. "A vacation from one's own brain does sound pleasant," which was probably not a normal thing to say, all things considered, but who in Fandom was normal anyway. "So long as you knew it would just be temporary."

He closed his fingers around the die for a moment, letting the sharp edges dig into the flesh of his palm.

Edited 2022-10-10 04:37 (UTC)

"I mean, I wasn't exactly thinking about it that way at the time," Steph pointed out mildly, taking the d6 out of the box and rolling it on the counter. "But if I could turn into a cat at will... yeah, it might be a nice temporary break. For a week, tops."

"Perhaps someday I will experience it for myself," Watts said. Of course, no one had told him about the turning-back-naked part.

"It can be... awkward changing back, depending on the circumstances," Steph felt compelled to warn him. "But... what animal would you want to be? You know, if you could pick."

"Is it unoriginal to say I wouldn't mind being a cat either?" Watts admitted. And then. "... Awkward? How?"

"No, because cats are the best," Steph said immediately and with no small amount of emphasis. "But, uh... when you change back to yourself it's a pretty clothes-free situation."

Wow, she hoped that didn't, like, break him too badly. All those Edwardian sensibilities when it came to wardrobe and all.

"I, ah." Did you know Watts could turn that particular shade of red, Steph? "I see. I- appreciate the warning."

For all the good it would do if and when it ever actually happened to him.

She knew that now!

"Just so you know," she said, giving him an apologetic look. "People tend to be mostly pretty understanding about it, at least?"

"I can only hope that if it does happen to me, it's somewhere relatively private."

Watts supposed it wouldn't be that bad if it were, say, Steven who happened to be present. But Marc, for example, would be absolutely mortifying (even though Marc probably wouldn't give a shit and would just throw some of Steven's clothes at him or something without a word).

"Or at the very least," Steph replied, "in the presence of someone who'll be understanding about it."

She paused and added, "Or, you know. Appreciative."

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The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (10/6)

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