fandomtownies | The Magpie Emporium, Monday [22/05]

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The Magpie Emporium, Monday [22/05]

Someone or something had gotten to the dice (not all of them, but enough) and had left them in several great heaps on the floor. Seven great heaps to be exact, since they'd been separated out by type.

So now Vi was sitting on the floor, carefully combing through the heaps of dice and sorting them back into sets, Little Bot helping by fetching containers for the sorted dice and Saffron helping by sitting in Vi's lap and letting her bask in her presence.

[Open! Watch out for the d4s!]

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"Oh," Steph said from the doorway in no small amount of dismay, a canvas shopping tote full of pastries dangling off one arm and a very large coffee in each hand. "Oh, no."

Vi looked up from where she was trying to figure out if two purple and blue swirled dice were from the same set, or just very similar one, and grimaced. "Yeah."

"Was it just like this when you came in?" Look, Steph knew her store, okay? She set everything she was carrying down on the counter and came over to help, crouching down near Vi to poke through a pile of d12s.

"Pretty much," Vi said, coming to the conclusion they were from different sets and putting them in different containers. "The piles were bigger though."

She'd been making a lot of headway.

Steph looked at the piles for a long moment, then at the already completed sets of dice, then came over to kiss Vi's cheek.

"I can't let you and Saffron and Little Bot do this all by yourselves."

Saffron grumbled slightly because Steph was going to ruin the vibe, but didn't move out of Vi's lap, because it was hers.

"Could be worse," Vi said, grinning at Steph. "At least we're not also knee deep in pine cones." So far those hadn't made a reappearance for the summer.

Saffron was entirely welcome to Vi's lap so long as they were in the store, if you asked Steph, but she'd be fine letting Saffron think she was staking her claim.

"God, I know. I still have no idea what that was all about," Steph said with a rueful laugh. "I think Little Bot saved a few in the back of the storage room, but I definitely don't miss them."

Saffron did look exceptionally smug and pleased with herself as she washed her paws.

"It was so weird," Vi said, passing Steph a handful of assorted d12s. "They started a couple of weeks after I started here and lasted nearly the whole summer."

Steph started separating the d12s out into generalized color groupings; she could get more specific about it in a little while.

"You know, I don't even remember exactly when they stopped happening?"

No idea why she might not have noticed!

None at all! It wasn't like anything happened that had them all distracted or anything.

"Me either," Vi said. "They got really bad, then all of a sudden stopped."

Distracted from basically anything and everything for a good few weeks, too.

"So weird," Steph said, picking a couple of identical green and blue swirled dice out and setting them aside. "They were just piling up in here, following us around... and then they were just gone."

Someday you two might put it together. Maybe.

Eventually. Perhaps.

"They were pretty festive during Pride," Vi said, carefully stacking dice that looked to be the same pattern. "But frustrating to deal with towards the end."

There was a 15% chance!

"Super frustrating," Steph agreed, rolling her eyes as she held a d12 out to Vi that looked like it matched the dice she'd just been holding. "Speaking of Pride, though... up to helping me with it again this year?"

Maybe if one of them hit a critical success on an insight check, so more like 5%.

Vi took the die. "Of course. What kind of best friend would I be if I didn't?"

It would be a pretty high DC too. Just saying.

"You'd still be my best friend that I just also happen to be stupidly in love with," Steph replied, blowing a kiss to her, "even if you weren't up to helping this time."

For two pretty smart people they could be real dumb.

"Well, lucky for you, I happen to be your best friend who's stupidly in love with you and who's helping you with Pride," Vi said, with a grin that turned into a wince as Saffron decided to start kneading her thigh.

"And that is why you are the best, literally ever." Steph leaned in to give her a proper kiss. "Oof, are we going to have to clip someone's claws?"

And just like that the kneading stopped as Saffron looked at Food Human, aghast.

Vi snorted. "I don't think she's a fan of that idea."

"You're stabbing your beloved human," Steph pointed out to Saffron -- reasonably, she thought! "You don't want to hurt her, do you?"

Saffron... probably just wanted Steph to stop addressing her directly and making this weird.

This is what Saffron meant about killing the vibe!

"It's fine," Vi said. "It barely went through the material."

Because the only time Saffron wanted Steph to acknowledge her existence was when she wanted food. Otherwise it was like a mildly creepy parasocial fan situation.

"So just a little stabbing," Steph teased. "Okay, no claw clippers today. She's so comfy, it'd be criminal to disturb her anyway."

And, yet, that was all Food Human did with her attention stealing.

"I'm sure she's very grateful for that," Vi said, reaching down to scritch behind Saffon's ears as she leaned over to return Steph's earlier kiss.

Like this. This right here.

"Your lap is a great place to be," Steph pointed out. "I totally get that."

Saffron was so adorable and helpful and this was the thanks she got.

"Sadly it's taken for this shift," Vi said, as Saffron wriggled more firmly into it. "Later though..."

They had had a system going here! A nice efficient well-oiled system in which Saffron provided the perfect amount of adorable moral support while Vi did all the sorting! And then Food Human came along.

Steph laughed and picked out a sparkly purple d12 with so much ornate unicorn-themed decoration around the numbers that they were basically unreadable. "Oh, don't worry, that's strictly Saffron's place during work hours."

Breaks didn't count, shut up.

How was she supposed to enjoy her time with Snuggle Human like this? How?

"And she lets me know it."

Obviously! Vi was off the clock during breaks.

Could she even enjoy it? There was a whole vibes cross-contamination issue here.

"She really loves you," Steph said, squinting in annoyance at the pretty but impractical d12 before setting it aside. "She has excellent taste, and even if she doesn't like me much I'm really glad I found her for you."

She couldn't let Food Human win by leaving so she had to stay, vibes and all.

"I'm glad you found her to," Vi said, stroking along Saffron's back. "And I'm m sure she'll warm to you eventually."

"I'll win her heart yet," Steph said, earning a brief but potent kitty side eye for it. "Even if it's been about a year now, since we got her."

It was a vibes war of attrition, and Saffron was here to win.

Because how dare anyone try to outvibe a cat.

"After all you needed even less to win mine," Vi said, then added softly. "It doesn't feel that long."

Look, if you couldn't purr, you couldn't outvibe a cat. That was just facts.

"It really doesn't," Steph answered just as softly, and reached out for Vi's hand. "I feel like I know you pretty well, and I'm used to you, but everything still feels new with us, somehow."

As Saffron was doing her very best to prove right this moment.

Vi curled her fingers through Steph's. "Yeah," she said. "It's comfortable being with you, but not, I don't know, routine?"

Hey, Steph was willing to concede the purring crown to Saffron any day.

"Which is not to say we don't have some kind of routine," Steph replied, and squeezed her hand. "It sure as hell isn't boring, though... and I don't take it for granted, which I guess might be the big thing."

How dare Food Human be reasonable!

"I never want to take you for granted," Vi said. "Not when you're one of the best things that ever happened to me "

It was so rude and inconsiderate of her, wasn't it?

"Yeah? Well, same," Steph said, raising Vi's hand to her lips so she could kiss it.

How was Saffron supposed to stay annoyed when she was reasonable? Quite easily, but it was the principle!

"Glad we can agree on that." Because they argued over so many things.

Staying annoyed didn't feel as satisfying if she didn't have to work for it, after all.

"As opposed to all those millions of things we don't agree on," Steph replied dryly, turning Vi's hand over in hers and kissing each knuckle slowly and deliberately.

It was like Food Human just didn't understand these things.

Vi shivered lightly. "Yeah, I mean it's amazing we agree on anything."

Clearly she didn't, if she kept insisting on paying attention to Snuggle Human when it was Saffron's time!

"A mystery for the ages," Steph said, and pressed her cheek against Vi's hand before letting it go. "Truly, no one will ever know."

"No one at all," Vi said, leaning over to kiss her properly.

Look what you'd done now, Food Human!

This was severely compromising the quality of Saffron's lap-snuggling space, Food Human!

"Guess we'll just have to live without knowing, huh?" Steph asked, and kissed her back.

Saffron's life was the worst.

The absolute worst.

"How will we ever cope?" Vi asked dryly, nipping gently at Steph's lip.

"On the strength of being absolutely adorable together?" Steph suggested, cupping her cheek.

Vi pretended to think about it. "Yeah, I can work with that."

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The Magpie Emporium, Monday [22/05]

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