Fandom Island Museum, Thursday Daytime

[hasaknightjob]

What had originally been intended to be a few days back in London had turned much longer when Khonshu had a request for his avatars to fulfill.

Well, all right. A request he wanted Marc to fulfill but Steven was part of the deal now and Khonshu could choke on it.

That had kept them all, Llewellyn included, away until yesterday evening. Which meant, between unpacking and making sure Midnight was all right, there'd been no time to catch up on what had happened while they'd been away. Such as why there were stray piles of glitter in the Museum lobby. Or why there was some sort of orange? Yellow? Originally a... fruit? Maybe? Rotted goop that had appeared in one of the previously empty displays in the museum's lower floor. Or the very clearly - which in and of itself was frankly suspicious - brand new and healthy tomato plant that had sprung up in the middle of the artwork upstairs.

Blathers was able to fill Steven in that he was pretty sure the glitter was leftover from the chaos of the previous week. The rest was anyone's guess. After some gentle questioning Blathers and Steven felt at least somewhat confident that the tomato plant wasn't an island resident having a day of it. But even so to be on the safe side they decided to leave the strangeness be. Hopefully whatever made these things appear would make them disappear as needed. No matter how tempting it was to try the tomatoes.

The glitter, on the other hand, had a known origin. So once Blathers went to bed for the day, Steven was left with a broom and dustpan to do the best he could to try to get rid of it.

Impossible to succeed, of course, but Steven gave it a go all the same. At least it kept him in the lobby and easily available to any visitors who stopped by.

[Sometimes real life provides Fandom inspiration. Anyway, open! Steven and Harley conversation NFB please.]

Comments

[totalwildcard]

And while they'd been gone, someone in town had had a lot of time to think on various things. Not that she'd actually known they'd been gone - despite text-talking to Marc, ever a font of information - and also the week of chaos had been kind of a wash in terms of focusing on much but whatever was happening on a given day, but... funny how that worked out all the same.

Also, it was Harley, the 'someone'. Just so that was clear.

It was also Harley that had just spent a long moment just outside the museum, accosting radio squirrels and handing out tiny bottles of rum to them so that they'd leave this one out of their reporting, regardless of how it ended up going.

And now it was Harley, sailing into the museum with a much lighter air about her than the past two times, carrying something that looked like... a fancy pastry box? In the crook of her arm.

"Greetings, museu-- ooh, glitter!"

(squirrels, take note: this entire thread NFB, pls!)

[hasaknightjob]

Enough time had passed combined with Marc asking Steven a favor in return for Steven asking him a favor (which, it turned out, was essentially the same favor) that Steven did not tense up at hearing Harley's voice. Instead he had a more philosophical demeanor as he said, "I'm not sure if I'm making it better or worse."

It was glitter. The answer was always worse.

[totalwildcard]

"It's glitter," Harley told him, with utmost sincerity, "there's no 'worse' because glitter is the best."

And not a single person anywhere should be surprised she would think that.

[hasaknightjob]

"I feel as though I get one pile together and two more appear?" Steven said.

This wasn't a metaphor for anything. He really did mean glitter. It was Harley, he wasn't ruling out that she might be an expert in such matters.

[totalwildcard]

"They don't call it the herpes of the craft world for nothin'!" Harley said, much too brightly - and then immediately followed it up with, "Though I'd say actual herpes is probably still also the herpes of the craft world, but I dunno enough about those people's social circles to be sure."

At least no one could claim she wasn't acting like herself?

"Anyway, come on now!"

That part was accompanied by an encouraging nod towards the welcome desk, and then another towards the pastry box.

[hasaknightjob]

"You want me over there?" Steven asked, to be sure he had it right. He headed in the direction of the desk since it was easier for talking anyway.

[totalwildcard]

"Uh huh!"

She was now heading that way too, of course.

[hasaknightjob]

Steven set the broom and dustpan to the side and got behind the desk. "Er - yes. All right. Hello?"

Steven was fairly certain they'd skipped that part thanks to the glitter, so perhaps it was good to try it now?

[totalwildcard]

"Hi!" Harley beamed, and okay, maybe it was a touch intense with the energy but she was trying something here, and maybe it made her a little antsy and maybe she was overcompensating for it.

And then she plopped the pastry box onto the counter between them, with a little flourish of her hands. "Ta-dah!"

... She really should have provided more context right off the bat. But the box was pretty and white, with a gold ribbon tied around it, and had the very fancy logo of a mainland bakery on the side of it. So that was something?

[hasaknightjob]

Steven was also feeling nervous. A week of doing things for Khonshu meant a week with more points of memory loss than most. Nothing to do with Harley specifically, of course. But it still left Steven extra anxious about losing his way in a conversation and getting unmoored.

As such, he didn't want to make any assumptions.

"For me?" he asked. Then, to try to show effort was appreciated if it was for him, "It looks very nice."

[totalwildcard]

"For you!" Harley confirmed easily. "It's an apology cake." Although, as he was likely to discover sooner or later, that wasn't technically what it had been baked as. But the thought was there! "For that time I came in here aeons ago and asked to see Marc when this is your place and your time."

She was being real specific about which event it was an apology for for a reason. A couple, actually.

She was also now gesturing towards the box.

"Come on, open it up, take a look!"

[hasaknightjob]

Steven felt a small amount of relief that it was, in fact, for him. He would have been crushed if he'd gotten his hopes up to find out she'd only come to the museum to talk about Marc again.

"Do I need my - " he started to ask, then stopped, looking self-conscious. He still remembered the time she'd said he'd looked stupid in his glasses.

(She'd said he looked like a nerd, actually, but Steven had no way of knowing she'd been thinking of her own glasses wearing days when she'd said it. To him it was just another reminder that he was lesser compared to Marc, in looks and other matters.)

Steven put on his own form of a trying his best bright smile and opened the box, resolving to squint if he needed to.

[totalwildcard]

Now, did Harley still think he'd kind of been a real dick to her last time she'd been here? Yes.

And was Harley here now for ultimately selfish reasons? Duh.

... And had Harley also spent far too long outside the bakery earlier that morning, waiting for a person who looked the most like the cake they would have ordered would have what she would deem the right vibe for Steven?

Yes.

And so there was a beautiful cake of a moderate size inside the box. Just the one tier, round, coated in pristine dark blue fondant, with frosting rosettes in a lighter but complementary shade of blue all around the side, and topped off with edible gold dust that gave the dark blue bits a faint 'artistic interpretation of the night sky' kind of air.

The cake also said 'HAPPY RETIREMENT' in gold on top (big enough to not call for squinting, but small enough to be tasteful). Look, unfortunately Harley had zeroed in on the style and the vibe and the colors and had not actually at any point read the words.

But, oh well, point was - yeah, this was still kind of about Marc.

Just in a way where it had to also genuinely be about Steven, too, or it didn't work. "Ta-dah," Harley said again, but with much less flair this time. She was watching Steven's face, and bracing herself for something, without meaning to.

[hasaknightjob]

Steven did, in fact, squint at the cake. Not because he couldn't read the writing. Fortunately it was big enough for that not to be a problem. More confusion about the message.

"Er, I'm pretty sure I'm not?" Steven said. It was a good thing he'd had a long chat with Blathers that morning. Otherwise he would have been more uncertain he'd missed something important. Even so, just to be certain, "Did - did you hear otherwise?"

[totalwildcard]

Harley blinked at him. Then she leaned forward over the box and blinked at the words - for a good long beat since they were facing him more than her and she had to flip them in her head.

And then, just as abruptly as she'd leaned, she straightened up again, making a face.

"Ohhh I shoulda read the text! Goddammit." And another quick gesture of her hand, to encompass the cake but not the words. "I just thought this had the right vibe, yanno, otherwise!"

[hasaknightjob]

"I see," Steven said, because that did sound like something Harley would do. "Er, in that case the design is very pretty?"

Steven hesitated to ask, as he suspected a likely answer. But on the other hand he didn't have his glasses on to be able to read any labels that could have given him this information. "Is it vegan?"

[totalwildcard]

The expression on Harley's face went a little unsure. Not because the cake wasn't vegan, but because... "Well I mean the whole place was vegan, so probably?" she said, hesitant, grimacing further. "Is that gonna be a problem?"

She had no idea he was vegan. She'd just had the brief forethought to try and avoid some other mixing of ingredients he might not have been cool with.

Hence all the faces.

"I really thought I had something here, yanno?"

[hasaknightjob]

"Oh no, no," Steven assured her, pleasantly surprised by the answer (though he would have given a non-vegan cake to the residents of the boarding house so it wouldn't have gone to waste). "Thank you. That's very kind. Er, we could try it now? If you'd like?"

[totalwildcard]

Harley brightened some instantly.

"Sure! I'm kinda dyin' to see what's inside."

Which was the sort of thing that remained a complete mystery when you 'purchased' things the way she did.

[hasaknightjob]

"Can do," Steven said. He started to head for Bathers's office, then stopped when he remembered. "Wait, almost forgot - "

He patted himself down for his mobile, then took a picture of the cake.

[totalwildcard]

He would never know how much effort it took Harley to not at least sneak her hand in the picture to give the cake bunny ears.

Possibly not even how significant it was that she made the effort to ignore the reflex in the first place.

Anyway: "What's that for?"

[hasaknightjob]

Steven would've thought the bunny ears were funny, actually. But the universe gave Harley credit for the willpower all the same.

"So I remember," Steven explained. He put his mobile away, not in the same pocket he'd taken it out of. "I - um - like having things to look at. That happened."

[totalwildcard]

"... Huh."

Harley was just going to let that hang there, her head tilted in that classic 'quizzical dog' kind of way of hers. Processing.

Several thoughts bouncing into each other at the same time.

"Well, carry on."

She didn't mean about the photos.

[hasaknightjob]

At least she wasn't making fun of him, which Steven had worried about.

"Would you like a cup of tea as well?" Steven asked. Because yes, he was still British. "We've an electric kettle. Won't take long."

[totalwildcard]

Harley did not like tea.

"Sure!" she said.

It was apology tea to go with the apology cake, apparently.