Log: Layla and Sam, Saturday afternoon

[x-cannonball.livejournal.com]

Sam brings a gift to Layla in return for her earlier gift of strudel, and they talk about school and asplosions.


Balancing a tray of warm food in one hand, Sam reached out and knocked gently on Layla's door with the other. Inspired by her earlier present to him and Kurt, and by his own efforts to get back into cooking and baking more often, he had tried his hand at making strudel. Nothing too fancy, just the basic apple variety, and he wasn't sure exactly how well it had turned out, but he wanted to share his creation with the girl who'd inspired him. Plus he knew she was still under the weather and perhaps this would lift her spirits a little bit.

The door cracked open and only an eye appeared in the opening. A big, blue eye that narrowed into a squint and looked Sam up and down. It ultimately settled on the plate in his hands, flicked up to his face and then back to the plate. "What's the secret password?"

"Strudel. That's the secret password, yeah?" He hoped it was because he wasn't sure what else it could be other than that. And if he was wrong, maybe the fact that he was holding a plate full of them would work as a bribe regardless. Sam smiled and waved the plate back and forth under the eyes that were fixed upon it.

Her eye followed the plate like a dog following a treat being held out to it. Her nose pressed against the door as she leaned in to follow it more closely and the tightly shut hidden eye caused her forehead to crease. Then, suddenly, Layla sighed dramatically, slumped and flung open the door to her suite. "I'm so transparent!" she lamented in appropriately melodramatic fashion with arms flung up into the air. "God, it's such torture to be so see through! I need more complexity, Mr Guthrie! No one likes cling wrap!"

Chuckling at her dramatics, Sam shook his head a little. "I take it you're interested in some strudel then?" He grinned and moved the plate closer to her in case she wanted to snag one of the treats before he entered the room. "Nah, you're not that transparent, Layla. Who amongst us would honestly be able to resist such a delicious treat, after all?" It was true, strudel could open a lot of doors around the mansion. "How are you feeling?" She was on her feet and standing up on her own power at least, so that was good.

Layla snagged a strudel from the top with lightning fast reflexes. Or so she was going to tell herself. She was still a bit slow but, damn it, it was was lightning fast for her, okay? "I'm good. I can like run around like a mad thing mostly without getting winded now. But homework sucks." She gave Mr Guthrie big eyes and batted them in what she hoped was a really innocent way. "Since Mr Drake disappeared into the mist or whatever does that mean I get to skip math class forever?" She knew they had a replacement for him, but that didn't mean she wasn't gonna try to wiggle out of her least loved class.

Sam wasn't about to criticize her on her speed or her reflexes, which still weren't all that bad at any rate in his humble opinion. He grinned as she took the treat, still holding it out in case she wanted to nab another one after eating the first. "Ahh, yeah, homework can be a pain, I know." It was promising to hear she could exert herself physically at least, that was a good sign. "I'm afraid not, there'll be a replacement taking over. Nice try, though, I'd give you extra points for effort but I don't teach that class."

While taking a bite of strudel Layla's response was, of course, to whine and slump her shoulders. "That's cold, Mr Guthrie," she mumbled around her mouthful of strudel. "You wanna take it over so you can give me those bonus points? It's totally legit that way. Or you can gimme 'em in English. Who says bonus points have to go to math class?"

"Maybe a little. Bobby would be proud, heh." Which was a pun, kind of, something else his friend would also have enjoyed had he heard it. "Afraid I can't really do that, and... I could give them to you in English, maybe," He had to grin a little at the 'gimme 'em in English' phrasing, even if his own slang could be way worse at times, but in that context it made him grin. "If you did a bit of extra work for me, perhaps?" Which wasn't really making it a bonus at all if she had to earn it, now that he thought about it, but if she wanted to make extra credit there were always essays or papers to be written.

Layla's face fell with the strudel in her mouth for another bite. "Maaaaathainniair," she complained around her unbitten strudel. She even pulled it out of her mouth, without having taken a bite, so she could translate. "Man, that's not fair. How's it bonus points for my awesome persuasive skills if you're making me do extra credit work? That's so shady. You come here, try and win me over with strudel and then you're all 'so you know those extra eighty pages you wanted to write? You can get extra credit but only if you write them!' So shady!" She finally took a bite of her strudel, looking as defiant as she could while eating the pastry.

Waiting for her to eat a little more before she could talk coherently, Sam just leaned against the door frame and smiled. "Well, you persuaded me to give you the chance to earn extra marks. That's still an advantage over someone else who hasn't done that, yeah?" Probably not the advantage for which the blonde girl was hoping but it was still one in his eyes. He chuckled and shook his head. "I didn't say anything about eighty pages or anything, I don't want to be making too much extra work for myself here either, heh." That would be a lot of correcting, especially if more than one person wrote that much for him.

"You know what would really make sure you don't have too much work?" she asked in a bit of a sing-song tone. "Just giving me the points because I am awesome and secretly your favorite and awesome and turned you onto the power of the strudel and sh-stuff. Because then you have no extra work and we all win! TADA! See? I am brilliant. You should do it."

"That would really save me a lot of effort and hard work, that's true. But you know who else it would deprive of all that character building effort and hard work? You, and that's what'd really be a shame." Sam was vaguely aware that he probably sounded like one of the teachers from an after school special or something, and wondered when and where he'd somehow crossed the line from a student into such a teacher, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. "I do owe you for the strudel, though. Which is why, well, you know." He wagged the plate a little, not enough to disturb the pastry on top of it, however.

Layla snagged another strudel from the pile while simultaneously stuffing the remainder of the first into her mouth...despite the fact that it was just this side of too big to fit. Undaunted, she just stuffed it in further and chewed. Slowly. It took some time but she managed to get it chewed and swallowed without choking. Her jaw kinda hurt though. For most of that time she was staring at her teacher with narrowed eyes, shaking her finger at him and making noises that might have been words if not for the overstuffed mouthful of food. Once her mouth was empty, however, she settled for still giving him squinty eyes and going, "I've got plenty of character, if I get any more I'll a-splode! And that would be messy. And then it would be all your fault. People would be like 'Where'd Layla go?' and everyone else would be like 'Oh, Mr Guthrie got too damn big for them britches of his and he stuffed her so full of character she a-sploded all over him. There's still stains on the walls.' Imagine what that'd do for your rep!" She punctuated the last with a bite from her new strudel.

Sam just waited patiently as Layla worked on the large mouthful of strudel, grinning and genuinely happy that she seemed to be enjoying it so much. He considered her words for a second or two before replying. "Well, I reckon if something like that happened - not that I think it would - word would get around to the other students that they shouldn't mess with me, that I really do know what's best, and in the long run it might be better for the school, yeah?"

"Duuuuude, how is death by character asplosion like a good thing? That's like, mean Mr Guthrie. I am so never doing extra credit for you." Not that she did most of her regular credit stuff anyway. Well, she did classwork, it was just homework she almost never did. "I dun wanna asplode. That would suck."

"For you, it wouldn't be very good, this is true. And maybe you're right, maybe that's not the kind of cautionary tale I should be aiming on happening, huh?" He scratched his chin with one of his free hands as if he were seriously mulling things over. "Yeah, you're right, asplodin' is bad. And that's ok, as long as you do your normal work, that is." Extra credit wasn't mandatory of course but he'd be bugging her like any other student over the regular things. "Alright, you've convinced me, we'll give up on any 'splodin' of any kind."

"Scoooooooooooore!" She raised her arms in victory and did a lap around the couch in celebration. Then she came back and stole another strudel for good measure. "So, you plannin' on sharing the strudel love with anyone else?" She took a bite of the one she was already working on. "Because I will totally just keep stealing these. They need more sugar. Not a lot, but more."

"Nope, this is all for you." He would be making more of it in the future, however, since it seemed to be decent enough. Sam made a note in his head about adding more sugar, and would have to tweak his recipe for the next time he attempted them. "More sugar, a bit more, gotcha." He held out the plate, which she could take if she wanted. He'd come back for it later, there was no big rush on getting it back, the main thing was checking in on her to see how she was doing and to give her some sustenance, both of which had been happily achieved with good results.

She had eyes like saucers when she took the plate. "For meee? Ooooh, Maddie is gonna be so jealous. Wait, what am I talking about? She's totally gonna steal my strudel." Layla looked around her suite with shifty eyes. "Unless I hide it... That could totally work, right? But then she would like, I dunno, smell the strudel on the air and then I would need to make her strudel to make up for it aaaaaaaand it's probably just easier to share, huh?"

Sam just chuckled as Layla went through all of the possible outcomes with having the strudel in the suite. "Yup, probably just easier to share it, I imagine, but it's yours so whatever you'd like to do with it is up to you." He couldn't force her to share with her suitemate but if sharing meant she wouldn't have to make any more for Maddie then sharing was probably the easier thing to do. Then again, making more strudel was hardly a bad thing, so who knew?

"I dub thee Sir Strudelicious!" Layla came out with somewhat randomly but in her best sage old man voice. Actually the voice was kind of ridiculous sounding but she took another bite of strudel and that basically made it all better anyway.

"I guess there are worse nicknames to have bestowed upon you." He grinned and nodded. "Alright, having done my duty here, I'll leave you to your strudel, milady." Sam bowed deeply as befitting the knighthood of strudeldom he'd just received and backed out of the room. "Hope you keep feelin' better and we'll see you in class again soon."