Pete, Amanda - last Wednesday afternoon
Apr. 6th, 2004 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAmanda goes down for a chat with Pete and to ask him about the clubbing bus. A scary box of mouldy magic bits is also retrieved, and a small prank planned. Absolutely no angst. Whatsoever.
Pete looked up from his reading at the tap on the door. Between the problems with Essex's facility on Muir, and the sharp reminder he'd gotten about the organ trade the other week, and the daily round of teenagers with hormone problems, he'd been working fairly hard, so a break for a while would probably do him good. He shoved the report on the activities of a particular Thai smuggler in a file, and leant back in his chair.
"Get in here!"
"You certainly know how t' sweet talk a girl," said Amanda, sticking her head around the door with a grin. "You got a minute, 'Uncle'? Thought I'd stop by an' think of some horrible teenage problems t' embarrass you with."
Pete grinned back.
"I'm not doing anything that won't keep. But I was talking to a kid this morning who's worrying about what his mutation is going to do to his..." His voice trailed off briefly. "Never mind. You're going to have to try pretty hard to come up with something I haven't heard in the last few months. Or have you been going around linking your brains with any of the many other headcases this house offers?"
Amanda came in, plopping herself down in the chair in front of Pete's desk without ceremony. "Nah, just the one. Wouldn't do t' get a reputation as a link slut." She looked inquiringly at the packet of fags on his desk.
"Good. I'd think you'd frighten Nate to death if you managed to get more than one link with a mad bastard." Pete picked up the fags, lit one for himself, and tossed another over to Amanda. "So how's things, then?"
"Nate's doin' a pretty good job of frightenin' himself t' death without me addin' to it," Amanda agreed, pouncing on the cigarette and pulling out her lighter. "Believe me, I won't be doin' that again. I'd rather stick me brain in a bucket of battery acid. Magic hangovers're worse than the regular sort, without addin' crossin' wires with someone else's head." She lit up, taking a long drag with a contented expression. "But, apart from the fuck up of Sunday night, I'm doin' all right. This Strange bloke Rom lined up as me tutor seems all right for an egg head." Giving him a long look, she asked: "How was yer trip? In nice, safe, non-specific terms, of course."
"Bloody horrible." He took a drag on his cigarette. "They almost always are, but the North Korean government are particular bastards. Still I found out what I was there to find out, and a few other things besides, so the job's done. And I got a chance to catch you with Dom at the end of it, which was good for a laugh."
"I keep hearing 'bout this Dom from Nate - she sounds like a bit of fun," Amanda said with grin. "Oh, an' he told me t' ask you t' tell me 'bout Istanbul sometime," she added, looking innocent.
Pete blew smoke down his nose. "Dom's bloody minded, but a good laugh. Watching her and Nate disagree is practically a spectator sport - they're as bad as each other. Was there any special reason that the subject of Istanbul came up?"
"I told him he wasn't as scary as you, an' he told me t' ask you 'bout Istanbul," Amanda replied. "Of course, as the time he was tryin' not t' get dragged into one of those visions of his, so he might have just been makin' conversation."
"Ah. That makes a particularly Nathan kind of sense - we were after the same people, and I wound up walking in on him while he was busy with a mutual informant who'd decided to play us off against the other. Wasn't expecting to see him there, and the fact that we knew each other worked out very badly for the poor scrote that was trying to up his price. But yeah, he's right - he's a lot fucking scarier than me. When he's not half-mad and falling over twice a day, at any rate. That power of his..." Pete shuddered at the memory, and didn't make any attempt to hide it.
"I know," Amanda said, her own expression turning serious. "I dunno what I'd have done if it hadn't been a small one - me magic's shot at the mo', what with overdoin' it on Sunday. Still, he managed t' pull out of it, with a minimum of heart attacks." She leaned forward and tapped ash into the tray that lived on Pete's desk, then sat back, propping one foot on the chair seat and leaning her arm on the raised knee. "Now this might have been the withdrawals talkin', but I could have sworn I saw you offerin' t' drive a bunch of us t' a nightclub once a month."
"Shit. I thought everyone would have forgotten about that by now." Pete grinned, not even slightly serious. "Yes, I did. I may have been drinking. But since this is the first one, you lot get to pick the place. Got somewhere in mind?"
"'S the problem with writin' everythin' down - there's always a record if someone goes lookin'," Amanda said, echoing his joking tone. "There's this place in town Sarah found that's all right. Music ain't up t' me exactin' standard, but I'm willin' t' slum it. Frenchie an' I were thinkin' maybe this Friday would be good for it - people need a chance t' relax, an' it'd be a good start t' the long weekend."
"Yeah, fine by me. You might want to make sure people know that I will be telling the staff that you're all underage, though." Pete rolled his eyes. "Charlie's rules."
Amanda wrinkled her nose, but nodded. "Of course. Can't have the guidance counsellor aidin' an' abettin' underage drinkin' now, can we? Even if twenty-one's a fuckin' ridiculous age limit."
"Tell me about it. 'Course, half the kids here are so fucking straight-laced they wouldn't drink, even if they bloody could - it'd be 'dangerous and irresponsible'." Pete's impression of a self-righteous teenager was worrying accurate. "They're all going to grow up to start wearing fucking pervert suits, I can feel it."
Amanda giggled, the sound far more natural than her usual mocking snort. "Leather has its uses, but prancin' about savin' the world in it ain't one of them. An' it's only us 'problem cases' that tend t' drink any way. Got a rep t' maintain, after all. An' we need t' give the teachers somethin' t' do, justify the pay checks."
"Yeah, right. Like you can't come up with half a dozen ways to horrify my American colleagues that don't involve drinking before breakfast." Pete took a drag on his cigarette. "Although we seem to be doing pretty well for keeping people out of medlab at the moment. There's only LeBeau and Illyana in there at the moment - and Nate if he's gone and fallen over again, and I can live with that."
"Ain't my fault they make teachers fragile over here," Amanda protested, laughing. "They say 'Yana should be out soon," she continued, carefully avoiding any mention of Remy. That was one bridge she wasn't ready to attempt rebuilding yet. "I dunno if you'd have heard... They ain't noticed anythin'... magic, 'bout her? She spent a fuckload of a long time in the demon dimension, an' I sort of wonder what went on. I don't sense anythin' on her, tho'."
"Don't really know. I assume they'd have said something to you, or got me to get hold of Rom, if they had. But yeah, I've been wondering about that, too. Still, I'm sure she'll be causing trouble with the rest of the kids, just as soon as her immune system grows back. And y'know, she gets over whatever horrible mental problems growing up in hell then being abandoned by her big brother has given her." He ground the cigarette out.
"You know we call him the Pillock in Art class, and that he is," Amanda said with a grin. "An' Logan is right awkward 'bout teachin', but at least we're gettin' stuff done with him. Interestin' stuff, too." The mention of magic reminded her. "Oh, yeah, thought you might like me t' take me stuff off yer hands. Strange wants t' see some of the books I was usin', and some of the herbal stuff's bound t' be a bit whiffy by now."
"Oh, is *that* what the smell is? I thought Jake had left some food to evolve in his desk again. I haven't looked in case it bit me or something." Pete rummaged around at the bottom of his filing cabinet, and pulled out what looked like a crude metal cube, badly soldered at the edges. He ran a finger around the one the sides, and it fell away, revealing Amanda's books, and yes, some distinctly foul smelling herbs.
"So _that's_ how Homily makes that tonic of hers," Amanda said, making a face at the mess - and the stench. "Yuck." She poked carefully at the books, and was relieved to find those were mostly intact. The covers would never be the same again, but mould was something you expected to deal with when your text books tended to be several centuries older than you. "Think I'll dump the whole lot out in the back yard an' go through 'em there - Paige'll skin me if I bring this lot upstairs."
"Mmmm. Course, learning to skin humans might give her something to think about, apart from over-achieving and boys. Speaking of your slightly insane room-mates, though, how's the new kid settling in?"
"Well, Paige has got the whole skinnin' herself thing down t' a fine art..." Amanda stopped her morbid poking of the mess in the box. "Jane? She's all right. A bit on the perky side, an' incredibly naive 'bout things, but I s'pose that goes with the lack of mem'ry. An' she's a pretty fast learner, so she'll do all right - Paige an' me keep an' eye out for her, best we can. I'm just waitin' for the day she forgets t' get dressed an' runs into Doug in the hallway." A broadly evil grin crossed her face. "That would be a perfect Kodak moment."
Pete grinned, as he lit up again. "The poor sod would have a coronary on the spot. Unless Angie has been giving him extra-curricular lessons, but somehow I just don't see that yet. They're still at the stage where they make me faintly nauseous whenever I catch them talking on the journals, so he's probably still going to get ungodly embarrassed."
"'Faintly nauseous'? Fuck, they get any more cute an' I'm gunna need a bucket." Amanda's tone was mostly-joking as she conveniently finished her own fag and snuck another from Pete's pack. "An' would it be considered overly horrible of me if I engineered a coincidence involving him, Jane, an' the lack of clothes? There's got t' be room in this new leaf I'm turnin' for the odd harmless joke."
Pete attempted to look stern. Badly. "It would be Very Wrong. Yes. If any of the other staff caught you setting up on of your classmates like that, they would probably, I dunno, whinge on for a bit, at least." He gave up even the attempt to look stern. "So don't let anyone find out that you engineered it - and make sure that Jane's not in any pictures you might accidentally happen to take..."
"Not that I'd think she'd care, but I ain't about t' contribute t' anyone's porn collection." Amanda took a long, thoughtful drag, thinking of ways to engineer the particular coincidence she needed. All of them were too easy - Jane was particularly helpful about being naked. The trickier part would be having an excuse to be there, but again, not impossible. She made a mental note to borrow Shinobi's mini-camera at some point. She grinned at Pete. "Yer really a horrible, horrible man, aren't you?"
"So I've been told. But it keeps me from going out of me mind with boredom, so I can live with it." He blew smoke down his nose, and grinned evilly.
Pete looked up from his reading at the tap on the door. Between the problems with Essex's facility on Muir, and the sharp reminder he'd gotten about the organ trade the other week, and the daily round of teenagers with hormone problems, he'd been working fairly hard, so a break for a while would probably do him good. He shoved the report on the activities of a particular Thai smuggler in a file, and leant back in his chair.
"Get in here!"
"You certainly know how t' sweet talk a girl," said Amanda, sticking her head around the door with a grin. "You got a minute, 'Uncle'? Thought I'd stop by an' think of some horrible teenage problems t' embarrass you with."
Pete grinned back.
"I'm not doing anything that won't keep. But I was talking to a kid this morning who's worrying about what his mutation is going to do to his..." His voice trailed off briefly. "Never mind. You're going to have to try pretty hard to come up with something I haven't heard in the last few months. Or have you been going around linking your brains with any of the many other headcases this house offers?"
Amanda came in, plopping herself down in the chair in front of Pete's desk without ceremony. "Nah, just the one. Wouldn't do t' get a reputation as a link slut." She looked inquiringly at the packet of fags on his desk.
"Good. I'd think you'd frighten Nate to death if you managed to get more than one link with a mad bastard." Pete picked up the fags, lit one for himself, and tossed another over to Amanda. "So how's things, then?"
"Nate's doin' a pretty good job of frightenin' himself t' death without me addin' to it," Amanda agreed, pouncing on the cigarette and pulling out her lighter. "Believe me, I won't be doin' that again. I'd rather stick me brain in a bucket of battery acid. Magic hangovers're worse than the regular sort, without addin' crossin' wires with someone else's head." She lit up, taking a long drag with a contented expression. "But, apart from the fuck up of Sunday night, I'm doin' all right. This Strange bloke Rom lined up as me tutor seems all right for an egg head." Giving him a long look, she asked: "How was yer trip? In nice, safe, non-specific terms, of course."
"Bloody horrible." He took a drag on his cigarette. "They almost always are, but the North Korean government are particular bastards. Still I found out what I was there to find out, and a few other things besides, so the job's done. And I got a chance to catch you with Dom at the end of it, which was good for a laugh."
"I keep hearing 'bout this Dom from Nate - she sounds like a bit of fun," Amanda said with grin. "Oh, an' he told me t' ask you t' tell me 'bout Istanbul sometime," she added, looking innocent.
Pete blew smoke down his nose. "Dom's bloody minded, but a good laugh. Watching her and Nate disagree is practically a spectator sport - they're as bad as each other. Was there any special reason that the subject of Istanbul came up?"
"I told him he wasn't as scary as you, an' he told me t' ask you 'bout Istanbul," Amanda replied. "Of course, as the time he was tryin' not t' get dragged into one of those visions of his, so he might have just been makin' conversation."
"Ah. That makes a particularly Nathan kind of sense - we were after the same people, and I wound up walking in on him while he was busy with a mutual informant who'd decided to play us off against the other. Wasn't expecting to see him there, and the fact that we knew each other worked out very badly for the poor scrote that was trying to up his price. But yeah, he's right - he's a lot fucking scarier than me. When he's not half-mad and falling over twice a day, at any rate. That power of his..." Pete shuddered at the memory, and didn't make any attempt to hide it.
"I know," Amanda said, her own expression turning serious. "I dunno what I'd have done if it hadn't been a small one - me magic's shot at the mo', what with overdoin' it on Sunday. Still, he managed t' pull out of it, with a minimum of heart attacks." She leaned forward and tapped ash into the tray that lived on Pete's desk, then sat back, propping one foot on the chair seat and leaning her arm on the raised knee. "Now this might have been the withdrawals talkin', but I could have sworn I saw you offerin' t' drive a bunch of us t' a nightclub once a month."
"Shit. I thought everyone would have forgotten about that by now." Pete grinned, not even slightly serious. "Yes, I did. I may have been drinking. But since this is the first one, you lot get to pick the place. Got somewhere in mind?"
"'S the problem with writin' everythin' down - there's always a record if someone goes lookin'," Amanda said, echoing his joking tone. "There's this place in town Sarah found that's all right. Music ain't up t' me exactin' standard, but I'm willin' t' slum it. Frenchie an' I were thinkin' maybe this Friday would be good for it - people need a chance t' relax, an' it'd be a good start t' the long weekend."
"Yeah, fine by me. You might want to make sure people know that I will be telling the staff that you're all underage, though." Pete rolled his eyes. "Charlie's rules."
Amanda wrinkled her nose, but nodded. "Of course. Can't have the guidance counsellor aidin' an' abettin' underage drinkin' now, can we? Even if twenty-one's a fuckin' ridiculous age limit."
"Tell me about it. 'Course, half the kids here are so fucking straight-laced they wouldn't drink, even if they bloody could - it'd be 'dangerous and irresponsible'." Pete's impression of a self-righteous teenager was worrying accurate. "They're all going to grow up to start wearing fucking pervert suits, I can feel it."
Amanda giggled, the sound far more natural than her usual mocking snort. "Leather has its uses, but prancin' about savin' the world in it ain't one of them. An' it's only us 'problem cases' that tend t' drink any way. Got a rep t' maintain, after all. An' we need t' give the teachers somethin' t' do, justify the pay checks."
"Yeah, right. Like you can't come up with half a dozen ways to horrify my American colleagues that don't involve drinking before breakfast." Pete took a drag on his cigarette. "Although we seem to be doing pretty well for keeping people out of medlab at the moment. There's only LeBeau and Illyana in there at the moment - and Nate if he's gone and fallen over again, and I can live with that."
"Ain't my fault they make teachers fragile over here," Amanda protested, laughing. "They say 'Yana should be out soon," she continued, carefully avoiding any mention of Remy. That was one bridge she wasn't ready to attempt rebuilding yet. "I dunno if you'd have heard... They ain't noticed anythin'... magic, 'bout her? She spent a fuckload of a long time in the demon dimension, an' I sort of wonder what went on. I don't sense anythin' on her, tho'."
"Don't really know. I assume they'd have said something to you, or got me to get hold of Rom, if they had. But yeah, I've been wondering about that, too. Still, I'm sure she'll be causing trouble with the rest of the kids, just as soon as her immune system grows back. And y'know, she gets over whatever horrible mental problems growing up in hell then being abandoned by her big brother has given her." He ground the cigarette out.
"You know we call him the Pillock in Art class, and that he is," Amanda said with a grin. "An' Logan is right awkward 'bout teachin', but at least we're gettin' stuff done with him. Interestin' stuff, too." The mention of magic reminded her. "Oh, yeah, thought you might like me t' take me stuff off yer hands. Strange wants t' see some of the books I was usin', and some of the herbal stuff's bound t' be a bit whiffy by now."
"Oh, is *that* what the smell is? I thought Jake had left some food to evolve in his desk again. I haven't looked in case it bit me or something." Pete rummaged around at the bottom of his filing cabinet, and pulled out what looked like a crude metal cube, badly soldered at the edges. He ran a finger around the one the sides, and it fell away, revealing Amanda's books, and yes, some distinctly foul smelling herbs.
"So _that's_ how Homily makes that tonic of hers," Amanda said, making a face at the mess - and the stench. "Yuck." She poked carefully at the books, and was relieved to find those were mostly intact. The covers would never be the same again, but mould was something you expected to deal with when your text books tended to be several centuries older than you. "Think I'll dump the whole lot out in the back yard an' go through 'em there - Paige'll skin me if I bring this lot upstairs."
"Mmmm. Course, learning to skin humans might give her something to think about, apart from over-achieving and boys. Speaking of your slightly insane room-mates, though, how's the new kid settling in?"
"Well, Paige has got the whole skinnin' herself thing down t' a fine art..." Amanda stopped her morbid poking of the mess in the box. "Jane? She's all right. A bit on the perky side, an' incredibly naive 'bout things, but I s'pose that goes with the lack of mem'ry. An' she's a pretty fast learner, so she'll do all right - Paige an' me keep an' eye out for her, best we can. I'm just waitin' for the day she forgets t' get dressed an' runs into Doug in the hallway." A broadly evil grin crossed her face. "That would be a perfect Kodak moment."
Pete grinned, as he lit up again. "The poor sod would have a coronary on the spot. Unless Angie has been giving him extra-curricular lessons, but somehow I just don't see that yet. They're still at the stage where they make me faintly nauseous whenever I catch them talking on the journals, so he's probably still going to get ungodly embarrassed."
"'Faintly nauseous'? Fuck, they get any more cute an' I'm gunna need a bucket." Amanda's tone was mostly-joking as she conveniently finished her own fag and snuck another from Pete's pack. "An' would it be considered overly horrible of me if I engineered a coincidence involving him, Jane, an' the lack of clothes? There's got t' be room in this new leaf I'm turnin' for the odd harmless joke."
Pete attempted to look stern. Badly. "It would be Very Wrong. Yes. If any of the other staff caught you setting up on of your classmates like that, they would probably, I dunno, whinge on for a bit, at least." He gave up even the attempt to look stern. "So don't let anyone find out that you engineered it - and make sure that Jane's not in any pictures you might accidentally happen to take..."
"Not that I'd think she'd care, but I ain't about t' contribute t' anyone's porn collection." Amanda took a long, thoughtful drag, thinking of ways to engineer the particular coincidence she needed. All of them were too easy - Jane was particularly helpful about being naked. The trickier part would be having an excuse to be there, but again, not impossible. She made a mental note to borrow Shinobi's mini-camera at some point. She grinned at Pete. "Yer really a horrible, horrible man, aren't you?"
"So I've been told. But it keeps me from going out of me mind with boredom, so I can live with it." He blew smoke down his nose, and grinned evilly.
