whenshewasnice | Room 227, Friday Late Morning

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Room 227, Friday Late Morning

Natalie's Christmas had been as expected. A lot of general Adams quietness and solitude mixed with family meals, and the one kind of awkward discussion about Sam with her father once he'd lured her out of her room with a solo piano rendition of Stand and Deliver. (He'd said it didn't matter how he was managing to adjust it for the piano since it was all happening handwavily and no one would hear it anyway. Sometimes it was good to be home.) She'd read a lot, played the piano, gone out and shopped for a few gifts just to give herself something to do.

Said gifts, already wrapped, got dumped on her desk now that she was back, and had been for a while already. Long enough to have let Mr. Moxy out of his carrier, and unpacked most of her clothes and things. With the presents safely waiting to be given to their recipients, she began to set up her own: her dad's old record player. He got a new one, and as if he'd just known she'd been left without one now that she had no vinyl playing privileges in Seattle anymore, he'd decided to pass the old one on. She'd gotten a Mama Cass record to go with it, yes.

And it looked good next to her CD player, right?

[ooc: Open! Entertain/distract me while I try to write my infopost and canon catch-ups!]

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"Merry belated Christmas," Peter said magnanimously.

Magnanimous, because he'd bothered to remember to wish so in the first place.

"Mmhmm, and a happy new year," Natalie replied, glancing towards the door from where she was plugging the record player in. "Surprised you're even aware of the holidays."

She hadn't seen him around much, lately.

"Hey, just because I've been working doesn't mean I'm not keeping track," Peter said.

He'd totally lost track.

"Anyway, I got you something," he said, tossing a book-shaped package onto her bed.

His mother's fault.

"The radio said you lost track," Natalie said, because checking up on Fandom via podcasts had been part of her distraction routine. She kept her mild surprise at the present off her face. "Thanks," she said, as she straightened up and went to her desk picking up a neatly-wrapped, book-shaped present of her own. "Got something for you, too."

Yes, as it would turn out upon unwrapping, she actually had managed to find a book about 20th century politics in her Canada, focusing on people either ruining their careers by getting defeated into coins (complete with statistics about who'd been worth the most), or advancing because they could do that to their opponents by through well-written speeches (and the occasional headbutt).

Her world was odd.

Theresa Wiggin had, in fact, bludgeoned her son with the question what does this girl like? until he'd ponied up the one thing he genuinely remembered (well, two; they were both things he wasn't fond of himself). And then Theresa had mocked him until he did something with that information.

He unwrapped the book, his expression a mixture of surprise and mild concern... for the book's contents, as he'd turned it around to read the back almost immediately. "Coins?" he said. "Really?"

"Coins," Natalie said. "Really."

While he'd been unwrapping his gift, she'd picked up hers to open as well. It was not something she would have picked for herself – self-help wasn't really her thing, though the concept of involving movies was a fascinating one – but it was still... something. At least her mild expression softened some, for a moment.

"You don't even go to the arcade so I'm sure the concept's even stranger for you, but that's how it works."

"Well," Peter said, after a short period of meditating on the idea, "That puts the whole 'potentially getting assassinated' thing into a new light. At least if I die, I'll actually leave a good-looking corpse."

"That depends on the method of assassination," Natalie pointed out, like the cheery person that she was. "Although getting assassinated in my world will most likely leave a corpse rather than coins, too."

It was complicated.

"You're going to have to find me a book on what system of physics makes that work sometime," Peter said, though he probably wouldn't find the time to read it if she did. "Anyway, thanks."

"I don't think physics enters into it much." Physicists in her world may have been actively avoiding thinking about it, actually. "Bu thanks as well. I wasn't really expecting presents."

"It's Christmas," Peter said lightly, "I'm told it's a big deal."

"To some people," she replied about as lightly, nodding towards the record player. "I did get outdated electronics to lug back here and everything."

Peter glanced towards it.

"Huh," he said. "I thought that was just a particularly large paperweight."

Well congratulations, Peter, that was about the first genuine sound of amusement (if mild) that Natalie had let out in a while. "A record player," she said. "My Dad got a new one."

Peter looked blank for a moment as his brain wandered off to the dusty archives of Stuff He Didn't Waste A Lot Of Time Thinking about. "They still make records?" he said eventually. "Wow."

Natalie was kind of impressed there wasn't smoke coming out of his ears for a bit there. "Well, it's mostly a hipster thing," she shrugged. "Or nostalgia, but yes. And the old stuff is available second-hand, at least."

Should've gotten the musical self-help book!

"That's interesting," Peter said.

No, he didn't think so.

"Get anything else?"

"Just a record to go with the player, and some gift cards." Her mom had decided to be practical again. "And a promise my parents will pay for a bow for me."

And nada from anyone boyfriend-like, but she wasn't going to be drawing attention to that.

"A bow? Should I be getting worried?" Peter said. "Am I going to wake up in the middle of the night to find arrows sticking out of my door?"

Natalie raised an eyebrow.

"Are you intending to go raising my ire that badly?"

Peter shrugged. "I'm just making sure I don't have to start getting ready for assassinations on two fronts," he joked. "Unless you want a job as my bodyguard."

"You'd be better off directing that idea towards my little brother," Natalie drawled. "If only because it'd be hilarious seeing you try to convince him he should care."

"You know, I still haven't met the guy," Peter mused. "Mysterious."

Or maybe he just didn't leave his room enough.

"No, I think that's because neither of you understand the merits of socializing." Pot, kettles. She wasn't going to even try pretending she was a social butterfly, though. "I could always set up a playdate for the two of you. I'm sure you'd have a lot to talk about."

Said dryly, because she knew the most important thing they had in common was their disdain for some of her life choices.

"I socialize plenty," Peter retorted, "I just choose not to do it with the local shambolic collection of teenage malcontents."

As long as they were clear on that.

Natalie tsked. "I think you just implied Jace and I are a part of that group you described so charmingly."

"You're slightly more pleasant company than the rest of them," Peter said graciously. "I don't know about Jace."

"He's not pleasant company." Well, not unless you were her, or Alec. "But thanks, anyway. Nice to know I at least rank above the rest."

Jace didn't really do Christmas but when one of the few people he cared about did presumably celebrate it he went out of his way to get something. He didn't really get the whole holiday but he did understand that presents were the most important part. So when he came into Natalie's room he did have a gift for her, wrapped so perfectly you'd think he plucked it out of a Martha Stewart catalogue.

His neat-freak ways extended much further than keeping his room tidy.

"Oh good, you're back."

"And you're still here," Natalie deadpanned, never one to miss out on stating the obvious. "Merry belated Christmas, little brother."

"Merry belated Christmas to you too," he said. He held out the box he was holding. "I got you a present. Feel special, I don't do it often."

This time, Natalie let some of her surprise show, mild though it may have still been.

"Apparently that's a thing today," she said, as she moved to grab his present from her desk. For something that was such an awkward shape, she'd done a pretty good job of wrapping it neatly, too. She offered it to him as she took the box from him. "Got you something too. But be warned, it's ridiculous because you're hard to shop for sincerely."

"How am I hard to shop for? I am so easy," Jace said, taking the present. "Feels squishy. Interesting."

"You're not easy in the slightest, Jace," Natalie scoffed. It felt a little wrong to start tearing open something as nicely wrapped as this present, but she did it anyway. "I can't come up with anything tangible you really like that isn't weapons."

"Can't go wrong with black clothing." And food! He loved food.

Jace tore open his gift and grinned as he lifted up the toy. "I could make a filthy joke about this, you know."

"Yes, that's a risk I took willingly," Natalie told him evenly. Hey, just because she didn't make those kinds of jokes didn't mean she didn't spot the openings for them.

As she got her own present open, she didn't grin, but she did look a little impressed. "Harder to come up with one for these."

"Those are okay, right?" He didn't really know much about that sort of stuff so he went with what was expensive and looked pretty.

"They look great." Also really pretty. They were going to look ridiculous next to her old record player, and that amused her. "They look expensive, too, which probably means I should say they're really too much."

"This was actually me restraining myself," Jace informed her. "You really don't want to see as what qualifies as too much."

"I don't think my humble Canadian sensibilities could take it."

He should remember that comment for when she starts wearing $900 boots. It would make her laugh.

She quirked a lopsided little smile at him. "Thank you, little brother."

"And thank you, big sister," he said, looking down at the beaver again. "God, I'm going to have so much fun saying there's a stuffed beaver in my bed."

"Alec is going to be horrified." And that hadn't played into her choice of gift, honest. "Well, maybe not. He seems more literal than that."

"Yes, he's not quite up to snuff on human innuendo," Jace said. "Or any innuendo at all, actually."

"But I'll be happy to explain it to him."

"Oh, I'm sure," Natalie replied with a bit of a drawl. Because he was an ass. "Very thoroughly, too."

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Room 227, Friday Late Morning

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