Room 227, Tuesday Afternoon

[whenshewasnice]

A few days now, and still no word about Sam. About, notfrom. Natalie was not expecting him to call her if –– when he'd turn up again. But his friends would. And they hadn't. And so, Natalie was getting increasingly anxious, as well as annoyed. She had issues with things being beyond her control to begin with, and this was just making it worse.

She'd already spent her morning at the arcade, getting some of her frustration out by playing fighting games, and ridding herself of some excess energy with DDR, soaking up all the flashing lights and beeping sounds that usually made her feel a little more at home. In town, in her skin, whatever.

But she was back already. Her room was cleaner than it had ever been before already, and her closet and dresser had all been sorted out, so... She attacked the furniture. Figuratively. She moved her keyboard to the other side of the room. Then, she pushed apart the two desks that had been forming one unit in the corner for the past year or so. ... And then, having looked at them for a moment, pushed them back together again. Damn Jace and his eye for interior decorating.

Mr. Moxy was finding this very confusing.

[ooc: Open post, half-open door!]

Comments

[lockestheway]

"I was going to tell you to stop brooding, and then I heard you moving stuff from down the hall," Peter said conversationally, ducking his head in through the half-open door.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie gave the desk one last nudge before glancing back towards the door over her shoulder.

"And which conclusion did that bring you to, Peter?"

[lockestheway]

"I don't know yet, that's why I showed up," Peter said, waving at her with the hand that had a phone in it.

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm not brooding." That was debatable. "I'm frustrated."

Okay, maybe if she just put a different label on it...

[lockestheway]

"With you, it's the same thing," Peter said, sitting down on the bed before that got thrown out the window or something.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie gave him a look.

"I'm really not in the mood for you judging my coping mechanisms right now, Peter."

[lockestheway]

"Who's judging?" Peter said, flopping back onto the bed. "I'm just describing it properly."

[whenshewasnice]

"With you, it's the same thing," Natalie drawled, watching him. "In any case, you should leave it alone."

[lockestheway]

Peter rolled his eyes at her. "Wow, defensive much?" he said. "Spent time with the boyfriend again?"

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie stalked over to the bed. But thankfully just looked down at him instead of pushing him off it or anything. Much as some tiny part of her might have wanted to.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

No, she had a really close and awakward relationship with her ex. Which was entirely different! Honest.

[lockestheway]

"I could call him your ex-boyfriend, but let's be honest, at this point that's just arguing about semantics," Peter said, looking like he was being drowned by ennui about it.

[whenshewasnice]

"Didn't know you were such an expert," Natalie replied as she took a seat on the edge of the bed. And gave his shoulder a shove. If he insisted on sprawling on her bed and annoying her, he needed to deal with her showing her frustration a little more physically.

"He's missing," she added, reining her tone back closer to her favoured neutral. "Try not to be a jerk about it."

[lockestheway]

Peter wasn't an expert on boyfriends, no, but he was an expert on anything that people were terrified of, or held some kind of terror about, and Sam was like a big bull's eye on Natalie's forehead most of the time.

"How long?" he asked.

[whenshewasnice]

"Four or five days." Depended on your way of counting it, really. "And before you suggest going to any authorities, he hasn't been taken or anything. He's missing because he wants to be."

[lockestheway]

"Then why are you worried?" Peter sighed, eyeballing her from his prone position. "He'll come back whenever he decides to rejoin the world, I'm sure."

[whenshewasnice]

"Because I'm not sure he will."

They'd almost had to sit on him just to keep him from bolting right as he'd decided to.

[lockestheway]

Peter shrugged. "Another tragic casualty of modern living," he said. "That's his choice. Unless you've decided to start micromanaging lives."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie gave him a dark look and fell quiet for the moment.

Mostly because she was weighing the pros and cons of arguing with him about something he was unlikely to fully get even if she tried.

[lockestheway]

Peter rolled his eyes again.

"You should really take a few steps back and examine your life once and again," he said. "Or it's just going to be all Sam-Sam-Sam for the forseeable future."

[whenshewasnice]

"I was doing fine until he started going off the rails." ...Guess she was arguing, then. "I'm allowed to care about him. Things won't be the same anymore even if he does come back, anyway."

[lockestheway]

"Some things you don't get to control," Peter said, eyeballing the ceiling for no reason at all. "No matter how badly you want to."

[whenshewasnice]

"Please don't talk to me as if I'm an idiot." Even if there were a lot of ways in which she was. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "I know that. I just want him to be safe."

Because she was still worried she'd caused this whole thing.

[lockestheway]

"Want all you want, it's not going to help anyone," Peter said, his eyes flicking back to her. "Sorry I'm not going to cry about it with you, but dem's the breaks."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie rolled her eyes and looked over at him again.

"So what good are you to me then, Peter? Hmm? Because I've seen boys on beds be a lot more useful for me, lately, than just berating me for having feelings."

[lockestheway]

Peter's eyes rolled yet again.

"You've seen boys who want to make your present a little sweeter," he said. "I'm more interested in the future, which is why I'm incredibly annoying to you when your head is face-down, stuck in the past."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie huffed out a quiet laugh that had very little to do with being amused. "Maybe they were better at knowing their place, and that my present is all they can affect."

[lockestheway]

"If I quote-unquote knew my place, I'd still be living at home, taking college classes and fussing about my grade point average like it actually matters."

That would probably make a better case if he hadn't been sixteen, but oh well.

"Affecting your present is changing the future."

[whenshewasnice]

"And my future is not yours to change or even butt into." She sighed, annoyed. But mostly at herself at this point. That was where all the real annoyance was directed all the time anyway. "Why can't you just be a pretty face?"

Probably because idiots bored her, so she gravitated towards the intelligent but irritating.

[lockestheway]

Peter sat up and rolled his shoulders. "There's plenty of pretty faces walking out there," he said, making a grand gesture towards the door. "You might act like you think prioritizing romance makes you the superior being, but the fact of the matter is you want more than that. You're just not willing to admit it yet."

[whenshewasnice]

"It makes me different, not superior," Natalie replied without heat, even if it took some effort. She watched him for a second, then shook her head. "And do you seriously think romance is the ultimate goal I would admit to having right now? Don't you know me a little bit better than that?"

[lockestheway]

"I think you waste an awful lot of energy on your," oooh, look, actual airquotes, "'ex' for someone who knows what their non-romance priorities are," Peter said.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie reached out to swat his airquotes away.

"He's also my friend," she pointed out. "But I broke up with him because I didn't see a future for us. I wasn't going to follow a boy to Seattle for good. And I still won't."

[lockestheway]

"No, you'll just show up at his place every weekend instead," Peter said casually. "Half the time when I swoop by, you're gone."

[whenshewasnice]

"And you have spies telling you where I went, do you?" Natalie replied with an eyebrow raise. "Because I've been in Montreal a fair bit."

[lockestheway]

Peter rolled his eyes. "You can't tell me you're this worried and yet you're spending all that time with your parents."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie repressed the urge to make a face at him.

"If you were acting as worryingly as Sam has been, I'd do the same for you."

Which was deflecting the question a bit but she didn't care.

[lockestheway]

Peter let go of a deep sigh. "Fine, fine," he said, "I'm not here to play therapist, anyway. I've got a job for you in about two weeks."

He didn't much care about the missing Sam except for where it might keep her from concentrating.

[whenshewasnice]

"Really."

That was all the prompt he was going to get for continuing. She could be professional but her annoyance would not be turned off as if with the flick of a switch.

[lockestheway]

Peter felt her annoyance was completely out of place here, but for this once he would be magnanimous and ignore it. "Madagascar," he said. "One of the secretaries wants to work with me and solicit some advice in return, but he wants to talk to one of my people in person about it during this big diplomatic event. I'll type up a brief for you."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie would be magnanimous in return and not punch him. It seemed like a good deal.

"Okay," she said, nodding. "So that's something to look forward to. Diplomacy in Madagascar."

[lockestheway]

Hey, hey. Punching Peter was like punching a particularly frustrating newborn lamb. No challenge at all.

"I really just need you to butter him up," he said. "But hey, you get two nights in a nice hotel and vacation time in Antananarivo in the deal."

[whenshewasnice]

Sometimes the act of punching was its own reward.

"By the end of it I might even be able to spell that correctly in a reliable way," she noted dryly. "Just butter him up, eh? You're putting a lot of faith in my ability to play nice. But I can handle that."