OOM: July 2012: Univille, South Dakota/ New York, New York

[damncompass]

It's been a rather boring week, if it comes down to it. Well, until this morning. He was awoken by Artie yelling up the stairs at Pete, followed by the requisite grumbling, stomping, and showering before they both left for parts unknown. Helena wandered off to do some inventory, and he went to his lab.

He'd tried to work on his latest Artifact lead, but all he got was a not exactly comforting hallucination of Napoleon and the battle of Waterloo in his lab. One goo bath and an actual shower later, he decided to go hang out in the office with Claudia.

Pulling up his latest internet obession: Who Wants to be a Cooking Star?, he curled up in a chair and lost himself in the absurdity of it all, until something that had been bothering him for a while finally sunk in.

"Hey, Claudia? Can you come look at this for a moment? I think I might've found an Artifact."

Comments

[damncompass]

"Hey, sleepyhead." Joshua looks over from his e-mail checkings. "How'd you sleep?"

[claudiometer]

"Not bad, other than you snoring."
She's just glad they had separate beds. He doesn't appreciate how much room she needs to sleep okay.

[damncompass]

"I don't snore! Helena's never complained about it!" He's a bit fussed.

[claudiometer]

Claudia just raises an eyebrow and plays back the recorder.

(They're both snoring, but Claudia never said she was blameless in this.)

[damncompass]

Joshua makes a face. "Hey, you're snoring too!" He sticks his tongue out at her. "Pots and kettles."

[claudiometer]

"One, I never said I was blameless in this, and two? I didn't wake me up."

[damncompass]

Eyeroll. "Alright, alright. You going to get up sometime this century?"

[claudiometer]

"No, I think I'll stay here for another millennium."
With that, she gets up and heads for the bathroom. "Not like we have to be anywhere right this second."

[damncompass]

"No, but we should possibly get going at some point soon so we can grab lunch and not be stuck in a line forever for the taping. Especially since we have to figure out how the shit to get a huge goo canister in."

[claudiometer]

"You have a point there. Leave the goo canister to me, I'm a professional."
In the worst case they can call it hand sanitizer.

[damncompass]

"If you say so, little sister." He just shakes his head and goes back to working at his e-mails.

[claudiometer]

"Oh, I do."

Eventually, she's ready to head out the door and grab lunch.

[damncompass]

He grabs his bag, stray papers, and they both leave, finding lunch at a restaurant along the way. Joshua is trying so hard to not squee like a tourist, but every time they walk by something cool, he stops to look.

[claudiometer]

"...This isn't seriously your first time in New York."
Okay, Claudia knows Joshua hasn't had that many opportunities to travel, but still. Maybe there was a thing when he was in high school that she was too young to remember, or something.

[damncompass]

"When the hell have I had time to go to New York, Claud? I've been to the airport a couple times, flying through, but I haven't been out into the city. Nationals for speech was first in Boston and then Atlanta, and then the hellish one in Orlando, and even then, we didn't have much time in the actual cities. We didn't really have highschool trips, at least not ones that Mom and Dad could afford to send me on, and I was too busy once I was out of college, and then, well. Interdimensional space. And then Geneva."

He shrugs.

[claudiometer]

Claudia shrugs. "How would I know what you did in high school, other than the proton pack? I was four when you graduated."

[damncompass]

Joshua shrugs. "Did you have trips in highschool? I don't know." He flails a bit. "Not my fault that my highschool was broke as shit and in the middle of nowhere."

He pauses, realizing that he's never actually asked Claud about highschool, and his enthusiasm tempers a bit.

[claudiometer]

"Dude, I was at the same school. A decade later, so maybe they'd changed things since then."
She doesn't really talk about high school, though. It's okay.

[damncompass]

Joshua shrugs. "I... I didn't know. I should, though." He's about to say something else, but they get to the building where the taping is. "Anyway, enough of that. We're here."

[claudiometer]

"Dude, it's not like I want to talk about high school." It sucked, and it may well have sucked even if Joshua had been around for it. The end.
"All right then. Let's go bag us a pot."

[damncompass]

Joshua mutters under his breath. "I wish I could bag me some pot." Oops.

He flashes the tickets at the person at the door, and they find themselves a seat in the second row.

[claudiometer]

Claudia just raises an eyebrow at him as they settle into their seats.

[damncompass]

Joshua shrugs back at her. He knows somewhere in there that it's probably a bad habit, but by this point, it's an old habit.

[claudiometer]

Claudia rolls her eyes (not like she can tell him where to look) and waits for the show to start.

[damncompass]

Joshua rolls his eyes as well, turning his attention to the show as it starts.

The cook they'd been watching online has the pot they'd noticed. Joshua pulls his ball out of his bag, and hides it under the seat in front of him. It unsurprisingly turns purple and points toward the stage.