Mid September 2012; Leena's B&B

[damncompass]

Things are actually wonderfully, completely settling out. Thank everything.

Steve's settling in quite well, if a bit over-questioning of Artie sometimes, Myka's back, much to everyone's relief, Helena is much more relaxed, and Joshua is taking a couple days to just freaking do nothing.

Thus, he has installed himself on a couch in the living room, much to Leena's chagrin with his 3Ds, a 2-litre of pop and a bag of potato chips. Watch out, Joshua, you're going to turn into Pete before long.

Comments

[thebettersort]

"Joshua," Myka says, and puts a hand over his. "Isn't my being here a sign that you're already making sure things work?"

[damncompass]

Joshua starts at her touch, and he blushes a tiny bit, smiling a rather dorky smile.

"Well, I certainly know that things don't work half as well without you here. Pete missed a boob joke for fuck's sake."

[thebettersort]

Myka blushes a bit at his blush and then snorts at the comment about Pete.

"It's possible he didn't miss it. Just that it, like the subject, may not have been big enough to catch his interest."

[damncompass]

"Oh, uh..." Joshua blushes a bit more. "The subject was definitely big enough, and, er, quite noticable. There was cold involved."

[thebettersort]

"If cold was involved, his own subject was probably cringing."

[damncompass]

"I... I... I...." Joshua makes a series of faces. "I... did not need to be thinking about that particular subject."

[thebettersort]

"...honestly, neither did I."

Does anyone enjoy thinking about that subject? Other than Pete, of course.

[damncompass]

Joshua shakes his head to get the thoughts out. "Ok, so subject change, stat. Uh...."

He can talk for hours about pretty much anything, but face him with needing to change the subject and he just flails.

[thebettersort]

"How about you tell me about this thing you've been playing?"

Zelda, was it?

[damncompass]

"Oh. It's just... well, ok. It's an old videogame that they've remade for the hand-held console." He flips his 3DS open to the menu screen. "Basically, you're this little kid who has to go through time to save the world."

... no wonder he likes it.

[thebettersort]

"I've seen Pete play that. At times, it involved throwing many things at the screen."

Myka never really understood why, it didn't look that hard.

[damncompass]

"I try not to throw things at the tiny screen, but I have thrown styli across the room and lost them before." He makes a sheepish face.

"It's... harder than it looks sometimes, mostly because the controls can be crap." He shrugs. "It is one of the best and most classic games ever, though. Go on a quest, save the princess, etcetera." He grins. "Although, now that I think about it, we totally need to get a Smash Brothers tournament going. Helena's scary good at video games for a Victorian, and I'm sure that I could teach you how to play, if you wanted to participate."

Just... not Artie. Joshua can't really imagine Artie playing video games.

[thebettersort]

"Smash Brothers? That sounds pretty violent."

[damncompass]

"Nah. It's mostly just people bouncing off of things." He shrugs. "It's not Mortal Kombat. I mean.. I guess we could do Mario Kart, that's just the video game version of bumper cars."

With blue shells.

[thebettersort]

"Oh!" Myka brightens up. "I've played that one. My sister loved competing on it when we were kids."

Her sister liked video games an awful lot more than her, but that one had been too cute to deny.

[damncompass]

"I'll have to warn you on that one, then. Helena is scary fucking good. I don't know if it was beginner's luck in Switzerland, or if she just... is good, but damn."

He laughs. "I'm pretty good, but Claud used to beat my ass every so often too."

[thebettersort]

"Helena," Myka says with a soft smile, "Is scary good at everything."

[damncompass]

Joshua laughs. "That she is." He shakes his head. "I mean, come on. Video games are so far after the Victorian era that she has no business even being able to work a controller, but she picked it up and started beating my records."

[thebettersort]

"I wouldn't be surprised if she had conceptualized something like them back in her day." She seemed to be so darn spot-on on many things.

[damncompass]

Joshua laughs. "She probably did. I wouldn't be surprised."

Because it seems the only thing she didn't think of is post-it notes.

[thebettersort]

"Though she probably did not conceptualize something as boring as pong."

[damncompass]

"I can't imagine anything Helena doing being boring." Joshua laughs, and shakes his head.

"Maybe we should get out of here for a while. Go to Featherhead or something. Artie can manage without us."

[thebettersort]

"That would be wonderful," Myka says, standing and offering a hand to him. "We can paint the town red."

Kidding tone and a smile.

[damncompass]

Joshua grins and takes Myka's hand. "Nah. Not red. Purple. Everything we do is purple." He looks down at his t-shirt and athletic shorts. "Er, maybe I should change my clothes before we go somewhere. I look terrible."

[thebettersort]

"You look perfectly fine to me, but if you'd like to, I can wait," she says. "I can prepare my purple marker."