living_endless | Room 322, Thursday Evening

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living_endless

Didi had gone a little crazy finding decorations for her wee tiny artificual Christmas tree. There was strung popcorn and tinsel and mermaids and goldfish and red, black and silver balls and even a few cute skeletons. There were poodles and multicolored candy canes and a perfect angel for the top.

... there was about one ornament for every branch. Which was a wee bit much.

Door open, she was trying to weed through them while she waited for Jono.

[OOC: For the boy, but open room post!]

Current Mood: enthralled

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From:

furnaceface

Jono, true to his word, was swinging by, a small box in his hands. It was wrapped, yes, but he was going to insist that Didi open it straightaway. After all, they could put what was inside to use pretty much immediately. A string of rice lights for the tree in purple and blue, a few happy little tree ornaments, and a little something for the fishbowl.

It was tacky, but it was cute.

//Knock knock, luv.//

From:

living_endless

"Come in," Didi said, turning just slightly to see him with a smile. "I think I have too many ornaments. I might overwhelm the poor tree."

From:

furnaceface

//Well, then this probably isn't going to help, is it?// He held up the box, looking somewhat bemused. //We could just decorate th'rest of yer half of the room while we're at it, I suppose...//

From:

living_endless

"We could decorate Jaime's side too," Didi volunteered. "I mean, it's Christmas stuff. How can he mind?"

She reached out her hands for the box.

From:

furnaceface

And he was all too happy to hand it over. The package had been given a somewhat economy wrapping job. He hadn't bothered with actual wrapping paper, no. But then, he was British. If it was okay to wrap fish that you were planning on eating later in newsprint, it was totally fine to try to grab the most festive-looking holiday sale advertisement from the first newspaper he could get his hands on, and then use that as giftwrap. Right?

Jono logic was a scary place, sometimes.

//Th'festive nature of it all makes it impossible to mind, naturally.//

From:

living_endless

"Well, duh," Didi agreed as she tore into the present. "It's not like I'm just sticking up Hello Kitty wall decals. This is an important part of my .... oh, gosh, you found smiley face ornaments? I love them a lot."

She was still working on the second part of the gift.

From:

furnaceface

//They seemed appropriately festive at the time,// Jono stated, looking a little proud of himself, now that Didi-approval had been given over the ornaments in question.

He'd hoped she might like them.

From:

living_endless

"They are. Thank you," she said. "And the Santa for Slim and Wandsworth is awesome too."

Hesitantly, she leaned in to kiss up by his hairline. It was that proud look; there was no way she could not kiss him for it.

From:

furnaceface

And Jono leaned down a little to better accommodate the kiss. He even managed, for the most part, to refrain from dwelling too long on the fact that he couldn't return it.

He'd pout over that later, where nobody had to see, maybe, if he remembered to.

//Well, yer were going to get a tree, I thought it would hardly be fair if they had to be left out.//

From:

living_endless

She lingered over his forehead for a seconds, inhaling the sharp, sticky scent of cheap shampoo and hair gel that lingered just under the sulfur.

"You're absolutely right," she said, sitting back on her heels. "I'd look for little hats for them, but that might be too much."

She looked at the pile of boxes surrounding them. "So, where should we start? I like the skeletons a lot. Cliché but..."

From:

furnaceface

Jono actually allowed himself a moment to try to picture the fish in little hats.

... It was a brief, somewhat amused sort of moment.

//Well, we can start with the skeletons, then. Or perhaps the popcorn strings? It's usually easier to put th'lights and garland on first, so yer don't knock the ornaments about, I think.//

There was a process to this.

From:

living_endless

"Lights first," Didi said, because they agreed on that. She found a strand of small white fairy lights and passed an end to Jono. "I always did garlands last, so they kind of drape over everything? But I can try it the other way."

She was willing to be flexible about the process!

~~and she was certainly never a blond witch, nope.~~

From:

furnaceface

~~That would require a certain level of flexibility that Tara probably lacks, wouldn't it?~~

//It'd be a shame to cover up yer...// Jono waved a hand vaguely toward the ornaments, taking in the sight of them for a moment before pressing on. //... Poodles.//

This was going to be a very unique tree.

From:

living_endless

"The poodles can go on Jaime's side of the room," Didi decided. His side was about as cluttered as hers, albeit with electronic parts instead of clothes and hats. She walked the poodles over to perch them on his dresser. "Oh, hey, does his dresser need tinsel, too?"

From:

furnaceface

//Well, it would certainly help make it look more festive, wouldn't it?//

In a very shiny sort of way. A very, very shiny sort of way indeed.

From:

living_endless

"And Jaime deserves a festive dresser," Didi decided. "You put the lights on the tree, and I';ll do this, okay?"

And so she set to arranging tinsel and ornaments across her roommate's dresser. She was very lucky he thought she was cute.

From:

furnaceface

//Lights. Of course.//

Jono looked at the lights. The lights, in turn, sat there. As lights do. Jono looked at them some more, before finally shaking his head and reaching for them.

... It probably went without saying that it didn't matter how old, new, tangled, or organized they were before he picked them up, they were in a mess of tangles all of two seconds later, didn't it? It was one of those unwritten laws of the universe, really.

From:

living_endless

Didi finished arranging the poodles and took a few steps back to Jono. "... they got tangled already?"

Why did she not sound surprised?

From:

furnaceface

One of those absolutely ineffable laws of the universe!

//I'm no good with these bloody things,// Jono grumbled, working on untangling them. He was perhaps not doing so well with that.

From:

living_endless

"Here, hand me that loop," Didi directed, reaching for the entanglement at one end. "If I get this straightened out, you can do the other side, and it might be easier with four hands."

From:

furnaceface

//One can only hope,// Jono agreed as he held the loop out toward her. //I can't imagine us managing to make it any worse, luv.//

This was because Jono was not nearly imaginative enough, apparently.

From:

living_endless

"We could knock over something," said Didi, who was cursed with experience as well as imagination. "The fishtank. The tree. Each other."

She frowned at the knot as she spoke. Somehow, the tangles seemed to be climbing up to engulf her wrists.

From:

furnaceface

Jono, meanwhile, was fairly certain he'd figured out which way to thread his end through in order to get rid of that big, obvious tangle, right there.

... He succeeded only in getting his arm stuck in a loop right up to his elbow.

//Better one another than th'fish?//

From:

living_endless

"Well," Didi said lightly, as she stepped toward him to try to pull the loop over his elbow and off with her free fingers, "I know I can't knock the wind out of you, so, uh, that's a point..."

Once she had her finger under the knot, she frowned. How had it gotten so tight?

From:

furnaceface

//I can't exactly complain about that, can I?// Her hand seemed to be tied to his arm. This was an interesting turn of events. It meant that he was going to have to shoulder the lights that were in the hand that wasn't all wrapped up, so that he could try to loosen them, some.

Except, now there were lights over his shoulder.

He wasn't for the life of him able to figure out how in the world this had managed to lead to them being looped around his back and then wound through the ones that they were already trapped in, no. He suspected that he had been a little overzealous in his wriggling to get free.

From:

living_endless

The lights were poking Didi in the ribs now, and she laughed uneasily. "Okay, how did you even do that? Put up your arms and I'll try to untangle you."

... with the arm that wasn't fixed to his. Yeah, this would be interesting.

From:

furnaceface

//I swear, I didn't mean to do this,// Jono stated as he obediently lifted his arms. More or less. He could only lift the one arm about halfway, as it was tethered down by the lights that were looped around him.

He hadn't been aware that there even were this many lights.

From:

living_endless

"I didn't think you did," Didi said. She sounded puzzled.

She meant to just lift the lights around and over his head, and somehow this ended with the lights slung across his chest like a sash and her arm rather firmly affixed to him.

"... I think I'm stuck," she noted, disgruntled.

From:

furnaceface

//... Brilliant.//

Naturally, this meant that Jonothon was going to have to put his hand down, which succeeded only in tightening the lights that were slung around him somewhat, and he took a half-step closer to Didi to compensate for the shortened leash that he was on.

See? There. He knew there couldn't possibly have been that many lights.

//I think we're stuck.//

From:

living_endless

"We can't be." There was an experimental little wiggle of her shoulders, there, which resulted only in binding her more closely.

"... we are. Shit."

Give her a second, and she'd find her sense of humor about this, but it was missing just then.

"There weren't even that many lights."

From:

furnaceface

//Absolutely not that many lights.//

And yet, here they were. Tied together with what ought to have been just barely enough lights for the tiny tree that was sitting nearby.

Jono gave another small squirm, hoping perhaps to free one arm so that he could try to inch downward, to maybe slide the string over his head. Of course, this meant that he was now pressed up against her, almost chest-to-chest, and wondering if he'd have better luck just smacking his forehead against the wall a few times, instead.

//Might as well get comfortable, I suppose.//

From:

living_endless

"No. No way," Didi said, trying to yank on the cable in the utterly foolish hope it would break. "Imagine Jaime walking in from his date and finding us like this. He'd never let me forget it. No way."

From:

furnaceface

//Suppose we could convince him that we got ourselves all bound up like this on purpose?//

... Tree light bondage. Fully clothed. Yes, Jono. That would totally do the trick.

He squinted one eye a little as the cable tightened around him. This meant essentially that the arm that he'd been unable to lift earlier was now completely flat against his side. And that his fingers were going to fall asleep any minute now.

From:

living_endless

"I think he's going to act like he thinks it's on purpose no matter what," Didi said, giving him a look. Would that really be better? "... and probably put photos on the Internet."

"Can you feel your hands?"

From:

furnaceface

The internet was painful and slow and somewhat in the crappy stages of dialup back in Jono's time, and all he really knew how to do with it in the here and now was harvest watermelons, so the idea of having such a photo tacked up on the internet didn't bother him as much as it probably should have.

//I can feel...// He gave the fingers of one hand a wiggle. They bumped against her thigh. //This one. Mostly. Can't move the other at all, though.//

From:

living_endless

"Great." She sighed, and slumped, and realized slumping didn't give her the wiggle room she would hope it would, but the feel of the body against hers did remind her of who she was currently tied to.

"Jono?" she asked, as calmly as she could manage. "Can you melt the cords without blowing anything up?"

From:

furnaceface

Jono's eyebrows twitched upward at that, yes.

//I probably could, actually.// Easily, for that matter. //If yer think maybe yer could... Get yer hand to my bandages? Pull them a little askew.//

Somewhere in the back of his head, he was repeating to himself, not my face, not my face, not my face...

There was something only mildly less freakish about turning Christmas lights to slag via the hole in his chest, as opposed to the gaping, burning nothing that was where his mouth ought to be.

From:

living_endless

"I can do that," Didi promised. She was grateful the angle made it hard for him to read the worry in her eyes as she wedged her fingers under his jacket and just to the side of his ribs. Delicately, she shifted the bandages apart, then moved her hand down a few inches and out of the line of fire. "Try."

From:

furnaceface

//Right.//

Right. Right, then. There were flames licking outward from the wedge in the bandages, and he was going to straighten those out the instant he had his fine motor skills back, yes. For the time being, he was going to have to settle for trying to stand back as far as he could so that he could look down to see his target.

Focus. Focus. Right, then. There was that strand that was draped across his chest like a sash? It was now oozing apart until the wire gave way. The bit around their respective arms? He was careful to make certain that no melted wire was anywhere near Didi as he worked. His jacket had suffered through far worse than some errant holiday lights, after all.

Just a little more, and...

He shifted his weight, and then pulled to step backward again, bits of wire draping over his shoulders and his chest pretty obviously burning in plain view, but they were more or less free, now.

From:

living_endless

She stepped back, breathing heavily and unconsciously averting her eyes from the spot where the flames snaked out. It felt like seeing someone naked inadvertently.

"My hero," she said, teasing again now that she was free. "I knew you had a use."

From:

furnaceface

//Occasionally,// Jono mused, picking bits of holiday lights off of himself before setting himself quite firmly to the task of straightening out the wrappings on his chest, //I prove to be just as useful as I am jarringly handsome.//

Or, well, just jarring.

From:

living_endless

Didi put the charred remains of the lights into her trashcan. The tree would be just fine with no lights at all.

"See, so there's why I keep you around," she said. "I knew I'd figured it out..."

Edited Date: 2009-12-19 04:59 am (UTC)

From:

furnaceface

//I also come in handy when th'pilot light on th'stove flickers out,// he added, running his hand over his wrappings to make certain that everything was properly in place.

Yes, it was a joke. It actually managed to sound like one, too.

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Didi (Death of the Endless)

Death: The High Cost of Living

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