The Ludgate Family Home | Pawnee, Indiana | Wednesday Morning

[hatesmostthings]

Christmas, in April's book, was a day for lounging around in one's pajamas, drinking eggnog, and making unimpressed faces when her parents gifted her things like brightly-colored sweaters with bunnies on them. In other words, it was boring.

It did bear mentioning, however, that this particular Christmas had been a bit more interesting than those of previous years, and that was because April had a guest. Her parents found this unbelievably exciting, Rita doting over Jono while Larry asked him friendly questions about what life was like in England and whether it was true that they didn't have french fries there. Meanwhile, April's younger sister Natalie had chosen a different tactic: leaning up close to Jono and very quietly telling him details about herself.

If that was a form of flirting, April didn't want to know.

The day after Christmas, however, the rest of her family was already out shopping, which meant Jono got a break from all of that. On this chilly Wednesday morning, April could be found on the living room couch in her pajamas with her dog Cliff curled up beside her, drinking spiked hot chocolate as the snow tumbled down outside. She was also sending moddable nonsensical text messages to random contacts in her phone, because... when was that not fun?

[[for the visitor, and any recipients of texts if you please!]]

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[furnaceface]

Peace and quiet. Jono hadn't ever had as much appreciation for peace and quiet as he did this morning, with the bustling of April's family gone and away, leaving just the two of them and their respective pets. Jono was, probably not surprisingly, not doing much of anything, his arm in a sling and his leg in a brace and the power of stubbornness doing most of the heavy lifting whenever he actually did have to get up to do something.

This morning was a definite 'do nothing' morning, with the cat strategically positioned on his lap so that she couldn't start purring and kneading at the puncture wound in his thigh.

"You know," he mused, reaching for his own mug of hot chocolate, "this isn't a half-bad way to spend th'holidays, all in all."

... Not the brutally injured part.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," April agreed. "I wish I could spend next Christmas stabbed and in slings and whatever."

That was a joke.

[furnaceface]

Jono had figured, and even turned a wry smile April's way in reply.

"Well, I was thinking of maybe making the being mutilated something that I do every other year or something. Really pace myself with that one. But the company is good, and th'food's been fantastic, and really, I'd just been planning to spend Christmas at th'Boards, doing nothing special at all. Don't think this means I've got a social bone in my body, but this is a definite step up from that."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"It's normally boring as shit," April offered. "But you get the pleasure of my company, so it's probably, like, fifty thousand times better for you."

Pause.

"Plus watching my sister try to flirt with you is probaby the highlight of my month."

[furnaceface]

"Is that what she was doing?" Jono smirked slightly. "I had thought that might be it, at first, but after a while I was starting to wonder if perhaps she thought I was here to write her biography."

She was tiny and kind of adorable in her own... mini-April sort of way.

It was endearing.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"She tell you her middle name and height and stuff?" April guessed. "She did that to my friend Orin once. They were gonna go out, but I told her he's not really a vampire and she lost interest." She tapped her cheek, explaining, "He's super pale."

[furnaceface]

"Well, I'm not as pale as I used to be," Jono replied, raising an eyebrow as he set down his hot chocolate, "but I suppose I can see how I'd catch here attention."

A beat.

"She knows I'm not really a vampire either, right? I don't actually have a very good history with vampires, as a matter of fact."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I don't know what she thinks you are," April replied. "British might be good enough. Her standards are getting higher."

[furnaceface]

"I think I'm also at least ten years her senior," Jono mused, still with a little smirk on his lips. "She likes them older, does she?"

Older, and apparently blue. Or British. Or undead. One of those.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Older, weirder-looking, more likely to up her cool factor with the scene kids..."

So yeah, Jono. Pretty much.

"Ever wear eyeliner before? It looked like she was eyelining you with her eyes."

[furnaceface]

"Er, does it count if someone holds me down and makes me wear it so that I don't stand out as a blue-grey freak in a crowd?"

Because he'd never really thought of going all-out goth. The leather and being on fire seemed to serve that purpose for him well enough all on their own.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

April raised an eyebrow."...What crowd was this?" And why had eyeliner seemed like a better solution than, you know, face stuff?

[furnaceface]

Well, there had been a lot of face stuff to go with it, and all.

"... Might'vebeenataHannahMontanaconcert..."

Look, just because Jono had been proud of Miley's accomplishments didn't mean he was the sort to brag about attending that sort of performance. At all.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh, Jono. Terribly sorry, but April found that hysterical. You could tell because she was actually laughing properly, not just snickering the way she normally did when she was amused.

"All this time I thought you were a music snob, Starsmore," she intoned.

[furnaceface]

"Music snob is such an open-ended sort of phrase," he hedged, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "I was there because she invited me backstage. It's always th'bubblegum that has me backstage, it seems like."

At least Miley hadn't used him as a mutant freak curiosity in order to boost her image, the way Sugar Kane had.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Gross," April declared. "You can have your masculinity card back when you get invited backstage to something that isn't for six-year-old girls."

[furnaceface]

"My masculinity cred was shot through the arm and the leg with two-foot metal spikes the other day," Jono pointed out, sticking his nose into the air. "I'm secure enough with it to suffer some bubblegum for now. I'm sure I'll meet someone that's made it big playing decent music... sooner or later."

No. No, that wasn't terribly likely.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Could go to a concert," April suggested thoughtfully. "And, like, stalk the band. Maybe bring a glittery poster for them to sign."

[furnaceface]

"You do know that th'bands that I do tend to listen to would probably call security on us if we came within ten meters of them with something with glitter on it, right?"

He was just making certain she knew, and all. It seemed like it was possibly important information, somehow.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

Oh, Jono. Wrong thing to say, sweetheart.

"That actually sounds fun," April informed him. "I've never been bounced from something before."

[furnaceface]

"Really? Stick with me, luv. I've got being chased out down to an art. But then, I really can't manage a hell of a lot of that until I'm over all of th'hobbling I'm bound to be doing for a while."

Jono wasn't looking forward to the months of limping, no.

"You have any particular sort of place you'd like to be kicked out of?"

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

April shrugged. "Concert. Club. Chicken fight." Not really the chicken fight. She just felt like having three items in a row would sound cooler. "You could actually probably get bounced for, like, hitting some moron with one of your crutches."

[furnaceface]

"Trust me, April, I could get bounced just for having a conversation with th'bartender. I've got a bit of a reputation back where I'm from. Not that anyone'd know me to see me these days..." He gave his right shoulder a shrug, and then returned his hand to Joni's back, earning a nice, loud purr from her. "Honestly, I almost miss that sort of thing. An outing to a pub almost always meant there was going to be somebody coming home with a new bruise or a split lip. Never tried to get into that sort of mess with only one arm and one leg before, though. That'll be... new."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Now you sound like an expert," April observed. "I could drive us up to Indianapolis if you really want to. Just your friend from the phone call might beat the crap out of me if you get hurt worse than you are now."

She hadn't heard much of what Miranda had been saying, but what she had heard hadn't been complimentary.

[furnaceface]

"I don't think Mira is in any rush to bury any more of her teammates," Jono replied, after falling silent for a moment. "Not that any of this is going to be the end of me. Not if I don't do something exceptionally stupid or anything."

The odds of that happening, of course, were slim.

"Perhaps we could give it a few more weeks. Get kicked out of a club in Baltimore, instead."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Sounds better," April agreed. "Build up your upper body strength on the crutches first so you can really whack someone with one of them."