b-day fic for Tabitha-Kittywitch over at deviantART. the request was a Laura birthday party (before she and Julian are actually a couple), featuring a piñata, someone telling Laura not to open presents with her claws, Hope giving a childish gift, Wade forcing Nate to eat cake (and ensuing sugar-high).
set between Secrets and Godftather in the Dreams of the Waking Man.
warnings: Earth-339. mild pixie-bashing. violence against fruit, eggs, and papier-mâché animals. questionable alteration of food. language: pg-13 (for one use of f***).
pairing: some Nate/Wade, some Laura/Julian.
timeline: autumn 2012? i'm pretty sure there's no official birthday for Laura, so i'll say it's an autumn birthday. she strikes me as a libra.
disclaimer: i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.
notes: 1) even after living at the X-Mansion for two years and change, there are a lot of things Laura just doesn't get about 'normal' life, and birthday parties are up at the top of the list. XD 2) i waver back and forth on how much of Laura's natural personality she allows to show. she has a tendency to pretend to be 'normal' around Hope, but i think she's slowly figuring out that the people who matter really don't mind her weirdness that much. 3) yes, deep-fried tarantulas are delicious, if you pretend you're eating soft-shell crab... 4) Nate's problem with telekinetic explosions probably stems from the death of the Wade in the second divergent future they hit in Hoping Never Hurt Anybody (But Me). 5) an egg-relay involves holding a spoon with your mouth and carrying a raw egg in it, then passing the egg from your spoon to your teammate's spoon. 6) royalties/copyrights are the reason you usually don't hear Happy Birthday being sung on TV shows. 7) the Self-Rescuing Princess shirt really exists. 8) the recurring Hello Kitty gag started in Mature, in the main chapters of Dreams of the Waking Man.
Celebrate
Laura frowns at the brightly colored animal. "I don't understand," she says.
Wade hoists the thing up with a rope over a tree branch. "Well, you put on a blindfold and take a big stick and try to beat the crap outta the little fucker."
"Bad word, Daddy!" says Hope.
"The little effer," he corrects. "My own kid scolding me, can you believe that?"
"I know the basic process of breaking a piñata," Laura tells him. "I also know that the piñata is another effigy tradition, one based on renewal in Asia or faith triumphing over temptation in the Christian world—though I'll admit it seems self-defeating when the reason most people want to break a Lent piñata is related to greed."
Wade snorts. "You take things way too literally, Greenie. Breaking sh—stuff is fun, and it can be turned into something competitive, so it became a party game."
She frowns. "That still leaves the donkey with no tail unexplained. As far as I can tell, it's absolutely pointless."
"It's funny to watch someone stick the tail on its nose," Hope says. "Sandi says that the point of party games is to make people feel more at ease through mutual self-ridicule."
"Sandi knows all," says Wade.
Laura looks around the lawn. "So…the combination of victimless violence and mutual self-ridicule is the reason for the doomed watermelons, the balloons filled with colored water, the eggs?"
"Exactly."
"You're gonna have tons of fun, Laura," Hope declares. "Did you see how many presents there are?"
She glances at the tables closer to the mansion. "Yes," she admits. "I did. There are no fewer than fifteen parcels so far, but I'm not sure they're all from different people. And someone got me a live animal."
"Puppy?" asks Hope.
Laura shakes her head. "Some sort of rodent. I don't know who thought of it, but I'm sure it's not normal to think that it smells delicious."
"That's an unfair assumption," Wade says as he ambles toward Emma (who is setting the tables). "There are places in southeast Asia where it's normal to think that deep-fried tarantulas smell delicious."
"Are they?"
"Sure, but the texture can be pretty nasty. Just pretend you're eating soft-shell crab and it's good stuff."
Emma smiles and folds her hands together. "Laura, dear, I think that's Megan and the girls pulling into the drive now. That's everyone, so let's go and greet all your birthday guests."
Awkwardly, Laura follows Emma through the house. It's still odd to think that so many people are making such a fuss. Wade says that a person's eighteenth birthday is an important milestone, and she supposes that makes sense, since it's the country's age of legal majority.
So she's in something of a daze when Megan and their friends from Utopia are hugging her and exclaiming over her (Megan's perfume is cloying, and her lip gloss leaves a sticky mark on Laura's cheek). More presents are added to the pile (Alani stops Megan from setting something on top of the live rodent's box by pointing out the air holes).
The games still seem bizarre and nonsensical, but everyone smiles and laughs.
Josh fails spectacularly at hitting the piñata, Wade gives his turn to Hope (he says he'd have an unfair advantage, and Laura has to concede the point), and Victor nearly clocks Bobby before decapitating the papier-mâché bear.
Alani, it turns out, is impossible to disorient—Megan and Nori spin her twice as long as anyone else before they let her try to pin the tail on the donkey, and she goes straight for the target like she isn't even blindfolded.
Julian challenges Wade and Santo to some ridiculous antics with the watermelon-smashing contest…Julian wins by exploding his watermelon from the inside (to which Nathan objects strenuously, if the long lecture thirty feet away from the party is any indication).
Sooraya is too shy to agree to the egg relay unless they split the teams girls-against-boys. The result, as might be expected, is that the boys break almost all their eggs and the girls get all of theirs across safely. Wade and Hope spare three minutes to mourn the lost eggs (who all had little faces drawn on them, and had apparently all been named) before they start a water balloon war.
Needless to say, Soo cheats; she doesn't like getting wet. The only attempt to get 'boring grown-ups' involved ends with Logan glaring menacingly while a pink stain spreads across his shirt. Laura manages to dodge most of the balloons aimed her way, until Cessily betrays her with a slide-by dousing. They calm down when they realize they're down to the last balloon, and they gather around Wade, waiting to see what he'll do with it. He eyes Nathan, who is standing a short distance away, talking with Emma.
The balloon goes flying. They scatter.
"He did it!" Cessily is already yelling accusingly.
In an instant, Nathan reminds them all that he has lived to a ripe age in timelines where constant genocidal warfare is a way of life—with a graceful scoop of his hand, he catches the balloon without breaking it and flings it right back at Wade.
Wade goes down in a fit of theatric gurgling. "He got me, princess! You'll have to carry on without Daddy…be strong…"
"Get up, drama queen," sighs Hope.
"You should know better than to try that sort of thing, Wade," Nathan chides. "You were too quiet; I don't trust you when I can't hear you."
Still prone, Wade shakes his fist. "Curse you, worthy rival!"
At that point, Scott and Peter bring out the cake. It's neon pink and entirely too big and has Hello Kitty on it. From Wade's knowing grin, the cake is his fault. Laura grins back. They sing Happy Birthday (Wade says something confusing about copyright laws preventing public performances of the song), and Cessily reminds her to make a wish when she blows out her candles (she wishes for a year without plagues, meteors, or alien invasions).
"Don't give him that—" Cessily says when she sees the huge slice of cake Julian has cut for Bobby.
Wade reaches in and takes the plate. "Yeah, put it in more responsible hands." He passes it to Nathan, who raises an eyebrow.
"I don't want this."
"Sure you do."
"Wade, no."
"Nate, yes. It's Greenie's big day, everybody's got to nom liberal amounts of cake and ice cream."
Laura honestly doesn't understand it—but there are a lot of things about 'normal' life that she doesn't understand, even after more than two years.
But Nathan and Wade bicker and banter, and Hope joins Wade's side, and Nathan gives up.
Fifteen minutes later, Emma swoops in to start collecting plates and Hope starts carrying presents to Laura.
"Some of these are delicate," says Santo. "So don't use your claws."
"Really, man?" Cessily says, smacking his arm. "On her birthday?"
"What?"
Laura ignores them and opens her presents. She reads all the tags carefully, and unwraps by finding the seams and pulling the tape free (Wade scolded her for it at Christmas, told her that she should just rip the paper off and fling it over her shoulders). Megan and Nori got her clothes that she will probably never wear. Alani got her a shirt that says 'Self-Rescuing Princess,' which is probably some obscure cultural reference. Soo got her a huge chocolate bar ("Every woman deserves chocolate, don't you think?").
About halfway through her presents, she realizes that Nathan is fidgeting. He won't hold still. He jogs one knee, drums his fingers absently on the table. "I told you," he mutters to Wade. "I told you not to give me all that sugar, you know what sugar does to me, I get hyper, I could've done with less than half as much cake and been perfectly happy and not hyper. This is your fault."
Wade blithely (and rather cheekily, in Laura's opinion) grins and goes on passing presents to Laura. A Bogart movie from Victor (Sabrina, a mutual favorite). A nice knife from Santo. Mindless action flicks from Cessie and Bobby and Josh. The original Star Wars trilogy from Julian (who often insists that it's a travesty she hasn't seen it). Crayons from Hope (because crayons are 'magical' and changed her life). A green-clad plush Hello Kitty from Wade (she punches his arm for dragging the joke on far too long).
The rodent she smelled turns out to be a fat brown hamster that just stares up at her with beady black eyes and twitching whiskers.
"I don't understand," she manages as she stares back at the thing and tries not to think about how it would taste.
"I think ya do, girl," Logan replies smoothly, and taps the hamster's plastic prison.
She watches the creature watching her.
It's a lesson of some kind.
She thinks briefly of the piñata. A lesson in overcoming temptation, in moving beyond base instincts. Their feral nature makes it easy to think of the people around them as prey. The idea is to learn how to cherish them in spite of that.
She nods. "I'll take good care of him."
"I know you will."
"Yes, wonderful, delightful," Nathan babbles, and jumps to his feet. "Happy birthday, Laura. If you'll excuse me, I have to go clean something. The whole house, perhaps. Or the lawn, I could mow the lawn, the whole lawn. I could wash the windows, the windows haven't been washed in ages."
"Excellent idea, Nathan," says Emma as Nathan rushes off. She smiles sweetly. "More cake, anyone?"
Josh scoffs. "Only if whatever you drugged him with isn't in the rest of it."
"Drugged?" gasps Wade. "My poor precious Priscilla, a victim of humorous recreational controlled substances? Base slander!"
"Daddy, you're not fooling anyone," Hope tells him. "Just because you didn't put drugs in it doesn't mean you didn't do something to it."
"I may have possibly theoretically arranged for that particular slice of cake to have about twice as much sugar as any other part of the cake."
"Evil," says Megan with a disapproving little pout.
"But funny," adds Julian.
"Hysterical," agrees Bobby.
"Whatchu gonna call 'im?" Alani asks, staring at the hamster.
Hope puts her nose right up against the hamster's box. "He looks like a Conrad. Let's go watch Star Wars!"
So Laura tucks Conrad the Hamster's box under her arm, lets Hope pick up the movies, and sets off toward the mansion.
Wade and Hope lead the way at a run (quoting the movie the whole time), followed by Josh and Cessily and the others, while Scott, Logan, and Emma stay behind to start cleaning up the mess.
Julian gradually lags behind to keep pace with Laura. "Having fun?" he asks.
She nods. "I think so, yes."
"Good."
The sound of a panicked heartbeat and a brief smell of giddy attraction are the only warning she gets before Julian leans over and kisses her cheek.
"Happy birthday, L."
She ducks her head to hide behind her hair. She's smiling so hard her face hurts.
.End.
