How to Entertain Yourself 101: Warehouse 13 Style
Lecture I: Movies & Hassling Your Friends
"Inconceivable," Pete and Claudia said in sync with the voice from the TV smiling at each other.
"Odd; in all my years I've never thought that the word Inconceivable could be funny," HG smirked at the whole situation she found herself in.
Pete, sitting in the chair next to the couch which HG and Myka were sharing, shoveled popcorn into his mouth while responding, "Yah, now you can see all the awesome stuff you missed out on while living in the horse and buggy age."
"This story is in the horse and buggy age," she rebutted.
"Technically it's in the present 'cause the kid's grandpa is reading the story to him, referring to back then," Pete argued back with popcorn falling out of his mouth.
"Dude seriously major popcorn spillage happening around this general area," Claudia said while she made circular motions with her hand around her own face. Pete responded to her by opening his mouth to show the mashed up food inside.
"Cute," Claudia stuck her tongue out at him from the table situated behind the girls.
"Is that chatter I'm hearing from a certain young lady who is supposed to be undoing whatever she did to the Farnsworth?" Artie called from the sunroom.
"Yah dude I know I'm almost done."
"Almost is not done, done is done. You know I specifically told you no talking until…"
"Yah, yah, la-la-la, chill, not talking, got it." Claudia interrupted him.
"You got in trouble," Pete said in a na-na-na-na-na tone. Claudia threw a waded up wire at him, but missed by a long shot.
HG smiled at the duo through the reflection in the TV screen. "So Myka this is one of your top three ranked movies, I can honestly say that you're kind of a romantic at heart, aren't you?"
"Yah, hum, no, what?" Myka slurred from the seat next to her, eyes barley open.
"Oh yes! Half awake Myka," Pete cheered then looked at Claudia, "Zombie Myka!" Claudia mouths along with Pete.
"No, I'm not a zombie," Myka groaned.
HG, now very intrigued asked, "What is a Zombie Myka?"
"It's nothing, no Zombie, no brains no… nothing, I hate you all," Myka barley got the words out, her eyes struggled to open, but instead were franticly blinking, no more like twitching. Everyone grinned at her expense.
HG was about to say something to her dear friends defense but was stopped by Pete motioning silence with his finger to his lips. HG decided to oblige for the sake of fun.
"No, no you don't need a zombie plan, I'm gonna, no you, you are in your house…room with a thing… a, that thing, gun yah gun, gun zombie gun. Boom scatter, impact, brain, wall, shut up Pete." Myka desperately tried to make sense but failed; creating an incoherent mess of words.
Claudia got out of her chair and placed a pillow on HG's lap.
"Ok Myka, if you can stay upright; free Twizzlers for a month."
"No problem, Pete," she accepted the challenge in her zombie groan. Just as the words came out of her mouth Claudia gave her a little nudge from behind the couch, and she dropped, head first, into the pillow on HG's lap and did not budge after the plummet. The, still conscious, trio exploded in laughter.
"And that was moany-groany Zombie Myka," Pete announced for HG's benefit.
"Oh Darling," HG said to Myka as she lovingly wiped her sleeping friend's curls out of her face and tucked them behind her ear. "What am I ever going to do with you?" she smiled while resting her hand on Myka's back to rub it softly.
Claudia went around the couch and grabbed up Myka's feet and put them gently on the cushion next to her. Then Claudia and Pete exchanged mischievous glances with one another.
"Oh no, what are you two thinking?" HG asked.
"Stickers," They both said together.
"Ah, talking, camaraderie, fun, this is what I hear. I should not be hearing this," Artie yelled again from the other room.
"Yup, still working on it Artie"
"Do I need to move you to another room?"
"No, it's fine, cool," Claudia ran back to her spot at the table. "See I'm working," She picked up her tools and started clanging them randomly against her Farnsworth.
"Not stickers again," Myka moaned as she turned her body to face the back of the couch to burry her face into HG's stomach and sandwich her arms between HG's back and the sofa, to hide as much exposed flesh from them as she could. "HG, protect me," she mumbled into her abdomen, slightly tickling it. HG just smiled and cradled her upper body to give her a sense of safety from the pair.
Pete turned to Claudia and pointed to the desk behind them; she then got up and started searching it as stealthy as she could to not catch anyone's attention, especially Artie's. HG just went back to watching the film while playing with Myka's hair; she was actually enjoying the story very much.
Claudia had no luck finding stickers, but she did find pre-stick stamps. "Pete," she whispered. He turned his head to see her, "now we can mail her." Pete showed his approval with a double thumbs up. She came creeping back to situate herself behind the couch. HG saw Claudia's refection behind them in the TV screen but decided to just let her do it; it was all quite amusing to her anyway. Claudia unpeeled a stamp and was just about to stick it on an exposed part of Myka's arm that she failed to hide behind HG's back.
"You better not be wasting my stamps," Leena said in a stern but at the same time still warm voice, as she entered the room, mug in hand.
Claudia's eyes grew wide; she put the stamp back on the booklet and shoved them back in the drawer that she had found them in and sat back down at the table.
Leena smiled at the girl and proceeded towards the group. "Hey, you come to join us Leena?" Pete asked in a welcoming voice.
"No, I'm actually on my way out to meet a friend for a late dinner in town. I just thought I'd make a cup of coffee for Myka before I left, she appears to be in need of one." She put the mug on the table in front of the incapacitated woman, HG thanked her on Myka's behalf, and then she left trough the front door. The three of them bid her farewell.
HG looked down at the ball of curls on her lap that her fingers were intertwined in, and started brushing them back in search for Myka's face; luckily she could feel Myka's warm breaths on her own stomach to give her a reference of where to look. "Sweetie wake up, there's a cup of hot coffee here waiting for you." She finally found her face. "Hey," she cupped her chin with her index finger, "you still alive?"
Myka squinted her greens up at HG and mustered up a smile, "Coffee? Warm temperature Coffee?"
"Yes, oh wait, isn't it warm temperature brains you're wanting?" HG teased.
"Oh!" Claudia howled, "Good one HG," she said with surprise and delight as she got up to high-five her. Maybe there was hope for this 150-year-old Brit after all, she thought.
"Zombie Myka!" Yelled the gang.
"Don't make me come in there!" Artie called in annoyance. Claudia made an, I'm-in-deep-dodo-face, and went back to her project.
"You're turning into one of them," Myka said, now eyes completely open, looking up at HG.
"Just blame it on peer pressure, that's what I always do," Pete retorted for her.
"Come on, up you go," HG said while gently putting Myka into an upright position. HG grabbed the mug off the coffee table and handed it over to her. Myka leaned up on HG so she did not fall over while attempting to wake herself up. HG just smiled and welcomed the woman's unbroken body contact. "Ok, so what's happening now? Is the stable boy a pirate now? And how did they get to this fire forest?" HG gestured towards the TV.
Artie entered the room, "Claudia, are we finished yet?"
"Ah, yah, well almost, like I said before, K chill don't go having a hernia on me or anything."
"You know I tell you time and times again, don't tamper with anything, and what do you do? You…"
"Artie, Artie," Pete and Myka swooped in to Claudia's rescue.
"She's almost done," Pete continued.
"Yah and she won't do it again," Myka finished.
"You better not," Artie pointed to Claudia where she shrank under his finger.
"Yah got it man." She threw her hands up in surrender.
Artie pushed his glasses up and walked into the kitchen, as Claudia let out a long exhalation. "Wow," she mouthed to herself.
"Maybe we should just save this movie for another night," Myka suggested, "no one is really paying any attention, or if they are they aren't paying enough attention due to all these distractions." She looked to HG and smiled, where she got a gentle head knock in response.
"Second," Pete put up his hand, "Let's do something that actually gets us away from Senor Wilson."
"Who?" Myka asked while making a funny confused face.
"You know Mr. Wilson, like as in, Hey Mr. Wilson!" Myka still gave the confused face but put a, you're-an-idiot-look on top of it. "Dennis The Menace! Come on people!"
"Ok…?" Myka tried to make sense of her partner.
"Mr. Wilson is the grumpy old man in Dennis The Menace, grumpy like anther old man we know."
"Oh," Myka and Claudia said in understanding.
"That was lame dude."
"I'm going to have to agree with my beloved redheaded companion on that one."
"Oh come on, it was a great personification."
"Simile," HG and Myka corrected him.
"Whatever!"
"No you're right Pete that was a good comparison, I thought it amusing," HG assured him.
"Thanks HG. See she gets it and… wait a minute, you have no idea what I'm talking about."
"Not in the slightest darling," she teased. Myka leaned closer into HG as she laughed. HG caught a strong whiff of her coffee, "oh that smells good," she said as she breathed in more of the sent.
"Want some?" Myka offered.
"That would be lovely, thank you," she took the cup and sipped.
"Can I have some too?"
"No Pete I don't want your cooties!"
"But you'll take hers?"
"Yup."
HG smiled, as she assumed that cooties were some sort of slang for germs; she then offered Myka her cup back and thanked her again, while making the space between them as minute as possible. She didn't know why exactly she did that, to bother Pete or just because she wanted to. Myka slipped her hands around the cup overlapping HG's fingertips with her own. HG took the opportunity to hold her hands on the mug a few seconds longer than necessary until she slipped them out from under hers, but not before making eye contact with the other woman first.
Pete about to say something to break their sensual stare, not that he knew what to say, was cut off by Claudia, "Success! Done and done. You hear that Artie?" the girl yelled over her shoulder towards the kitchen.
"Yah, yah good," muffles were heard from the kitchen.
"Yah," Claudia yelped in excitement as she jumped the back of the couch to squeeze her way in between Myka and the armrest. "So, dudes what are we gonna do?"
"Claud why do I have the feeling that you've already got an activity planned out for us?" Myka smiled looking to her other side.
"Oh Myka you know me so well," She slapped her hand to her heat. "Group huddle!" Pete and Myka leaned in to hear what the girl had in mind. Myka looked back noticing a missing person in the group; she then leaned back into HG and linked arms with her to yank her in. They both laughed. "Ok you guys have to keep this on the hush-hush, we can't let anyone get onto us especially our Mr. Wilson" Claudia threw on air quotes to bug Pete.
"Make fun all you want, it was a great onomatopoeia."
"Simile," They all corrected him.
"Whatever, it's not my fault that all your cool meters are running on low so you can't distingue between awesomeness and… lameness..ess" He cocked his head in confusion over his word choice.
"Sure Pete," Claudia continued, "Anyway, let's meet at the Warehouse at," she checked her watch, "twenty hundred hours, and make sure you're all wearing comfy clothes. BTW when I say meet at the warehouse I really mean meet at the car in five, so then we'll all arrive at the Warehouse at twenty hundred, 'cause it would be unnecessary to all take separate vehicles and yah…".
"But what are we going to do there?" Pete asked.
"I'll show you when we get there," she nudged him, "So everyone in?"
Pete pondered out loud, "A surprise activity…"
"At the Warehouse," Claudia added in.
"At the Warehouse," He repeated, "Ah yah, so totally in. "Hay, hay," the two fist-pounded it.
Myka looked at HG on her other side and asked her without words if she was in, almost waiting for an approval for herself to accept the offer. HG smiled and nodded, Myka turned back towards the others and said, "Yah we're in."
"Ok and Break," Claudia clapped and the gang disbursed towards the stairs, Myka moved a little bit slower than the rest, but HG helped her out when she noticed she was still in a tiered wobbly state.
Artie entered the room, "Hey where are you guys off to in such a hurry?" he asked.
Everyone started talking over one in other saying something about going for a drive, ice cream was mentioned, stars and the night sky too.
"Ok, ok, just stop talking and go." He shooed his hands at them.
They all made a breakaway for the stairs.
Oow, popcorn, Artie sat down on the couch, picked up the bowl and started watching the movie, "Oh, I love this movie." He sat there content and happy to have the Inn emptied of everyone. One by one the team came down the stairs, very loudly, and out the door, with sweaters and jackets in their hands, until finally Myka was the last one out. She said a quick goodbye to Artie and closed the door behind her. "Finally," he said to himself throwing his legs up one the table, "No pesky kids to bug me."