milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[Out of Milliways: Snowboarding in Virginia? It's more likely than you think. Also more of a bummer.]

So the door to the ski lounge leads to Milliways instead.

Voodoo's good with that.

He's by the fire, warming up and grimacing because one of the waitrats took his order of 'black, no sugar' to mean 'black, ALL THE SUGAR EVER'.

Goddamn waitrats.

At least, he muses, they've the common decency to leave his board (leaning against a nearby armchair) well enough alone.

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Gordon meant to step into one of the storage closets and grab an extra pillow for Alyx just now.

This is not the storage closet.

Well, damn.

...huh.

"Coffee?" Voodoo finally says, holding out the mug. "You look like you need it."

"Sure," says Gordon, "thanks."

He's been up for longer than usual, even given his awful sleep schedule.

Oh, right.

"Alyx finally had the babies."

"No shit?"

He props his feet up on a nearby coffee table.

"Well, I don't have any cigars, but that'll hack it," he says, nodding to the cup.

"Just brace yourself for the sugar."

"Went to school at MIT. I'll manage," says Gordon. Sip.

Pause.

"... are you sure there's coffee in this syrup?"

A shrug. "Who knows. I said 'black, no sugar', but apparently it's opposite day here."

He wipes some leftover snow off his boots.

"So how're they doing?"

"Asleep, for now," Gordon says. "All three of them. When they wake up again, there's a crowd outside the door you wouldn't believe, waiting to see them."

A shrug as he wipes more snow off his gear and takes off his watchcap. "I'd believe it. You guys are...well. You're fuckin' huge in your world. And what all that 'suppression field' shit...if you guys still had cable channels, you'd be on fuckin' C-SPAN."

Gordon nods. "Eli's the first human baby born in sixteen years," he says. "Hope is number two. I don't blame people wanting to see them, it's just that it looks like rush hour on the Tokyo Metro out there."

A grunt of comprehension. "So what're your plans now?"

"Learn to do that thing Thomas Edison did," says Gordon. "Where he would take twenty-minute naps during the day instead of sleeping a whole stretch at night. It's the only way I'll get any rest in or any work done."

"Hrm," Voodoo grunts. "Good luck with that. Never raised any, myself, but my sisters've got some, Mother's got one, and Preacher's got...two or three, I forget. But I know what it's like at this stage."

Well, not really, but.

"Thanks," says Gordon. "Mrs. Shephard says she'll do what she can to help. She raised five, and the last two were twins, so she has an idea."

He rubs at his face with both hands.

"Which is good, because there's still everything else to deal with. But there always is, right?"

"Mhm."

The fire idly crackles.

"You got a pause button in this place, though. Least until they can open doors."

Gordon nods. "That's going to be a long way off," he says. "Unless rolling themselves through doorways counts. And even that's not until they're... I don't know, six or seven months old."

He smiles a little and sips at the coffee-like substance.

"I actually did the catching. I mean, we had a doctor, but."

"They give you a mitt for it?"

~~Oh God the baseball analogies why won't they STOP.~~

"Straight up bare hands only," says Gordon, who really brought the baseball commentary on himself. "Not like it was fast, though. Eli took his time."

He's okay with that, though. The important part is that it happened, and everything went the way it should.

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"You're gonna need those onesies soon."

Yes, the biohazard ones. He still thinks that's funny.

"I know," says Gordon. "I'll see if I can get you pictures. Assuming we don't just bring the kids here in them in the first place."

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