2007-12-07: Decking The Halls

Starring:

Kory_icon.gif Lee_icon.gif

Summary: Kory and Lee decorate the Lair for the holidays and talk about what they've been up to.

Date It Happened: December 7, 2007

Decking the Halls


The Secret Lair

Sunday afternoons are slow in the Lair, so they're the day that Kory flits about tidying up. She makes sure the free-read box is in order. She organizes the DVDs back into alphabetical order. She has a pile of comics on the front counter ready to go into mylars for the back issue bins. But normally she's quiet about it. Today? Today she's singing. Not badly; thankfully. Not loudly; but she is singing. "…Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow! Klingons on the starboard bow, Scrape 'em off, Jim!"

Lee is descending from the apartment, he's talking on his cellphone, "Yeah. Yeah. Hang on just a second." he says, long enough to interject: "Filk? Really?" with a 'gotcha' smirk. He leans on the counter and finishes up his phone call, which has something to do with video equipment from the sound of it, and hangs it up. He looks over the comics with a jaundiced but accepting eye. "Hey Kory." he says.

"Not filk," Kory chirps, still humming the tune under her breath. "It got actual radio airplay." She tosses her hair at him, but she's smiling serenely. "Hey, Lee," she replies. "You're up early for a Sunday. Date with The Hyperactive Woman again?" She intentionally puts a little accent on the words so it sounds like Lee's girlfriend has a superhero name. "There's still a few bagels in the office, and a coffee box, though you'd have to nuke it."

Lee says, "We're close to finals and work is driving me crazy, so I've got to find time when I can. No, I made breakfast upstairs while I was making some calls. How's it going, you look like you ate a delicious canary?"

"Ah. How's that going, then? Are you getting thorugh to the dangeorus minds?" Kory laughs. "Do I? I'm just happy. Thanksgiving with Mom and the grans was surprisingly drama free. My brother minded his manners. Cam's out of the hospital. It seems things are starting to look up again, just in time for the holidays." Oh, yeah. There's a box on the floor behind the counter of holiday decorations she's about to put up. "Everything's just great. Isn't that reason enough to smile?" Though she's not saying everything; Lee's known her long enough to be able to tell she still has something behind the smile she hasn't said yet.

Lee says, "You can't complain about minding manners. Nima texted me this morning, she got back to Philly all right, she really liked hanging out with you on the holiday. It was different spending Thanksgiving over at the shelter kitchen with her, but we had a really great time. Throwing wet sponges at each other like we were ten." with his own grin. "The dangerous minds are still dangerous. Things are a bit in turmoil since one of the ringleaders got suspended. I wish I could say that I'm entirely enthused about that, but the counsellor that nailed the little twerp did so in a bit of an underhanded way, and it's not much of an example for the rest of them."

"Considering my brother's lack of manners usually ends up with Nana and Great Gran arguing over who's going to make the fruitcake at Christmas, and that usually ends up with thrown dishes? Yes, I can." Kory laughs. "I was happy to see Nima too, though. I really missed her. But it looks like Lair Philly is shaping up nicely. I may have to go visit her for New Year's. Take her out, get her drunk, and then drag her out of the bed early to see the Mummers." Kory finishes with the DVDs, and goes for the holiday box. "You in a hurry? I could use a spotter with the stepladder." She grins, and pauses, before adding, "Delay as long as possible thinking about those kids. How'd your colleague do it underhanded? How do you nail a kid for doing wrong underhanded?"

Lee comes over to the stepladder obediently: "He used another, younger kid as bait. The younger kid was okay with it, but still…it's taking advantage of his position as counsellor, as someone the kid trusts. I could never do that." He holds it in place. "I've never seen the Mummers except on TV, that would be a trip!"

"Bait? That is more than underhanded. That's …unethical," Kory disapproves. "Even with a kid who's okay with it. I mean Kids aren't capable of making decisions like that. Thanks." She takes the fun-tack container in her teeth, and climbs the stepladder, holding a garland of pine from which icicles are hanging. She has an ornament of The X-Men's Storm holding up her hands so it'll look like the mutant is the reason there are icicles." "The Mummers are fun. Dad took us once when I was little. Awesome floats and stuff."

Lee tactfully averts his eyes from the display, like an atheist at a nativity scene. "Excellent. But seriously, that can't be all that you're chuffed about…" He got that word from his girlfriend. "…you're practically floating."

Chuffed? Kory looks down at Lee quizzically, then shrugs, and tacks up another bit of garland, stretching carefully and balancing against the wall when necessarily. "Oh. Well. Y'know. I guess I'm a season too early, but, romance. I think I can officially call him my boyfriend." Years of acquaintance will indicate this is a momentous occasion; Kory has always been sweet and friendly, but always shy when it comes to guys. Of course being a pretty girl in a comic store full of socially stunted geeks probably didn't help. This may well be the first time Lee has heard her say 'boyfriend' in reference to herself. "So yeah, I'm happy."

Lee says, "Congratulations. Not Professor Neckbeard, I take it?" Lee is referring to a rather pungent-smelling regular customer who has long had a crush on Kory. He adds: "Chuffed is a useful word. Don't judge me." with a sly grin of his own.

"You mean Fergus?" Kory shakes her head, though there's a bit of an involuntary nosewrinkle. She tries hard to be nice, but well, yes, the guy does sort of carry a miasma of stale Doritos and Hai Karate with him. "No, no, not Fergus. His name's Randall. He's been here a time or two." She climbs down, moves the stepladder, and re-ascends to keep tacking up garland. "I thought he'd gotten the same freak out and run scared vibe most guys I like get. But he hasn't…it was all a huge misunderstanding."

Lee says warmly, "That's great. I've always wondered what the heck was wrong with the other guys you've had such problems with. I'm glad things are going well. So when do I get to meet him?"

"I seem to attract jocks who don't want a brainy girl," Kory muses. "Or guys who don't have anything more in common with me than the fact we both read comics. Or guys who …y'know…look down their noses at me because I read comics." Like Lee. Who she had such a silent crush on in high school. "Randall doesn't mind any of that. Or the fact that I'm so freaky in other ways." An Iceman ornament goes here, helping Storm with the icicles.

Lee looks skeptical, "I've never thought of you as freaky." He may or may not know about the crush, of course. "And I was a jock in high school, and semi-sorta one in college, and I like brainy girls." he says, not grasping the difference between athletes and jocks.

If Kory had her way about it, he'd never know. She tried very hard never to let on. Pretty easy, too, given Lee's method of coping with the world was 'Be a Bigger Jerk'. "You," she points out, without looking at him, "look down your nose at those who read comics." The Justice League's Ice dangles from the garland at the next instance. "And you're not a jock. You're a brain who plays sports."

Lee says, "I look down my nose at the practice of reading comics because it is terrible." Well, that sums that up. "Plus, just about at everything else, being tall and having a ridiculous nose." he adds, the self-deprecation muting the comics-reading criticism she's heard a million times before. "Anyway, my point is that you're not freaky."

"Okay, I want you to read this." Kory plucks, unnerringly, a copy of 'God Loves, Man Kills' off the Graphic Novel shelf, and drops it toward Lee. "You sneer at it without even giving it a real try, and you're supposed to be a teacher." She comes down again, moves the stepladder, and climbs once more. "And it's nice of you to say so." Unspoken, obviously, is that she knows different, if not better.

Lee catches the graphic novel, then slides it neatly back on the shelves. "I have. It's awful. I'll make a narrow exception for Maus. But that's about it." he says amiably.

Kory rolls her eyes at Lee's words with muted affection, and does not bother to argue the point again. She makes quick work of setting up the decorations with his help. The final flourish is tying a little tree branch to Chewbacca the dog's head in an homage to Dr. Seuss' "How The Grinch Stole Christmas."

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