realmrsreynolds | Sallie plus other people, in places, doing things.

Sallie plus other people, in places, doing things.

Sallie is enjoying the quiet of her apartment in the Staff Wing. Quiet makes stuff easier. All sorts of stuff.

Even if Splinter's thought processes after their field trip are still rattling around like dried peas in a can.

The lilac ended up in a bud vase on the kitchen counter, and seeing it makes things better. Not easier. Just better.

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"Well for one, wow does this room look different from this height. It's like...an entirely new room. Weird. Also," he pauses to plop down on the foot locker. "I think we should hire bartenders."

"Are you sure? Bar's been asking folk to take random shifts and that seems to be doin' alright, and those people that do get credit to their tabs and the like."

His smile falls to an expression of squished consternation.

"You think? I mean...is that working out okay?"

"It might be workin' out more consistently than hiring folk, but we could do half-way and pick up a couple extra people to help out and wrangle volunteers and ad-hoc 'tenders.

"It's not a bad idea."

The grin returns in a much smaller scale.

"It's just, I was talking to this guy the other day and he asked if we were hiring. And I got to thinking about ways we could help people with their tabs, especially seeing as you asked me to look them over yesterday."

"Did I actually ask you that, or did I threaten you with that for certain things?"

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other."

"Mmhmm.

"Should I start getting together questions for interviews?"

"It might not be a bad idea? But...you raise a good point. Bar's been doing a good job of asking when she needs help, and compensating people when they do. We were talking about tabs and what not for a good part of yesterday after your threat."

Round the bout the time you, Splinter, and Leo were talking.
He's so prim, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

'We' being Bar and Mike.

It doesn't take long for Sallie's curiosity to override her common sense.

"I'm sure you both had a lot of conversation fodder yesterday."

"Well there is a lot to talk about."

He just lets that sit there for a beat.

"But now that the clean up is done, the Loompas are back, it's probably a good idea to get our hands dirty on the nitty gritty."

Something in Sallie's jaw tightens.

"I do not appreciate being messed with, Michaelangelo."

"

...

Do you have to go to classes to learn that? Or does that tone just like, naturally occur when you have kids?"

"They offer seminars."

"Top of your class, huh?"
Mike winces.

"With the full name and everything. That just...that hurts. Right here," he puts a hand center of his plastron. "Where my heart lives."

Sallie falters in her steely grip on her pride. Damn that turtly face.

"Mike..." Exhale. "I just don't..."

"I know...trust me, I know."

Wish I knew better.

What I was doing. Or anything at all what your ba thought.

I might be a coward chicken. A little.

How is he?

It's so like Sallie to be worrying about other people.
Mike gets that.
In spades.

"He's okay. Wasn't very chatty when he came home to snag his walking stick. He's in the forest now."

Mike pulls his legs up to sit crosslegged, and then rests his elbows on his knees. A permanent curvature of the spine takes a little getting used to.

Sallie groans, falling back on her bed in a flop.

"He doesn't need that thing! Damnit all."

Mike hazards a chuckle.

"I'm thinking he's well aware of that, what with it being a foot or so too short for him to use anyway. It's just a comfort. It...it's not easy to look into the mirror and not see what you're used to there."

And another truth comes to the fore - Sallie, all of this, makes Splinter uncomfortable.

The ceiling is a rather boring color. She should do something about that.

When it's clear she's not going to say much else, Mike moves from the footlocker onto the bed with Sallie. He too stares at the ceiling.

"You know...you had me dead to rights yesterday. This," he wiggles his fingers for emphasis. "Is easier.

Growing up I thought it was such crap that no matter the sci-fi show, the humans were always the stars. Always the ones who figured out the problem. And were always the ones deferred to. Then I became one for a while and...wow do you guys make so much more sense in context."

"I don't know if that's supposed to make me feel better, but right now I'm just feelin' like your ba's off in the woods somewhere moping because I scare the gou pi out o' him, and that's horrible."

"It's horrible that he's afraid, and I think you're right that he is, but it's not you making him scared. It's him.

When I was little I used to have the really bad night terrors. Like...if you think my imagination is bad now...wooooweee, it's got nothing on what it was like when I was smaller. Anyway, I would wake up screaming and then crawl into Splinter's bed and in between lullabies he'd tell me that only we can scare ourselves. That only we have the power to make ourselves afraid. And that it's up to us to embrace those fears and move past them."

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