"Do you still wear cameras here? Because I'm fairly certain the only way to decode Buffy's wiring system is with photographic evidence of how it was before you touched it." She should know. She had to extensively document the system in her own house, because the computers were the one thing that her father couldn't improve on with any amount of money. Buffy installed them.
"No, it's not diagrams. Happy birthday. I'm sorry I'm so late." She uncovers the tray, which has a thermos of coffee, a can of coke, and two small chocolate cakes. "The one on the left is yours, Georgia, and the one on the right is Shaun's. I hope at least one of you will share with me."
Georgia's cake was baked with coca cola in it, and the glaze on top also made with coke. Shaun's is immediately identifiable, a flourless espresso chocolate cake studded with chocolate covered coffee beans around the edge.
Georgia shoots Shaun a look, halfway between exasperated and amused. "I told you you shouldn't touch those."
She looks over at Maggie's tray curiously. She's not much of a baker herself, but she's good at deductive reasoning. There's a beverage next to each one, and Shaun's clearly has some coffee tied to it. Hers isn't as obvious, but she's pretty sure she's got it. "I think 'kidnapped to another dimension with a different calendar, brainwashed, and faced with a clone of your dead boss' is a reasonable excuse for lateness in this case. Did you make cakes out of our favorite beverages?"
That's... very sweet of her. Georgia never got a chance to really get to know Maggie before she died. She knew from Buffy that Maggie was a kind, thoughtful person and a great fictional, and Shaun had filled her in enough on the time she'd missed for her to have an even clearer picture of it, but there's hearing it from other people and then there's being faced with a personalized birthday cake and apologies for being late with it. As if doing anything at all wasn't already above and beyond.
"...I didn't think of that," he admits. Of course they're always filming. It's kind of ridiculous that he hadn't considered using that to fix the mess he'd made. But that's something he can do after cake. Cake that is apparently made from coffee because Maggie loves him and wants him to thrive.
He sits the rest of the way up. "Those look amazing. Even the one that is apparently made with Candyland hookers. You didn't have to do this."
"I wanted to. Yes, I made cakes out of your favorite drinks." Maggie grins. It's always nice to be appreciated. She'd be shocked if Georgia lacked the deductive reasoning to figure that out without being told. "And they're even caffeinated. Caffeine doesn't cook out of things the way alcohol does."
She went to a little extra effort to make them more strongly caffeinated than the original recipes would have, even, because she knew who she was baking for.
"I'd ask for a Candyland hooker in exchange, but I'm not so sure it would be taken as a joke in this place." You know, if everything has the potential to exist here.
She gives Shaun an affectionate shove for the Candyland hookers comment. "Caffeinated food?" This opens up new possibilities. She looks up and nods at Maggie. "Thank you. That was very thoughtful. And yes, unless you want the sugar equivalent of a blow-up doll, probably better not to make any careless requests."
[Like you don't drink enough Coke these days to appreciate a Candyland hooker cake.] George's voice in his head is amused, and Shaun can't help smiling a little for it and the shove from the sister outside his head. When he speaks, though, it's in response to the actual conversation going on around him.
"You are the true hero of Wonderland, Maggie, and I want to raid your cookbook."
"My heroism knows no bounds," she agrees. "And I suppose now there are literal cookbooks to share. Do you know how much easier this was with the internet? I could read five different recipes for whatever I wanted to make, choose my favorite parts from each, and then start cooking."
Maggie is going to spend a lot of time in the library, and she's going to spend a lot of time lamenting the lack of a high speed connection to virtually unlimited information and literature. "You've been publishing in print since you arrived?"
Georgia wrinkles her nose. Yes, they are, but she still doesn't like it. "Yes. The formatting of the network isn't conducive to blogging, unfortunately. I've crossposted some urgent articles, but for the most part, the zine's it."
She grabs a copy, sliding it over to Maggie for perusal. "The lack of internet is the worst part about this place."
"That and how it occasionally rewrites our memories and makes us think we're someone else," Shaun says, keeping his tone cheerful. "This weekend was a little less jarring because it was almost like a memory, but I bet it was a lot weirder for everyone else." Like Hogwarts had been for them.
"I'm not sure, I'd say lack of internet ranks up there with unsettling alternate realities." She says it flippantly enough, despite knowing that while Hogwarts probably wouldn't have bothered her much, there are plenty of realities Maggie never wants to visit, and loss of identity is a sobering thought.
They're bloggers. Of course the lack of internet is off-putting. It just isn't the most off-putting thing Maggie can think of; her imagination is far too vivid for that.
"Conspiracies and the walking dead are probably more upsetting for most people than magic boarding school, you're right."
"Most people don't live very exciting lives." She didn't enjoy Hogwarts much, but she doesn't like any event that messes with her head. It's a lie, one she isn't even given the option to disbelieve, and that bothers her more than anything else. Maybe even more than the lack of internet.
Shaun makes a noise of agreement--that's part of why his ratings were always so good. Lots of people not living very exciting lives, and wanting to live vicariously through someone else for a while. It's why Maggie's stuff does so well too. And why George's were always less--no one likes being reminded of how shitty the real world is.
"So, are we doing the candle thing or can we just eat? I'm way overdue for some coffee."
"What would you consider mine?" Maggie asks curiously. She spends a lot of time sequestered at home, but she doesn't have quite the same set of cautions and neuroses as most of their generation.
She grins. "Candles are optional, but I might insist on singing unless I hear a convincing objection."
Georgia glances at Shaun before responding. When she first met Maggie, the question might have been difficult. Georgia wouldn't have found Maggie's life very exciting, living in an old house in the middle of nowhere all the time, but on the other hand, she did actually interact with other people in person. It might not have been Shaun and Georgia levels of exciting, but it was still exciting.
That was before they'd ended up neck deep in conspiracies and people trying to kill them. And Shaun's told her enough about what's been happening on his end that she's well aware of just how interesting things have gotten.
"I don't think anyone who signed on to our team will ever have the luxury of having anything but exciting lives. And I think keeping me away from the caffeine for the duration of an entire song is cruel."
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"No, it's not diagrams. Happy birthday. I'm sorry I'm so late." She uncovers the tray, which has a thermos of coffee, a can of coke, and two small chocolate cakes. "The one on the left is yours, Georgia, and the one on the right is Shaun's. I hope at least one of you will share with me."
Georgia's cake was baked with coca cola in it, and the glaze on top also made with coke. Shaun's is immediately identifiable, a flourless espresso chocolate cake studded with chocolate covered coffee beans around the edge.
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She looks over at Maggie's tray curiously. She's not much of a baker herself, but she's good at deductive reasoning. There's a beverage next to each one, and Shaun's clearly has some coffee tied to it. Hers isn't as obvious, but she's pretty sure she's got it. "I think 'kidnapped to another dimension with a different calendar, brainwashed, and faced with a clone of your dead boss' is a reasonable excuse for lateness in this case. Did you make cakes out of our favorite beverages?"
That's... very sweet of her. Georgia never got a chance to really get to know Maggie before she died. She knew from Buffy that Maggie was a kind, thoughtful person and a great fictional, and Shaun had filled her in enough on the time she'd missed for her to have an even clearer picture of it, but there's hearing it from other people and then there's being faced with a personalized birthday cake and apologies for being late with it. As if doing anything at all wasn't already above and beyond.
It's just not really something she ever expected.
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He sits the rest of the way up. "Those look amazing. Even the one that is apparently made with Candyland hookers. You didn't have to do this."
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She went to a little extra effort to make them more strongly caffeinated than the original recipes would have, even, because she knew who she was baking for.
"I'd ask for a Candyland hooker in exchange, but I'm not so sure it would be taken as a joke in this place." You know, if everything has the potential to exist here.
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"You are the true hero of Wonderland, Maggie, and I want to raid your cookbook."
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Maggie is going to spend a lot of time in the library, and she's going to spend a lot of time lamenting the lack of a high speed connection to virtually unlimited information and literature. "You've been publishing in print since you arrived?"
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She grabs a copy, sliding it over to Maggie for perusal. "The lack of internet is the worst part about this place."
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They're bloggers. Of course the lack of internet is off-putting. It just isn't the most off-putting thing Maggie can think of; her imagination is far too vivid for that.
"Conspiracies and the walking dead are probably more upsetting for most people than magic boarding school, you're right."
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"So, are we doing the candle thing or can we just eat? I'm way overdue for some coffee."
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She grins. "Candles are optional, but I might insist on singing unless I hear a convincing objection."
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That was before they'd ended up neck deep in conspiracies and people trying to kill them. And Shaun's told her enough about what's been happening on his end that she's well aware of just how interesting things have gotten.
"I don't think anyone who signed on to our team will ever have the luxury of having anything but exciting lives. And I think keeping me away from the caffeine for the duration of an entire song is cruel."