Typical Sunday Morning
Author: Laure, Freezing Mediator
Rating: SPOT (Silly Piece of Tripe)
Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Poor, very poor. Own a whining fallen emperor; not willing to trade him...yet. Timeline: After Marriage and Marketing
Summary: A Sunday morning at H.S.U., the Target parking lot, a penthouse in L.A., a crypt in Sunnyhell, and the icy road from Estrogen City.

"It's your turn to call her," Quintus hissed to his lover.

Kymira shot several deadly looks at the RB, who reclined on Laure's couch nursing a mug of coffee laced merlot and pouting, his bandaged foot propped on a velvet pillow.

"She'll kill me."

"Maybe she'll kill *him*," the Praetorian muttered back.

"Don't get my hopes up."

"Quintus," Commo whined. "My foot hurts. Fetch me more of those lovely tablets."

Kymira picked up the prescription bottle and threw it at the RB. It bounced off his forehead, leaving a glowing red mark. "Oops."

"I shall have my beloved Laure punish you as the insolent servant you are," Commo growled, rubbing his forehead.

Quintus grabbed Kymira before she could launch herself at the fallen emperor.

*****

"Did you hear a crash next door?" Cicero murmured against the Nurse's lips.

"Probably just Quintus and Ky killing Commo."

"Good."

"And why are you paying attention to anything but me," Darry asked waspishly, her fingers digging into his longish locks.

Cicero gave her a wolfish grin and rolled on top of her. "So sorry, beloved..."

*****

"Good Morning, H.S.U."

Julia looked over at her sibling. "Maybe we need a new announcement."

"Happy Holidays, H.S.U.?" Sere asked, then scowled as she realized her mike was still open. "It's the beginning of a new week. The campus is still in one piece. Nothing's on fire. And, as a special gift to us all, the General will be reading 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' in fifteen minutes."

One could almost hear the Ho's across campus scrambling for their radios.

*****

Judy blinked a bleary eye at the radio and smiled in anticipation, as she stirred rum into a fresh batch of 'nog. Kendra stopped polishing her master's new bat and reached for more gummy fish.

"A great way to start a Sunday morning."

"Great enough to actually make it worth while to be up at this ungodly hour," Judy replied a bit grumpily.

"Why *are* you up so early? Though, ten a.m. really isn't early."

"It's an incontrovertible fact that it's impossible to go back to sleep after being awakened to the rock version of 'Oh Holy Night' played full tilt on the organ."

"We could always set fire to it," Kendra tried to help.

Judy gave her a look.

*****

Dande bustled around her living room, straightening all the glittering and gilt Christmas decorations, as Pelham perched on a sofa sipping a cup of tea.

"Lady Dande, perhaps we could go over the choices of invitations. We really must get them printed this week."

"I'm sorry, Pelham, I just can't sit still." The Wench twitched a garland on the mantle, then twitched it back the way it had been. "I think I'm nesting."

Being a gentleman, Pelham refrained from commenting. "Well, perhaps I can hold the choices up and you can point?"

"Sure. More tea first?"

The lavender lord held out his cup with a smile.

*****

In the cottage garden, well away from wedding preparations, Da Mastah calmly and silently meditated, using the Force to keep the snow he was sitting on from penetrating his leggings and robes. It was a crisp, clear and bright morning, perfect for meditating.

Idly he wondered where his former padawan was.

*****

Tara lay comfortably back against a mound of pillows, watching in appreciation as the General dressed. As he sat on the end of the bed to pull on his boots, she crawled up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest.

"Do you really have to go?" she whispered in his ear, before tugging on the lobe with her teeth.

Obi-Wan grinned and stroked her hand. "Sorry, love, but duty calls."

Tara pouted slightly, but let him rise. "Will you be at the snowball fight this afternoon?"

His lips quirked. "Would I miss an opportunity to get wet?"

She grinned back and blew him a kiss, as he left for his radio show.

*****

Christmas music, courtesy of the H.S.U. radio station, filled the Kitchen.

"Do we really need that much frosting?" Indy asked, a bit dubious as he watched Ellie lug a huge, full bowl to the table. "And where are the cookies?"

Setting the bowl down, Ellie made sure the door was locked, then shoved her professor onto the table. "Who needs cookies?"

*****

Dorotea paced the Library, hands clasped behind her back, Rowan scampering at her heels. She was muttering under her breath, something about the Nurse, Pelham and death and dismemberment.

"Yes," Xani cheered. "You're toast, Santa. I'm boinking your wife as we speak."

"You broke my concentration," the Librarian complained, sending the Greysider a blistering look.

Xani set aside the mouse and spun around in his chair, responding to her blistering look with a lusty one of his own. "Wanna take a break?"

"No. I'm not in the mood."

"You're always in the mood." He prowled towards her, his fingers unbuttoning his black shirt.

"Back off, grey boy. This is probably all your fault."

"Nah, it's Darry's." He swept her into his arms, as she pounded feebly and rather teasingly on his smooth chest.

*****

"I am *not* missing him reading anything," Jen stated firmly, tugging Ethan over to his bike.

"You were the one who wanted to hit Target at seven a.m."

"I needed party supplies."

"At seven a.m.?"

Jen shoved her purchases into the saddlebags. "Look, my party budget has been severely stretched recently. I had to get all this stuff on sale."

"At seven a.m.?" he asked again as he swung his leg over the seat.

"Do you really want to fight the pre Christmas sale crush once church lets out?"

He shuddered and helped her up behind him.

*****

"Are you glad to be home?" Max asked his warrior princess, as she snuggled with him in her big bed.

"Yeah. Though I'm amazed the place is still standing."

"The legion has grown decidedly lax and the gladiators have grown fat and lazy." Max furrowed his brow and frowned.

Jael grinned up at him. "We'll soon whip them into shape."

*****

Braid dangling dangerously low from a piece of glitter tape, Cal pushed his broom down the hallway on the second floor of the administration building. As usual, the doors were all closed and locked.

He thought it must be really nice to get to sleep in on a Sunday morning.

Not that he was complaining or anything, because the General would never complain, and he wanted to be just like the General.

But, still...

A tiger cub bounded down the hall towards him and he flattened himself against one wall, as it skidded past him, sending his pile of dust, glitter, ribbons, and fur flying.

"Gosh, they're getting big." He frowned slightly at the mess, then gave a resigned shrug and resumed sweeping.

*****

Shana idly picked bits of fern out of Lindsey's hair as they watched the sun rise through the L.A. smog.

"Did I mention that I like your penthouse view?" she asked, one eye on his wandering prosthetic hand.

"Want to Christen the balcony?" Lindsey murmured as his hand found a rounded part of her anatomy.

"We're meeting Laure for brunch at ten."

"Three hours, plenty of time."

"Maybe for *you*," Shana replied, smacking him playfully before rising to scamper out onto the balcony.

"Let's give the traffic 'copters something to talk about," she yelled back at him, as he grinned and rose to his feet."

*****

"Your purse is ringing, luv."

Laure growled and rolled to the edge of the bed, reaching down for her purse. She picked up a dusty bone and flung it aside, then grabbed the expensive and now dusty leather bag. "You really *have* to find better accommodations."

"You wanna pay for it?" Spike asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

"Like you're really poor," she snorted, fumbling into the cavernous depths of her purse for her cell phone.

"Why pay for an apartment, when you can live like this for free?" He spread his arms wide, encompassing the dusty, cobweb and junk strewn crypt.

She gave him a look of utter disbelief and hit 'on'. "What?"

"He's whining again. Can't we give him sleeping pills?"

Laure sighed heavily. "Ky, it's..." She glanced at her watch. "Almost ten in the morning there, which makes it not even seven in the morning here..." She glared at her watch and tightened her grip on the phone. "You *know* I'm not a morning person."

"He's *whining* again. Look, even a trip to Paris isn't worth this."

"No sleeping pills in the daytime. Get him off his lazy ass and onto his crutches. He's in that cast for a frickin' month and I'm not hauling him around in a wheelchair."

"God, don't give him ideas," Kymira panicked.

"I'll be home tomorrow by noon. Get him up, shaved, dressed, fed, and stick 'Bagger Vance' in the vcr."

"That movie sucked."

"It's golf, that's all that matters. There's only so many times a person can watch 'Tin Cup'. Rotate in 'Caddyshack' as well."

"You won't come home early?" Kymira wheedled.

Spike took that moment to begin to trace a seductive pattern on her naked back, and Laure smiled.

"Not on your life. Not if the whole campus burned down." Hitting the off button, she turned to her off campus EA. "I guess there are *some* benefits to being up at dawn."

"I'll show you *up*..."

*****

Emmy glanced at her watch and muttered, "Shit, shit, shit," under her breath, as she gripped the wheel and pushed down on the accelerator harder. "I am not missing the General reading." Taking one hand off the wheel, she fiddled with the knob of her radio and cursed again. "Why can't we have a broadcast range that reaches *outside* the university?"

Next to her, Lasher barked happily and thumped his tail on the leather seat.

Turning the wheel sharply, Emmy squealed through the gates of the university, nearly running Ethan and Jen down and sending an Ewok flying.

Luckily their fur was so thick they tended to bounce off things, though this one landed head first in a snowbank.

Parking her car and grabbing her dog, Emmy flew up the stairs of the administration building, past Edmund who held the door open for her at precisely the right moment, and into her office. Tom was watching something vaguely pornographic on the television. To his cries of futile anger, she hit the power button as she sailed past and into her inner office.

Panting for breath, she pushed the radio 'on' button at exactly one minute till ten, and collapsed in her chair.

"Maybe EAs aren't worth it," she muttered, fingers tangling into her wind blown hair.

*****

Settling into a comfortable seat and giving his rapt audience of two beatific smiles, the General perched his glasses on his nose, and opened his book.

"'One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.'"

End