It took the concerted effort of all of those present to shuffle Bob out the door again. AndrAIa slid the bolt home as soon as they�d called their good-byes. "Well. That was entertainment." She winked dramatically at Dot, who might have blushed again if she had gotten around to stopping the first blush yet.
Mouse smirked with delight. "Oh, now /that/ is good blackmail material." She ducked as Dot aimed a halfhearted punch at her. "Come on, y�all, let�s get changed back around and then we can compare jammies."
Dot and AndrAIa glanced at eachother sidelong, then stifled giggles in unison. Mouse shrugged fatalistically. "So I like the word �jammies�. Stop laughin� at me or I�ll wait until you�re logged off and then I�ll..."
AndrAIa and Dot quickly stopped laughing and hurried into the bathroom.
AndrAIa tapped a fingertip against her lips thoughtfully. "Pink bunnies...Dot, that just doesn�t seem...you." Dot glared valiantly, flannel-clad arms folded across her chest.
"You leave my bunnies alone, thankyaverymuch."
"Well, you could make fun of my jammies, if you like." The other woman offered generously.
Dot blinked warily, then giggled. "How? Blue silk with fish on them. It�s nothing /but/ you. It�s so predictable."
Mouse cast about the carpet and found a slightly fuzzed USB. She blew on it thoughtfully and popped it into her mouth. "You laugh at me for saying �jammies�, and /those/ are you clothing formats? You hypocrites." She smiled comfortably.
"They�re my night things." Dot said haughtily. "Not jammies."
AndrAIa flopped down on the sofa. "So what shall we do now? We ate, we had a pillow fight, we played dress-up, we listened to music..."
"Truth or Dare?"Mouse suggested.
"No, no...
***Author�s Note: If you want to read a /real/ crazy as all get-out totally rockin� Truth-or-Dare fic, go to a minor glitch and read the green jello fic. It�s so good, I�m not gonna even try to equal it. ***
"Pranks?" AndrAIa suggested.
"Done that. Jetbowling after all?"
"No, it�d be closed by now..."
"Dot, what do you want t...oh. She logged off." Mouse chuckled. "I guess she�s worn out."
AndrAIa grinned. "Oh, she�s so darling all curled up on the floor like that! Think we should wake her up again?"
Mouse shrugged, sprawling out on the sofa. "Nah. We got a lot of good girls� stuff done. Maybe we should all log off for a bit."
AndrAIa shrugged, then righted the coffee table and curled up on top of it. Mouse tossed her a blanket. "There you go...hey...you okay, kid?"
AndrAIa beamed. "I sleep with my eyes open. You know. Like fish." She eyed the hacker solemnly for a moment, then giggled at Mouse�s confused expression. "No, only kidding. Good night."
"Night." Mouse muttered back, and the apartment grew quiet for the first time in a very long while.
Dot was wakened late the next morning by a wavering off-key duet coming from the kitchen.
"Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters..."
Mouse and AndrAIa were mincing across the kitchen, tossing several objects that appeared to be clothing formats into the air, and performing a series of clumsy pirouettes and leaps between catches. When Dot walked wearily in, all the mysterious formats were suddenly snatched from the air and hidden behind backs. Mouse smirked. AndrAIa beamed in a sugary fashion. Dot raised an eyebrow, curiosity overcoming just-woke-upedness.
"What in the Net are you doing?"
AndrAIa grinned, and answered question for question. "Soooo, Dot...do you think Bob�s a boxer man or a briefs man?" Mouse chortled, sidling towards the fridge.
Dot blushed. "Uh...guys, I don�t know, why?"
"Oh, come on, Dot! Just guess! If you don�t know already..." AndrAIa insisted.
"Boxers?" Dot replied quickly. Mouse whooped with glee.
"Good guess, honey!" Suddenly it was apparent what the two had been choreographing with. Mouse and AndrAIa resumed their impromptu dance around the kitchen, tossing Bob�s boxer formats around in time with the music. Dot tried to be irritated with their antics, but ended up collapsing into giggles. "And now for the big finale!" Mouse cried.
AndrAIa skidded in front of Mouse. "Looord help the mister, who comes between me and my sister!"
Mouse pushed AndrAIa out of the way good-naturedly. "And Loooord help the sister who comes between me and my man!"
They hummed a few final measures in unison, dramatically tossing the formats into the freezer. Mouse slammed the freezer door on the last note. AndrAIa advised the now freezer-dwelling boxers calmly, "Staaaaay frosty."
Mouse grinned widely. "So. What�ll we have for breakfast?"
"Fish Stix?" supplied AndrAIa hopefully. The others glowered. AndrAIa gave in. "Okay, fine...pancakes."
"No more flour, remember?" Dot pointed out, then prodded at the flour-strewn middle of the kitchen with her toe. "Well, except for this."
"Not even." Mouse replied hastily, then cast about the kitchen. "Wonder what�s in the fridge..."
"Cheesecake." Mouse called from the kitchen.
"Here!" Dot caught the wedge as it flew out of the kitchen door.
"Olives...those are for me." The olive jar followed the cheesecake. Dot barely managed to keep it off the floor.
"Uhm...rice."
No replies.
"Movin� on. Strawberries?"
"Here!" Dot and AndrAIa replied in unison. The box of strawberries sailed out of the kitchen. AndrAIa made the catch.
"I�m gonna want some of those too. Oooh. Caramels! Don�t see those in Mainframe much. Here..." Mouse lobbed the bag into the living room. Both Dot and AndrAIa scrambled for it, missing the bag of crackers that followed. The crackers scattered.
"Oops." Dot proclaimed, trying to wrestle the caramels away from AndrAIa.
"Hey Dre! Fish stix!" Mouse called. AndrAIa left the caramels to Dot and caught the flying fish-stix box happily.
"Now /this/ is brefix." said Dot contentedly and muffledly, between caramels and mouthfuls of cheesecake.
Mouse and AndrAIa watched in a sort of morbid fascination as the effects of a caramel-and-cheescake breakfast swept over Dot. First, she behaved as she always did, if a bit more laid back. Gradually, as the sugar coursed through her systems, her talking got faster and faster, words stringing themselves into hardly intelligible sentences. She fairly seemed to dance about the room. The others had a rare glimpse of a striking behavioral resemblance to Enzo before she suddenly collapsed on the floor in the foyer, curled around herself, and tumbled into a deep, though slightly fitful, sleep.
AndrAIa looked at Mouse. Mouse looked at AndrAIa. They both started giggling.
"We shoulda warned her." Mouse commented. "All-sugah breakfasts are dangerous things."
AndrAIa shrugged and stretched meticulously. "Well...you learn something new every day."
A knock on the door interrupted the discussion before Mouse made any attempts at philosophy. "Dre, what time is it?"
AndrAIa made a face, getting to her feet. "Later than we thought it was. That�s Bob now, I guess he wants his apartment back.
Mouse clicked on her icon and changed into a casual clothing format. AndrAIa followed her lead and sadly abandoned her fish pajamas for her usual outfit. They gazed at Dot as they stepped over her to answer the door.
"Should we change her too?" AndrAIa wondered aloud, ignoring the fact that upon getting no response for many nanos, Bob was attempting to jimmy the apartment door open.
"Nah." Mouse replied. "Maybe she can charm Bob out of deleting us for messing up his apartment if she�s wearing those jammies, even if she /is/ only semi-conscious."
AndrAIa smirked. "Well maybe if it�s charmed we want, we should put her in one of my formats again..."
Mouse considered the idea at length. She considered it at so much length that Bob eventually melted the lock on the door and pushed his way in.
"What�s going on with you tw*oof*!" He staggered over the small round ball that was Dot, still curled contentedly on the floor.
"I don�t wanna ride the pony..." the small round ball muttered. Dot flopped over on her back, one arm flung across her eyes. She didn�t wake up.
Bob gaped. "What did you do to her!?"
Mouse shrugged one shoulder. "Nothin� much. But isn�t she cute, all asleep like that?"
"Well...yeeeah..." Bob said slowly, a sappy look creeping across his face.
"We might need you to help us get her back to the Diner." AndrAIa suggested brightly, earning a �nicely done� look from Mouse as Bob leaned down and scooped up the unresisting and rather floppy sugarshocked sprite. Dot opened one eye and regarded her rescuer balefully for a moment, then smiled in a childlike fashion.
"Puppy..." she crooned, before falling back asleep again, snuggled up against Bob�s chest. The Guardian blushed a nice light shade of lilac.
"Uhm...let�s go, then."
Dot had been unresistingly tucked into her own bed, Cecil had been advised (by AndrAIa of course) to keep an eye on the Diner and the Madame, and the survivors of the previous evening were bidding Bob farewell.
"Um...we used up all your flour." AndrAIa told him.
"And we might have left a few pillows out of place."Mouse added.
Bob was preparing a portal home. He shrugged nonchalantly. "It�s all right. I�m glad you made her take a break."
"Well then. We�d better go check on her. Stay frosty!" Mouse called.
AndrAIa elbowed the mercenary in the ribs, then doubled over in a flurry of giggles. Gasping with mirth, she managed, "We know the boxers will..." Mouse tried to keep a straight face, then snorted with the effort and started to laugh as well. Bob turned to eye them suspiciously. Mouse waved him away.
Once the Guardian had departed, Mouse and AndrAIa dashed for the lower floor of the Diner. Shakes, shouts, and a few glasses of very cold water brought Mainframe�s Command.com out of her sugar-induced collapse. Dot blinked blearily, trying to figure out where she was. "Wha....where....how..."
"Dot, honey..." Mouse drawled, sporting her best act-now-ask-later face, "We better /run/."