fandomhigh | cafeteria | mid afternoon | wednesday

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cafeteria

cafeteria | mid afternoon | wednesday | 25 november

Apparently, there was a holiday tomorrow. From what Jonas had gathered from the books he'd read, it revolved around a lot of food, togetherness and was descended from a shared meal by two very different groups long ago.

Needless to say, Jonas had never celebrated Thanksgiving in the Community. Besides ceremonies for Days of Birth, nothing had really been celebrated so Jonas found these specially singled out days as half a curiosity and half enjoyment.

And, while today wasn't the holiday, Jonas found himself in the cafeteria, idly picking at his food (mashed potatoes had a very strange texture) and paging through a book on various holidays. Christmas would, undoubtedly, be the next thing he looked up that. That holiday just seemed...complicated.

[open, sure!]

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Didi was already eying her tray dubiously as she took a seat near Jonas. "So do you think these are potatoes, or some kind of potato-ish mold? And hi."

"Hello, Didi," Jonas said, picking his head up and giving Didi a smile before glancing back down at his potatoes. "And I haven't--I hope it's not mold."

Jonas hadn't really experienced a simple illness like food poisoning and he was fine with keeping that streak alive.

"They're cold," he continued, poking at his potatoes with his fork, "but they don't taste awful."

"I don't get cold mashed potatoes," Didi said, as she forked a tiny bit into her mouth.

Not good. But probably not mold.

"How have you been, Jonas?"

"For the most part, I've been well, thank you," he said, smiling. "Lately though, I've been exhausted. I was assigned a robot baby to care for in Ethics class and it's been...difficult."

Didi made a sympathetic face. "I heard about that assignment. Hayley gave hers to her partner's dog, if you can believe that."

"I--" By the widening of his eyes, Jonas couldn't really believe it. "That seems a little extreme. Mine is currently with my partner. I think she's better prepared for this sort of thing than I am."

"It's -- not a choice I would make," Didi said diplomatically. "Who's your partner? And I'm not sure parenthood is the kind of thing you can ever be prepared for."

"Her name is Ellie," Jonas replied, letting himself wondering what Ellie and Sarah were up to right now. He had confidence that Sarah hadn't been given to any dogs. "And while she didn't seem prepared, she knew a little more than me. I've cared for my brother but he wasn't a newchild like this...machine seems to be."

Pause.

"And Gabe isn't a machine either." That was the biggest difference, yeah.

"That would be a bigger difference," Didi said dryly. "But I'm sure you're doing fine? You seem like you're basically a kind person. I think that's what matters."

[OOC: That icon is just gorgeous.]

"Thank you," he said, ducking his head and blushing. "My father was a Nurturer so I've been trying to remember the sorts of things he did when he was working with newchildren but I've found I've forgotten a lot of that."

Jonas knew that leaving the Community had caused that and he wasn't sure if he'd ever get those memories back but it was nice to know that he might have once known how to care for newchildren.

[Thank you! It's a new one!]

"They say stuff comes back, right? Like riding a bicycle," Didi said, and thought about what she knew of childcare. "Did your dad sing? They usually like that."

"I don't know if that will come back to me," he said, distracting himself by poking at his potatoes again. He knew he could re-learn the majority of things but personal memories were probably gone. "And I don't remember, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure he didn't sing to me. We talked. Sometimes."

"What kind of stuff did you talk about?" Didi asked.

Jonas pursed his lips, trying to remember those conversations. There were wispy snippets scattered around and he grasped onto those. "The day's events, mostly. What my sister and I did that day, where we volunteered, and school mostly. Each member of the family unit took a turn doing that."

"Like a dinner ritual?" Didi said. "It sounds nice. But when my family gets together it's mostly about keeping my siblings civil."

"How many siblings do you have?" Jonas asked curiously. "My sister and I never argued and Gabe's really too young to do anything but eat ice cream and laugh."

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"Hey Didi," Kate greeted the other girl. She was a little suspicious of the food on her tray. "Do you think this food's actually edible?"

"It's definitely edible," Didi said. "The question is if it's actually food, or if it's some kind of high-tech simulation."

She smiled."How are you, Kate?"

Kate poked at her mashed potatos with a fork, frowning, then smiled at Didi. "I'm pretty awesome, thanks." And she really meant it, for once. "You?"

"I'm always awesome," Didi said cheerfully. "Class was fine, it was just a movie, and now we have a long weekend. Are you going home?"

Kate shook her head. "No. It's only a month 'til Christmas, I'm gonna go then. Thanksgiving isn't a massive thing in my family."

A massive stress-inducing thing for her mother, though, which was reason enough to stay in Fandom.

"Same here," Didi said. Of course, that had more to do with the fact human holidays weren't important to the Endless. "It'll be nice to be here. Kind of a weird little school family."

"Exactly," Kate grinned. "And interesting to be around people who've never even celebrated Thanksgiving before."

"It must seem so bizarre to some of them."

"To say the least," Kate nodded. "But that's kind of what's so nice about this place. Seeing people deal with cultural differences."

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