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(closed) as you wish

Date & Time: June 10th
Location: Initiative Hospital
Characters: Collete, Caesar Silverberg, Lavi, Drift, & friends
Summary: And so they gathered together and lo, but did they watch The Princess Bride.
Warnings: some people can't sit quiet through a movie to save their life???

She needed a distraction. Anything, something to focus on outside of her own head and the imagination she was so blessed with. Most days she found it fortunate; today it sent shivers down her spine. Even with Drift on ceaseless guard, and Caesar ever more present in her room, it was hard not to wonder if that something would slip back in and take another eye, or be delighted wondering what else it could collect off her before she either killed it or watched it driven off by someone else.

The best excuse came with the condensing of patients in rooms, going from the privacy of a single occupant (even with her plus two) to the more crowded group that moved in when she met her temporary roommate.

Lavi, however, was a pleasant surprise. One who might work in her favor as she considered options for what to do. Tablet out and on her lap, Collette tapped listlessly through her applications, searching through files. A familiar name caught her eye. She grinned.

"Hey, Lavi," she asked, voice raspy and thick. "Do you like stories?" She glanced toward Caesar, gauging how awake he was at this point.

( ooc: tag in whatever format you wish! i started off prose, action tags are fine. )

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Nothing said 'wake up' like a mystery object landing in one's lap. That works, startling him awake, from slouched back to sitting straight up right away. Considering how on edge everyone has been of late, the first look to cross his face was considerably tense. Had something else happened? Was Collette's attack back? Were they under attack right now?

It doesn't last for long, however, only the few seconds it took to wake up enough and take in the surroundings. No, no problems, only Collette and that brat trying to wake him up. He immediately relaxed at that realization, slumping back against the chair again, though he couldn't help but give the rubix cube in his lap an annoyed glance.

"Hey, it's dangerous to throw things like this! Look at all those pointy corners..."

There was a moment where she felt guilty, in those first few seconds. He was as tense as the rest of them, and in ways, he was the least equipped to deal if something like the woman who had attacked her earlier came crashing into the room. In a way, she felt like the distraction was all the more worthwhile.

Besides, if she pretended she was okay, eventually it'd be true, and maybe he'd be less tense too.

"Yeah, yeah," she said breezily, "I love you too. Now get over here! We're watching a movie. Bet you haven't seen one of those before either." She winked for Lavi's sake, otherwise archly quirking up an eyebrow and gesturing for Caesar to drag his waking self over this way. "Bring your chair over! Only two can fit on the bed, and Lavi wins 'cause he's cuter."

Also tiny. Not that Caesar was any hulking presence either, but an eight year old definitely counted as smaller than a sixteen year old. (Ignorance is, in many ways, bliss.)

"It's recorded kind of like how we talk on video over the network, only with scripts and way better budgets. It's fun! Here, I'll bring the movie up for us." She gestured for Lavi to return the tablet, remembering a moment later to ask Caesar to bring Lavi's toy back over with him. Distracted as she was tapping on the tablet, opening the right file with a small smile of triumph at her own apparent tech-savvy, she could sort of manage to multi-task.

"Can you bring the Rubix cube back over? Unless you wanted to give it a try, it looks like something you'd like, too! Between you and Lavi, it's like being sandwiched between two red-headed geniuses." She snorted, amused at her own observation, and partly because it was fun to be comparative between two people with an apparent age gap.

(If only she knew.)

Although Lavi's oblivious to their particular circumstances, he's very familiar with the effects war had on people and so Caesar's reaction, that tense readiness for something awful to be going down as he's startled awake didn't surprise him in the least. He'd seen it many times before, in the many places he has wandered through and more recently and prevalently, during his time in the Black Order. Both Exorcists and Finders alike, those who had been on the battlefield, tended to share that tenseness. Lavi was no different, generally speaking, so he didn't bat an eye at that reaction.

"That's too bad for you." He grinned cheekily at the cuter remark, entirely unaware that Collette had been the one person he hadn't told about his temporary condition. In all the chaos of arriving here and getting sick, it had slipped his mind. Not to mention he'd complained to plenty of people and thus he just assumed she'd been one of them.

"Then basically it's a play that's been recorded? That's amazing!" He handed the tablet over eagerly when she gestured for it, shifting a bit to make himself more comfortable on the bed while keeping his eye on what she was doing on the tablet. It didn't make much sense to him, not being as tech-savvy (yet but it was something he wanted to work on), so it looked impressive to him all the same.

"Redheads are the best after all!" He quipped with some obvious pride about his hair before addressing Caesar. "You can try it if ya want. It's a little too easy though."

There was an immediate wary response at the off-handed use of the L word from Collette, but that, too, was just as quickly dismissed. Collette was overly affectionate with enough people. He was sure she would have said the same thing if he had been, say, Ellie, of course. Still, it made him reluctant to move over immediately, though that was in part because he was feeling lazy, too...

Caesar picked the cube up and gave it a bored look, not at all bothered by the cute remark, much less the cheeky grin. "Not really. She gets fleas everywhere, so watch out."

It helped that he had plenty of comments to return fire with in storage.

After he finished looking the rubix cube over, he finally gave a massively exaggerated sigh and got to his feet, grabbing an arm of the chair as he went. Over to the side of the bed he went, dragging it along after and, once there, setting the toy down on the nightstand.

"No thanks. I'm not interested in toys," he replied, then flopped back down in his chair. "This doesn't have singing in it, does it?"

He had a good read on her sense of humor. Of course, if and when she was joking, or to what degree, might be up in the air.

As it was, she leaned in to Lavi to whisper conspiratorially, "He's just jealous that I can fly and he can't." The tease was delivered with the inherent sense of amusement that knew Caesar himself had been reluctant to deal with heights, up to and including extensive bribery to get him to try out flight when he'd been stuck in her body. She knew it'd been worth it in the end.

Why? Because flying was simply that great. In her mind, there was little else as bewildering, as freeing, and as dangerous as taking to the skies on your own two wings.

"No singing," she stated, "And yes, like a play with way better sets!" With both parties in place, Collette settled back, arranging her tablet to show at an angle for all three people. Hitting play, she sat back and waited for things to get rolling.

"It starts off slow," she confessed, as the scene opened to what wouold have counted as almost modern day for her. "But it picks up pretty quick. If you've got a question, keep watching! Good movies have the answers if you pay attention."

Lavi tilted his head to make the entire thing look more conspiratorial as he listened to Collette's whisper, grin widening. "It's a good reason to be jealous," he whispered back sincerely (of course entirely unaware of any fears of heights and he himself rather enjoyed taking to the sky with his extending hammer) before raising his voice again. "But that's no way to talk about a lady. How terrible!"

The tone was reprimanding, but the entire effect rather ruined by the lingering grin on his face. Truly, he considered himself fortunate for having such amusing company to pass the time with while he was stuck here in the hospital. It could have been much worse and there was also no Head Nurse to stop them from . . . well, doing things like they were doing right now. It made the horrible virus a bit more bearable.

He watched Caesar with a raised eyebrow and a cry of "Boooring!" when the cube was placed on the nightstand but before he could make another remark on it, his attention was dragged back to Collette and the device in her hands. He leaned forward slightly, eye wide with (childish-looking) curiosity as he took in the screen. His reply came as a half-distracted:

"Alright . . ."

"Didn't you know this world had a movement where women demanded to be treated the same as men? So clearly it's fine to talk about a lady like that! I'd of said the same if she were a guy!"

HISTORY. History that he had only partially read on a whim and doesn't actually fully get whatever it was, but it sounded like a good retort to him! Or maybe it only made him sound like a massive nerd, but those were the breaks. In any case, he was about as serious as everyone else in the room, which was to say hardly, even if it was harder to tell with how much deadpan he put into his own humor.

Still, Caesar eyed Lavi, then rolled his eyes and turned to look at the tablet screen instead.

"Is this even suitable for five year olds..." But he trailed off before finishing that with the upturned tone of a question. The moving images on the screen had that effect, though he had seen these before. A moment passed before he wrangled his attention back to mention that.

"This is like television, right?"

"You read up through the Equal Rights Movement already?" She's both impressed and amused. "You do know that still wasn't totally equal by the 1990's, though as a bonus, women had been voting for decades by then." Not that she'd ever voted, nor would she ever have the chance, but it was still something that sounded important and cool because of what it appeared to stand for.

You know, like voting for the X-Games would be, if it weren't totally a team of judges handing out scores to the awesome, amazing athletes competing. Sigh.

Either way, she shifted one last time to get in place, allowing Lavi to use her as some sort of odd pillow should he so choose, glancing Caesar's way out of the corner of her eyes. "Yep! It's technically all television. The television is the technology used to watch everything, movies are just specific stories and stuff shown on television. Kind of like how books work."

She didn't complete the metaphor, leaving it up to either of their imaginations to fill in the blanks of how television was like the novels in a library.

As mesmerizing as the screen was, mentioning history was one sure way to distract Lavi from the moving pictures and he looked back to Collette and Caesar with the same curiosity he'd regarded the screen with. Since he fell ill so shortly after arriving, he hadn't had the opportunity to visit the library yet to immerse himself into the history of this place. It was a shame, he'd planned to do that, but alas. It was something he was determined to do the moment he got released from the hospital.

"Is that so? I'm from the end of the 19th century so no, I had no idea."

But right, they were watching a movie. He'd just have to read about it himself later. Lavi did lean against her as he settled, but it was more to ground himself to prevent him from leaning in too close to the screen and obscuring everyone's view than anything. He was about to redirect his attention to the screen once more, but . . .

"I'm not five." The sullen glare that accompanied the statement would probably imply otherwise though. Luckily Collette's explanation kept him from arguing the point further.

"Huh, technology sure got amazing."

"Well... I got bored, so I skipped ahead some."

From time to time, when something wouldn't keep his attention, it made sense to skip around in the books he had. It wasn't as though he wouldn't go back and read what he missed! Eventually! Especially once he had figured out how to bookmark pages on the tablet.

Lavi's declaration that he wasn't five only got a shrug in return. The movie had captured Caesar's attention now as well and all further verbal prodding was put on hold until further notice.

"Really," he murmured, watching the screen as the movie got through the opening and, of course, not able to stop from looking skeptical when it began as an obvious love story. Gross. "I wonder if the United Earth has movies. I know they have television."

"Probably," Collette admitted. "Not sure if it's anything with actors anymore. Maybe it's all programmed holograms." She wondered about it now, but felt like it was a thought better left for later, when they weren't attempting to enjoy something with real actors and a real script and real enjoyment.

Or something close enough. She'd only half-listened to Caesar's explanation, unsurprised at a shorter attention span. She was frankly amazed he did so well reading through history as he did -- she'd keep falling asleep. She even did that researching subjects she liked!

One hand comes up to ruffle Lavi's hair, not helping with the five year old argument. Collette was glad they both seemed to be dropping off the verbal back and forth in favor of the film.

Especially as things got going, with Buttercup's betrothal and the interruption from the boy on-screen. Privately, Collette figured she could substitute either guys on either side of her for the kid on screen -- not that she did more than smiling with a particular amused fondness when the on-screen boy piped up, complaining.

Normally he'd have asked questions and fished for information about the United Earth, since they were on the subject anyway, but unfortunately he was getting too engrossed with the story that was unfolding on the small tablet screen. So the talk of actors and holograms mostly just passed over his head. Even Collette's hair ruffle was barely noticed, he only reached up to touch her hand in an automatic reaction.

The fact that it was a love story only captured his interest more, visibly so. He shifted to an indian style sit, putting his elbows on his knees so he could rest his chin on his palms as he leaned forward. Perhaps not the best story he's ever heard, but it's the first he's ever watched like this and since it only just started, it was intriguing enough.

Hence why the sudden interruption by the kid on the screen earned a disapproving frown and a scrunched nose.

"Oi, can't ya just listen to the story?"

It was habit and practice that kept him reading, even when bored out of his own mind. If his teacher had been around, she might be proud! Though... if she had been, the chances of him doing significantly less while she buried herself in books would have been the more likely turn of events. Funny what being cut loose from the people who did half one's work managed to do.

But then they were all fixated on the movie, leaving topics like the United Earth and history behind for now.

Caesar made an amused sound at the interruption, more at Lavi talking at the movie than the boy in the movie itself.

"You know he can't hear you, right?"

Exhaling sharply through her nose, Collette listened to both Caesar and Lavi. The movie wasn't new for her. Their reactions were more entertaining and novel, from the total absorption, to Lavi getting frustrated with one of the characters themselves.

"He's eight," Collette pointed out. "Most kids aren't really sold on the idea of romance. Though there are exceptions!" She punctuated that statement with a lighter, more deliberate pat of Lavi's head.

She'd noted his particular interest, her own expression amused. There was a certain degree of amusing connection when the eight year old on screen was coughing much like they were, only with less congestion. She appreciated the parallel, even as Westley left Buttercup's farm, and along with that, the sanctuary of her embrace.

Time for the time skip, and when things started getting more interesting, in Collette's opinion.

"I know that!" He replied a touch indignant, he's not stupid, though the tone fell away into something more sullen when he replied to Collette.

"Doesn't mean he has to interrupt the story."

Kids, really. Lavi was entirely oblivious to the deliberation behind the pat and he neither protested or brushed the hand off. If Collette wanted to keep her hand there, it was fine with him. He cared more for the movie right now, his hair had been a mess for days now anyway.

He blinked in surprise when news of Westley's dead by the hands of the Dread Pirate Roberts reached Buttercup, lifting his head out of his hands a little.

"Ah, poor girl. Isn't this story moving too fast?"

"Any sensible person isn't sold on it, either," Caesar added. Personal opinion, of course, that entirely ignored his own relationship status somehow.

Lavi had a point, though. The obvious protagonist was suddenly dead? Already? He frown at the screen. No body shown, so maybe not, but that was only a guess. It wasn't until the next jump in the story that Caesar said anything more, where

"What? Marrying a commoner? That's stupid. He doesn't even gain anything for the kingdom. How selfish..."

"Must be in a room full of insensible people," Collette said lightly, leaving her hand on Lavi's head. She snorted at his question about moving fast -- pacing was not exactly a priority to jump into this adventure. She was waiting for Inigo Montonya and the Dread Pirate's showdown on top of the cliffside. Or their reuniting later on.

Not to mention the forest with ROUS.

Caesar's reaction made her laugh out loud, a bark of laughter that turned into a coughing fit she slammed her hand over her mouth to try and contain. She can't help the screen shifting, but after an initial movement, the lack of pulling response from her lower body kept it relatively stable.

Only you, she thought to herself. Only you would be complaining over the lack of sense in a fairy tale marriage. it's thoroughly enjoyable, with it missing the point so completely. There didn't need to be logic. In fact, logic would make the entirety of this film an exercise in frustrated confusion.

"He's named Humperdink. What makes you think he'd be smart?" She was not-so-prettily talking after not-so-prettily spitting out the fluid she'd coughed up into a kleenex. By now it was route habit, second nature and the rest. "Don't use logic, Caesar. You'll hurt yourself trying, trust me."

There was a light snicker at Collette's retort to Caesar, but Lavi made no further comment of his own. He was too preoccupied trying to figure out the pacing of the story. It was weird to make such huge leaps when the story was only just starting, but it kept him curious and if that was its intended purpose, it succeeded.

He was about to turn his head and raise an eyebrow at Caesar when Collette started coughing. It was a normal sound in the room by now, but it never stopped being an unpleasant and worrying one. His hand was far too small to be effective like this, but he moved his arm to pat her on the back.

When the coughing subsided he did finally look to Caesar, almost pointedly. Although it was a question Lavi could understand. Still . . .

"Not very romantic, are ya? He could be marrying her because he fell in love."

Excuse you, Collette, Caesar was very sensible, thank you! The laugh turning into that cough, in fact, made him very sensibly worried, even if the look of worry was contained to only a second or two before he went neutral again.

"It's not as thought I can turn logic off," he complained in place of asking how she was right off the bat. He would give it a moment, also giving Lani a sideglance in the meantime. "If it were mutual, it could be romantic, but it isn't. The narrator just said so!"

Of course, after that, that was when he turned back to Collette to ask, "Do you need something to drink?"

There was something so delightfully academic (which was weird, considering the word rarely occurs to her) to have people be debating the motivation and accountability of Humperdink in his pursuit of Buttercup as the wife his realm needed, and perhaps deserved. Really, the debate was moot: romantic or not (so not), of political value or not (kind of), it'd happened, and the story would only move on from there.

Lavi's hand is a sweet gesture. Collette gave him a small smile, restraining the urge to reassure that she was fine. They both knew how she was doing, just like she knew (generally) how Lavi was doing, or how Caesar was as a matter of course.

Drift was the only one who couldn't get ill, and so she saved on worrying about him.

"How about we watch and see what the answer is to both of those? Where the romance is, and why the faulty politics?" She didn't remember specifics, but Humperdink was using Buttercup just to be able to kill her, and her having no connections in the world made it a tragedy rather than a liability and investigation. Wesley and Buttercup got to have their very tumultuous ups-and-downs attempt at a love that hadn't died.

You know, right after Buttercup managed to get kidnapped, and pushed the Dread Pirate down a hillside into a valley. Asssss yooooooou wiiiiiiiiiish!

"Do we have water? Water'd be nice." She couldn't remember if they still had the cups of it or not, giving Caesar a momentarily confused look as she tried to recall. The confusion moves aside for a small smile, this one meant to be close to reassuring. "Thanks, Caesar." For a lot more than asking if she wanted water, and for having uprooted himself to test out the hospital decor as nap-capable perches ever since he'd shown up and she'd been crocodile morphing and scaring her nurses away.

"It could be a one-sided romance thing! We don't know."

The narrative hadn't even gone into the Humperdink's reasons so really, it proved Collette's point and he nodded sagely in agreement. Wait and see. Which is exactly what Lavi did, after a brief moment of turning his head away to cough and clear his throat, that is.

The appearance of the mysterious, witty stranger in black certainly intrigued him enough to shut him up and keep him focused on the screen anyway. Well, save for some hushed commentary ("Oh, I like him") more uttered to himself than anything. He's only slightly louder when Buttercup pushes the Dread Pirate down the hill, completely unaware of whatever moment Collette and Caesar were having.

"Hah! I knew it!"

"Fine, fine..." So they didn't know yet. "And we have a sink and a cup, so technically, yes."

A cup that Caesar turned to pick up from the nightstand. He wasn't worried in particular if he might miss some of the movie, especially since the trip into the bathroom would take all of a minute. The thanks from Collette only received a shrug as he got up to go and fetch the water, then back again to hand it over, just in time to catch the chase.

The revelation that the mysterious stranger was Will gets a roll of his eyes. That had been pretty obvious, once the man had appeared.

"Considering the audience doesn't witness the death, of course he was coming back."

She sipped quietly on her water, flashing Caesar a smile. She tried not to snort at his assessment. He wasn't far off, but there were offscreen deaths and resurrections a plenty regardless of people being killed where an audience could see them. Good to know some things stayed the same regardless of cultural differences - such as expectations in entertainment.

"Would you ever be that optimistic in real life?" she asked him, watching the screen as Humperdink's pursuit continued, and Buttercup fell into the hands of the kidnapping group that Collette betted would drive Caesar nuts. She bet it just as likely that Lavi would love the entirety.

Inconceivable.

Now that the story was really starting to pick up, Lavi indeed found himself getting into it more and more and, of course, loving it. As secretly skeptical he had felt at seeing the title, as enthusiastic he was now. His eyes stayed on the screen even as he chimed in.

"Well, it was predictable, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing."

People getting to live in fictional stories was a nice change from how often they didn't in real life. Although he doubts Caesar is the optimistic sort, he still tilted his head to listen in on the answer without his gaze drifting from the screen (where he was simultaneously squinting at the kidnapping group.)

"Without an eyewitness to tell me that they did actually see someone dead? It could go either way."

Fake deaths, wild rumors, a rebellion's leader ordering her men not to inform others of her death; in a world with magic and a fair number of immortals, Caesar wouldn't put it past more than a few to have a 'off-screen death' in reality. One could never be sure. That might not hold as true in other worlds, however, and he was aware of that.

"But I'm not sure I would call it optimism," he added with a shrug.

The kidnapping group. Now that was... something.

"Please tell me those are circus runaways only pretending to be villains." He could hope! The sword fight was, at least, entertaining and garnered no further criticism. It would take up until the scene with the poisoned wine to get a groan out of him. "This is getting embarrassing to watch!"

"Practical optimism with friends and allies," she said, "Practical pessimism for enemies." Collette offered no further opinion. She seemed to be of the opinion that overall, practicality was at the heart of the matter. She found it interesting Caesar was so willing to be skeptical -- must be common where he's from, or learned behavior here, or both. Or something completely unrelated! (She suspected some combination of the first two.)

She snorted and grinned when Caesar groaned, appreciating how Lavi was enjoying the story for what it was, and Caesar was having logical conniptions over the villains. "I think the Giant's supposed to be," she said casually, tugging a corner of the pillow at her back further out, shifting her (and to an extent, Lavi's) support. Her tablet moves a little, but when she stops shifting around, it goes as steady as before.

"Would you say it's inconceivably embarrassing?" Her eyes twinkled with good humor, more of a positive warmth (false as it was) in her mannerisms through teasing over the ridiculous of one film versus the ridiculous of current day to day life.

"That's a good way of putting it," Lavi agreed, nodding to the screen but with a slight inclination Collette's way to indicate just who exactly he was agreeing with.

The kidnapping group garnered a headtilt along with a vaguely bemused expression. It would be easy to have a lot to remark on and be skeptical about, but Lavi knew how to shut up and enjoy his stories. Right now it was a most welcome reprieve from the real world. It helped he didn't have to suspend his belief that much, he's met 'villains' just as dim.

More than anything though, he found himself fascinated with the Dread Pirate Roberts and it showed. Collette's shift went pretty much unnoticed, he automatically leaned back, and it was only at her tease Caesar's way that he finally looked up with an amused snort.

"Inconceivable! I think it's pretty fun."

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