> Rose: Do a “Girls’ Night Out”
Gift fic for @askingroselalonde for the @homestucksecretsanta2015 exchange! Sorry it’s a little late (not deadline-late but Christmas-late) but I hope you like it! Posted over at AO3 and also under the cut. Also, let me know if you have an AO3 account so I can properly list you as the giftee. c: Merry late Christmas!
Roxy’s phone rings, but she’s driving so she passes it to Rose. Rose accepts, with one eyebrow arched in question (the other one’s busy trying to figure out what to do about Dave, who she’s also speaking to on the phone).
“It’s Janey,” Roxy explains. “Dunno what she wants, but you better answer it.”
Rose nods. “Dave, one moment, I have an important phone call to take. No, this call with you is not ‘more important than any call I’ll ever make in my life’, Dave. Just because you and John are bored doesn’t mean you’re entitled to my attention -” She gives up and just sets the phone down. Dave’s voice keeps rambling on, sounding small and far away now that the phone’s in her lap instead of against her ear.
“Yes?” she says into Roxy’s.
“Tell Roxy we lost her cat,” comes the answer. Jane sounds stressed, and she’s speaking in a rush - Rose can’t get a word in edgewise. “And the cake might be a little late, something’s gone wrong -” Here Jane clears her throat and Rose assumes she glares accusingly at someone, but as she’s not on the other side of the line she has no idea who it might be. (It’s Jade.)
“Oh shit - watch out,” Roxy goes from beside her, and Rose looks up just in time to see their car swerve dangerously around a pedestrian. The pedestrian flips them the bird. “Yeah, fuck you too!” the elder Lalonde yells. She mutters a few more things under her breath, including “walking across the road in the middle of a storm, who does he even think he is” and “prolly should’ve just hit him”.
Rose ignores this and keeps doing her job, which in this case is ‘handling Jane’. Dave is still talking, though at this point less to Rose and more to John and thin air.
“We looked everywhere,” Jane’s saying. “Well, most places. I can’t leave the oven for long in case something burns, but Jade’s supposed to have checked the places I didn’t. Actually, Jade was supposed to be watching Mutie.” Another clearing of the throat, another pause that Rose is left out of. “But yes, anyway - tell Roxy we’re terribly sorry, and that at least we’re sure he’s not out there in the storm!”
“I’ll be sure to convey that to her,” Rose promises, and hangs up.
“Convey what?” Roxy is distracted, trying to maneuver around a small tree that’s fallen onto the road without losing speed or control. “What’s up?”
“They lost Mutie, and the cake may or may not be burnt. Schrodinger's cake,” Rose replies. “Actually, I don’t think the cake’s ready yet -”
“What?” Roxy looks like she’s about to whip her head around to stare at her, so Rose makes a little noise in her throat and makes a gesture that says ‘watch the road’. Roxy obliges, if only because of the treacherous weather conditions, but she doesn’t stop talking. “Dammit, now I don’t know whether to drive faster or slower. On the one hand, Mutie! But on the other hand, if the cake’s not ready we don’t have to rush to get there before it’s cold.”
“Just go at a reasonable speed,” Rose advises, and picks up her own phone again.
“- and it’s like that missing sock is not having any of that. It’s pulling a Houdini on us, except it doesn’t die of tragic mishandled performance in the end. Did Houdini drown, or what happened -”
“Hello.” After Dave breaks off mid-metaphor, there’s a pause and sounds of scuffling. Rose listens, amused.
“Oh, Rose! You’re back!” John appears to have taken the phone from Dave. “Where are you and Roxy even going? Dave was explaining, but he’s not very good at it.” Rose hears a disgruntled protest.
“I can imagine, if you’re already onto tangents about socks in the few minutes I was preoccupied.” Rose bites down on a laugh when she hears Dave start going off about how exactly it managed to be related. (“As related as you and I, sister dear, which we both know means jack shit at this point.”) “We’re having a Christmas Eve Eve party with Jane and Jade. We’ve been over this already.”
“Yeah, I know, but the part I don’t get is why we weren’t invited! Christmas is a time for family.” Rose can practically hear the pout.
“Christmas is. Christmas Eve Eve isn’t, as far as I know, and anyway Roxy was adamant on a Girls’ Night Out.” Rose makes sure the capitals are made evident, even verbally.
“I don’t get that part either! You’re just going over to Jane’s. That’s not going Out.”
“Well, I’m with Roxy out here in the raging storm. If that’s not ‘going out’ I’m not sure what is.” John sounds like he wants to keep arguing, but Roxy stops the car and taps Rose on the elbow. “I have to go,” Rose tells him, and hangs up.
Jane flings the door open after two knocks. “Thank God you’re here! The gosh darned cat keeps meowing, but the smoke detector was going off at the time so it was impossible to tell where it was coming from, and then when we turned off the smoke detector the cat stopped meowing!”
Jade comes to the door too, slightly less frazzled-looking. “Rose! Roxy! You’re here, took you long enough.” Rose suffers through a hug, while Roxy reciprocates enthusiastically.
“Don’t worry, Janey, we’ll figure something out.” Roxy flaps a hand at Jane from over Jade’s shoulder, and Jane looks a little less disgruntled. “Now - you can go with Rose to solve the Case of the Weird-Ass Cake Issues, and I’ll go find Mutie with Jade!”
“Well, sounds like a plan.” Jane leads Rose to the kitchen.
“Now, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed - a lot of the time you subconsciously ignore things because you’ve been immersed in them for a while, and you were very busy besides...” Rose begins.
“I assume you’re referring to the pumpkin smell,” Jane answers. “And the way the cake has gone all squashy in the middle, and taken on a particular orange hue.”
“And all those empty cans labelled Pumpkin lined up on the counter there,” Rose adds.
Jane sighs. “I knew Jade was trying to hide something from me, I just couldn’t figure out what between the cat-searching and the smoke detector. Jade!” she calls, sternly.
“Pumpkin is the best, you just don’t realize it yet!” comes the reply from elsewhere in the house.
“Doesn’t mean the recipe can handle five extra cans of material,” Jane grumbles, but she doesn’t seem particularly upset. “Thanks for the help, Rose - go aid the cat-seeking maneuvers, I’ll stay here and try to salvage the cake.”
“All right,” Rose says, and goes.
Roxy is looking in cat-probable places, like the washing machine and under the couch. Jade appears to be moving things around when Roxy’s back is turned, apparently to make her job more difficult, and starts when she sees Rose.
“Hi!”
“Jade, where did you put Mutie?” Rose crosses her arms and tries to look scolding, but she’s only half serious so she only one-quarter succeeds.
One of Jade’s ears flicks, annoyed. “Look, I love him and all, but he kept walking right in front of us and we were both tripping all over the place!” She mock-pouts. “Also, dog instincts.”
“More like he was valiantly trying to foil your evil pumpkin plot,” Roxy chimes in, prodding Jade in the side. She gneeps and jumps, and Roxy giggles. “Okay, so where’d you put him?”
Jade gives in, at the threat of more tickle-pokes. “In the cupboard where the pumpkin cans used to be.”
They rescue Mutie, who doesn’t seem to have minded much, and Jane presents the slightly-soggy cake. It’s still decent, so they all have seconds, and then curl up together to watch a movie and flick popcorn at each other and the cat.
