"A rarity," he offers back with a smile. He's enjoying haggling over how to describe a room of kittens.
"I am," Lionel admits when she asks if he's working. He scratches the top of his head, caught, but any guilt he expresses is only feigned. "One of my resolutions for the new year is to work less. Or: more intentionally. So I have to take advantage of what little time I left."
He walks past her through the doorway before turning back to face his friend. "Do you have any resolutions, Xen?"
Xenia considers this, then concedes with a nod. Definitely a rarity. At least in this context. .... She assumes. (It's true that the community where she grew up is not necessarily or always a shining example of broader American wizarding culture. For all Xenia knows, everyone who lives in these kinds of homes has kitten rooms and they are the latest craze).
She follows carefully after Lionel, trying not to make too much noise in boxy heels. Why had these felt appropriate again? She rarely ever wears heels. She knows better. Her eyebrows raise when he looks at her.
"I never really make any," she admits fuzzily, smiling with her lip in her mouth. "Unless you count just... Planning. Generally. I always go through my planner and think about the year as it's starting. But..." Xenia shrugs. "I could give this one a go. What are your other resolutions? Do you have any that you wouldn't be doing anyway?" That seems like the real key, for resolutions. They have to be their own thing. In her outside opinion.
Music and laughter buzzes through the floor below, waves of sound and excitement. It's probably sort of late now. Xenia lifts her wrist as if to check a watch, then blearily remembers it didn't match her outfit and is back in Angeltread, on her nightstand.
"Maybe I should resolve to stop making stupid choices for fashion," she mumbles.
Lionel gives Xenia and her outfit a look. "You look fine," comes his delayed reply; his lack of fashion sense and less-than-ideal ability to comfort combine spectacularly in this moment.
"Other resolutions?" he ponders as they begin their search for the kitten room. Truth is, he doesn't have others. But he can take ten seconds to do this exercise. "Well," he thinks, "maybe act uncharacteristically from time to time." It's vague and he's not really sure what it means, but it sounds like something Jupiter would approve of. Nobody will hold him to it, he figures.
This pleases Xenia. She brightens, but slides into a moment of self-conscious fidgeting as they continue on.
"But how would you know?" A silly question. The way she voices it is silly, too, with the usual affection of happily pointless debates with friends. "Maybe something was always characteristic to you, but you never got the chance to embody it." It could be true. Sometimes people don't really know what they're capable of until they do it.
"I'm not sure it'd be characteristic if you haven't done it yet," Lionel weighs her point, brow furrowed in pleased contemplation. "Wouldn't it only become characteristic after the fact?"
He stops himself. "I guess getting into small philosophical debates would qualify as characteristic of me," he smiles sheepishly in his own self-awareness. "And that wouldn't satisfy my resolution." After a moment of thought, he does something uncharacteristic and gets down on his hands and knees. "Well," he says up at Xenia, "we're not going to find these kittens all the way up there."
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peckenpaugh2019-12-31 11:43 am
MIDNIGHT: Lionel & Xenia
She opens the door a smidge wider, beckoning Lionel through it. Now that he's standing, though, the laptop is more noticeable. Her brow furrows.
"Were you working on something?" she hisses, hushed voice crackling like faulty autotune.
MIDNIGHT: Lionel & Xenia
"I am," Lionel admits when she asks if he's working. He scratches the top of his head, caught, but any guilt he expresses is only feigned. "One of my resolutions for the new year is to work less. Or: more intentionally. So I have to take advantage of what little time I left."
He walks past her through the doorway before turning back to face his friend. "Do you have any resolutions, Xen?"
MIDNIGHT: Lionel & Xenia
She follows carefully after Lionel, trying not to make too much noise in boxy heels. Why had these felt appropriate again? She rarely ever wears heels. She knows better. Her eyebrows raise when he looks at her.
"I never really make any," she admits fuzzily, smiling with her lip in her mouth. "Unless you count just... Planning. Generally. I always go through my planner and think about the year as it's starting. But..." Xenia shrugs. "I could give this one a go. What are your other resolutions? Do you have any that you wouldn't be doing anyway?" That seems like the real key, for resolutions. They have to be their own thing. In her outside opinion.
Music and laughter buzzes through the floor below, waves of sound and excitement. It's probably sort of late now. Xenia lifts her wrist as if to check a watch, then blearily remembers it didn't match her outfit and is back in Angeltread, on her nightstand.
"Maybe I should resolve to stop making stupid choices for fashion," she mumbles.
MIDNIGHT: Lionel & Xenia
"Other resolutions?" he ponders as they begin their search for the kitten room. Truth is, he doesn't have others. But he can take ten seconds to do this exercise. "Well," he thinks, "maybe act uncharacteristically from time to time." It's vague and he's not really sure what it means, but it sounds like something Jupiter would approve of. Nobody will hold him to it, he figures.
MIDNIGHT: Lionel & Xenia
"But how would you know?" A silly question. The way she voices it is silly, too, with the usual affection of happily pointless debates with friends. "Maybe something was always characteristic to you, but you never got the chance to embody it." It could be true. Sometimes people don't really know what they're capable of until they do it.
MIDNIGHT: Lionel & Xenia
He stops himself. "I guess getting into small philosophical debates would qualify as characteristic of me," he smiles sheepishly in his own self-awareness. "And that wouldn't satisfy my resolution." After a moment of thought, he does something uncharacteristic and gets down on his hands and knees. "Well," he says up at Xenia, "we're not going to find these kittens all the way up there."