afraid_of_marshmallows | Midnight Manor Boarding House Movie Room, Saturday Evening

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Midnight Manor Boarding House Movie Room, Saturday Evening

As soon as Kamala had turned back into a person yesterday, Arden and Eleanor had swung into action. Arden had contacted Mr. and Mrs. Khan to let them know that Operation Birthday Bash was a go and about what time she'd be by to pick up the cake, and then called Mr. Najaf to see if he would be willing to cook up a whole slew of gyros (including some vegan gyros in case Steven or Watts showed up) for Kamala's birthday the next day. She also messaged Bruno and asked Mr. and Mrs. Khan if they could pass the invitation on to Nakia, letting them know about the party and offering to arrange portal service if they could make it out. After that had come ~~handwavily~~ messaging everybody else to let them know that they were celebrating Kamala's belated birthday at Midnight Manor on Saturday evening.

And lo, now it was the appointed hour. Ellie was keeping Kamala distracted upstairs (Arden was not asking how), and she was here setting out drinks (sodas, though Mr. Khan had sent Arden home with a jug of 'sweet tea,' which she had been very appreciative of and had appreciatively poured down the drain once she'd gotten home), gyros, and setting out Mrs. Khan's cake, leaving a spot in case Ellie had somehow managed to find or invent a Squishie cake. Bollywood movies were playing on the TV (though currently with the volume very low), there was a karaoke machine on standby, balloons and streamers were up, the guests ~~Avengers~~ assembled...

Now all they needed was the co-host and the birthday girl!

[Open! If you're a student, a resident of Midnight Manor, or just think Kamala is cool, feel free to handwave yourself an invite!]

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Arden's expression definitely shifted towards 'Oh no! Caught!' and she flushed a bit. "Oh. Um. The, ah, twenty-nineth?"

"Of course we didn't have to," Eleanor said, once she was recovered a little bit from that hug and especially that kiss. Maybe one of these days, she would be able to be a little less surprised by Kamala's easy and open affection with her, but she wasn't quite there yet. Not that she didn't revel in every little bit of it, of course, but it still threw her off. Once she steadied again, though, she leaned into it, into Kamala, arm around her waist and half tempted to just not let her go for the rest of the night. "But we wanted to. As soon as you turned back to yourself again."

Which they hadn't expected to happen almost immediately after discussing it, but they did well on a time-crunch!

"I'm coming to think that any year in Fandom is a pretty good year," Charlie admitted. "Really keeps you on your toes and amazing people."

"Surprise! Happy birthday!" Cal said, accompanied by a happy cheer from BD. "And congrats on being a person again."

There was probably a better way to phrase that, but it wasn't coming to him at the moment, sorry.

And now the lift of Eleanor's brows weren't speculative as much as they were surprised. And maybe a little panicked.

"Of this month?" she asked. "August??"

Well, looks like she was immediately going to have to start collaborating with Kamala on Third Birthday Party Weekend in a Row, then!

"Or your mom--" Or Aunt Ruby, who was to say? "--told him to do it because I'm just a poor college kid saving up to pay her rent," Arden said with a laugh.

Sure, Marc was being stubborn about that, but Arden was gonna figure something else out. Any day now.

The reminder of the sweet tea had Arden's eye twitching slightly, but she continued to smile. "Only a glass, but then your mom reminded him I had to go and finish party prep. Don't worry though, I already disposed of the rest."

Sorry, Midnight.

"It really is amazing what they can do at J,GoB!" Eleanor agreed, looking pleased as she came over to Charlie with a grateful sort of smile. "Hi, Charlie. Thanks for coming."

The more people here to celebrate Kamala like she deserved, the better, after all.

"I haven't had a birthday party like this since I was twelve," Kamala laughed, and definitely not letting go of Eleanor just yet. "But you and Arden are so sweet for doing this. I would have been happy with just a pizza and a movie but this is so much better."

And now there was a short but gentle kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. This is fantastic."

"I know right?" Kamala said, cheerfully. "Despite all the weirdness I just love this place."

"Thank you!" Kamala said giving Cal a brief hug and BD a pat on the head. "And thank you for coming. And yes, I'm totally happy being human again. Being a sloth was cool and all but there's only so much leaves and fruit I can eat."

But that weekend was the Welcome Party for all the new kids ~~and also her mun would be off in the woods~~.

"Um...yeah?" Arden said, rubbing the back of her neck like a beleaguered anime character. "I mean, legally. They weren't really sure how old I was when they found me, so they just kinda picked a day."

"Thanks for inviting me. I'm always glad to celebrate with cool people," Charlie said. She considered for a moment. "Well, I'm pretty happy to celebrate just in general, but it's even better when it's cool people like everyone here."

Midnight was probably going to block Mr. Khan from entering based on his recipes during family weekend.

"You really are the best," Kamala said, hand over her heart. "This is fantastic. Thank you."

"I thought my Aunties were kind of crazy sending me here, but darn it all, I have to admit they were right." She looked at Kamala and grinned, "Which I am totally not telling them, obviously, or they'd never stop trying to run my life."

Cal was definitely here to be social and hang out with people. But he had also just discovered Mario Kart, so people might need to talk to him between races.

Harsh, but fair.

"It's true," Arden teased. "I'm pretty great. But so are you." She nudged Kamala. "Life's been even better since you showed up. This is just me saying thank you for being you, and I'm pretty sure that's how Ellie sees it, too."

"It was all mostly Arden," Eleanor admitted, which was probably why it had gone as well as it did, although even she had to admit, if she'd have managed to mess up something like this, then she really was hopeless, "but I'm glad I could help where I could."

And was she also sort of realizing that maybe this was a first step toward shaking off the specter of that last disastrous party? Maybe. But things lately had felt like taking a lot of steps away from a lot of her ghosts of the recent past, a thought that left her just sort of leaning her head toward Kamala's a little.

"Guess we'll just have to pick up where we left off upstairs later."

Well, then, they'd just have to figure something out for it eventually! Because not everyone could have the convenience of finally picking a date just shortly after it had passed!

"They seemed to have picked well, at least," Eleanor offered, as her surprised expression shifted into something quite a bit softer, as her eyes drifted again toward Kamala, but continued over to Cal as well. "You're in good company, anyway.

"Mine's in July, by the way," she added, too, noticing how the topic immediately seemed to make Arden feel a little awkward, so she didn't want to belabor it too much. "The first. So we can at least get a little bit of a breather there."

"You have been here for me just as much as I have been there for you," Kamala said with a laugh. "I'm so lucky to have you and everyone else here in my life."

She looked around the room and just smiled.

"I never thought I'd find a family and a community I love more than the one I had back home. I'm very happy to find this one and to have it be just as good as my family and friends from Jersey."

"Yeah," Eleanor had to chuckle a little bit with her nod. "That definitely does help, and everyone here is pretty cool."

She felt she could say that with pretty good authority just on how cool everyone was with her, which had absolutely not been the case at her last school.

"And, apparently," she added, now a little curious because it had come up with Arden, "August is pretty fully loaded with birthdays, too. Yours was earlier in the month, too, wasn't it?"

Eleanor didn't remember the exact day; she just remembered finding Charlie on the beach recently and celebrating with her.

In light of finding out that Arden's birthday was coming up pretty soon, too, and wondering if that meant the Party Boss title would have to be temporarily given to her or Kamala, and just knowing she should get to know Cal a little bit better, anyway, Eleanor gave him a small smile and a shy kind of wave.

When he wasn't distracted by a race, anyway.

"Hi, Cal," she said, and gave a little nod to his robot, which was still a little curious and strange to her, but when hasn't her life been full of curious and strange things? "Hi, BD. How are you?"

"July first, I'll remember that," Arden said quickly, happy to leap onto the shift in conversation. Explaining her fraught relationship with her birthday just felt like maybe looking for pity, or like she was trying to guilt people into celebrating her. And that wasn't even taking into account that she'd run away from ho--from Callista's house last year on her birthday to avoid her debts.

Birthdays were very complicated.

"Beach party for you next year, huh?"

Well, so far no one has been eaten and no one had started a fire, so we're just going to call this party a success.

Kamala laughed a little as she rested her forehead a little on Eleanor's.

"Oh really? I thought you wanting more food was just an excuse to get out of my never ending lecture on all the heroes of my home world," Kamala teased. "Because if that's the case, I haven't even started on Tony Stark and his first Iron Man suit."

"Oh you have Aunties too?" Kamala asked. "Are they your real aunts or are they the ones who aren't related to you but keep their noses in your business where they don't really belong?"

"You ever stop and think that what they have in common is you?" Arden asked, with a smile. "That being said, I'm pretty sure I made your parents cry when I called to ask about the cake."

She was like 90% sure Mr. Khan had been sniffling, Mrs. Khan was a much harder read.

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Midnight Manor Boarding House Movie Room, Saturday Evening

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