triangularity | for Stefan

Maggie spends the first part of the evening on her laptop, liveblogging in one chat window and using the other half of the screen to monitor threads on her section of the After the End Times forum. Maggie's good with people. She never minds a turn on forum duty, and as a beta on the site, she pays her dues just like everyone else who isn't a department head. It's a refreshing change, actually, to have an entirely merit-based system where her last name doesn't mean a thing.

As the first movie winds down, Maggie sets aside the computer, standing up and stretching. She did look around enough to take stock of the room. Almost everyone here is a regular. She knows all of their food and drink preferences, and she fully expects a couple to stay for half the week.

So of course it's the newcomer who caught her attention. He seemed amused by the movie, and she agreed with him on this one. Funny how a horror movies aren't scary at all when the world has turned into one.

Whoever invited him probably pointed her out to Stefan. Maggie got his name from the security scans at the door, but she isn't especially worried about strangers in her house either way. She tosses the remote to another Fictional, letting him take over and set up the next movie.

Stefan's the only one who needs to tell her what he wants, which makes him the logical choice for help fetching it. Maggie makes her way across the room, leans over one arm of the couch, and and introduces herself, probably unnecessarily. "I'm Maggie. Help me carry snacks from the kitchen?"

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She notes the unspoken gratitude and makes a mental note to keep Stefan out of the spotlight. No mentions of him by name in her blog, unless it's in the context of writing. The carefully choreographed dates that she usually offers anyone skittish about attention. Maggie likes being open about her life, so long as she doesn't feel completely like she's living in a fishbowl. She doesn't need to be open about the lives of everyone she's involved with; protecting their privacy comes, if not naturally, then close enough.

Maggie laughs. "I've had to pick up a lot of vocabulary over the years, but why don't you hit me with the highlights now. I have another meal with you to avoid talking science." She thinks that she'll enjoy an informal conversation much more than a more planned out presentation, and it's nice to go into things with the stripped down core of the science already in mind before she has to juggle terminology.

"The short version? Hazel and I've been working on a compound that could potentially work as a blood substitute."

Stefan should sound more excited about his work, but at this point in his career (and life), he's resigned to the stone-cold facts. Blood, the mana that all vampires consumed, couldn't be fully replicated in a lab. It was thicker than water for a reason, and - and honestly, he wants a source of food that isn't contaminated. He might as well have been asking for the Holy Grail.

His voice gets quiet, "We're not there yet. It lacks some important qualities, but it's a lot closer than it's been in the past - and Hazel thinks that we might have a working formula in the next couple of years." He idly pokes at his food. "We're not presenting on that, though. As part of our research, we've also uncovered a new treatment for von Willebrand disease, or uh - a bleeding disorder. Hazel'll do most of the talking, as usual."

Stefan doesn't trust himself to stay calm with the microphone; no, this hits too close to home, and he'd rather give Hazel the credit she deserves. After all, he's not even the PI: just someone who intends to see this until the very end.

for Stefan

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wow this got lost in tag mountain