fandomhighdorms | 2nd Floor Hallway, Afternoon.

Cally has not been having a good day. She had been going over her revised, carefully drawn plans for Pippi's outboard motor, but a slight misstep, a trip, and a fall later, she found them disappearing down an air vent.

Not one to be defeated by an air vent, Cally quickly hops down to her room, put on her orange jumpsuit, straps on her toolbelt, and heads out to start unscrewing the vent...

"Hey, Cally," Zero said as she happened by on her way to her room. "Whatcha up to?"

Cally looks up and waves to Zero. "Well, I dropped something in the vent. I'm thinking it might've wedged itself in, so I'm kinda hoping that just reaching in might let me get it back."

So of course this is when Anders comes jogging down the hallway after his workout, intent on hitting the showers. But it's hard to miss the sight of that bright orange jumpsuit, really, and anyway, when has Anders ever not noticed when Cally's around? (Yes, there was that whole completely oblivious thing from before they were dating. Shh. He's so over that now.)

"Whatcha doin' with the tools out in the middle of the hallway, coach?" he asks, sidling up beside her with his hands in his pockets.

"You call her coach?"

"Yeah?" Anders blinks. "Long story. Is that, like, bad or something? I mean, does that have some kind of bad meaning here that I should know about?"

"No, nothing wrong with that." Zero worries about that boy sometimes...

Krycek wandered by on his way to his own room and eyed with wary curiosity the small gathering around jumpsuited!Cally. "Whatcha guys up to?"

"You know, if I'm gonna have to explain this eight-thousand times, I'm gonna go crazy," Cally says, finally having removed the last screw from the vent plate. "Anyone want to help pry this off, now?"

Hamlet spies a group of people people starting to gather in the hallway, and decides to check that out before heading to the second floor common room. He catches the middle and end of Cally's comment.

"Going crazy is not nearly as bad as people say it is. I've been there a few times myself."

He tries to look at what she's up to.

"Why? What are you doing that is driving you mad?"

Macbeth couldn't help but overhear the conversation in the hallway. He and madness went together like... well...
Things that went together good. There really wasn't a comparison.

Without really making his presence obvious, he crept closer, curious about the source of the aforementioned madness. If it was some sort of pandemic, he would like to know about it.

"Okay, as much as I appreciate all the curiosity? If two of you could pull this vent screen off the wall, that'd be a lot more helpful." Cally totally isn't eyeing Anders at this point. Nope.

Huh? Vent? Screen? Wall?

Oh, wait, he knew what that last one was. And attached to that last one, there was undeniably something else, which could only be the vent screen that the girl had been referring to.

"Certainly, lass," Macbeth said, moving to grab at the vent and starting to pry to the best of his ability. Yeah. A hand would have been nice. But he was stubborn, and was going to make an arse of himself before deciding that he would be needing help.

Not that Anders was thinking about whether or not anyone was asking for help. This sort of grunt work is right up his alley, so he gets a hold of the vent screen from the other side and gives it a mighty tug.

It's entirely possible that Xander is walking past him down the hall at exactly this moment, heading, or so he thinks, for the Common Room.

"Are we vandalizing for fun, profit, or both?" Xander asks, peering... well, not over Anders' shoulder, because he ain't short, but he ain't that tall.

"Not exactly profit," Cally says, watching as the vent screen comes loose. "I gotta get something out of there. It fell and, well, I think it got wedged in a bit. So I'm gonna reach in and get it out. Simple as that." Cally looks around. "I totally didn't think this could turn into some sort of big event."

"It's the weekend, and we're teenagers?" Xander's clinging to that one last year of being able to say that about himself with surprising ferocity. "We've met us; we can turn burnt toast into a big event."

"We're full of surprising apathy for exciting things, but give us an object lost down an air vent and we're there," Krycek added dryly. "What'd you lose, anyway?"

"Plans," Cally says, pulling out a wee flashlight from her toolbelt. "For the fourth try at Pippi's outboard motor. I think it finally is gonna work. Course, without the plans, it's back to the drawing board. Literally."

Anders frowns. "We can't have that. You've been frustrated enough already," he says, dropping the vent screen. "We goin' in after 'em? Though I dunno if I can fit in there. You probably can, though."

"That's the idea," Cally says, sticking her head into the now-exposed vent. "Okay, I can see it. It's not too far down, so I should be able to reach it."

"You sure?" Xander asks, grinning. "Your legs are kinda barely long enough to reach the floor."

"Oh, ha ha," Cally says, crawling further into the vent and outstretching her arm. "It's nice to be small, you know. Though that might not hold true to guys, I--" Cally's snarking is cut off as she unbalances and falls headfirst into the vent with a shriek.

Really, purely out of context, Anders's facial expression would be completely comical.

Okay, it probably is anyway. He's not feeling too much amusement right now, though, as his eyes go wide and he yelps, "Coach? Cally? Okay, frak, not good."

He makes a leap for the vent with an arm outstretched to try and make a grab for Cally. And, well, he certainly does make a valiant attempt at it, except for the tiny details of leaping headfirst into the top of the vent frame, knocking himself half-unconscious, and falling down the vent shaft in hot, if unconscious, pursuit of Cally.

"Oh for-- people, cartoon physics do not work for people who are not cartoons! Concussions hurt. Broken necks ow." Xander boosts himself up to the open vent and peers down into the shaft, reaching blindly to see if there's still a long Anders-leg or two near enough to be grabbed.

And completely overbalancing, so that he ends up sliding, outstretched hands in front of him, straight down the shaft himself.

"Crap."

Zero grabbed for Xander's leg in a desperate attempt to stop him falling down the shaft, and her being a tiny person, got dragged down behind him. "SQUALL!"

As much as it seemed like a really bad idea, Krycek grabbed for Zero's leg as Xander's plummeting weight hauled her into the vent.

He wasn't particularly surprised to find himself being dragged down the airshaft a moment later, remembering belatedly that no good deed goes unpunished.

In a moment of pure stupidity, Hamlet reaches to grab Krycek's leg and stop him from falling down the chute. It kind of work for a few seconds before the inertia of four falling bodies kicks in and drags Hamlet down the chute as well.

He probably should have stayed in his room to brood today. Much safer.

Not to be outdone, and mostly not thinking about the fact that he would be trying to support the combined weight of several falling high school students, Macbeth grabs Hamlet's boot in turn and a sixth falling student is added to the chain.

He was pretty sure that somewhere, at some point in history, some nasty bearded trio of wrinkled old hags was laughing at him.

[OOC: What is in store for our intrepid band of unfortunate heroes? Stay tuned, Same FH-time, Same FH-channel... later today. Preplayed with all parties involved, no IC interaction allowed, OOC commentary happy-shiny fun time okay.]