Fourth floor common room, Monday evening

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco had claimed the remote as his own and was now channel surfing from about a foot away from the television. There was a big, forgotten bowl of popcorn behind him.

Comments

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"New guy," Anders said with a brief wave.

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"I assume you're an old guy, then?" Jim asked. "I'm Jim."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"My fourth semester here, yep. Hey, Jim. Name's Anders." He offered a hand -- for a handshake, or maybe one of those knuckle-punch things guys did. He was totally adaptable that way. "Haven't run home screaming yet, huh? That's usually a good sign."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

Jim reached out to shake and smiled. "I've only been here a few days. There's still plenty of time to scare me off. I haven't even had my first class yet."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? What're you taking?" Anders asked, interested. "Some classes around here are more . . . intense than others."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"Nothing intense, hopefully," Jim said. "I've got US History, Government, and tomorrow I start off with Home Ec."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Oh, that's not too bad," Anders assured him -- oh, so naively. "Long as you don't accidentally set fire to the kitchen like me and Sam Carter did over the summer, you should be fine . . . speaking of Carter, has anyone warned you about her cooking yet?"

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"Nope," Jim said. "I imagine it's bad?"

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders screwed up his face for a moment, as if he was trying to decide whether to err on the side of exaggeration or understatement.

"Well," he said finally, "I don't think it's quite as bad as she makes it out to be, but there is an ongoing rumor that it makes people sing and dress up funny. And she said something about the CDC once . . ."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

Jim looked over to the side and made a strange face - that was kind of his thing - then turned back to Anders. "I'll do my best to avoid her cooking. Thanks for the heads up."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"No problem, man. Just looking out for everybody's sanity," Anders replied.

A beat.

"Not that you'll have any left, after about a semester."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"You've been here four semesters. So that would mean that you're completely insane?" Jim asked.

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Didn't anybody tell you?" Anders replied mock-innocently. "We're all mad insane here. It's in the fine print on the curriculum."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"I'm learning that people haven't told me a lot, and what they did tell me should have been told a bit more convincingly," Jim said. "And they really should put the insanity thing on the brochure."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Anders said. "That bit might not go over so well with all the parents. Speaking of which, how'd you end up here?"

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"There was something about a lack of motivation with anything but basketball, and maybe some pranks that I still claim I didn't commit against the principal even though he had it coming," Jim said. "I think they felt I would focus better here."

Jim took a long look around. "That was probably a mistake."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but a plus for you, I'm thinking." Anders tugged absently at a stray thread on the cuff of his sweatshirt and smirked. "Dude, my mom wanted me to come here so I could focus on studying instead of playing Pyramid. 'course, my dad wanted me to come here so I could focus on playing Pyramid instead of being distracted by my mom wanting me not to, so . . ."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"You're a quiz show guy?" Jim asked. He only knew of the one kind of Pyramid, after all. "I never would have expected that."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders blinked and completely missed out on the reference -- hey, he'd only had one Pop Culture class so far. "No, I suck at those things. Unless there's sports categories."

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

Jim was confused. "I thought you said you played the Pyramid."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders was also confused. "The one and only, yeah! Best sport in the history of ever!"

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

"There's a sport called Pyramid?" Jim asked.

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Sure is," Anders said stubbornly. It was a good thing he'd left that court diagram in the pocket of a pair of jeans that went through the wash, or he'd be subjecting Jim to it now. "If I don't accomplish anything else before I graduate, I'm gonna make sure that Earth knows all about the awesomeness of Pyramid."