fandomhighdorms | The Roof [of Smoking], Thursday Evening

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The Roof [of Smoking], Thursday Evening

It was strange being back in Fandom, even after almost two weeks since his return. He'd not been getting out much, really, so it felt good to get up to the roof.

He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, the first pack he'd bought in the past... Well, quite a long time. He usually didn't smoke alone, but something about the night just begged for one. So he opened the pack, slicing open the plastic cover with a fingernail (he really needed to get those cut), and tapped out one cigarette.

The spell to light it was easy enough -- calling heat was almost rudimentary, and, really, took almost less energy than pulling out a lighter, or striking a match. Breathing in, he let the smoke fill his lungs, and then released it with a sigh.

[Open like a roof, for anyone who'd have any reason to be up here! :D ]

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Katchoo took several slow, deliberate drags, inhaling to a count of four and exhaling the smoke into thin, controlled streams before responding.

"Found out my best friend's here." As answers went, it could go either way.

"Yeah? That a good thing, or a bad thing?"

As the narrative said, it could go either way. Not that Ronan could read the narrative, but he wasn't stupid.

"It's Francine." There was definite affection in the way she said the name, but the statement didn't do much to clarify matters.

No, no, it didn't, but Ronan smiled anyway. "Glad you could see her again," he told her. "I bet she's happy to see you, too."

"Mmph," said Katchoo as she extracted the cigarette from her mouth and exhaled. "Wouldn't let just anyone hug the crap out of me in the middle of class, y'know."

"... No," Ronan said, eying Katchoo and reevaluating her. "No, I rather imagine you wouldn't."

"There's people, and then there's Francine," Katchoo replied, flinching almost imperceptibly from the scrutiny.

Not wanting to delve too far into that line of thought, because it was guaranteed to let out more of her softer side than she cared to expose, she flicked away a bit of ash and asked, "So, Irish, since you're supposed to be the guy I go to for all the mentoring crap, you wanna explain the time weirdness to me? Last time I saw Francine was about two years ago, and she says it was six months."

"Oh, you got hit with that, too?" Ronan asked. "When I got here, I was from a year in the past. And a friend of mine who was already here was from the present -- and had been here for eight months already, so she actually left for the school four months after I did." He blinked, calculated, nodded. "Yeah, that sounds right," he said. "Of course, then I spent a year... elsewhere... over the course of a weekend here, and caught up." He shrugged. "It happens. Just try to go with it, I guess."

Katchoo's eyebrows had done an amusing little dance throughout this explanation, creeping toward each other, shooting up, twitching, going slack, creeping toward each other again -- about the eyebrow equivalent of a tarantella.

"Well, shit," she said finally. "You mean the nerds at the corner table in the cafeteria were onto something? Now I wish I'd paid attention."

"Yeah, something like that." Ronan flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette, not paying attention to it as it fell to the roof. He was... rather amused by the dance he'd just seen on Katchoo's face.

"Anyway," he added. "Francine may go away for a weekend and catch up to you, or maybe your timelines have caught up now, or something. Maybe time's just a bit twisty for you guys. It's hard to say, here."

"God, no more twisty," she grumbled. "It's been twisty enough, and I don't wanna have to figure it out. Coke-bottle glasses aren't a good look on me."

"Truthfully, I don't think they're a good look for anyone," Ronan retorted. "But yeah, most definitely not flattering for you.

"I recommend just accepting it and moving on," he added. "Really, when we've got parrots attaching to our shoulders one day, and insulting pirates the next, you might as well just... not think about it too hard."

She had practice in not thinking about life too hard in the interest of not breaking; it was just a whole different kind of not thinking about it.

"Yeah," Katchoo said finally. "Why waste the brainpower, right?"

There was a story, there, in that hesitation. Probably two or three. Maybe more.

But it wasn't Ronan's place to pry, not now, not yet. Not when they'd just barely begun to know each other. "Yeah," he agreed, after a moment. "Yeah, why waste it?"

"Exactly," Katchoo said. "Minds being a precious thing to waste and all that. And not enough of 'em to go around, either."

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The Roof [of Smoking], Thursday Evening

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