Fightin' Fox Cabin, Sunday Afternoon

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn was trying very hard not to resent the cabins for taking away two weeks of her last few weeks living with Sam, but it wasn't working as well as she wanted it to. To distract herself (and because she had to do it if she expected to sleep anyway), Dawn was outside the cabin, drawing protective sigils on the outside of the window sills near her bunk.

Salting the inside would be next.

[ooc: Open to cabinmates, anyone who's wondering what she's up to, wants to help, or wants her to stop.]

Comments

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"To get a doctorate? Yeah," Lana said. "Four years of college, two more for a masters, another 2 probably for the doctorate... I'm in it for the long haul. Assuming I'm good enough."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Of course you'll be good enough," Dawn waved off that concern like it was nothing, nodding with approval of Lana's painting job. "I mean, not only did you already have field experience and like it, but you also survived this place intact. Compared to that, school's nothing."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana smiled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm actually hoping that my time here will help make me more open to possibilities. And think how helpful I could be to people from here who might need someone with my skills but know the police would never believe them."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Do you want to stay in Connecticut?" Dawn asked, already making a mental note to know where Lana was going to be, just in case they ever needed someone to investigate slayery stuff. "Open-minded is never a bad thing."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana shrugged. "I haven't really thought that far ahead. I don't really have a home to go back to, so I have no idea where I'll end up."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"What happened to your home?" Dawn asked, instantly concerned.

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"I just..." Lana shrugged. "It's not like the town is gone. But I don't have any family or a house there or anything."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"So you'll go someplace where you do have family," Dawn shrugged. "Whether it's here, New Haven, or someplace else. It's all about where people you love live, right?"

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

She nodded. "Exactly. And since at the moment I don't have family anywhere, I'm pretty open to going anywhere."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Northern California is nice," Dawn hinted. "Lots of Fandomites there."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana laughed. "I might just end up there. Ask me again in seven and a half years."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"I'll do that," she grinned.

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"I can't deny that I'm kind of hoping I'll meet someone, though," Lana said. "Someone special that maybe someday I could start my own family with. You know, despite my terrible luck with men."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn might have looked a little sad, just thinking of Sam and how she'd be leaving him in a few weeks. "Maybe they're not the right guy, then? I mean, like, they can seem like the right guy at the time, but it can turn out that your timing's off or you want different things, or whatever."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"Or you know, they die," Lana said lightly. "Or leave your world for good. Yes, it's true, I have supremely bad luck. But there's always hope it will change, right? Since Ino's fairly sure it's not an actual curse."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"You so need to talk to my sister sometime," Dawn said, trying very hard not to eyeroll at Buffy's situation. "And yep, there's always hope. What'd she do to check?"

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"Really? She has similar luck?" Lana asked. "I'm not sure. I think most of it is just Ino's refusal to accept that which she doesn't want to, but Phoebe didn't think I was either."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn started counting off on her fingers. "Asshole, loser, dead guy who turned evil, boring but nice Army guy who left by helicopter, different dead guy who ended up raping her..."

"Anyway," she sighed, "if you don't remember being cursed, or doing anything worthy of a curse to someone who could curse you or who knew someone that could curse you, or feeling it hit, you probably weren't. The people I know who are cursed said it was pretty memorable."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"Killed in action, dead then resurrected and tried to kill me, left to go to another galaxy where his life is in constant danger and he can't get home, pulled out of school by his father and back to his own world. And those are just the serious ones."

Lana sighed. "They don't include the bug guy who developed a crush and abducted me and wrapped me in a cocoon, the psycho shapeshifter who buried me alive, the were-creature boy who wrote me poetry and then attacked me, the guy who could split himself into two and tried to throw me over a dam - worst date ever - and the other shapeshifter who tried to get me to run away with him and then tried to kill and bury me. Maybe your sister and I should talk."

"Actually... I say a curse, but... a lot of people in my town are affected by these meteors that fell - they become mutants with weird abilities - and I kind of wonder if this is my mutation."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Holy crap." Dawn stared at Lana, almost awed as she listened to the recitation. "That would be the worst mutation ever."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Lana said. "I think the guy who killed everything he touched - like literally the second he touched it? I think that would be worse. Though the bug guy who shed all his skin and turned into a sort of human insect thing would come a close second."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

And now Dawn was eyeing Lana pretty seriously. "Are you sure you're not from Sunnydale? Geez, you didn't need Fandom to be open-minded. How do you deal?"

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

She shrugged. "You just... do. And no, I'm from Smallville. Kansas. I guess in Fandom it's different because you're not left wondering if you're crazy. Most of the adults in Smallville refuse to see what's going on. They just attribute it to all sorts of weird things. Here people accept it and deal with it."

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

She couldn't help snickering, really. "Half our town thought we had a gang and PCP problem, when it was really vampires. Someone even believed that someone else got stabbed with a barbecue fork, of all things. Yeah, the acceptance is nice. I'll miss it at Berkeley."

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana nodded. "Yeah. Though honestly, I'm kind of hoping it isn't necessary in New Haven. But what are the odds of that?"