fandomhighdorms | Fifth Floor Common Room, Thursday Early Evening (Alex's Birthday Party)

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Fifth Floor Common Room, Thursday Early Evening (Alex's Birthday Party)

Alex Drake was so not a party kind of guy, which fact Jen knew very well. Knowledge of said fact, though, didn't stop her from running a couple of streamers around the common room in a mostly restrained fashion, then putting up a hand-lettered banner that read "Happy Birthday Alex!" (as birthday banners are wont to read). The streamers and the lettering were both red, yes; she'd dithered over that for a bit but decided to go with it in the end.

As for the hand-lettering . . . sometimes, for a thirty-first century girl, Jen was still stuck in that "living in a drafty clock tower, scraping by on odd jobs" mentality.

Which was balanced out by the stacks of pizza boxes, the chocolate cake, the small forest of soda bottles, and the very large bowls of Cheetos. (She'd also put out a couple of trash cans labeled, brightly and redly, "RECYCLE PLEASE!" next to the table with the sodas, because . . . well, see above re: thirty-first century.)

For music, she'd tuned the TV to the Kira Ford concert that was running on one of the cable channels. Because sometimes she was a dork like that.

[OOC: Open to anyone! I never almost accidentally posted this in townies, I swear.]

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She raised her eyebrows. "You tell me."

Cal sighed. "Well, I am working on freeing up a few of them, so, yeah, give it after tomorrow and there'll be room for a Photophobe one. I'll wear the burden heavily, but deservedly. And I'll work on freeing up a second, so the issue of being a hothead jerk can be firmly tacked on, too. Sound good?"

That... actually made her laugh. "Hotheaded jerk I can deal with," Ino informed him. "Hotheaded jerk who decides our friendship is over after every single fight is harder to deal with."

A beat.

"Dare I ask which ones you're freeing up?"

And, really, that was just the teenage girl in Cal. Somethings you couldn't shake. He gave Ino a bit of a sheepish smile about that fact, before her question turned his face down with a faint blush.

"Well, uh....You know that whole not-dating thing I had going on?"

"Heard radio," she said innocently. "You and Dojima-san, yeah?"

Ino knew the whole story by now, but... it was way too much fun to pretend she hadn't.

Cal's shoulders wilted a little under the groan he couldn't keep in. And here he'd almost forgotten about that.

"Squirrels are damn dirty liars," he stated. "The end. I'm not talking about Dojima."

She smirked at the groan, though it was gone by the time he'd finished speaking.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said. "That was not a date, and, besides, she has a boyfriend. One who was there to 'talk with me' about the not-date about two seconds after it was out of the broadcaster's mouth. And since you're going to ask, and I'm sure you have to know, I'm taking Amber to that party tomorrow. Nothing big, but, you know. Baby steps."

She debated enlightening him to the fact that she knew both Romeo and Dojima quite well, thanks, but decided not to. Ino wasn't feeling charitable.

"Some date that'll be, since you don't even touch people."

Yes, that was grumpy.

Cal frowned at that. "I touch people," he argued lightly. "Come on, Ino, that was ages ago. That's another one quickly disappearing from my list of issues, too..."

Very quickly, and in surprising ways that Ino probably didn't need to know about.

"Yeah, Amber," she said, looking unimpressed. "While I continue to have like, a disease or something, for wanting a hug. Don't think you've ever touched me."

God, Cal could never keep up with whether or not Amber and Ino hated each other or if they were friends. The way she said her name just now, though, he was going to guess that maybe they were in one of their off periods, which didn't make sense to him, because it was Amber who had convinced him that he'd really overreacted with the whole picture thing.

It seemed to escape Cal's notice that Amber's concern might have been more toward her own ownership of hyena photos.

He did, however, solve the more immediate problem by reaching out to put his finger on Ino's shoulder.

"There," he announced. "I touched you."

It was more because of him being okay with touching Amber and not her that made Ino cranky.

"Nice," she said, stepping back from his finger. "Now try it when you really mean it and aren't doing it to just prove a point and maybe I'll believe I'm not just some weird sort of disease that you talk to."

"Oh, come on, Ino," Cal said, giving her a slightly exasperated look. "What, do I have to wait for a moment when a hug is in order to prove it to you?"

She shrugged. "How should I know? I just said that's got to be something you mean."

The thought crossed Cal's mind of offering to give Ino a hug right now; it would be a little awkward by principle alone, but he would mean it.

But then he got a flash of a vision, a potential situation where Ino, somehow, even through hugging him, could tell the truth, and the way her patented anger would flare up. She'd be disgusted, shouting and yelling accusations She'd feel hurt, deceived. It would be a billion times worse than the picture debacle.

So Cal stayed his place and nodded. "I guess we'll know the moment when it comes."

"If it ever does," she snapped, temper flaring, before shaking her head. "Just, I don't know, whatever. Sorry. It's been a bad week."

And he was a really easy target to take out her frustrations on.

"Bad week?" Cal asked and, despite himself, with a bit of a small smile trying to damn all of his prophesies of horror, opened his arms a little awkwardly and asked, "Need a hug?"

It felt like a lame attempt, but, at the same time, he felt like it was the only thing he could say.

"Save it," she said, smiling almost despite herself. "If I'm crying, or something, I'll need one more."

Ino shrugged a bit. "Lots of thinking, lots of changing, a lot of shutting up and listening and admitting I was wrong. Just... yeah."

"Ah," Cal said, holding up a finger, "but now you can't say that I at least would never do it." He gave her a smile, something soft and sympathetic, because he knew it was hard for him to admit he was wrong, and he knew that it was probably damn near impossible for her.

"Good thing about bad weeks is that they eventually end."

"No," she said quietly. "Guess I can't. Thank you."

It was stupid, that that meant so much to her, but it did.

"I hope it ends sooner, but I don't think it will. I'll just get used to. It's... sort of a long term thing."

"...then 'bad week' is a little bit like false advertising, then, isn't it?" Cal asked, feeling a little worse because part of him was thinking that at least then he'd have plenty of chances to prove that whole hug thing. It probably was better that she didn't take it, but it did leave him wondering why she didn't.

He reasoned that he couldn't blame her for still being mad at him.

Because even if he meant it tonight, it would still feel fake just because she'd made a big deal of it right then and now.

"It's called optimism," she said, almost ruefully. "I'm trying."

Cal wrinkled his nose. "Ew," he shuddered. "Optimism."

"It goes along with confidence," she pointed out trying not to smile because that would just encourage him. "And I'm pretty good at that one." Well, at least at faking it. "I don't want to be the girl that keeps whining at people all the time."

Fifth Floor Common Room, Thursday Early Evening (Alex's Birthday Party)

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