fandomhighdorms | The Gym; Sunday Afternoon.

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The Gym; Sunday Afternoon.

There was always something keeping Cal from getting to bed at a reasonable hour Saturday nights, thus making his Sunday workout not fall into place until later in the afternoon. Last night, it had been writing; sure enough, masquerading around as an Old Timey detective even well after detention yesterday had his creative blood flowing into his typewriter and onto the pages that now laid face down on his desk. He'd get there after he was done here, read them, and find them all to be utter crap.

For now, though, he was familiarizing himself on how to use the weight equipment for working the legs for a change. Upper body, after all, wasn't a problem, but he was thinking he'd need to improve the lower quite a bit if he really did discover he wanted to get into surfing a little deeper with Kevin. As he worked, he mused lightly on the sign he noticed on Amber's door on the way out. 'Everyone who isn't Cal, welcome!', huh? She had to be planning on doing something for him or something.

Cal, clearly, was feeling very naive that afternoon.

[[ gyms, they be open entities, be they not? :) ]]

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Jaina knew it was probably still too early to be in here, but first, that had never stopped her, and second, not sleeping well meant that she had a lot of frustrations to work out.

"Amazing, running into you down here," she greeted him.

"Hey, Jaina," Cal greeted her back with a light grin, workout uninterrupted by the introduction of a conversational element. "Long time, no see."

It actually had been, she realized. "It's been a rough few weeks," she said. "Animal transformations really do mess up everything."

"Knowing you," Cal commented, "I highly doubt something like just an animal transformation is going to mess things up, but I have been told a lot lately how jaded I am over such things, so I could be wrong."

There was a slight pause, and she conceded, "The transformation started things off." Because he was right, after all. "Who's telling you you're jaded?"

Cal shrugged, mostly because he was the one calling himself jaded more often than not. "I don't know; just that whole fact that I tend to take all the weirdness way too much in stride. Dr. Jones most recently, but, I mean, it's probably pretty true."

Jaina studied the bag, partly to psyche herself up for the possibility that this was going to hurt a lot. "You want more weirdness, he's my dad's double." He'd probably find it normal.

"Dr. Jones?" Cal arched an eyebrow at that slightly, but doubles weren't that strange because he'd encountered those on practically his first day. It would be a little weird if it involved your dad, though. Of course, Cal's father was dead, and it didn't exactly seem like the best thing to try to one-up Jaina on.

"Have you mentioned that to him at all?" he asked with a bit of a smirk, trying to imagine the look on the librarian's face.

"Oh, I think I verbally assaulted him to make sure he wasn't another relative," Jaina assured him. "I think he thinks I'm crazy, but I feel better."

Making sure she was turned just enough away from him, she took the chance to punch at the bag, realizing a second later that while it didn't hurt nearly as badly as she told herself it might, it did hurt worse than she actually believed it would.

Despite himself, Cal chuckled a little, mostly thanks to the very amusing picture in his head of that occurring. "Seems maybe that whole doubles thing just runs in your family, so at least your dad really isn't here, right?"

Biting back any ows, she took a breath and nodded. "Definitely. And I had the first double," she pointed out. "It's more the different versions of family members from other realities that I worry about."

Cal took a moment to pace through that all in his head again, just to make sure he was understanding it properly. Confident that he was, he nodded. "I'm gonna have to say," he said, "I can see where you're coming from there. And I'm sure as hell glad I haven't had to deal with any of that."

Trying to imagine someone like Desdemona here in a reality where she immigrated her instead of Detroit, after all, was a bit of a scary thought, especially since Desdemona thought Cal was the spitting image of his grandfather now.

Jaina was a little hesitant to go back after the bag, but she thought standing there might be a little obvious, so she wondering if she could maybe just time it better. "You never know," she said. "This place seems to shoot out the people you least expect."

And then she punched the bag again with her other fist, leaving her time to recover from any aching or sharp pains while he talked. See, there could be brilliance in absolute stupidity.

"That's why I said haven't had to," Cal pointed out. "Never say never around here; that's definitely one thing I picked up pretty damn quick."

There was a pause, mostly a hesitation, before he added, in idle observance, "You seem to be going at that thing a bit slower than usual."

"Just getting a routine down again," she said with a shrug, since what was one more little pang at this rate. "I've gotten rusty."

"Must have been a pretty rough animal transformation," Cal observed lightly, getting up from the machine to stretch just a bit before adding more weight.

"It could have been, I was pretty fierce," she said, looking back at him. "I said it started things off."

"So, what'd you turn into?" Cal settled back into the machine.

Jaina paused, sighing at the bag. "A kitten."

"Awwwwwwwww!"

At least Cal paused for a moment to reconsider that reaction before he actually gave it?

She glared, and considering her usual reaction to something like that was to punch an arm or something, he should probably be glad he wasn't right next to her, broken ribs or not. "I know I didn't just hear that," she said instead.

She wasn't going to tell him that she'd spent time in a coffee cup. That she fell into.

Probably a smart move, as he'd never let her forget it. As it was, though, Cal just smirked, wrinkled his nose a little, and commented, "I bet you really were fierce as a kitten, if you retained any of that attitude as your fluffy self."

"I was not fluffy!" she said, sticking her hand on her hip. She was totally fluffy. And adorable.

"Can you prove to me that you were not fluffy?" Cal asked, his expression cool as he tried to put the smirk he wanted to give into an arch of his eyebrow.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Ignore that John had pictures. She wasn't crazy enough to say that aloud.

"Photographic evidence? If you were to tell me to prove that I was a hyena, that's how I'd do it."

He would definitely go to Amber, though, because Ino would kill him.

"...You'll have to believe that I wasn't fluffy," she told him. Maybe she could get John to burn those...

"Sorry," Cal shook his head. "If I'm going to believe anything, it's that you were fluffy. I might be willing to accept a signed statement from a reliable source, though."

Her jaw dropped slightly. "You have to be kidding me." But she kind of didn't believe he was.

Cal took a moment to hold out his hands to display his utter helplessness in this situation. "Your choice," he said. "Either live with me believing you were fluffy, or prove me wrong."

"I'm going to have to live with it then," she decided with a little defiant lift of her chin. She seemed to be doing that more, like she was prepping for the Goddess thing. "You'll have to just miss out on seeing it."

"Not a problem," Cal commented, nodding his head in congenial acceptance. "I've got a great imagination."

"Okay, it's no fair imagining," Jaina said, because of course she got to dictate stuff like that. "I didn't go around imagining you as a hyena." Though she hadn't known what one was.

"But that's because I was a hyena," Cal reasoned. "Hyenas are kind of gross; you wouldn't want to imagine them. Now, kittens, though...Cute, fluffy kittens that were at one point Jainas..."

"I wasn't cute, either!" she insisted. She was precious. "I might have even inflicted some injuries."

"I think a kitten with a little bit of fire and spit in her is cute."

Cal liked cats in general, to be completely honest, but, even if he didn't, he still would have said that.

"You are really not helping," she said, all casual, really. Even if she didn't hate that description, if there had to be a description.

"Do I ever?" Cal mused. "You know, I wouldn't even bother if it wasn't even half as amusing as you make it."

"How do I make it amusing?" she wondered. She just thought she was having a natural reaction, she had no idea what it must look like to others.

Cal shrugged a little. "I'm not really sure if that's something easily explained, but I do know that I am feeling pretty thoroughly entertained."

She pursed her lips, and finally said, "Brat." She thought that about summed it up.

To that, Cal could only preen proudly; he got that a lot. And deemed it quite the high esteem.

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The Gym; Sunday Afternoon.

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