fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room, Tuesday Afternoon

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Third Floor Common Room, Tuesday Afternoon

After completing his go at Gun Club, Arthur returned to the dorms only to realise he didn't much feel like dealing with Leto yet. He'd come up with a proper revenge later. Right now, he craved a chance to sit somewhere, to fight off the sense that was dawning in the wake of yesterday's upset. He sat, and idly considered the Teevee.

Maybe she's just afraid to lose a friend, Merlin had said, and while Arthur was not going to stretch as far as to call her that aloud, he had to admit that the expression on her face had... seemed...

It was easier, dealing with sorcerers, when all you did was distract Father and find them quick shelter elsewhere. Here, there was little escape from them. No matter what he did, they would remain, and the honest truth was that he bore them very little ill will.

Wasn't his father. He'd seen too much damage caused by it not to be wary, but...

Of course, that made him think of Liir. He wasn't going to let thought of his conduct around him make him cringe.

So he sat. Subdued. Thinking.

[[ open common room! ]]

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"Priestly," Arthur said.

The attempted friendly got him a bit of a wary look, but no visible animosity. "Everything is going fine," he said. And then added, with well-disguised awkwardness, "Make yourself comfortable."

Oh goody. Wariness. Well, this wouldn't be awkward at all.

At least he wouldn't be bored.

"Thanks, man." He nodded to the TV. "You watching anything?"

"No," he said, "Not yet, I take it. Go ahead."

If Priestly was going to be civil, Arthur would ~~make up for being a twelve-year-old at Hannibal~~ return the favour.

Even if the television made him twitchy.

Priestly was enough of a product of his generation not to understand why someone would want to sit there in silence when there was a perfectly good television (or, hey, book, radio, computer, he wasn't particular, as long as it was media) around. He nodded his thanks and offered a slightly more real smile.

And proceeded to channel hop at astounding speeds, as though he were trying to construct a Dada thesis out of the random soundbites from the various channels.

Arthur winced. It was only visible to the smallest pull of his cheek, but it was there. "Slower," he said, "Please." He did his damnedest best not to make it sound like too much of a weakness.

He even managed to swallow whatever sarcastic retort perked in his mind for an instant.

Priestly was actually pretty used to requests like that. After all, not everyone shared his ~~level of ADHD~~ ability to multi-task.

He bit back a sigh and slowed down by about half. Now each station manged to get two syllables out before he hit the button.

"Thank you," he said.

It was still too loud. And too fast. It'd make anyone's head spin. But for the sake of peace, Arthur was aware, he was going to have to make some concessions.

He didn't like making concessions. "Are you actually watching any of this?" he asked.

"Totally," Priestly said, completely deadpanned. Then he proceeded to make up the content of a few of the stations off the top of his head to try and back up the lie.

"Discovery Channel -- that was five channels ago -- is not doing Shark Week, which is a damned shame. Instead, it's a special about red-nosed sidewinding gecko, native to Chad. This right here --" The TV paused on a group of teens long enough to show a curly haired guy with a big nose saying something about robots "-- is ~~meta for~~ Saved by the Bell. The one where the hot chick totally doesn't hook up with the geeky nerd guy who builds androids. So he blows up the school. And this --" Priestly frowned and tilted his head at the TV, actually leaving it on the station for longer than two seconds. "-- Huh. I think that might be a special on the rock band U2. Or possibly last year's Bruce Willis blockbuster."

"Right," Arthur said, and looked... dubious.

There was a bit of a pause.

"You're just making this up, aren't you?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Who, me?" Priestly turned his head to give Arthur an innocent look, then glanced back at the TV. "No, wait, this is a Mac ad. Okay." He flipped channels for a few more moments, then, in the name of bridging the very large generation gap, or some such thing, nodded. "Yeah, I'm totally making all that up."

"I thought so."

Arthur rubbed his forehead.

"Very creative," he said, for the sake of adding something positive to that. "So why watch it like that?"

"It's more fun than just kinda passively watching stuff." Priestly shrugged. "Sometimes you get weird sentences out of it and stuff. Sometimes I'll put it on mute and leave it on one station and make up my own dialog, too."

"Again," he said, "Very creative."

Arthur hadn't even gotten a handle on the workings of normal television-watching, but that wasn't going to let him slip up and show a bit of weakness, no. "Might make plays a bit more lively," he offered.

Arthur tended to like the plays that had a lot of blood in them best.

"Totally. Nobody's really written much of anything new in fiction since . . . well, possibly since your time. At the very least since the 70s."

Shut up, he's sixteen. Arthur's time and the 70s are totally equatable.

Priestly paused on a station that appeared to be showing a period drama with somewhat incongruous music and hoodies. It looked fairly medieval. . . . "You wanna try it?"

"It's not as if you can beat reality," Arthur said, and sort of squinted in the direction of the Teevee. It was playing games with his mind, he was sure of it. "Although epic poetry makes a good second."

Again, Arthur liked the ones that had a lot of blood in them.

"Thank you," he said, "But I think I'll give it a miss."

Edited 2009-03-03 20:17 (UTC)

"Sure you can. At least, in this century." Priestly shrugged. "And hey, don't knock it till ya tried it." He started flipping the channels again. "I take it you're not a big fan of your time period's media and entertainment offerings?"

"It really depends," he said, "As I said, epic poetry can be quite good, especially when sung."

Priestly frowned at that. "Like . . . opera?" He pursed his lips, then started flipping through the channels at higher speed, clearly looking for something.

Stupid MTV not usually playing music anymore . . . ha! He found a video. "Or more like that?"

[ooc: first link: youtube. Second link: Lyrics. Song is "Mariner's Revenge Song" by the Decemberists.]

"A bit like that last one, but less painful," Arthur said, wincing a little at just how shrill the man's voice was. He looked at the Teevee, and then back at Priestly. "'Fill the horn with foaming liquor, fill it up my boy, be quicker,'" he recited, "'Hence away, despair and sorrow; time enough to sigh to-morrow.'"

Dude, that was totally a drinking song. Priestly could get behind that.

"Definitely not opera. How 'bout . . ." He considered and rejected many of his usual punk songs. He was getting the feeling that Arthur wouldn't appreciate a song that involved shouting at high speeds that much. "'Drink, drink, this song is so great, drink, drink, 'cause it's never too late to drink, drink, to no big surprise, but what words rhyme with buried alive? What words rhyme with buried alive?'"

"If you can't think of them," Arthur said, amused, "Then I'm hardly the one you should ask."

Sure, it lacked finesse, but the song did sound like it needed a toast, so he toasted the air with a non-existent drink.

"Hey, I didn't write it, man, I just sing it." Priestly raised his own non-existent drink. "Got any more of these poems of yours?"

"That was hardly the whole poem." Arthur's expression was still distinctly amused. "'Like an hurricane is he, bursting on the troubled sea. See their spears distain'd with gore, hear the din of battle roar! Bucklers, swords, together clashing, sparkles from their helmets flashing.'"

Arthur may have gotten into it. A touch.

He took playing with swords very seriously.

Priestly snorted softly. And now he saw why Arthur was into this stuff.

"Gotta love that gore and roaring."

"Indeed," he said. "For glorious deeds of valor from men long past. Although you've managed to make me thirsty."

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