fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room - Tuesday after classes

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Third Floor Common Room - Tuesday after classes - 03/10

Liir was in the common room, mostly because he'd been shut in most of last weekend. The television was on, though it was on one of those ridiculous long commercial things that insisted it had the perfect method for roasting almost any meat (because the spit was such a revolution, really), but the boy himself was more focused on the shirts he had sitting on the couch with him. Needle and thread in hand, he was dutifully making minor repairs on the buttons and the seams as needed.

After all, new clothes didn't grow on trees, now, did they?

[open as common rooms are]

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Rather than going back to his room Leto stopped by the common room, and noticing Liir, with whom he had had a long philosophical conversation during the cruise, he took a seat on the couch. "Good afternoon," he said.

He bobbed his head with a small smile.

"Afternoon," he said in return. He moved the shirts over onto the arm rest, which was just as good a place for them to sit.

"How've you been? Well, I should hope?"

Edited 2009-03-10 21:26 (UTC)

Leto smiled. "Yes, mostly well." He tried to discern whether the words were just mere politeness or if there was a genuine concern. Liir had come across as rather attentive to the needs of others when they last met. "And yourself?" His eyes shifted to the shirts on the armrest. "Mending clothes?"

A bit of both, really. It was habit, but if Leto had said something other than 'fine' or 'well', he'd have offered to assist almost immediately.

"A bit of soreness this weekend," he admitted, in the midst of a growth spurt even if he was unaware of the fact, "but otherwise fine. And yes, I'm doing a bit of work on my shirts. I clean them properly, of course, but they still need a bit of mending here and there."

"Soreness?" Leto leaned back, eyes moving between Liir and the TV.

He waved a hand.

"I'm fine," he said with a cheerful smile, neither comfortable with discussing his own problems nor finding much point in it since he no longer was, "but thank you for the concern. I spent most of my weekend in my room. Boring as anything, honestly, though my spice rack is appreciative of it.

"What about you? How was your weekend?"

"I spent Sunday fighting," Leto replied cheerfully. "My sister is one of the organisers of the Fandom Fight Club." He briefly let his fingers rest on Liir's before reaching for the remote.

The touch was nice, something he noticed because he always noticed touch, and it made the smile a little more genuine, which wasn't to say it wasn't genuine in the first place, but there you go.

"Fight Club?" He'd never heard of such a thing. Which wasn't really surprising, but still.

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

He guessed so, but best to ask.

"I did," Leto confirmed, smiling half to himself as he flipped through the channels. He had noted that Liir had not reacted negatively to touching; perhaps his culture too was more comfortable with that.

Edited 2009-03-10 22:28 (UTC)

"I might have to go then," he said after a moment, eyes flicking from Leto to the screen and back, "if you didn't mind, that is. Or if I could."

He never thought he'd enjoy fighting, hitting someone else, but such a club might help him get more used to it. He wasn't terribly concerned about getting hurt; his childhood had proved that if he had nothing else, it was a thick skin.

Leto glanced at him. "If you think it's something you would enjoy I would have no reason to object." He smiled a little. "And my objection would have no power anyway."

"It... might be something I need," he said, perhaps not as transparent as he could be, but as much as he felt he could be.

"And I wasn't sure if it was exclusive. Or for those, er, who know what they're doing."

"Need for a specific purpose?" Leto asked. "And it is for everyone. I am sure my sister or Professor Durden can offer you more information."

"As specific as self-improvement is," he said with a shrug.

Self-improvement. Or self-esteem. He believed fervently in the first, but had quite a few hangups with the second, though he liked to think that he was getting better about it. After all, before he'd left Kiamo Ko, he hadn't thought he was good at anything and never would be. Now, at least, he had cooking.

"I'll ask Professor Atreides during next class. Or her office hours."

"Self-improvement can be many things," Leto replied with a smile. "All depending on the definition of improvement."

"In this case, it's rather necessary," he admitted, "for quite a few reasons."

He looked down at the button he'd been working on and declared it quite finished before folding the shirt and moving onto the next.

"I agree, though."

Leto wasn't going to ask for those reasons if Liir didn't want to tell him freely. He fell silent, changed the channel again, sighed at the result and turned the TV off.

The silence, though was comfortable enough that he felt he could speak and uncomfortable enough that he felt that he should.

"I have... trouble. With violence. Mostly committing it; I'm quite used being harmed."

And there was no desire for pity or even sympathy. It just was. He'd said it because Amber's words were doing their work, and because he thought he could, for whatever reason, trust Leto to take it as he meant it: as a fact.

"To a quite irrational level."

Or rather, other people found it irrational. He was still working on that.

Leto turned to watch him. "Most people have more trouble being harmed than committing violence to others," he observed. "I can see that in some environments it might cause you trouble. Then again, I don't know your world."

He accepted the information as it had been given, and offered no gesture of comfort or concern.

...Liir could have hugged him.

"Yes, well, she always did say I was difficult," he told the other boy with a faint smile, mostly of relief and just a bit of appreciation.

He wasn't quite ready to say why this was so to Leto, why he felt he couldn't harm others so strongly, but he wasn't far from it.

"Anyway, it's something I'd like to fix, sort of need to fix" he said, "and the club might help with it."

More than punching a dummy or a bag, anyway.

He got a smile in return. "Then perhaps it is worth trying." The smiled widened into a grin, and Leto reached out to ruffle Liir's hair. "I won't try to beat you up badly."

The ruffle got a soft, happy laugh.

"Thank you. Much appreciated, Leto. I'd promise something in return, but I admit I can't think of anything. Perhaps to do my best to give you a bit of fight."

"No promise needed, but I will keep that in mind," Leto replied cheerfully.

He breathed out and started in on the next shirt with gusto.

"Maybe some cookies or something then, if you like sweets," he said thoughtfully.

"I haven't done near enough baking."

"I do," Leto replied, hiding the caution he was beginning to feel. He hadn't done anything that would require a gift of bakery goods, and while it didn't feel like Liir had ulterior motives... Well, those could be hidden.

Or Liir truly had some strange issues.

The got a nod, as if it settled something or other, before he leaned back on the couch.

Issues. Definitely issues.

"I'm always looking for people who might like some. I like cooking and baking, but I don't eat much, is the trouble. Last year, I had a dreadful time clearing out my stores before we moved to the cabins."

He gave Leto a faintly self-depreciating smile.

"It's really sort of terrible, I suppose, the kind of excess that usually makes me uncomfortable, but I love to experiment. And if someone eats it, it's not really a waste, at least."

"I see," Leto replied. Ned seemed to be the same, so maybe it wasn't an odd thing. "I will be happy to assist you there. My roommate has been eating all my dried fruit."

"I don't have one. A roommate, I mean. Well, other than my dog. And Amber, who's in the room as often as not, really. I started with one, of course, but she left and they've not felt the need to assign me one again."

He made a minor adjustment on the shoulder seam of the shirt he was working on.

"I might go ask about it this semester, considering."

He tilted his head curiously before he spoke again.

"Would you mind if I asked who your roommate was?"

Leto had been good about not pressing on subjects with him; he'd rather not intrude on his business if he could help it.

"I haven't met Amber," Leto told him. "And I share a room with Arthur Pendragon." That was hardly something he didn't tell people.

Liir smiled.

"I hope that changes, though it's possible it won't since she's graduating."

The smile didn't waver.

"I have met Arthur, though. I try not to bother him, but he's been rather kind to me, overall."

Yes, that Arthur. No, he wasn't kidding. Nor was that sarcasm.

Yes, that Arthur.

"There is still some time until graduation, I believe," Leto replied. And then he was unable to hold back a laugh. "Kind?"

Because while he did like Arthur, he would hardly describe him like that.

"Then you should make an effort to meet her. You'll be glad you did. Or you should see her in the play, if you can. She's always in the play..."

He met the laugh, however, with a small smile.

"He's a bit pricklish, I'll admit, but he has offered his advice and council to me in a personal matter of some stake. He's thought about what I've said to him, even when it upsets him."

He checked the hold on one of the seams before moving onto the cuff.

"And he believes I can do good when I'm not even sure of that."

He put the shirt aside and gave a little huff of a half-chuckle.

"If that's not kindness, I don't know what is."

Edited 2009-03-11 19:55 (UTC)

When Liir mentioned the play, Leto realised who he was talking about. "Oh, yes the play! Now I know."

As for Liir's words on his dealings with Arthur, Leto wasn't sure what to make of them. Leto knew that Arthur hid a strong sense of loyalty and concern for people behind a sometimes rather uncaring façade, but he wasn't sure if Liir was just interpreting things in an odd way. "It's good to hear that you are friends, then."

[bad internet died on me last night :( ]

Now it was Liir who laughed.

"Oh, no. I think he might turn blue if I claimed that. We're not friends. But that doesn't mean I can't think well of him."

Liir's standard for polite conversation was a bit different than most. While he'd never say it out loud, he found Arthur's behavior just a little reminiscent of his own mother's. It took most of the sting out of the prince's barbs.

Sometimes Liir was quite difficult to interpret. Leto wondered if that was due to cultural differences, or just that Liir was being a little strange. Not that lack of normality offended him in any way, of course.

"Of course not."

"And I wouldn't take liberties so," he admitted as well.

Another shirt done. But it seemed that since the subject was raised--

"Would you mind terribly if I considered you a friend?"

"I see no reason to turn an offer of friendship down, unless there were implicit demands in that which I would not be able to fulfill." Leto was a little cautious, considering that romantic relationships had turned out to be more complicated than expected here.

He shook his head.

"Only the possible burden of association, if you'd consider it such," he said with a short smile.

"Why would that be a burden?" Leto asked with a smile.

"Perhaps 'inconvenience' might be a better word. Though I can't think of any specific reason. Well..."

That wasn't quite true.

"Arthur might be a little displeased, but I can't think of anyone else in particular with any trouble with me."

Ino didn't count. They were still...something. Siblings, certainly, even if the actual emotional content was a little murky.

"Anyway," he continued briskly, "it's always nice to have another friend, hmm?"

"It is. And I don't choose my friends based on whether it will displease my roommate or not," Leto replied, gently squeezing Liir's shoulder.

That got another smile. He lamented not meeting Leto sooner.

"Good to know," he said, and he meant it.

[they could fade, if you like; eeeee thread! also eep! internets]

[Good place, I think. *pats*]

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Third Floor Common Room - Tuesday after classes - 03/10

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