Second Floor Common Room, Wednesday Afternoon

[puppy_fair]

Now that Zack was officially done with classes for the summer, it was time for a little getting out and about and being social. It was also, Zack decided, the perfect time to get the gerbil that Deadpool had given him out for some exercise.

And that was why, armed with a hamster ball and a bunch of notebooks, Zack was hard at work constructing the most epic gerbil floor-maze the second floor common room had ever seen!

Poor, poor Mr. Winkles.

[Open, as common rooms tend to be!]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

Zack blinked up at Jack, and then smiled sheepishly.

"About two steps to the left, and a jump forward. Maybe a step to the right with your hands on your hips, pull your knees in tight," Zack replied, scratching his head. "Or I can move some of it out of the way for you. Half the fun is in putting it back together again, after all."

[bitten_notshy]

"I can step to the left and jump -- I just didn't want to ruin your work," Jack said, as he did just that. "What is it for, anyhow?"

[puppy_fair]

"Gerbil exercise," Zack reported, almost proudly. "Well, that, and boredom. I have no more classes for the rest of the week, the reserves meeting was yesterday. I kinda have a lot of spare time ahead of me until the next semester starts."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'll probably go home for a bit of it," Jack said, mulling this over. "I still have the play rehearsal and swordplay class, but other than that I'm free as well."

He knelt to try to find the gerbil. "He's adorable."

[puppy_fair]

"He was a gift," Zack replied, proudly. Mr. Winkles, on the other hand, settled for blinking up slowly at Jack and trying to plan the fall of humankind as we knew it.

Trap him in a little ball and then gawk and call him names? He'd show them all!

... Adorably.

"He actually makes pretty good company when he's not sleeping or peeing on people," Zack added.

[bitten_notshy]

"Does he pee on people a lot?" Jack wondered. "I'd probably leave him in the cage if he did that to me."

Which would give him even more time to plan the fall of humankind as we know it. Adorably.

[puppy_fair]

"I think it's what they do," Zack agreed, eyeing the gerbil in the ball warily. "It's probably a small bladder... thing."

Understandably, Mr. Winkles was not thrilled about this revelation. And so he was going to demonstrate his horrible wrath by gnawing on the inside of the ball. Evilly. Of course.

[bitten_notshy]

"Charming," Jack decided. He finally made it to the fridge and poured himself a soda. "How have the reserves been all summer? I went a few times but it ran into play practice."

[puppy_fair]

"They've been going well enough. There have been a few hiccups for things like everyone falling asleep that one week, and stuff like that. But mostly, it's been educational. I've already had someone tell me that what we're teaching there has helped her."

He grinned and poked at the gerbil ball.

"I end up having to make the mad dash between the reserves and the play, too, usually. Not much really gets in my way, though, so I can stay to the end of one without really missing much of the other."

[bitten_notshy]

"You're faster than I am, then," Jack grinned. "The week when everyone else slept was hard all around, but I'm happy to hear it didn't derail you."

[puppy_fair]

"Well, it was a... bit of a derail," Zack noted, wincing faintly. And then wrestling a smile back onto his face as though his life depended on it. "But you take it as it comes, you know? Back into the swing of things in no time."

Kinda. Mostly.

Now he wished he had cookies to give to Jack, too.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack noticed the wince and forced smile and easily changed the subject. "That should be the motto for this place," he said. "Take it as it comes and get back into the swing of things. Like -- you can't mope over being a girl forever."

[puppy_fair]

"I was lucky enough to have missed that," Zack noted, offering a sympathetic smile. "Though I don't know how lucky. I was a dog at the time."

[bitten_notshy]

"Were you a girl dog?" Jack asked, ever so seriously.

[puppy_fair]

"You know, I didn't think to check?"

Being a dog, it really hadn't made any difference to him.

Thank goodness.

[bitten_notshy]

"Probably better," Jack remarked. "I don't know how suddenly changing gender would process in a dog's mind. You might have confused yourself."

[puppy_fair]

"I think it would really just be the difference between squatting and lifting a leg," Zack noted.

Thus oversharing to a dreadful degree, yes.