Fifth Floor Common Room [evening]

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

Sookie was feeling restless. It was partially the dreams about Gran, partially the compulsion to go out to the woods, and partially something she couldn't quite place. She was resisting the urge to walk out through mulch to find things, though, so instead, she took to her common room to bake brownies.

Lots of brownies. Lots, and lots of brownies. Cookies had occurred to her, too, but she wanted heaping doses of chocolate, really. Some of the brownies had walnuts. Some of them had chocolate chips. Some even had little candies. But the batter itself didn't change, and she was able to distract herself by baking several dozen brownies.

Hopefully she'd be able to get someone else to eat some. Because even while slightly confused, Sookie couldn't eat 48 brownies herself.

[open CR is open!]

Comments

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"Thanks," she said with a bright smile. "Have as many as you want. Are you new?"

It was a guess. His was an unfamiliar brain signature, plus she hadn't seen him around.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Ah - yes," he admitted. "Is it quite so blatant? I'd rather hoped I'd managed to adjust to the point that I no longer seem quite so new."

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"I just don't recognize you, honey, and I've been here awhile. You don't smell like new kid or anything," she replied, shaking her head reassuringly before sticking out a hand. "Sookie Stackhouse. Welcome to Fandom."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Oh. So it wasn't the over-politeness that threw her. Good, 'cause he'd already had that pointed out to him by a few people as something he should stop doing.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," he replied, shaking her hand formally. "Pleasure to meet you."

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"Likewise," she grinned. "Where're you from, Wesley? I'm gonna guess England but I've been wrong before."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Correct," he said with a laugh. "Though I'm told the accent and the 'quite's and 'rather's are a bit of a tell. And based on your accent I would place you in... Louisiana, perhaps?"

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"Very good," she said, clearly impressed. "Northern Louisiana, yep. Are you a linguist?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Not as such, but I've studied languages quite a bit," Wesley explained. "My -former school was rather insistent that we have a solid comprehension of languages and dialects."

So categorizing Southerners was kind of a walk in the park for him, yeah.

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"Intense-sounding school," she commented lightly. "How'd you end up out here?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"My, ah, my father and I decided it would do me some good to spend some time away from home," Wesley said with an audibly rehearsed air.

It wasn't true, of course. The real story involved expulsion, near-disownment, and a not insignificant number of dead people.

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

Sookie quirked an eyebrow. She didn't have to be a telepath to see right through that, but she wasn't going to press, nor was she going to poke into his head to check. "Well, y'all picked a nice place for some time away," she said neutrally. "I've been here a year and a half now, and I love it."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"It's quite nice," Wesley agreed. "A bit of an adjustment, certainly, but a very interesting place overall."

"What brought you here?" he couldn't help but ask. "Originally, that is."

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"My grandmother wanted me to get a change of scenery," she said, shrugging. "I'm, um, none too popular back home. We heard about this place and figured we'd give it a shot, and so far, it's the happiest I've ever been, honestly."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wes nodded sympathetically. Being "none too popular" at home, as she'd put it, perfectly summed up his life at present. Being the happiest he'd ever been? Well, that was another story.

He didn't want to pry, so he decided to steer the conversation away from their respective home lives. "What - er - what makes it quite so enjoyable?"

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

She considered her words for a moment before replying. "No one here is considered strange," she said with a small smile. "It's the first time I've ever felt normal."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Now, of course, being the curious person that he was, Wesley desperately wanted to know what had branded her as abnormal in her hometown. But it was none of his business and besides, he reasoned, she was from the South. It wasn't hard to be hated for being abnormal there. Much like the Watchers' Academy, in fact.

"That sounds - quite lovely," he replied.

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"People here are amazingly accepting," she said, nodding. "At least in my experience. And in fact, most have seen pretty much everything that people out in the real world -- or my version of it, anyway -- would consider weird. It's sort of nice. Everyone here is bizarre, so no one is."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"I - that sounds like a very enjoyable sort of community," said Wesley after a brief pause. And like the exact sort of thing he'd managed to mess up in Sunnydale, but maybe here it'd be different.

"So, how did you make these brownies?" Wesley asked abruptly. "They're truly quite delicious."

Yummy, yummy non-sequiturs.

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"Just basic brownie ingredients," she said, arching an eyebrow. "I've been cooking since I was little. Are you okay?"