fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room, Saturday Afternoon

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Fourth Floor Common Room, Saturday Afternoon

Wesley did not have visitors, and he didn't much like disturbing those who did. The feeling of interrupting what could be a person's last chance to see a loved one was not what he would term a pleasant sensation. So to the common room it was, based on some bizarre notion that no one with visitors might possibly join him there. That was logical.

He settled on one of the couches with a book in hand that he actually hadn't read before. (That was a first.) Well, it was a nicer place to read than his own room, anyway.

[Common room is open, of course.]

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If Alexander had anyone show up (which, having no one he loved dead at the moment, which was very nice if you thought about it), he had been too deep in study to realize it. His weeks were filled with school work, while his weekends were typically given over to the utterly futile search for the Land of the Green Isles.

Once words started to blur and, he was pretty sure on one occasion, move across the page, he knew it was time for a break. Besides that, he was feeling a little hungry. Thus, Alexander made his way over to the common room, and maybe find out if that whole "helping yourself to food" thing was true.

In the case that it wasn't, he'd only take a little bit. He was used to doing that; just enough that wouldn't go noticed.

The other boy on the couch, however, did go noticed, recognizable as that gentleman he'd met before the shuttle.

"Ah, hello," Alexander greeted him with a nod. "Wesley, wasn't it?"

Quinn didn't have visitors either. She'd heard about it on the radio, though, and -- frankly -- found the whole concept more than a little upsetting. Dead people were supposed to stay dead, right? That was why it was called death.

And there was also something more offensive yet on the radio. "Wesley," she said, entering the common room. "So you think it's Victorian for a girl not to want to kiss another girl she barely knows?"

The answer she wanted was pretty clear from her tone.

Wes picked up on the answer he was being asked to give. "Oh, no. Certainly not," he answered promptly. He'd heard the accusation on the radio, anyway, and had thought it was pretty funny, but wasn't about to say so. "In fact," he added. Thinking he might as well get in her good graces, "I'm surprised they allowed the radio announcer to make such a comment."

Good boy, Wesley; Quinn will let you live. She gave him a tiny smile.

"Radio seems to be the province of small-minded, judgmental people with nothing better to do than insulting people they don't know," she said primly. "I'll live, it's just stupid."

Wesley nodded sympathetically. "Yes, it was quite disrespectful of them. I actually sustained a similar snub, myself; would you believe the radio announcer suggested I 'didn't know what I was doing' insofar as hunting vampires?"

Which was slander, surely. It was one thing for that loud, irritating boy in thr graveyard to think so, but quite another for the radio announcer, who was representing the school, to agree.

"Hello," said Wesley, wracking his brain for the other boy's name. He had been similarly busy with classes as well as high-intensity hiding from his roommate and rereading old books, so he couldn't be blamed for forgetting a few names. "Yes, it's Wesley," he replied. "And you are... Alexander, correct?"

Lucky guess.

"I heard," Quinn said, equally sympathetic. She hadn't actually paid much attention, since it wasn't about her, but she'd heard it. "Like they spent time in ... vampire hunter training school."

She would have had a stronger point if she hadn't been talking about the Winchesters, yes.

Wesley, who was thoroughly oblivious to who the Winchesters even were, agreed wholeheartedly. "Quite right," he replied.

"So, how has your week been?" he asked, resigned to letting go of the radio issue. "Any more stubborn doors trapping you in unpleasant situations?"

A very lucky guess, not that Alexander was any the wiser. He smiled, nodding his head. "That's correct," he confirmed. "How have you been since we last spoke, since well before we had any idea what we were in store for?"

That last bit he said with a chuckle, one that was entirely good natured and surprisingly not in the least bit ironic.

"No, thank God," Quinn said, also letting the topic of radio go. "It's been fine. Quiet. I like all of my classes so far, do you?"

Wes chuckled as well in acknowledgment of the massive mental overhaul he'd had to perform since the day on the shuttle. "Quite - disillusioned, I suppose would be the word. I've had to come to terms with this school's particular idiosyncracies, as well as those of the inhabitants of the island. It's been quire a process, but I believe I'm adjusting."

If by adjusting he meant ravenously absorbing every bit of knowledge he could about alternate dimensions and recording them in a file cabinet, then yes, he was adjusting.

"And yourself?"

"I'm only in two classes, unfortunately," he said in a mournful tone, because yes, Wesley was the sort of person to be annoyed about not having enough classes. "And one of them is quite interesting. It's called Practical Marksmanship, and I appear to be doing quite well, but I've always had something of a natural hand with weapons. My other class, Self-Defense, is... less pleasant."

He'd gone into this with Quinn before, or he thought he had. Anyone he'd spoken to for a prolonged period of time since his first classes had gotten an earful about how much he detested that class.

"Adjusting is a word that describes it for me, as well," Alexander admitted. "But it's been rather exciting. The size of the place is still so overwhelming, but I feel I'm getting used to it. I feel all the classes help; they're all so very intriguing and they help keep my mind off of....other things..."

The drifting of those last words easily suggested that his thoughts had not only turned to those 'other things' yet again, but he suddenly wished he was pursuing them more, despite having done so all morning.

"Oh?" Wesley's curiosity was piqued. "What other things, if you wouldn't mind sharing?"

Yeah, he had officially lost his membership to the Polite, Non-Inquisitive Brits Club, but he was curious and he wanted to know, damnit.

And, for the most part, Alexander almost didn't mind sharing a little too much. Still, he did seem a little sheepish about the whole matter, but, in the long run, maybe he just needed to keep asking until he found someone who could break this spell of getting no where.

"Well," he said, "actually, perhaps you could help, although no one so far seems to have been able to. But, have you ever heard of the Land of the Green Isles before?"

Damn. This was the third dimension he'd been asked about that he had no knowledge of! What was the use of being trained as a demon-and-dimensional expert if he still couldn't say he'd heard of the places that people were looking for?

"I can't say that I have," Wes confessed, disappointed. "What is it?"

Wesley was disappointed? Alexander felt downright stricken, though not too surprised, either. His shoulders slumped and he wore the sadness all over his drooping face.

"I see," he said dispassionately. "No one has, really. It's a land, one that I'm starting to believe doesn't exist at all, only I can't believe that! It must! Otherwise..."

But he trailed off, as if the rest of that sentiment was far too devastating to even give a voice.

Wesley was immediately crushed. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "But I do know quite a lot about dimensions. Perhaps if I looked into it more, I would find something out. I have rather a lot of texts I could consult for research."

"Could you?" asked Alexander, so much hope seeped into his voice and his imploring eyes. "I have been searching through as many of the books in the library as I can, but there's so much out there that, surely, another set of eyes would help. If I could only find the place! I would give anything in the world to know even if it exists, let alone how to find it! Oh, it keeps me up at night just to think that it may never be so..."

He had a bit, yes. "That's the one with the crazy teacher, right?" Quinn asked. "I'd probably walk out or something."

Wes laughed. "I doubt she'd stand for that," he said, trying to imagine the explosive reaction Faith would have to someone ditching her class. "How are your courses?"

It occured to Wes that he might not quite be the most talkative, lament-prone chaterbox on Fandom Island. "Er. Yes. I wiL certainly be on the lookout," he pledged. "If I may ask, what is your personal connection to the place you are referring to?"

"Gym class is just gym class," Quinn answered. "I like my leadership class. We did an exercise this week on recruiting people to our cause. And then my last class is about surviving the apocalypse. It's ... interesting." And the teacher was hot.

"Surviving the apocalypse?" Wes repeated. "Is that likely to be useful to you?" He laughed. "To me, possibly. Although I had something of a tutorial this past spring. But in my experience cheerleaders are generally equipped to combat the apocalypse as it is."

"Er, well, it is...the home of a...friend..."

Considering how Alexander turned as red as the dashing scarf he had on today, the way he became instantly nervous, and the emphasis he put on the word, friend was very clearly an understatement.

"She's invited me to visit, but it's almost as if the place doesn't even exist!"

And the thought that Cassima had maybe pulled something on him, that she did make it up to throw him off and be rid of him, was too horrible to bear. Sure, he may have come on a little strong, but who could blame him? He was in love!

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Fourth Floor Common Room, Saturday Afternoon

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