Fifth Floor Common Room, Tuesday Morning

[stars_and_money]

Last night, something peculiar had happened for the very first time: Jeremy Darling had gone grocery shopping.

And as was the case with most things involving money and a member of the Darling family, he had maybe gone a little overboard. He'd ended up having to lug three bags of foodstuffs back to the dorms, on his own, and dearly wishing Clark could have moved to Fandom with the twins to help with this stuff.

Still, the good thing was that he had three different kinds of cereal to choose from this morning when he wandered on down to the common room, wearing his glasses and his pajama bottoms with the planet print, his red silk dressing gown hanging open. After making his daunting breakfast food choice, he flopped down onto a couch with his bowl of cereal (two kinds at the same time) and turned the television on to start channel surfing.

It wasn't long before he was considering buying the common room a nice new TV set.

[ooc: It's an open common room!]

Comments

[stars_and_money]

"Oh yeah? What about?"

Jeremy could sort of understand reading for pleasure. To him, the book just looked more like something to be read for class.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley turned the book over so Jeremy could see the cover. "It's a historical account of combat techniques," he explained. Because yes, he believed that he was the only one in the world who could read.

Hopefully this guy wasn't going to be like Nathan, who, discovering one of Wes' demonology texts, publicly announced that it was porn.

[stars_and_money]

Jeremy wasn't quite as likely to jump into unlikely conclusions like that, but he did sort of squint at the book upon reading the title. "... Why would you read that?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Oh, a new kid. Gotcha.

"I -- well, I'm interested in it, I suppose," he said, a little taken a back. "My old school was rather focused on combat and weaponry and that sort of thing, and I've developed something of a fascination with the subject."

Long story short: He liked it. Yes, Wesley enjoyed using unnecessary words.

[stars_and_money]

"That's cool," Jeremy said after a pause, in the idle fashion of someone who wasn't really sure it was cool, but didn't want to be rude. "But dude, what kind of a school did you go to before? Was it like a military school?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"No, it was, ah..." Hmm. He wasn't usually the guy who explained things to the newbies, especially since he was still pretty much a newbie himself, having been here less than a year and all. But that had never stopped him from bragging about himself, so.

"No, I attended the Watchers' Academy in Southern Hampshire," he explained, though he'd long since given up on expecting people to be familiar with it. "It's a prestigious boarding school that focuses on training people for... er, positions of leadership, I suppose one might say? I was trained to help supervise a... well, a soldier, I suppose would be the best way of putting it."

He wasn't so good at speaking, no. Sorry, Jeremy.

[stars_and_money]

"Never heard of that school," Jeremy replied with a brief shake of his head. He leaned back against the couch. "But, I'm starting to get the feeling that that maybe happens a lot here. No one even knows who I am."

He hadn't quite decided how he felt about that yet, so he just shrugged and returned his attention to Wesley. "So they trained you to... watch?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, now that was interesting.

"Yes, in the most simplistic sense," he agreed. "I functioned in an advisory capacity, mostly, offering advice and such to my charges."

Also, he was expelled and fired. Just a little fun fact.

Momentarily distracted, he asked, "Er -- should people know who you are?"

His nice way of asking if Jeremy was anyone of consequence. Not all that articulate. Whatever, he was curious.

[stars_and_money]

"Well, I'm a Darling," Jeremy shrugged, like that was supposed to mean something. "We're kind of a big deal in New York. Like, my dad pretty much owns the city."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Ah.

"Well, students at Fandom tend to come from rather uniquely, ah, sheltered backgrounds," Wesley said, trying to be helpful. "Often that results in people not recognizing the same cultural figures and such. But I believe I may have heard your name in passing," he added. Okay, that was a lie. But a nice one!

[stars_and_money]

Not one Jeremy necessarily believed, though. They had paparazzi taking pictures of them, so would anyone really have only heard of them in passing?

Although maybe Wesley was just the bookish type. Not to mention English.

"It's all good, man," he decided. "My sister sorta thinks we should take this as an opportunity to live like normal people, anyway."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Yes, the bookish and English thing did help to account for most of Wesley's cultural ignorance. He probably wouldn't even know a celebrity from his own universe, so, there was that.

"That might be a good idea," he agreed, nodding. "That's what many other students here do, at any rate." Then, grinning, he conceded, "Though not many of them own cities."

[stars_and_money]

"Not many people generally do," Jeremy replied, with what may have been a bit of (completely charming and somehow innocent) smugness. "So, how long have you been here --? Uh, I don't think I caught your name, actually."

And he hadn't given his own, which made Wesley's little lie even more unbelievable. Or would have, if Jeremy had bothered to conecntrate enough.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," Wesley said, holding out a hand for Jeremy to shake. "I've been here since the summer. It's... off-putting at first, but you'll adjust."

Sort of. He had a feeling that things would still end up taking him by surprise no matter how long he stayed here, and he wasn't even from what one might call a normal background. But people like Quinn, for example, seemed to be able to adjust, so he'd probably get there.

[stars_and_money]

"Jeremy Darling," Jeremy replied as he shook Wesley's hand, after putting down the remote so he could actually do that. "I don't know, so far this place seems pretty... quaint."

Which was a nice way of saying boring.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Really?" Wesley asked, surprised. "Boring? Even after the confusion with the phones the other day?"

Oh, Jeremy. So much to learn about Fandom. Wes felt a little bad for him.

[stars_and_money]

"Faulty wiring?" Jeremy failed to see much weirdness about that. Probably because he and Juliet hadn't been hit with that many messages. "That stuff just happens sometimes, man. I hope that's not the most interesting thing here."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley gave a little smile at that. Oh, Jeremy...

"No, no, I think you'll discover some other oddities about Fandom soon enough," he said. That sounded pretty ominous, so he hurried to clarify, "That is, there are frequently, er, events that one might attribute to 'faulty wiring' or something similar around here. But, er. Recurringly."

[stars_and_money]

Jeremy, of course, had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Things fell apart a lot? Whatever, he had access to the money to get just about anything repaired.

"Well good," he decided, glancing at the TV. "Because to level with you, I'm not sure I'm cut out for a quiet life of nothing ever happening."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Agreed," Wesley said, grinning.

He just didn't want to be the one to break all of Fandom's weirdness to Jeremy. He had a fake big sibling for that, one who would probably like that job a hell of a lot more than Wes would.

"So, ah," he said, doing a mental search to come up with a new topic. Not being a conversational genius, what he came up with was: "So. Planet-print pajamas."
He was really, really awkward sometimes.

[stars_and_money]

Maybe a little, but Jeremy didn't mind. He glanced down at his lap now, then looked back at Wesley and grinned a bit. "Yeah. I'm sorta radically into space."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Oh," said Wesley, surprised. Well, that was cool.

Where had he been reading about space lately? Oh, right.
"I work in the library on Fridays," he said casually. "We just received some new books about space, if you'd like to come in and take a look."

Yes, because everyone on the planet liked books as much as Wes.

[stars_and_money]

Well, Jeremy did when they were about space. He looked intrigued. "Oh? I usually just order mine online, but I guess I could swing by the library some time," he said. "That's... a normal person thing to do, right?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Yes," Wesley assured him, grinning. Then, reconsidering: "Well, not normal for average people, I suppose. But for people with an interest in something specific, yes."

Actually, he really wouldn't know. People who were raised as bookworms in sheltered British boarding schools tended to have skewed perceptions of what constituted normal library habits.

[stars_and_money]

But then so did people whose experience in visiting a library was almost entirely limited to wandering into the room that housed their father's collection of books. So Wesley was kind of in really good company there.

"That's normal enough," Jeremy decided. "Fridays, right?"