fandomhighdorms | Second Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

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Second Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

Simon was worried. No, that wasn't a particularly novel experience for him by any stretch of the imagination, but the reason was. He'd just gotten off the phone with Alisha, and there had been something... odd, about a part of the conversation. For reasons he couldn't even remember anymore, probably as a part of an idle attempt at a joke, he'd mentioned their last probation worker, Shaun.

And she'd laughed and asked, "Who?"

At first he'd thought she was just kidding, that there was a joke he wasn't quite getting, but no. She had no recollection of a probation worker by that name. None. It had felt unsettling, and he'd had to get off the phone before he managed to pass the feeling on to Alisha as well.

Simon wanted to think it was nothing, but he'd lived with the effects of the storm too long to find that likely. And that was even without going into the kinds of stunts the island could pull. So, he was in the common room boiling water for tea, because, well, he just needed to do something familiar. Maybe later he'd go out for a run in the warehouse district again.

[ooc: You know that O word these things usually are? Yeah, this one's that too.]

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"Mind leaving the kettle on when you're done?" Ender asked, as he walked into the common room. He had a craving for tea himself; it seemed only practical.

One day, Simon was not going to stop to consider whether it was really him that was being addressed whenever someone randomly talked to him. One day.

This was not that day, though, so he paused a bit, startled, before replying. "Of course."

"Thank you," Ender replied. He crossed the room until he got to the cabinets, and flashed Simon a brief, polite smile as he got there.

Then he started rooting around, looking for something that would make a decent cup of tea.

Simon's smile was more of a little twitch of his lips than an actual smile. Oh well.

After a moment, he gestured at his packet of tea bags. "I have Earl Grey."

"And I... will take it," Ender said, then paused. "Assuming as I am that was an invitation to do so."

"Yes," Simon confirmed, huffing out a quiet laugh tinged with mild embarrassment. Even he wasn't quite so socially awkward as to just point out he had tea.

Anymore. "You're -- you're welcome to it. If you want."

"Thank you," Ender said again, with a little nod of his head, and reached for it. "I'm Ender," he added. "Just to get the common courtesies out of the way."

"Simon," Simon said, as he let Ender have the tea. He went to get himself a mug. "Bellamy," he added, for want of a better thing to say.

"Wiggin," Ender provided, taking one of the bags and fiddling with it. "I've seen you around, haven't I? You don't have too new a face."

Simon nodded, quickly. "I moved here..." He had to pause and think, because the time difference got confusing sometimes. "In May."

"Ah, right as I was leaving on my big summer vacation," Ender said wryly. "No wonder I've never spoken to you. Which year are you in?"

"Junior." Another twitch of a smile, a little wry this time. "I don't think it matters much."

Both because he wasn't sure he was staying after this year, and because he'd actually already finished school in England.

"High school isn't a big priority for you?" Ender asked. Not that it was to him, but. Curious.

"I'm from England," Simon said, by way of explanation. "I've finished school. I didn't -- I'm not here for a normal high school education."

Edited 2011-11-04 20:25 (UTC)

"So you're just here for the ride?" Ender replied.

Simon's eyebrows went up just a little bit. "N-no," he said, with a brief shake of his head. "I... I came here to learn. But not about... mathematics or English."

Ender reached up into the cupboard to get a mug himself. "Good, because our linguistics programs are awful," he said, with a wry smile. "What were you hoping to learn?"

His reasons in their most basic form were no real secret, but Simon still had to pause and think about how to answer that question.

"I heard there were people with... powers, here," was what he settled on.

That pause gave Ender cause to think there was much more going on. It did make him more curious, but he knew many people with secrets and powers, and that curiosity did not weigh strongly enough for him to press and make a clearly introverted person even more uncomfortable.

"But we do have plenty of those," he agreed, and tied the string of his tea bag around the ear of the mug before dropping it into the mug itself. "So I hope you found what you were looking for."

Simon nodded. "Some of it." And a whole lot of stuff he could've never expected, because Fandom was its own kind of environment. "I thought it would be more like... ~~meta for~~ Xavier's."

Which was another one of those things that made his fleeting smile a little embarrassed.

Ender looked puzzled. "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't know it - something from a TV show?"

Somehow, the geeky references were even more embarrassing when the other party didn't even get them. However, Simon had a lot of experience with that.

"Comic books," he explained. "Movies. It's a... school. For superpowered people."

"Ah," Ender said, nodding with understanding. "Sorry, I'm afraid my teachers weren't so thoughtful as to let me have a decent pop culture education," he offered. "That's-- 21st century, I take it?"

"Yes," Simon nodded. "Are you... not?"

"You caught me," Ender said, smiling. "22nd century, born and raised."

Simon couldn't help looking a little awed. Boy liked his scifi, and even living with superpowers, the faraway future still seemed like fiction.

"Is it --" he started, then realized he didn't really know what word to use, and so he paused and frowned lightly before coming up with one. "Different?"

"On the outside," Ender said. "Flying cars and holographic technology and spaceships, oh my. But people haven't changed much over time."

Simon nodded. "I didn't think they would," he admitted. He was fairly certain he considered that a good thing. "... Flying cars?"

Somehow he'd always assumed those would never actually happen.

"Flying cars," Ender agreed.

Mercy was wandering in from outdoors and taking the long way back to her room when she scented someone familiar and popped her head in to say hello.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"I'm making tea." ... As she could probably see. But at least he hadn't thought she was talking to someone else. "Hello, Mercy."

She could see, yes. "Hi, Simon. Is there enough water for someone else?"

"Of course," he nodded. Really, he probably would've offered to boil some more for her if there hadn't. "How are you?"

She shrugged and smiled at him as she started rummaging through the cupboards for hot chocolate. "Pretty good. Still trying to wrap my mind around some stuff."

"Oh?" Simon asked, half out of genuine curiosity and half just maybe craving distraction from his own woes. "What... stuff? If you don't mind me asking."

Mercy bit her lip. "It's a good thing probably. Just... weird. My guardian showed up out of the blue for Parent's Weekend. And he said it was okay if I told people about what I was. Which is cool, I guess. Except that I've always been told not to."

"And, I kind of think - well, he wants me to tell him how many worlds and all that people come from."

"Why -- why would he want to know that?" Simon asked, raising his eyebrows a little. maybe the last year or so of his life had taken a toll on him, to be finding that a little suspicious.

"Yeah, exactly," Mercy said. "Though I'm sure it's just one of those 'knowledge is power' things, but still, I'm not spying on my friends or anything like that."

"He wasn't very happy about that."

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Second Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

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