Second Floor Common Room, Tuesday Morning

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

The weekend with the children (or more precisely, the lack thereof) had not been great for Simon. Couple that with some of his classes leaning heavily on death and the future last week, and he'd been training pretty hard for the last few days. This would explain the fresh bandages on his knuckles, and the equally fresh (although light) scrape on one of his pale cheeks. Sometimes you really botched a jump.

And he was getting breakfast now. Milk, a bowlful of cereal, and he was frying two eggs for himself. Of course, his mind was still on a whole variety of other things (what he should have done better with that jump, whether he should go home to England for a visit, whether he should just go home in general) that his concentration on the task at hand was a little wobbly. And so he managed to burn his finger on the edge of the frying pan.

A moment later, holding his poor hand under cold water from the faucet and trying not to get the bandage wet, Simon thought he had seen better days.

[ooc: Open!]

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[withasword.livejournal.com]

With her first class of the week a good couple of hours away, Kate was in for a leisurely breakfast this morning, and seeming remarkably relaxed, for her.

"Fight with the kitchen appliances and you will lose," she informed him. Kate was a helpful sort.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

"What?"

Well, you try being quick on your feet when your morning has consisted of running and jumping and climbing and injury after injury.

Simon was trying. "Oh. N-no, I... Just had an accident."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

Kate arched an eyebrow at him as she grabbed a box of cereal, without really looking at what it happened to be. She was kidding, Simon. Only kidding.

"This is why I go for the easy option pre-caffeine." Because she liked her fingers, thanks, and shook the pack of Capn' Crunch illustratively. Couldn't burn yourself on that.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

"I thought frying eggs would be easy." And, well, it had been. His concentration was just shot to hell.

A slightly burnt finger was pretty small compared to his bandaged knuckles and scraped face, though. He turned the water off, deciding the burn was as healed as it would get. "I guess that was wrong."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"No worries," she told him, pouring out a bowl. "Girls dig scars." Or so she'd heard. "Just come up with something better than 'the pan bit me'." Or burnt him. Whichever.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

She should have just been glad he didn't take that literally and correct her. This was Fandom, after all. He might just as well have been bitten by the pan.

He hid the tiniest smile by looking down and went to get the pan carefully off the stove, finally. "I don't think I'll use it like that."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

Kate shrugged, shoving the cereal back. "Guys probably like it too," she offered. Probably mostly because Simon seemed the flaily sort.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

He was. Just not really about that. Mostly because the only guy to ever make a move on him was Nathan, and the completely ridiculous memory of that was overriding the need to flail about anything else.

So he just frowned a little and said, "No, thank you."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley didn't live on this floor, but he did, like many Fandom students, have a truly remarkable way of knowing when someone was cooking in a common room other than his own. (He suspected it was something to do with the walls of the building deliberately wafting delicious scents -- or in the case of Certain Other People's cooking, terrible ones -- up and down the corridors.) So, drawn forward by the smell of frying eggs, here he was.

And immediately distracted from the food. Lucky, that.

"Are you all right?"

[withasword.livejournal.com]

Aw, that wasn't nearly so entertaining as she'd hoped, and Kate sighed. "Fine." He hadn't told her to eff off, which showed restraint in comparison to some.

"You could lie to me. Make me feel like my advice is worthwhile?" she suggested, leaning back against the counter to dig into her breakfast. He was awfully serious. It made bothering him a little bit of a game.

Clearly, someone was bored.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

"Yes," Simon said as he glanced up, though he'd just been examining the blister forming on his finger. Ow. "It's just a burn."

And bandaged hands, and a slightly scraped face. But you know.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

Simon raised his eyebrows a bit, at that.

"Do you want me to?"

Heaven help he poor boy, the question was partly sincere.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley frowned. "There ought to be some gauze in the cabinet," he offered, wheeling over. "It's not too bad, I hope?"

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

"It's fine," Simon said, with a quick shake of his head. "I've... had worse."

Sadly, that was true. By-product of his habit of running around the warehouse district.

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"At this point I'd be... fairly sure you were bullshitting me." Not that she'd expected anything different before he'd asked that. Not the point.

"Is everyone so serious where you're from?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"If you're sure," relented the massive hypocrite who continued to be surprised and dismissive whenever people inquired about the wheelchair he was in. He finally gave in and segued, though. "Have we met before?"

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"You know, I kind of thought you were shitting me a little bit about the kid thing." Not that Wesley seemed like an untrustworthy sort, particularly. Just that Kate had pictured it happening for for a few (not including herself), rather than the majority.

There was a 'hello' in there somewhere. Possibly.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

Oh. Well. He looked mildly embarrassed, if only briefly. "No," he said then, shaking his head. "Do you know Nathan?"

Said it all about whether everyone from where he was was as serious.

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

"M-maybe?" Simon offered after a pause. He'd met and talked to more people in Fandom than... basically his entire life before coming here, so sometimes it was hard to remember. "I'm Simon."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Wesley," Wesley offered in return. He eyed Simon a bit more before remembering where he recognized him from. "Oh! You were -- Kenzi enlistened you to help with those, er. Lights."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Sadly not," Wesley confirmed. "Did you wind up having any, then?"

[forhisfriends.livejournal.com]

Approximately seven hundred bruises ago.

Still, Simon's eyed widened a bit as he remembered, and nodded. "Oh. For the campaign." Yes, he did remember that. Now. "Of course."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Poor, poor Simon. "Well," Wesley said, cracking a sheepish smile as he searched for a conversation topic, "she hasn't been tormenting you too much lately, has she?"

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"Apparently some version of me collects orphaned teenagers." One orphaned teenager. So she was prone to exagerration. "... That sounds wrong. She didn't seem to mind."

[withasword.livejournal.com]

"Not really." She'd met him. Briefly. But it was a long time ago and she hadn't felt any particular desire to hunt him down since. "Why?"