Fourth Floor Common Room, Thursday Evening

[nottrivial]

Alec had more Chinese food than any human really needed and the TV was stuck.

The TV was stuck on a show that seemed to be mainly about teenagers who lived in a house together and did stupid things, to be specific. They didn't seem to like each other, and the ones that did like each other had very odd ways of showing it; none of them seemed to have jobs or any obligations outside of going to the beach, drinking, and fighting with each other; and the camera regularly zoomed in the face of one of the girls, whose face was a color not typically found in nature and certainly not found on the average person's skin.

Alec... didn't understand it at all. Not the show itself, not the appeal of the show, none of it. But the TV refused to turn off, so he stared blankly at the screen as he ate his Chinese food, missing aaaall the jokes and becoming increasingly annoyed with the characters. As you do.

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[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

Fawn's lips quirked slightly in the suggestion of a grin, so she lowered her head to let her hair hide it better, lest it be seen. Then she tossed it back over her shoulder once she had composed the slip in her stoicism, before dumping the cucumbers into a bowl.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

[nottrivial]

"New York. City." He took a moment to fish some final noodles out of the bottom of his container, then looked back up. "You?"

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

It was a little harder to hide the smile that prompted. "Same," she said, and she waved a salad fork in the air a little. "Which begs the real question. When?"

[nottrivial]

Alec actually cracked a smile at that, which was rare. Really rare. It might have looked a little out of place on his face.

"Not too far off from now," he answered. "How about you?"

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

"Probably further back," Fawn said with a nod; if he was going to be vague, she could be, too. "But not by too much. Enough that it's a little freaky,but you get used to it."

[nottrivial]

Alec nodded. "From what I've heard, that describes a lot about this place."

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

Fawn placed a finger on her nose and grinned, again, just faintly. "Bingo," she said, and tilted the bowl as if to make a presentation of what she was about to offer. "You want any of this salad?"

[nottrivial]

A lifetime of Isabelle's cooking had taught Alec to be wary.

"No thanks," he said. "The Chinese food was pretty filling." He decided a change of topic was in order before she could press the issue, because seriously, Isabelle's food scarred a guy for life. "So why'd you pick this school, anyway?"

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

Fawn shrugged, scooped a little bit into a bowl for herself, added a little bit of salt and pepper and some vinaigrette that was in the fridge, too, and placed the rest in the fridge under some Saran wrap. She drifted over to a chair by the TV as she spoke, since restrictions like eating solely at the table were unheard of in the Farrell household. "I didn't," she said, hoping she didn't sound too annoyed about it. "I didn't get into Performing Arts like my siblings"--and that she hoped she didn't sound too glad about, "and Mom was a little worried about me going to public school. So she thought this place might be good for me."

So that she could go and join all the other freaks...

She mixed the salad a little in her bowl with her fork and took a bite, trying to sink a little bit into the chair.

[nottrivial]

Alec wasn't really one for meaningless sympathetic phrases; no one in his family was much for sugar-coating, so he'd never had any reason to get any good at it. When you added that to the facst that he'd met her not twenty minutes ago, wasn't even sure he understood what was so wrong about her story, and wasn't even sure if she'd appreciate those efforts anyway, well. He wasn't going to try.

Instead he waited a moment, then offered, "I'm only here because my brother goes here. I've never been to real school before."

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

"I'd have trouble really calling this a 'real' school anyway," Fawn admitted, and stabbed a cucumber especially hard. "Who's your brother?"

Not that she expected to know him; Fawn didn't get out much.

[nottrivial]

"Jace Wayland," Alec said. "I'm Alec Lightwood, by the way."

No explanation for the differing last names, nope.

"And so far it's more of a real school than where I used to go," he added. "At least judging from how schools look in movies."

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

"Fawn Singleton Farrell," she offered back, and, hey, Vidamiá had a different last name, too, so she figured it was just one of those things. She shook her head slightly. "I don't think I know him. Were you home schooled before?"

[nottrivial]

Alec paused for a moment before deciding that, yes, that would be the best way of describing it. "Basically," he said. "My siblings and I all were. Then my brother decided to come here a few months ago, so after a while I came too."

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

"How many siblings do you have?" Fawn wondered if it was starting to sound like Twenty Questions, but once more than one sibling entered the picture, she got a little curious. She did miss her sisters and Cliff, and her mother, sometimes, but the ache never got too deep that the reminder of her independence didn't start covering it over.

[nottrivial]

"Three. Jace, Isabelle and Max."

Though while Jace was family, plain and simple, Alec always felt a little odd lumping him in with Isabelle and Max -- the word 'sibling' always felt a little wrong when it came to describing him. But it would have to do, as mundanes didn't exactly grasp the idea of parabatai.

"Were you homeschooled too?" he asked after a moment. It was hardly fair to just let her keep asking questions. "You mentioned you hadn't been to public school before."

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

"Well, a public high school," Fawn corrected. "We don't live in a very good area, but all my older siblings got accepted into a special arts school. Mom was hoping I'd get in, too, but..."

She smiled ruefully.

She had thrown the audition.

She shrugged. "We all went to regular schools before then, though. I guess it's not as much of a threat to fall into a bad crowd when you're six as much as it is when you're sixteen."

[nottrivial]

Whoooosh!

Hear that? That was the sound of a joke flying high, high over Alec's head. Bye, little joke! Have a safe flight!

Alec blinked. "I guess the six-year-olds would be less likely to pull weapons, or something like that," he granted, though he sounded a little dubious. That came mainly from the fact that when humor entered a conversation, he lost all footing.

He really was tragically unfunny, it was true.

[yinandyango.livejournal.com]

"By at least sixty percent," Fawn nodded. She was fine if Alec completely missed the point; it just seemed to make her deadpan all the more succinct.

[nottrivial]

That sounded... specific, but who was he to argue?

"So this place is considered safer than the average public school?" Huh. "I'm... grateful I never went to one, then."