fandomhighdorms | Second Floor Common Room, Thursday Evening

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Second Floor Common Room, Thursday Evening

Natalie was getting a little wistful. Her room was all packed up apart from what she was still intending to use today and tomorrow before leaving all this behind. Truth be told it almost didn't even feel like her room anymore. Maybe that was part of the reason why she was choosing to spend some of her evening in the common room. But it wasn't the entire reason. There was nostalgia in there too. This was going to be her last night in the dorms. And after two years, that felt weird.

But she was making blueberry pancakes. At her feet, Mr. Moxy was batting a ball around. Things were okay.

And there was enough maple syrup to share.

[ooc: Open! Going to bed at reasonable hours is for people whose RL classes have already started. And I'm not one of those.]

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Theo followed the smell. Really, anything that smelled good and wasn't made by him tended to remind him of dinners with Kiori's family and he missed that.

So, skateboard under one arm, he stopped in the common room to see what was cooking.

"Smells good," he commented idly.

"FOOD!" Dev bellowed. "FOOD FOOD FOOD!"

It was so loud even Theo winced.

Natalie raised her eyebrow at what she was sure had been capslocking she couldn't actually hear.

Her life was weird sometimes.

"There's enough to share," she replied without glancing back. Too crucial a moment for the pancakes to pry her attention away from them yet, or something. "As is the dorm tradition."

"That is very nice of her," Ange said, giving Dev a dirty look at the yelling. "There's enough to share and there's no need to yell. A truly fortunate turn of events."

"That's nice of you," Theo said, half smiling as he came in. "Unwritten tradition or is that actually in the school rules?"

"At this school?" It might be." She actually glanced back this time, although it was brief. "But it's just tradition as far as I know. Or just basic human decency."

"So, what do you do if you can't cook?" Theo asked, coming up beside her to watch the pancake preparation. "Pray that you don't accidentally poison someone?"

"Takeaway," Natalie said, with another brief glance over before flipping the pancake over. "Sometimes they conveniently deliver too much food by accident."

Or maybe they just really liked Gert, for all she knew.

"Why haven't we happened upon large amounts of food?" Dev asked, stomping around. "We're growing! We need to eat! Theo needs to eat all the time!"

"He does not," Ange said, sighing. "He eats enough. You act like he's skin and bones."

"Well, he could be soon! He needs to eat more."

"That can't be a good for business," Theo guessed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Lots of food given that wasn't paid for."

Natalie didn't immediately answer. She'd tilted her head to the side just a little quizzically, and squinted at him a bit.

Then she let that go. "People in this town get by working just one day a week. I'm not sure the economy works in any normal way, either.

"Why is she squinting at us? Theo, did you leave something on your face?" Ange asked, frowning. "You might want to check on that."

"Maybe she's checking him out," Dev said and waggled his eyebrows.

Theo wanted to tell him to 'shut up' for that one but he didn't. "What, are you saying this place isn't normal? I hadn't noticed that."

He was kidding.

Natalie, while still looking just a little bit distracted by certain things, gave him a mild but dry look.

"Yes, because there aren't new kids coming in two days, so clearly you're that new."

Yeah, it was a given that a Fandomite knew things were weird pretty soon after moving.

"This place tends to let you know quick that you're not in Kansas anymore," he said, glancing back at the food she was making. "You been here long?"

"Two years." And what long, long years they'd been. In a good way, though. Most of the time. A moment of pancake-watching later, she added, "And leaving tomorrow."

"Wow. Congratulations?" he asked, nodding. "Long time to be in one place."

"Not really," Natalie replied. Pancake done and on to the next one. "A lot of people stay in one place from their birth to the end of high school."

"And are those one places typically places like this place that make it hard to want to stay sometimes?" Theo wondered.

Natalie shrugged one shoulder.

"I'm sure some of them might be."

"Congrats, nonetheless," Theo said with a shrug.

"She sounds ungrateful. Steal her pancakes."

Three guesses who that was.

Ange rubbed her temple. "And what good would that do, Dev?"

"Well, it'd teach her not to bite the hand that feeds her. And it'd feed us."

Theo wasn't going to steal the food. He rubbed the side of his head. "You going off to college?"

"No, Haiti, assistant to a politician," Natalie replied, a little absently. For a reason. "Is your narrative always this full of italics?"

That was the reason.

"My...what?" Theo asked, caught off guard.

And she wasn't the only one who was caught off guard. Ange and Dev stopped arguing and stared.

"Can she hear us?" Ange asked, frowning. "How is that possible?"

"She might be one of Ember Silva's people!" Dev said, already growling and looking menacing.

Theo swallowed and looked over at her curiously.

"Your narrative."

She looked him over for a second, then shook her head.

"It's probably too much to ask to meet anyone who gets what that means during my last days here. It's a meta thing."

"I get what it means but I just don't know what it means when it comes to me," Theo said apologetically. "What narrative?"

He just had voices.

"The stuff that goes around the quotation marks," Natalie replied, with the air of someone not expecting that to mean anything to him. She'd met all of one or two people on the island who grasped things beyond the fourth wall. "Don't worry about it."

"Sorry if my...narrative is bothering you," Theo told her, rubbing his neck again. "Don't mean to do that on one of your last days."

"It doesn't bother me, it was just a little distracting." Italics could be like that. "My last days are fine."

"Okay," Theo said, wandering away from the kitchen area towards the couches. He leaned against the back of the sofa and stretched his skateboard over his head.

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