fandomhighdorms | fourth floor common room: sunday afternoon

One reason that Nathan was glad to be back in the dorms was that the walk back from the preserve was a lot shorter. He didn't have to take a ferry and it meant he had more time to do things like flopping down in the common room to eat a late breakfast and work with his newly received tablet. The reading wasn't going very well but he'd gotten pretty good with using the apps that played movies and television shows. He couldn't really pick a favorite but the cooking shows he found were pretty fascinating.

The common room television was off but Nathan's tablet was on while he watched an older woman bustle around her kitchen while she talked about what she was making today. Every so often he took a bite of the omelette he'd made himself but most of his attention was on the show and trying to remember the various ingredients and instructions so he could maybe give the meal a try later.

He had a brief thought of what Celia or Arran or Jessica or his grandmother would think of right now, using technology and not worrying about if people saw his tattoos or his scars. Jessica would try to kill him considering she was a Hunter. Celia would probably be impressed but she'd keep that to herself. Arran would want to play with the tablet and his grandmother would...well, he wasn't sure.

Nathan sighed and put them out of his mind. He couldn't think of them now. They were gone and he was here.

[Open common room]

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"Didn't have the time," Edward said with a shrug. "Mum and dad needed extra hands. Especially back in Swansea."

"Didn't miss much," Nathan told him, shaking his head. "Too much reading, too few art classes, a lot of fights, and a lot of people staring at you."

"You went, then?" Edward asked, blinking.

Somehow he'd always assumed he and Nathan had some similar background - somewhere.

"Briefly," Nathan said, rubbing the back of his neck. "But, I got into a fight with a teacher."

Not his best moment in hindsight but he didn't regret it.

"Through a chair through a window, smashed a computer and that was the last time I went. My grandmother tried to home school me after that."

"Mum knows how to read a ledger," Edward supplied. "She was talkin' about teaching me at some point. How about your gran, then?"

"She can read and she tried to teach me but it didn't work," Nathan told him, shaking his head. "She had my brother and two sisters to watch over too. She was just one person so I was sort of...on my own. I learned some things but not how to read. It became less and less important to me."

"Seemed, at one time, like it was easy getting away without it," Edward said.

Though he'd secretly always craved knowing. "Now... here... it's different."

"I could get away with just pointing to pictures but that's becoming harder," Nathan agreed with a nod. "There's not always pictures to point at so I just stare and then leave."

"Ah, I talk my way out," Edward shared with a brief grin. "Gift of gab, I have, or so mum tells me."

"Yeah, I don't have that," he said, snickering. "I tended to fight to get my way back home. Or I stole what I needed. I don't know how well either of those would work here."

"People seem to like giving you free things," Edward noted. "A man could make use of that, you know."

"I always thought they felt sorry for me or something," Nathan told him, shrugging. "Pity gifts and stuff."

"Well, it's still something," said Edward, who'd never accept a pity gift in his life. "I mean, it's something you can work with."

"Be the pitied kid?" Nathan asked, making a face. "No thanks."

Edward shrugged. He wasn't about to give up his secret about the tree that grew clothes, much as he liked Nathan. That wasn't how commerce worked.

"There ought to be something you could do to earn some coin," he mused. "How about those men who run about the place carrying people in their small carriages? You could do that, I reckon."

Nathan's brow furrowed and he rubbed his hand through his hair again.

"That seems like it'd get tiring," he said more to himself than anything. "Though being outside all day would be a good thing. Still don't know if I really want to take orders like that."

"Seems like the best gamble, if you want to earn money while on the island," Edward pointed out. "Still, who's to say you should stay here at all?"

There was the whole thing where he couldn't seem to get back to his home that was keeping him here. He rubbed his hand against his pants.

"You planning on staying?" Nathan asked, keeping his own conflict about that to himself for now.

"Yeah," Edward said, after a moment. "Not like people are linin' up to give me an education. I should probably talk to my parents, though."

Who might be upset about him vanishing for three months.

"You haven't?" Nathan asked, raising his eyebrows. "Are you not able to or just haven't wanted to?"

"They'll be upset," Edward said lightly. "Seemed like borrowing trouble..."

"Won't they be relieved to hear from you, though?" Nathan wondered. "They might be thinking the worst right now."

"They would be," Edward agreed, shrugging somewhat uncomfortably. "I'll get back to them soon enough, no worries."

"Will they be mad that you left?" Nathan asked, wondering if that was why Edward hadn't called them already.

"Like I said," Edward said delicately, "They need more hands."

Except Edward didn't want to be a set of hands for the rest of his life.

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