fandomhighdorms | Dorm Roof, Sunday Afternoon

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@roof,
dante

Dorm Roof, Sunday Afternoon

Dante perched his elbow on a divider at the edge of the roof, cigarette dangling between his fingers. He eyed the stretch of cheese right past the town skyline. Everything smelled like cheese, which was kind of disgusting, but he could think of a few worse smells that could be hanging in the air right now. So whatever.

Times had been pretty good lately, being a pony aside. On one hand, that was a good thing. On the other, it meant he was thinking; something he'd never really taken the time for before. Had the time for before. And it was screwing with him something good. Made it harder, for one, to keep clinging on to old anger. And, y'know-- maybe keeping it up was a bad thing for him anyway...

There he went again. Thinking. He'd spent so much time running or ready to run, his whole life this mishmash of partying and violence, and now that the latter was gone and the former had settled down into something of a shadow of itself because of it, he barely knew what to do with himself. That was a bad thing. The violence wasn't supposed to be all that he was. It should be a relief to find out that it wasn't.

He sighed and held up the unlit cigarette. Studied it.

Kathy'd always given him a ton of shit about the smoking. If he was completely honest with himself, his heart wasn't in it anymore either. Of all his vices, it felt the most pointless. When he lived hard, he tried to live like a rock song: fast, head to the wall, just going for it. Not like smoking. When he lived slow... he just wanted to hang out in bed, shoot the shit with somebody - Alana, Anders, Ada, Isabela, fuck, even Ringo, whoever - and while Kathy had always been the most vehement about getting him to drop the cigarettes, it didn't help him much there, either.

"Screw it," he said.

He chucked the cigarette over the edge of the roof, watched it fall.

"Fine, Kathy. You win."

About the smoking, sure.

Maybe about the anger, too.

He felt a different emotion kindling in his chest at the thought of it, aching to jump upwards to his face, but that, he shut down. No. Not for her. Not for anybody.

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Ahsoka had come up to the roof intending to meditate in the small garden she'd found up here, since just because you could meditate anywhere it didn't mean there wasn't an appeal in doing it in the warmth of the sun surrounded by the feel of green and growing things (not to mention the scent of green and growing things). She hadn't expected to find anyone else up here though.

"Oh, hey."

Dante blinked, yanking his attention away from himself (figuratively) and the skyline (literally). "Oh, hey," he called, straightening. "What's up?"

"Not much," Ahsoka said gesturing at said skyline. "At least compared to last week."

That had been an indoors mediation week.

"Yeah, the pony thing was a thing," Dante said. Expressive, as per usual. "But whatever, we've had weirder shit around here." Beat. "Not you until now, I guess."

"You'd be surprised," Ahsoka said, thinking of Mortis. "But this place certainly seems intent on keep people on their toes."

Dante shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets as he wandered towards her. "I guess," he said. "This wasn't nearly as bad as the shit that went down last term. We had some stabby a-- monster assholes running around turning people into more of them."

Nice catch, Dante, though Ahsoka wasn't going to let on she'd noticed.

"I'm not sure if that's better or worse than someone just trying to kill you," she said, then remembered the Geonosian brain worms and Barriss begging her to kill her. "Creepier, definitely creepier."

So sue him. Dante's only experience with aliens was Alana, and he was still working on his familiarity with it all.

"Way creepier," he said. "Wound up having to basically sit on a friend to get her not to go out killing people."

Ahsoka would take lack of familiarity over parroting bigotry, Mara.

"Oh, believe me, I've been there." Sitting on, giving them a face full of coolant, same thing.

"Huh," Dante said, his eyebrows shooting up in clear invitation for some explanation. "What happened?"

"Brain worms." Creepy, creepy brain worms that could animate corpses. "Infected a friend of mine and the tr- other passengers on a transport we were on a few years back. Luckily the outbreak was contained and almost everyone made it out okay, but it was touch and go." A very cold touch and go.

"Okay, that is giving me the creeps just hearing about it," Dante said, shaking his head. "You had a weird life before coming here, huh?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "Parts of it." The vast majority of which happened after becoming Anakin's Padawan. "I had a pretty normal childhood."

For a Jedi, anyway.

"Sounds nice."

Speaking as someone who'd had a terrible childhood. For anybody.

"So how does a pretty girl like you go on to get into that kind of trouble?"

Okay, he knew a ton of pretty girls who got into a ton of trouble. It was a figure of speech.

"It was." Of course, nearly everyone involved was dead now, so the memories were kind of bittersweet.

A figure of speech Ahsoka actually knew how to react to, which was rolling her eyes. "The same way everyone else does, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or sometimes the right place at the right time." And boy, did Anakin have a knack for finding both kinds of situations to drag them into.

"Milking that whole 'woman of mystery' thing, huh?" said... the guy who didn't tell anyone anything important about himself if he could at all manage it.

Ahsoka's narrative was side eyeing him, even if she wasn't.

She shrugged again. "There was a war on, it was hard not to get dragged into it." Especially not when you were one of the people fighting it.

Look, spending time around Obi-Wan Kenobi during a formative age tended to result in developing a special relationship to the truth.

From a certain point of view, it was definitely true.

"Ouch," Dante said, wincing a little in sympathy. "Okay, got it. Rough stuff. No wonder you're so good with a big stick."

Mostly not even intentional innuendo, this time.

"I'm even better with two."

Innuendo not intended at all.

Yeah, okay, when it came from her, Dante kinda saw the innuendo. And snickered softly.

"I'll bet," he said.

Intended both on the innuendo and the non-innuendo level.

It took Ahsoka several moments to realise why he was snickering. Togruta didn't blush nearly as obviously as humans, but she did go a deeper shade of orange.

"I... just...know how to handle myself." That wasn't making it better.

"Again," Dante said, "I'll bet."

Then, because he took some pity on her: "I saw you move back in class a few weeks back. Pretty badass."

"Any of my people could do that with the right training." Though the fact she still wasn't quite at the point admitting she meant Jedi instead of Togruta when she said that meant she couldn't point to Anakin or Obi-Wan as examples. "You didn't do too badly yourself."

Considering they were poking a rancor with pointy sticks.

"Any of my people could do that," Dante said, "But of course, there's only one of me, so that doesn't mean shit."

Something something demonic energy something? He was still clinging to the idea he was some kind of mutant.

Oh, hey, that section of the rooftop was suddenly fascinating.

"It sucks to be alone like that."

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