fandomhighdorms | 5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

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5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

"What?! It's not even Valentine's day for like another two weeks!"

That sound, up in the fifth floor common room? That was the sound of Xanthippe Voorhees scrolling through her Snapchat and her insta feed and suddenly seeing basically nothing from her friends in New York except, like, cute couple photos and gross PDA videos. A ton of them. Like a flood of them.

What the hell? Was Valentine's Day suddenly in this year?

She was so out of the loop.

And starting to panic about it. Her social media presence was pretty much the only thread she was hanging onto her old life by and if she couldn't get on everyone else's level, she might as well just die right this instant.

"Oh my God."

She needed to plan.

"Wh-- shit."

... Possibly after she'd cleaned up the counter, because she'd kept pouring milk into her bowl of cereal all through being antagonized by snaps, and had only just now realized a fair bit of the milk was no longer strictly speaking in the bowl anymore, but, you know.

[ooc: Open common room is open! Some weekend SP in effect.]

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Ringo couldn't spend all day in her room feeling sick to her stomach. Especially since that seemed to be a recurring thing. A late breakfast was the easiest thing to keep down for her these days, so she forced herself to head for the common room to scrounge something up.

"Hey, Xanthippe," she said, trying to muster up a smile for her roommate when she spotted her. But it lacked Ringo's usual level of energy.

Xanthippe, being the terribly self-centered person that she was, did not notice. Yet, anyway. Too busy frowning hard at her phone. Like she was offended by it.

"Yeah, hi," she said, without looking up. Who even was this guy Simone was apparently hooking up with now?

It was actually kind of a relief that Xanthippe didn't comment on Ringo's attitude. Maybe she'd also refrain from commenting on how badly Ringo had been sleeping this week.

"Anything interesting to eat?"

"What?"

Yes, Xanthippe, people outside your phone existed. Especially ones who'd last spoken to you mere actual seconds ago.

"Oh. There's like, cereal or whatever."

"Cool, thanks." Ringo's smile didn't get any more believable as she walked over and grabbed a box of cereal pretty much at random.

She glanced over at Xanthippe, trying to think of something polite to say or ask, but drew a blank.

That was okay. Xanthippe continued to be a garbage person.

After a moment, she exclaimed, at her phone, "Oh my God that is too. Much.

Ringo's head whipped around from where she was pouring milk on her cereal. "What? Huh? I thought it was a normal amount of milk?"

To be fair, Ringo didn't eat a lot of cereal, so she could have gotten it wrong.

Considering the mess Xan had made earlier, she would've had no room to judge.

"Huh? No." That was a 'no' of the 'don't be absurd' variety, obviously. "My friend Natalia is posing with two guys and tagging it baes. Since when does she even know two guys?"

Ringo blinked. "Natalia? I don't think I know her."

Because, of course, she assumed that Xan was talking about someone on the island.

The joke was on Ringo! Xanthippe had even fewer friends on the island than she did off it!

Wait, no, the joke was still on Xanthippe, there. Poor Xan.

"Well duh, she's in New York," she said. "Where poly is apparently now a thing?"

"Oh."

Ringo blinked.

"Um, poly?" The concept was one she was familiar with, but the term was an unfamiliar one.

And, clearly, Xanthippe was super-invested in teaching Ringo English.

Sure.

"You know, like... Dating more than one person." Honestly, she only got that muc out just to have context for her venting. "And it's like so unfair because when I was still in New York, Natalia was like barely dating anyone."

"Oh." That Ringo understood. "So I guess, um, good for her, right? Especially if she hadn't had any luck before?"

Something to celebrate, right, Xan?

"Are you okay?" Look, Rhys as apparently only running into this girl when she was having some weird meltdown.

He was sensing a pattern that totally didn't include him. For once.

Run awaaay, Rhys! Because Xanthippe's attention locked right onto him as soon as he was in the door. He was... okay-looking (nothing that couldn't be fixed with better styling), and hadn't seemed like, poor.

Plus she was in a low-level panic so casting some nets even before outright planning seemed to be in order.

All this added up to an attempt at a dazzling smile. "Hey! Hi, no, I just like... Spilled some milk, you know? Totally no big deal."

Excuse you, his hair was amazing.

"Uh huh," he replied slowly. He ran his metal hand through his totally awesome hair reflexively at the smile.

Honestly, the metal hand was a bigger issue than the hair. But it could probably be passed off as a totally cool biohacking thing.

Xanthippe wiped the rest of the milk off the counter, even forgetting to be embarrassed about her prior klutziness now that she had a stronger priority at hand. "So, like, how've you been, Rhys?"

Maybe steampunk would make a comeback? You know. Ironically.

"I'm good," Rhys replied, sort of suspicious, but probably not about the right thing here. "How are you?"

He was trying not to look at the milk.

At least the milk was going to be gone in a few more seconds? For the most part, anyway.

"I'm super, thanks for asking," Xanthippe said, like she was genuinely pleased that he had. "Well, for the most part, anyway..."

"For the most part?" he asked despite himself.

This is why you get involved in stupid adventures, Rhys. This and you wanted a promotion. Oh, and the Jack thing.

That too.

He really was lacking in self-preservational instincts, wasn't he?

It got him big, totally ~~fake~~ sincere eyes. "My dating schedule is super empty." A little hair twirl around a finger always helped, right? For the level of suggestive she was going for. "I could use some help with that."

He really was. But he hadn't gotten as far as he had at Hyperion by being completely oblivious to these sort of things.

Rhys pursed his lips, eyeing the hair twirling. "Wow, you are really laying it on thick," he said with his usual level of charm.

And since Xanthippe was not even half as smooth as she thought she was, there was a flash of annoyance on her face before it smoothed out into a mock confused expression instead.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Don't you want to, like, get to know me better?"

He liked her for the fact that she reminded him so much of being back at Hyperion. That hive of awful people. God, he missed it.

Which would be why he smiled at her. "Sure."

She would've absolutely taken that as a compliment.

Her posture relaxed just the tiniest bit. "Great!" she said, brightly – and had zero idea on where to take this next. Now, it was showing she should've taken time to plan before aggressively pushing forward. "So, um ––"

Should've maybe thought of an actual sentence to say before trying to start one.

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