fandomhighdorms | The Pool; Sunday Afternoon [03/21].

If today wasn't the sort of day for Astrid to spend floating around in the quiet, cavernous abyss of the dorm's basement pool, she wouldn't know what would be. Because a call had been made and an appointment set, and next week, she would be meeting with none other than Susan D. Valeris, hot shot Hollywood lawyer and headline chaser, with her dark hair and red lips. Susan D. Valeris, the woman who was taking up her mother's case, the woman who was trying to insist that Ingrid was innocent, that she was a victim of a wrongful and deplorable arrest, that she should be free. A woman who wanted Astrid's help in defying the reality that had happened across her very eyes.

All of a sudden, it really did seem long ago. Almost four years now. And memories could be hazy...

But for now, it was just the water beneath her and the innertube that allowed her to drift into the abyss as she stared up at the ceiling and tried not to think, tried not to plan, tried to just put herself in fates hands until Susan said what she had to say and hopefully, Astrid would never have to deal with her or think about Ingrid anywhere else but where she was now ever again.

[[ and she was well overdue for a pool post! open of course! ]]

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"Ohhh. Didn't think anyone would be down here."

Yeah, that was Ulysses, in his neon green swim trunks, carrying a ridiculous pink, heart-shaped inner tube under one arm.

Looking surprised. And then a little unsure.

Edited 2021-03-21 14:00 (UTC)

"Usually," said Astrid, who, surprised herself to hear another voice when she was used to spending hours ~~handwaved~~ uninterrupted down here, didn't yet move her eyes from the ceiling, "no one is."

But she dipped a hand into the water enough to give herself a little nudge in his direction after a moment, turning her head to look his way.

"Hey, Ulysses."

Not quite ships passing in the night this time, it would seem. Just pool floaties.

Well, there'd also been that the time they'd been roomies on the spring break.

... Where ~~someone had not had the brain~~ Ulysses had been too busy getting in trouble all over Japan to do more than barely visit the hotel rooms.

So, yeah.

"Hey, Astrid," he echoed, with a little wave of his free hand. "I can, uh... I can come back later. If you'd just rather --" Keep doing her own thing. Which looked remarkably similar to what he'd been planning, honestly.

They had been roommates in Japan, hadn't they? Astrid herself didn't spend much time in their rooms, either. She considered it mostly just glorified storage for sketchbooks.

And now? She shook her head lightly.

"Come on in," she said, laying her head back again. "The water's fine."

There were far worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, too.

Ulysses still paused to consider it. But he was feeling pretty mellow right now - he'd pregamed this endeavor up in his room, do contain your shock - so at least it was a pretty short pause. Before he shrugged.

And tossed the heart into the pool.

Then sat down on the edge to slide into the water, himself.

Astrid took a good, long moment, for him to get settled, to enjoy the quiet for as long as she could before it started to just get kind of awkward, before she ventured, "So you've you been?"

Her silence gave Ulysses time to less-than-gracefully get to floating around on his innertube. And then to stare mindlessly at the ceiling for juuust long enough that he was halfway startled to hear her voice again.

Or maybe it just felt that way.

"Uh, good," he said. "Just... good, you know? Not really doing much but, sometimes that's the best thing. Just, like, spending time with yourself for a while."

Oh good, he was rambling.

"I mean, um. What about you?"

[ooc: The past day and a half have been A Day.]

Maybe he'd been spending so much time with himself he had trouble talking to a different person, but as far as rambles went, that wasn't even that bad. Astrid grinned faintly, closing her eyes, and spending just a little time with the water and how it shifted underneath her now that there was another body floating in it.

"About the same," she said. "I guess. Nothing's tried to kidnap or attack us for little while now, so that's definitely a positive."

[[ MOOD. ]]

"Dunno about that."

Ulysses, please. It was obviously a good thing.

"'Cause at least that's not boring."

Astrid felt her eyebrows lift, and she considered that for a moment before her eyes opened again and she turned her head back toward Ulysses.

"I'll gladly take the boredom," she stated.

Her plans for her day was floating around in an empty pool for hours on end. She clearly did not have a problem with boredom.

In fact, she wished she could say she was more bored than she was at that moment.

Ulysses shrugged, still looking up towards the ceiling.

He brushed some errant, floppy curls away from his face as he thought it over.

"But this is like, such a small town, you know?" he said, gesturing at the ceiling. Vaguely, as was his wont. "And when there's not, like, none of that like crazy shit happening, then it's... just that. It's a small town. With like, small-town things."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing," Astrid said, as she turned her head back toward the ceiling, almost as if following that vague gesture and tilting her head as there was something interesting there, though she was mostly just pondering the conversation. "I like the quiet."

And she could adapt to exist practically anywhere.

"Plus, Baltimore's not far away. And there's always portals."

"Yeahhh, well..." Ulysses said, a little more absently again, really drawing both words out for all that they were worth. "I'm in Baltimore a lot."

Another pause.

"Chasing excitement."

Which was to say, doing stupid things.

The Pool; Sunday Afternoon [03/21].

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