ataraxionlogs | someone left the cake out in the rain

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someone left the cake out in the rain

CHARACTERS: Claire Bennet & yoouuuu
LOCATION: 5th floor and beyond
WARNINGS: Sprinkles.
SUMMARY: Cheerleader Bennet lurks around her new floor, and I finally post a log.
NOTES: Razzle dazzle!

Moving floors almost feels like going through the process of getting acclimated to the ship itself all over again. Everything might look similar, but there are new faces, new sounds, new habits to adapt to. For the pocket-sized blonde currently occupying 023, some of those new habits include lurking around and hiding out in the kitchen, which she feels is a relatively low traffic area unless something starts smelling good in that area of the hallway. She hasn't had time for it, much less the inclination, and it seems kind of trivial given everything that goes on both on the network and in the corridors themselves, but it's a monotonous task that she's good at, and if Claire is looking for anything at this point, it's something to be even halfway good at. Granted, she's had to make some adjustments with the measuring and ingredients, and there isn't like she's going to throw a bake sale or something, but sometimes she'll finish up and leave the plate sitting on one of the counters and consider that her contribution for the month.

Or however time gets measured here. If she's being honest with herself, she's stopped keeping track.

She figures she must have had a birthday by now, calculating how long it feels like she's been here and where she was when she was plucked out of her own subdivision in time and space. She also figures that it matters less and less for someone like her, doubly so when you're living somewhere in which the only span of time that matters is the distance between one jump and the next, or one disaster and the next. No one has managed to come up with a calendar for that, though, so Claire splits her time between the 5th floor's kitchen and the rest of its spidery hallways and sleek rooms. The holodeck still kind of feels like some sort of weird optical illusion, so between the kitchen, library, rec room, and Kate and Darcy's doors on either side of her, her time gets divvied up in a random, scattered pattern, including that time she accidentally walked in on someone in the bathroom.

All in all, she really needs to get a job. Or a hobby. That isn't pastries.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The smell of pancakes is irresistible. The only reason Kate leans slowly around the corner as if reluctant is because she assumes she'll find the kitchen full, everyone in their block of rooms drawn in by a fluffy griddled magnet.

"Oh hey," she says, super casually, like she's surprised to see Claire there as she turns the corner, like she wasn't peeking at all. She is surprised that it's Claire alone, but pleasantly. More for her. (Less socializing required.) She flips the hood of her sweatshirt down, letting it scrunch around her neck, and combs fingers through dark hair. One hip is cocked to lean against a counter. "So let's see these sprinkle pancakes. I'm not convinced, I've got to warn you."

She had promised. Or - well. She had made the intimation of a promise and implied that she was going to go through with it. Whether or not these things taste anything like what they might back on solid ground where there are ready sources for all the actual ingredients she might need and then some, is anyone's guess. Kate's guess, probably, as she is the one who will be eating these pancakes. Claire is just glad that she managed to find sprinkles, although they are basically just flavored wax so if anything was going to be easy to come by, it should be those.

She's just fishing up, and she looks over her shoulder, behind her, when Kate calls out. Her eyes immediately go to the line of her sweatshirt, the material bunched around the other girl's neck, and something in Claire's stomach sort of unfurls and coils back up. She swallows it down and forces a grin. "You've got no faith in me. It's starting to hurt my feelings."

Kate's too alert to it not to notice Claire's look at her neck, and even if there's no concern or pity in the cheerleader's expression Kate see it there anyway. She bites down on the temptation to snap a reply like 'yeah, it sucks doesn't it?' and puts on a smile of her own. "Not you, just sprinkles. They're just little bits of colored sugar, how good could it be? Now blueberries, blueberries I would be excited about."

She hops up onto the counter, leans over to eye the griddle from above. Given a couple minutes, the kneejerk offense fades and with it the need to force the smile. "Thanks for doing this," she says, "They smell awesome."

"We're not here for a nutrition lesson," Claire instructs, plating up her creation and looking around for this or that. Her hands are sticky and also caked with flower in the seams of her skin, little half-quarters of the stuff packed into the semi-circle of her thumb and forefinger. When Kate hops up on the counter, Claire spares her another glance while trying to remember where she put the silverware. She has a little napkin pressed into a rectangle that she sits next to Kate's hip while she goes back to trying to find the fork.

At that comment, though, Claire smiles, genuine, and looks away before she lets herself feel embarrassed. "I don't mind, honestly. It's kind of the one thing I can do here without feeling like I'm going to totally destroy it or mess it up. Can't I just be the ship's lunch lady?" Pancakes plated, she spins to offer the little stack to Kate. Where did she put the syrup? "To tell you the truth, it's nice doing stuff like this. My mom and I would always make cupcakes or cookies or whatever she had in her recipe box. Sometimes for - and this is an embarrassing part of my past, so I'm asking you not to judge - sometimes for bake sales. Sometimes just because. It's a nice memory to be able to pull out of your back pocket."

And lo and behold, there was syrup.

Kate laughs, but doesn't judge. Her smile is small and lopsided, definitely amused but sympathetic, maybe a little bit charmed. "Bake sales? For the cheerleading squad?" Her tease is gentle and comes with a grin, as she shifts sideways to make room on the counter.

The plate is a distraction, and she uses the fork to lift the edge of a pancake in the stack, eyeing the hints of sprinkle visible beneath the surface. She makes a show of skepticism, brow arched dramatically as she cuts a bite with the side of her fork. She tastes it with exaggerated care, taking the syrup to pour over the rest. "Alright, the sprinkles don't ruin it," she allows, "And I like the colors." She takes another bite.

"My mom didn't bake, but sometimes we'd stop at the bakery together on the way home from something and she'd let me pick something out. Cookies or babka or something. Wow, I've really been missing pancakes."

Claire's eyebrows jump in self-deprecating agreement. It was a phase, she wants to say, but then that whole period in her life was basically a study in what to do wrong and what could go wrong and what did go wrong. Gretchen dragging Jackie's memory up to the surface isn't something that she needs to do on her own. Plus, there are pancakes. Always an adequate distraction.

"Told you," she points out. She wishes that she had some frosting to go with it, but supplies are scarce in that regard. Syrup is enough and works well as a stand-in. "Comfort food is the best food." Said like that's some sort of Southern platitude that's been stitched onto a throw pillow somewhere. It probably is. One of these days she's going to come through a jump and find that tattooed in fabric and waiting in her locker, just to spite her.

In the meantime, Claire does what she can by producing a second fork seemingly from nowhere and cutting a crude triangle out of Kate's serving for herself. "Hopefully it does the trick," she says, looking more at the mess she's made than Kate herself. It's hard not to express some kind of sympathy, some degree of her desire to inspire comfort. Hardwired into her nervous system, it shows on her face even when she doesn't want it to, and when she turns away, it's evident in her voice. She can't help it.

Kate doesn't respond right away, just holding the plate so that Claire can cut off a bite of pancakes for herself. She's not oblivious to that look, that tone. She's the opposite of oblivious, in fact: seeing it even when it's not there, totally unable to miss it now that it is. There's a set to her jaw and her eyebrows that suggests she isn't thrilled.

She wants to say I'm totally fine but it isn't really true. If she'd had any illusions about its truth they'd be cleared up now when she finds herself physically unable to force the words out of her mouth. It's a frustrating new development, and one that makes the assertion even less true. (A vicious cycle she's not at all enjoying.) She fills her mouth with pancakes and says nothing right away.

It takes two bites, actually, cut and syruped and chewed and swallowed before she finally says, in a sort of quiet way that unintentionally makes it more of an admission than it needs to be: "I'll be okay."

Eager for something to do with her hands, Claire doesn't busy herself with cutting off more pieces but instead turns her attention to cleaning up the area. She might be concise with her messes, but they are still extravagant messes. That's part of the process, she supposes, and clean up is always a routine chore that is monotonous enough to let her brain recharge for several minutes. Given how full of monologue it is, constantly running and tripping over itself, it's nice to have some silence.

With Kate in the room, though, it's all agitated monotony. Which isn't to say that she finds the other girl's presence grating in any manner; Claire just knows what it's like to be fawned over and doted on when you don't want it, and she doesn't want Kate to think that she's showing any amount of pity on her when all she's doing is worrying as much as some innate, unstoppable ability allows her to. She's known plenty of people who were almost murdered. None of them have ever had pancakes made for them before.

Claire nods in response, at first, piling some of the dishes in the sink and letting the tap run hot. She lets the cold water run for a moment before sticking her hands underneath the water so that she doesn't scald herself and have to explain why it doesn't hurt. She hasn't really gotten that far with anyone yet. "Are you sure?" she eventually asks, voice drowned out by the rush of the water. "You don't have to be. Not all at once, at least."

Kate continues eating her pancakes, taking her time with them now, savoring more slowly than at first. It's less a stalling tactic and more honestly wanting to make them last. Claire's been kind enough to indulge her pancake craving this time; she's not going to scarf them down not knowing when or if she'll have the chance to get more.

She watches Claire clean up as she eats. The water temperature doesn't even register, though if it did it would be a brief surprise at best. She did see the other girl cut in half and grow legs back, so what's a little burn? She's also not helping at all with the clean up, the thought only occurring to her once Claire already has the dishes rinsing. Then it's just a look, a moment's realization that oh yeah, cleaning up is a thing.

She takes her time replying, testing out the feel of the words in her mouth, not entirely certain what she'll be able to say until she tries. "I'll be okay," she settles on repeating, "I've had worse. And I took care of this."

She doesn't expect Kate to help, and not even because she's incapacitated in any way, although she would never classify it as such. In a way taking care of people is something that Claire knows she can be good at, and even if she knows how insufferable it can be to be looked after or treated differently because of this or that, she still enjoys being able to do it. Especially for Kate. Especially because it makes her feel like they're actually friends and not just something temporary that's going to go away once Kate decides she's gotten too much or that Claire is some kind of lunatic.

Of course, that could still happen, but Claire is trying not to count on it, with soap and the white wash of water rinsing over her hands.

At Kate's reply, Claire tosses a look over her shoulder, and it can't decide if it's empathetic or pained. "You shouldn't have had to take care of it in the first place," she says, stacking some of the dishes into the rack next to the sink. "Which, believe me, I know doesn't mean crap because it did happen, but..." Rather than coming up with anything else, Claire makes a noise in the back of her throat and turns the water on now that the sink is full. "What kind of worse?"

Distinctly not phrased as a concern or worry or anything of the sort. Genuine interest. Maybe a little bit impressed. Trying to be, at least.

Sorry, Claire. It's a good effort, but it catches Kate by surprise, like she hadn't quite anticipated being asked. She didn't think her words through far enough, just found some she could manage to get out and said them before the wall went back up. And now she's stuck. It's not that she wants to lie to Claire. They actually are friends, and she can see how much the other girl seems to care, that the smother-y moments come from a good place and she appreciates it even as she rankles under it. But this she'd lie about, if she could. Without hesitation or a second thought. Except now she has to have both, because she finds herself again unable to speak. She's got plenty of stories of shit that's worse by different measures, but none of it is honestly what she meant.

"It's not a good story," just barely makes it past her teeth, but it's true. Slightly less of a dodge to admit, "I don't actually want to talk about it." She only gets away with that one because even saying that much makes her expression wrinkle, lips pursed, discomfort palpable. Like showing the shell at all is showing its soft underside. ~~If she were going to tell anyone aboard, it would probably be Claire~~ She'd almost like to be able to tell her but she can imagine what her face would look like, not just at first but every time after, whenever she thought Kate wasn't looking.

"I'm sorry," she manages, and she reaches for Claire's arm or shoulder when she does, touch light but firm. "I don't mean to be a jerk. Ask me anything else."

Edited 2014-09-03 04:52 (UTC)

If anything, Claire relaxes under the touch at her arm, not balking in the face of Kate's reluctance and not shying away either. "You're not being a jerk," she says, with all the appreciation and understanding of someone who knows exactly where Kate is coming from. There are things that Claire has never told anyone, here or at home, things that she knows no one will ever know about and things that she still doesn't even know how to talk about, even in the years after they have happened.

"I thought maybe it could be one of those 'yeah, it was bad, but you should see the other guy' kind of things." Absently, she knows this is not the time to crack jokes, but it's easier than facing the reality of their lives. Even if the reality of their lives is that they don't belong to one another's and neither does a spaceship that has tried to kill them in a hundred different ways and yet. Here they are. "You don't have to offer up something else just because you don't want to talk about one thing. I'm not looking for a trade-off or anything. You aren't being a jerk." She repeats it, just for emphasis.

Maybe she should offer something of her own instead? But she doesn't feel like sharing either, and she isn't the kind of person who's just going to bring something serious up unprompted to level the playing field, not this early in the game. She tries to think of something else while the water drains. "You know very much about cooking?"

Right, go with that.

It's pretty much the perfect response and Kate's tempted to thank her even though the point is that she shouldn't have to (and she's right). Her smile, wry as it is, tilts warmer, and she gives Claire's arm a squeeze before letting go.

"Almost nothing," she says, hands falling to her sides to rest on the edges of the counter as she takes up the change in topic, "Unless you count pouring cereal into a bowl and putting milk on it. We had a chef, or we ordered in. My mom could make tea and I don't think my dad can even do that. I learned a little when I was living in California, but then I couldn't really afford food, so it was mostly opening cans and heating up the contents." She shrugs. Extremes of non-cooking!

"I can make coffee," she says, like what else could anyone possibly need? "I mean, I've figured out pasta and grilled cheese, I'm not a complete idiot, but if it takes more than common sense I need a recipe." A really detailed recipe.

Claire catches the present and past tense referrals to her parents and wonders at that but doesn't press, operating on the assumption that this isn't story time no mater how much she would still respect Kate in the morning. Maybe someday. In the meantime, she laughs at Kate's assertion regarding coffee.

"I do count pouring cereal into a bowl and putting milk on it," Claire says after a moment of thinking about it, looking for a towel to wipe her hands off with. "I was in college for a little while, remember. Chef Boyardee was the only culinary expert you have when you're living in a dorm room." That or the cafeteria, and Claire has to admit that the Tranquility's kitchens are better equipped for actually eating and digesting food than Arlington's overly lumpy oatmeal ever was. The chocolate milk was good, at least. And now she misses chocolate milk.

"There isn't really a lot to offer here as far as actual, real food goes. I think a lot of it is... well, I don't know what a lot of it is. I think I'm gonna try to get a job in agriculture so maybe we'll find out. But in the meantime, if you wanted to learn how to do anything other than pasta and grilled cheese, like... pancakes with sprinkles. I mean... well, I could show you." She shrugs, somewhat self-conscious although she recognizes that it's likely not something that Kate is going to turn down. Still.

"See, that's why you at least go to college in the city," Kate says, and when she says 'the city' she doesn't just mean 'a city', she means New York. Are there others? Weird. "Then you're still surrounded by places that deliver. Another thing space is lacking."

She sucks a spot of syrup off a bent knuckle as Claire shrugs through her offer, and smiles. "Sure! I should really learn. Plus you owe me for punching lessons," she reminds with a slow-motion jab to Claire's shoulder. She's not really serious about the quid pro quo part, but seems to be about learning. "I should've come in earlier and watched how you made them."

She shifts on the counter, pushing up on her hands to slide back just a little, so she can more comfortably rest the back of her head against the cabinets. Her posture is casual; just holding her head up is still a little tiring sometimes, but nobody needs to know that. "So you said your mom taught you to cook?"

Edited 2014-09-06 18:00 (UTC)

"Then I'd have nothing left to teach you," Claire replies, as if pancakes are the end all, be all of food groups. If she had her way, maybe they would be. Or anything sweet. But that's the problem with being able to make things that are delicious: resisting temptation is an improbable game that often is lost. The number of times that she has dumped left over cookies after making a batch for this or that cannot be measured by two hands alone.

As far as repaying Kate's favor, she actually finds herself agreeing with that. She likes punching lessons, which might say something about her on a very base level but which she feels is a necessary skill when it comes to surviving on a spaceship that is frequently trying to eject them into space or murder them slowly. Even if it's not really the ship that she can punch. In the grand scheme of things, teaching someone how to cook on a floating hunk of metal that doesn't actually supply very much by way of real food the way that grocery stores do doesn't seem like a very fair or even trade, but Claire thinks it's actually fun and relaxing, so there is that.

At Kate's question, Claire nods, and without having to try very hard her mother's face is right there in the center of her mind. Seeing her that month they had all gotten lost in the halls has inspired a certain amount of paranoia surrounding any thoughts of anyone, but Claire tries to keep it in check. It isn't hard. Just the thought of her mother makes her feel grounded in a way that most other people can't. "She did, yeah. I was always mixing this or adding that. Dinner was almost always home cooked, unless my brother and I had a game, or Dad wanted to take us out. Mostly it was cookies and cupcakes, stuff like that. I could probably figure out how to make stuff that is less categorized under the 'dessert' section of a menu, but it would never be as good as hers." She crosses her arms and leans back opposite Kate, legs angled out in front of her. "She's always been good at that, just kind of creating this air of normalcy even when she knows everything is just slowly kind of going to hell. My dad never gave her enough credit for that, even though he'd sing her praises even after they got divorced."

And that is kind of a lot of word vomit all at once, but it's kind of nice to put it out there into the universe.

Prying into Severus's reasons for leaving invisible bits of paper on the door to 005 » 023 would require a degree of purpose and concern that Remus doesn't quite reach. It's probably work, probably boring, definitely not his business. He made a show of paying attention to what Severus was up to mostly to annoy him, filed the incident away, and hasn't really thought about it since.

But he hasn't forgotten the room number, either, so when he sees a woman leaving the room up ahead while he's on his way to the kitchen, he lengthens his stride enough to catch up with her without appearing to try very hard.

It's not prying. It's idle curiosity. It's also only polite. A fifty-odd door distance makes them practically neighbors.

"Hello," he says while he's still a few paces behind her, both hands in his jacket pockets. "We haven't met, have we?"

It's not a hypothetical question. Memory loss is awkward.

The voice behind her catches her off-guard. Not necessarily because it exists in the first place but because she is still getting used to the who's and what's that come as part of a package deal with floor 5. It's a bit like moving into the dorms was initially, the whole process of saying a name three times in her head so that she can commit a face and title to memory and finding the boys' bathroom just in case she needs to escape someone else for a week or two. Luckily it hasn't come to that, and she's met most new opportunities with an open grin and surprisingly firm handshake.

This is no different. Claire turns, already on her way to wherever it was that she was going - sometimes she kind of just wanders aimlessly and waits to see where she ends up; usually it's the kitchen - and stops before she can get any further. Her gaze is cursory, at first, a gentle glide up and down, trying to find down some kind of recognition. Finding none, her face splits, opens up into a polite and warm smile, even if it is small.

"Hi, no, I don't think so." His hands are in his pockets, but she holds hers out anyway. "Kind of weird, since we all moved floors. You think someone would've had a new neighbor block party or something. I'm Claire Bennet."

It's been a few cycles since Remus met someone new without monsters or blood spatters to distract from niceties, but his reflexes aren't too rusty. He's quick to smile back down at her and pull a hand out of his pocket when it's needed to shake.

He isn't surprised that she's friendly. But there's an empty space in the back of his mind where a weary of course would have settled in comfortably if she'd not been.

"Remus Lupin—might not be too late for a party," he says. (Dramatic irony is great.) His hand goes right back into his pocket; it's habit, even with his wand sticking out of his back pocket instead of tucked into his jacket. A way of reining in his lankiness a little without stooping to slouching or trying to make himself small. Especially when he's talking to someone a solid foot shorter than he is. "The other floors might be jealous, though."

In his defense, Claire is used to being the shortest person in the room. Her neck has conditioned itself to crane upward at a moment's notice by default, it seems. Now she watches the movement of his hands after she lets go of the one that he has extended toward him, distracted by the movement momentarily but not enough to stop the flash of teeth that shows as her smile brightens automatically.

"They'll just have to get over it," she says, leaning some of her weight to one side and glancing over her shoulder as if sizing up the walls for obvious decoration ideas. "Or have their own party. Not that it would be nearly as cool as ours." Duh. And belatedly, she realizes that she recognizes his name, though she's never been in the position to assign a face to it and she knows very little about it.

"Remus Lupin." She says it like she's trying the syllables out on her tongue, seeing if they get stuck behind her teeth or to the roof of her mouth. "I know I've heard your name before. You're friends with Sirius Black, right?"

That's a common question. Always has been, whether it was girls fishing for help getting his attention, at school, or later what felt like the whole world wanting to know when it was Black had gone mad, exactly, and how no one had seen it coming. At least people on the Tranquility tend not to have motives for it, beyond sorting out who's from where (or when) and correctly placing everyone on the ship's weird, tangled social web.

So Remus nods and says, "We went to school together," with a grin that counteracts the understatement—not disingenuous, just private. British. He isn't generally given to one of the best friends I've ever had style effusion with strangers. With anyone. "Us and Severus and Lily Potter."

Leaving Hermione out. Rude. But that would take more explanation than Claire wants or needs, he imagines, so Remus skips over it with silent apology to Ms Granger.

"You know Severus, right?"

"That's right. I've met Lily a handful of times, too. And Sirius, back when I first got here and the hallways were going crazy as usual," she answers, still smiling that thousand watt smile, even though she would like to say something about what she knows about some particular interlocking relationships. It's not her place, though, and she doesn't even know Remus, besides, so she doesn't want to go barging in with yeah, that guy who basically broke my friend's nose why are you friends with him exactly? Someone could probably suggest the same thing about her, all things considered, and he seems nice.

Focus, Claire, stop acting like a lunatic every time someone breathes in your direction. It's going to get around that you're anti-social or something.

"In Scotland, right? School, I mean. Big giant spaceship going who knows where through time and space is probably a huge change of pace. I think I'm still adjusting, sometimes. Moving floors so abruptly probably doesn't help." She has to keep looking up at him, and vaguely she wonders whether or not he's as tall as her father. Noah could teeter between protective and imposing easy, but Remus doesn't seem to embody either of those two extremes in this moment, and that's sort of a relief. She finds it easier to relax.

For the record, Remus is exactly as tall as her father, but he loses an inch to slouching and makes a point never to impose. But he brightens and unfolds, just a little, in the face of her friendliness. She reminds him of Lily—and James and Sirius, which would be meant as a compliment, if he said so. All the people he knows who lit up rooms without trying. He likes her already.

Not that that's a particularly selective honor.

"I'd barely had time to get attached to my floor," he says, "so it could have been worse."

Maybe he should be more disoriented, but he hasn't lived in the same place for more than nine months since he was four years old, anyway, and almost everyone he's befriended is on this floor now. The only person he's farther away from after the move is Hank, and it doesn't matter much, as long as the lifts stay functional.

"Where are you from?" he asks—America, of course, but if she's being kind enough to specify Scotland instead of Britain (or England), he can try to return the courtesy. Speaking of which, he quickly cuts in at the end of his question: "Sorry, I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?"

She exhales, hard, almost as incredulous as her expression. "Hardly," she says, still looking skeptical, but it's more of a self-deprecating expression than anything else. What could Claire Bennet possibly have to do in this day and age? Her employment status is still technically pending - but she's looking into that - and there are only so many hours in a day that can be dedicated to trying to figure out how to manipulate the kitchen into giving her what she wants, let alone trying to create the illusion that she is not the one using all of her kitchen's resources. Sorry, guys.

"To answer your question, I'm from - " She makes a face. "Well, Texas, originally. Odessa. But I moved to California when I was sixteen, and then kind of... traveled. I go to school in Virginia. Or I did, before I came here. Now I'm from the fifth floor of a spaceship, apparently." Sometimes her voice still gets a little twangy, but neither of her parents had a traditional accent, save for her mother when she was feeling Super Southern Mom. Privately, she enjoys the fact that a lot of the people she has met are not American.

"Were you on your way somewhere?" she follows up, indicating over her shoulder with a thumb thrown down the hall. "I don't mind walking and talking."

"Just the kitchen," Remus says. "Last time I summoned something I nearly hit someone."

So no more of that, at least without checking the hallways first, and once he's gone that far there's no real reason not to just make the walk. He has more to do than Claire, maybe, but not by much. And if they're both only killing time—

He moves around her to keep walking, turned at an angle to keep facing her, for the first couple of steps, to make sure she's coming along.

"Those are two of the three states I could find on a map," he says. "Texas, California, and Massachusetts, with the..." He draws the hook of the Cape in the air ahead of him. He only knows where it is because of the Salem Witches' Institute. "But I could still probably draw America better than I could this thing." His hook-drawing hand raps an empty stretch of wall along the corridor: he means the ship. He has a vague idea which way the lifts are moving when he takes them, but he doesn't have much grasp of distance or angles at all.

She keeps up well enough, naturally adjusting her stride to make up for the difference between them. Over time, she's gotten used to having to keep up with people, especially given her father's height, never mind that he would slow down and stoop to carrying her if he ever felt like she needed it. Her hands find their way into her pockets, elbows tucked carefully into her ribs on either side.

There's no trace of the girl who has become wary of every social interaction that she's come across since the eleventh grade, but Claire has gotten good at hiding her over the years. She does laugh at that sort of self-deprecating humor, and does say to him, "As long as it wasn't a kitchen knife I think they'll find it in their heart to forgive you." Truth be told, she's more comfortable with herself on the Tranquility than she ever was at home.

"The Salem Witches' Institute?" Claire echoes, as she co-leads the way down the corridor. The idea of magic has become mostly normal to her now, but things still manage to catch her not paying attention or looking where she's going and trip her up a little bit. "You're saying there's a school in America? That is just not fair. Also I'd agree with you, about the map drawing thing." She says this as she turns toward him halfway, pointing at him for enunciation. "I think I've figured out my floor, labs, medbay... and that's probably about it. Sometimes I still get turned around going to the oxygen gardens."

Remus isn't shy-quiet, but he is quiet, relatively speaking: at the mention of kitchen knives he only winces--a wince that's still half a smile, one eye squinting shut like he's had something sour. (He isn't serious. It was only a cup. Still could have hurt, though, and leaving his room to fetch things by hand like a responsible wizard is apparently a good way to meet people. Who'd have thought.) And concerning the fairness or unfairness of the Salem school and the multiverse at large, he shrugs, elaborately, like I wasn't consulted.

Rounding around into the kitchen, though, he laughs. It's a sympathy laugh--he's been lost in the corridors, which isn't really funny, but he understands. The ship is a maze. "You'd think there might be some sort of welcome tour," he says, like welcome tours could really be anyone's priority on a nightmare-fueled starship run by a largely inexperienced skeleton crew, "or mentor system--have you been here very long?"

There's no telling anymore, now that everyone's shuffled around floors. Not without gawking at people's forearms.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

someone left the cake out in the rain

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is that a denim romper in that icon?

........maybe. what if it is

ummmmmm we can't be friends that's what

how dare you disrespect the romper. hahah it's actually not a romper which might make it worse idk

sneaks in late with starbucks

i will need this starbucks to get me through the day

ghgh sorry! here have more fake internet starbucks.

alkdjf sorry for my delay as well /gets you some starbucks

don't worry, however slow you are I will inevitably be slower

we will have a slow off. last one to the finish line wins

unfortunately I'm a very competitive person

sadly i am not /waves white flag

now that I've won I can reply after less than a week's wait I GUESS (sorry)

joke's on you cause now i'm just taking a hundred years!!!

hhhhhh