[Room 230, Sunday]
Krycek answered one voice message, then decided all but one were ignorable; he'd visited Rory earlier and he wasn't exactly sure what to say to Parker's.
So he called D'anna and hoped she wouldn't verbally tear his head off - it was getting a bit old.
D'anna read the number on her phone's display as she pulled it from her handbag. Thank the Gods. "Alex?"
"D." He paused. "Sorry about not calling back sooner."
D'anna swallowed as she scrounged in her bag for the hands-free ear piece, "are you alright?"
"Mostly," he said dryly. "It's been a long weekend, but I seem to be in one piece." He opened a window, looking out at the darkening sky as he leaned against the windowpane. "You?"
"Mostly? What happened?" D'anna slipped in the ear piece and slid her handheld back into her hand bag; thus saving herself from being beat in the face with her shopping bags as she walked back to the school from the festival. She sighed deeply, "I'm alright. Been down to the festival." She gently kicked a pebble out of her path and softly added, "I was worried."
One of the advantages of the implanted phone was better-than-average reception, at least on his end. He smirked faintly, pulling out his cigarettes and tapping them against his nearby desk. "Sorry. And not too much. Found out that Jake's been overextending himself lately - he nearly collapsed on my floor." In the middle of an argument, he added mentally, though he wasn't sure if he wanted to divulge that much out loud.
"Blood and meltdown don't usually equate to nothing, Alex." D'anna kept her tone neutral and squeezed past a drunken couple as she wound her way through a narrow street, nearly losing one of her packages. She grumbled something about people watching where they were going. "Is he back to regularly scheduled Jakeness?"
"Blood? Meltdown?" He sounded honestly surprised. "Oh hell - the radio?" Grimacing, he pulled out one of the cigarettes and dug his lighter out of his pocket. "I didn't hear it."
"Yeah. Blood, meltdown, radio," D'anna rolled her eyes and pointlessly gestured with her shopping bags. "I haven't suddenly developed special psychic powers here. Talk to me, Alex."
As he didn't know what the radio had exactly alluded to, he grimaced and thought a moment as he lit his cig. Finally pulling it from his lips, he started. "Jake and I found Rory and Logan after the attack. We helped them to the clinic, then Jake and I had an argument on the way back to my room-" Krycek mentally cursed the fact that he'd been distracted enough to argue so publically. "...I'm not sure that it was a meltdown, really. And I'm not sure on the blood, unless they meant Rory and Logan's."
Passing from the town proper, D'anna began to make her way toward Galactica Point and the school beyond. Uphill all the way, yay. She thought darkly. "So you weren't bitten or anything?" Despite the packages hanging from her wrist, she toyed with the necklace she'd put on earlier. "Seems like you spend a lot of time taking people to the clinic, Froggy." She grinned, "Maybe you should become a medic one of these days."
"No, didn't even see him," he assured her. Krycek touched the suncross D had given him, lifting it from beneath his sweater to look at it more closely. "And, no, not altruistic enough, I don't think." He smirked, taking a drag off his cig before commenting. "And just... Well, Jake, Parker and Rory since the school year started. Maybe that is a lot."
"Good." The tension of two day's worth of worry began to ebb away. "It's a lot, yeah. Maybe just an ambulance driver? Part time?" She teased. "So, what are you up to now?" D'anna longed for a cigarette but it would have to wait.
"Having a smoke, waiting for Jake to get back. He's getting things from the house, since at least one of the doors is still broken." He smirked. "You're on your way back up, right? How close?"
"Sounds like you guys missed one hell of a party. Yeah, I'm..." She looked around. She was already passed Galactica Point so that meant she was... "Coming up on the drive now."
"Need some help?" He was already getting up, stubbing out his cigarette in preparation. "I'm not sure how much of a party it was, but in all, I think I'm not unhappy I missed it, really."
D'anna snorted softly to herself, Just like a man. Wait till you're almost there then offer to help. She shook her head and grinned, "sure, some of the bags are beginning to get heavy." Small bags were deceptive, once you put eight or nine together they weren't so light any more. Under her breath she added, "I'm glad you missed it."
Krycek left the window open and pulled on his shoes, hopping a couple of steps to the door as he got them on. "Alright, I'll be down in a sec." Missing her comment as he pulled the door shut, he continued distractedly. "I'm going to hang up, alright? See you in a moment." He flicked a finger to turn it off and jogged down the hall and the stairs to meet D'anna in front of the building.
"No worries. See ya." She rang off by pressing a button on the ear piece. She slipped it off and put it back into her handbag as she continued trudging up the drive.
Krycek met her where the road became campus territory, taking a few bags from her arms. "Looks like you had fun," he noted. "Get anything interesting?"
"I had a good time, yeah. Wouldn't you like to know?" Relieved of part of her load, she smiled in greeting. "Actually, I mostly bought gifts to send back home. Some hand blown glass, candles - that kinds of thing. Oh! And I got some candy too from that Wonka fellow."
"Nice. Maybe next time you should think about bringing a shopping cart along though." Krycek made an odd face at the comment about Wonka and eyed the bags as they turned to continue on to the dorms. "Did they say whether the candy was spelled?"
"Yes, because with all these extra layers," she gestured to her costume, "and trying not to trip over my own two feet I really needed something extra to drag along." D'anna shot him a dirty look and stuck out her tongue. She shook her head at his question about bespelled sweets. "Nope. Wanna..." she dug around in one of the bags she was still holding, "gumball? I haven't tried one yet but they're colorful."
He smirked, then shook his head firmly at the offer. "No, really, thanks. I'm not really big on sugary things." Krycek shifted a bag from one hand to another and opened the door as they got to the dorm building. "And I'm not sure I trust the Wonka place, honestly." He seemed entirely serious, but didn't offer an explanation either.
"Your loss." D'anna shrugged and put the unopened bag of gumballs back with the other sweets. She swept inside before him, "thanks." That was the fun part of dressing up this time, she could swoop and spin and do all manner of grand, silly things that girls sometimes do. Even girls who usually feel too tall to do them. "You've got to trust someone, sometime Alex, or you'll wind up a miserable old grouch."
Krycek hmphed and shrugged, watching D's skirts with a raised eyebrow. "I've at least doubled the amount of people I trust since the last time around, so I think I'm good. You look nice, by the way."
D'anna stopped in the middle of the hallway and gave him a surprised look. She felt herself blushing but she couldn't get her mouth to work.
He stopped as well, brows furrowing as he looked at her in confusion. "What?"
D'anna closed her eyes and mentally shook herself, "Nothing. Nothing." She turned and began walking again. She'd only gone a step or two when she glanced at him out the corner of her eye, "it's just... that's the nicest thing someone's said to me since I got here. That's all. No big deal." Her cheeks burnt brighter as her blushed deepened, but she kept pushing forward hoping he wouldn't notice.
The first thing that came to mind was that it was a damn shame - and then he bit his tongue, watching her with a bit of unsurety as he tried and discarded possible responses in his head.
"Don't see why," he finally said, nonchalantly, not trying to seem as though he was being anything less than just honest. "You looked great at Homecoming, too."
The briefest of shivers flew down her spine. D'anna bit her lip, glad he was behind her. She opened her mouth and shut it soundlessly a few times before she finally managed to a soft, "thank you." She swallowed hard and tried to cover with a light tone. "Between classes and fighting frogs and Amazons, there just wasn't time for much else." They had reached the staircase, so she hefted her skirts and began her ascent.
Krycek shrugged and followed her up, not having as much to say to that. On the landing, he waited for her to take the next set of stairs, then spoke again. "You have anything to eat in your room, D? I hate to mooch, but I don't even have anything smallish."
Reaching the top of the stares, D'anna rolled her eyes and grinned. Boys. "Yeah, have to out of self dense. No way am I eating the food here. C'mon." They'd taken the staircase at their end of the building so they were only a door away from her room.
"Heh, thanks. I appreciate it." He grinned and trailed along after her. Krycek shifted the bags again and took another from D's arms so she could get her key out.
D'anna swooped through the doorway of 237, trusting Alex to shut and lock the door behind himself. She dumped her packages on her bed then walked across the room to kick her shoes off into her closet. "There's all manner of plant-life, cheese and other stuff in the mini-fridge. Water and sodas might be in there, if not they're in the dark room." She told him over her shoulder as she poked in her closet for something else to wear. (And, if one were to look really, really hard, he or she might find the package of precooked bacon tucked away in the back, but she wasn't telling.)
He did indeed close and lock the door as they came in, then went to rummage in the fridge. Finding the bacon as he moved aside various fruits and things, he arched an eyebrow and grinned to himself, but said nothing. He ended up with an orange instead, bouncing it in his hand once as he glanced back at D. "You want anything, while I'm down here?"
Having set a few pieces of clothes on the small sofa, D'anna was working on removing the snod. She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "Ummm, I think I still have half of a carmel apple in one of the bags somewhere." She waved a hand at the bottom bunk. "Maybe a bottle of water and one of the granola bars from the basket on top please?"
"What other fun fair foods did you try?" He grabbed the water and closed the fridge, standing again to fetch the granola bar. Krycek set them on the desk and sat on the bottom bunk as D'anna sorted out clothing, wondering if she wanted him elsewhere... He could turn around or close his eyes, but she hadn't indicated he do either yet, so he waited for a cue.
D'anna closed the closet doors and walked over to the sofa. She took out the last of the snod pins and slipped the thing off with a sigh of relief. Then shook her head and ran a hand through her hair to fluff it. "Well, there wasn't a lot I really wanted. Most of it was leg of this, rack of that." She put one foot up on the sofa and pulled up her skirts as she spoke. "I had a spinach pie for lunch. It was pretty good." She slid her stocking down her leg and off, then put up her other leg to seemingly do the same. "I had some baklava a little later and when I felt a chill, well I just had a bit of this." She pulled up her skirt high enough to reveal her thigh holster. She removed a small flask from it. Smiling, she tossed the silver container to Alex and returned her attention removing the holster and her remaining stocking.
Krycek's eyebrows rose slightly as D'anna flashed thigh at him. He barely managed to catch the flask, fumbling it a little before he secured it, still staring for a moment after. Wrenching his eyes away, he looked at the flask with more interest than it likely warranted, opening it to sniff at the contents. "Whoa-- strong. What is this?" He looked up, then quickly back down, wondering a little at her apparent lack of self-consciousness.
Divested of holster and stockings, D'anna let her skirts hang back where they should and twisted her arms behind her in an attempt to reach something. She was too caught up in the rigmarole of freeing herself from her red velvet confines to notice his near miss.
"Ambrosia, drink of the Gods. A little goes a long way." She contorted and turned and hopped around a little bit before letting out a growl of frustration. If it weren't happening to her, she'd probably find it funny. "Could you give me a hand with this? One of the girls down the hall tied me in this morning and now I can't find the blooming bloody laces."
Krycek stood, fighting down a laugh at watching her flail. "Sure, just... stand still." As she stopped and moved her hair out of the way, he picked at the lacing carefully. "Where'd you get the dress, anyway?"
"NPCostumery in town. After the Halloween disaster, I want to see what I'm getting into before hand." Head bowed, she bit her lip and willed herself to be as still as possible as his hands worked down her back.
Krycek chewed at his lip as he picked apart a knot. "What happened on Halloween? I didn't even get to see your costume." He was trying to work quickly, but whoever had laced D up obviously hadn't intended her to get out easily - and Krycek wasn't exactly eager to enact his very own bodice-ripper.
"I wish I hadn't seen it." She mumbled under her breath. "I went as an Amazon, costume's in the other closet." She brought up the hand that wasn't holding her hair to play with her necklace again. "You know that girl Callisto?" D'anna took as deep a breath as she dare. "She tried to kill me."
Krycek's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. "Callisto? Why the hell would she try to kill you?" Not that he disbelieved, but he couldn't think of any logical reason. Krycek frowned fiercely all of a sudden as he managed to pull one part of the lace free and began loosening the laces a bit for her.
"Between her and the harpy, I'm lucky I'm still here." D'anna swayed back from the force of his tug and stumbled a little.
"I'd be more surprised if I didn't remember the harpy being mentioned on the radio," he said, then automatically caught her around the waist with his arm as she stumbled, pulling her back up. "Hey! Sorry- didn't mean to pull so hard."
The wings of a thousand tiny butterflies began to beat inside her - or they would if she knew the term and what butterflies were. Since she didn't, once she regained her balance D'anna stood very still and wet her lips, "S'alright, the laces are a bit tricky."
Krycek pulled his arm back quickly as D'anna went still. "Right. Yeah," he agreed, still tugging at them until they finally loosened completely. "There, should be loose enough now." He stepped back, clearing his throat softly.
"Thanks." D'anna walked quickly towards the closet as she pulled the red overdress off, leaving her in a voluminous chemise. She spoke rapidly as she hung up the velvet garment. "Callisto chased me straight out of the party almost as soon as I got there. I walked down with Scooter and we were talking with Red and BANG there she was out of no where." D'anna turned and scooped up the clothes from the sofa, "had this really big pole-stick thing too."
She stepped into the bathroom leaving the door cracked just enough so she wouldn't have to shout. "Anyway, she chased me all the way to the park. I thought I'd lost her when this guy - runs the bank - came up to me and started calling me all sorts of names, Diana, Princess, Your Majesty but I'd heard one of them before, Xena. Same name Callisto shouted at me back at the manor."
"She caught up to me. I shouldn't have stopped but I wasn't exactly wearing trainers. I ducked behind the guy. He seemed to know her and the Xena person. Before I knew it, Callisto lunged, and the harpy - which, in my world DOES NOT EXIST mind you - dive bombed my head. Snatched my wig off and knocked me to the ground." D'anna came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of pajama pants and a tee-shirt, hair pulled back and chemise draped over one arm.
"Callisto had me by the neck before I could stand." D hung up the chemise, glad to have something to do with her hands. "Fortunately, between losing the black wig and the guy from the bank talking to her, Callisto came to her senses and let me go." She closed the closet doors, not quiet ready to turn around and said reflectively, "I didn't like that. Feeling helpless."
She shook herself and picked up her granola and water from the desk. She smiled in an attempt to chase thoughts of halloween away, "So this Thanksgiving thing? Had better be good, or I'm quiting this planet permanently." She winked and took a drink of her water.
Krycek moved to sit down on the lower bunk again to listen. Reclaiming the orange, he began unpeeling it slowly, glancing up only when she returned from the other room, pajama-clad and looking much more comfortable. He watched her back as she closed the doors, eyes narrowing slightly with the tone of her voice, the set of her shoulders. He skipped the comment on helplessness and smirked at her. "Thanksgiving is a relatively quiet holiday. The reasoning behind it is questionable, but the sentiment isn't bad."
"Good." She unwrapped her granola and took a bite. After a moment she said, "it'll be nice to have a few days off. I can get my darkroom straightened back up and get everything ready for my journalism final. Would have been nice to go home but Mum and Dad are still on location and Aunt Jalynda's at a conference." She took another bite, hungrier than she first realized.
He perked up at the mention of home, remembering something. Finishing the slice of orange he was chewing, Krycek cleared his throat slightly. "Hey, did you ever mention a place called 'Caprica'?"
D'anna took a drink of her water and shrugged. "I might have. It's one of our bigger Colonies, seat of governement and that sort of thing. Why?"
"The project, for journalism? I asked that girl Cally and she's apparently from there." He shrugged slightly, smiling. "Not exactly home I guess, but I thought I'd mention it."
Mouth gaping open, she stared at him from where she leaned against the desk. "Caprica? Are you serious?" Home. True, it wasn't Leonis but still - the Colonies.
"Yeah, she mentioned it was... pretty far, but I assume the Boss has some way around that problem." He popped another slice of orange in his mouth and chewed, thinking. When he finished it, he grinned at her. "It'll be interesting. My world's technology isn't quite up to space travel, really."
D'anna let out a laugh of delight and launched herself at him. "Just when were you going to tell me this? Oh Gods, Alex, home! Home!"
"Oof!" Krycek suddenly had a squirmy armful of D'anna and was half-laid back on the bottom bunk bed from the force of her enthusiasm. He laughed as well, her excitement rather contagious. "Hey, I'm telling you now, aren't I?"
D'anna hugged him tight as they fell back then propped herself up on her elbows and grinned down at him. "Yeah, I guess that counts." She winked. "oh Alex, do you know how homesick I've been? This is like... my birthday come early! I could just kiss you! Which I would if you were single and it would do any good, by the way." Her shoulders relaxed and a sort of far away look came over her," Oh, home! There's so much to see! I wonder which part of Caprica she's from? Damn, it's only an hour, but still, home!"
Krycek snickered, not bothering to even try and get up; they'd shared a bed together and nothing had happened, right? So he shrugged a little, watching D'anna look all nostalgic and far-away. "No idea, she just said 'Caprica', and that it was another planet." The first thing she'd said finally sunk in and he blinked, very nearly opening his mouth to ask what she meant when he decided to wait. Krycek didn't want to make things more awkward than they were at times.
"It is," D'anna nodded, "Twelve Colonies, twelve planets, one government, far, far away." She tilted her head to the side and looked back down at him, "a lot of people here must not go off world that much. I spoke with one of the girls first or second week who seemed rather shocked that it was common at home." D wrinkled her nose at that. "I can't imagine life without it."
Krycek frowned thoughtfully, considering the point of view that must give someone. "I don't think Earth will have that capability for a long while." His frown changed slightly, deepened. "This is going to sound silly... Are there aliens in space? Your space, at any rate?"
Quietly, D'anna rested her forehead upon his chest in a manner which suggested that had it instead been a desk, she would be raising and lowering her head repeatedly, producing a steady 'thud, thud, thud' sound. "Depends on how you define alien."
Krycek looked at her with some bemusement as she did so. "Anything not of Earth? I mean, I assume that your people are originally from Earth, but I could be wrong."
"I don't know," D'anna shrugged and looked up so that her chin now rested where her forehead had just been. "Some say 'life here, began out there.' Here being the Colonies of course not Fandom, but it's all jumbled up in myth and religious rhetoric. So, by your definition, yes. You are headed to a planet filled with aliens." She grinned, "aliens who are just as human as you and I."
He smirked, then reached up to tug idly at her hair, almost teasing. "No little grey men? Not that humans aren't fairly alien on their own..."
"Nope." D'anna very gently shook her head then she asked softly, "are you calling me an alien, Frogboy?"
"No," he said quickly, making a face. "I've seen aliens and you are not one." Krycek let his hand rest on the top of her head, just short of petting her as he looked down, smiling reassuringly.
"Is that so?" She slid a hand up and toyed with a thread that peeked out from the shoulder of his sweater. A light blush began to slip across her cheeks.
"You're about three feet too tall, for one." He smirked. "I'm pretty sure you're not from my future though," Krycek added thoughtfully. "Unless the aliens died out after my time."
"Thank goodness for being tall then." D'anna stopped playing with the loose thread and let her hand rest on his shoulder, fingertips just reaching the edge of his collar. "Tell me of your home world Usul." "What's it like, your world?"
He nearly responded as he had to Jake before he realized that she had no real point of reference. "It's... Well, probably not like anything you've heard. Myths are usually a bit idealistic." Krycek shrugged. "We're a society constantly on the edge of blowing itself up. Or, when I left it, of being invaded."
"If they weren't, they wouldn't be myths." D'anna sighed. "Invaded by monochrome men with height impairments?"
"Or aliens of some sort," Krycek replied. "Though very few people know about them."
"Very few..." D'anna's brow furrowed and she gave him a searching look. "But you did?" It was more of a statement than a question.
He snorted softly, shaking his head. "There was a big cover up by the government. The panic that would have ensued had it been public knowledge would have made things overly difficult. There were attempts made to negotiate, but they weren't going as well as some would have hoped." Krycek smiled humourlessly. "Those few that knew otherwise tried to fight back, but that... Wasn't particularly successful either."
Several thoughts flew through her head but she finally settled on a response. "That's a hell of a burden to live with." Her hand that had been resting on his shoulder now hovered as though she would have touched his face but thought better of it half way through. Instead she cleared her throat and sat up,"is that why you came to Fandom?"
Krycek's eyes widened as he looked up at D, who was now straddling him. On a bed. In her room. He cleared his throat, pulling his scattered thoughts back together with some difficulty. "No. I... Don't know how I came here. I died, then I woke up, here, on the first day of classes."
D'anna raised an eyebrow at his wide eyed look as she stood up and held out a hand. "C'mon. Don't want to squish the packages."
Krycek took her hand and sat up, still feeling a little bit as though their interaction was maybe in a place he hadn't quite expected it to go. And her comment made him blink until he realized what, exactly, she was talking about. "Right. Sorry."
"No worries. My fault." D'anna distractedly replied as she dug through the pile of packages at the other end of the bed. Extracting a worn chrome case from the depths, she opened it and offer it to Krycek.
He arched an eyebrow, then took a cigarette from the case, nodding. "Thanks. Outside?"
D'anna softly snorted. "Yeah right. Not in my pajamas." She cracked a window and took a cigarette of her own and lit it. She looked him up and down. "So, undead, mostly dead or otherwise?"
Krycek stood, pulling out his lighter to do the same, closing his eyes briefly as he inhaled. "I died pretty thoroughly," he said quietly. Privately, he was rather relieved that he'd managed not to 'go all weird' as Jake liked to put it, though he was distancing himself somewhat from the memory, trying to think of it clinically instead of personally. "And, as far as I can tell, I'm pretty damn alive now, if about 12 years younger."
She didn't ask how he died. She was curious but she figured he'd tell her if he wanted her to know. Instead, D'anna took a drag from her cig and gave him a half grin. "So you're living ever man's fantasy, all the knowledge of life and the body of a teenager?"
He blinked, then looked at her as though not sure what he actually thought of the idea. "I... Hadn't thought of it that way. I guess it's someone's fantasy. I wasn't that old when I died, not enough to really be thinking about being young again." Krycek ran a hand through his hair, which was growing long enough to nearly get in his eyes, and took another drag as well. "And the knowledge doesn't seem to be doing that much good, honestly."
"Fantasy life, fantasy planet... Fantasy Island" She flicked ash out the window from where she knelt on the sofa. D'anna crossed her arms on the back of the sofa and rested her chin on them. "Isn't knowledge power and all that?"
Joining her on the sofa so he could flick ash as well, he shrugged. "I suppose. I know more than I did the first time I was eighteen, but the things I'm learning at this school? It's amazing stuff, really. Except for art." He scowled momentarily, then shook his head. "I was thirty-one, by the way." Krycek knew she wouldn't pry, but it gave more of an idea on his point of view.
She knew ashing out the window was kind of lame but she'd forgot to get an ashtray. "Yeah, some of it pretty far out there. I don't know if my parents would be thrilled or tempted to call their lawyer if they knew what half the classes were like." She smiled. "What did you learn before? And what's wrong with art?" D'anna tilted her head to the side.
"Normal high school things," he said, then relented at D'anna's expression. "Sorry. Pretty standard maths, languages, history - which we have here, but it'd be much more Earth-centric. And we'd never have lessons in Cat language or things like Quantum Physics - the latter would maybe be a university level course though."
Shifting his position slightly, he took a drag and scowled faintly as he thought out his answer to her second question. "Art... Is taught by Professor Williams. Who wouldn't know art if it was labelled as such in blinking, flashing neon lights."
Professor 'Hail to the King, Baby' of the Radio Williams?" D'anna blinked, "how does that man keep his job? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't want to know."
She took another drag. "Alex?" She gave him a moment to answer. "FBI isn't another term for ugly, is it?"
"What?" He looked at her in surprised confusion for a moment, then snickered. "No. No, it's..." Krycek shook his head, coughing slightly on the last of a drag as he tried not to laugh. "It stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation, which does that as well as function as a sort of police force on a higher level than the individual states, of which this country has fifty. I worked for them once." He grinned, more than a little amused.
"You mentioned it once, back when we were trying to get you a suit." She rolled her eyes and sighed as the ever lurking blush crept into her cheeks again for an entirely different reason. "Police?" She quirked an eyebrow. "Somehow, I can't quite picture you in a uniform."
Krycek feigns being hurt for just a moment. "No? Is it my rugged individuality that leaves you unable to see me conforming to the masses?"
So he called D'anna and hoped she wouldn't verbally tear his head off - it was getting a bit old.
D'anna read the number on her phone's display as she pulled it from her handbag. Thank the Gods. "Alex?"
"D." He paused. "Sorry about not calling back sooner."
D'anna swallowed as she scrounged in her bag for the hands-free ear piece, "are you alright?"
"Mostly," he said dryly. "It's been a long weekend, but I seem to be in one piece." He opened a window, looking out at the darkening sky as he leaned against the windowpane. "You?"
"Mostly? What happened?" D'anna slipped in the ear piece and slid her handheld back into her hand bag; thus saving herself from being beat in the face with her shopping bags as she walked back to the school from the festival. She sighed deeply, "I'm alright. Been down to the festival." She gently kicked a pebble out of her path and softly added, "I was worried."
One of the advantages of the implanted phone was better-than-average reception, at least on his end. He smirked faintly, pulling out his cigarettes and tapping them against his nearby desk. "Sorry. And not too much. Found out that Jake's been overextending himself lately - he nearly collapsed on my floor." In the middle of an argument, he added mentally, though he wasn't sure if he wanted to divulge that much out loud.
"Blood and meltdown don't usually equate to nothing, Alex." D'anna kept her tone neutral and squeezed past a drunken couple as she wound her way through a narrow street, nearly losing one of her packages. She grumbled something about people watching where they were going. "Is he back to regularly scheduled Jakeness?"
"Blood? Meltdown?" He sounded honestly surprised. "Oh hell - the radio?" Grimacing, he pulled out one of the cigarettes and dug his lighter out of his pocket. "I didn't hear it."
"Yeah. Blood, meltdown, radio," D'anna rolled her eyes and pointlessly gestured with her shopping bags. "I haven't suddenly developed special psychic powers here. Talk to me, Alex."
As he didn't know what the radio had exactly alluded to, he grimaced and thought a moment as he lit his cig. Finally pulling it from his lips, he started. "Jake and I found Rory and Logan after the attack. We helped them to the clinic, then Jake and I had an argument on the way back to my room-" Krycek mentally cursed the fact that he'd been distracted enough to argue so publically. "...I'm not sure that it was a meltdown, really. And I'm not sure on the blood, unless they meant Rory and Logan's."
Passing from the town proper, D'anna began to make her way toward Galactica Point and the school beyond. Uphill all the way, yay. She thought darkly. "So you weren't bitten or anything?" Despite the packages hanging from her wrist, she toyed with the necklace she'd put on earlier. "Seems like you spend a lot of time taking people to the clinic, Froggy." She grinned, "Maybe you should become a medic one of these days."
"No, didn't even see him," he assured her. Krycek touched the suncross D had given him, lifting it from beneath his sweater to look at it more closely. "And, no, not altruistic enough, I don't think." He smirked, taking a drag off his cig before commenting. "And just... Well, Jake, Parker and Rory since the school year started. Maybe that is a lot."
"Good." The tension of two day's worth of worry began to ebb away. "It's a lot, yeah. Maybe just an ambulance driver? Part time?" She teased. "So, what are you up to now?" D'anna longed for a cigarette but it would have to wait.
"Having a smoke, waiting for Jake to get back. He's getting things from the house, since at least one of the doors is still broken." He smirked. "You're on your way back up, right? How close?"
"Sounds like you guys missed one hell of a party. Yeah, I'm..." She looked around. She was already passed Galactica Point so that meant she was... "Coming up on the drive now."
"Need some help?" He was already getting up, stubbing out his cigarette in preparation. "I'm not sure how much of a party it was, but in all, I think I'm not unhappy I missed it, really."
D'anna snorted softly to herself, Just like a man. Wait till you're almost there then offer to help. She shook her head and grinned, "sure, some of the bags are beginning to get heavy." Small bags were deceptive, once you put eight or nine together they weren't so light any more. Under her breath she added, "I'm glad you missed it."
Krycek left the window open and pulled on his shoes, hopping a couple of steps to the door as he got them on. "Alright, I'll be down in a sec." Missing her comment as he pulled the door shut, he continued distractedly. "I'm going to hang up, alright? See you in a moment." He flicked a finger to turn it off and jogged down the hall and the stairs to meet D'anna in front of the building.
"No worries. See ya." She rang off by pressing a button on the ear piece. She slipped it off and put it back into her handbag as she continued trudging up the drive.
Krycek met her where the road became campus territory, taking a few bags from her arms. "Looks like you had fun," he noted. "Get anything interesting?"
"I had a good time, yeah. Wouldn't you like to know?" Relieved of part of her load, she smiled in greeting. "Actually, I mostly bought gifts to send back home. Some hand blown glass, candles - that kinds of thing. Oh! And I got some candy too from that Wonka fellow."
"Nice. Maybe next time you should think about bringing a shopping cart along though." Krycek made an odd face at the comment about Wonka and eyed the bags as they turned to continue on to the dorms. "Did they say whether the candy was spelled?"
"Yes, because with all these extra layers," she gestured to her costume, "and trying not to trip over my own two feet I really needed something extra to drag along." D'anna shot him a dirty look and stuck out her tongue. She shook her head at his question about bespelled sweets. "Nope. Wanna..." she dug around in one of the bags she was still holding, "gumball? I haven't tried one yet but they're colorful."
He smirked, then shook his head firmly at the offer. "No, really, thanks. I'm not really big on sugary things." Krycek shifted a bag from one hand to another and opened the door as they got to the dorm building. "And I'm not sure I trust the Wonka place, honestly." He seemed entirely serious, but didn't offer an explanation either.
"Your loss." D'anna shrugged and put the unopened bag of gumballs back with the other sweets. She swept inside before him, "thanks." That was the fun part of dressing up this time, she could swoop and spin and do all manner of grand, silly things that girls sometimes do. Even girls who usually feel too tall to do them. "You've got to trust someone, sometime Alex, or you'll wind up a miserable old grouch."
Krycek hmphed and shrugged, watching D's skirts with a raised eyebrow. "I've at least doubled the amount of people I trust since the last time around, so I think I'm good. You look nice, by the way."
D'anna stopped in the middle of the hallway and gave him a surprised look. She felt herself blushing but she couldn't get her mouth to work.
He stopped as well, brows furrowing as he looked at her in confusion. "What?"
D'anna closed her eyes and mentally shook herself, "Nothing. Nothing." She turned and began walking again. She'd only gone a step or two when she glanced at him out the corner of her eye, "it's just... that's the nicest thing someone's said to me since I got here. That's all. No big deal." Her cheeks burnt brighter as her blushed deepened, but she kept pushing forward hoping he wouldn't notice.
The first thing that came to mind was that it was a damn shame - and then he bit his tongue, watching her with a bit of unsurety as he tried and discarded possible responses in his head.
"Don't see why," he finally said, nonchalantly, not trying to seem as though he was being anything less than just honest. "You looked great at Homecoming, too."
The briefest of shivers flew down her spine. D'anna bit her lip, glad he was behind her. She opened her mouth and shut it soundlessly a few times before she finally managed to a soft, "thank you." She swallowed hard and tried to cover with a light tone. "Between classes and fighting frogs and Amazons, there just wasn't time for much else." They had reached the staircase, so she hefted her skirts and began her ascent.
Krycek shrugged and followed her up, not having as much to say to that. On the landing, he waited for her to take the next set of stairs, then spoke again. "You have anything to eat in your room, D? I hate to mooch, but I don't even have anything smallish."
Reaching the top of the stares, D'anna rolled her eyes and grinned. Boys. "Yeah, have to out of self dense. No way am I eating the food here. C'mon." They'd taken the staircase at their end of the building so they were only a door away from her room.
"Heh, thanks. I appreciate it." He grinned and trailed along after her. Krycek shifted the bags again and took another from D's arms so she could get her key out.
D'anna swooped through the doorway of 237, trusting Alex to shut and lock the door behind himself. She dumped her packages on her bed then walked across the room to kick her shoes off into her closet. "There's all manner of plant-life, cheese and other stuff in the mini-fridge. Water and sodas might be in there, if not they're in the dark room." She told him over her shoulder as she poked in her closet for something else to wear. (And, if one were to look really, really hard, he or she might find the package of precooked bacon tucked away in the back, but she wasn't telling.)
He did indeed close and lock the door as they came in, then went to rummage in the fridge. Finding the bacon as he moved aside various fruits and things, he arched an eyebrow and grinned to himself, but said nothing. He ended up with an orange instead, bouncing it in his hand once as he glanced back at D. "You want anything, while I'm down here?"
Having set a few pieces of clothes on the small sofa, D'anna was working on removing the snod. She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "Ummm, I think I still have half of a carmel apple in one of the bags somewhere." She waved a hand at the bottom bunk. "Maybe a bottle of water and one of the granola bars from the basket on top please?"
"What other fun fair foods did you try?" He grabbed the water and closed the fridge, standing again to fetch the granola bar. Krycek set them on the desk and sat on the bottom bunk as D'anna sorted out clothing, wondering if she wanted him elsewhere... He could turn around or close his eyes, but she hadn't indicated he do either yet, so he waited for a cue.
D'anna closed the closet doors and walked over to the sofa. She took out the last of the snod pins and slipped the thing off with a sigh of relief. Then shook her head and ran a hand through her hair to fluff it. "Well, there wasn't a lot I really wanted. Most of it was leg of this, rack of that." She put one foot up on the sofa and pulled up her skirts as she spoke. "I had a spinach pie for lunch. It was pretty good." She slid her stocking down her leg and off, then put up her other leg to seemingly do the same. "I had some baklava a little later and when I felt a chill, well I just had a bit of this." She pulled up her skirt high enough to reveal her thigh holster. She removed a small flask from it. Smiling, she tossed the silver container to Alex and returned her attention removing the holster and her remaining stocking.
Krycek's eyebrows rose slightly as D'anna flashed thigh at him. He barely managed to catch the flask, fumbling it a little before he secured it, still staring for a moment after. Wrenching his eyes away, he looked at the flask with more interest than it likely warranted, opening it to sniff at the contents. "Whoa-- strong. What is this?" He looked up, then quickly back down, wondering a little at her apparent lack of self-consciousness.
Divested of holster and stockings, D'anna let her skirts hang back where they should and twisted her arms behind her in an attempt to reach something. She was too caught up in the rigmarole of freeing herself from her red velvet confines to notice his near miss.
"Ambrosia, drink of the Gods. A little goes a long way." She contorted and turned and hopped around a little bit before letting out a growl of frustration. If it weren't happening to her, she'd probably find it funny. "Could you give me a hand with this? One of the girls down the hall tied me in this morning and now I can't find the blooming bloody laces."
Krycek stood, fighting down a laugh at watching her flail. "Sure, just... stand still." As she stopped and moved her hair out of the way, he picked at the lacing carefully. "Where'd you get the dress, anyway?"
"NPCostumery in town. After the Halloween disaster, I want to see what I'm getting into before hand." Head bowed, she bit her lip and willed herself to be as still as possible as his hands worked down her back.
Krycek chewed at his lip as he picked apart a knot. "What happened on Halloween? I didn't even get to see your costume." He was trying to work quickly, but whoever had laced D up obviously hadn't intended her to get out easily - and Krycek wasn't exactly eager to enact his very own bodice-ripper.
"I wish I hadn't seen it." She mumbled under her breath. "I went as an Amazon, costume's in the other closet." She brought up the hand that wasn't holding her hair to play with her necklace again. "You know that girl Callisto?" D'anna took as deep a breath as she dare. "She tried to kill me."
Krycek's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. "Callisto? Why the hell would she try to kill you?" Not that he disbelieved, but he couldn't think of any logical reason. Krycek frowned fiercely all of a sudden as he managed to pull one part of the lace free and began loosening the laces a bit for her.
"Between her and the harpy, I'm lucky I'm still here." D'anna swayed back from the force of his tug and stumbled a little.
"I'd be more surprised if I didn't remember the harpy being mentioned on the radio," he said, then automatically caught her around the waist with his arm as she stumbled, pulling her back up. "Hey! Sorry- didn't mean to pull so hard."
The wings of a thousand tiny butterflies began to beat inside her - or they would if she knew the term and what butterflies were. Since she didn't, once she regained her balance D'anna stood very still and wet her lips, "S'alright, the laces are a bit tricky."
Krycek pulled his arm back quickly as D'anna went still. "Right. Yeah," he agreed, still tugging at them until they finally loosened completely. "There, should be loose enough now." He stepped back, clearing his throat softly.
"Thanks." D'anna walked quickly towards the closet as she pulled the red overdress off, leaving her in a voluminous chemise. She spoke rapidly as she hung up the velvet garment. "Callisto chased me straight out of the party almost as soon as I got there. I walked down with Scooter and we were talking with Red and BANG there she was out of no where." D'anna turned and scooped up the clothes from the sofa, "had this really big pole-stick thing too."
She stepped into the bathroom leaving the door cracked just enough so she wouldn't have to shout. "Anyway, she chased me all the way to the park. I thought I'd lost her when this guy - runs the bank - came up to me and started calling me all sorts of names, Diana, Princess, Your Majesty but I'd heard one of them before, Xena. Same name Callisto shouted at me back at the manor."
"She caught up to me. I shouldn't have stopped but I wasn't exactly wearing trainers. I ducked behind the guy. He seemed to know her and the Xena person. Before I knew it, Callisto lunged, and the harpy - which, in my world DOES NOT EXIST mind you - dive bombed my head. Snatched my wig off and knocked me to the ground." D'anna came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of pajama pants and a tee-shirt, hair pulled back and chemise draped over one arm.
"Callisto had me by the neck before I could stand." D hung up the chemise, glad to have something to do with her hands. "Fortunately, between losing the black wig and the guy from the bank talking to her, Callisto came to her senses and let me go." She closed the closet doors, not quiet ready to turn around and said reflectively, "I didn't like that. Feeling helpless."
She shook herself and picked up her granola and water from the desk. She smiled in an attempt to chase thoughts of halloween away, "So this Thanksgiving thing? Had better be good, or I'm quiting this planet permanently." She winked and took a drink of her water.
Krycek moved to sit down on the lower bunk again to listen. Reclaiming the orange, he began unpeeling it slowly, glancing up only when she returned from the other room, pajama-clad and looking much more comfortable. He watched her back as she closed the doors, eyes narrowing slightly with the tone of her voice, the set of her shoulders. He skipped the comment on helplessness and smirked at her. "Thanksgiving is a relatively quiet holiday. The reasoning behind it is questionable, but the sentiment isn't bad."
"Good." She unwrapped her granola and took a bite. After a moment she said, "it'll be nice to have a few days off. I can get my darkroom straightened back up and get everything ready for my journalism final. Would have been nice to go home but Mum and Dad are still on location and Aunt Jalynda's at a conference." She took another bite, hungrier than she first realized.
He perked up at the mention of home, remembering something. Finishing the slice of orange he was chewing, Krycek cleared his throat slightly. "Hey, did you ever mention a place called 'Caprica'?"
D'anna took a drink of her water and shrugged. "I might have. It's one of our bigger Colonies, seat of governement and that sort of thing. Why?"
"The project, for journalism? I asked that girl Cally and she's apparently from there." He shrugged slightly, smiling. "Not exactly home I guess, but I thought I'd mention it."
Mouth gaping open, she stared at him from where she leaned against the desk. "Caprica? Are you serious?" Home. True, it wasn't Leonis but still - the Colonies.
"Yeah, she mentioned it was... pretty far, but I assume the Boss has some way around that problem." He popped another slice of orange in his mouth and chewed, thinking. When he finished it, he grinned at her. "It'll be interesting. My world's technology isn't quite up to space travel, really."
D'anna let out a laugh of delight and launched herself at him. "Just when were you going to tell me this? Oh Gods, Alex, home! Home!"
"Oof!" Krycek suddenly had a squirmy armful of D'anna and was half-laid back on the bottom bunk bed from the force of her enthusiasm. He laughed as well, her excitement rather contagious. "Hey, I'm telling you now, aren't I?"
D'anna hugged him tight as they fell back then propped herself up on her elbows and grinned down at him. "Yeah, I guess that counts." She winked. "oh Alex, do you know how homesick I've been? This is like... my birthday come early! I could just kiss you! Which I would if you were single and it would do any good, by the way." Her shoulders relaxed and a sort of far away look came over her," Oh, home! There's so much to see! I wonder which part of Caprica she's from? Damn, it's only an hour, but still, home!"
Krycek snickered, not bothering to even try and get up; they'd shared a bed together and nothing had happened, right? So he shrugged a little, watching D'anna look all nostalgic and far-away. "No idea, she just said 'Caprica', and that it was another planet." The first thing she'd said finally sunk in and he blinked, very nearly opening his mouth to ask what she meant when he decided to wait. Krycek didn't want to make things more awkward than they were at times.
"It is," D'anna nodded, "Twelve Colonies, twelve planets, one government, far, far away." She tilted her head to the side and looked back down at him, "a lot of people here must not go off world that much. I spoke with one of the girls first or second week who seemed rather shocked that it was common at home." D wrinkled her nose at that. "I can't imagine life without it."
Krycek frowned thoughtfully, considering the point of view that must give someone. "I don't think Earth will have that capability for a long while." His frown changed slightly, deepened. "This is going to sound silly... Are there aliens in space? Your space, at any rate?"
Quietly, D'anna rested her forehead upon his chest in a manner which suggested that had it instead been a desk, she would be raising and lowering her head repeatedly, producing a steady 'thud, thud, thud' sound. "Depends on how you define alien."
Krycek looked at her with some bemusement as she did so. "Anything not of Earth? I mean, I assume that your people are originally from Earth, but I could be wrong."
"I don't know," D'anna shrugged and looked up so that her chin now rested where her forehead had just been. "Some say 'life here, began out there.' Here being the Colonies of course not Fandom, but it's all jumbled up in myth and religious rhetoric. So, by your definition, yes. You are headed to a planet filled with aliens." She grinned, "aliens who are just as human as you and I."
He smirked, then reached up to tug idly at her hair, almost teasing. "No little grey men? Not that humans aren't fairly alien on their own..."
"Nope." D'anna very gently shook her head then she asked softly, "are you calling me an alien, Frogboy?"
"No," he said quickly, making a face. "I've seen aliens and you are not one." Krycek let his hand rest on the top of her head, just short of petting her as he looked down, smiling reassuringly.
"Is that so?" She slid a hand up and toyed with a thread that peeked out from the shoulder of his sweater. A light blush began to slip across her cheeks.
"You're about three feet too tall, for one." He smirked. "I'm pretty sure you're not from my future though," Krycek added thoughtfully. "Unless the aliens died out after my time."
"Thank goodness for being tall then." D'anna stopped playing with the loose thread and let her hand rest on his shoulder, fingertips just reaching the edge of his collar. "Tell me of your home world Usul." "What's it like, your world?"
He nearly responded as he had to Jake before he realized that she had no real point of reference. "It's... Well, probably not like anything you've heard. Myths are usually a bit idealistic." Krycek shrugged. "We're a society constantly on the edge of blowing itself up. Or, when I left it, of being invaded."
"If they weren't, they wouldn't be myths." D'anna sighed. "Invaded by monochrome men with height impairments?"
"Or aliens of some sort," Krycek replied. "Though very few people know about them."
"Very few..." D'anna's brow furrowed and she gave him a searching look. "But you did?" It was more of a statement than a question.
He snorted softly, shaking his head. "There was a big cover up by the government. The panic that would have ensued had it been public knowledge would have made things overly difficult. There were attempts made to negotiate, but they weren't going as well as some would have hoped." Krycek smiled humourlessly. "Those few that knew otherwise tried to fight back, but that... Wasn't particularly successful either."
Several thoughts flew through her head but she finally settled on a response. "That's a hell of a burden to live with." Her hand that had been resting on his shoulder now hovered as though she would have touched his face but thought better of it half way through. Instead she cleared her throat and sat up,"is that why you came to Fandom?"
Krycek's eyes widened as he looked up at D, who was now straddling him. On a bed. In her room. He cleared his throat, pulling his scattered thoughts back together with some difficulty. "No. I... Don't know how I came here. I died, then I woke up, here, on the first day of classes."
D'anna raised an eyebrow at his wide eyed look as she stood up and held out a hand. "C'mon. Don't want to squish the packages."
Krycek took her hand and sat up, still feeling a little bit as though their interaction was maybe in a place he hadn't quite expected it to go. And her comment made him blink until he realized what, exactly, she was talking about. "Right. Sorry."
"No worries. My fault." D'anna distractedly replied as she dug through the pile of packages at the other end of the bed. Extracting a worn chrome case from the depths, she opened it and offer it to Krycek.
He arched an eyebrow, then took a cigarette from the case, nodding. "Thanks. Outside?"
D'anna softly snorted. "Yeah right. Not in my pajamas." She cracked a window and took a cigarette of her own and lit it. She looked him up and down. "So, undead, mostly dead or otherwise?"
Krycek stood, pulling out his lighter to do the same, closing his eyes briefly as he inhaled. "I died pretty thoroughly," he said quietly. Privately, he was rather relieved that he'd managed not to 'go all weird' as Jake liked to put it, though he was distancing himself somewhat from the memory, trying to think of it clinically instead of personally. "And, as far as I can tell, I'm pretty damn alive now, if about 12 years younger."
She didn't ask how he died. She was curious but she figured he'd tell her if he wanted her to know. Instead, D'anna took a drag from her cig and gave him a half grin. "So you're living ever man's fantasy, all the knowledge of life and the body of a teenager?"
He blinked, then looked at her as though not sure what he actually thought of the idea. "I... Hadn't thought of it that way. I guess it's someone's fantasy. I wasn't that old when I died, not enough to really be thinking about being young again." Krycek ran a hand through his hair, which was growing long enough to nearly get in his eyes, and took another drag as well. "And the knowledge doesn't seem to be doing that much good, honestly."
"Fantasy life, fantasy planet... Fantasy Island" She flicked ash out the window from where she knelt on the sofa. D'anna crossed her arms on the back of the sofa and rested her chin on them. "Isn't knowledge power and all that?"
Joining her on the sofa so he could flick ash as well, he shrugged. "I suppose. I know more than I did the first time I was eighteen, but the things I'm learning at this school? It's amazing stuff, really. Except for art." He scowled momentarily, then shook his head. "I was thirty-one, by the way." Krycek knew she wouldn't pry, but it gave more of an idea on his point of view.
She knew ashing out the window was kind of lame but she'd forgot to get an ashtray. "Yeah, some of it pretty far out there. I don't know if my parents would be thrilled or tempted to call their lawyer if they knew what half the classes were like." She smiled. "What did you learn before? And what's wrong with art?" D'anna tilted her head to the side.
"Normal high school things," he said, then relented at D'anna's expression. "Sorry. Pretty standard maths, languages, history - which we have here, but it'd be much more Earth-centric. And we'd never have lessons in Cat language or things like Quantum Physics - the latter would maybe be a university level course though."
Shifting his position slightly, he took a drag and scowled faintly as he thought out his answer to her second question. "Art... Is taught by Professor Williams. Who wouldn't know art if it was labelled as such in blinking, flashing neon lights."
Professor 'Hail to the King, Baby' of the Radio Williams?" D'anna blinked, "how does that man keep his job? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't want to know."
She took another drag. "Alex?" She gave him a moment to answer. "FBI isn't another term for ugly, is it?"
"What?" He looked at her in surprised confusion for a moment, then snickered. "No. No, it's..." Krycek shook his head, coughing slightly on the last of a drag as he tried not to laugh. "It stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation, which does that as well as function as a sort of police force on a higher level than the individual states, of which this country has fifty. I worked for them once." He grinned, more than a little amused.
"You mentioned it once, back when we were trying to get you a suit." She rolled her eyes and sighed as the ever lurking blush crept into her cheeks again for an entirely different reason. "Police?" She quirked an eyebrow. "Somehow, I can't quite picture you in a uniform."
Krycek feigns being hurt for just a moment. "No? Is it my rugged individuality that leaves you unable to see me conforming to the masses?"