Room 302 [Monday afternoon]

[pasunereveuse]

It was miserable to be angry and upset and heartbroken, under totally normal circumstances. It was even more miserable, somehow, to be angry and upset and heartbroken when school was out for break. It had been a cruel twist of fate that Celia had found the incriminating letter in Ichabod's room the very day before she was to take her last exam, and

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[not_a_moonie]

Alana had gotten some vague sense things were Not Right with Celia, but her own post-possession fog was still thick enough that she wasn't dwelling on other people's feelings.

Tonight, she padded into the room barefoot, with hair still damp from the shower, and frowned at the flickering light bulb in consternation. She might not be particularly skilled at dealing with emotions -- her own or anyone else's -- but a burnt-out light bulb was the kind of problem that was just about Alana's speed.

"Should I go figure out where they keep the spares before that thing goes out?" she asked.

[OOC: SP from me too!]

[pasunereveuse]

Celia glanced up, just noticing the flickering for the first time. (Again, possibly a strong indication of her mental state, all things considered.) "Oh, um. No, I think that's my fault," she admitted softly, taking a deep breath and focusing on calming herself until the light steadied. "...though it's not a bad idea to know where the spares are. I don't have the foggiest idea how to go about replacing it, though."

Simple problems were a wonderful distraction for everyone, it turned out.

[not_a_moonie]

Alana watched the bulb stop flickering, a faint smile crossing her face as she did. No matter how often it happened, it was always interesting to see Celia use magic.

"Well, um, thanks. And in case you ever need to know? It's easy to fix. You just unscrew the bulb and screw a fresh one back in," she explained, with a hand gesture she realized looked a little dirty as soon as it was made. "I'll show you sometime. Finding the extra's probably going to be a hard part."

She sat down on her bed, frowning briefly. "Why are you making lights flicker, anyhow?"

[pasunereveuse]

You know what were even better than simple problems? Dirty hand gestures, and Celia actually stifled a giggle for the first time in days.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, nodding, before her smile faded a little. "And I'm not doing it on purpose, sorry -- it's a magic thing. If I'm angry or upset or anything, my magic interferes with the air around me and does things like break glass or flicker lights."

And really, this was progress, considering the broken teacups.

"But how are you doing?" she asked, eager to not go into why she was upset, if she could avoid it. "A couple weeks away from ghostiness, and all."

[not_a_moonie]

Alana arched her eyebrow at the effort to change the subject but decided to go with it, at least for the moment. "Truthfully? It's still freaking me out," she said sincerely. "I'll live and everything, but the idea I'm not even safe inside my own head ..."

She let the sentence trail off into a mix between a shudder and a shrug there.

"I'm going home for a week or two after work tomorrow. Just to get my head back together, you know?"

[pasunereveuse]

"It's a good time to do it," Celia offered gently, nodding. "You won't miss much here, anyway, since most people are probably heading home for the holiday break. And a change of environment might help a lot, considering."

Because how else did one get over something like that? You couldn't take a vacation from yourself.

"I wish there was something I could offer," she added, smiling a little. "Aside from reassurance that nothing's here, now." She'd taken to checking rooms, paranoid as it felt, after the incident in the diner.

[not_a_moonie]

"Considering ... yeah," Alana nodded, a smile twisting at her lips. "I'm not going to really miss anything. And you can tell things are not great when my dad's the good option."

Though she suspected he'd mostly be working, as he normally was. There wasn't a holiday this time of year in Landfall, after all.

"And don't worry about it," she added. "You went to help get rid of the main guy, right? I still owe you for that."

[pasunereveuse]

"Psh," Celia said, waving a hand. "I made fireworks and held hands with my teacher's boyfriend. No owing necessary."

Though they'd been pretty good fireworks, if she did say so herself.

"You're going to be all right with your father, right?" she checked, a little concerned. "He's not...it's not bad, you two just don't exactly spend a lot of time together, right?" Which was a nasty situation in and of itself, but she wanted to be sure it wasn't a Hector-esque father-daughter relationship.

[not_a_moonie]

"What boyfriend?" Alana asked, both out of a general interest in gossip and as a stalling tactic.

"And he's, um ... he's better than he used to be. Right now we just aren't close. But when he was with my mom they got into it a lot." She winced, then clarified with a little nervous twist of a piece of hair. "Physically, sometimes. But it doesn't seem to be happening with Even. Maybe they're still honeymooning."

[pasunereveuse]

"Mr. Barton," Celia said, and she actually blushed a little. "With the -- he has very large arms?"

She hadn't minded holding his hand, even if it was odd to have pretended to have been his sister a few weeks prior. But it was just really strange, anyway.

"But I didn't know it was -- like that, with your father," she added, sobering a little. "Physical, I mean. Did he ever -- he didn't do anything like that to you, did he?" She paused, weighing her words for a moment, then offered, "Because mine has, if it's...any consolation."

[not_a_moonie]

"Ohhhhh, lucky," Alana said, on the subject of Mr. Barton, then --in a soberer tone of her own -- continued:

"And my dad -- not really? He yelled a lot and spanked if I really pissed him off, but nothing that left marks on me." As she spoke, she realized that actually didn't sound that good. "I'm sorry yours was ... not nice. Mine mainly just hated everything in his life, and it came out at us."

[pasunereveuse]

"That's just as bad," Celia said sympathetically. "The point of having a family is to have a family, not...scapegoats. Mine uses pain as a teaching method, so I suppose he has his reasons, as well, but...at least it sounds as though your stepmother tempers your father, a little? Though I'd worry about the honeymoon effect wearing off, eventually."

[not_a_moonie]

"I haven't seen them together in a year and a half," Alana admitted. "She seems happy when she calls, though."

She winced at Celia's description. "Pain as a teaching tool sounds so cold. No offense, but that's fucked up."

[pasunereveuse]

"It's very fucked up," Celia agreed crisply. "But on the plus side, it means I can mend my own bones, so...there's that."

It didn't make a damn thing better, and she was slowly beginning to really know that, but it was still hard to resist the impulse to defend Hector's methods on some level.

"Let me know how things go at home?" she asked, worrying her lower lip a bit. "I'm staying here for the break, I think, so if you need to come back early, it won't be to an empty dorm, at least."

[not_a_moonie]

"I dunno, I still kind of stop at the part where he broke your bones," Alana said slowly. "And thanks, I will. But it should be okay. Probably."

She sucked in a breath. "Will you be okay? You said earlier the light thing is about you being upset,so..."

[pasunereveuse]

Celia frowned a little, casting a glance over at the light before looking back at Alana. "I'll be all right, I just...."

She sighed, hating herself for asking even before she did, but she was going to go ahead and say it, anyway. "How are you with boy problems? Because for the first time ever, I seem to actually have one." And she was clearly not dealing well with it.