Room 506, Friday Evening

[sampippy]

Xanthippe had had a terrible and sudden trip back home. And not just back to Connecticut, but home. New York. Manhattan.

Where she'd had to empty out her old rooms.

And she'd cried in front of freaking Kimmy of all people! So yeah, it had been terrible. Not even just her usual overdramatic kind of terrible, but a real, genuine kind of terrible

Comments

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe didn't have a lot going on tonight. He was gliding through the halls on his new hoverboard, as you do.

"Hey, shopping buddy," he said brightly, shooting Xanthippe a wide smile as he executed a fancy little turn on his board so he was facing her. "Decorating?"

[sampippy]

Oh, shit. Xanthippe had to snap back into some kind of a mood she could actually let someone see. Her face was quickly arranged into a smile as she turned, but it was a little forced if you looked closely.

"Hi!"

Also, that was just a little too try-hard with its brightness. She wanted to cringe at it, herself, but didn't. Instead, she pushed her hair back behind her ear and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah," she said. "The administration made me move."

[thewrathofkaan]

Yeah, that looked a little forced even to Roscoe, who was normally upbeat enough to miss these things. "That blows," he said sympathetically. "Don't they know it's, like, already traumatizing enough to have to move to boarding school in the first place? We already feel unloved and abandoned, don't rub it in."

His tone was light and sarcastic, but okay, there was some truth there. He didn't exactly think he was at boarding school because his family really really wanted him around.

[sampippy]

"Yeah and like, why do we have to have roommates?" Xanthippe replied, managing to get her indignance to seem a little less forced, even as she very deliberately steered things away from the topic of family or anything in the general vicinity of that whole thing. "What are we, like, cows? What is this, the middle ages? We should have our own rooms!"

[thewrathofkaan]

"Or that!" Roscoe agreed. "Like you know they have the space. They spend so much money sending us on trips and those fucking bubble tents; they definitely can make some more space to give us some privacy." He didn't mind living with Hyacinthe, mind, but it was still a principle. "And don't even get me started on the late-night fire drill. Ugh."

[sampippy]

"There are like five people on this entire floor, the least they could do is knock down some walls and give us more rooms," Xanthippe continued, now fully wrapped up in the familiar comfort of rant mode. At least, until something he'd just said caught up with her brain. Her immaculately shaped eyebrows knit together into a deep frown. "Wait, what? Fire drill?"

Had she actually missed out on something she wouldn't have enjoyed being present for? Because that would actually be nice.

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe rolled his eyes. "Last week we all got yanked out of bed at like two in the morning for a fire drill and it was raining jello the whole time," he said, in a dry tone that suggested that he shouldn't even be surprised by these things anymore.

[sampippy]

"Oh." Yeah, she didn't sound sad that she'd missed that. Not a single bit. Actually, there was just a hint of lowkey glee. "That sounds, like, terrible."

Look, she had to take what she could when it came to wrenching some positives out of the previous week.

[thewrathofkaan]

"Pretty much," Roscoe agreed with a slightly amused little shrug. He was glad Xan could enjoy it, at least. "What were you up to while all that was going on?"

[sampippy]

"I went home," Xanthippe drawled, with a little hair flip that was in no way a nervous overcompensation. "It was totally boring."

Yeah, she was trying to call New York boring because it deflected from how much of a suckfest it had been in reality.

[thewrathofkaan]

"That blows," Roscoe said, genuinely empathetic. "I mean, A) going home at all, and B) New York being boring because that totally kills the way I think about it in my head. I just visualize, like, constant shopping sprees and Broadway shows. But I guess it's not like that if you live there."

Anyway. He shrugged one shoulder and said, "But I guess when family's involved it could be worse than just boring, right? So maybe it's not so bad."