Room 302, Monday Morning

[not_a_moonie]

Alana didn't have a roommate, so letting the room get messy wasn't really a problem. But when she tripped on a stack of magazines and noticed that more of her floor was covered by clothes, books and random junk than was actually floor, she decided it was time for some spring cleaning. So she put on a reggae CD and got to work.

She realized as she went along that she didn't need to keep some of her clothes. If she was going into the army (and at this point it felt inevitable), she probably wouldn't get a chance anytime soon to re-wear any of the dressy dresses she'd bought for dances over the last three years. Reluctantly, she set them into the pile of things to give away.

It was still several weeks until graduation, but the cleaning made it feel closer than ever. Alana was glad to have dust bunnies that she could blame her sniffly nose on.

[OOC: Cracked door, open post.]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

The music was... not Dante's style, exactly, but not bad. And he could hear Alana wandering around in there, so dropping by seemed like a perfectly sensible idea.

He rapped on the door and ducked his head in. "Yo."

[not_a_moonie]

"Yo back," Alana said, and if Dante thought her smile for him was a little sadder than usual that was clearly his imagination. Who got sad over chores? "C'mon in. I'm just trying to clean."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Aw," Dante said, slipping into the room. "I liked the old look. Homey."

[not_a_moonie]

"Me too, but you aren't the one who's going to break your leg on a copy of Cosmo getting out of bed some morning," Alana said. "I like homey, not a fire-trap."

[rebelseekspizza]

"The trick is to just clear a path and let the rest work itself out," Dante said, peering around himself.

Anders was lucky he didn't own enough stuff to let the clutter build up yet.

[not_a_moonie]

"It started that way," Alana sighed. "And then I realized I had a bunch of clothes to put away, which made me realize I was going to need to get rid of some of this stuff before I went home anyhow, and now I have this full-blown cleaningpalooza going on. Do you know anybody who needs a homecoming dress?"

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante walked over there, looking at what she was packing. "Maybe?" he said. "I don't know. I know a bunch of girls who'll be around by Homecoming..."

That was a mysterious world of which he knew nothing.

[not_a_moonie]

The dance dresses all tended toward the short, dark, and slightly sparkly: Alana wasn't one for princess fantasies, or for anything she couldn't walk in easily. There was also a calf-high stack of paperbacks (several of which had shirtless men on the cover) and some miscellaneous sweaters, t-shirts and scarves that didn't seem worth hauling to another universe.

"Maybe I should do a giveaway day in one of the common rooms," Alana mused, as she dropped a handful of papers into her trash bag. "I bet a lot of the senior class has dresses and stuff to get rid of."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Maybe you should," Dante agreed. "Bunch of girls don't have a lot of money to throw around." Well, except for what they stole, anyway.

Though now his attention was on the paperbacks. He picked one up and let out an amused huff.

[not_a_moonie]

"Yeah, the money thing's an issue," Alana said, and tried to pretend she wasn't turning pink. Of course he'd picked that book.

"Any chance you'd believe I read those to learn about Earth wars?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Not a one," Dante said, grinning at her.

He got the hint that she was leaving soon, but the advantage of being wired to live in the moment was that he was pretty damn good at ignoring it. "So what's the big story on this one?" he said, picking a random page in the middle.

[not_a_moonie]

She still had a couple months, anyhow. It wasn't like she was leaving the next day.

"That's a good one," Alana said. She knew she was being teased a little, but she couldn't play it cool when she talked about books. "So, the earl's daughter falls in love with an injured soldier who wandered onto her estate, but she tries to hide it because she figures he only wants her for her money. And she gets ready to marry some dopey viscount, except she and the soldier can't stay away from each other and keep having ridiculously hot sex. The viscount spots them and tries to blackmail her about the premarital sex and she freaks out, but it turns out the soldier was, I dunno, some rich guy's son or something, so she gets to marry him instead."

She described this ridiculous bit of fluff without a trace of cynicism.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Really?"

Dante closed the book with a single motion of his hand. He looked like he thought it was kinda funny, but in a weirdly endearing way. "Hey, I can't blame her for going all the way for some seriously hot sex."

He grinned at her. "Mind if I keep this?"

He'd probably never read it, but eh, he weirdly liked the idea of having it around.

[not_a_moonie]

"Sure, and they're all kind of like that," Alana said, gesturing to the stack. "Boy meets girl, sparks fly, hot sex, circumstances threaten them, more hot sex, happy ending. Sometimes there's a battle somewhere in the middle."

She brushed her hair out of her eyes, looking up at him. "I didn't know you were much of a reader."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, I'm not," Dante admitted easily. "But rampant sex and ridiculous covers? Kinda seems like fun."

[not_a_moonie]

"It is fun," Alana agreed readily. She shoved the fancy-dress stack to the foot of the bed and plopped herself down to sit on the blanket. "And sometimes you find somebody who can actually write, or has, like, a point to make, and that's even better."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante blinked. He found the clearest spot on the bed and sat down on it. "There are points in these?" he asked.

He sounded genuinely curious.

[not_a_moonie]

"Not in all of them," Alana conceded. (And especially not in the shirtless-guy ones stashed in her room.) "But some of them, sure. Like my favorite writer's always writing weird ghost stories and messed-up things with people from different planets playing cards, but really they're all about how stupid war is. You just have to read between the lines a little."

[rebelseekspizza]

"So how does that work out?" Dante wondered. He eyed the stack of remaining paperbacks.

Yeah, the chances of him sitting down long enough to actually read one were slim to none. Still. Alana seemed to care.

[not_a_moonie]

Alana crinkled her nose. "A lot of it's cultural," she admitted. "You have to know things like this one general had tusks like a walrus, so the walrus in an aquarium story is supposed to be him. And he had to be subtle to get past censors and everything. It's, what's the word. Symbolism."

She was impressed with herself for remembering what the word was. Alana cared about this stuff, but she was no one's idea of a brilliant student.

"But when you understand the message, it's like everything else clicks into place."

[rebelseekspizza]

"So when the walrus is bossing somebody around, you go hey, right, that's that asshole general who won't stop screwing things up and ruining the world for everybody," Dante mused.

Beat.

"Is there a general with tusks like a walrus?"

[not_a_moonie]

"Pretty much," Alana nodded. "And not anymore, but there used to be. He died when I was a kid. And yeah, he was a total asshole."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante mulled that over. "How many types of al-- people are there where you come from?"

[not_a_moonie]

Leave it to Dante to ask the tough questions.

"I dunno," Alana said, after a moment trying to count it up. "Dozen or so, maybe? But that's like asking how many countries there are on Earth. Some people must know, but I bet you don't."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'd remember having like, tusk people living somewhere, though," Dante pointed out.

Look, the whole aliens thing was still kinda new, as much as he tried to take it in stride.