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

[not_a_moonie]

Alana huffed softly in amusement. "I should go find Ezra," she said. "Or, heck, Four. He can't resist me forever."

[rebelseekspizza]

"The hot broody guy who's super-attached to his black outfits?" Dante said. He thought about it. "Not a bad choice."

[not_a_moonie]

"No shit, but he's from this weird culture where if you hit on him he jumps a foot," Alana exaggerated. "Plus he was dating this super-pretty girl a year ahead of us for a while. Dunno if they're still together."

She smiled over at him, beer bottle cradled in her palms. "Though I gotta say, I'm not exactly staying up nights crying over him."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Aw, I didn't get him to jump." Because of course Dante had tried to hit on that.

Mind you, like with half the times he hit on people, it'd mostly been just to stir shit. Which was maybe part of why he was sad about the non-jumping.

He shook his head and eyed her. "So sophomore and junior boyfriends, huh?"

[not_a_moonie]

"It's been a while since I tried. Maybe he's gotten less jumpy," Alana shrugged, picking up a stack of photos to thumb through. "And yeah. Raleigh sophomore year, Johnny last year. Raleigh was just fun, but Johnny ... if things had been different, that could have been a whole big feelings thing."

She drew out the word "feelings," as if to emphasize what a ridiculous concept it was.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Huh," said Dante, with the air of a teenage boy who had absolutely zero idea what that was like - beyond being pretty good at identifying it in people around him. "What was he like?"

[not_a_moonie]

Yeah, Alana had picked up on that feelings weren't really Dante's thing, and under the circumstances that was just fine by her.

"Hot," she said fondly, and if she'd had to stop after one word that would have been it. "And totally knew it. Kind of a player. Crazy brave when you got down to it, but didn't run around acting like that made him better than other people -- like, we'd been seeing each other a while before he told me he had superpowers. Which were kickass -- he lit himself on fire and could fly, stuff like that."

She separated one photo from the pile and gave it to Dante. "That's him."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'll give you the hot," Dante mused, tilting his head. "A little boyband. But he sounds cool."

[not_a_moonie]

"Hot and cool," Alana grinned. "He was. Not that you aren't too, but -- it's not a competition, right?"

Not that Alana thought Dante thought it was a competition, exactly, but she didn't want the guy she hoped to continue sleeping with to feel like he had lost one, or like he was a permanent second choice.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah," Dante said, grinning back at her. "It's cool you had someone who made you happy," he said, "I'm just here to pick up some of the slack."

Hashtag shit he could never say to people like Kathy, who would hold it over his head for the next fifty years.

He still stretched and added a, "Sexy slack," though.

[not_a_moonie]

"Sexy slack?" Alana asked, with a relieved little laugh and an oh-so-casual stretch of her own. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Super-sexy slack?" Dante tried.

[not_a_moonie]

"Sure, I'll take it," Alana decided, and drained about half her beer in one go before leaning in to offer Dante a kiss.

[rebelseekspizza]

There was no way in hell Dante was saying no to that, because Alana picked up some super-sexy slack all by herself, too.

So he slid the hand that wasn't a beer into her hair and pressed into the kiss, returning it firmly.

[not_a_moonie]

Someday, Alana was going to name her imaginary R&B band Super-Sexy Slack. She pressed back into the kiss, running her hand down his back. Her beer was getting carefully set on the nightstand.

"Nice," she whispered. "I like when you pick up the slack."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante grinned down at her, following suit with his beer because it'd be a damn crime if he lost it. "You're a motivator," he said, nipping - gently - at her bottom lip. "Real nice slack."