skymuffins | [Oct. 8/11] Common Room, the Dorms, Afternoon

Raine swallowed at a lump in his throat as he worked on putting together words. He didn't have to be clairvoyant to see that she was uncomfortable.

"I'm... you know... hungry." He shook the cereal box a little, by way of demonstration. "I was going to just be in and out. I didn't mean to bother anybody."

Bother you.

That last part came out sounding curiously flat. But there it was, laying it out in the open. He wasn't going to apologize for being here. He had no reason to. But the way he'd phrased that... kind of put it right out in the open. It wasn't like he hadn't noticed the way everyone avoided him. People who had been his friends.

Allison winced.

Slime, she thought, steamrollered slime. Somehow, she was moving down the evolution chain, which was a line of thought that only made sense to her because she was so tired, she suspected.

"Sorry. I...," she faltered for a moment then continued quietly, "I suppose I deserve that."

Worse, she knew she did.

And even worse than that, was the fact that being this close to him was still making her stomach do horrific somersaults. Allison closed her eyes and told herself she wasn't allowed to be ill. There was no reason for it. He couldn't even see her, since she hadn't sat up yet.

Was it just nerves? she wondered, and hoped not.

"At least you're not putting mousetraps in my sickbed," Raine replied, with a shrug of his shoulders that she probably couldn't see from where she was sitting. He was fine with that. "The quiet isn't all that bad."

The whole being ostracised because of a rock he hadn't wanted in the first place, and being treated like a freak by peers and faculty alike. All that good stuff.

He edged back a little, toward the door, his heart threatening to leap up his throat.

"... How have you been?"

Allison wondered if she'd heard that wrong. Mousetraps in his sickbed?

Who would do that? When had he been sick?

"Flattened," she shared, because if anyone took a look at her, it was blatantly obvious she wasn't leaving the couch for a while. "Control class on Friday, then I get to spend the whole weekend being useless."

So, Raine, if the world ever ended on a Friday in a storm of fire and earthquakes well... that was probably her fault.

"...Mousetraps?" she asked dubiously, not sure if she ought to.

Raine didn't figure that would happen any time soon. The world was going to be around for a long, long time. Sorry to disappoint your paranoia, Allison.

"... Oh, you know..." Raine shrugged, still edging back toward the door. "It was just... It was nothing. I mean, that H.A.H. girl caught them all," except for the ones that he'd pointed her to, but he wasn't saying that out loud, "no harm done."

Mostly just to his dignity.

"A weekend of not doing much at all isn't all that bad, is it? It could be worse... they could have you training on a Monday. Right?"

He wanted to share some sort of reassurance that she'd catch on sooner or later, but he was starting to avoid speaking in absolutes whenever possible. What would just be a friendly 'you'll do fine' from anyone else tended to just make people eye him suspiciously, when it was coming from him.

Allison bit her lip. Not over what he was saying, but over the fact that he wasn't comfortable, that she could hear him moving, and it didn't take a genius to put two and two together and get four.

"I miss my old weekends," she said, as a stall for time while she thought, "and I'm probably the most boring person on campus now."

Which was an exaggeration, but how she felt nonetheless.

She hesitated a moment and then closed her eyes and told herself to get on with it. "If you're hungry," Allison said, "I can make waffles."

Because it was too sad for him to flee the room and for her to know it was partly her fault. Even if the fact that she didn't really want him in the room was also true.

Allison felt all tangled up inside and wondered what he thought.

Raine shut his eyes and inhaled. Slowly, carefully, as he worked on digesting this turn of events, trying to remember the time before all this mess.

Remembering the past was not his strong suit, and he didn't dare try to think forward.

"... I am hungry," he said, carefully. And then, that bit of pride that he'd been stomping on for weeks reared its head and prompted him to add, "but I don't want anything offered out of pity."

A beat. This was Allison.

"Or just to appease your guilty conscience."

His words felt like a slap to her, which Allison thought was unfair. She'd never been particularly close to him, he hadn't exactly been trying to socialize since his stone became active, and her time had been taken up with her friends.

And Dover, who was determined to ruin her weekends. The fiend.

The worst she thought she'd done was not sit next to him in class, which was easy enough when she was with closer friends anyway. Or to not hang out in a room that he was in, when her friends wanted to go.

"It is a genuine offer."

One that she'd probably regret, if anyone else entered the room, but Allison thought about fire and how this felt a lot like that. Her stomach twisted in on itself and for moment she thought she was going to be ill but she swallowed and it receded enough that she felt a little better.

Remember, she thought, you might get burnt doing this.

Was it pity that motivated her? Or guilt? Or was it the fact that in the month back at school, Raine had become so uneasy that he couldn't bring himself to stay in the common room without reason?

She didn't know. Jasper scared her.

Raine had always been an all right sort of boy.

Damn it. That was the problem with her, wasn't it? So genuine, herself. Allison wore herself on her sleeve, and it only took Raine a moment to realize that she was, if not thrilled to have him around, at least sincere in her offer of food. He shifted his weight a little, looking uncertain, before tentatively taking a few steps back into the room.

"You don't have to, you know. People will see."

That much was a definite. It was a Saturday, and there was only the one common room. He didn't need a stone to reason that part through, either.

"But you do make amazing waffles..." Had she made them before? He couldn't remember. He knew that she would, of course. He could remember the things that people would say about waffles within earshot, at least. And a faint buttery taste on his tongue, if he thought about them hard enough.

Waffle premonitions. Great. He just really hoped that she'd made waffles for their classmates before, now.

Lucky for him, she had.

Allison was smiling, a little wryly, as she forced herself to sit up. "They're pretty much the only thing I'm really good at cooking," she said, checking that her braid was still reasonably neat. "Which might be a problem in a few years time, since I doubt I can live off of them, but for now..."

Well, she made waffles. Other people made other things she could eat.

She took a deep breath. "And if people see, then they see."

Raine didn't figure this was going to last.

Hell, it seemed too good to be true, and he didn't dare peek to see if that was really the case or not. For the time being, here he was in the common room, and one of his old classmates... had a bit of a hang-up about spending any time around him, but he could hardly blame her. The fact was, she'd also given him a reason to not retreat with his Lucky Charms to be miserable elsewhere.

That was nice, too.

"Is there anything I can do to help? I'd offer to teach you how to cook some things, too, but all I really know how to make is grilled cheese sandwiches."

But that was like variety!

Allison closed her eyes as she stood. Not because she didn't want to look at anything but because it let her pretend that she wasn't feeling pretty... dizzy. That, she knew, wasn't from her lessons yesterday.

When it felt like the world wasn't spinning around her, she opened her eyes and shook her head.

"No," Allison said, trying something that looked like a smile even though she felt awful. Was she coming down with something? "I think I'm good. You could make grilled cheese sandwiches but I don't think those would go very well with waffles."

Well, maybe...

"Grilled cheese waffles," Raine suggested, in a moment of just pure desperation to be as casual, as goofy when hanging around with people he knew, as he used to be. "They'll be all the rage someday in, like, Alabama. You'll see."

No. No they wouldn't.

He chewed his lip for a moment, and then added, "... Are you okay?"

That smile of hers looked sort of strained.

"I told you I got streamrollered," she said, though she hadn't felt like this before and definitely suspected that she didn't look one hundred percent. "It's fine."

Maybe. Hopefully.

"...Would the waffles take the place of the bread or would they between slices of bread in the grilled cheese waffles?"

Raine hesitated a moment, and then, deciding that he couldn't immediately remember any horribly lasting side-effects, gave his shoulders a shrug and offered her a tentative smile.

"They'd probably take the place of the bread. But if you're using waffles, you know you have to use some kind of fancy cheese, too. Maybe a fruity cream cheese, or something."

He had no idea if that would even work, or if it would turn into one big, gooey mess. But he suspected that was probably half the fun of finding out.

Allison paused.

"I can't decide," she admitted, "if that's really disgusting or not."

It was a tough call, honestly. Would it be waffley goodness or death?

"... Do we even have fruity cream cheese?"

The train of thought that they were following was really, really wrong, but so help him, Raine couldn't help but keep on with it, just waiting for the train wreck.

For a moment, things were almost like normal, again.

"I'll check," he decided, making his way back toward the fridge. "I mean, it can't be any worse than those sausage things at McDonald's with the syrup-pancake things instead of the buns, right?"

Teenage male logic. Fear it.

Allison sat on the couch edge, content to let him do the work for now, and grimaced at his logic.

"You've eaten those things?"

Ew. Just, ew.

"Well, sure. I mean, back before we came here and all that. Just to know, you know?"

A beat.

"I regretted it. I think I remember regretting it."

It had been a while ago.

"Come to think of it, it probably would have been better without the cheese. Are we going to need milk for the waffles?"

"Definitely," she said, sighing a little and getting up to head towards the kitchen area. "And eggs and flour."

And a few other things, naturally.

"I have to admit," Allison added, "that I don't generally try horrible-sounding things from stores just to know if they're horrible for sure."

"Well, enough people get them for them to still be offering those things," Raine reasoned, fishing out the milk and eggs from the fridge. "So it stands to reason that somebody out there actually likes them. Maybe they're an acquired taste."

He offered her a little smile as he set both down on the counter, and then went foraging for the flour.

"Besides, more often than not, I'm pleasantly surprised."

... Well, not so much, these days. Surprises didn't come easily. But again, there were some turns of phrase that it didn't hurt to use, sometimes.

"I guess so," she said dubiously. Yeah. Allison did not much believe him when it came to the idea that bizarre things could be delicious. "I've heard I'm pretty boring when it comes to food though, so maybe there's some truth to that."

Though her boring-ness, Allison suspected was going to be tested when it came to Dover and his food. Weird vegan food. He was lucky she liked him. (And that maybe it wasn't horrible.)

A pause as she floundered with the tail end of the conversation before asking, "What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?"

There was a moment's pause while Raine thought on that. And then when he did finally come up with something, it occurred to him that he wasn't entirely certain if it was something that he had eaten, or something that he would eat.

... Either way, he figured it didn't matter so long as he didn't try to specify the 'when' of it all.

"I bought a can of bread once," he offered. "Like, cooked. Bread in a can."

She blinked.

"Wait," Allison said, "that's, like, a real thing?"

It was tempting to laugh, like it was a joke, but he didn't sound like he was joking.

"Yeah," Raine replied, grinning a little crookedly. "It's a Japanese thing, I guess? They had some in the import section of a supermarket once," or they would. One of those, "and I... couldn't say no to canned bread. I mean, I was curious, you know? I guess canned cheeseburgers are a real thing, too."

On reflection, in considering this new information, being adventurous with what Dover offered her seemed to be positively tame in comparison.

"That's nasty" Allison protested. "Why do that to perfectly good food? There's no way it'd taste good, right?"

RIGHT?

"I don't know... People eat canned fish, and canned ham. How different could a canned cheeseburger really be?"

It all seemed like food to Raine!

"I mean, the reason tuna tastes so different out of a can than it does fresh is because they over-cook it until it's just this flaked mess."

"Right," she said brightly, "no tuna for me for, oh, the next six months."

Ew. Just ew.

"But, I mean, a cheeseburger? With condiments?"

"With condiments," Raine agreed, trying not to laugh. "Ketchup, pickles, something that probably at least resembles cheese. I think they make it for people going camping, since meat tends to go bad? But I wouldn't want to try one, personally."

Which was exactly why he had intimate knowledge of the flavour of the grey, kind of dog-food-like mess that he was talking about, now. He wasn't going to think about what in the world would have him chowing down on something like that. Especially since they were only available in Germany.

Allsion contemplated that in horrified silence (for a certain value of horrified) for a moment and then pushed herself up off the couch to make her way over to the kitchen.

That this brought her closer to Raine was something that made her feel a little dizzy. But it was manageable. She'd deal.

"I'm not thinking about this," she announced. "I'm thinking about waffles. Delicious, delightful, waffles. I might be convinced to try the cream cheese grilled cheese waffle thing now, however, because that is far less disgusting than cheeseburger in a can."

Raine couldn't help it- some of the ever-present tension in his shoulders eased just slightly at that, and he laughed.

"Maybe cream cheese icing," he suggested. "We could decorate your waffles up like a cake, with berries and all? Does that sound like an improvement in the least?"

"That... that almost sounds edible," she allowed, leaning against the counter for a moment. (The world was not slightly spinny, it was not. It couldn't be if she didn't allow it.) "If there's the right sort of fruit then it might even earn an 'excellent'."

Allison pushed herself away from the counter and over to the fridge. "I wonder if ice cream would go with it?"

Oh, she was definitely not one for taking delicious risks, was she?

"I happen to know that waffles with ice cream and berries is excellent," he informed her, almost sanctimoniously, though there was still that little bit of a smile on his face, even a bit of a twinkle in his eye. "I have it on the good authority of years of practice, putting ice cream on pretty much everything I could possibly get away with."

That was because the word risk implied that it would all go dreadfully wrong.

Allison rolled her eyes. "There's no way you put ice cream on everything you could get away with," she scoffed, with a bit of a laugh. "For one, how many kids can afford that much ice cream?"

"Okay, okay," Raine allowed, holding up his hands in a sort of 'I surrender' pose. "Not everything, no. But, you know... when there was ice cream in the house. When I was feeling brave, or stupid. I mean, you know... weird sundaes and all that?"

"I like sprinkles and fruit on mine," she allowed, furthering the fact that her taste in food was pretty... boring. Sprinkles and fruit were not very risky. "I've never tried it with waffles though. Ice cream does work with pie however..."

Allison peered into the freezer. "Think chocolate will be okay? There's also one with peanut butter in it, but I'm not putting that on a waffle."

"Chocolate should be fine," Raine decided. "I mean... they put chocolate syrup onto waffles all of the time in those fancy waffle places, don't they?"

He set his cereal box down on the counter, and then... sort of just stood around there, a bit awkwardly.

"And by fancy, I mean... like... Ihop."

So, not all that fancy.

"Ihop's fancy enough," Allison said, since it wasn't like she'd got to many fancy places either, except for maybe birthdays and for Christmas and those were never places for breakfast-y foods.

"Chocolate ice cream," she decided, and moved it so it was close to the front of the freezer. "But taking it out now would melt it all." So it could stay there until they were ready. "Maybe you could crush some cereal while I start the waffles? Unless you want big cereal pieces in yours."

Which... okay. Fair.

"In... my... waffles?" Raine turned a puzzled look toward Allison at that. Something was sort of chewing at his senses, a kind of weird cold-sweat feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he'd been swallowing rocks. But he couldn't quite put a finger on why that was. "That sounds pretty adventurous for you, you know..."

He squinted a little.

"Just how steamrollered did you get...?"

Huh? What was wrong with what she'd said?

Allison reviewed her own words and looked at him, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?" She laughed. "Come off it, I'm just a little tired. It's no big deal."

"If you say so..." Raine sounded a little dubious, but he was going to let it slide, reaching for his cereal box again and opening it up. He wasn't going to... to crunch up any bits, though. He was going to just... maybe eat a handful while he still could. Some part of him was just flat-out convinced that he wasn't going to get a proper meal for a while, and that it would be best to maybe stuff his face when he could.

His senses didn't always make coherent sense, but he wasn't going to question something that seemed so innocuous.

"You probably want to consider getting some more proper rest tonight, though."

Now that was a laugh, coming from a guy who was practically a career insomniac, these days.

[Oct. 8/11] Common Room, the Dorms, Afternoon

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