Room 227, Friday Morning

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie barely ever slept in. This morning, though, she'd been up bright and early because she'd slept not all that great. Some nights were worse than others, and this one had fallen at the worse end of the scale, no contest. Her brain was her enemy sometimes. That was the only good explanation she had for waking up feeling utterly alone. But like always, she'd gotten up and shaken off the pointless sorrow (well, most of it), made her bed, fed her cat, taken a quick shower. And then she got to rearranging some of the stuff in her room.

But by now, though, she was finished. She hadn't done much: it really boiled down to just having moved her keyboard to a better spot, and putting all of Moxy's stuff in one corner because really, she could afford to give up the space. The rest... Well. Jace had done a nice job when he'd rearranged her room without asking, and she didn't want to mess with that too much. But she'd still needed to change something right now, and it had given her a great excuse to stuff the box with Sam's stuff in it even further into her closet.

And now she was going to sit on her bed and try to concentrate on her homework before she'd have to go to class.

[ooc: Mainly for one, but open to other visits and whathaveyou as well!]

Comments

[lockestheway]

Peter had a rare half hour's time off - nothing to do and nobody particularly important to speak to, a few emails to wait on but nothing more - and so his poor, suddenly under-stimulated brain needed something to do.

Such as torment Natalie.

He knocked on the door as he showed up in her doorway. "Busy slaving away on homework for Purple Cats Are Awesome 101?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Japanese," Natalie replied dryly, just barely glancing up at him. "It's an indepentent class." A beat. "Purple cats aren't all that awesome, anyway."

[lockestheway]

"Wouldn't know, never had a pet," Peter said, strolling into the room like he owned the place. "But hey, congratulations, at least that's a legitimate class."

[whenshewasnice]

"You don't own this place." Ooh, narrative reading. She put the textbook down in her lap, looking up. "Thank you, anyway. I'm also taking Physics and European history."

[lockestheway]

"You might as well add a few more classes if you really want to make up for how this place is going to look on your transcript," Peter replied, sitting down on the bed despite any claims towards who owned what.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie considered the merits of another dry comment. Then just gave him a mildly raised eyebrow and decided against it.

"That's assuming I haven't already been taking more independent classes than anyone else at this school."

[lockestheway]

"Can you back that up with some figures?" Peter asked. "Are you trolling the school sign-ups, Adams?"

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie rolled her eyes. "Empirical knowledge from the habits of the people I know, Mr. Wiggin," she drawled. "As well as educated guesses."

[lockestheway]

"You might be doing somebody somewhere a disservice," Peter posited, shooting her a smirk.

[whenshewasnice]

"Should I care?"

Because she didn't.

[lockestheway]

"Only if the radio squirrels decide to fluff it up tonight and the angry mob shows up at your door," Peter said, "But hey, how often does that happen?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Never, because everyone knows the radio gets things wrong sometimes." The downside to squirrel-based mass communication. "Just as everyone knows that this isn't the most studious of schools as far as actual academics go."

[lockestheway]

"Sure, but that might mean there's more people like you, trying to make up for it by funding the mail-order academics industry some more," Peter said lightly.

He leaned over to take a peek at her homework while he was at it.

[whenshewasnice]

It was a whole lot of verb conjugation. In neatly drawn kanji and hiragana, so good luck making sense of any of it, Peter.

Meanwhile, Natalie was giving him a pointed eyebrow raise. Whether it was for slightly infringing on her personal space or for acting interested was anybody's guess.

"It's online, not mail order."

Or it could've been for that, too.

[lockestheway]

"Not important," Peter said dismissively, leaning back out of her personal space a few moments later. "Actually, I should remember that phrase - it might be of use if the issue of education ever turns into a big flaming ball of disaster again..."

[whenshewasnice]

"And how likely is that to happen?" Natalie wondered, picking up her pen to fill in the end of a word.

[lockestheway]

Peter shrugged. "It's always an issue somewhere," he said.

[whenshewasnice]

"Well, people are morons." She hadn't slept great. It increased bluntness. "So that's not that surprising."

[lockestheway]

"I can't disagree with that, but--"

Peter halted.

Then he pulled a face.

Then he muttered, "Oh, come on--"

And then he was a small, red fox who let out one of the most irritated sighs in small, red fox history.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie looked surprised only briefly.

Then the surprise was over, and her eyebrows settled back down into a dryly disapproving frown.

"Great."

[lockestheway]

The fox matched that disapproving frown with a look that clearly read bitch, please.

He was the one being inconvenienced here! Who knew how long this was going to last this time?!

[whenshewasnice]

"Don't 'bitch, please' me," Natalie warned him. "I know you're annoyed, but I can also choose not to help you."

[lockestheway]

Well, that was just going to make Peter contemplate holding your homework hostage until you did, Natalie. Though at least it was as of yet still contemplating and not actually acting.

He made for a very petulant-looking fox.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie was not terribly surprised by this.

She rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Should there be any excuses made on your behalf about why you're not available?"

[lockestheway]

She should probably keep an eye on his phone, at least, but Peter had no particular way to make that known, so he just tilted his head. Yes, yes.

[whenshewasnice]

"I'll keep an eye on things," Natalie promised. On one condition. "If you behave."

Yeah this was going to go great.

[lockestheway]

Peter scowled.

Yeah, this was so going to work out.

[whenshewasnice]

And Mr. Moxy hadn't even woken up from his nap and tried to bat a ball at Peter to play with him, either.

"Don't," Natalie said, before shifting her attention back to her homework. One fox wasn't going to throw her off schedule, thank you very much.

[lockestheway]

The miffed fox sat down on her bed with a deliberately obnoxious thump. This was so not according to plan. HE HAD THINGS TO DO.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie firmly ignored him.

She already had a feeling she'd be doing that a lot in the coming days.