Wednesday, Room 406, after classes

[soldtoarmenians]

But, you know, a little more after classes than that other after classes over in Janet's room.

Today the Music of Pain was Ray Stevens. Who was allegedly non-depressing, and only sometimes country, and fell under the MoP umbrella only because this was Beside Myself, which had 1.5 decent songs on it, and neither of them was Butterfly Inside A Coupe DeVille which was currently playing because Xander couldn't be assed to get up and hit skip.

{Locked to zie roommate, ohyes. Contents of discussion NFB; any sudden and moody departures -- *whistles* -- fair game.}

Comments

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

After the confrontation with Veronica, Isabel walked slowly back to her room, trying very hard not to fall apart. She stopped when she got inside the room and saw Xander. "You could have asked me."

[soldtoarmenians]

Xander looked up from his 419th game of Spider Solitaire, and blinked. "I... could've asked you what, also hi?"

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"You could have asked me about taking the spot off of my clothes. I might," she paused, "I would, I probably would have told you the truth."

[soldtoarmenians]

Xander blinked... quite a bit more. Not that he didn't remember the incident, it just took him a second or two to remember who he'd mentioned it to. "I...didn't really think about it? I don't even know what the truth is aside from I guess you must save a bit on All Temperature Cheer."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

And it's really not Xander's fault, but suddenly all the anger she'd felt when confronted by Veronica is back. "You're right. You don't know the truth," she snapped. "That was the whole point of me not saying anything. Because I didn't want people to know the truth. But you had to make a joke to Veronica and tonight she pretty much accused me of being this semster's version of Angelus."

[soldtoarmenians]

Xander sat up, confused and a bit instictively bristly to her tone. "Okay, not sure which field this is flying out of? But if you don't want something spread around - and I didn't, by the way, I mentioned it casually to somebody who's pretty damn trustworthy - it helps if you don't do it in front of other people, or if you do, you tell them you don't want it spread around."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"You mentioned it to somebody who likes to snoop into private records and FBI files," Isabel said, still mentally shaking her head at exactly what Veronica had managed to get her hands on.

"And I didn't mention anything because I have this thing about not wanting to see the people around me get hurt." Her hands were shaking so she clenched them tightly, trying to get them under control. "Forgive me for caring."

[soldtoarmenians]

At a loss, he stood up and walked over to her. "Look, I really am sorry if I screwed things up for you--" He put a hand on her shoulder.

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

Isabel flinched and pulled away. "Just don't, okay?"

[soldtoarmenians]

Xander pulled his hand back and crossed his arms. "Ok, is there something I am allowed to do? Because I'm trying not to be an asshole here when confronted with the past tense news that apparently I already am one, but I'm coming up blank on this."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"Right now? No," she said bitterly. And deep inside a part of her felt bad, because really none of this was Xander's fault. But right now it felt like everything she'd thought she'd buried deep inside over the last two weeks was going to come out and it was taking everything in her to keep it under control.

[soldtoarmenians]

"Oh...kay." Xander blinked again, then a few more times, way off-kilter now, and really not feeling all that welcome in the one place that he'd been able to hide relax this week.

He stalked back to his bed and grabbed his laptop and wallet in a few quick, awkward movements. "I'm just gonna be... somewhere that's not here, then. Drop me an e-mail or something when you get a second's free time to tell me what exactly the hell I did wrong."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

Isabel nodded, not really trusting herself to say anything right now. She sat down on her bed, pulled her legs up, and wrapped her arms around them, resting her head on her knees. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she closed her eyes.

[soldtoarmenians]

And still his instinct was to be the guy with the shoulder, because that's what he did, if nothing else, and it was a damn good shoulder, but ...well, maybe these days it wasn't. None of the other parts were working the way they were supposed to after all, brain included.

Xander nodded curtly and left, pulling the door shut behind him with a thud that echoed sullenly down the hall after him as he walked away.

Sometime in the middle of the night...

[soldtoarmenians]

Xander quietly came back from the Perk. Where else was he going to sleep, after all? Common rooms and stairwells not the brightest choice, despite having previously survived same, and he really didn't know anybody here well enough to bug them for crash space when it wasn't a party where half the guests ended up sleeping on the floor.

He made sure the light was out, though, before he opened the door, set his laptop on the desk, and slid into bed in the dark.

Sleep, despite how long the week evening had been, kind of took its own sweet time showing up, though.