soldtoarmenians

It's a very, very nifty phone. It takes pictures. It gets the internets. It sends text messages. It... doesn't actually have a calling plan, and Xander's not looking too hard at where it's stealing its signal from, just like he's not looking too hard at how it makes, or possibly summons, Twinkies at the press of one of its many buttons, some of which he hasn't even figured out the function of yet. It might brew mochaccinos for all he knows.

So of course one of the few things he hasn't done with it in the weekend that's passed since he got it is the one thing it was designed to do: make a phone call.

He's staring at it now. Kind of working on that.

( cut for phone call )

[pre-played with bridge_carson; no interaction as Xander's taking off and Bridge-mun is afk. That Xander called home is okay for broadcast; unexpected guest on the other end of the line, no.]

Funny how tired you can get just walking back to the dorms to pick up some... stuff that Xander will think of on the spot if anybody asks what he and Bridge are doing here. So tired that clearly you have to crash right where you are because you just don't have the energy to hike aaaaaaaaaall the way back down to the cabins. Woe.

Convenient that 'right where you are' happened to have been Xander's bed, last night? Well, yes, possibly.

( Cut for length and bordering-on-NWS but oh so vague. )
( Or you could just skip that bit and go straight to the plotty. )

[Preplayed with bridge_carson, not open for interaction, but Xander's heading out to flail in other people's posts. NFB due to dorm-sneakiness.]

Xander stared at his duffel bag, trying to think of anything he'd missed packing. Granted he was staring at it in the dark from his bed, where he'd been lying for the last 20 minutes, trying to get to sleep early so he'd be awake at the butt crack of dawn when Willow and her allegedly frog-safe magic portal were supposed to appear. But even if he'd had the light on, and even if there were anything he'd missed shoving into the oversized green army duffel, he knew there wouldn't be anyplace to fit it. Every nook and cranny and pocket was stuffed to seam-threatening with presents and laundry, some of which was actually clean.

So staring at the bag was pretty much an exercise in trying to ignore the fact that sleeping in a bed on Christmas Eve just didn't feel right. Especially a silent, comfy bed, with no sounds of yelling, cheesy Lawrence Welk Christmas albums, or broken glassware echoing from down the hall, and no intermittently rattling doorknob as one drunken family member or another mistook his room for the bathroom again.

He turned over and stuck his head underneath the pillow, but that just made it stuffier, not less weird. Sighing, Xander sat up and looked out the window. Where, if this were any other Christmas, he and his sleeping bag and a plate of the least strange-looking food he could find in the kitchen would be. Well, if this were any other Christmas and Sunnydale instead of Fandom. He opened the window to stick his head out -- and drew it back in almost immediately, shivering. Right. He slammed his window shut. If this were any other Christmas and Sunnydale instead of Fandom, and California instead of the freaking North Pole Virginia.

Xander flicked the light on, shook his head, and crawled out of bed and into his jeans. "How do you feel about camping, buddy?" he asked Jeremiah, who just blinked back at him in the sudden light.

"Rideep?"

"No, not outside; I'd you'd freeze to death."

Xander dragged his sleeping back out of the closet, filled his pillowcase with every bit of junk food in the room as well as all of the extra chocolate boxes he'd bought in Chicago for last-minute gifts, grabbed Jeremiah's tank, and headed out of room 406. On the way out the door, he tripped over a package leaning against it and almost went sprawling -- Jeremiah thudded loudly against the side of his tank and gave an agrieved croak.

"Sorry!" Xander said, righting the tank and checking to see that his frog looked, if pissier, not much the worse for wear. He scooped up the package and dropped it into his pillowcase with the junk food, then headed for the Common Room.

Which was dark. And empty. And quieter than even the Harris front lawn ever was, where at least Xander could usually hear the blessedly distant music and yelling as a faint background noise. The whole 4th floor was dark and silent.

He tromped down the stairs and peeked in on the 3rd floor - same deal.

Finally, on the 2nd, there was light, and noise.

"You can just stop giving me that look," Xander said as he set Jeremiah's tank down on his desk. "I mean it."

There was silence from the small plastic tank, and Xander sighed, tossing his duffel bag on the bed. The disturbingly clean, non-ash-bedecked bed, in the room that was not only empty of -- thank God -- his roommate, but quite a bit of said roommate's stuff, judging from the half-open closet door.

He turned to face the tank again, crossed arms at odds with the guilty look on his face.

"I said I was sorry I forgot to ask Giles what effect his portal-spell thing could have on frogs. And I am. But it could've been worse; you could've got turned into a newt, or... or a hamster or something. This is no big deal; Willow says it might even wear off on its own. And it's not like you didn't get spoiled rotten and stuffed full of more crickets than you could fit down your shiny..." Xander winced. "Purple gullet."

Jeremiah said nothing. Not even a comforting riddeeep. He just kept glaring at Xander with big, round, bulgey violet eyes.

Xander groaned and shook his head as he dug in his bag. "Glad to know I'm keeping up the Harris tradition of brilliantly successful parenthood." He dangled a small glass bottle enticingly in front of the tank. "Dried mealworm?"

Or did Xander get to say that when he was just coming back to school from the place he grew up? He was pretty sure he didn't get to call Chez Harris home anymore, at least.

Xander shoved a plastic footlocker on wheels though the door to Room 406, and tossed an overstuffed laundry bag after it, in the vague direction of his closet.

Kneeling by his bed, he opened the footlocker to check on its contents. Yup, scale models of all Enterprise versions, Voyager, Defiant, and a Klingon warship, present and undamaged in transit. Full run of New Mutants...Recent Anomalies, the Warren Ellis -scripted Excalibur Excelsior issues? Bagged, boarded, and checked. Strangers In Paradise Kismet still hiding on the bottom beneath the superhero comics where no one would see them and force him to try to sound convincing when he says he's totally reading for the lesbian sex and not because he enjoys the plot? Check.

He closed the lid, clicked the combination lock shut, and slid the whole shebang under his bed.

Xander stared at the bag of laundry hard, willing the clothes to not be wrinkled and dirty when he opened it. Unlike, say, they were when he scooped them off the floor of his closet at home in Sunnydale and crammed them into the bag in the first place.

He opened the bag and winced. Right; note to self: develop reality-altering powers. Everybody else around here seemed to have them - why not him?

Xander slung the bag of clothes back over his shoulder and headed out the door towards the laundry room.

When Giles told us they were transferring the Sunnydale High students out to other schools so whatever the Mayor was going to turn into on Graduation Day didn't have anything to chow down on? It seemed like a pretty rootin' tootin' idea. He never mentioned they meant schools in other dimensions. Then I get here, and guess who else is here? As a student. And it's not even the version I still don't trust but who at least doesn't eat choirboy and puppy omelettes for breakfast every day. It's the other one, without the soul.

And could I keep my mouth shut? Could I? Have I met me? And so, because God hates me principalconnor thinks she's funny, 'I hate him' must = 'I need to live with him'.

If moving in is one of those little pink Baskin-Robbins tastee spoons of what's to come? I want to switch it for the double-fudge ripple, please.

Kill me now. No, not you.

On the other hand, at least I'm not the only person who gets off on annoying Angel. (Not like that. Shut up.)