savetheearth | 18th Howl: After School Numbers Club, Summer School Edition [Action

The knock on the door came around two, and Lyall looked up from his paperwork and/or conversation he'd been having to see the junior-senior-and-AP English teacher, Ms. Bellweather, standing in the door way, looking dour and gloomy. She usually looked a bit dour and gloomy, but this was unusually pronounced. Almost comically, in fact.

"Ah-- can I help you, June?" For someone with such a sunny name, June Bellweather, she really did look dismal.

GUESS WHO ALSO SHOWED UP AROUND TWO.

A spice cake! Also the guy carrying it, but who cares about him.

Approaching from the opposite end of the hall, Alex noticed Bellweather in the doorway and paused a few feet away, waiting for her business with Lyall to finish up. His rudeness was generally not intentional! So he was not going to just barge in on conversation between faculty.

Even if this cake was pretty barge-worthy. (And an apology for losing track of time, sigh!)

The cake smell wafted through the door even beyond June Bellweather, and Lyall noticed it with interest. Somebody was obviously there. June didn't seem to notice whoever it was, though, and Lyall didn't comment on it.

What she said was, "I heard you were still here. I thought we might... have a chat."

Her voice was slow and ponderous, which was unusual even for her, and she leaned heavily on the door frame. The skirt she wore, unbeknownst to Lyall who couldn't see it, twitched behind her. As if there was something under there besides legs and feet.

"Well, I suppose-- if there's a problem. Come on in?"

Slow and ponderous made it easy for Alex to eavesdrop without meaning to, though her words held little significance to him besides the fact that he might be waiting outside for a while.

A flicker of movement within her skirts caught his eye. Alex tilted his head, staring at her skirt. Just as he wondered if he'd been seeing things, there was another twitch.

His brows rose. Another numbers person?

He strode forward, easily visible behind Bellweather thanks to his height, and tried to catch Lyall's attention. If Bellweather hadn't noticed him, Alex would point at her with his free hand, then point downwards, but the minute she did, he'd drop his hands and a certain smile that often got him out of trouble.

It took the other teacher a minute to notice him, her attention apparently so focused on Lyall that she missed the movement behind her. It was Lyall, looking over her shoulder and frowning in confusion at Alex's motions, that alerted her.

She jumped and glided, more than stepped, to the side, her face screwed up with exaggerated worry and apparent upset. But her voice was still slow and sad. "Oh, if you have company... I can come back... later."

Yep, those hands whipped right on down the second she moved. Alex flashed her an apologetic smile. "Oh, no, I'm just dropping something off. No rush!" He tilted his head. "Are you all right? You look rather under the weather."

Ms. Bellweather actually sniffled, and Lyall half-rose from his seat at the front counter in mild alarm. She was a sad character in general, he supposed, but openly on the verge of tears? Something had to be very wrong.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" she sniffed. "I have to go--"

"June?"

But she had already turned and fled. Her stride was off, awkward and more like she was floating than actually jogging. Lyall reached the door and stared after her in confusion.

Alex didn't even try to hide the fact that he was openly staring at her retreat. After she disappeared from view, he turned to Lyall.

"Gonna go after her?"

"I'm not sure I could even catch up with her," Lyall admitted, frowning at the door she just disappeared through, out of the building. She'd been going remarkably fast, too. "I might have to give her a call tonight, though. Check and make sure she's all right. --that's one of the other teachers here. English."

"Ah."

An 'ah' of acknowledgment; there was something of greater interest he wanted to talk about. He started inside Lyall's office. "Invading your place," was his warning, too late.

"So I see," Lyall commented, watching him with a little amusement-- not a lot, since he was still worried about his fellow teacher, but still. A little bit. "And what brings you to the high school in the middle of summer? With a tasty-smelling box, too."

"I am but a delivery man," he said, turning about in the smaller space. He motioned for Lyall to close the door. Alex wanted to share the skirt motions with Lyall, but not while they could be easily overheard.

"A spice cake, if you will. Thought you might enjoy it."

There were a couple students in there, but they were all Numbers Club students, so while he might have been overheard, it wasn't by anyone who would report them or get them in any kind of trouble. Lyall did shut the door, though.

"How thoughtful. I think I might even still be able to eat that."

[ ooc: WOW i just realized this was a classroom, not an office. GO GO READING COMPREHENSION. sorry about that! ]

Setting the cake on his desk, Alex said, "Unless you've suddenly developed an aversion to cinnamon, in which case I think we ought to hold a proper funeral for that." Then he sat on the edge of the desk, one leg angled in, and lifted his hand. "Okay, but that teacher-- there was something in her skirt."

((haha no worries <3 ))

"Not yet, though I can't have too many sweet things anyway." Frosting in general was just off the table, to his intense regret. Cinnamon, however, still seemed viable. That was a more absent comment than anything else, though, as he tried to work out what the rest might mean. "What do you mean, in her skirt?" he repeated with a frown, thinking back to how... strangely... she'd seemed to move and wondering.

"Like..."

He trailed off, at a loss of how to explain more clearly that there was something in her skirt. He bit the inside of his cheek, then tried again. "It was twitching in places skirts shouldn't twitch."

"Like how she was moving all wrong when she ran away?" Lyall guessed, frowning at the door in further concern. "I don't know what that could... mean." The thought of vermini infecting a person in any kind of subtle fashion like that hadn't occurred to him, so he could only guess that maybe she had become one of them in a rather uncomfortable way and had found him on the network.

"Maybe I should call her sooner than later," he commented.

A conclusion Alex had also come to.

"Maybe," he agreed, tapping his finger against the table. "She might be like us now."

Lyall hadn't been shy about his identity over the network. Plus, he was a nice guy. Alex could understand why a coworker with (comparatively) strange changes would want to connect with him over it.

"That was my thought," Lyall agreed. "It isn't like my name isn't plastered all over the network, after all, and she'd know where to find me... and she might have missed you being on there. Though that would be tricky, too." He eyed Alex with a little amusement.

"Anyway, that's for later. Forn now, bring that cake in. I'll share it around, and take whatever's left over home to Hajime. He'll probably appreciate it."

Oblivious to the goings on of teachers he could not care less about (which really, was basically every teacher other than Mr. Lyall,) Bakura has set up in the corner of the classroom. For once, he hadn't brought his Magic cards and was instead poking around on his cell phone and just looked up every time someone entered the room.

Anthony had reached a point at which he'd slunk and shuffled from security to the classroom, scantly more assured and barely less of a hunted tension and unpleasantly jolting heart than he'd been in a position anywhere open shortly after he'd wound up in his state. He'd jerked the door open and peeked around inside before he'd slipped in. However, by now he'd been quick to put his hood down, and settle in the back, still, but leaning against the wall to rest - he hasn't brought anything to let himself get too comfortable with at a desk, anyway - within easy view of and braced to be sharp to hear or look over to anyone opening the door.

To be here was as relieving as it was encouraging. Sanctuary, belonging, and company and some superficial notion told him that he ought to be pleased with himself, doing something right by being in a classroom, part of an undercurrent thought he doesn't want to let get in the way - between here and September it's inevitable to come rising on up itself.

Edited 2013-07-30 06:57 (UTC)

It wasn't terribly busy here, really, what with it being summer school rather and with far fewer students willing to make the separate trek out. So when Lyall spotted-- and smelled-- Anthony making his way inside, he finished up the paper he was on to give the boy time to get settled and then pushed up to come over to greet him personally.

"Anthony," he began, somewhere between fond, welcoming, and a little stern. This, after all, was the boy who had purposefully avoided telling him he hadn't had anywhere to sleep at night.

He detected Mr. Lyall rising. His attention glided over, with a small turn and tilt of his head.

When it occurred enough that he was in fact approaching, with a mental jump to attention, Anthony straightened up a bit in place and aimed over a smile - weighted down, still, with some diffidence. At what he did think he caught as a trace of sternness the "Hi, sir," he'd preemptively started to form bent into a "Yes, sir?"

It had been another month and still in front of Lyall as well as Dr. Strider some feeling nastily clung of exposure and abashment.

The reprimand would come in a minute, once he had made sure the boy was all right and not obviously in need of anything. Like a proper meal or a shower or anything. For now, Lyall just asked, "May I join you for a few minutes? It's been a while since I've actually seen you in person."

"Of course -- ...I understand." Deferently mumbled. He flinched inside on it striking him that he'd already made a mistake without the confirmation that he was in trouble - to greet as he'd entered wouldn't have been that distracting! - and then tried to smash the feeling down with the leverage of working the smile up a tad lighter. " -- Hello..."

Lyall settled into the chair beside the one Anthony had chosen. The smell was stronger, closer up, and it took all his self control not to wrinkle his nose. This was Anthony, not actually a vampire. Or dead body. Either one.

"How've you been?" And where had he been, that would come next.

And Anthony tried not to let self-conscious tension set in in another layer already on Mr. Lyall's moving to settle into a place for conversation - a small mercy it was that he, himself, hadn't had any reason to cast any awareness back onto the fact that he smelled like something that had died.

"Fine," he said - and even in spite of his mood he said that with a certain amount of eagerness and heart, a string of warmth. Things had gone well for him this past month - and nothing, to his knowledge, had gone any worse. "...Ahm -- how did - things - go..." Voice thinned, uncertain blinking. " -- the last full moon...?

"I was securely locked in a bedroom and had two guards on hand in case I did get out," Lyall answered with an awkward little shrug. "Other than that, it was about the same." Still extremely painful, still required a full day to recover from. It was exhausting, but thankfully it was a week ago now, so he actually felt all right at last.

If a little off-kilter every time he thought about it. Turning into something else made it all the harder to claim he wasn't turning into someone else.

"About the same" was a disquieting answer.

Anthony had been feeling freer to step out after dark, however - it thanks to awareness that it would have some time since, now, with nothing evidently worse for the wear that his internal tensing didn't freeze out a hint of curiosity on one bit " -- 'Two'?"

He assumed that by one he meant Hajime. He heard anything of anyone else who'd be needed one way or the other to be at Lyall's.

"One of my former students, Hajime Aikawa," Lyall confirmed, "and Mr. Locke, the chemistry teacher, I don't think you've had him yet." Given the boy had been a freshman and had his science taken up by biology last year, he was in fact sure he hadn't had him yet. "He found out about it when he got back from his trip out of town, and insisted on being there, too."

"Oh."

Anthony had recalled that Mr. Locke had been one of them, from the first recording indicating that that very "popular" chemistry teacher had connected, and had seen his return message - this was a bit of a respectable reminder of presence.

Quicker if still light-treading in carrying on, "Though they didn't have to do anything -- right?"

"No, thankfully. The door held, and the window, too." Given he'd spent most of the night in pain and hobbling around uselessly while he howled and growled and generally made a wolfy fuss, that was really about what he'd expected. "But having them there made me feel a bit better about it in case I had gotten out."

"I-I'm guessing Mr. Locke's -- not..." He froze up on it occurring to him to be somewhat mortified with himself for implicitly asking this - but it was an inevitable curiosity about any one of them from whom he hadn't seen it for himself. Considered backpedaling - no reason to guess or not guess anything, but it'd do even less to ask as if he was assuming that anything should be on the fact that he would have been there with the man with superhuman strength and the shape of a bug to watch over a werewolf...

"...That Mr. Locke's still - human," he tried - and flinched a little, that was a little uncouth on yet another hand, but hopefully the intention was understood.

"As far as I know, yes." Really, Lyall didn't find it that strange of a question. After all, they were all changing a little, and with him and Hajime both being a little "different", well, it was a reasonable guess. "But he insisted, and I'm not really any stronger when I'm like that, so as long as he can avoid getting bitten if I get out...." He shrugged helplessly. "More hands to guard the windows and doors is probably for the best."

That topic, though, seemed talked out, and he had something else-- possibly more important-- to ask. "I heard from Dr. Strider that you weren't actually staying with him."

Had the subject not been talked through Anthony half-knew he wouldn't have been able to keep feeding it - inevitably shut off, leaving room for the sense of Am I in trouble? to rise up again, set in, and with that strike him frozen cold.

He tried holding eye contact - glanced aside after a blink, then back, and eyes fell down in giving-in, in two seconds' span. Anxious shake of his head " -- I... wasn't," he said, and stopped there, swallowed an "I'm sorry" that he hadn't meant until he'd gotten caught and was now prepared to be plainly disgusted by that fact, too.

He wasn't in any position to have anything to say for himself unless asked, he knew - that might be some better apology.

Once Aradia gets inside the classroom she glances around, not bothering to try to be sneaky - after all, she's supposed to be there - as she tries to spot...ah-hah! Upon seeing Anthony - albeit with a hood? - she bounces in place before going over to snag the desk in front of him, beaming. "Anthony! I haven't seen you in a while, have I? I mean, we talked on the thing, but..."

The door opens.

Anthony realizes that that is Aria there an instant before she seems to spot him. A stir of brightness - she accepted the invitation after all. The feeling anything but unpleasant surprise and welcome and recognition on hearing a voice on the network he thought he knew was back and redoubled.

As she starts heading over however he freezes - just a bit.

And when she takes her seat, right in front of him, beaming, he feels a very self-conscious chill.

After a few beats her words set in enough to warm it out and shake it off.

"...I know! It's -- ah..." It strikes him, here, to pull his hood down - with a small shake of his head and a sheepish smile back to Aria; he needs to keep reminding himself to keep his state in mind as nothing of concern, at least as much as is evident, around people like them, all part of this, all seeing much stranger, being much stranger, for no limit of reasons. "...nice seeing you -- ...again. I'm -- happy you - were interested."

"Of course I was! After all...I sort of need to figure all this out, don't I?" If she was going to be seeing what amounted to a magical network and if she was going to continue getting magical memories...and if she was going to be in danger of getting attacked by aliens (or werewolves? or fairies? Aria just wasn't sure which they were up against).

But at any rate, as long as those things continued to hold true, she needed to continue to learn more and to talk to those who had been at it - whatever "it" was - longer than she had been.

Knowledge was power, after all.

"We're -- still... figuring things out -- too," he says, with it striking him to work up and inject in what comes across as a very weak and apologetic excuse for a friendly laugh. He's skirting just around looking her dead on - trying eye contact, technically, but from a slight angle.

First time seeing someone since before the end of the school year. He's still going to need to adjust to the fact that Aria has, suddenly, been pulled in to join this. He feels compelled to talk to her normally, still, but not naturally. They're in the same sub-world, now, it can and ought to be both - and surely she would like to be a part of that "figuring things out"; he'd taken from her well enough that she liked learning things, and knowing things.

He is grateful, at the very least as a starter, that she didn't seem to pause at the change to his looks since spring - he'll let anything that may be a reminder of sink in for himself later.

Edited (I am not yet accustomed to the current length of this account's icon list. X_X) 2013-08-04 04:46 (UTC)

"Yeah, that...seems to be the case, but you know - I think the more people trying to help out with that, the better. I don't know - isn't that how it normally works? And not trying just seems...a bit of a waste, I guess." A waste of time and resources and...who knows, it just seems wrong somehow.

And seeing as how people uninvolved are still getting attacked...

Aria thinks it's also probably a bit useless to try and hide from something so there.

While she's aware Anthony has changed, she's not mentioning it. At least, not unless he brings it up. Hadn't she heard about people getting robot arms and the like, and seen some weird stuff on the network already? People changed, apparently. More than just growing up and apart, here they would grow into someone else. But Anthony still seemed like Anthony, which was good enough for her.

"Of course," is Anthony's return - and his nod is made with an eagerness, cowed tone and sheepishness-held smile aside.

Sheepishness-held, but he tries to work up another degree of warmth, also in some hopefully more productive, helpful pressing of apology, to loosen himself up out of the "newness" of these circumstances. "Though still I'm sorry that there -- isn't more... for you - to start with. We -- still... don't exactly know - how to stay safe..."

Among many other things, too many other things that are, as is right there and clear as he speaks, mortifyingly unfair for someone to enter so happy to cooperate and turn this into a process of discovery to have to find themselves completely blind and without a point of preparation on.

"Well...I don't know that staying safe is really something people ever know. Sure, you learn to deal with crises and how to minimize things, but...life in general is sort of hard to plan, don't you think?" Aria shrugs. She's going to try to keep a positive outlook just because...well, cowering in her apartment would look too tempting an alternative, otherwise.

These are unbelievable circumstances. Aria, of course, understands that, it'd be doing a disgrace to talk as if she can possibly not - he'll appreciate and concede to the positivity - back down and up to zoom in to the more productive and relevant - "So you -- haven't had much trouble so far. Have you?"

"No, not really. I mean...besides finding this network thing, nothing much has happened to me." Her memories have yet to be traumatizing.

It will happen, though. She has at least three separate deaths to go.

Aria, having been invited by Anthony, shows up fairly early on. She's not entirely sure what to expect, but smiles cheerfully at anyone who approaches her. Seeing the games and snacks, she figures it's just a sort of bonding activity/meeting, and after hitting up Anthony to chat, she'll take a seat and either set up a game of solitaire or play Draw Something on her phone.

18th Howl: After School Numbers Club, Summer School Edition [Action | Open]

[Plotty teacher thread]

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Pre-Arrival of Plotty Business!

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haha s'fine

That may be fine but the prose abuses in this one are surely less so. XD

i forgive them all

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