Jono's back!

[x-marrow.livejournal.com]

It's almost odd to wake up when Jono hasn't slept for a while. At first he'd thought he'd never remember how to sleep again, but it seems it's like riding a bike. He blinks his eyes open and stares at the ceiling of the room for a moment before realizing where he was. Back in the boiler room. He turns his head and sees Sarah by the desk. "Morning," he says, not really caring what time of the day it actually is.

It seems Sarah doesn't care much either, as there's no real way to tell what time it is in the boiler room anyway. She smiles, and puts the pen down on the desk. "Morning." It's nice to have a roommate again. "Sleep okay?"

"I suppose so," Jono raises himself up on his elbows, casting a look around the room. It hasn't changed. Then he swivels his eyes back to Sarah. "What are you up to?"

"Writing." Sitting crosslegged on the desk chair, she pushes herself away from the desk a little, so she can turn to face him. "Trying to, at least." She wishes suddenly that her horns were easier to control. He _likes_ them.

"Don't tell anyone, they might take the fun out of it by saying it's a form of therapy," he says and sits up, starting to unbuckle his shirt. Sometimes it's almost like they're too small.

"They already have. It's supposed to make things better. _Easier_." She shrugs, crossing her arms across her chest. "Like scribbling words down is going to somehow make everything right again."

"Why do you do it then?" Jono asks, twisting the shirt off of himself, then falling back into the bed.

"Because I can. Because Tommy taught me and showed me I could." She scratches at her leg, and goes back to her position with her arms across her chest.

"Oh, right, Tommy." It's obvious Jono doesn't have any idea who she's talking about. He stares at the ceiling again, now illuminated with more than just the desk lamp. "Other than that, anything else I don't know about?"

"Tommy was a Morlock. She wrote on everything she could. There's poetry written on the tunnel walls by her. Some by me." She gets quiet for a moment, and looks back at her notebook on the desk. "What do you want to know?"

"I think I should like to see the tunnels sometime," Jono mumbles, then he raises his hands and makes a strange gesture on top of his chest, creating a shadow image of a rabbit in the ceiling. "What do you want to tell me? Any more strip poker games since the last one?"

"It's not very nice anymore," she says, "but it's home. They used to do this thing, the ceremony of light, and the tunnels lit up like the outside for a little while. It was amazing. But I can't do it." She can't help but grin a little at Jono making a shadow-rabbit on the ceiling, and shakes her head. "No, no strip poker. They keep warning all the new kids, so I can't get anybody to come play."

"I wasn't planning on staying there, so I don't really care if they're nice or not. I'd just like to see them," he wiggles his fingers in his own light. "I'm sure I could provide the lighting." He raises his eyebrows at Sarah. "That's too bad. Not even Shinobi?"

She shrugs, and shakes her head again. "Nope. He's been down for darts, but not strip poker. It seems you're not the only one to have sworn off the game for life after playing against me." She smiles and stretches out, careful not to lean back too far and tip the chair over.

Jono sits up and leans against the wall, smiling in his own way. "At least I won," he says, almost smugly. "I'd play, but I'm too afraid what you'd do if I won again."

"Not scared of naked 'I'm a little teapot?' " She raises her eyebrows gives him a little grin.

Jono shudders theatrically. "I had managed to push that out of my mind, but thanks for reminding me."

"Not a problem. That's what I'm here for." she says with a laugh.

"Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose," Jono rolls his eyes. "We just need a new excuse to get naked and then act weird about it."

"You mean we can't just get naked for the hell of it?" She pulls the bone from her leg and tosses it to the pile.

"We could," Jono shrugs, following the bone with his eyes as it flies through the air and clatters to the ground.

"With our luck, that's when we'll get visitors. And a whole school going 'Naked! How could you?!?' " She says it only half-way seriously.

"That's why the door locks," Jono points out, raising one eyebrow in amusement.

"I have a boyfriend who walks through walls," she says, before really thinking about it. Oh shit.

The back of Jono's head thuds against the wall, almost as if he had thrown his head back to laugh. "Then he'd get an eyeful, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah. But I don't think he'd appreciate it much." She says with a shrug. "Well, maybe the _me_ naked part."

"Oh, bugger," Jono affects a bored tone. "So we can't get naked. Now what should we do? Contemplate the finer points about being a monster?"

"We've done that," she says dramatically. Stretching out, she puts her feet up on the desk.

"I suppose that leaves us with nothing else to do but listening to loud music, then," Jono stands up and pads over to the stereo, flipping through their piles of cds.

"Oh damn." She waits for him to put a CD in before she cocks her head to the side and looks at him. "So why were you avoiding everything? Just because?"

"Because I didn't feel like confronting things. Still don't, but the school started so I had to come out of hiding." He pokes the cd player until it's playing the track he wants.

"Confronting things?" She watches him curiously, but doesn't push it. If he doesn't want to talk about it, it won't hurt her any.

Jono's quiet for a moment, then he moves back to his bed with a cd in hand. "Would you look at this?" He waves the cd. "Evanescence. What's it still doing here?" He realizes he's changing the subject rather awkwardly, but doesn't care.

She looks at it blankly for a minute. "When the hell did we get Evanescence? And why haven't you blown it up yet?"

"A Christmas gift. Someone thought it was funny," Jono holds the thing with two fingers as if it was something dead and nasty.

"People here have the most fucked up sense of humor." She says, shaking her head. "Evanescence?"

"I know. Incredible." Jono shakes his head, frowning at the cd, then looking up at Sarah. "Fancy a walk? Blowing up things is always more fun with company."

She smiles. "I'm always up for a good explosion. Especially if it get's _that_ out of our room."

"Well then," Jono gets up again. "Let's go?"

She stands up, throwing the notebook and pen inside one of the drawers of the desk. "Let's."

Jono holds the door open for her as they leave the room. He doesn't bother putting on more clothes, it's not like the cold will bother him anyway. "So. You and Shinobi."

Pulling on a sweatshirt as she leaves, Sarah nods. "Yeah. Crazy isn't it?"

"Well," Jono raises his eyebrows. "Me and Paige? This place is mad." He tosses the cd in the air and catches it neatly when it starts to fall. "I just hope it'll work better with you."

She watches him carefully for a minute. "That bad, huh?"

There's a moment of silence before Jono replies. "I like to think I'm doing the right thing," he shrugs. "Whatever that is. She'll be happier without me."

"You think so?" And with that, she's willing to let the topic drop. More of a rhetorical question really.

"You're free to throw me out of the room anytime you want, you know," he glances at Sarah from the corner of his eye. "In case nakedness with Shinobi is needed. And I can't even walk through walls."

She laughs. "You know, I don't think we're quite there yet. It's going to take a bit of corruption. But I'll let you know. Or, we'll just lock the door, and you'll figure it out."

"You haven't corrupted him that far yet?" Jono raises his eyebrows in surprise. "You're not obviously spending enough time with him."

"He was sheltered!" she says with a grin, "I had to get him to stop blushing first..."

"Unbelievable," he shakes his head, the cd making another flight from hand to hand. "I didn't think it was possible for anyone to blush that much."

"Neither did I. But it's fun to try and make him blush now." She looks over and gives him a very wicked grin.

He responds to the grin with a rather delighted look. "You're evil. I like you."

Laughing again, she gives him an amused look. "Well good. I'd hate to have to go looking for another roommate. Especially since I just got mine back."

"The lamp wasn't sarcastic enough then?" Jono asks, amused as well.

"No. And it didn't ever want to get naked."

"That's a bad quality in roommates," Jono nods. "Although I can't say I ever wanted to see my previous ones naked."

"Hmm. I'm just special like that." She pulls her arms inside her sweatshirt, and opens the front door to go outside.