Thursday Night

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Alison and Lorna talk about death, pain, woe and angst. They decide it's not worth the bother.



Lorna stared blankly at the door to the mansion, momentarily defeated as to how she was going to open the door without letting go of any of her bags. Several long seconds passed as her mind shook off the seven hours she'd spent travelling so far and clicked into sluggish gear. "Handle," she muttered and tucked up her laptop case under one arm and shoved open the door. She trudged inside, kicked the door closed and headed reluctantly up the seemingly endless stairs. "Someone kill me."

"If I kill anyone, it won't be you," was the overly calm reply from the top of the landing. Alison came down the steps slowly, tension visible in her every move. "Here, let me help you with that." Without waiting for an answer, she liberated a few of the bags from Lorna's grasp, and turned to climb up the stairs with that same, regular pace as she's used to come down.

"Oh," Lorna blinked, "thanks." She continued up the stairs, following Alison automatically to their suite. Just inside the door, she unceremoniously dropped the rest of her bags and set her laptop on her desk. That accomplished she turned and looked at her roommate. "So who would you kill?" she asked, her brain finally catching up.

"Oh, I'd tend to not be too picky about it right now," Alison replies serenely, carefully setting down the bags on the ground. "Whoever just happened to get into my face would probably do," she shrugs, managing not to grind her teeth - barely. She takes a long look at Lorna and sighs. "You've seen them go at it, haven't you?"

Lorna allowed her legs to simply give out underneath her and collapsed into a graceless pile in the middle of the carpet. "You are referring to the ranting and whining on the journal?" She raised an eyebrow and nodded, "Read it on the plane. Couldn't bring myself to care. Have they been like this in person?"

"I would not know," she bit off each word, sitting down with far more care than Lorna showed. "Right now, I'd better not see them at it like that in person," she shrugs, a stony expression on her face.

"Drama here, drama at home. I should have run off to Monaco when I had the chance. I could be living the life of a high roller," Lorna said in a kind of half-hearted, casual way. She sighed heavily and fell over. Rolling onto her back, she stared at the ceiling.

Leaning back on her hands, Alison moved her head to the side slowly, ignoring the snaps as tension made her muscles crackle in protest. "I'm not answering any of them. I'll just make things worse. And I won't care, which won't help." Alison shrugged, then allowed herself to slide back and lie on the carpet as well, shifting around a bit so that her head was near Lorna's.

"A high roller," Lorna repeated, "dripping with beautiful men and expensive jewelry. Or maybe the other way round." She tilted her head to look at Alison, "We should go to Monaco. Forget these pipsqueaks and their "woe is I," self-righteous self-loathing." She yawned and frowned, "It took seven hours to get back here. Everyone is so worried about Isabel that no one wants to fly unless the day is cloudless and still, so I got to sit in Chicago, where we'd been routed for God only knows what reason, for three hours. During that time, I was hit on five times, leered at ten times, asked to support the deaf by buying a little fingerspelling card for a buck and nearly sat on twice. But I'm not complaining. No, I'm just plotting how to get out of here and get to Monaco." Her voice remained low and resigned through her little speech. She sighed again, "It is really that bad, do you think? This can't all be overreaction but is it really as bad as all that, Ali?"

"I think a lot of it has to do with them being teenagers," Alison finally said after a long silence, "but right now I'm not exactly able to be tolerant towards a lot of things, which is my problem, I guess. Why I'm staying silent on the issue. Because the whole attitude thing has been getting to me more and more, and I've nowhere near the patience I had before in dealing with it. The 'oh, my pain is worse and no one could possibly understand' spiel just gets me irked real fast, and that's it. Probably also the 'don't judge me while I have a ball judging you' thing too." She sighs, shaking her head. "This was bound to happen sooner or later. I almost wish it had been sooner - it wouldn't have been as explosive as it is now, with what the kids on Muir island are experiencing fuelling some of the bitterness. And clashing with kids who don't know how to back off to save their lives."

Lorna started to nod then gave it up as just requiring too much effort. "This has been happening. It's just getting louder now. The Muir trip upped the stakes for some of them. The others are angry because it's taken them so long to start to catch up." She draped an arm over her eyes, "They should all be spanked soundly and sent to bed. Then, Monaco."

Alison smiled for a brief moment, but the expression soon faded into weariness. "Monaco sounds nice," she sighed, closing her eyes. "It's amazing how quick some are to separate themselves from the others. And then go on and on about it. As though it made their behaviour right or justifiable somehow. When it's really hypocrisy, no matter how you look at it." She snorted, shaking her head. "Eh. I did that too at that age, I guess."

"Technically, I am that age. What a horrifying thought." Lifting her arm, she blinked blearily at Alison, "As my roommate, you have a sacred duty to smack me if I start to sound like them."

"Promise to return the favour, and you've got a deal," is the fervent reply, followed by a dry chuckle.

"It's a deal." She extended her hand to shake on it, "Now I shall crawl off to the shower and die. I think my muscles have frozen this way." Lorna winced and made no move to get up.

Shaking her hand and then letting her own flop to the floor, Alison smirked. "Looks like you're stuck that way, Oh Green Haired Wench."

"If I could move, I'd smack you. So consider yourself lucky that the airline coffee wore off an hour ago," Lorna threatened without any heat then with what she considered far too much effort rolled over on her stomach in preparation to crawl away.

Chuckling, Alison pushed herself up on her elbows to watch her progress. "Wish I had the camera. Heh."

Lorna stuck her tongue out at Alison, "Die, wench, die. Seven hours, I tell you, and I come back to a Brat Queen. The gods must be crazy."

Allowing herself to laugh, feeling some of the tension slowly unwind, Alison grinned at her widely. "I'm irresistible, what can I say?" She primped her hair, batting her eyes at her roommate coyly.

"Well, my mother would say you're going to hell for lying but I'm nearly sure that she's never meant it." Having made it approximately five feet, Lorna gave up and collapsed again, "Christ, Ali, what a week."

"Yeah, I know. Hell, what a month." She flopped over to her side, and then wrinkled her nose. "You smell of airplane."

"Death, death I say," Lorna shook her fist at Alison then reluctantly picked herself up off the floor and headed for the shower. "Should have gone to Monaco."