Smalltalk

Who: Lily and Drea
When: Evening
Where: MSHS

This whole staying the night in school bullshit was new to Lily - Los Angeles didn't have the kind of weather that required staying at school because it was too dangerous to go home, and it was safe to say her parents hadn't exactly been thrilled, either. Her dad and mom were both at home, thanks to her dad having the day off, and Lily wanted to be there with them instead of stuck here for God only knew how long. Plus, she had her weekly lessons with Doc coming up soon, and she wanted to get some more practice in before then. Still, there was something to be said for having an impromptu sleepover with basically everyone she knew and some she didn't, even if she didn't have cute pajamas or a tooth brush. She was on her way to her locker to grab a book - might as well get some more physics homework done while she was stuck here, and she was so not into sitting around being bored. With that on the brain, small wonder she forgot about looking where she was going and rounded a corner smack into someone.

Drea was attempting to avoid the gym as much as possible. Which involved dodging a lot of the teachers who were wandering the halls, checking for students who'd snuck away into possibly-unlocked classrooms to have sex or whatever. She just didn't want to get dragged back into that crowded conglomeration of smells and noise. Eating dinner in the cafeteria had been bad enough, but she couldn't not eat. The bad thing was, she was out of snacks from her backpack, and was starting to feel vaguely hungry again. Tonight was going to suck. So she was walking around the halls sourly, not really paying attention to where she was going, and all of the sudden was impacting with someone. "Fuck!" she yelped, stumbling back a step. She opened her mouth to bitch somebody out, and then realized it was Lily. And immediately laughed. "You okay, dude?" she asked.

"Shit, sorry!" Lily yelped when she felt herself collide with someone. The next second, she realized it was Drea (who was laughing at her, but that was okay), and grinned. "We have to stop meeting like this," she joked, referring to the time she'd nearly faceplanted off her skateboard the first time they'd met. "Are you okay? I didn't break any toes or crush anything important, did I? Dude, I was so not paying attention."

At least she wasn't pissed about it. Not that Drea expected her to be, but some people surprised you sometimes. She grinned back, already feeling her mood lift some. "Yeah, just fine. I've hit pavement a lot harder than you, no worries," Drea said, patting herself down as she did. "I wasn't either, so I guess we both fail. Where are you headed?" She stepped aside to let the girl pass, but was fully prepared to fall into step beside her.

"Just to my locker," Lily said, indicating the direction with a nod. "I figured if I was stuck here, I might as well get some homework done. At the risk of sounding like a huge nerd, that is. I want to track down some friends on the dance team for a little more practice after, but I need to let dinner settle before I go flipping around, you know?" Not that she'd eaten too much of it - school food, blech. Maybe she still had one or two of the granola bars she usually kept in her locker... that'd come in handy later tonight. "What about you?"

"Yeah, well, it'll save you from having to do it later," Drea reasoned. She would've done that too, if she'd had any homework. But she'd taken care of it in study hall already, and she didn't think she could really focus on math and crap right then. "Just wandering around," she said with a shrug. "I really-super-totally-ohmygod don't want to be here right now, so I'm trying to like ... walk it off or something." Before she had to go back and sleep with all the asshats in the gym. Stupid snow, stupid school.

"Yeah, I'm not thrilled about a sleepover here, either," Lily sympathized. "My bed is way more comfortable than a lame-ass sleeping bag on the gym floor. I mean, hello, do you know how dirty that gym floor's got to be? Ugh. Does this happen often around here? We never had to do this shit back home. Effing snow, man, I am so not cut out for this."

Drea shrugged. "I dunno, I haven't been here long. I'll tell you it never fucking happened in Chicago," she said, sounding kind of disgusted. "They were like ... prepared for bad weather. 'Course it didn't ever really dump snow like this, either. Think the lake's got something to do with it or some shit, I dunno. It just sucks." But it wasn't like Lily could do anything about it, so she should probably stop bitching now. "What's been up with you, though?"

"Not much," Lily said, coming to much the same conclusion as Drea - bitching about it wouldn't really help, so there wasn't much point in wasting energy doing it. "Just school, dance team, stuff like that. I think I read about a maybe-opening at the dance studio in town, for an instructor, and I was thinking I might apply for that." If she could fit it into her already hectic schedule, what with lessons with Doc and all. "What about you?"

"The same, pretty much," Drea said, giving another shrug. "Minus the dance team, of course. Just like ... school and stuff." And being attached by a cursed werewolf, helping kill it, finding out one of her friends had been turned into one, and the whole ghost-thing. None of which she could really talk about. Except the last part, so she jumped on that. "And getting used to the ghosts," she added with a lip-twist to one side.

"Right, that was kind of freaky," Lily agreed. Her mom had re-found her religion (though she'd never lost it in the first place, Lily didn't think) and there was some guy that wandered around their spare bedroom, but he never seemed to leave the room and wasn't gross-looking or anything, so Lily just avoided the room and tried not to think about it. "And here I thought we had at least a few more years before the world ended. If I have to go, I'd at least like to do it with a diploma in hand."

She frowned at the whole world-ending idea. She'd of course been hearing it everywhere, but she didn't agree, and honestly didn't even like to hear it jokingly. Which was weird for her, as she generally just rolled with stuff, but it just made her uncomfortable. A lot of things were doing that now. "Yeah," she said kind of vaguely. "I mean, it's a big deal, I think, but not that big. People are just ... way too freaked out. They're not even hurting anyone."

"No, I don't really think it's the apocalypse or whatever," Lily said. "Things... are out of whack." If she sat quietly and tried to use her ability to sort of poke at things, she could kind of feel it. Something wasn't right, or out of phase. But she didn't know what could be done about it. "They've probably been there the whole time, it's just that now we can see them. There's one in our house. Kept me up the first few nights but I think I'm mostly used to it now. Though it helps that I don't have to see him if I don't want to."

Drea nodded her agreement that things were out of whack. That was definitely true. There wasn't any denying it, just looking around at what-all was going on in this damn town. And apparently other places in the world now. It was all just kinda ... fucked. "I haven't seen any in our house, just ... around," she said, and shook her head a bit. She kept thinking about what if her mom was wandering around Chicago, looking for her? It was an awful thought. But at the same time, she didn't want to go back to look for her. She just hoped she wasn't a ghost at all.

"I heard there were a lot down by the lake," Lily said. Her mom hadn't really wanted her out and about much, so she'd not had the chance to go look for herself. "That's... kind of expected, actually, but super extra creepy." After all, in a lake that size, she bet it could hold tons of bodies. She wondered if the cops had gone out there to look for like, unsolved cases or missing persons. Not like a ghost could hold up in court or an investigation, but still.

She hadn't really connected that the ghosts would hang out where their bodies were until that moment. That made the lake full of corpses. She vowed completely silently to never swim in it ever ever, and now she didn't even want to go near the place. It was like a big watery graveyard. The very thought gave her goosebumps and she really wanted to change the subject. "Totally fucking creepy," she agreed in an unhappy murmur, hugging herself without thinking about it.

"So anyway," Lily said as they reached her locker, opening it quickly and pulling out her physics book, "changing the subject. Ooh, sweet, I did have snacks stored in here. I rule." She pulled out the box of all-natural granola bars from the bottom of her locker, offering it out to Drea. "Want one?" she offered. "I couldn't eat much of school dinner, that stuff is like boiled tar mixed with dirt."

"Ohgodyesthankyou," the werecoyote said all in a rush, pulling one of the wrapped bars out of the box and starting to open it immediately. She probably should've saved it, but the thought didn't come to her until she was taking the first bite. She knew she wouldn't be around as much food as she was used to all night, and her instinct said to eat while she could. She giggled a little around her mouthful, putting one hand up to cover it from view. "S'fuckin' awesome. I don't even know what meat that was supposed to be? But it completely wasn't."

Lily laughed, pulling another one out and handing it over. "Here, have a spare for later. I didn't even bother with the meat, I didn't want to take the risk that it would start talking to me halfway through the meal. Or like, start screaming when I cut into it. I would be scarred for life." She tossed the box back in her locker and remembered to grab her dance stuff out before she shut it; she didn't know when she'd run into her girls for a late-night practice, but she didn't want to have to run back for it, either.

Drea took the second granola bar with a grateful grunt and stuffed it in one pocket while she ate the other with the other hand. She just couldn't help it, she needed to eat, and the goddamn cafeteria wasn't going to be open all night. But there were snack machines, and maybe she had some change hiding at the bottom of her backpack ... "Thanks," she said between bites. Then nodded at the stuff that Lily had pulled from her locker. "How's that goin', anyway? Dance, right?"

"Yep, dance," Lily confirmed. "It's going well. Some of the girls still dance like they've got two left feet, but everyone's improved a lot. Though we practice enough for it, so I'd be more surprised if they weren't." She, Alexis, and Breezy were still the best, though. "I'm working on some new routines, but I don't know if they'll let me put them in. My friends, from back home? They send me videos of the combinations they learn in their classes out there and I learn them off my computer, use that to put together new stuff. I miss my old studio, that's for sure. Who ever heard of a guest choreographer coming to Marquette? No one, that's who."

She laughed a little. She couldn't relate to the actual dance part of it, 'cause Drea wouldn't be caught dead prancing around in a leotard for a billion dollars, but the small-town complaint of it all. "Yeah, and I'm over here like, 'motherfuck, the Blackhawks will never in ten centuries come anywhere near here to play'," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's like the kind of town that small towns laugh at. But that's cool, that you're bringing in fresh flavor or whatever. I'm thinking about campaigning to make them let me on the hockey team."

"I have no idea who the Blackhawks are but I get the sentiment," Lily said, grinning. She followed some basketball, some football, but she knew the Blackhawks weren't either of those sports. Probably hockey, being that it was apparently a big thing around here. "Dude, you should totally join the hockey team," Lily said, looking as excited as if it had been her own idea. "That would be fucking awesome, I'd totally make you 'Go Drea' signs and shit."

She laughed again, more heartily this time, and her cheeks burned just slightly. Being rooted on would be ... weird, but pretty awesome. "I dunno if they'll let me, but I'm thinking about trying, y'know? It's kind of a rough sport, and a lot of the time, they don't want to make it co-ed, but fuck that noise, I can hang with those boys." She shrugged. "But we'll see. ... They're Chicago's hockey teem, by the way," she added with a grin.

"Hey, if you can hang then they can all go fuck themselves," Lily said, shrugging. "I'm all for girl power. If they want to try and bar you from trying out, I'll totally start petitions and like, letter writing campaigns or sit-ins or something. Bet those hockey games wouldn't be so much fun if half the students stopped going in protest, right?"

Drea shook her head and wrinkled her nose up, though she still looked amused. "I doubt that would happen, it's too big of a sport here for people to stop going just 'cause of me," she said, totally sure of that. The thought of all that attention -- in this fantasy they were talking about, 'cause it'd never happen -- squicked her out a little bit. She was much more of a under-the-radar, talk-to-the-right-people kind of person. "But thanks anyway. We'll just see," she said with a shrug.

"Well, you'll have to let me know if you make it," Lily said. "Or if you don't. So like, let me know one way or the other. I'll totally be your cheerleader without actually being a cheerleader, because hello. So not a cheerleader." She wasn't cut out for short skirts and rah rah rah-ing. Well, she could get behind short skirts, but not like, uniform skirts.

"Which is a good thing," Drea agreed with a nod and a chuckle. In her mind, the dance team and the cheerleaders were a hair's breadth apart, but she wasn't going to say so. She liked Lily, so there wasn't any point. "I think I'm gonna go call my dad again, though, so he's reassured yet again that I haven't wandered out into the snow and gotten dead," she said, amused, and gesturing down the hall toward where the pay phones eventually were. "I'll catch you later?"

"As if you could get out of here, they've practically chained the doors shut," Lily said with a laugh. "But yeah, I've got to find a couple friends and get this work done, anyway. I'll definitely see you later, it was cool to run into you." She grinned. "Literally."