It's crunch time. The entire student body is living in a daze of fear, confusion and helplessness. Some of them add sleeplessness to the mix for kicks.

Sam prefers to add coffee, herself. She has developed a fondness for it.

To garnish her meal of coffee she also has a bagel and some mushy canned fruit.

So what if it's lunchtime? It's not like she's had breakfast yet.

Empty seat, empty seat - ah, there. She slides into it, allowing herself a satisfied smile. She didn't manage to find the group she normally hangs out with, but there's only the one other kid at the table and that she can deal with.

Her hair is hovering somewhere around reddish brown and curly-short and she's wearing a green tanktop and jeans. She really didn't feel like being complicated today.

She is, however, wearing nice, high boots. She has to have something to get her through the day, clothes-wise.

Maybe with coffee she'll start feeling alive again. Or at least jittery, that'd be good.

The other boy at the table, being a botomless pit, is wondering how that girl is even still alive. He stares through a curtain of coarse yellow hair, sandwich still in hand, the other hand scribbling off the page and onto the table. Surprise (you'd think he would have noticed girls eating this way before now, but no) causes him to be blunt.
"That's all you're gonna eat?"

"Yes, that is all I'm going to eat. No, you may not call me anorexic now," she replies curtly, not looking up at him.

She gets that a lot. Generally not to her face, granted, but it makes her short tempered.

I wonder if they'll recognize each other's voices.

'Anorexic' hasn't even crossed his mind, really.
"But aren't you hungry?" he is peering at her lunch, trying to divine if perhaps a steak or something is hiding behind the can of fruit, waiting to jump out at him.
Ooh. Coffee.
"Is the coffee here any good?"
He's had four cups today already, but he made them at home.

"No and no. But it works."

She still isn't looking at him. She is inspecting her nailpolish, which is chipped. She'll have to find time to redo it, sometime today. Gah.

"How can you not...?"
That's like...three mouthfuls!
"Do you want my baked potato?" (It's one of three.)
"That's a pretty color." In referrence to her nail polish.

Someone needs to mind his own business.

She is going to be polite.

"Look, that's nice and all...."

Thanks but no thanks.

No, Sam. Polite. Be polite. Your parents taught you better than that.

"But I'm just not hungry."

There. That's polite. It felt like pulling teeth, but it was polite.

"Oh." he looks at the potato and picks it up gently, almost protectively. Then he eats it. Once he's finished, he adds "Sorry."
A pause while he dabs at his mouth with a napkin (look, he's learned table manners!).
"D'you like fractals?"
Keye does. They are pretty.

"Fractals," she repeats disbelievingly.

Who cares about fractals?

"That's math, right?"

Or something.

She is not a math girl. She prefers the humanities.

"Yeah!" he nods rapidly, grinning. "They make pictures. It's really cool!"

Sam's expression is a study in silence. She could say something, but she really, really won't.

After all, to each their own. Even if it was math-pictures.

(Pictures. Made of math. What the hell.)

"You doing that for a class?"

There. She isn't being rude now. She's being vaguely interested. Sam would much rather he be doing it for a class, because doing anything math-related for fun would give her a headache.

"No, I'm all ready for my math exam. 'Sides, we're not doing fractals, we're doing integral calculus."
And it's awesome, says his beaming face.

"Math isn't my thing."

Polite polite polite. She's going to polite herself to death.

And she isn't eating. Her coffee is getting cold. He's distracting her and she'd really rather eat someplace she felt safe.

Maybe she'd go back to her dorm room or something. He was scaring her a bit, both appearance-wise and in terms of sheer enthusiasm.

Ah, but he has such an endearing lopsided grin!
...but then, his teeth are chipped, and he's got that scar on the corner of his lip, and the eyepatch, and that hair, and look at the size of him! And he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks, and his hands are jittering over his paper and his food.
I can see where she's coming from.
"Eat, eat!" he urges with good-natured concern, his good eyes squinted with happiness at having found someone to talk to (harrass?).

"I'm not hungry," she says again, pushing her chair back abruptly.

She's just going to... go now. Yeah.

She would very much like to go now.

The large boy slouches in his chair, crestfallen.
"Okay. See ya."

Argh.

She didn't mean to upset him (oddly).

"Sorry-"

But that's a stupid thing to say, isn't it, Sammie? You're apologizing for going away from the crazy boy, crazy girl.

He leans back to look at her upside-down.
"Hey, it's cool. Don't worry about it."
Since she didn't mean to upset him, it is now perfectly all right for her to run away.

That doesn't make any sense.

why were all her brother's friends weirdos?

And there is the moment of truth.

"You're Keye," she realizes.

"Hey, yeah." his forehead wrinkles. He's hard to miss, but if it was hearsay, it wouldn't have taken so long; no, he's not famous. He'd know her face if they'd met. It had to be something else.
"...Sam, right?" the lines in his face transition fluidly into those of a wince. He was a jerk to her on the phone. He remembers.

"Right," she says wryly.

"How'd the thing with the kid go?"

She has a professional interest in childcare. It's her thing.

A sharp indrawing of breath.
"Your advice was great, but it...kinda went right out the window. I mean--I mean, that's not against you, what I said, I just mean I kinda freaked and I just...didn't think to follow it. I mean...it kinda went really downhill at first, and then it got better."

"Oh, god."

She is filled with morbid curiousity. Enough to sit again, shoving her tray away but keeping her coffee (which is, miraculously, not cold yet).

She makes a face at the bitterness. She hates black coffee. But it'll wake her up.

"How bad was it?"

"I made him throw up."
There's more to that, give him a moment.
"We were watching a movie. I guess there was too much blood. After, he wanted to go on a walk, but I didn't wanna 'cause it was dark out, so he got pissy and started going through stuff, and that was...trouble. And then I accidentally scared him by shaking him and asking if he was okay, and he ran away."
His one eye is wide as he says this, eyebrows raised high into his hair.
"For a little bit, I was scared I'd lost him."

"...my god..."

Wow. That is an epic on how not to do things.

"Sounds like the kid's a spitfire."

She doesn't use the term 'brat'. It's demeaning to the child in question.

"He is." Keye sounds strangely proud about that fact. "He's a great kid. Good friend of mine."

"Well, I have t'say, be his friend. Don't be his parent."

You'd suck at it (in the nicest way possible).

"He's older than me." he replies. "Anyway, it was just 'cause my friend was going away for the weekend, and it got better."

"So why's he need babysitting?"

She has another swallow of coffee and it provokes another grimace. It's almost cold and bitter as hell and she really, really hates it.

But it keeps her functional.

"Do yourself a favor and don't acquire a taste for that shit." he sighs, putting his fingers through his hair. "If I didn't watch him, he woulda got himself in trouble. He's not used to...the way he's living now. So he doesn't have any...sense."

"Mm...."

A response to both of his statements.

"I think I already have," she says, regarding the coffee sullenly. "Stuff tastes horrible."

But she's drinking it anyway, isn't she.

"No kidding." Keye drinks his hot, too. It's a wonder he can taste anything at all. "Great to keep you awake though."
...honestly, there's only so long a person can run on caffiene alone.

"Yeah. Between kids and finals, sleep is kinda a liability."

Can't sleep. Gotta keep going.

She's been living on catnaps lately, though it doesn't really show (yay makeup).

Keye isn't wearing makeup. He looks like the living dead.
"Too long, y'get kinda snappy." This is important because of kids.

"Mmmm. Yeah... and the little ones don't understand."

She should probably sleep.

Sometime next week, maybe.

Yeah. Next week.

"Yeah." Infinitely wise, isn't he? Even for all that he very nearly failed entirely to take care of Arty, he is very, very sure that this is true, and that it's an important issue. His face is unusually serene, the one eye half-closed and iridescent behind pale lashes.

Sigh.

"We were kinda bitchy to each other the other day."

This is a... peace offering? Maybe?

He seems nice enough, in an as-crazy-as-her-brother way.

"Hmm?" he re-opens the eye and fixes it on her. "Yeah. I was being a jerk. I'm sorry."

"And, okay, Jetta's a total bitch."

You are completely right.

We're friends anyway. Don't ask me.

He sits bolt-upright, then hunches forward rather than the relaxed pseudo-prone position he'd been in until now. His hands are clenched tight.
"I know."
There's a harsh note in his voice, words that met sandpaper on the way up.