Horror & Cuddles

date 2nite no argue plz bring cheesy horror movies 2 Seen at 21:28

Half past eleven. Evelyn bit her lip guiltily at the idea that Roderick had been caught wandering outside of the halls after his curfew because of her.She was standing next to the door, waiting, her heartbeat the only thing audible in the quiet room. The idea of a 'date' had been on her mind for a while now, but she'd been lingering on how to voice it and when. A smirk wavered on her face as she looked the couch where she and the telepath kissed. Sometimes she regreted the phonecall that stopped her from going further, but she guessed it was partially for the best.

She could hear footsteps towards her dorm now, the hall filling with the sounds. Her ears had grown acustomed to hearing every creak while she waited for the Winter to arrive. It was quite like a horror movie, where the entire build up was just for you to realize that there was nothing to be afraid off, most of the times. Her train of thought was broken by a knock on the door. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest, surprise making her mind rattle for a few seconds before she opened the door, relieved to see him there.

"I thought I lost you." she grinned, letting him inside. Her heart fluttered as she wondered whether Roderick was even going to react in any way. They weren't officially dating, and the ragdoll cringed at the idea of forcing it up his throat so soon.

In an indigo cotton pull-over that seemed way too warm and stuffy for a humid summer night, Roderick stood on the other side of the doorway, looking only slightly less bedraggled than usual. Hygiene was an excessively exhausting chore these days, he found, but he was competent enough to know one shouldn’t go on a date looking like a bogan.. Well, not a complete bogan, anyway. Evelyn didn't seem like the picky type. At the very least, he’d brushed his hair out of his face and wore a top that wasn’t peppered with cigarette ash.

The miasma of his addictive habits was ever-present, of course.

"I haven't got horror movies," he murmured, stepping past Evelyn into the darkened dorm room, "but I've got a Netflix. That's got to have something creepy, I imagine." He grinned and dropped carelessly onto the sofa, noisily scratching the stubble lining his chin as he sank into the cushions.

She looked at the dark hallway beyond him, then down at her feet, letting out a barely audible sight. Before she could let the Winter slip into her mind and find the hints of disappointment, she turned away and went into her room. She could hardly believe that the expectance of a horror movie already made her jumpy and attentive to every small sound. Glad to be back in the company of Roedrick, Evelyn opened her laptop and invited the telepath to log on to his account.

"What have you been up to? Besides smoking." she remarked, sniffing the air as she stretched and began to pick at his curls absent-mindedly. His hair was soft in her hands and she remarked it was actually combed for once. A smile played on her lips at the realization.

Roderick began to reach across to the table to grab the laptop, bu had to pause half-way to give her question a moment of honest thought. What had he been up to lately? He'd.. Gone out the other day, right? And used the last of his weed up? There was something about tea.. He'd had tea at some point..

".. Not much, I 'spose." He pulled Evelyn's laptop onto his thighs and punched the Netflix URL into the searchbar. The past few days felt a bit like a mismatched puzzle. He'd chalked it up to his head injury, even though it really didn't have anything to do with it. Mismatched memories were a more frequent issue than he was aware of. "Went out for tea. Slept. I dunno."

After a few failed password attempts, the Winter finally managed to gain access to his account, and handed the computer back to Evelyn. He didn't know of very many good horror movies.

Well, at least he did do something that involved going outside of his dorm. She finished playing with his locks and took the laptop, scrolling through the 'Horror' cathegory. "Color me impressed, the actually have scary stuff here." she murmured, not quite ready to decide anything. The tapping of keys in the empty room made her generally uneasy, and she started slowly hating her own frights. She was being irrational, but she just couldn't stop.

"How about this?" she chose one randomly and hit play. Before she knew it, she was wrapped away in a blanket, the laptop between herself and Roderick. It was all nice and sweet before all the scary sound effects began playing, she noticed. Maybe it was just going to be another cheesy movie. Evelyn rested her head on the Winter's shoulder, stiffling a yawn.

Roderick rarely watched horror films, so he couldn't exactly say he had a preference. He shrugged and let his head loll back onto the headboard of the couch.

As the movie went on, he was beginning to remember why he rarely watched things part of the horror genre - It was generally very trope-y and predictable. The 'horrifying' demons jumping out at the characters from the shadows had less of an effect on him than somebody poking him by surprise in the hallways. The jump-scares had lost their luster after the first two instances or so.

The Winter's jaw stretched in a yawn, born half out of boredom and half out of a consistent lack of sleep. "Don't know much about you, hey?"

Evelyn relaxed. She'd found her heart racing a couple of times, but the feeling soon diluted and now every scare simply made her blink lazily. The smell of smoke acompanying Roderick kept her from drifting asleep a couple of times. She would've liked a cig, but she was short on them, shockingly. She needed to make a run to the shop soon.

"Hm, about me? Well, my name's Evelyn Lewis, born on the 18th of November of 2021." she paused, as if she was thinking about something, or trying to remember it. "I'm also basically a ragdoll - I can detach limbs without feeling pain 'n shit." she finally added, resting her chin in the crook of the Winter's neck. "Your turn." the Autumn said, focusing again on the boring movie.

Perhaps it should have drawn a more jarred reaction out of Roderick - the fact that Evelyn could just painlessly detach her limbs - but much like the freakish monsters leaping about in the movie, it didn't. Instead, he uttered a dry huff of amusement in response, and began to nibble at a hangnail on his right hand that had been subtly bugging him for several minutes. "Me? I dunno.." He didn't fancy himself a very interesting person. "I like black tea without sugar. My birthday's April 8th. Not really sure why I'm here at this academy." He began to gnaw at his hangnail again, but paused abruptly and added, "I think horror movies are a bit on the dull side."

Evelyn stole glances at the face of the Winter as he spoke, her eyes flicking between every small detail, the warmth of his skin seeping into hers in a comforting way, beyond the lurking smell he carried with himself everywhere. She smoked too, after all, so it had no reason to annoy her as much. The screen was barely drawing her attention anymore. He's pretty handsome... she thought, her eyes lowering for a second to hide the smallest hint of red in her cheeks.

"Hmm, uhh, hey! No need to be so blunt." the Autumn, was brought back from her brief moment of spacing out by his words. She hoped she'd caught everything he said - something about tea, April 8th and a funny comment. That should be all, if her intuition was right. She didn't see Roderick as they guy that'd talk too much about himself. "We could watch something else if you like?" Evelyn suggested, tilting her head, still resting on the telepath's shoulder.

Roderick blinked, shifted, and turned towards the Autumn, a half-hearted frown crinkling his features. "Blunt? What d'you mean? I was just answering your question."

It was hard to take an insult seriously if the offender was lying against your shoulder - and apparently very flustered, as well. Evelyn's face wasn't visible from his angle, but he could sense it radiating off of her like an invisible beacon. Her cheek was warm against his shoulder, as well. A little too warm. Once again, her body was betraying the tough flirt exterior she'd initially presented him with. He'd scarcely said anything to her and she'd gone tomato-red. Did girls always do that? God, was he that high, or had it just been that long since he'd been on a date?

The Winter picked out a lock of her coral-pink hair and began to twine in gently around his index finger. He'd entirely missed her question about changing the movie. "What's your real hair colour?"

Getting flustered had never been usual for her. Maybe it was the fact that it had been long since she'd dated a guy she was actually not dating just to get into some fancy group. Sometimes that was the only way in school. She looked up at him, her face still a bit red.

"Blonde. It would've been a pain to keep the color if my hair was darker." she answered him. She'd had people comment about her hair color before, and it felt like ages since she'd woken up to find a mass of blonde hair rather than the usual cotton candy pink. He hadn't answered his question, but she saw no point in repeating it. The Autumn was nowhere near being in a movie mood anymore. "Umm, how does it feel... to read minds?" Evelyn asked, tilting her head to look at him.

The amusement on Roderick's face drained.

He hadn't told Evelyn about that - at least, as far as he could remember, but he was quite certain. How did she know? His bottom lip shifted a touch, as if forming the beginnings of a word, but he didn't end up saying anything, instead opting to shift his gaze and pretend he'd taken interest in the movie again. He'd never mentioned it to her before, not even vaguely, and he'd never spoken telepathically to her. He swallowed a lump in his throat. Could she tell even if he didn't? Could everyone..?

Could they hear his thoughts when he read their's?

Could-- "I'd.. It's, ah.." He licked his chapped lips and scratched a non-existent itch on the back of his neck, acting quickly to stifle a blooming seed of worry in the pit of his stomach. No, no, she must've just read it somewhere in the Wnter House listing book. The weed was just fucking with him again, making him antsy. Rod jammed a hand into his pocket and began grappling around hastily for his lighter. ".. It's, ehm.. 'Fraid it's pretty dull, yeah. D'you like a cig?"

He popped one out of his jeans and held it out for her. Time to move on. He scratched his neck again.

The sudden change in the Winter's behavior was as obvious as a brick wall in the middle of the road. She was curious what that would be about, but something told her pressuring Roderick wasn't a good idea, even if she had wanted to know that much.

"Sure." she tried to shake off the weird vibes of the past question, slipping out a cigarette from the pack and planting a shy kiss on his cheek. It's okay if he doesn't want to talk, I guess... she told herself before resuming her position of leaning onto him, the cig held loosely between her lips.

"Lighter?"

With a flick of his thumb, a tiny flame leaped to life, and he ignited the end of Evelyn's cigarette.

He didn't want to talk about reading minds, he didn't want to think about reading minds -  he didn't even want to allude to it. The girl seemed to shrug her question off rather swiftly, though, much to Roderick's relief.

"Aren't you a bit young to smoke?" He watched a thin ribbon rise from the end of the cigarette and taper off into the darkness. Of course, he didn't have much room to scold her, even if it was just a joke. Though smoking hadn't been a persistent habit in his life until this year, he'd had his first cigarette at around her age.. That, and he'd been the one to supply her with it in the first place. Beata didn't exactly have a good track record of sticking to the law when it came to smoking and drinking, from what the general store owner's son had told him. It was a wonder that boy hadn't been arrested yet, or.. Turned into a frog by the Beata staff, or something.

The fire spread a small light on their faces for a second before being gone, leaving them again only with the dull light of the horror movie still playing. Roderick's odd reaction was still on her mind, she realized, inhaling a lungful of smoke and blowing it out on her nose after a few seconds.

"I guess. But it's not like anybody here cares. Let's face it, we were brought in this city where strangers rarely pass just so that we wouldn't get found out. This is anything but a school." she sighed, thinking about home, she didn't use to smoke that much back then, but being brought to Beata meant that she had to live her life to the fullest until those creeps Wright mentioned on the Island were coming to tear them apart. The lack of safety was insane once you thought about it. The Autumn inhaled again, resting comfortably against the other.

"I'm glad you came, you know? This could've easily been an annoying night of scripting a video I know only one hundred people would care about, or just looking at my phone."