fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

Oh look, there were tables and chairs over here too, away from all the informational stuff. Enjoy the food!

[~~WAIT FOR THE OCD PLEASE.~~ OCD IS UP. This is the FIRST post for general mingling. Please use this post first, if your browser can handle the comment load. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are here and there is more room for mingling here.]

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"Could go by boat," Ned suggested, looking around for...a boat. He figured out pretty fast that he wouldn't find a boat in the middle of a park but that didn't stop him from looking. "There aren't any boats in the park and I'm not a good swimmer."

Despite himself, Cal grinned a bit at that. It took the edge of his nerves quite a bit to realize that, hey, there might actually be someone here even more nervous about being here than he was. "My family tends to be bad with both escaping and water," he said, "so I know I'm definitely stuck."

"I'm Cal," he added, introducing himself. No handshake this time, just short, masculine jerk of his chin upward, although e did it mostly because he wasn't sure he'd want to see what would happen if either him or the other guy actually took their nervous hands out from their pockets or away from the food.

"People tend to want to escape me," Ned realized, frowning briefly at that before shaking it off. That was in the past, far away, and he really didn't want to depress himself yet. "I'm Ned. New, if you couldn't tell. It's not my first picnic though. I have done that before."

Cal eyed Ned for a moment; it was a little bit astounding and kind of marvelous that there might actually be someone more depressed in his situation than he was, to make him feel better just by proxy and offhand comments. He grinned again. "Yeah, me too. New to this place, not to picnics. From Michigan, originally. You?"

"Oh, Coeur d'Coeurs," Ned answered after a moment. He'd almost said North Thrush but he wasn't really from there, was he? He'd just been left here by his father. "It's a...small village. Far away from here, I think. I'm not good with directions. I've never been to Michigan either. So, I'm...new to Michigan too."

Ned had a talent for talking, you see. Except how he didn't.

"Coeur d'Coeurs?" Cal asked, definitely not recognizing the name. "Is that...French or something?"

"I think so," Ned said thoughtfully. "I never really asked. I was going to school in North Thrush before here but Coeur d'Coeurs is where I'm from. Was born, I mean. I have no idea what it means in French, though."

"Whatever it is," Cal observed with a tilt of his head as he repeated the name in his head again, "it's kind of....repetitive, don't you think?"

Huh, he'd never thought of it like that before. It'd always just been fun to say even though he could never spell it.

"It is, kinda," Ned agreed with a nod of his head. "Couer by itself isn't as fun to say, though. It's hard to spell either way. If I didn't flip the 'o' and the 'u', I was having a good day."

"Cuoer," Cal muttered, after a moment of thinking what it would have been with the 'o' and the 'u' switched. "Huh. Well, at least it doesn't have pretentious, unnecessary 'e's at the end of it, like Grosse Pointe does."

"Gross Pointe?" Ned repeated. And then repeated it with a strong 'e' at the end. "Maybe it was for flair? Or someone wasn't paying attention when they named the town and added an extra 'e'? At least it's not a 'q'?"

"Two extra 'e's," Cal said, holding up his fingers. "The Grosse has got one, too. A silent one, I guess. And, yeah, it was definitely for flair, but I think the guy who came up with it was a little confused on good flair and bad flair."

Pause.

"A 'q' would be interesting..."

And this was...potentially the longest conversation about letters that Cal had ever had.

"Two 'e's," Ned repeated, mentally spelling it out. Yeah, those 'e's were weird. "What's Michigan like? Do they have picnics at schools like this? Coeur d'Coeurs didn't."

"Ummmm..." Cal shifted a little as he thought about it; remembering a picnic or two didn't exactly give him the best memories. "...yeaaah," he said, reluctantly. "They did. I mean, where I went. I went to a private school there, too, so. And my family was pretty big on picnics, too. Michigan's...Michigan? I don't know, I liked it. I lived in California for a bit, too. If I had to choose between the two of them, I'd probably stick with Michigan."

"If I had to choose between Coeur d'Coeurs and North Thrush, I'd choose Coeur d'Coeurs," he said, nodding. It was a little startling to realize that, considering what had happened at home but he hadn't been alone then. "Maybe it won't be so bad here?"

Ned glanced around at the crowd, at the building in the distance. "Maybe I might just hide in my room the entire time."

Cal grinned a little at that. "It's too nice here to just hide inside," he pointed.

Plus, he didn't think they'd really allow smoking inside the rooms. He jerked his head toward the dormitory building. "Which room they put you in? I got 405."

"Down in 213," Ned told him, looking over at the dormitory. "Considering the last place I slept was just a line of beds in a giant room with a ceiling that, I swear, didn't have a roof, I'll take it."

"I got you beat," Cal said, grinning despite the fact that this was definitely not something anyone should be proud of or bragging about. "For a little while in San Francisco, I was literally sleeping in bushes."

"That'd make it hard to hang pictures on the wall," Ned said, making the motions of hanging a picture. "Branches don't support weight at all."

He ended up starting to laugh halfway through and shook his head. "Sorry. I never thought anyone would be able to top the boarding school I was out. I thought that place was haunted."

"Well, I kind think," Cal admitted with a light shrug, "that with all the weird places I've lived, I'd kind of beat out a lot of people."

Because, you know...Suburban Detroit on the cusp of the riots, then Middlesex, then one hotel after another, then that park in San Francisco, then living with a transvestite...

"What made you think it was haunted?"

"It was dark," Ned said. He knew that was a weak excuse but it was really all he had. "And quiet. Except for the noises in the dark that broke up the quiet. But those might have been other students getting up or talking. I just convinced myself it was haunted so I could do something at night when I didn't sleep."

"...Do something?" Cal asked, his head tilted a little.

He was also thinking that, by Ned's description, he could have been pretty easily convinced it might be haunted, too. A simple description, but Cal was picturing it; it took the form of the cabin in Petosky, but much larger, obviously, and that cabin was definitely haunted, even if only my memories.

"Well, I didn't sleep," Ned clarified, "and we weren't allowed to get out of bed. I didn't have a book or anything like that. So, I convinced myself the boarding school was haunted. It passed the time."

"So, you'd just...lie there...and think about all the ghosts and stuff?"

"Not very healthy sounding when you put it that way," Ned said and shrugged, blushing a little. "I really didn't have anything else to do."

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