fandomhigh | Study Hall -- Wednesday, September 14th

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study hall

Study Hall -- Wednesday, September 14th

Welcome to Wednesday's study hall, kids. You'll be happy to know that the gremlin infestation in the study hall has moved on, but unhappy to find out that they've moved onto the cafeteria.

Today's lunch special is chicken. At least, that's what the cafeteria staff told me it was.

A few announcements:

-- An open house for parents is tentatively scheduled for the last weekend in October. All parents, guardians, legal representation, police escorts, and responsible deities may attend, under another RP journal or your own.

-- A suggestion box has been placed outside my office. To the person who already left the note with a question about having as our school mascot a game cock ... no, I don't think Lee has the time for that. Please quit teasing him before I find ~~a fabulous gay teenage-boy orgy in the utility closet~~ a crying Adama in my office. (OOC: For the record, I was kind of thinking the suggestion box could be there for any high-school type stuff we could do. :))

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"Er... it's kind of embarassing." River pauses uncertainly, then continues. "I can read thoughts, sometimes... particularly if someone's got a noisy mind, or if they're drunk, or the like. So when Lee Adama was drunk last night..."

"Yikes." Parker contemplated what could've been going through Captain Cutie's warped little mind for a second, then smirked and shook her head. "Ooookay. So, why did you come looking for me?"

"Well, when he's so loudly thinking about that sort of thing, it kind of... trickles over. To me." River starts toying with the neckline of her blouse, then abruptly seems to notice and stops. "And when something like that is happening, particularly when I can't make him stop, I stop thinking rationally. I was talking about it with Joan when things started getting noisy, and she thought she'd have an idea on how we could stop things before they went too far, but..."

River shrugs. "Joan went off to find something, and I started to feel... pressured again. And the only thing I could think of was that maybe, if I could make those images in his head of me, I might be able to think more coherently. It's just... I don't know how to do any of that."

She raises her dark eyes to meet Parker's. "But I thought, from what I'd seen of you, that ... you might." With a sigh, she dropped her gaze back to the desk. "I'm sorry that ... it... happened. I just -- couldn't think of anything else to do, and there wasn't anyone else around I could draw on."

Parker was following about half this explanation: enough to know that what she'd seen in River the night before had been the extremes of, ahem, hormonal overload, courtesy of Adama; and that she'd been trying to make it stop.

Then she remembered what it was that she'd suddenly felt compelled to think of, when River was holding onto her head.

"Oh. My. God."

River covers her eyes with her hands, miserably. "I'm sorry," she husks brokenly. "I just couldn't think of anything but trying to get his thoughts untangled from mine..."

"You couldn't have looked for something else?" Parker hissed, lowering her voice. "Jesus. That was private. I mean, I get that you were -- I don't know, crazy, or not in control, but there freakin' *limits*, Tam--"

"It was all I could think of!" River exclaims harshly. Then, glancing around frantically at the others in the room, she lowers her voice. "It was all I could do not to go across that corridor and throw myself at him. I was trying to..."

She breaks off. In a forced, low tone, she says, "God, I don't know why I'm telling you this. I was just... trying not to be pressured into going into his room and fucking him, alright? And I knew that if I didn't have anything to draw on, any technique I could employ to empty his mind of thoughts of her or him, that was exactly what I would've ended up doing."

River stares down at her hands, fingers splayed wide across the tabletop and knuckles white with tension. "That's why... why I came to you."

Parker's now torn between outrage and absolute pity. "Right. Fine. Okay." She badly, badly wants a cigarette. "I get it. I just...." She grimaces. "How much did you get?" Who, she thinks. Where.

Oh, great, now River probably knows that, if she didn't before.

Groaning, Parker puts her head down on the table, and knocks it against the surface several times.

River puts her head in her hands, and is tempted to do the same. "Not much. I think. I was looking for that sort of thing in particular, a-and once I found it, I got out." She pinches the bridge of her nose, face filled with remorse. "I... I only needed to know... that. Not anything... else."

"Oh." Parker leaves her head down for a second, relieved. It's not like she has anything to be ashamed of, but two of the guys she's... well, given blow jobs to... are enough older to get in trouble if it became public knowledge. It's not the kind of thing you want to do to someone you've shared that with.

Straightening, she takes her sunglasses off and studies River intently. "Uh. Did it work?" Or should I not ask? she wonders.

River shrugs helplessly, crumpled in on herself. "I don't know. I don't know whether it would have or not. About five steps from Lee's door, Hank's nightmares (http://www.livejournal.com/community/fandomhighdorms/38376.html) broke into my head like a fucking anvil." She shakes her head despondently, then ... "I don't even know whether or not I'm grateful for that. I... I don't know what would have happened if that hadn't."

I am not nice. I am the victim here! I am the one whose mind got riffled through! Pity is for the pitiful! Parker looks at River and silently admits, Yeah, that's pretty freaking pitiful.

"Be grateful. What you were going to do--" Parker's mouth twitches, as the darkly funny side of this hits her. "Trust me. You don't want to be trying that as a surprise on a guy. It can go *so* wrong."

_{[ooc: If you want MP mad, she'll get mad, but if you don't, I'm afraid she's too amused now to really beat River up for this. And River is really, really pitiful. MP has a heart of stone, but she does have a heart]}

River looks up at her. "What should I do? With Lee, I mean? I can't just run away or knock him unconscious every time he starts thinking about something like that. When he's sober, I can try to distract him by telling him to think about linoleum or daisies or something, but if he gets drunk again..."

Her hands fist on the desktop as she whispers, "I mean, should I try... that... again?"

<font size="-4>[ OOC: Nope, I wasn't trying to get MP mad. River's seriously at a loss. For all her impressive intuition, her implanted combat training, her telepathy, and her mad l33t skillz, she has <i>no</i> experience in this arena. And she's nervous as, well, as any 16-year-old virgin. ]</font>

"God, no." The reaction slips out before Parker can censor it. She rolls her eyes, stuck with explaining now. "Aside from what Thrace _{or Crichton} might do to you if you tried, I doubt he'd take you up on it."

Muttering why me? under her breath, she asks, "Look, are you signed up for Professor Dawn's Sex Ed classes?"

"Um... no." River looks nervously from side to side. "Should I be? I mean..." She lowers her voice further. "What I took from you... I know how to do that now; it's in my mind and the patterns locked into my muscle memory. Won't that..."

She swallows nervously and goes on. "Won't that be enough for ... something?"

"For what? Doing that to an actual breathing guy?" Parker hates explaining this crap. It goes against any religion she might once have had. "Maybe. But how are you going to get him to let you?" She grimaces, remembering Fischer's request of earlier in the day. "Okay, with some guys, that's not a problem. Most guys. Many men." She pinches her nose, feeling herself getting off on a tangent. "I don't think Adama's one of them, that's part of the problem."

"Tam, I'm trying to say, that knowing the middle of a sex act is not at all helpful when you don't know the beginning or the end of how to get there!" She hastily adds, "And you're not getting that out of my head, either."

"I'm not asking to," River says quietly. "But... I mean... how's that class going to help with that? How's it going to help with getting him out of my head?"

And again, for about the fifth time this week, Parker feels in over her head. Why me? Why couldn't I still be at St. Christina's Academy for Spontaneous Self-Immolation, with the other girls who read Flowers in the Attic at twelve?

"Tam, I don't know about the inside of your head. What I do know is that perspective is good. Right? Knowledge is power. You used my memory, for a little while, to keep Adama's lusty brain aneuryisms out of yours. They're not going to let you *have* sex in that class--" I don't think. Hunh. Must check with Valentine. "--but at least you'll be able to... I dunno, keep it under control." She rolled her eyes. "And maybe, find someone you want to do those things to, instead of Adama? Jesus. When did I turn into Dear Abby for the Disneyfied set?"

"Beats the hell out of me," River sighed. "The problem is... well, there is somebody who seems interested. And he's attractive, in a way. It's just, um, he's... evil (http://www.livejournal.com/community/fandomhigh/49819.html?thread=2003099#t2003099)."

She frowned at the thought. "And I've had enough pain in my life without actively looking for more."

This was going nowhere.

"Look, evil guys should definitely be avoided." Grimacing, Parker muttered, "And so should the nice guys, if you're judging by Sun and Valentine's experience."

"My point is-- my point is--" Parker flailed for a moment, then blurted out in a low, intense whisper, "Find somebody *else* who's not evil and have the sex, get a vibrator and play along with Adama, or tell him that if he doesn't get laid you're going to jump him! I don't know! Okay? That's the best I can come up with!"

River smiles crookedly. "I'd say that's good advice. Um... just one thing, then. Do you know if Mistress Inara's (http://www.livejournal.com/users/serra_inara/) would carry that sort of thing?"

Parker blinks.

And then laughs, a real laugh, not the hyena-cackles of amusement that she was chortling at Crichton's expense earlier this week. People turn and stare.

When she gets herself back under control, still giggling, she nods. "I pretty much guarantee it. Ahem. Yes." Her mouth twitches, and she says, deadpan, "Need a recommendation on a model?"

A blush slowly rises through River's pale features as she smiles impishly. "I think that might be a good idea, yes."

Snickering, Parker leaned in, and started to detail some of the "added features" River should look for.

("...And never get one that runs on batteries only. Trust me on that.")

_{[ooc: k, you are so nuts. *laughing madly at MP as Clarissa Explains It All* Can't believe you got us into that.]}

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