fandomhigh | Lunch- Wednesday

River had slept late that morning, and had finally been woken up by Berthold who demanded ice cream and attention by tickling her under her feet. Despite some objection to his method of waking her up, River had finally obliged him, and when finished she was quite hungry herself and noticed it was time for lunch.

The chef's experiment wasn't one of his most successful, but River didn't mind that much and tried the hut dugs.

Tempe grabbed some mac and cheese and a pop tart, and headed for her usual table.

In between bites of lunch, she could be found scribbling frantically in her notebook and muttering quietly.

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Bones just wouldn't break that way in a fight. Maybe if he was pushed down the stairs..."

Having grabbed a plate full of hot dogs, Joxer randomly ended up sitting across from Tempe.

"Hi," he said.

Tempe looked up from her writing. She gave a small, shy smile as she returned Joxer's greeting. "Hey."

She ate a forkful of her pop tart, chewing and swallowing before speaking again. "I haven't seen you around before. You new here?"

Joxer shook his head. "Been here since the start of summer," he said. "I'm Joxer. Joxer the Mighty." He took a big bite of hot dog. "I'm a hero."

Tempe nodded. "Me too. Except for the part about being a hero. I'm just Tempe the Mostly Ordinary."

She blushed. "Actually, I'm just Tempe. Although, I am mostly ordinary."

"Nice to meet you," Joxer said, smiling. "Though I don't think I'm getting a real ordinary vibe from you." He eyed Tempe's notebook. "Are you a scribe?"

"A scribe?" Tempe asked. "In a sense, I suppose. I do write a lot. Both fiction and non-fiction."

Pausing briefly to take a bite of her mac and cheese, Tempe continued. "I'm working on a novel right now. About a crime-fighting forensic anthropologist. That's what I want to be after I finish school, you see. A forensic anthropologist. Possibly one who writes novels in her spare time."

"I'm also working on anthropological research about friendship and relationship dynamics at Fandom. And as I've begun to notice, there's kind of a lot to take in."

Tempe was in her element here, talking about research and writing. She may have gone on a bit, and not realized that a vast majority of people have no idea what anthropology is...

Joxer probably couldn't even pronounce anthropology.

"Wow," Joxer said, impressed despite his lack of understanding. "I'm trying to fight things too. Like crime. And evil."

Tempe grinned. "That's admirable, Joxer. I think the world could use a few more people like you."

"Personally, I think I might be aiming a bit too high. I mean, novellist and crime-fighting anthropologist? One of those would be time-consuming. For both, I think I'd have to have super-human powers and the ability to manipulate time..."

She looked a little dreamy at the idea of fighting crime and manipulating time, and then quickly shook her head, as if to bring herself back to the conversation. In so doing, a small amount of glitter flung itself out of the strands of her hair and landed next to her plate. "Damn," she muttered. "You'd think after 2 months, I'd have gotten rid of it all."

As if just realizing that there was still someone else present, Tempe's head shot up. Blushing, she grinned a little shyly. "Sorry. Glitter mishap."

"Glitter. . . mishap?" Joxer raised an eyebrow. "Did it attack you?"

Tempe blushed, yet again. "In a way, yes."

Figuring she should probably continue, she did. "Two months ago, just after I arrived in Fandom, and we were out in the cabins, I bought a bucket of glitter at All & Sundries. I brought the bucket back to the cabins, tried to open it, and it...exploded at me. Almost as if someone had rigged it to do so..."

"Anyway, even now, I'm still finding glitter everywhere. Especially in my hair."

Joxer grinned, goofily.

"Well, there's worse things to find everywhere," he said. "I kind of like glitter. It's shiny."

Tempe couldn't help but grin back at that. "I suppose. And hey, if I'm still finding it in December, we could even call it festive."

She chewed thoughtfully on a corner piece of pop tart.

"Right," Joxer said. He paused. "Why?"

Tempe's eyes widened. "Oh."

"Right, sorry, I forget sometimes that not everyone's from this universe. In December, there's a holiday called Christmas. It has religious significance, but it's also a time of year where people exchange presents, decorate and spend time with family," she said.

"One of the things that the trees are decorated with is called tinsel. It's this long, shiny string with shiny, glittery bits on it. You wrap it around the tree, and it looks shiny and colourful. And it makes you feel happy because it's shiny and colourful."

"Which is why the glitter in my hair would fit right in. Shiny and colourful."

She grinned a little at the end of the explanation, dearly hoping she hadn't lost him.

Joxer smiled. He'd followed about half of it, but he didn't want to look like an idiot.

"I see," Joxer said. "So it's kind of like a Winter Solstice sort of thing."

Tempe nodded. "Kind of. I think we'll leave it at that for now, though. When we get to December, we'll revisit the topic. There's only so much you can take in, in one day."

"Just remember that you'll know when Christmas is approaching, because people will start acting all goofy and cheery for no apparent reason. And some will carry around little sprigs of a plant called mistletoe and demand that you kiss them."

Tempe's eyes widened at her own remark. "Maybe just forget that last bit. And feel free to ask questions about unfamiliar things. You may be Mighty, but you're not expected to know everything."

"...well, at least, I don't expect you to know everything."

She should probably stop talking now, before she made an even bigger fool out of herself.

Joxer was grinning. "Any holiday involving kissing is a very good thing," he said.

Tempe grinned back. "I can't argue with that."

"I actually wouldn't mind if they added a kissing component to every holiday. Think about how happy the world could be..."

Joxer got a dreamy look in his eyes. "Yeah. That'd be. . . really, really nice."

The dreamy look must have been contagious, because pretty soon Tempe's eyes held that look as well. "Oh yeah, realllly nice."

Many moments passed before Tempe shook herself of the hazy, dreamy quality. "I'm sorry, what were we talking about?"

"I. . ." Joxer looked down at his mostly eaten hot dog. "Kissing, I think."

He started blushing a little.

Tempe's cheeks were also slowly starting to turn red. "Yes. Kissing. But, um, what about before that?"

She was trying not to look at Joxer's lips now. And failing mightily.

Joxer thought for a second. "Christmas," he said. "The tinsel holiday that's like Solstice."

Tempe's eyes shot upward. "Right. And the tinsel is why my leftover glitter would be festive."

"So, are you part of any clubs or teams here at Fandom? I'm on the basketball team, but I've been out of town for both of our games so far, so I'd have to wonder whether they still want me."

She paused again to chew on the ~~never-ending~~ pop tart before continuing again. "Not that I'd be so upset if they kicked me off. I hate team sports."

"Maybe you'd be better as a cheerleader?" Joxer was getting a different look in his eyes, now.

Because he's a bundle of subtlety and fidelity, he is.

The blush was back. "Somehow, I don't think I'd fit in with the cheerleaders. They're, you know, pretty and peppy and stuff."

Her eyes were back on his lips. Maybe she could just leap over the table, kiss him, and get it over with. But that would be bad, wouldn't it?

...or would it?

Joxer scratched at his nose for a second. "Well, I guess if you're not peppy, you're not peppy," he said. "But I have it on good authority that you're pretty."

Maybe Tempe could just paint her face that awful blushy colour now, and get it over with, because Joxer seemed to be making her blush quite a bit.

"Good authority, huh? And who might that be?"

Joxer smirked. "It's this guy I know, I trust him completely. He's an authority on pretty girls. I. . .oh, he's me."

Tempe nodded seriously. "If he, er, you, says so, then it must be true."

Then, before she could tell herself she shouldn't, Tempe had climbed over the table and was sitting next to Joxer.

"Hi."

Joxer gulped out of a sudden attack of nerves.

"Hi," he said. "Was there something wrong with your seat?"

Tempe smirked. "Yes. It was too far away from you." Then, realizing what she'd just said, she blushed again, a furious red blush that would make a tomato blush.

"Uh, I'm not sure why I just said that."

Oh, and she really wasn't unconsciously inching closer to him either. That was just a sudden shift in the room's equilibrium. Really.

Joxer smiled at Tempe. "I guess I can have that effect, sometimes."

Somewhere in his skull was a conscience yelling at him. Unfortunately for Joxer, his skull is a very empty place, and it wasn't doing much good.

Tempe smiled back. Apparently he really could have that effect on her. Because this would be the second or third time in 10 minutes that Tempe had lost the thread of their conversation.

Mostly because it all kept coming back to, "Kissing," Tempe said out loud.

She facepalmed. Literally.

At least Joxer has a conscience in there yelling at him, because it seems that Tempe's has gone on vacation. Possibly permanently.

"Yes, I guess you must. Or there's some Fandom weirdness going on here. Which could explain what I'm about to do."

With that, Tempe completely took leave of her senses, and closed the gap between them, kissing Joxer on the lips.

Joxer kissed Tempe back for a brief moment, until amazingly the guilt caught up to him and he pulled back. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground.

"I. . . I. . . It's not that. . .You're very. . . I have girlfriend," he said.

Tempe blushed, though it would be hard to tell, since she'd buried her face in her hands.

Looking up briefly, she spoke. "I-I-...Me too."

Blushing again, she continued, "I mean, I have a boyfriend. One who would probably go into a jealous rage if he knew about this."

Burying her face in her hands again, she spoke again. "I am so, so sorry, Joxer. I...I don't know what came over me."

Looking up again, she began judging the distance from the table to the door, and just how fast she could make a getaway.

Joxer gulped at the words 'jealous rage'.

"Hey, nothing happened, right?" he said, nervous. "It'll all be completely okay. We're just good new friends, that's all."

"Of course. Absolutely nothing. Our lips just happened to occupy the same coordinates in space, completely by happenstance," Tempe said, nodding nervously. "We could pull it off. If nothing else, we could blame it on the food."

"Friends?" Tempe said incredulously. "You still want to be friends after I tried to kiss you in the dining hall? Right after we met?"

"I have it on good authority I ended up with my face in Walter's crotch a day or so ago," Joxer said. "Who am I to judge after one kiss?"

That remark didn't phase Tempe in the least. Except for the shadow of a smirk that crossed her face.

Still, now would be a good time to be making her exit. While she still had her dignity in tact and all that.

She stood up slowly. "It was really nice meeting you, Joxer. Here's hoping that next time will end a little less awkwardly."

Joxer nodded. "It was nice meeting you too," he said. "Maybe we can do this again sometime." He coughed. "The meeting. Not the. . .thing that didn't happen."

Tempe nodded. "Absolutely. I look forward to seeing you again."

She waved and then ran for the door. Literally.

Lunch- Wednesday

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