Ain't no Acrobatics

[Danielle Cooper]

Dani was in distress. It was rare for the electrokinetic to let herself worry over too much, but this was something worrisome. Her fingers curled around the device in her hand, watching as the battery to her phone charged although it wasn’t plugged in.

She skimmed through the contacts, pausing when she got to Sawyer’s name. The voice mimic had been stuck on Dani’s mind for a while now, yet she couldn’t bring herself to actually reach out to the girl. For one simple reason: every time she met with the girl, alcohol seemed to be involved.

The fact made her uneasy, and she didn’t know what to do. So she was sitting there waiting for the one person she thought would know what to do.

When Dani saw her Australian roommate walked in, the electrokinetic’s eyes lit up. There she was. “Hey, Luce.” She grinned from the couch, swinging an arm over the back of it as she turned to properly face the ink manipulator. It was why she was waiting in the common room in the first place.

Still, her grin faltered slightly as she looked at Lucy, and she took in a breath before continuing. She was never great at these things. “What’re you up to?” she asked as lightly as possible. “I was wondering if you wanted to play some Earth Defense Force?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Honestly, it had been an awful set of days for Lucy. Rowan had been in clear distress, and Lucy saw fit to keep her eyes on him overnight. She needed to keep him from getting so intently caught up in his own head, because it was incredibly detrimental. And who else would honestly be there for him?

It meant that for the first time since she'd offered to always stay the night, Lucy slept without the psychometrist at her side. It meant the ink manipulator hardly slept, if she truly did at all. And what made it worse was spending the day in classes with Penny. She had been right there, but in the context, she was completely out of reach. So when she headed back to her dorm, she had no intention of letting anyone else distract her but the Brit when she finally made herself known.

But Dani caught her first.

Were it not for the stress in her features, Lucy would have rightly considered telling her to fuck off, as she so desperately wanted to. Instead, she ran her hand through her hair and practically scrutinised her with her dark eyes. "I guess." She replied slowly. "Why?"

[Danielle Cooper]

The moment Dani felt Lucy’s eyes on her, the electrokinetic sunk slightly into the couch. Something about Lucy Serrano looking at her like that was intimidating, even if by now Dani should had been used to the Australian. “Uh, well…” Really, she knew it’d be easier to just bring up the truth; her concern with Lucy’s best friend, but doing so was much harder than Dani had anticipated. “I just…really want to play.”

She traced a finger along a seam in the couch, her gaze following Lucy’s hand as it trailed through her hair before making it back to her dark eyes. “I mean, we haven’t really played anything in a while. So I thought you might like to.”

Again, she offered something of a shy grin.

It wasn’t like she was lying. Dani really did enjoy playing games with Lucy, even if she did break controllers on occasion. It also just had to be a convenient way to lead to the subject of Sawyer as well.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Getting hooked on a video game was the last thing on Lucy's mind in that moment. But it didn't take a genius to figure out that something was going on here. She briefly glanced at her dorm room door before looking back to her roommate, her eyebrows raising in curiosity.

"Don't gotta sell it to me." She offered, shrugging her shoulders once. "Gimme a sec."

The ink manipulator pulled her phone out of her back pocket, checking it and staring at the screen for a few moments before deciding to type out a message as she stepped towards her dorm room door. She doubted the psychometrist would actually get the message or even check her phone, but at least she was giving her something. She doubted she was going to walk in in the next five minutes anyway.

After disappearing into her room to pack everything up, she returned a few minutes later, a backpack slung over her shoulder. "Alright, Coopa. You can tell me what's up while we walk."

[Danielle Cooper]

Dani’s eyes lit up as Lucy agreed, and she gave a quick nod. “Okay!” She chirped, seemingly relaxing. That was, in theory, the hard part. Well, not the hard part, but it was the first step. She had this.

She curiously watched as Lucy pulled out her phone, assuming that the Australian was texting Penny. Her lip twitched upward at the sight of it, but the electrokinetic quickly pressed them together as a means to try and stop. She couldn’t help it, however. Pency (yes, she referred to the pair as such) were quite possibly one of the best couples she’d ever seen.

Or heard.

She shook off the thought, eyes reverting back to her phone briefly. Again, she thought of messaging the voice mimic, but quickly decided against it. Dani slid the phone into her back pocket, standing as she waited for Lucy.

And when she returned, she flashed the ink manipulator a grin, but it quickly faltered as Lucy spoke. Her eyes widened, “What do you mean? Nothing’s up. Everything’s good.” Smooth, Cooper. Smooth.