#justicisms

     The sun was setting just as Hitch managed to make it back to what was now a place she could call home. The thought was a little strange, all things considered; it wasn’t as if she hadn’t ever had a home before. But the last years of training had made her feel displaced. The places she had called home in the months and years before the military–well, they would never feel like home again. Not after everything she’d seen and experienced.

The women’s barracks during training...they had never felt like home, either.

But Stohess: it was starting to feel that way, familiarity sneaking into her vocabulary whenever she had to return to the building that held her room: “I’m gonna head back–”

She always wanted to say home.

In the chaos of her room there was a flower vase that almost always had a relatively fresh flower in it, and next to it was a pile of books she had read until the pages were worn.

She still felt a measure of dread every time she approached the door, every time it creaked open to reveal a room that was empty but for the mess she’d left in it upon her early-morning departure to patrol the city streets with Marlowe or Boris or whoever had been assigned to her that day. But every day she couldn’t help but notice that the feeling had lessened a little more. Perhaps in time she wouldn’t feel it at all anymore.

The last rays of light nearly blinded her as she stepped into the mess hall, half out of breath still from her run across half the city. The room was crowded with those who had come at the last dinner bell, but she ignored the food and scoured the tables for Marlowe’s familiar face. He was, of course, at the usual spot, uniform still looking pressed and neat. He hadn’t noticed her entrance, which instantly relieved her. Her own uniform was thoroughly rumpled and her hair a mess; she swiped her sleeve over her face and tried to straighten her hair before she headed over.

Grinning, she all but flung herself into the spot beside him, knee bumping up against the side of his leg.

She felt around for the damnable phone, eyes still closed, and sighed when she swiped her finger over the screen enough times to make the sound finally stop.

Fifteen minutes later she jumped up again, elbow smacking back into the couch; stupidly, she’d closed her eyes for a half-second and had fallen asleep again.

Well, that was why she always set two alarms.

After shutting it off again, she dragged herself to the bathroom, contemplated the pluses and minuses of bothering with her appearance, decided that bothering with it was probably a good idea, and tried to make herself look at least fifty percent more presentable: a feat considering her messy hair, the imprint on her face from the weird texture of the couch, and the fact that she could barely keep her eyes open.

She usually didn’t bother with such things—sleep was way more important, after all—but it was the first day of class, and as stupid as it was, she did want to make a good impression, if only to be excused an absence or two if she happened to miss class for a perfectly legit reason: like accidentally sleeping in. A professor who remembered her was much more likely to cut her even just a sliver of slack.

She only had two classes: Sociological Analysis at eight o'clock, and then an hour’s break before some kind of Great Books thing.

She knew where the building and rooms were, and she didn’t have to carry any books because it was still the first day of class. It would all be introductory boring bullshit anyway. But she needed to make a good impression, so she tried to fix her hair. She’d washed it the night before, but it hadn’t dried before she’d fallen asleep; now one side was oddly flat and the other side quite the opposite.

Hair still looking messy (as she had given up on it ever looking great again) and dressed in nice jeans and a cute green blouse (to match her eyes, obviously), Hitch slung her bag over her shoulder and left her apartment, locking the door behind her.

Considering she had gotten up so early—in plenty of time to walk to class, surely, though it was a long walk—she should have managed to arrive in class on time.

But she was still late.

It was obvious that she was late before she even made her way into the building; the campus was basically deserted except for the occasional student who looked lost and confused. She ignored them and found her first class.

The door was closed. Of course it was. Her luck was rotten. Why was she taking this stupid class, anyway? Why would she ever want to take the kind of class where the professor shut the door on the first day the second class started? Right—she’d waited way too long to register for classes and it was the only one left for a quantitive thinking class that wasn’t at eight o'clock in the evening.

She plastered a look of indifference on her face—because hopefully, if she looked like she didn’t care, nobody else would care, either—and opened the door.

It squealed way too loud (or maybe she only imagined that it did).

So much for making a good first impression on the professor!

At a glance, it was clear in the small classroom that only the front row had seats left. That meant it was also the sort of class nobody wanted to sit up front for. She was completely screwed.

((justicisms/bossard is the bae. I pester her every single day on Skype. She is my drift compatible saltmate. I straight-up love her. I mean, that probably sounds a little crazy, but I swear it’s not. Since I joined fandom communities and started writing fanfiction in 2002 or so, I made a few super close friends: a few very lasting friends, and justicisms is one of them. We talk about basically everything. I think our friendship is amazing. She makes me laugh, and her horrible evil headcanons sometimes make me cry. I really enjoy talking to her about writing fanfiction, about RPing—hell, even about my real life troubles…and it’s really hard for me to talk about that kind of stuff to just anyone.

I’ve never been great at making close friends, so I feel very blessed to have Cello as one. I hope we’re always friends.

Don’t even get me started on her writing. I know she’s lost her Marlowe muse a bit, but she’s an amazing Marlowe. Y’all know this to be true. I don’t know how she does it. I hope her Marlowe muse springs back to life because I selfishly love RPing opposite her Marlowe on Hitch. It’s like we just connect together when we write. I can’t explain it. I’ve only had this happen with one other person ever, and it makes me so happy. I love her Marlowe, and I love RPing Hitch, and ughhh it’s basically all her fault anyway, so /points finger dramatically!

// i AM 5000% HERE FOR THiS YES PLEaSE

-_-