January 30: College AU Excerpt

[kinetic_elaboration]

I have no idea what to write because I am sooooo tired. Only this and brushing my teeth are between me and sleeping.

Anyway here’s an excerpt from my D/J College AU, which I haven’t worked on in forever, because why not:

*

Jane is in the kitchenette, talking to Trent in low, harsh tones. Daria’s much too far away to hear a word of the conversation—damn her past self for not taking lip reading classes, could have added it to her resume in high school—but she can get the gist of the emotion from the expression on Jane’s face.

It feels too private, so she glances away.

She shifts her weight between her feet. She can’t even go to the sink to get more water, would feel like she was intruding on something in an obvious, blundering way. Like the worst kind of spy. So she swirls what’s left around the bottom of the glass instead.

Later still, she ends up standing by the windows, listening to Max explain the underlying theory of punk rock to her, listening long enough that she begins to tune out the words and merge them instead into the distinctive rhythms of his voice. She makes a game of timing out the right times to say Yes and I see. She’s been carrying around an empty glass now for a while. Though for a short time, she lost track of Jane entirely, she’s now found her again, dancing loosely with perhaps the most traditionally handsome guy in the room: his face all sharp angles and squares, his hair wavy with gel.

She begs off when Max seems to be slowing down, making an excuse about her drink. What she really needs isn’t more water: it’s some real fresh air. She drops her glass in the vicinity of the sink, wanders back toward the windows. The second one, to the right of where she’d been standing, is half-open despite the cool night air, or because of it, and when she leans in to take a deeper breath of it, she realizes it opens up on the fire escape.