telephone? [dimitri]

[spencer]

There was a dull ringing coming from somewhere Spencer couldn’t see, and it was driving him insane.

He’d tried about eight times now to finish up the conclusion of his Brit Lit essay, but every single time he had managed to conjure up a good summation sentence, the ringing started again and broke his concentration. Frustration hardened his features, and yet again, Spencer jabbed the backspace key on his laptop until the half-sentence he had managed to type was gone from the Word document.

Click, click, click, click— rrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing--

It was even interrupting his aggravated backspacing. Spencer glanced around his spot in the library, looking about once again for the culprit. It didn't even sound like a phone. Who thought it was okay to ring in a library? Worse yet, the noise seemed to be gradually getting louder. In the past ten minutes it went from something faint, on the edge of a whisper, and had grown into something that was no longer ignorable, and in fact, had begun to sharply grate on his ears. Spencer wasn’t the type to get so worked up about an annoyance such as this, but it’s homework we’re talking about. This essay—four pages, minimum—was due tonight at 6pm, and he still had a Calc quiz to study for. Even though he was on his conclusion, the paper still hadn’t met the length requirement. Normally, the paper would have been completed much earlier in the week and edited at least once, but Spencer had put off the assignment to go on his date with Anya. His irritation now almost made him regret that, as he still had to wrap this up and then go back to beef up the existing paragraphs, at the very least.

The noise faded and Spencer waited a moment before turning back to his laptop. His fingers typed out another sentence opener when the noise broke out again. Impulsively, Spencer slammed his hands on the library’s wooden table, creating a loud thump that momentarily drowned out the ringing. He had nearly forgotten about the people around him – there were at least three others using the same table as he, but Spencer doubted his stressed outburst was any more distracting than that goddamned ringing.

He had half a thought to push back his chair and go searching for the source of the noise himself when his eyes caught his notebook, which was under his rigid hand. All of his notes: completely muddled. The scrawled handwriting was blurred and swirled into a blob of blue ink, haphazardly bled into the paper. Momentarily forgetting the noise that had caused his ability’s malfunction, Spencer’s face melted into an expression of deep concern, and he quickly picked up his notebook and began flipping through the pages. Every page. Nearly every page was ruined.

He really needed to quit writing his notes in pen.

And the library was a dangerous place to lose control. Trying not to think about anything else in the vicinity he may have ruined (aisles of books with ink-muddled pages flashed through his mind), the boy closed his notebook and tried to calm himself.

Spencer sighed heavily and closed his eyes, and the loud ringing faded out once more. He kept his eyes closed, preparing for the inevitable crack of sound to come back. It didn’t. Another sigh and he slowly brought himself back to the library… just in time to see the screen of his laptop dim and then immediately cut out. The student stared at his laptop-which was, he confirmed, completely turned off—in disbelief. He could have sworn the battery was almost fully charged. Thoughts of what could have happened played through Spencer’s head before something struck him: had he saved his paper in the last hour? All of this ringing, and he’d nearly finished, and it might have just been lost, class notes and all.

His voice was loud and incredulous. He didn't care about disturbing anyone anymore. ”You’ve got to be kidding me.”

[dimitri]

Dimitri couldn't hear himself think over the ringing. Someone didn't know how to mute their phones and he was starting to get extremely annoyed. He could tell it was effecting the other students also, there was a boy at the other end of his table who was angrily backspacing on his laptop, and other students were starting to look around. He bit his lip, focusing back on his own computer, his notecards and notes spread around him. He had been putting off this paper all week. He just didn't want to write it. His mother was spending a decent amount of money sending him here so he had to deliver on grades, but for some reason his academic habits had been much lazier recently. Maybe it was the idea of being surrounded by --- Goddammit make that ringing stop!

The angry-backspace-boy slammed his hands on the table at the latest ringing and the combination made Dimitri jump about a foot out of his skin. The ringing already had his nerves on edge and the hand-slamming had only made things worse. He felt a sudden influx of energy through his hands, which were resting on his computer. Luckily he hadn't written very much, but he was pretty sure if he kept draining it like this his computer battery wouldn't hold up long. They weren't meant to be drained like that. He closed the laptop, expelling his breath and looked down at his notes.

What. The. Hell.

He pawed through his note cards. They were all blurry and not note-like at all. The words were gone, the ink looked like it got wet or something (but they were fine a minute ago) and the paper was dry. Why was it messed up?! What had he done? Then he realized he couldn't have done this. How would he have done this? Unless there was a way to have several powers manifest at different points in time and if that was possible Dimitri felt for sure he had the kind of terrible luck that would make it happen to me.

He glanced at the other boy, he... seemed to be having trouble turning on his computer. Dimitri felt his entire face flush, looked back at his computer, then at the others at their table. They all seemed to be dead. Shit.

"I uh. That was... Shit.... Uhm.... Did your.... computer die...?" He couldn't help but look guilty as sin, but then he glanced back at his notes and the guilt was tempered with anger. That was an odd combination for him.

He pushed all his ruined notes to the middle of the table, "But I'm not the uh.... the only one... 'cause my notes are.... not... notes anymore." Maybe if he blamed it on someone else it would make it less likely that he had ruined everyones lives.

[spencer]

Spencer’s dark eyes were dragged from the black laptop screen as one of his table-mates spoke up. The blonde boy awkwardly stumbled over his words, asking about the computers. Spencer looked at him dumbly before the blonde’s guilty look caused a realization to flood over him. Here, the culprit of his potentially late paper—

”…my notes are.... not... notes anymore.”

Oh, great. Spencer glanced down to the note cards the blonde had tossed to the middle of the table, his accusatory face softening at his own guiltiness. Yeah, that was his doing, alright. He momentarily forgot about his drained laptop and instead focused on what he wanted to do about his ink-blurring situation. He could deny it and join the mob of angry, note-ruined companions… but on the off chance that someone knew him, he opted for telling the truth… begrudgingly. Spencer wasn’t one to volunteer himself for awkward situations, but being caught in a lie would put him in far more uncomfortable of a position.

He sighed and tossed his notebook to the middle of the table, on top of the blonde boy’s note cards. ”That was me…” he trailed off, awkwardly bringing his hand up behind his head. ”Sorry guys… If it makes you feel better, I just killed two classes worth of my notes from the beginning of the semester…” Spencer pursed his lips together, unsure of anything else to say, and hoping that nobody would want to beat his skull in. He waited for angry outbursts, but luckily it seemed that nearly everyone at the table had pencil-smudged papers to their side. The smallest wave of relief comforted his furrowed brow, even though there was at least one person here whose study-session he’d ruined.

Spencer grabbed his laptop at the top of the screen and spun it around on the table so it was facing the blonde, who had a troubled look of guilt on his face. ”I had at least 30 minutes of battery… did you do this?” his voice, usually calm, held a sharper, accusing edge. Like Dimitri had done, he was attempting to take the attention off his own ability malfunction. ”I have a paper due at six and I may have just lost all of it,” Spencer wasn’t mean enough to really commit to his angry tone, especially since half of him figured Word had auto-saved his work anyway. Ink smudging was far more destructive, but he hoped this kid didn’t realize that.

[dimitri]

Dimitri hadn't really expected anyone to admit to ruining the notes. He had already paniked himself that it was actually him because everyone here seemed to have such good control of their powers. He felt like he was constantly killing electronics, and he had even released an energy blast of sorts the other day, which was odd for him. That particular ability had only manifested itself a few times, but he supposed anything was possible. Of course, it didn't seem like useful energy, like he didn't think he could charge a laptop with it. He might be able to blast the laptop into a wall and break it so that it was useless to everyone forever but that wasn't really the same thing. He moved his hands carefully away from his computer.

"I uh.... guess mine was just notes for this paper..." Now he felt worse though, he had only lost a stack of notecards. His stack of notecards happened to be nearly fifty of them pretty much able to be lain out in the right order and just typed from for his paper, but just notecards. The other boy had lost his notes for two classes and his paper due tonight. He had to think of a way to help him but . "I didn't mean to... I just.... that person's phone keeps going off... and then you uh... startled me." Good, not the word scared. Scared would make him sound weak, startled..... wasn't much better. He wrinkled his nose a little.

"I am pretty sure the... the only thing we can reasonably do is... youknow, hunt down the phone person and uh... make them pay?" Okay, it was a lame attempt at a joke. But Mitri had to do something to make this kid not want to rip his head off.

[spencer]

Dimitri had a sort of timid way of saying things that Spencer eagerly took as being dismissive of his power-malfunction. Perhaps he was taking advantage of the boy’s apparent shyness, but at least it helped fan away some of the stress that was clouding his brain. Feeling mildly satisfied that he was no longer in danger of being hated by everyone at the table, he swiveled his laptop back around and picked up his messenger bag from the floor, his goal now to discover if he was doomed for tonight or not.

The blonde’s apology was endearing… Spencer felt a little guilty, as he rummaged in his bag, for siphoning the blame on to him, especially if it turned out his paper had been auto-saved. After all, he couldn't help it, just as Spencer couldn't help his own... mishap. He wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with the fact that maybe he'd end up being the only one who messed things up here. Optimistically? Eh, the optimistic part of him was showing through less and less these days whenever school was the main focus. That damn ringing--grades and pressure from his parents, plus internal conflicts about girls of all things were wearing him down thin. As he fumbled around with the laptop charger, he realized it was entirely rude of him to take out all his own stress on this kid in the library.

Charger plugged in, power button pressed, and Spencer waited. Dimitri was still talking, and the dark-haired teen couldn’t help but let the corner of his lips tip upward in a grin. Had Spencer scared him? It nearly seemed like it; Spencer was a little amused even though he felt far more accountable. ”…and uh... make them pay?" ”If only I were the type,” Spencer said, making a fist with his hand and punching it into his palm. He was definitely angry enough at whoever—or whatever had decided a library was they place they’d like to ring… too bad he wasn’t enough of a dick to really give them a piece of his mind. The laptop had booted up, and Spencer maneuvered his way back to his essay, immediately sighing heavily in relief when he saw the page count. It was saved! He grinned, and looked back up to the blonde. ”You’re off the hook,” he said, ”My paper’s fine. Sorry for getting all… accusatory. The ringing’s gotten me a bit on edge, well, obviously, your note cards—“

It was at that point that the noise re-appeared, louder than ever: a loud, long, teeth-grinding tone echoing above the rows of books.

”Okay. No, let’s find this asshole.” Spencer looked at Dimitri, figuring he’d maybe back him up in his frustration to locate the culprit.

((ooc: attempting to recruit a ringing-person, otherwise we’ll NPC it up!))

[sanfran]

After a long seven hours of sleeping through classes, walking through hallways, and giving teachers blank stares, and then leaving classes to screw off, San Francisco was pretty content with herself. She got a lot accomplished today! She managed to do three out of twenty problems on her math homework, actually remembered she had a literature book, and, best of all, she took a look at the inside of her biology text. True, she had to read a chapter or two, and she had no idea which ones, but she was certain that the pictures in the book she had stared at coincided with the ones that had been on the projector when she woke up. If not, well, she still looked inside. That was a pretty decent accomplishment.

Since she had been so successful, Sannie decided that boarding around campus a bit would be a good reward for her admirable attempt at doing some work. However, after a few minutes she came to the conclusion that boarding around and sweating like a dog in the sweltering heat was not a good way to spend an afternoon. So, with that in mind, a reentry into the school was devised, and the first door she came across, she bolted into. The small atrium between the double doors was refreshing, and stepping into the main room was even more enjoyable. But a problem arose when she realized she had no idea where she was.

It dawned on her that she had accidentally entered that library place that everyone talked about- the one building with all the books inside. She had never been in the Silas Academy library before, not even for class. Most of the time she was sent to the principal’s office for yelling ‘ARE THERE COMIC BOOKS?!’ at the top of her lungs whenever the group she was in were told they would be going. (Her question was never answered. That was annoying.) A tad intimidated by the high shelves, the teen decided she’d have to navigate her way out on her own.

Within a few minutes she was lost, and she gave up, opting to text one of her friends at Silas about her being stuck in the library. Leaning against one of the shelves, she sighed and shoved her hands in her pockets before realizing that she had not one, but two bags of unopened bag of gummy worms in there. Grinning and snickering maniacally, she waited for her phone to ring. It did so right after she opened the first bag- a recorded sound byte turned into her texting tone of her saying ‘riiiiing, riiiiiiing, RIIIIIING!’.

Thumbs clicking away, Sannie reported to her friend that she was indeed stuck in the library, and she was in some section with a lot of big books that looked alike. She started walking around again when a text back told her that she had been in the reference section. Sannie texted back she was going on a ‘mishin’ to find the comic books. Her friend was very helpful with that, a couple texts in a row sent her on her way. Passing through shelves, she couldn’t help but look at some of the weird titles. ‘Martin Luther King: A Biography’ and ‘Social Psychology: Basic Communications’ and wonder why the hell people would actually want to read them. They sounded terribly boring. Now, if there was a book on orange things or the making of traffic cones, she would have been interested- but she doubted if such a book existed.

A final ring issued from her phone as she stepped into a space between the gigantic shelves, and she munched on her gummy worm as she paused to text- she learned a while ago that she didn’t have the ability to walk and text at the same time.

[dimitri]

(OOC: Slow replies might be happening, school started today so things just got a million times more busy, but i'm working on it. )

Dimitri felt some of his anxiety fade when the other boy figured out his paper was autosaved and he let a little smile play at the corner of his lips. Never-mind the fact that his paper was gone, as were all his notes. His paper wasn't due till tomorrow. So he wouldn't sleep, so what? He didn't really need sleep.

Okay, so he needed sleep. But right now his primary concern was figuring out who the cause of all the drama was. He stood when Spencer agreed to help him search out the ringer and looked around for a moment. "The acoustics sorta... throw it all off, but I think it's coming from over there."

He motioned in the direction of a stack of books, then shoved his computer into his bag and started in that direction. "I'm glad I didn't ruin your paper..." He added while walking. "I've uh... lost more then a few of my own projects.... and it's not fun..."

It was then that he noticed a girl standing between shelves with a gummi worm in her mouth and a phone in her hand. She looked like a likely ringer. Dimitri nodded at her, "You think thats her?" He eyed the phone suspciously. If whoever she was talking to would just text her back they would know if she had put in on silent like the front desk said to or if she was flaunting her apathy about the rules in front of everybody by having the loudest ringtone ever.