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"What? What other explanation have you got?" Well, the other explanation was that it wasn't a dream, of course, but that was far too simple and boring. Dreams were meant to be extravagant, after all, and so the explanations should be extravagant too!

"You thought it was a virgin? I was watching Rambo! Rambo's not the kind of movie that you watch with a virgin drink." Or with bacon, if alcohol was sadly unobtainable at the time of viewing. "Yes, it was alcoholic. Very alcoholic. Like, the average individual doesn't need more than one of them in a week alcoholic." And she'd downed two of them within a couple hours.

And anyway, mix up? What was that supposed to mean? "You say that as if I'm more one than one person."

"During the movie," was his automatic reply. Doing absolutely nothing after doing lots of things all the time must have lulled him into a slumber. That was the most rational explanation.

Her confusion elicited several moments of laughter before he could find words to reply to her. "I think you've made that much obvious," he grinned. When she spoke again, however, all traces of laughter fell from his voice and all smiles from his voice. The expression that remained was bordering on disapproval.

"Don't say unnecessary things," he warned.

"I'm everywhere Lucas is," he said, ignoring each of her giggle fits. She had made herself so completely vulnerable; it was graceless, bordering on irritating. She lacked each of the good qualities that had come to mind when they spoke in the gym. It was completely frustrating.

"You were going to sleep." It was more of a suggestion than an absolute, but how would she know the difference? She had no idea what was going on around her. Forget thirty-three and three-quarters, the number of opportunities he had to kill her were entering triple digits. Not that he would, but the fact that such a chance existed was infuriating enough.

"Yes." His legs finally freed of the woman who insisted on laying in his lap, he stood and assessed her condition. "...Your roommate is that Lennyka woman, correct?" Lucas had visited Lennyka before, and so Luke had a good idea of where Claire's room was.

"No helping the occasional crazy person." They tended to crop up from time to time. Or so the only legitimately crazy person had observed.

Luke wasn't a terribly kind individual, let alone sympathetic, so the feeling brought about by the sudden apology was... strange. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, or how to describe it, but it left him much less irritable than he had been. "There's nothing to apologize for." Well, there was, but that was just part of that weird, unnameable feeling. "Can you stand?" No, she probably couldn't. And even if she could, he doubted she wanted to publicly stumble her way back to her room. Without little more warning than a sigh, he moved to scoop her up.

Claire's form seemed much smaller once cradled in Luke's arms, even more so when she leaned into him for support. He stood in a momentary pensive silence before adjusting himself to move and starting forward, moving carefully to avoid jostling his charge unnecessarily. In this manner he picked his way out of the rec room and down the hall, heading for the grunt dormitories.

"I hope you'll ask what's in a drink before you accept it next time," he said, his tone low.

Had she been more aware, Luke would have accused Claire of teasing him again. As it was, though, he did his best to remain stone-faced even with an arm around his neck. He might have been blushing again, but she would never know even if he were, or at least she wouldn't remember. Or so he would have hoped, were he aware of the color of his face.

"That's good," he said quietly. "Drinking is a senseless practice." It only led to foolishness, and folly to defenselessness, and defenselessness to defeat. It wasn't entirely her fault, though, so he dropped the thought.

He frowned slightly at the door on arriving at Claire's room. He kicked it with the toe of his shoe a few times as if to knock. No reply. Well, it was early in the evening; most of the Rockets were still on duty. Luke balanced himself carefully and maneuvered his foot to turn the doorknob, stumbling forward slightly when it opened. He hazarded a guess that the bed less completely covered in books was Claire's and moved to set her on the mattress.