gooseberryhigh | (no subject)

who: Rosy & Danny, with a cameo by Plato the Roommate
what: Rosy has reasonably decided not to learn how to text and her mind can't be changed.
where: Danny's roomy dorm.
when: Let's say Friday, July 27th.
warnings: bad

“I’m not using that.” Rosy drops the phone on the coffee table and stands next to it, arms resolutely crossed. She’s seen Chloe and Ursula use their cell phones, she’s even managed to take pictures with them once in a while (only half of them out of focus or obscured by her thumb), but after about eight minutes of jabbing at the screen with her fingers she’s still not an expert at text messaging, so fuck it. “It doesn’t make sense, I don’t want it.”

"What? It totally makes sense," Danny scoffs, scooping the device up off the coffee table. "It's-- hold on..." He clicks a few things on the screen, holds it up and snaps a picture of Rosy with her arms crossed. "It's completely intuitive, once you've messed around with it for a while." This is the dumbest thing Danny, a person who grew up half-immersed in the world of muggles, could possibly say. And he makes it worse by tapping the screen again and putting a flower crown on top of Rosy's glaring head.

He turns around and shows her the newly doctored picture. "It's better than magic."

"What the fuck is the purpose of that?" Rosy asks, scowl deepening as she snatches at the phone in his hand. If she couldn't figure out texting, Snapchat should obviously be saved for the advanced classes, but that's not going to stop her from trying. "I'm obviously not wearing a flower crown, is anyone supposed to think I'm actually wearing a flower crown, or--what the fuck?"

It took Rosy all of six seconds to post her picture twice and turn on the dog filter. Which is even stupider than the crown. With a frustrated grunt, she shoves the phone back toward Danny. "Take this stupid thing off my phone, I'm not using it. I'm not using any of it."

"Aw, but you're so cute with a puppy nose." He clucks, coos and then, looking up from the photo, gives her a so-sincere-it's-not smile that quickly fades into a shitty grin. Regardless, he does as he's told, deleting the app (off the home screen, at least), and offering it to her, again. "You can't just not use it. How the hell else are you going to stalk Sy while he's at practice or whatever? Look, if you click that little speech bubble icon, you can send him text messages. It's like the journals but more annoying. So it's better."

"Doesn't matter, Sy's not using that either," Rosy says, decisively, though it's unclear if she's deciding this for her brother, or if they already discussed this through the twin telepathy they decidedly do not have. If she's not using it, she sees no reason Sy would want to use these dumb things. "This thing's too breakable, he'll just throw it and it's a waste of money."

Rosy, who is clearly on the verge of throwing this stupid failure square herself, pokes the speech bubble on the screen with way too much force. This screen has about fifteen minutes to live at this rate.

"Also, I don't know what you mean by 'click', I don't need a text to know if he got murdered by a bludger, and what the fuck does this message mean, because I don't even like eggplant.”

"It's not supposed to be an eggplant," Danny's voice raises when he lifts his hands, like a weirdly wired puppet. "It's supposed to be--"

The door to Danny's cramped dorm opens and his new roommate walks in. "Hey, Plato, drop some classical Greek philosophical knowledge on my lovely girlfriend and tell her how convenient texting is."

Plato immediately turns around and walks back out without acknowledging either of them.

"Plato's a coward." Danny says, and then goes on without stopping. "You going to divine that he's murdered by a bludger, then? You'll be thanking me when that ball emoji skull emoji stars emoji message comes across." Actually probably not, Daniel. "And, anyway, more importantly. You can get scrabble on it and beat all your friends."

"I'd twin sense if he was murdered," Rosy says, deadly serious. "You think I won't? Get Plato back here, you know he'll agree with me." Rosy says this, despite barely acknowledging or even so much as looking at Plato more than once since Danny had been roomed with him. It's the kind of friendship she can tell is going to last.

"And Scrabble isn't real unless you can flip the board." She stabs a finger at the phone even harder, hitting send on a text she didn't even know she was crafting. Well biking emoji, thumbs down emoji, bicep emoji to you, Notoriano. "Ask Plato about that too. He'll back me up.”

"I will give you that Scrabble is more satisfying if you can flip the board." Danny allows with a pedantic wave of his finger as his phone chimes, like he's about to lead into a 'but, actually' sentence. He retrieves the device from his back pocket, looks at the message and makes a face.

"I can't believe you threatened me with your first text message." Actually, he totally believes it - expects it, even. "I'm offended." He sounds sort of halfway between incensed and delighted, actually. "You're creating such a hostile environment for poor Plato."

“Oh fuck off, I don’t even know what I did, I was trying to find--what the fuck, how are these even organized?” Rosy flicks through the emoji menus with an unnecessary level of aggression, the color in her face rising every time she accidentally selects one of these stupid little pictures. Who needs a French horn? If you’re texting with someone about your French horn, you should just write out French horn.

“Okay, you know what, do you have Plato’s number? Because why don’t you just text him,” she drops the phone back on the coffee table with a way too loud clank and holds up both middle fingers. “Just that, flower crown and all.” There’s no reason for Rosy to be so mad at Plato right now, but you know what? Fuck him.

You know what? Danny's never going to waste an opportunity to antagonize a roommate - new or old, so he's holding his phone up to snap a picture before Rosy's even finished the thought. "I'm gonna send this one to Wainwright, too. Maybe he can show it to Sy." He says, snapping another picture, flower crown included.

Then he pushes a few more buttons and glances at Rosy with a shitty grin. "And I'm using as my background."

She crosses her arms and eyes the phone. "While you're at it," Rosy casually crosses over to stand by Danny's shoulder, peering at the screen that's apparently too fucking smart for her, and shrugs. "You should ask him if Sy's been bludger-murdered."

Not that she needs to know.

Because she'd know.

But. "As a joke."

"Of course, of course," Danny says, knocking lightly against Rosy before glancing up to stare at her over his glasses. "Maybe he can send us some gnarly quidditch damage pictures." He pauses, just for a beat, still unsure if joking about death is in the realm of acceptability, but also kind of unwilling to stop. "Then you can text him and tell him you've seen worse and he needs to walk it off."

She knocks her shoulder back against his, harder, just for show. "Just make sure he puts that flower crown on him," she says, and loops an arm around his waist, rests her chin on his shoulder. It's the kind of affectionate display she will only allow in private. "It's how he'd want to be remembered."