-- THE FINAL FRONTIER [Milo]

[DEVIN JAMES THATCHER]

Well, this was meant to be done a long while back. Days ago. Probably even a couple of weeks to a month. He couldn't keep track. Not that it mattered much; Devin was a procrastinator at heart and never did care for when they were assigned the project. It was the deadline that mattered most. So long as whatever it was he was working on was turned in on that day, then he was content. The only potential problem Devin faced was rushing around in circles like a chicken with his head cut off around said due date, because he was trying to get shit done. Fortunately for him the one he was working on today was not a paper or a homework sheet made for one. A group project, actually. History. He could handle history. Devin was not a fan of every subject that could be laid out on the table but he could handle history decently well. Not that he had much of a choice, right? It was somewhat of a requirement. Undergraduates had specific courses they needed to take, and history was one of them.

"What are you doing?" Athena inquired from the top of the stairs, hair dangling over the edge as she looked at her older brother. Devin glanced up and smiled. "Getting ready for my project partner to show up. Why?" She shrugged and waved her hair back and forth lazily over the banister. "No reason! I was just being nosy." Like always. He refrained from rolling his eyes and looked down at the coffee table to look at all that he had prepared to get the project going. Milo was supposed to bring a few things along as well so they could get this done and out of the way. He had other, more important things to do, like spend time with his new girlfriend or play some video games (assuming said girlfriend was busy). Anything to shirk school. Anything. After checking and double checking to see if he had what he needed, Devin fell back on the couch to wait for Milo to show up. He had set the time for around two thirty though he was not too stringent on when he showed up. It was not the end of the world, after all. So long as they got a passing grade that was all that mattered to him. Milo did not seem to have any issues with Devin's work ethic, which was a relief. The only other person who knew and understood was Sandra.

A knock at the door caught his attention, and quickly the blonde leaped up from the couch to go and answer it. "Coming!" He sang before reaching the knob and swinging the door wide. "Hey!" Devin greeted Milo rather cheerfully before stepping back to let him come into the house. "I have all of our stuff out...though ugh. I really don't want to do this." He never wanted to do anything school related. That was fact. After making sure Milo was inside, he shut the door and wandered back into the living room. With a sigh he sat back down on the couch and gestured to the room where there were plenty of options for seating. "Take your pick! And I guess we can try and get this out of the way."

[gopher]

Milo had an incredibly long list of things he wanted to do this particular night. It mostly contained work on various different pieces, going over his dance for the hundredth time, dinner with Gwen, pestering Lark, pestering Knox, and pestering- well pestering in general. To his great depression, that was not how this night was going to be. Well, the beginning of the night anyway. Though Milo had declared his major in art, there were still general requirements he needed to fulfill. One of those was history: the reason he was now making with way to his fellow slacker friend's house. Milo had spent quite a lot of time with his brother in procrastination, frantically piecing together the many group projects they had been assigned over the years. College, apparently, was no different.

He wasn't entirely sure about what exactly they were supposed to be doing, but he tended to handle whatever arty thing the assignment required while his partner started on what academia was needed. Though Milo would never admit it, the blonde was a whole lot better at "school" than Milo was, though they both managed the same passing grades. It wasn't that DJ was smarter or anything like that, it was just that the guy could BS like no one else. There had been so many times the two of them wrote a joint essay that received a grade higher than a "C", all thanks to DJ throwing in the most random, confusing crap he could come up to try to net them just a little bit of wiggle room for the next, inevitable academic disaster.

His knapsack was filled with large rolled sheets of heavier paper for the map that he was pretty sure they were supposed to be making, various different kinds of writing materials, their insanely huge history textbook (Milo had accidentally ordered the teacher's edition, and it was proving immensely helpful in the other projects they had had to do), and a very rough outline of what he assumed was the second half of their project. The outline wasn't very helpful as it had a couple sketches of emaciated looking people with fantastical headdresses and couple scribbled words on it, but Milo had learned that anything they had was probably going to be used. They were the princes of procrastination. They got things done. Eventually.

Finally making it to DJ's house, he quickly rapped his knuckles on the wood to let his friend know he'd arrived. DJ's sing-songy voice called out from behind the closed door before throwing it open with an enthusiastic "Hey!". Milo returned with his own "Wassap?" before DJ moved out of the way to let Milo in. It was really amazing how similarly the two guys felt about school work. He gave DJ a woeful sigh, "I brought map things and our bible." The two of them had decided that Milo's teacher's edition of their history book was one of the more holy pieces of literature they owned, thus it was coined "bible". "First though..." Milo squinted around the house, until apparently finding what he was looking for.

"Yo, squirt!" This was addressed to DJ's little sister who stood with her head out over the balcony, swinging her head back and fourth to move her hair side to side. She'd grown a lot since Milo had met her back when he'd been a freshman, but he still considered her a "squirt". Unfortunately, as with almost every time Milo was in DJ's house, he was there to work. Well, work was a loose noun as they tended to goof around just as much as finish whatever they were working on, but it had been a process that had managed to get them through the entirety of high school, so it was obviously just flawed enough. "You wanna help us with this map, or what?"

As he said the words, he decided upon the living room as the best base of operations, grinning at DJ as he went. This house was kind of like a second home. Milo had spent more time here than he did at Gwen's, which was weird when he really thought about it. It sort of made DJ and Athena like family. He didn't really mind the idea of it, but didn't embrace it either. He liked to hand out with the blonde, though that had been a bit difficult lately with his new girlfriend and all. DJ seemed a little bit more antsy and usual at the prospect of getting the stupid project finished. He probably had a hot date with Sandra later that night and just wanted their little work-group time to be over as soon as possible. Milo supported the sentiment, as he would much rather be doing anything else but what they were about to start on.

"So..." The word was long and drawn out as Milo pulled the paper, pencils, pens, markers, and book from his bag. "Do you have the handout for this thing? 'Cause I looked for it and I found a whole lotta nothing." He gave DJ an apathetic shrug. He rarely had the handouts for anything. Most of the time DJ had them, but occasionally they had to make due with their memories and imagination. Those assignments never went very well. "I remember him talking about making a map. I was almost excited about that. Everything else I tuned out."