"Perr, I'm gonna need you to not freak out." LaFontaine shuffled into their room, head down and shoulders tense.
The floor don immediately shot up from her seat at her desk. "Oh, I really don't like it when you- Susan, what did you do?"
LaFontaine had raised her head, expression sheepish. There was ash streaked all across her face and a strange blue stain on her left cheek, but all of Perry's attention was focused on her eyebrows. Or rather, the empty space where her eyebrows used to be.
The bio major scratched the back of her neck guiltily, avoiding her girlfriend's eyes. "Well, I was running an experiment on the chemical composition of that sample I got from the Alchemy Club the other day- you remember the one, I got it off the manticore they had trapped in the labyrinth under the caf?"
Perry nodded. "That was the day you called me in a panic about how you had accidentally freed an angry manticore and had the lunch ladies chasing you, right?" Her face pursed disapprovingly. "I still haven't had a chance to talk to you about all the property damage that caused. Not to mention the trauma you put the manticore through!"
LaFontaine nodded grimly. "Horrible, horrible stuff. As I was saying, I was doing this experiment and I saw that its saliva was reacting really weirdly to the trinitrotoluene I was combining it with-"
Perry interjected quickly. "Susan-" LaFontaine gave her a look. "Fine, LaFontaine then, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't trini- trito- Whatever that stuff is, isn't that the name for, oh, I don't know, TNT?" Her hair bounced emphatically with the force of her disapproval.
"That's not the point, Perr. Point is, I thought it was fascinating how it reacted, so I thought I'd run a few more tests, check out a hypothesis I'd formed about the relative flammability of manticore saliva." The redhead paused, fidgeting with her hands.
Perry's eyebrows raised. "Well? You haven't explained how this happened yet, and believe me, I'm waiting." She crossed her arms.
LaFontaine wilted. "My hypothesis was wrong."
Perry sighed. "Oh, Susan, you're going to have to stop taking risks like this eventually, you know." LaFontaine gave her a pathetic look. "Come here, silly." Perry uncrossed her arms and took LaFontaine's hand, pulling her across the room.
She pulled out a package of baby wipes, tenderly cleaning the other girl's face until there was no trace of ash left. The blue smudge, however, remained. "LaFontaine? What's-"
The redhead cut her off. "Don't even ask, Perr. Turns out the ghost profs really don't like it when you blow up their labs."
The smudge wouldn't rub off, and after a second Perry gave up. "Well, has this taught you anything about doing spontaneous experiments with highly explosive and possibly illegal substances?"
LaFontaine gave her her most charming smile. "Don't get caught?"
Perry rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up. Now turn this way. I need better light." She bodily repositioned her girlfriend so she was facing their window.
The girl flung her hand up to shield her eyes, squinting against the sudden sun. "Light? Why?"
The hand was unceremoniously batted away by a redhead on a mission. "Well you can't just go walking around campus with no eyebrows for the next two weeks, can you? Imagine the stares you'd get." Perry held a pencil up next to LaFontaine's face, then shook her head and replaced it on the dresser. "You need to draw them in, and since I know you neither know how to nor care to learn, I'll do it for you."
She finally located a pencil that she deemed an acceptable shade and set to work. Under her hands, LaFontaine smiled up at her. "Aw, thanks Perr."
Perry paused in her work, meeting LaFontaine's eyes. "Anytime, LaFontaine." She pressed a quick kiss to her girlfriend's lips and went back to work.
