Re: [Diner: Atticus & Hazel]
Part of her wanted to tell him that when he reflexively rubbed at his neck all he managed to do was make his skin red and the mark to stand out even further. In fact, the swipe of the sharpie looked less accidental and little more deliberate if she didn't know any better. Hazel, however, was feeling a bit generous this evening and kept her mouth shut for the time being. "Not that good... can also have room for improvement." She countered instead. Dramatics upon dramatics.
She wanted to say she only read at home. That in the small moments when she was out and about she didn't think about the written word. Books for when she needed mental escape, when she could physically do it, why would she need to read? Yet she was stopped from commenting on that, too, because the languid man with the dark scruff, dark hair, dark eyes that shifted between green and brown had said his name. Her mouth opened and then clicked shut. Atticus was an uncommon name to hear aloud and it was uncommon to see on forums, and so much so was the uncommonness she put together fairly quickly that this Atticus and that Atticus were one and the same.
She could mutter something smart about pillows and face sittings, but somehow, when a person was sitting in front of her--genuinely being somewhat decent as far as people went--she couldn't bring herself too. It felt embarrassingly juvenile in comparison to words on a screen that she could flick off and ignore. Maybe that's why she didn't want to meet Holly quite yet either. His words would have more impact if she actually heard them, and she couldn't afford that in her life right now.
"...Hazel." Was all she offered. She was going to take a drink. She was. When she noticed how much colder the air was right now. A shift that Atticus seemed to have brought with him. She wasn't oblivious, and Hazel was more versed in odd phenomenon than most young women her age-- the charge of energies was blatant, but the funny thing is it was just around them. With them? It was warm. Like a lamp, or a battery.
Suddenly she went still. Her hands halting. Out of the corner of her eye she finally saw it; A shade. One of many, apparently. Shadowy, unable to bring out any details like an out of focus lens. Her breath stilled in her chest and her blue-gray stare steeled itself on the counter top instead. Hazel wasn't unaccustomed to the strange and unusual, to quote one of her favorite movies she was strange and unusual. What threw her? Was how close in number these spirits were. How much they reminded her of who--no, what she was now, teetering between life and death forever. The shade nearest to her shifted, then groaned.