Re: Crowd Outskirts: Conner/Donna
Conner looked back at the swan--surreptitiously, of course, because he didn't want to gawk like a kid from Kansas, especially because he was a kid from Kansas. "It's pretty though," he said, blinking at its elegant glittering curves as the crowd edged them off to one side. Conner didn't have objections about what other people did with their money; he should have had some homegrown opinions, but his gray memories weren't that layered, and he lived very much in the present. In the present, Conner was more interested in impressing the girl on his arm than he was in anything else.
He very deliberately scanned the crowd rather than grinning foolishly down at her for too long. "I don't see him. You're probably right. That's really depressing, if you think about it." Conner frowned for a moment, imagining the shadow of the Wayne kid haunting this place, avoiding the twinkle lights and doing whatever rich kids did when nobody was watching. Buy cars online?
He pulled his mind back to the buffet. "You don't have to know what it is to eat it," he said, thoughtlessly, beginning to smile again. The crowd was massive, but Conner wasn't afraid of these people, not individually. He felt like he didn't belong here, that was all. It was an old, familiar feeling, and it didn't bother him. He started to move forward. Though young and unimpressive in his plaid, nobody managed to push him, even accidentally, from his chosen path. "Excuse me," he said, at random, propelling himself through the crush and dragging Donna along with him.