fkup (fkup) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-11-19 01:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | adam, adam and rusty, day eight, rusty |
are you high?
Characters: Adam and Rusty
Setting: early afternoon, library
Adam was supposed to be meeting with this new guy, according to the note, and since it was the easiest encounter he was bound to have today, what with Kyle being upset and Autumn suggesting he bring up everything that happened with Becka. So he messaged the guy, told him he’d meet him in the library, so there Adam was, looking through the stacks of books, wondering if there was something there he’d like better than the book about the whale he’d read and hated before. He should have asked Kyle for a suggestion.
Rusty headed into the library, thinking some of these rooms would be cooler if they didn't have to be so far away from his room. He actually wanted to spend time in some of them, but yeah. Talk about inconveniently located. Either way, however, he'd agreed to meet Adam there, and he glanced around for him. Adam seemed pretty easy to spot. "Um, hi?" he said, giving a short wave to the guy who looked, like, seventeen, tops. He'd expected someone much scarier.
Adam looked up from a book he was skimming the jacket of, something about, go figure, some guy getting arrested for something or another. Definitely not reading that, he’d lived it. Glancing up he made a face, not sure what he was seeing. “Hey,” he said, trying to cover that up. He was expecting one of the big guys, not this sort of frumpy normal looking dude. “Rusty?”
At the face Adam made, Rusty immediately slumped his shoulders, resisting the urge to look behind him, what with Jessy cracking up in his ear. Oh look! You manage to put off even the scrawny guy! Aren't you just pwecious? Way to go, numbnuts. That takes some talent. she said. "....yeah. I take it you're Adam." he said in return, eyes somewhere near the floor.
That was new. Normally Adam was the painfully awkward, staring at the floor one. “Yup, that’s me. Apparently we’re supposed to meet. You haven’t been here long have you?” he asked as he put the book back on the shelf.
"No." Rusty answered. Normally he was more chatty, and would have continued with a ramble, but in this case, he didn't. That face was enough to make him want to say 'okay so we met! bye!' and bug out. He busied his attention by looking at the nearest shelf of books, while he ignored Jessy still laughing at him.
Jesus this guy was worse than he was. Adam ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip, thinking before moving closer half a step even if there was still quite a bit of distance between them. “Yeah I’ve been here a while. Since the first day I guess.” He looked at the shelf Rusty was looking at. “Any suggestions? I was looking for something new, that was better than the book I read about the whale.”
"...I can't suggest anything new when I've got no frame of reference for anything you've read." Rusty told the guy, still thinking this meeting thing was a dumb idea, and maybe he should leave now. "What genre do you like, even?"
Adam faltered over the question not sure how to answer it. He looked around and shrugged. “Last book I read was the biggest one I could find, figuring it would take up the most time. Before that? There wasn’t much in the way of reading, not since school. Not a mystery. Lived one of those. Probably not the romance type either. Maybe an adventure. But no whales.”
Rusty felt like he still didn't have much of a frame of reference, and that it was a trick question. How the hell was he supposed to suggest a book? Adam didn't even say what the 'biggest book he could find' happened to be. He was probably overthinking things, having been put on an awkward footing the second this encounter started. "I don't know, man, pick something. If you're that vague on the details, then just...grab something off the shelf?" he suggested. "Close your eyes, flip a coin, throw something and read the book whatever you threw hits." He just wanted to be off the spot now.
Right well that wasn’t working either. “Alrighty then,” Adam said moving a little farther away. “Maybe I’ll go back to the letter K volume of the encyclopedia if Meg put it back.” Though he doubted she took it in the first place, but that had been the last thing he suggested.
This just kept getting weirder. "...okay dude, what's your deal?" Rusty asked, looking back at Adam. "I come in, you make a face like you just got a whiff of sour milk, then start asking me about book recommendations --but without whales--and now you're talking about reading a fucking encyclopedia?" he said. "Are you high?"
Adam had to swallow a laugh because he was fairly sure this guy would not take him laughing at the question well. “No. If I was high I’d have suggested Halo. Or snacks. Or be laying on the floor contemplating the meaning of the universe. Well...at least like pot high. Something else reactions varied. I did some weird stuff on X.” He smirked slightly and shook his head. “Not a whiff of something bad just...not what I expected. I was looking for one of the big guys with the tattoos and such and you kind of just look like the dude version of Mazie.”
"Well you sound like you're high." Rusty said. "And you might want to work on your poker face, because that wasn't awesome." he added. He dragged his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in odd places. "This is weird. Can I go now?"
“I know my poker face is awful. I can’t lie to save my life.” Except one lie, but he mostly avoided that one. Adam frowned a touch and shrugged. “Yeah I suppose. I don’t think there was a set time on how long we were supposed to talk. Sorry it..sucked I guess.” Because it felt like it sucked. Without thinking about it, Adam shoved his hands in his pockets, dropping his eyes from Rusty’s. He’d messed up even his forced friendship. Icing on the cake. It wasn’t until he realized he had Autumn’s note between his fingers did he stop the spiral from sinking too low.
"Okay, then maybe don't get mad when you look at people like they're bugs or freaks or something." Rusty told him, turning towards the door. "Good luck finding a book." he added, ducking out of the room and beating a very hasty retreat.
“You’re not a freak! Or a bug or whatever...” Adam called out as Rusty hightailed it out of there, frowning at himself. That could have gone better. Though the guy didn’t hit him so maybe it could have gone worse. Running his hands over his hair for a moment, Adam tried to focus on finding another book but wound up giving up on that and making the same exit Rusty did, headed for his room.