InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "i have no idea what's going on"

ᴘᴀᴛʀɪᴄᴋ (patrickb) wrote in valarlogs,
@ 2015-10-26 19:49:00

Entry tags:

!complete, ezra fitz, ian malcolm

Who: Ian Malcolm & Ezra Fitz
What: Two professors being social
When: Toooday? Lunchtime!
Where: A cafe on the UCI campus
Rating/Warnings: Oh, it's safe for all ages
Status: Complete

Ezra spent most of his time on the UCI campus either in whatever classroom or lecture hall he was teaching in, at the numerous coffee shops and kiosks scatters about the campus, or in his office. He usually ate his meals in his office too. But the English Professor was trying to be more social. In his dreams the only person he really communicated with was his girlfriend and he didn’t want to turn into his dreamself. He was doing everything possible to keep that from happening. Including taking a break from writing. Now it was time to work on his social life. So eating lunch in his office was not an option today.

He purchased a chicken club wrap and a water (he’d get another coffee later). Surveying the cafe most of the tables seemed taken. Maybe he should go back to his office to eat. No.That was not the point of this little mission. Ezra approached what he assumed was another Professor (though it was no one he recognized from the English department) sitting at a table by himself. “This seat taken?” He asked hand on one of the empty chairs. It was a cliche opener but sometimes the cliches worked.

Ian was still considered ‘fresh meat’ at UCI, at least by his standards (this was his first semester), and so he was busy learning the ins and outs - of not only the campus map, but also in terms of his students and his fellow professors. He was charming, he liked to think, and so he rubbed elbows and made acquaintances relatively easily - and then sometimes, opportunity just kind of fell into your lap. Or appeared by your table, already breaking the ice. Convenient!

Rather than spout off anecdotes about how the seat was meant to be taken by the very person who inquired (or was it?), he just chuckled merrily, sliding his newspaper out of the way and folding it up. “No, no, go right ahead,” Malcolm insisted. For him it was turkey on rye, hold the mayo, with a side of slaw - and definitely the coffee, because he could consume it as a meal on its own. “Dr. Ian Malcolm, professor of Mathematics. Relatively new. What corner of academia do you hail from?”

Ezra was technically on his second year, third (fourth if you included the summer) semester at UCI. So fairly new but not quite as new as Ian. “Thanks,” Ezra replied with a small smile as he pulled out the seat he had been referring to so he could slide in.

“Ezra Fitz. Not a doctor. Just a regular professor. English is my area of expertise. As in literature. Not teaching the English language to foreign students.” That was mostly a joke. About as good as Ezra’s jokes got. “How new?” He asked as he removed his wrap from the plastic wrapping keeping it fresh. “I’ve been here a little over a year now.”

Ah, clever! Seemed Ian had discovered someone who told made snarky quips in a similar vein that was a quality he liked. “English Lit, of course,” he nodded, poking his fork into this cafe’s rendition of cole slaw to give it a test run. Seemed pretty decent, all things considered. “A very well-wounded subject. This is my first semester, actually. I just moved here from Texas - had a gig at the University there, in Austin, teaching mainly Chaos Theory. Here I’ve got some basic gen eds - you know, simply Probability and Statistics.”

The grin on his face was crooked, a wry smile. “Its been a...challenge, shall we say.” Mostly because he was used to teaching graduate-level courses. But it was good to expand his repertoire.

Ezra wished he could teach more graduate classes. Perhaps some day. But given the fact that this was not only his second year teaching at UCI but also his second year teaching on the college level as well he knew it would take awhile. It was only a few years ago that he was a college student himself. He was lucky to even be teaching college at all, it sure as hell substituting at high schools that was certain so he really couldn’t complain.

“Interesting choice,” Ezra commented. He never had much of a mathematical brain and thinking of al the chaos theory and all the different conditions hurt his brain. “What made you choose that?” He asked taking a bite of his wrap. “And why the move?” Austin to Orange County was quite the change. But then so was Pittsburgh to Orange County but he had left for college. It wasn’t as if he worked back in Pennsylvania. Once he graduated high school he wanted to get as far away from his mother as possible.

“What made you choose English Literature?” was Malcolm’s response. Mostly a rhetorical question, because those who were in this profession - teaching college, that is - had presumably already figured out that the subject was meant for them, or else why go through all that schooling and dealing with the other less than satisfying aspects. Though granted, he enjoyed writing as well so journal articles and book chapters were really no big deal. ‘It’s a calling you have. A connection to the discipline. And when you reach someone, even better.”

Funnily enough, he’d also felt kind of a calling to move to Orange County. And it was no coincidence, it wasn’t random - he believed something bigger was at play here. “I applied for the teaching position, interviewed, and it just so happened that my daughter is at a point in her life where she’d benefit from less traveling, more stability, so she moved with me and I moved here. Though from what I gather, this area is like flypaper for all sorts of interesting souls, isn’t it?” he mused.

Touché. Chaos theory just seemed to random to Ezra which he supposed was the point. But then his chosen passion probably seemed random to most as well. “I do enjoy that feeling,” Ezra agreed although he had sort of fallen into teaching as a day job to pay the bills until he made it as a writer. That had all changed now thanks to the dreams but he wasn’t about to go there. And even if he had fallen into teaching he tended to go above and beyond for his students, genuinely caring and being concerned about how they did in his class. Doing what he could to help, at least with the ones who wanted it.

“How old is your daughter?” he found himself a tad envious. He only had the one experience with a child but that again was all from the dreams. And it had turned out Malcolm wasn’t even his. It was not something he ever wanted to relive.

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” Ezra agreed with a smirk taking another bite of his food. “I take it you’ve been on valarnet?” he asked after chewing and swallowing. It was impolite to speak with food in your mouth. But yes valarnet was the place where he learned about all of the interesting souls.

“She’s twelve,” Ian responded with a huff of a laugh, a swipe of his index finger over his eyebrow as if brushing away a headache. “Twelve going on thirty, I should say. But she’s been making friends at school and just started gymnastics lessons - that was one of her prerequisites for moving here - so she’s settling in. Kids. They’re great, aren’t they?”

Another rhetorical question, as he sipped his coffee. Hm, the cole slaw actually wasn’t bad. Neither was the turkey - he’d have to remember to come here more often. “I’ve been keeping her away from that network you’ve mentioned though. Voices carry, word travels - I heard about it on campus here and I felt the need to sign up, so I’ve been on there. Dinosaurs,” he added, contemplatively, sort of a switch in gears, but distantly related. “This could go either way. I’m intrigued to find out which.”

Keeping his daughter away from the network was probably for the best. It tended to lead to not the best things. At first Ezra had thought his dreams were boring in comparison but the past few months had led him to believe otherwise. “I heard about it on campus as well. It sounded like a good place for some inspiration,” he took a sip from his water bottle. “I write as well,” he added. He could have said it in past tense but he didn’t feel like getting into that story at the moment. And it was technically just a break until he found his inspiration or could write without feeling guilty again.

“Dinosaurs?” he raised a brow with another bite of food. That certainly wasn’t something you heard every day. But then with Orange County you never knew.

“I had a dream about going to an island where there’s a, shall we say, disaster waiting to happen?” Ian smiled ruefully. “I’ve been called in to provide consultation about the shortcomings - of which I’m certain there are many because we’re dealing with something dangerous here. There.” Definitely there - wasn’t any way it could cross over, could it? There wasn’t some billionaire with too much time on his hands and the want to play God here in the OC, that he knew of.

But anyway. “You write?” he asked Ezra. “My very best to you, then. You’re likely overstimulated here with all the inspiration. At least no work of fiction will ever be boring.” Of course, it’d be non-fiction for them. But that was the inside joke of it all.

Well that sounded oddly familiar but Ezra decided to keep his mouth shut. “Dealing with dinosaurs sounds like a disaster in the making,” Ezra agreed. He knew as well as anyone else that dreamt that things could certainly carry over. And after his gunshot wound he knew it better had some real first had experience with it. Sure he had received items before like the book on Alison, but being shot was a whole other story. He also knew sometimes other’s dreams affected all of the county. He certainly hoped dinosaurs weren’t about to start popping up.

“Sometimes. Not as much lately. My own dreams have put a bit of a damper on that.” Okay so maybe he was going into the story a bit. It was easier considering Ian seemed to know about the dreams and have them as well. “The network is full of inspiration.”

Malcolm hadn’t actually seen any dinosaurs, not yet, not in his dreams - but in the helicopter on the way to the island he couldn’t help but sense the barest bit of foreboding stirring in his gut. And he already knew what a bad idea it was, to ‘bring back’ a species that already had its shot at life but was naturally selected for extinction - so he’d see what happened, how it played out.

Not well, probably. Did it ever.

“What is it that you dream about?” he inquired, lifting an eyebrow. “Something dark, dark enough to kill inspiration?”

“Not dinosaurs,” Ezra joked with another bite of food. “Mine are mostly about a group of teenage girls being tormented and stalked.” He decided to leave it at that. Sometimes you just couldn’t avoid dream talk upon first meeting from the network. That seemed have become the norm. However he didn’t want to get into too much detail upon first meeting the guy.

“Makes you glad you live in this world, doesn’t it?” at least it did for him. In a way it gave him a chance to make different choices, make sure he did things differently in his real life.

Teenage girls being tormented and stalked? Admittedly, that wasn’t quite what Malcolm expected, but he liked being taken off guard from time to time. “Sounds very noir,” he stated, and it did - reminded him of shadowy thrills and chills and films from the 40s and 50s. Although this was likely a modern re-telling.

“But yes, I suppose...being in this world, hm, that’s something to be grateful for,” he readily agreed. Lunch mostly finished, he’d just take the rest of the sandwich to go for a snack later and then get rid of the remnants of everything else, into the proper receptacle it would go. “There are always things to be grateful for, we just have to see them.” Some didn’t, no matter how hard they tried - and that was depressing.

Ezra had come to notice that there were some out there who just seemed to complain about there dreams. And while his weren’t the most pleasant, nor was he always pleased with his actions in them he wasn’t going to sit around complaining. That certainly wasn’t going to stop them. “All we can really do is live our own lives. Try not to dwell to much on what haunts our sleep.” Easier said than done considering he was always trying to make sure he wouldn’t turn out like Dream!Ezra. At least not when it came to some things.

Ezra had finished up half of his wrap. His office hours were coming up rewrapped the other half to have later. Time really did seem to go faster when he actually had someone to talk to. He would have to try to do this more often. “Well, I should probably get back to my office. Is it just me or do office hours always seem to get busier around midterms?” He stood up from the table grabbing his water and food. “Always a pleasure to meet a fellow dreamer and professor.”

“Wise words, indeed, fellow professor,” Malcolm tipped his invisible hat. Then he tucked his newspaper back into his bag, to be read another time. Lunch was about finished and he had to return to the Land of Mathematics, in the right building, to power through his afternoon courses - at least he had a Chaos and Dynamical Systems class, one of the more advanced ones, to look forward to. It was sure to be thrilling.

Messenger bag slung over his waist after he stood, he offered another crooked grin as a parting gesture. “Don’t be a stranger, Ezra.” He was all for establishing as many ties and connections as he could - not only as a learning experience, to hear more about others experiences with alternate universes, but because in some way being social was kind of pleasant too.