Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I'm nineteen," Noah protested, vaguely affronted, "I'd been accepted to college." He had the sneaking, embarrassing feeling that what he'd just said didn't actually contradict Felicia's surmise. He slouched down in the beanbag and tried not to pout or blush.

Noah definitely pouted at the not-quite-insult, but he smiled a little when she modified it. "Yeah, um, yes please, what kind," he asked.

He folded himself up in the beanbag, hands twisting together in unconscious anxiety. "I was gonna go for agricultural engineering," he told her, "I mean, it's like, that's really not something you can do without a degree, I was probably gonna be in school for years but then someone came and told me I could be like, a superhero," and he sounded both embarrassed and proud at once.

"Dr. Pepper's great," Noah said hastily. "Gatorade is okay for what it's for and all, but it's not soda. Whoa, this looks amazing." He accepted the plate, balanced it carefully on his lap, and bit into the sandwich, maneuvering expertly to catch escaping filling. "This is amazing," he mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate and cream and strawberry, and busily applied himself to giving the snack the attention and appreciation it deserved.

After the sugary sandwich had been devoured, he put in, "Well, more than plant doctor, like, it applies to all areas of farming, land use and preparation, efficiency, environmental concerns, analysis of conditions and quality, logistics and equipment and stuff, some people handle livestock stuff but I'm primarily interested in crops more, plants are more my thing than animals." He licked stray traces of chocolate and whipped cream off his fingers absently. "GMO's more gen-eng stuff, really cool but I'm not that smart."

He tucked a leg under himself and set the plate off to the side on the floor, getting comfortable. "Sufficiently advanced technology," he agreed, likewise sparkly-eyed about it.

It was a good thing he wasn't yet drinking anything, as her last comment might have made him choke on it. He did turn an interesting shade of red that suggested he'd noticed the phenomenon himself. "Well, if it's supposed to be genetic, maybe it comes with the pretty genes," he suggested after a moment.

Noah half-fumbled the catch, juggled the bottle, but got a firm grip after a few moments of shakiness. He squeezed it lightly, looked concerned about the amount of pressure being exerted from the inside, and leaned over to tap the base of the bottle firmly on the floor twice, then gave it another couple hard taps on the cap with his fingernail. He cracked it open carefully, not unscrewing the cap completely; it hissed ferociously and began to bubble up, and he hastily screwed the cap back down and waited for the foam to settle. The second time he unscrewed the cap, it hissed a little, but the bubbles only came partway up the neck of the bottle, and after a wary moment, he broke the cap the rest of the way loose, took a sip, and said happily, "Thanks."

"I bet there's been at least one person looking at how DNA interfaces with Fear," he mused, sounding far too interested in the concept. "If it's hereditary, you know, there's gotta have been some, some research, if not formal stuff then someone will have, have done it in their free time," and he seemed to take it for granted that free time also meant personal research projects rather than time away from work.

He eyed her thoughtfully. Then, "You've got a spreadsheet," he accused, sounding both certain and pleased.

"It totally does," Noah assured her earnestly. "I mean, you live with Dwight, you gotta know about like the betting pools and stuff, and which fridges you can leave your lunch in and not be an experiment." He gave her a bright, sweet smile. "Life division is awesome as long as you're, like, careful."

He took several large gulps of the soda, eyed her semi-comatose form, then patted his chest, made a thoughtful face, and produced an extended and startlingly loud belch. "I like maintaining data," he offered afterward. "If I don't do my own records someone else might get it wrong."

"I don't do the betting. Much." Noah rubbed his foot absently along the floor. "I don't have enough money to lose it. But I like watching the odds change whenever somebody hears something new."

He nodded emphatically. "My data is my data." He slouched down further into the beanbag, and was suddenly caught off guard by an enormous yawn, the lack of sleep catching up with him quite suddenly now that he had been fed and sat down somewhere comfortable. "Um. Scuse me."

"Yeah, I should probably," another yawn interrupted him, "go fall asleep in, in bed before I pass out in your beanbag, that's, that's a better idea." Noah regretfully started the process of escaping the chair's gravitational field. It took some time, but he eventually succeeded and scooped his backpack up from its landing spot. "Thanks for the sandwich. And, and the soda. And, um, the company too," he finished shyly.