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 Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:56 am
Peeking out through the cheap, heavy curtains, Morian could feel his throat tightening, and his heart rate picking up as his eyes traced over the drawing crowd. It wasn't what one would call large, by any stretch of the imagination, but for Morian, talking to more than two people at a time tops could get uncomfortable. To be standing in front of a small crowd of them made him feel almost faint.
It was a gathering of technological geeks galore; an inventors convention, where those who were either invited, or paid to do so could show off their work, and their attempts to create something above the cut. Technologically advanced enough to catch any techno geek's eye and make them salivate.
And the whole damn thing was something Morian would have been looking forward to, if not for his current position.
Fumbling to push his glasses up his nose, and turning with shaking hands to the robot he'd spent months working with two other scientists to build, and one other engineer, Morian couldn't help but feel there had to have been someone better suited to do this bloody job. ******** knew he didn't like to speak in public! Hell, he'd never bloody well agreed to this! Sure, he'd agreed to go to the convention, and stand and look good while someone ELSE explained how the damn thing worked...
He wasn't sure what exactly the excuse was for his 'partner' in today's demonstration was, but whatever it was... He hadn't shown up, and Morian's current boss, in blazing fury, had demanded that Morian stand up and do it... By himself.
By then Morian had been almost ready to walk off on his boss; screw getting credit for a project he'd spent hours, days, maybe weeks on- but... There had also been a little money involved as well. So he here was, strongly regretting to agreeing, and about to embarrass himself terribly.
Moving to the center of the small makeshift stage, and doing one last systems check of the little three foot robot at his side, Morian swallowed, pushing his glasses up one last time, checking the small microphone attached to his shirt, and trying to will himself not to sweat quite so visibly in his powder blue shirt. But it seemed on this front, he was... well. Doomed.
The curtain came up, and a few of the people mulling around raised their eyebrows. He could see a few pursed lips as well. Fumbling with the cue cards that his boss had thrust him, Morian swallowed, and squinted, trying to read the hap hazardous chicken scratch.
"G-Good afternoon, everyone," he began, his voice hardly more than a mumble, even with the microphone pinned to his shirt, "And- thank you all for coming.." he mumbled something else after this, incomprehensible, and pushed his glasses back up his nose nervously, glancing up from the cue cards, his shoulders tense, his back straight, but his knees proverbially knocking.
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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:15 pm
Of course, Patrick was there. Patrick HAD to be there: h was a dork of fantastic proportions and he took that to several aspects of life - machinery, biology, physics, anything that had to do with nerdology. Star Trek and Star Wars (and every argument in between) counted. A few of his coworkers had mentioned an expo of sorts and that there would be a rather nifty robot debuting by some up and coming engineer. So, of course, he had to go.
There had been some pretty trippy things, he had to admit. One guy had created a robot that ran entirely on vegetable oil, another person had done this weird grocery list thing that automatically wrote what you needed, all of it. He was half-expecting someone to come up with some weird s**t to make sex better but, surprisingly, in a convention hall full of men who had probably never gotten close to a naked tit, no one did. Trippy.
He was there with one of the coworkers, the tall and rather muscular Cully. The man was as manly as Patrick wasn't and looked just as out of place at the convention as the small, pierced man. A shock of curling brown hair and freckles decorated his face, a smirk was twisted at his lips. Cully worked in a separate part of the office but, ********, Patrick thought he was a trip. Worst to worst, he was a pretty hardcore body guard.
"Hey," He said, jammed an elbow just slightly into the curvature of Patricks ribs, "Check it. Some guy is all cold-cocked in room A5." Cullys head jerked towards the room in question. Patricks eyes soon followed his lead. The room was crowded but, then again, it wasn't a huge room. Either way, they were both not the nicest of men and shoved their way in.
A few people may have protested, the words a slight hiss across the tongue or a sharp glare, but most of them were con-goers and thus had no real moral upset at the thought of someone trying to get a closer look of something of Awesome Dork Magnitude. Especially if it was an unprepared dork making an a** of himself. Schaudenfruede, after all.
"- Well, ******** words left Patrick easily, two short gusts of breath from a rather shocked slack-jaw. Cully glanced over, his eyebrows arched up high on his forehead, and pursed his lips in amusement.
"What? You feel bad for the guy? Not like you, Patty. You have a heart?" Patrick ignored him and continued to elbow his way through the crowd, closer then he should have tried. People were starting to grumble. "Pat-"
"Hey, Morian!" Patrick erupted from the masses of the crowd, landing himself in the very front of them all, just a few feet in front of the stage itself. "What's up, man? Fancy seeing you here!"
He grinned and hopped closer, his shoes tapping against the ground quietly. Today, there was no mesh and his piercings had been toned down, just a bit. His jeans were fitted and black and he was wearing black cow-boy boots almost up to his knees. Patricks shirt was almost modest. If it wasn't for the fact that the back had 'RIDE ME' written in neon orange scrawl, the three-quarter sleeved black t-shirt would have been nearly appropriate. He wasn't paying mind to how he was dressed and simply swung himself on stage.
"So! What's going on here?" The notecards were plucked rudely from Morians hands; Patrick shot him a slow curling smile. "What's this thing do?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:59 pm
Morian was still stumbling awkwardly through the chicken scratch introduction when Patrick entered the room, but Morian didn't notice the other. He was a little too preoccupied with not throwing up, and, pushing his glasses back up his nose ever six seconds. It was almost like clockwork.
He'd been about to start actually saying SOMETHING about the little robot standing next to him, when Patrick's familiar voice broke out, and Morian found himself suddenly grinding to a halt. Lifting his head from the little cue cards to stare blankly in Patrick's direction, Morian couldn't help that things had just gotten that much worse.
He stammered- something incoherent, but sounding somewhat like Patrick's name, and a demand to know what he thought he was doing- but then Patrick was plucking the small cue cards he'd had right out of his hands, and Morian could only find himself staring at the other again. He glanced back, offstage towards where his boss was supposed to be sitting- but apparently had vacated.
That was probably for the best- but still! What the hell was he supposed to do now?
"Patrick- I don't- it..."
What the hell was the other thinking?
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Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:02 pm
Poor Morian. Patrick felt rather bad for him, even though HE was the one swinging himself up on that stage. Either way, he looked down at the cue cards, and flipped through them. Dark nails flashed, as did his smile. The fact that the boss was gone only served to urge him forward. With the cue cards in one hand, the other lashed out to wrap his fingers around one of Morians. His eyes caught his friends - dates? - and Patrick just grinned.
"Rian." He said. His voice was quiet, and rather serious, despite the expression on his face. "Seriously. Trust me, okay? I'm gonna read off these cards, be a charismatic little b*****d, and you're going to demonstrate. If I ******** up, tell me. Just. Pretend no one's here, man. Keep your eyes on me - or the bot, if you need to. Alright?"
Patrick squeezed his wrist again, briefly, and then dropped it.
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:00 pm
As the other shuffled through the cue cards, Morian could do little more than blink. He opened his mouth once- twice- and then decided that gasping like a fish was really accomplishing nothing, so settled into staring at the other, looking as though he'd just been hit with a hammer and he was trying to fling the little pieces of his brain back into place.
The other spoke, and Morian nodded his head slowly, before jerking his hand back, fumbling awkwardly with the little microphone pinned to his shirt. He offered it to the other wordlessly- but there was gratitude written all over poor Morian's face. The guy was just not made to be a public speaker!
He vaguely wondered if he'd get fired for this; for letting Patrick take over from out of the blue- but ********. Had he done this on his own, he only would've embarrassed the company he was representing.
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:28 pm
Rian received a cocky wink in return for his fish-mouth, and from then on, Patrick was all business. Sure, he looked the part of a psycho raver instead of the scientific genius that he really was, but he was talking like he knew what he was doing. Honestly? He was winging it. Sure, he followed the cue-cards, but he had nothing practiced.
Thank god there were cue cards.
"-And that's all folks! Please applaud for the lovely Mr. Morian," Patrick gestured to the man in question, and swung around to face Morian at that, although he was still speaking to the crowd. "And have a nice afternoon! C'mon, Rian. Y'look like you're going to ********' puke, man."
He hopped closer with that s**t-eating grin smeared on his face, and offered out his hand idly for a shake. "You doin' okay? Shy guys shouldn't give speeches."
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:24 pm
Rian continued to remain on the stage- but he didn't really look up towards the crowd, and mostly focused on making sure the little robot they were featuring was doing what it was supposed to. Every once in awhile he subtly tweaked a dial, or knob on the control panel he had in his hands- or showed the manual override capabilities- but other than that- well, he was dead silent. He doubted he could've made it through the presentation without Patrick's sudden appearance, and interference. Not without blowing chunks or screwing up so horrifically that he was either laughed of the stage or fired- or both.
When it all came to an end, Morian gave a stiff little bow- and then, was all too happy to make his way promptly off the stage, with or without Patrick's coaching to do so. Morian's boss by this time, had returned, and glared daggers at Morian and Patrick as he collected the robot the two of them had been presenting. Morian didn't care though; ignoring it he just wanted to sit the ******** down!
He almost completely missed Patrick's extended hand gesture, and stared blankly for a minute, before shaking his head and smiling weakly. He didn't know what to say- and probably couldn't have managed to stammer something coherent out even if he tried. Nope, the poor b*****d was not made for standing on stage in front of a bunch of people. He did take the other's hand though, and pulled him gently to behind the stage set up, where he released the other's hand and dropped down onto his a**. After a moment, he finally spoke up.
"Thanks," he murmured, shoving his glasses up his nose, before sliding them off his face and rubbing the lenses with his shirt- only to push them back up his nose once more.
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Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:23 pm
"It's not a problem, man. I'm an extrovert. Dig the whole attention thing." He grinned again, eyes on Rian, and leaned in a little to shove at the other mans shoulder gently. Patrick could be caring! While he wasn't gushing and all up in arms and worried about Morian, he at least wanted the little b*****d was alright. "Besides, I was just here with my buddy. He - ahaha, oh ********, that dumb b*****d probably has no idea why I jumped the ********'... Ahaha. Poor guy. Anyway, he pointed you out and," Patrick shrugged, and cut himself off.
"Yeah. I should probably go tell him that I'm kidnapping your happy a**, mister. You owe me lunch or something for bustin' in on your s**t. Yeah? C'mon. I'll introduce you to him before you drag me away. Alright? He's big and kinda dumb, but he's a teddy bear. Likes kids'n's**t."
Patrick crouched down, arms draped over his knees, and he smirked at the Rian. "It'll help you calm down."
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:51 pm
Morian very much, did not dig the extrovert thing. He'd kept himself out of the spotlight all his life, and thus, being thrust forcibly into it made the anti-social semi-hermit incredibly uncomfortable. Still, with a little (or a lot) of coaxing and coaching, it was something he could probably get over. Maybe.
Meeting new people would help Morian calm down? Really? Morian was a little skeptical of this when the other suggested it, and the frowning half-pout half-grimace displayed this pretty well- but none the less, he sighed, shaking his head a little, and pushing his glasses back up his nose. For, what was probably the eightieth time in the past... Hour? If that? Morian had kind of lost track of time, focusing on the knobs and dials and making the stupid little robot run instead of worrying about how many sets of eyes were on him, and how much he'd flubbed the introduction... Ugh.
He stood up, brushing off his knees and releasing an incredibly heavy sigh, before looking at Patrick with a frown once more.
"Thanks... I, I mean that," he fell silent once more, and stuffed his hands into his pockets (but not until after shoving his glasses up his nose one last time) and preparing to follow the other, wherever he headed.
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