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 Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 5:33 pm
One of the things Paris hated about school -- aside from the uptight teachers with their boring lectures and his moronic classmates with their asinine concerns -- was the fact that he had to study. As nice as it would be to have it easy, Paris wasn’t one of those genius students who retained all their knowledge simply by paying attention -- of course, the fact that he rarely paid attention in the first place probably had something to do with his poor grades and lack of comprehension. He liked to think he was intelligent; he at least had enough common sense to get by on his own, but he wasn’t book smart, which seemed to be what he needed to get through all these years of schooling without being held back.
Normally he wouldn’t bother, but after being bitched at by his nagging math teacher and accused of not exerting enough effort after failing another test, Paris felt obliged to at least attempt his homework. It was proving much more difficult than he’d thought, and he muttered to himself as he erased another answer that didn’t seem right. Who needed math anyway? So long as he knew how to count money and tell time and know when he was getting ripped off, what did it really matter? He didn’t care about circles or straight lines or how long it would take two trains to crash into one another, and he definitely didn’t care to know how much money he’d have to spend on hardwood to re-floor a certain room. There were people out there who could calculate that for him. It’s what they were paid for.
He’d much rather be in his dorm-room -- or, even better, off of school grounds entirely -- but because he didn’t feel like being yelled at again and because his room was too distracting, Paris found himself sitting at a table in the library. It was mostly quiet but for some a*****e talking too loud on their cell phone behind a stack of books. Paris glared in that general direction before turning the volume up on his MP3 player. He only had one of the ear pieces in just in case someone felt like coming over to bother him. Any company would be preferable to this. He’d barely done half the problems he was supposed to do for the night, and already his brain was aching.
Sighing, Paris tapped his foot in time to the music filtering into his ear, singing along under his breath as he turned his head to listlessly look out a nearby window. It was already growing dark out. How long had he been here? Maybe he should leave… He’d already accomplished more than usual, though he doubted it would be enough to satisfy his teacher, and he knew if he left now he’d never get it finished, even if he told himself he would worry about it later. The minute he walked out the doors, all thought of school work would be the furthest thing from his mind.
Maybe if he wrote out all the work, he’d at least get credit for trying, even if he came up with completely bogus answers…
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 6:18 am
"Are we having fun yet?" Jaimie heaved an beleaguered sigh as he let a stack of books thump onto the table near the distracted Paris. Not that he blamed his fellow student, there were so many more interesting things to be doing than staring at tiny typeset until your eyes felt as though they were melting out of your head.
God knew he had far more interesting things he -could- be doing, but the way things stood, he needed to pull his grades up more, unless he decided to crawling back and apologize to his father, then stomach four years of training in Business Management.
The other boys riot of fluffy dandelion-like curls rang faint bells, like he should know the other boys reputation somehow, but he'd been so distracted with everything else lately he was half surprised he could remember what his teachers names were.
"Seriously, unless we become professional mathematicians... and frankly, who at this dump is going to do that... why the hell would we ever need to know how to solve for X...." He grumbled, referring to one of his own text books, when he noticed a matching one in the other boy's pile.
"Basic accounting would be more practical. And probably pay better."
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:53 am
Paris gave a start at the sound of another voice, tearing his eyes away from the window for a moment to casually glance at the other boy and the veritable mountain of books he brought with him. Feeling quite unimpressed with the entire dreadful situation he found himself in, Paris's expression was a bit more disinterested than it would have been if he were at a party or in the center of a crowded dance-floor.
"Basic accounting wouldn't be any more use to me than this is," he said, sounding quite annoyed. It wasn't his fault. Homework was quite possibly the worst way to spend his evening. "Why bother when I can pay an accountant to do the accounting for me?" he grumbled, looking back at his opened notebook and trying to regain his focus. "Of course, that would require being able to afford an accountant, and seeing as I'll probably never make it out of here..."
There was no point continuing. Instead, Paris set his eyes on the next problem, but when it made even less sense to his tired brain than the previous one, he decided he'd wasted enough effort. "You know what...? I've been here for two hours now. I'm done with this crap," he said, and flipped to the back of the book where the answers for the even numbered problems were. He didn't know why he hadn't done this before, and could only blame that fact that doing his homework was quite a new thing for him, so he hadn't thought of it until a moment of such high distress. "I'll just make stuff up for the rest of them, and if Mr. What's-His-Face has a problem with that, he can kiss my a**."
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:57 am
"I think you need to replace the double 's' with a 'ck', because that's what's more likely to happen." Jaimie sat down, grabbed a book and leaned back, flipping it open with a sigh and paging for the area he needed to study.
The little nagging bell about the irritable, curly ball of innocuous fluff was becoming more clear. Probably one of the only guys who had worse study habits than he did.
"I dunno. I wouldn't mind taking it someday. Even if I paid someone else to do my taxes I'd like to know if If someone's trying to pull a fast one on me."
He kind of figured that would happen at least once. With a last name like Leontyne, at least one person would probably assume that he was too arrogant to check.
"I mean at least that would be a semi practical waste of my time. Unlike dissecting the poems of Emily Dickenson. I can sum most of them up in one word. That word is 'Emo'."
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:08 pm
Scribbling furiously in his notebook, Paris attempted to complete the required problems as soon as possible, occasionally flicking glances over at the other boy when he spoke. If Paris hadn't been in such a bad mood, he'd have been more welcoming. It wasn't like the guy was bad looking. In fact, compared to some of the people currently burying their noses into books or perusing the selections on the shelves, this guy was actually sort of hot -- something nice to look at, at the very least.
"Emily Dickenson isn't going to get anyone anywhere in life," Paris agreed. "For a famous poet, she didn't really get anywhere in hers. Wasn't she a recluse? Talk about creepy." People shutting themselves away from the world was just weird in Paris's opinion. He couldn't understand anyone's desire to be alone, considering how avidly he attempted to avoid the circumstance himself.
"I don't know why I keep coming back here," he admitted after heaving a heavy sigh. "Math and poetry aren't enough to prepare people for real life. Of course, I've probably done plenty more in my life already than half of our teachers will ever do in theirs, but I actually like to live, not shut myself away with a stack of books," he said, motioning to all the work scattered about between them.
"I say 'screw it all,'" he finished, and finally decided to give up entirely, tossing his pencil aside and shutting both his notebook and math textbook. "I spend hours of my time here, the least they can do is teach me something interesting or useful to my situation."
How to Pick up Guys -- now that sounded like a class for him. Of course, he could probably teach it at this point.
Paris crossed his arms over the top of the table he was sitting at and leaned against it, watching the other boy with a developing interest. He studied him carefully -- his hair, his face, his body -- and came to the conclusion that, at least as far as appearances were concerned, he was a worthy distraction. "So," he began as his mouth formed a tiny smile, "your name is...?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:29 am
Jaimie grimaced slightly as the pencil bounced across the table, though it missed him rather neatly, without the need for any matrix like dodges.
He was getting too damn twitchy with all his... extracurricular activities. And he was certainly never going to be able to look at snow the same way again. Not after her.
"This is where I point out with a touch of sarcasm that it's the fact that most of us have a taste for 'living' that got us in here to begin with." Jaimie joked, with an slightly bitter smile. "Could be worse though, I guess. Being intermittently attacked in the hallway by an discouraged thug or two is probably great preparation for anyone living in Destiny these days."
He filled in a few lines in his notebook as he talked, though he had to skirt around a couple extremely abstract scribbles, testament to boredom, although part of it seemed to be a little stick figure battle. His drawing skills however were so abysmal it was impossible to tell more than that, and if Jaimie hadn't drawn it, he wouldn't have been able to reveal more either.
"Oh, sorry." It had actually slipped his mind that he might be as unrecognizable to the other boy as vice versa. "Jaimie Leontyne."
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Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:49 am
It wasn't uncommon at all for Paris not to recognize people. He either had a horrible memory for putting names to faces, or he met and hung around so many different people that they all ended up blending together. He'd never fully decided which was the more likely circumstance, but he would feel confident in placing a bet on the latter.
"Jaimie," he recited the other boy's name, as if doing so would help him jog any memories he should have had of such a person, but nothing came to him. "Paris," he added after a moment or two, pausing before he realized a surname would probably be helpful as well, "LeFay. You might have heard of me. The name gets around about as much as I do."
He felt no shame in admitting it. In fact, there might even have been a hint of pride in his voice. Paris would have grinned if he weren't distracted by watching Jaimie scribble in his notebook, giving the little doodles a bit of a strange stare and contemplating the boy's comment about the city they inhabited.
"I'm not so sure a run-in with a thug is much in the way of preparation," he said, using his elbows to push himself away from the table and leaning back against his chair to raise his arms into a stretch. The single ear-phone he'd been using to listen to music with fell out at his movement, but he saw no need to replace it now. "A thug has, what? His fists? Maybe some brass knuckles if he's lucky. All the others running around this town and ruining everyone's lives have more dangerous things than that, don't they?" he wondered. He hadn't even seen what half of the stuff flying around on Christmas Eve was, but he was smart enough to know it wasn't something for normal people to mess with.
He frowned as he thought about it, wishing he hadn't, because the terrifying memories weren't something he liked to dwell on. He sat forward again, propping an elbow on the table and cradling with side of his face with his hand, going back to staring at the stick-figures in Jaimie's notebook, grumbling something under his breath that sounded something like 'crazy girl with peppers.'
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Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:03 pm
"Peppers?" Jaimie's mouth twitched with the smile he was trying to fight, and failing. Oh boy. He was pretty sure he had an idea who that was, he just couldn't admit it. "I head about this crazy pasta dish once, it's made with these peppers that are used to stop freaking -elephants-. Poblero or something. I have no idea." He chuckled, then on a more serious note.
"I ran into one of those crazy types last year, got the tar beaten out of me. You coulda tossed me on the grill and passed me off as Cannibal version Kobe beef I was so tenderized. But I dunno. I guess it depends which ones you run into. I know some of them are supposed to be able to throw ice or what not, but I manage to keep missing it. Tallulah and I managed to film a little bit once though. One of them threw little fire things and the other one just kinda..." He waved his hand in a vague gesture. "Threw stuff around. They were fighting this girl with a giant freaking hammer. That didn't last long."
He leaned back in his chair and let the smile loose in full, clearly amused, and raising an eyebrow as he finally put the name in place. "Oh THAT Paris. The face that launched a thousand... messy breakups."
He almost said 's**t-fits', since Paris was certainly capable of leaving a trail of hurt feelings and broken hearts, but 'messy breakups' sounded a bit more tactful.
"So are we talking Pepper Spray or....?" He asked, feigning innocence as much as possible, stretching in a languid fashion that would have made cats proud.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:21 am
Paris smiled, pleased that while he may not be recognized by sight, he was at least recognized by name. He liked being remembered, talked and gossiped about, even if what people had to say about him wasn't all that charming. In general, school was a waste of his time, but if he could make it so people were still talking about him when he left, then he would feel as if he'd accomplished something. It was minor fame, but it was something.
"The one and only," he replied, his lips sliding into an easy grin.
Paris would have continued on that vein for some time longer, perhaps recounting a few delightful tales for Jaimie's amusement, but the topic of the terrorists soon came back into the discussion, and he found himself frowning once again.
"Pepper Spray?" he wondered. "No, nothing so harmless. Apparently there's a girl running around the city throwing magical peppers around. As if that's really going to do anything to 'fight the bad guys' or whatever she thinks she doing." Paris rolled his eyes, trying to make light of the whole thing, but it wasn't so easy to do. Christmas Eve was still too fresh.
"Suffice it to say, whoever any of these people are, none of them seem to care all that much about involving civilians," he said, growing a bit testy. "Did I ask to be there that night? No, I didn't. Did I ask to have to deal with these people and their ridiculous magic and their anger issues? No. But then I suppose terrorists don't care about those sorts of things, do they? They'll involve whoever they need to to get what they want."
Now he sounded angry and bitter. On one level, it felt good to talk about it, even if he wasn't providing many details. He hadn't really had an opportunity to talk about it before, partly because he hadn't wanted to and partly because there weren't many people around who wanted to listen. At the same time, discussing and remembering made him all the angrier and maybe, on another level, a little afraid -- but he wasn't going to admit to something like that.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 2:39 pm
Jaimie rankled at the idea of involving civilians, and scowled a bit, hoping that the brief flash of displeasure would be put off as directed at 'terrorists' in general. Worse he'd been there, though in the chaos he hadn't actually spotted Paris.
"And you couldn't cut and run? What were you doing out in that big snow storm anyway?" he asked. "That was pretty nasty weather, without finding out that the fountain turned into the OK Coral on Steroids."
He paused, then shrugged trying to make light of it. "Hey at least she didn't hit you with a magical pepper, that's something right? And you still seem to have all your fingers and toes. I heard it got pretty freaking cold. Uch. I don't get the appeal of the whole White Christmas thing sometimes."
Especially lately, he kept wishing he could go someplace nice and hot and just relax in the sun for a while.
...He wasn't exactly getting any studying done right this second either, but it was interesting (even if not very flattering) to hear about things from a civilian perspective, though he was itching to give the senshi version of events.
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Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:26 pm
Paris simply thought Jaimie's brief scowl meant he shared similar thoughts about the 'terrorists,' that they were all horrible people doing horrible things and involving people they should leave well enough alone. It was nice thinking someone agreed with him, though he didn't see how anyone in their right mind would support whoever these people were, not when they were ruining the city.
"I didn't want to be there," Paris said, "but the voice said to go, so I went."
He paused, giving Jaimie a look, wondering if perhaps it wasn't the best idea to admit that he'd heard a strange voice. Paris knew he wasn't crazy, though he'd certainly felt that way at the time, not knowing what was going on or why it was so important for him to listen. That didn't mean other people wouldn't think he was, though, especially if they hadn't gone through the same experiences. Jaimie at least seemed to be aware of what happened, but he could have easily heard about it on the news, right?
"It's not like I didn't try to run," he eventually continued. "It was just kind of hard to do when there was snow and ice everywhere and I couldn't see, and I ran the risk of running into someone with sharp objects or creepy magic. The pepper girl could have been more helpful instead of just getting sassy. If she'd tried to use that crap on me, I would not have been held accountable for my actions against her."
Paris didn't care what their reasons or motives were. It wasn't any of his business, and he would do his very best to stay as far removed from it all as possible from now on.
"I'm just going to have to move somewhere else," he decided, leaning against the table with a pout, still cradling the side of his face in his hand. "Preferably somewhere without ice monsters. Unless they're everywhere. You don't think it's like this in other places, too, do you? I didn't really start paying attention to all this until I was right in the middle of it."
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Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:16 pm
"...From the snowglobes?" He offered. He remembered the voice, he'd just been slower to arrive, and then he'd ended up Henshined up. "...I got caught up in stuff on the way and never made it all the way to where it was trying to go." He lied, which was easier than he might have liked. He was even reasonably sure he'd done it with a convincing face.
"She got Sassy?" He added, with a slight snort. He'd have to pass that along. She should have been making sure civilians got out of the way, although he understood getting caught up in the heat of the moment. It had been pretty chaotic, and he supposed she might have felt that helping Paris get away would have opened them both to assault by Kaguya, or the opportunistic corrupted soldiers of the Negaverse. "...Ok maybe thats not too bizarre a stretch for someone who throws magical peppers. Maybe she's just got a 'spicy' personality." He joked, though it was a rather feeble one.
"My dad had me out of town for a little while, I don't remember there being anything too crazy going on outside of Destiny City, but then again, we weren't exactly smack dab in the middle of things. It was more of a family forced-bonding attempt or something. That's a scary thought though, I mean really what's stopping this whole thing from popping up somewhere else? I mean do you really just get two spontaneous armies of people in crazy uniforms out of the ether in the middle of a random city? What sets off this kind of thing?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:22 pm
"Oh, ha ha," Paris said in response to the 'spicy' bit. It was a little clever, but on this topic Paris wasn't in the mood to truly laugh. It wasn't a laughing matter, after all. He could have easily died -- and, really, who would have noticed? There'd been so much going on, he doubted anyone would have seen until things had settled down once it was all over, and by then it would have been much too late.
"That's what I want to know," he continued, glad for Jaimie's questions. It did seem strangely abnormal for two distinct groups of people with their own agenda to pop up in one city. Then again, if they were opposing groups, if made sense that they'd crop up together. Where one went, their enemy was sure to follow. It was just his luck that one or the other had chosen to make Destiny City their home.
"I don't see what makes this place so special," he observed. In his delight at being able to rant about these things to someone, Paris seemed to have forgotten that he had an attractive boy in front of him and he should be attempting to make the most of his good fortune. "What do they even want? I mean, they go around the city fighting each other and destroying things, but what for? And then they involve civilians and send out crazy snowglobes to everyone in order to lure them to some crazy ice monster. God, are the police even doing anything about it?"
He didn't like thinking of these sort of things occurring in the city and disrupting normal life. What if it got so dangerous he couldn't go out anymore? How boring would that be?
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Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:26 am
"I dunno. I'm pretty sure that the cops are trying, but then, it can't be easy to slap cuffs on some of these people, for the same reason no one seems to have been able to track them down yet. I mean they aren't exactly wearing masks..." He pointed out. "But have you recognized a single one of them? I mean sure it's a city but seeing someone in a costume like that... kind of memorable."
He kind of felt bad for the cops, much as he was trying to avoid them personally when henshined up. They came off looking pretty bad, not being able to land an arrest so far.
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Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 11:15 am
Paris considered Jaimie's comments for a few moments, though he couldn't feel much sympathy for the police, if only because he wanted someone to blame and it was easier to blame the city's law enforcement than it was to come up with answers to all the questions these terrorists inspired. Where did they come from? What did they want? And why here?
He sighed and frowned. As nice as it was to be able to rant, the topic was slowly growing tiring. Processing everything when he'd been able to ignore it before required too much thought and contemplation. If he could go back to blissful ignorance, he'd be quite satisfied. Unfortunately, that didn't seem possible anymore.
"Well, so long as I don't have to see any of them again, I'll be fine," he said and began to collect his school things, figuring there wasn't much of a point in leaving it all spread out anymore. He crammed his notebook and math book into his bag and reached across the table for the pencil he'd previously tossed aside.
Paris wondered whether it was worth attempting his usual play at seduction or if the effort would merely fall flat in his face. He hadn't been having very much luck in that area recently. "You interested in finding something better to do or are you pretty set on getting all that done?" he asked, motioning toward Jaimie's books.
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