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 Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 8:48 pm
Lady didn't make the call because she didn't have to. Aleksy just kinda showed up one day with a schedule in one hand. "I've done this before," he said, before she even asked. At least that's the same, she thought, at least we still know. But the schedule involved traveling a lot. He got her a bike, too, had a quiet conversation with Eve and Leila about rent. There was no room for Lady in Aleksy's home, but that didn't mean that there was no room for her in his heart. She tried to forgive, even though she didn't think she could. Didn't dream she could. But she tried, and that had to count. Lady met her science tutor in a little gelato cafe that hadn't changed since at least 2001. She ordered, sat, waited, and when the man showed up she started with recognition. He'd danced with Thorne at the ball. Melany only hadn't ripped Thorne apart of the insult because duty came first. She struggled, for a moment, with her instinct to resent, but eventually she just kind of waved at him. "Hi," she said. Chris Watts, said her schedule. "I'm Lady." Tate was a doctor living in Moscow. Tate was dead now. "How're you?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:02 pm
While Chris wasn't necessarily teaching in the schools this fall, it didn't mean he wasn't teaching altogether. He was willing to be a tutor, since he still enjoyed his job after all, and it involved dealing with less people.
It was good. It was what he could handle. Poe didn't even mind, which was a plus really.
The little cafe was nice, an older place but nothing Chris could say he didn't like. It was easy enough to find who he was teaching too, since she seemed to find him easy enough. Vaguely, with surprise, he recognized her from the ball. The one Jer was talking with, who he had given a mask to. Who had been in the room when they decided.
"Pleasure to meet you Lady," He said, sitting down across from her. "I'm better," He said on reflex, then blinked and amended with, "Okay, I mean. I'm okay. How are you?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 8:24 pm
"It's short for Adelaide," she said, instinct warring with the way Aleksy had told her to act. She wasn't supposed to explain her nickname. It was just her nickname, right? She'd had it her whole life. It'd been funny when Lucas gave it to her, but now it chafed. And because he was candid with her, she was candid with him: "I wish I was dead." But, pleasantries aside, she said, "I only want to go back to school because my brother wants me to. I don't know what story he told you when he hired you, but I just need to get out of biology alive, okay?" She unearths a textbook from her bag. "But also maybe you could help me figure out what's going on with this whole culture thing, because I am way out of date."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:54 pm
"Oh, that's neat. Mine's just short for Christopher, kind of boring. Unless you count the nickname my sister made for me," He said, latching easily onto the strange line of conversation. He was used to it, between Thorne, Heddy, and well. Literally everything and everyone in his life. So it sort of prepared him for her next statement, which he took slightly blankly with a pause that was almost awkward. Almost. What he replied with was easily, "Well, I kind of do too. So I can see what you mean."
Chris just looked at the textbook, considering. "Well, that's probably the easiest part of this all. I mean, I majored in it, I teach.. taught, classes in it. You're going to be fine on that aspect, so long as you put in some work," He replied easily. "I can try, I mean what was the last thing you remembered? Things have been weird, to be honest. Pop culture is weird." He laughed at the word 'gun' as a punchline. How he was going to explain that, he didn't know.
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:40 pm
"I call my brother Lyoshka," Lady said, calming a bit at Chris's easy acceptance of her stated lack of ability to can even at the moment. "His name's Aleksy. So weird nicknames are just normal." She thought, I saw you at the ball. You saw me too. But she didn't say it. "I'm, uh. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she said, picking up her coffee when it was brought her way. "It wasn't released yet when I was... taken?" How much had Aleksy told this guy? Had he told him anything?
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 8:08 pm
"Oh, Aleksy," Chris said, wheels turning in his mind. "I've heard of him, but I don't think I've actually talked to him yet. Thorne talks about him sometimes, he seems nice from what I know." All he really knew was florist and that him and Thorne were close. He wasn't really jealous, just curious sometimes. "My sister calls me Hobi, from Hoseok. I get it."
Something in him wanted to comment at the ball, at his knowledge, but he wasn't teaching in school for a reason and so he let it die in his throat.
Chris blinked, mind quickly calculating the years between that and now. It was roughly nine and Chris could've screamed, if the challenge didn't seem a little exciting at least. "Okay, so I have two options," Chris said after a minute, fingers drumming on the table. "I can either make you a semi-detailed timeline, we can go through it and cross off stuff you know, and we can go from there. I'll explain everything best I can and it'll get more detailed the closer we get to this year, since I'll know it all. Or," He paused, took a breath. "You can just come to me with all your questions and I'll try to explain it all, because I don't doubt for a second you've stumbled upon a lot of it and have no idea what's going on. Some of the older stuff you probably don't need to know either, but it's up to you."
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 3:18 am
"My brother was singing that YMCA song to himself but the lyrics were different, like..." Lady scrunched up her face, becoming unwittingly adorable. The sharp angles of her face combined with the narrowness of her eyes as she thought made her look like some kind of escaped tree spirit. Then she shrugged and the resemblance disappeared. "Man... hand hook hand car gun? And then he laughed. For like. Five straight minutes. It was weird." She drank her coffee. "You don't wanna know why I don't know about this stuff?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 2:01 pm
Chris blinked, slightly startled, his mind thinking. Jesus, he had to explain gun. That was going to be a ride. "Okay, well, to start with YMCA is like it's own weird joke I guess? It's not really a meme or anything, just like a pop culture song." He drummed his fingers against his leg. "Man door hand hook car door is a meme from a really, really bad retelling of this 'spooky' story. Like, it's about how this couple, they broke down on a road, and there was a serial killer with a hook on his hand and the guy had to leave to get gas. And the girl describes to sleep while she waits for him and when she wakes up and gets out of the car, there's apparently this hook like hanging from the car door and it just ends with 'man door hand hook car door'. The punchline is that basically. And then gun is... gun is like. It's supposed to be a punchline to a joke where you don't expect it? Like man door hand hook car door, you expect the end to be door right? But instead, it's gun. That's what makes it funny, you don't expect gun."
He felt mildly like a lunatic explaining that. "I suggest you get a like, tumblr if you don't have one. It's weird but a lot of the pop culture stuff comes from there, it helps you get a grasp of it. Like, if you study a language, it's easier if you're in a country where it's spoken all the time than if you're elsewhere."
Chris took a breath, considered. But Lady had been frank with him and he wanted to be frank with her, so. "I do, actually. I am immensely curious on why you don't know pop culture for about nine years, why it suddenly ends at like 2007, why you haven't even been at the high school for god knows how long since I feel like I would recognize you even if you aren't in my classes. I am incredibly nosy and I want to know, but I am also figuring out it's probably involved in the bullshit that is Other Ashdown and I am starting to learn that I really shouldn't ask about anything there unless it's my business. You're free to offer and I would love to know, but I'm not going to ask and instead I'm going to mind my business for once and just teach pop culture without even asking."
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 2:46 am
"Oh, Lover's Lane," said Lady, nodding as if she understood. Which she did, because 2007 still had the internet and all the urban legend pasta sites. She'd stayed up on them for hours after she was supposed to be asleep. "Okay," she agreed. "I'll get a tumblr. Is that, like, homework?" But she didn't press that further. She nodded, and her fingers were tingly with the relief of Chris's honesty. So many people thought she needed to talk, they never thought to ask if she even wanted to. "Thanks," she said, and there was a tiny sincere smile in the corners of her eyes even if her mouth didn't move to reflect it. "You're a cool guy, Mr. Watts."
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