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Post by Simon Burkett on Nov 29, 2006 12:06:04 GMT -5
An hour after breakfast and the departure of the hornet gimp and Simon was pulling on one of his newly purchased shirts and examining himself experimentally in the bathroom mirror.
He still looked like a geek.
Indeed you are a geek.
Thanks for that, he told himself, doing nothing at all to bolster his confidence. He was still struggling with the idea that he had managed to ask Dani if she would like to walk with him in to town. How on earth he was going to ask her if she wanted to have lunch he had no idea.
You are the king of geeks.
Yes, I know.
You are the arch-geek.
Shut up.
You are the avatar of geekdom.
Enough already.
He stepped out of the bathroom feeling only marginally more presentable than usual and headed for the stairs. Perhaps he would find something interesting on the Caldecott job front today. Something he could do without looking like a fool. Something technical.
Something with minimal human interaction preferably.
Geek.
Shut up.
He started down the stairs.
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Post by danielle on Dec 1, 2006 8:14:30 GMT -5
As Simon stood examining himself in the bathroom, Dani looked at herself in the little mirror stuck inside the wardrobe and wondered whether she should have just gotten back into her shorts.
She'd put on a skirt.
Her excuse was that she had to look presentable when she was handing in her applications, which were sitting in a folder next to her handbag.
Dani didn't wear skirts very often. She tugged at the fabric, pale blue and cut in a nice simple a-line that fell to just below her knees, and decided that it would have to do. She couldn't very well wear tiny shorts when she was trying to convince people to employ her - even Dani knew that much.
And maybe she wanted to look nice with Simon. Even though she was pretty sure he liked her shorts. It was just nice sometimes to look nice.
Of course, the image was probably ruined by her shirt, which was white and fitted and had cartoon puctuation on it - well, she liked Penny Arcade, and anyone that didn't like that could just deal with it.
Finally satisfied, or at least not completely dissatisfied, Dani gave her skirt one last tug and picked up her things, her flip-flops making a slapping noise as she picked up speed to catch up with Simon on the stairs.
She couldn't very well wear combat boots with a skirt. She was reasonably sure that was what Cosmo had said.
This was why she always wore the same thing. Having to make things match according to rules that she didn't quite get was such a hassle.
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Post by Simon Burkett on Dec 5, 2006 15:25:31 GMT -5
Simon stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked around for Dani who was conspicuously not in the kitchen. Or the living room. Perhaps, he thought to himself, she had decided that she didn't want to walk into town with someone who was quite obviously a geek-lord.
That'd be about right.
He sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets and tried to decide whether or not he could be bothered to walk into town on his own. To have coffee on his own.
Alone.
Figures.
Loser.
Thanks, that helps.
Then he heard feet on the stairs behind him and turned to see who it was.
Later, he would think it was one of those moments during a movie where the unbelievably attractive girl descends the stairs toward a group of slack-jawed boys to the tune of True by Spandau Ballet.
The sunlight from the landing window framed her perfectly as she approached, her hair floating airily around her shoulders.
It's like watching an angel descend from heaven.
For a change he couldn't be bothered to reply to his inner-voice.
He WAS the slack-jawed boy.
After a moment he managed to master his awe, cleared his throat and gave her a shy smile.
"You look ... "
Like a piece of condensed awesome.
Like all sorts of gorgeous.
Like I could eat you with a spoon.
" ... great!"
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Post by danielle on Dec 7, 2006 6:49:16 GMT -5
"Thanks." She gave him a shy smile in return, looking down at unpainted toenails for a moment and then at the door.
Maybe she hadn't messed things up so badly after all. A small voice in the back of her mind added a nice helpful 'yet' to that, but she did her best to ignore it.
"So, um, shall we go?" Dani waved her little folder in the general direction of town, trying not to be nervous about any of it.
Of course, the minute she thought 'I mustn't be nervous,' she started thinking of the worst. What if she got laughed out of every store in town? What if they told her that she was clearly too inept at life and she had to leave Rogue's Place? What if Simon realised that she was clearly the most stupid person ever and decided that he didn't, in fact, want to walk with her?
Don't be stupid.
The mental scolding didn't do much to help.
"Did you have applications and things to hand in too?" Because she couldn't imagine that he'd simply want to walk into town with the most inept person in the house. Simon was smart, it just didn't make sense to Dani that he'd be even remotely interested in someone like her.
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Post by Simon Burkett on Dec 7, 2006 17:59:13 GMT -5
"Sure," he said, opening the door and holding it for her, "I uh ... I don't have any applications to hand in, I'm ... kinda hoping that I might see something ... interesting while we're out."
He had no idea where to look for possible employment. He didn't much fancy working in a store unless it was maintaining their till system. Perhaps, he pondered, the supermarket would need an IT guy to help with their network.
He could always hope.
Maybe they'd drop in on the way home or something.
"I never really had to think about work before ... college ended a bit unexpectedly and ... well ... " he trailed off, not really wanting to continue that train of thought.
"Still," he said brightly, "hope springs eternal."
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Post by danielle on Dec 9, 2006 6:43:28 GMT -5
Ah, so he was looking for work in town. That made sense. More sense, in Dani's mind, than simply wanting to go for a walk with her - she was pretty sure that Simon, being the smart guy he was, had already figured out how inept she was at life.
"I've been working since I got... Since I left my grandfather's. It's been nice, seeing the world outside the reservation a bit. But I never really managed to keep any of the jobs, they all figured out after a while..." Her cheeks went a little pink. She was rambling, trying to make conversation and instead reminding him of how painfully suckful she was.
"Well anyway, eventually the money runs out, doesn't it?" She kicked the ground in front of her with the front of her flip-flop, a small cloud of dust billowing up. Then she remembered that she was wearing light coloured clothes and trying to look presentable. She didn't kick the ground again.
"Should have asked Mickey for a lift - at least his Sven has air conditioning. It's so hot this far south." Dani looked down at her hands for a moment, remembering the last time they'd been in Mickey's car and she'd had to sit on Simon's lap. Not to mention how much of a tool she'd looked like hitting her head on the way out.
Really, there weren't many reasons for her to feel confident about herself around Simon. She'd gone from accidentally killing him to trying to kiss him in a rather quick span, not managing to actually come over as ... well, the kind of girl that a smart guy like Simon would want to kiss the whole way.
And cute. Her inner voice popped up. He's cute as well as smart. Probably had girls all over him at college.
It didn't help.
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