fandomhigh | Library, [01/30]

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Library, [01/30]

Once again, Jonothon was back in the library, doing something that resembled work in the wake of trauma. But, really, when wasn't he traumatized, at least a little bit? The work would do him some good, anyhow. It meant that he would have less time to sit around and mope all over himself, telling himself how much of an idiot he was.

Because that was completely productive behaviour.

No, no, today he was stalking about again, eyebrows furrowed, eyes slightly narrowed, with the occasional curl of smoke making its way up from his wrappings. He was without a jacket entirely, today, because one of his jackets was in a horrible state of affairs, and the other had been a gift from somebody that he wasn't quite ready to face, just yet.

He was distracting himself by looking through the aisles for inspiration on some kind of display to set up, today. Something that had nothing to do with the upcoming holiday.

Maybe music. You could never go wrong with music.

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She followed him--first with her gaze, then with her steps--back to the desk.

"You look like you're trying to stay busy."

//I'm at work,// he noted, quietly, as he started pulling the books from the pile, staring at them for a moment, and then putting them into a new pile.

He wasn't actually looking at them.

//That's generally th'point, innit?//

"That's a new tune for you," she mocked, but gently.

... As gently as Rosalind knew how. Shush.

//Not that new. I've known that song for a while, but I'm shite at singing, these days.//

It was an apt metaphor, really.

//How's yer day going, luv?//

"Well enough," she said, leaning against the desk. "Trained for a few hours," make that, like, six, "made a few phone calls, wrote a report."

Rosalind lifted her shoulders.

"Came to see you."

He was rather part of her schedule. She'd even marked it down in her day planner.

If Jono knew that much, he might even be flattered, really.

//You get a bit of spare time, and you come to marvel at what it looks like when I'm actually working,// he mused, a small hint of teasing in his voice somewhere. //It rather does belong in one of those 'Believe it or Not' museums, doesn't it?//

"The fact that such museums exist--" she shook her head, lips curving slightly. "I'm not sure what sort of display you'd be, in a museum."

//I can wager a few guesses,// Jono noted, //but you'd probably thump me upside th'head for listing them off.//

Boy Lives For Years Without Internal Organs!

Ripley's would love Jonothon.

//There's plenty to do here, generally. I have no complaints about that.//

"Do you have any complaints at all?" Rosalind murmured, with an arched eyebrow.

She wouldn't believe him if he said no.

//Wot, about yer bein' here, or about my bein' here?//

It was important to clarify, apparently. For all that it looked like he had a firm enough grasp on his current state of affairs, Jono was still just a touch outside of his own head, today.

Rosalind smiled, very faintly.

"Pick one."

Jono hesitated for a moment, and then he shrugged.

//I appreciate th'company,// he settled on. He didn't figure that he needed to clarify that he appreciated the company that understood where his line was drawn, right now. Rosalind pushed when Rosalind saw a need to push about things. Never hard enough to push him into a run in the opposite direction. //And... there are worse places to be. I don't really have complaints about either.//

He had plenty of complaints in general. But those two things? Not so bad, overall.

She nodded, thoughtfully, though she didn't bother to enlighten him about what she was thinking.

"The club has grown," Rosalind said, after a pause that was hopefully long enough to change the subject. "That amuses me."

Being the Apathy Club, after all, it would have been more logical for it to shrink.

//No idea how we managed that,// Jono noted, willing and able to step onto this new train of thought with barely a stumble. //Clearly, there are more people who are passionate about being apathetic than ever before.//

An entire club full of people who were doing it wrong.

"Can someone truly be passionate about apathy?"

Dubious. Duuubious.

//Not about their own,// Jono mused. //But I suppose if we were all showing up to observe how everybody else does it...//

That might count, right?

... Perhaps.

"Does that mean we should try and decide who might be studying who?" Rosalind crossed her arms over her chest, but still looked relaxed, as relaxed as she ever got.

//Good question. I think I might pass on that one, luv. I don't... take terribly well to being th'subject of anybody's study, really.//

He tended to get cranky. And defensive. And from defensive right on into hostile.

Rosalind considered her next words and his reaction to her previous words.

"I suppose not," she murmured.

Which gave away very little, really, except for the fact that she was thinking. Shades of a conversation with Jacob. Capture and study.

The phrase 'capture and study,' if he were to ever hear it spoken aloud, would probably do an excellent job of completely freaking Jono the hell out.

Too many horror stories about things like the Weapon X program back home. Too many people who had been captured and picked apart, in the so-called name of science, to hide the undertones of fear and bigotry that were the real root of it all.

//Tell me, how's yer weekend been treating you?//

Mm, another abrupt left-turn in the conversation.

Fear and bigotry weren't ShinRa's motivations... power was.

There were reasons that Rosalind had not bothered to tell anyone the full extent of her job description.

"It's been nothing out of the ordinary," she admitted. "No frustrations, but no great accomplishments either."

Jono nodded a little, drawing comfort out of the fact that not everybody was drowning in confusion and regret, at the moment. Rosalind's average weekend was now the official springboard for him to start pretending that everything was okay, again.

More or less.

//So, yer getting by.//

"I always do," she said, with a faint smile that said she knew exactly what he was doing. "I was thinking of going for a walk, later."

//Oh?// Actually, a walk didn't sound too terrible, either. Something well away from... more or less everything. Almost like hiding, at a glance, yes. But then, Jono hid like his life depended on it at the best of times.

He was just very good at hiding that fact, too.

//That sort of Sunday, is it?//

"It is," she said, with another faint smile.

Then--

"Did you want to come?"

Rosalind had no real inclinations to talk on the walk, but company would be nice enough.

Library, [01/30]

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