BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge [Saturday morning]

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

It had been with several bone-crushing hugs, a lucky rabbit's foot, two trashy books and an iPod that Olive had boarded the plane. If she had to guess, geographically, she had started to really miss her parents and brothers somewhere over Texas. (Texas was huge. She was probably right.) She'd pushed that away and shoved in her earbuds in an attempt to sleep, to no avail.

And...now she was supposed to meet new classmates. Okay. She found the designated loungey area thing -- and holy crap, that glittery sign was like something Marianne would make (so...not a great omen) -- and took a seat. Tempted as she was to retreat into her book and iPod again, she instead only fiddled idly with her phone, looking up every couple minutes to see if anyone relatively her age had come over. She hated being the first one anywhere. Now there was like, this onus on her.

She had maybe just won her Words With Friends game with her mom, as soon as the plane had landed, with "onus." She was pretty proud of that.

Comments

[pursuedthestars]

"Yup."

Jim glanced down at his jellybeans and then back up at the girl who'd made that very astute observation.

"I'm not above sharing, though." They were jellybeans and all. A dime a dozen or whatever the heck kind of currency might be used around this place.

He tilted the bag her way and smiled. "Help yourself. Gotta start building up the karma early, right?"

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"I prefer to think of it as forming alliances," Olive replied, raising an eyebrow as she selected a couple jellybeans. "This is high school, after all. And thanks."

[pursuedthestars]

"Alliances?" Jim questioned, reaching in for another handful of jellybeans before popping them into his mouth. "Didn't know anyone really needed that kind of strategy for school."

Of course, he'd just never cared that much and breezed through classes and tutors back home. Most of the time, he'd just been bored.

"Expecting a fire fight or something?"

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

Olive raised an eyebrow. "Homeschooled?" she guessed. "Because otherwise you've obviously been to a school of much nicer kids than mine."

[pursuedthestars]

"Little of this, little of that," Jim answered, shrugging. He wasn't going to give too much of himself away immediately. Had to have some secrets and all.

"What was so wrong with the kids at your old school?" he asked, tilting his head. "No wait, let me guess..."

He paused and put a finger to his temple, mimicking deep thought. "Ugly? Smelled bad? Oh, oh, bladder issues!"

Obviously, he was kidding because, wow, he hoped the last one wasn't the truth.

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"That's it," Olive said, pointing at him. "Nail on the head, right there. I went to a school of incontinent teenagers. You're very perceptive."

Hopefully perceptive enough to recognize sarcasm when it was paraded before him.

[pursuedthestars]

"Must've been one big stinky mess," Jim replied, adding a side of sarcasm onto her entree of it.

See, he was smart!

"I'd suggest you offer an olive branch and buy them diapers but, well..." He trailed off and shrugged. "Anyway, aren't all teenagers capable of extraordinary levels of being jerks? Thought that was practically in our DNA."

Hey, he knew what that was too. See? Smart.

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"The pituitary gland rolls all that out at the same time we start growing hair in funny places," Olive said with a solemn nod. "I learned about it from one of those books about our changing bodies."

[pursuedthestars]

"Really?" Jim asked, looking appropriately wide eyed and fascinated with this totally brand new information. "Tell me more. I'm still in the dark about my ever changing body. This?"

He gestured to his torso with a hand.

"All a mystery to me."

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"Showering must be a really confusing time for you," Olive said, wide-eyed. "You poor thing."

[pursuedthestars]

"Who says I shower?"

Just ignore the clean hair, clean fingernails and decent smell. That didn't mean he showered. Of course not.

"Can't get scared by what you can't see," Jim pointed out with a conspiratorial wink. "Ignorance is bliss."

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"Oh, man, look at me assuming," Olive tsked, shaking her head. "I've totally made an ass out of you and me, like they say. Though I have to say, you look remarkably clean. Good for you, for finding a way around this weird nakedness fear of yours." She even gave him a thumb's up.

[pursuedthestars]

"I am smart lad," Jim quipped with a snicker. "But wow, this is embarrassing. I'm telling you all these deep, dark secrets about myself and I don't even know your name. What would my mother say?"

Probably nothing since she was never freaking around. "You know all this incredibly informative knowledge about me. Do I get to know your name?"

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

Olive tapped her mouth thoughtfully. "Hmmmm. I dunno. It's pretty privileged information. What would my mother think, if she found out I was telling strange boys intimate details like my first name?"

[pursuedthestars]

"Hey, if you've got a way for me to get in touch with your mom, I'd be more than happy to assure her that I'm not strange at all," Jim replied as innocently as he could.

"We'd have a chat, talk about life, talk about cooking and then I would ease her mind about what kind of guy I am," he added.

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"Okay, first of all, my mom is not like other moms so that wouldn't go well," Olive replied, ticking things off on her fingers. "But more importantly, I also don't know your name. There's no basis of trust here, Nudity Fear Guy."

That's what she was gonna call him, yeah.

[pursuedthestars]

"I gave you jelly beans!" Jim pointed out, almost laughing. "Sharing food. That is a building block of trust. That's like saying..."

What was it like saying?

"It's like saying, 'this food that I share with you today is just the first step towards our deeper understanding of each other.'"

Yep, sharing jelly beans said all that.

"Nudity Fear Guy's not my name but it's very close, though."

It wasn't.

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"Those are some wordy jellybeans," Olive said. "Wow. I totally did not listen to all they had to say before I just...you know, ate them."

She shook her head. "Look, Nudity Fear Guy -- that's your name now -- I will maybe consider giving you a hint about my name if you'll share more of those trust beans."

[pursuedthestars]

"Two hints," Jim countered, holding up two fingers. "Two hints and I will strongly consider sharing these life influencing jelly beans."

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"Two hints," she agreed, holding out her hand. "I can think of two hints in the name of trust beans. But I get to know your name too, Nudity Fear Guy, unless you're real excited about being called that."

[pursuedthestars]

Tilting the bag towards her again, Jim said, "I am secure enough in the trust that these jelly beans are building to go ahead and offer my name up. Not that I don't adore that nickname or anything. It's just so long."

And that was the truth.

"You're gonna get tired if you keep using it. Tongue's gonna revolt and then what are you gonna do?"

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"I dunno. It's never failed me yet," she said, popping a couple of jellybeans in her mouth and smiling at him.

And then mentally admonished herself. That was exactly the sort of behavior she was supposed to be avoiding.

"My name," she said, getting back on track because she was a woman of her word, "is a food. And it starts with a vowel. There's your two hints. And what should I be calling you, N.F.G.?"

See, she'd shortened it!

[pursuedthestars]

Jim picked a jelly bean out of his bag and rolled it between two fingers while he considered those hints. Of course, before that, he was just gonna smile right back at her because he wasn't avoiding that behavior.

Ever.

"A food that starts with a vowel," he said thoughtfully. "Hmm. My name's...three letters long and not actually my name."

Jim totally counted as a nickname just as much as N.F.G did.

[dirtiest-skank.livejournal.com]

"So...it's actually N.F.G.?" Olive asked, raising her eyebrows. "This is kind of just encouraging me, you know. Also, hey -- I thought these were trust beans. You're still withholding."

[pursuedthestars]

"Am I? How awful," Jim said, popping another jelly bean into his mouth, grinning as he did.

"It's Jim," he finally offered. "Short for James which isn't anywhere close to N.F.G though I do give you points for the effort. I keep a log of those points and at the end of all things, I give a prize."

But, he still had her name to guess. "Is your name...Egg?" He wasn't serious. God, he hoped that wasn't her name.