Home, Sweet Home (open)

[Terrence Mathews]

Terrence sighed a happy sigh. It was lunchtime, a time when students would come up to his home at Hammel and study, learn or just simply read. He loved being able to share his knowledge and the enjoyment he had reading of the daring and sometimes tragic adventures of others, even if it was a kind of indirect sharing, as he never really bothered to interact with anyone other than to smile when eye contact was made and occasionally help out someone who didn't know where a certain book was or where they could find books on a certain subject, but that's how he liked it.

A few of his 'regulars', per say, came in a few minutes after the bell and took up their usual positions. One or two students came in to do work on the computers and one sat in the corner with their headphones in. He didn't mind too much; as long as they weren't being noisy they were fine by him. He smiled to himself and retreated into his office, going into his bag and pulling out a packed lunch. He didn't feel like he should waste the culinary staff's time by asking them to make him food when he could easily fend for himself. He also took out his Kindle and rested it on a stand he had on his desk, turning it on and opening the book he had been reading recently, a personal favourite of his, The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. He had read it many times and it never got old.

He leaned forward on his desk and took a bite of his BLT sandwich. Occasionally, he would press the button in the side of his Kindle to turn the page, or he would take another bite, but other than that, he didn't really move too much else. He was too engrossed in the literature to fidget or look around.

[Deleted]

Dawn glared at the food on her tray, what was this? Where the crap is my chocolate...okay maybe not mine but...where is my chocolate? She sighed and stood up, not looking at anyone because she wasn't really up for talking to anyone. She grabbed her tray, threw everything in the trash and walked straight into the library.

She paused mid stride as she looked around her. Everything seemed to be labeled, maybe she could find ways to challenge her gift in one of the books! She smiled wide and went into the nonfiction area. Dawn was usually the one reading fiction and morbid books out of pure fascination but this time she was going to get serious..sort of.

Okay...where are the anatomy books...or maybe science? Now that she thought of it she had no idea where to look and what to look for. She sighed in frustration and walked to the front. Where's the librarian? She looked around and noticed an office with someone in it. She smiled to herself and walked toward the office area. She wondered what he was reading, if it was a book, a regular one anyway, then she would have known by now just by reading the title. She had no idea what he was doing..."What you doing?"

[Terrence Mathews]

"What you doing?"

Terrence did a double take when the words reached his ears, after being disrupted from his reading. His eyes met those of a young redhead at the door. He promptly put his food down and stood up awkwardly, "Oh, um, ah, I apologize, sorry!" He smiled in a slightly crooked way, "What am I doing? Well, um, I'm reading. Yes, reading on..." he picked up the Kindle to show to the girl, holding it in the way that a salesman would, but with a slight stiffeness in his joints and more edgy movements, "this, um, thingy-ma-jig!" He grimaced slightly at his own words. As per usual, his inability to communicate with others had shone through, shown through his simplicity of word choice and his ever-awkward posture. He sighed a little to himself. He wanted to be more confident, he did! But... he just wasn't like that.

Remembering the presence of the student in front of him, he smiled again and cleared his throat, placing his reading tablet carefully on the desk and then turning back to the girl, crossing his arms in front of himself, "So, um... did you need something?"

[Deleted]

She was not expecting the reaction she got. Was she that intimidating? Sure she didn't care about people that she first met but she always was at least nice. She looked at him confusedly and just stared for a bit. Maybe he was an awkward human? Dawn used to be...when she was five.

What did she need? She got so distracted by the way he was acting that she couldn't remember. "Um..." She looked at the ceiling as she tried to remember. Somethin' about....somethin'....A book? Duh! She looked back at him nonchalantly and smiled. "I need help looking for a book on cellular regeneration or anything else that has to do with cells healing...fast." 

[Terrence Mathews]

He waited patiently for her to conjure up an answer. He didn't doddle to much on why it took her so long, it didn't really matter too much to him. When she stated what she wanted, he brought his hands together and rubbed them a little, trying to get his brain to remember where the biological non-fiction books were. After a few seconds, he remembered and smiled at the girl, "OK!" He walked around her and into the library. Realizing that he was getting ahead of himself, he turned on his heels and returned to his office's door frame, "Um... follow me, I guess!" He went over to non-fiction and scrolled the shelves. There was a certain book he knew of that fit the bill. He thought of it's appearance and the title, "Cell Biology: Regeneration", and he looked to the desk on his left. The book came whizzing off of the shelf near him and onto the table. He did that a few more times with any books on the subject that he could think of, then resorted to looking himself.

He turned back to the girl and the table, which now had three books on it, "Is that enough? Or... or do you want some more?" He scanned the shelves with his eyes and looked for related titles, following his sight with his finger. As much as he wasn't talented when it came to social interactions, he enjoyed helping people, and learning more about the library he worked in.

[Deleted]

Dang this guy was energetic! Dawn watched as he rubbed his hands and zoomed off. Dawn didn't really know what to make of that so she just stood there trying to figure out what just happened. She had never seen anyone like books that much. She watched as he finally came back and with a sigh she followed him. After a while she just watched him pick books up and down with whatever gift it was. She really care at the moment to ask because she wanted to learn more about her body.

She smiled lightly at him and nodded her head. "Three books are just fine." She then walked up to them and while standing looked through them. They seemed very useful, hopefully she could learn what to and what to not do with them so she didn't freak anyone else out again, poor Ben. She didn't even remember if she scared him or not, just that he thought she was suicidal at first. "Yes, this will do just fine. Thanks."

[Terrence Mathews]

He stopped searching and pulled out another book about cellular regeneration. When she rejected his offer for more books, (how could any reject an offer like that?) he nodded curtly and grimaced to himself, looking at the cover of the book he had plucked out. He regarded it with interest and sent it off to his desk in his office. He turned back to the girl, "No problem, I guess." He began to walk back to his lunch, "If you, um, need anything else, I'll be..." he started walking again, "...y'know..." He reached the door frame, went in and then poked his head out, "...right here." He frowned to himself as he returned to his seat.

That was... ridiculous, if that covered the situation's description properly. He noticed that once he was sat, a pen hit his arm, one that he had accidentally summoned because of his embarrassment. He shook his head as if to say 'Silly old me!' and went to turn on his Kindle, but instead, a book hit his arm, and he realized why. His brother had contacted him once he'd found out about his job success, and gave him a few words of advice:

"Just remember to be yourself, because I know that you'll end up making everything worse if you act like someone you're not, and because I know you want to improve your confidence, I'm gonna send you a journal. When anything bad, or nerve-wracking, or embarrassing happens, write it down. It'll make you feel better and help you learn from your mistakes. Expect it in a few days. Good luck, little bro!"

He liked the journal his brother had sent him; he really was a fan of Celtic designs and patterns. He opened it to a clean page, grabbed the pen and began to write, every now and then stopping to take another bite of food. Even after just the first sentence, he was feeling better. He smiled to himself and continued to scribble down all of his thoughts.

[Deleted]

Dawn sighed and looked at the books for a few seconds before watching the librarian again. He seemed very uncomfortable near people. She nodded slowly as he talked. Yep, very introverted. She grabbed a chair and sat down and began writing notes. She remembered earlier that day when her sister sent her a fierce letter telling her basically to stop being stupid and look stuff up before you try it. Dawn remembered laughing at it, her sister never did that before. Guess it had to do with watching Dawn foam out of the mouth, pass out and then wake up laughing after drinking poison...yeah that's why.

She kept taking down notes and paused as she read something. Glad that kid stopped me...not like I really was going to cut my toe off. She was reading where it said that even if cells healed fast it didn't mean that they could regrow limbs. Dawn laughed and shook her head before looking up at the office, she could have sworn she heard something being thrown and out of curiosity she got up with her pencil and paper and walked in to see him writing something down. Thought I heard somethin' bein' thrown..oh well.

She shrugged her shoulders and was about to leave but then she became comfortable. This was very rare for Dawn, not the comfortable part but what she was about to do next. Maybe it was because he was so quiet and calm...sort of. She sighed and sat in a seat in front of him and started writing her thoughts on a sheet of paper she had with her. She might had accidentally read a part of what he was writing to know what he was doing. "My mom told me when you get really mad or somethin'. Just write down what you want to do to the person or just your thoughts and then either ball the paper up and throw it in the trash can or rip it apart. It makes you feel better, it's like it is erasing all your anger or...whatever away."

[Terrence Mathews]

Terrence heard a few footsteps and a rustle of paper, but thought nothing of it. He was in a library after all. But the thing that got him was when she heard the girl's voice again, making him jump out of his skin and almost slam his journal shut, stopping mid sentence. He didn't want her to be reading what he had written; it wasn't exactly good for a student to see things written about them, or to see things that could be used against people.

She mentioned about writing your feelings down, like he had been doing for the last few minutes. She was writing something on a sheet of paper she had with her too, but he had now clue what it was or who it was about. His speech came out in a stuttered fashion, and full of uneasiness, "O-o-h, that's a g-good id-dea. Ex-xcept I don't get m-mad often. J-just..." he paused, trying to find the right word, "... shy. And awk-kward." He tried to subtly push his journal out of sight and distract her or something, which he did, but not in the way he intended. He smiled sheepishly as one of his rulers in his pencil pot came flying at him and hit him in the arm, and then a piece of paper flew over and hit him square in the face. He had to calm down. He started to draw small circles on his thigh with his thumb. Guess he was going to be writing in his journal again when the girl left.

He tried to take the attention away from everything, but all he could say was "Um... so, uh... hm... well..." He blushed slightly at his own timidness and inability to make small talk. This was dreadful.

[Deleted]

She laughed and shook her head at his stuttering. She wasn't laughing at him, it was just that she never seen anyone so shy in her lifetime. She watched with wide eyes as he got hit in the face. Glad that isn't my side effect, I would end up on a lab table for sure. She then placed her pencil down, he had to get comfortable.

"Am I makin' you uncomfortable?" She already knew the answer to that. She thought she was being calm, but how do you calm someone like him down? "Um...I am awkward sometimes. I am addicted to chocolate so when someone tries to take it I snap at them by accident." She fiddled with her thumbs with a smirk on her face at the memory. At her other school people knew not to eat chocolate and not give her any, she got stingy.

Maybe I should ask him stuff...people do that. "So, what..exactly is your gift? Mine is cell regeneration. I heal way too fast." She almost smirked at her gift. She loved it so much, the only problem really was how opened she was to it and how weak it could get her. "Wish you weren't awkward. Sorry for ya."

[Terrence Mathews]

He put the objects back in their places and shook his head in quite a shaky fashion at the girl, giving her a small smile when she asked about making him uncomfortable, "Oh, no, no, not at all. I'm just not, um, confident around others, you could say. It's not... you." OK, he was obviously uncomfortable, she would have to be stupid not to see that, but he was determined to actually try and keep interacting with someone. He hardly had any friends at Hammel and he had been there almost for a month. He hadn't really talked to anyone, not even his past teachers. He was quite a lonely soul.

When she mentioned chocolate, he shuddered a little. "I'm quite the opposite, I don't like chocolate." But then he remembered something. He reached into the top drawer of his desk, where he found, as expected, the bar of chocolate that had been left for him as a welcome present, and he didn't want to eat it, but he didn't want to throw it away, just in case the person who had given him the sweet treat (he had no clue who had) saw it in the bin and felt bad. He took it out and put it in front of him, and pushed it a little towards the girl, leaving a empty rectangular shape in his drawer where everything had been neatly arranged around the bar. "Um, I was given this a little while back, but, since I don't like the stuff, and you're... well, you're addicted... you can have it." He knew it wasn't good to feed addictions, from anything as seemingly harmless as chocolate, to something as dangerous as alcohol, but he wanted to befriend the girl, and he had no use for the bar in any case.

"So that was why you wanted the books! That makes perfect sense." He grinned widely, "My gift is summoning, so I can fetch items just by remembering what they look like and the possible location of them. That's why..." he pointed at the ruler, that was slightly askew in the pot he had returned it to, and it flew out of it's container and lay perfectly straight in front of him. He raised his eyebrows, as if saying 'Taa-daa.' and then sent the ruler back, but so it sat straight in the pot. He hated it when things were untidy.

"No need to be sorry for my personality traits, it's just who I am. I get more comfortable the more I trust or at least know the person I'm talking to." He smiled and motioned towards the girl, "Like, I'm fine with talking to you now, well... kinda, because we've actually talked for more than a few seconds."

This conversation was going well, in his opinion. He laid back a little in his chair and thought of a subject to bring up, "So, um... was there any particular reason why you needed those books? Something other than... intrigue, I'm guessing?"

[Deleted]

She smiled and nodded her head as she became amused, yet again, about his social issues. That's when she remembered a reason why she liked him, he needed help. In her opinion he did anyway, people could bully him all day if they wanted to just because of how fragile he was. "That's fine, we all have issues." At the moment though she couldn't figure out what issues she had.

Once he said he didn't like chocolate she went wide eyed and her mouth opened slightly. How can someone not like chocolate?! It is like...the love of my life! Everything I ever-...wow...just found my issue. She smiled wide and almost kicked the table as he started to talk about how he had a candy bar. She then watched his hand with a huge smile on her face as it went to the drawer. Once he opened she stared at the chocolate and watched him slide it to her...Be cool....Dawn breathed in and out slowly to control herself from grabbing and eating it as if there was no hope for the world, but for Dawn there really was no hope for the world anymore, humans screwed up big time. "Thank you soooooo soo so much..."

She didn't feel like telling him this immediately made them friends so she instead picked the bar up while listening to him. She smiled, he was getting more comfortable which was good. Then she unwrapped the candy bar and ate it, she couldn't remember how fast she finished it..."Oh right...that's my issue, chocolate. At least I admit I have an addiction, not many people do." It was just a chocolate problem though so she didn't think it was that big of a deal.

As soon as he asked why she wanted the book she looked at the ground and shifted in 'her' seat, she was now uneasy. She smirked nervously and mumbled under her breath at first before speaking clearer. "A friend gave me advice to do so before I do something stupid. The good news is he stopped me before I did that." She smiled and nodded her head knowing he probably had no idea what she was talking about. Although she would applaud if he did.

[Terrence Mathews]

He nodded knowingly when she spoke of issues. He obviously had the main one which he was demonstrating to her in that moment, and she had... well, her problem was chocolate. He smiled when she thanked her, "No problem." but he also regretted giving her the bar the second it touched her hands. He could see the look in her eyes, and the way she controlled her breath; that bar was getting her hyped just from touching it. And the fact that she gorged it down so quickly. That was worrying too. But at least she admitted to having a problem. That was a good thing... right?

He tried to ignore the possible mistake by listening to her vague reasoning for the books. It sounded like she'd gotten into difficulties with... something or other and this friend had stopped her from doing it. The way she described... it sounded like whatever she had been planning on doing was quite dark or serious. He decided that going into further details was probably not the best of ideas. Even if he was painfully curious about it. He tried to shake it off, "So... um, you said about writing about someone you don't like... or something." He glanced at her paper, "Were you writing about someone... like that?"

He was making this quite personal. Maybe he should stop talking to her?

He was probably getting on her nerves.

[Deleted]

Dawn smiled wide and put the paper in her pocket after folding it up. Dawn didn't see a reason to hide anything from anyone as long as they didn't know her fear of spiders, it still embarrassed her. She chuckled and shrugged her shoulders before saying it. "Okay. There are these two annoyin' jerks who insulted me at a Halloween party we had at this school. It was funny though because the insults they did were true. I had nothing in my purse...so they went threw it and stepped on my chocolate. Good news is that I have chocolate in my room for emergencies. Then they texted this boy I have a crush on. I really don't care though, if he needs to he can just ask me what the crap is going on." That had to be the longest speech she ever did in her life.

She looked at her fingers and licked the chocolate off of them before talking again. "What about you, what you writin' about?" It would be okay if he said it was none of her business, she pretty much went with the flow or understood more than most people.

[Terrence Mathews]

Terrence listened with intent interest. That girl had a pretty bad experience, it seemed, yet she was laughing about it. He wished he could be as carefree about life as she seemed to be. The concentrated look on his face broke when she asked him what he had been writing about. He wasn't the best actor, but he tried to act a bit more natural. It didn't really work. He sat awkwardly in his seat with a strange expression on his face trying to mimic remembering something. He looked positively comical! He considered his options: show her and hide in embarrassment, tell her and hide in embarrassment, lie to her or just avoid the question. Problem was, Terrence was a man of his word, and he doesn't lie. He sighed and put his journal in front of him. "I was... um... writing about... ah... you."

As if he didn't seem weird enough already. He tried to recover, "I was writing about what just happened. I'm just... not good in social situations, so I write down when something bad happens in here, so I can learn from it. I've only got one other entry, from quite a few days ago mind, and that one was probably worse." He sighed, turned to the first page and pushed it in front of her. It recounted him pouring a pint of milk on someone when they frightened him in the mall. That definitely wasn't a good day. He hoped his own misfortune could pick up the situation.

He felt utterly idiotic, extremely stupid. In that moment, he wanted to crawl under his desk and went for her to leave. He looked under it; there was enough room for him, if his legs were left out a little. Maybe that was a good idea.