Pangolin Campfire, Thursday Early Afternoon

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

The temperature is in the mid-eighties today even though it seems to be overcast and thunderstorms are threatening, but Anders has a small blaze going at his cabin's campfire. He's sitting, cross-legged, a little closer to the fire than should be strictly advisable, with a notebook in his lap and a large mug of coffee on a flat rock beside him. A tray of cupcakes is sitting on a nearby log -- covered, of course, as he's not that stupid that he'd forget to keep the bugs away from perfectly yummy baked goods.

Every few minutes he tears a page out of the notebook, crumples it up, and tosses it into the fire; when it's burned to ashes he slowly tears out another one and does the same thing. Once every five pages or so, he takes a bite of cupcake, too.

[OOC: Open for SP interaction, but if I disappear I got saddled with another Big Project That Must Be Done By Noon or something. Slooooooowplay after 12 noon until about 6 PM PST, though.]

Comments

[mycanonhatesme]

As Chloe heads to her own cabin, she spots Anders sitting by his campfire. She watches him burn paper for a minute before deciding to stop spying and actually say something. "Hey," she says, smiling lightly. "That seems like an awful waste of paper."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"It was," Anders says, not looking up just yet. He flips past a couple of blank pages and tears out the next one with writing on it. "Stupid, stupid . . . gah."

Then he looks up, and turns bright red. "Oh. Hi."

It's the heat of the fire on his face. Really.

[mycanonhatesme]

"Hi." Chloe gives him a bit more of a smile. "So, can I fake innocence and pretend that you're burning your notes from the past school year? Because I have to admit, I was pretty tempted to do the same thing."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. That's totally what I'm doing," says Anders, who never took enough notes all last year to fill one notebook. He pulls a few crinkly strips of paper out of the wire spiral, rolls them into a ball, and tosses that into the flames. Then, completely destroying whatever flimsy pretense at a coverup he'd managed, he added, "Hey, I got your message. About the workshop. I just didn't think I could, you know, do it. Without wanting to hide."

[mycanonhatesme]

Chloe sat down and looked up at Anders. "And why is that? Because everyone got to hear some of your writing on the radio, or because you think everyone in my workshop are awesome writers? Because let me tell you, that second one? Totally not true."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"Yes," says Anders. "Well, okay, not awesome necessarily, but better than me. And probably with less stupid ideas of things to write about."

[mycanonhatesme]

Chloe can't help but snicker. "Not so much. Somehow, both Kawalsky and Cam ended up getting enrolled in the workshop, and though they are wonderful guys, they're not writers at heart. And Janet...I'm still not quite sure why she signed up, but she's so much more science-y than English-y, and that hasn't stopped her." She gave Anders a playful nudge. "And you seem to be forgetting that I heard some of what you wrote and don't think it's stupid."

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders smiles a little bit and flicks a small paper ball into the fire. "Glad you think so, but I'm not a writer either. I just stole a bunch of stuff I've heard off game broadcasts and put it in a different . . . what-do-you-call-it. And it is so not worth the teasing I'm getting."