Main Campfire [Tuesday, Evening]

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy had spent most of the past four days avoiding people. Something that was probably a good move on her part, and for everyone, considering that she wasn't the most openly friendly sort to begin with, and that would really only be compounded by jetlag and getting sent away to this fucking place. Boring as Bristol was, she couldn't say this was somewhere she particularly wanted to be either.

A few days on, she'd begun to see the attraction of certain parts. In this case, the attraction of getting to sit out by a roaring fire, poke idly at the embers at the edge with a stick, and watch them glow and fizzle with the air.

This was actually not bad, and for the moment even quiet.

And occasionally, she sat back to swig from a plastic water bottle she was keeping away from the flames. Chances were, it didn't actually have water in it.

[[Open like a big open campfire.]]

Comments

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Talked about sex," he said approvingly.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Sweet," Effy remarked, echoing his appreciation for the topic.

If this was what lessons were like here, she had this feeling she might find the whole experience almost entertaining.

"Teacher's not one of those prudish types, are they?"

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I don't think so," he said, shaking his head. "I started talking about positions and she was into it. If she's prudish, she hides it well."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Always fun to have someone impressed by your knowledge," she remarked, tipping her head back against the log she was relaxing against.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"How's your lying knowledge?" he asked after a moment of quiet. "Top notch?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"I like to think so," she replied. Yes, her lie was easily identified in class, but she hadn't really been trying. People here were too fucking perceptive for their own good.

"Is yours?"

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I learned from the best." Meaning his bastard father but there was no need to add that. He'd always hated genetics anyway. "The truth hurts for a reason, doesn't it?"

Lies did too. Whatever.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy shrugged, still staring into the flames in front of them.

"Depends on the truth, or the lie," she said. "People can fuck you up with either."

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"When you're right, you're right," he said after a moment. He wondered how his mother was. And then he hated himself for wondering. "Just easier to not care. No one can hurt you then."

Or maybe he could just repress it really really well.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy turned her head a moment to look at him. Spoken with the cynicism of someone who really knew. Interesting.

"Of course I'm right," she said after a few moments.

Nothing if not confident. It helped, that they had a eerily similar philosophy in that way.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

He snorted and said, "That's a nice healthy ego there." Not that he didn't have one just like it. "Want me to give it a shine for you?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Only if you've got the decent polish," she replied. "None of that cheap crap."

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Let's see." He dug into his pocket, pulled out the lighter, the wallet, the pack of smokes, and a pack of gum. "Left the polish in the other pants."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Someone's a bad boyscout," Effy remarked lightly.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Forgive me," he said, scrunching his shoulders up apologetically. "I didn't know your ego would need a shining tonight. Just something else I've gotta make up to you."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"I'm getting quite the set of IOU's from you," Effy said, smirking a little. She was not complaining at that.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Gives me something to look forward to." Or fear. He didn't say that one out loud. "Unless you forget."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Oh, come now, she's a skinny sixteen year old girl. What is there to fear?

"I won't forget," she assured him, tapping the side of her head. "And I'm sure you won't either." Or maybe telling him he wouldn't, would just make it so. You never could tell.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Alcohol kills brain cells," he joked. "You might forget."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Think you're confusing it with spliff," Effy told him. "And it hasn't done me any harm yet."

Well, nothing permanent, anyway.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I can almost hear your liver screaming." His lungs were probably doing the same thing.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Because you're so straight edge," she remarked, obviously not believing that at all.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I'm quitting tomorrow." He so was not. "Wanna be my sponsor?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"... Do I get to take your fags away?"

Because if it was just so she could give out cutesy encouragements? No way.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"You can try." He'd just buy new ones. "I might be resistant."