[PRP] Trivial Pursuit (Alg & Lily)

[iloveyouDIE]

Alg had a self imposed duty to check up on all the current students he knew who were also caught up in this town's magical shenanigans. He'd transferred Jamie into his own English courses, Wil was beyond his grasp in the graduate program and Nasir was now schooling in Boston. Most of the others were puttering along just fine and he certainly wasn't going to begrudge them grades when the world was topsy turvy but.. Lily.

Lily just wasn't trying.

So when he came out of the teashop with a cup of tea and thought he saw her crossing the street, he of course called out. It was a nice day, there was traffic, certainly she may not hear him...

amitotic

it is a thing. i am slo

 

[AMItotic]

It was less than twenty-four hours until moonrise, which meant that every system in Lily's body was whacked out--she felt dizzyingly tall, tired at all hours, and any time she caught sight of a tree it took all of her effort not to scale it. She wanted to just sleep in the otherworld until the moon was over and done with, but unfortunately she had things like responsibilities and classes to attend to, which was precisely why she was spending her 10:30 recitation out getting a latte.

Priorities.

Lily didn't stop walking, but her eyes flickered back to the professor as she sipped from her coffee. She considered him for a moment, then specifically remembered her attendance records and reminded herself that actually, it was laundry day, and she needed to leave right now.

Without acknowledging his greeting in the slightest, Lily turned midstep in the center of the street, walking directly opposite her original direction with renewed purpose.

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

Alg frowned deeply because he knew she saw him. There was a moment of contemplation, of letting it go, but instead the older man decide to pursue.

"Lily!" And he would yell her name loudly. In public. If only for effect if she was going to avoid him.

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

If the momentary glance hadn't been enough of an indication that Lily had seen the professor, the way she visibly flinched at the sound of her name was certainly less subtle. She threw a glance over her shoulder, looked down, then turned slowly to face him from the other side of the street.

"Oh hi, good to see you, I gotta...uhhhhh..." She lifted her coffee cup as a small cheers and smiled limply, then turned on her heels again, walking with greater purpose.

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

Alg actually flipped his hands, mouth open in exasperation as the young woman turned on her heel and as good as fled.

"Lily-" Alg hop skipped a step to try and catch up to her, "-you don't have to avoid me. I could certainly go through other people with this conversation if you're avoidant."

Meaning he could go to were-mom and rat her out or she could talk to him now.

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily would find herself in disagreement with Alg: yes, she did have to avoid him, as a matter of fact, and at the moment he was making that incredibly difficult for her. But she saw the subtle threat for what it was and slowed to a stop, her lips pursed into a thin line.

"Okay, I'm not a minor, so it's against school HIPAA or whatever to talk about my classes with people that aren't me, but sure, what do you want." She squared her shoulders and puffed up her chest, but her eyes were already darting away from his contact, one of her hands rubbing the opposite shoulder.

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

"Yes and I'm positive that with your intense commitment to your education that you'll follow through on that threat.." Alg was smiling. If she couldn't bother with class why would she even find herself anywhere near reporting him. Besides he found a lot less value in strict government rules nowadays.

"Besides a stray other creature could sneeze tomorrow," His voice had dropped, "rewrite the world and you may find yourself with even more responsibilities that you'll neglect." The professor didn't seem very stern, and was also unaffected by her bravado.

He was a professor. He was also a boss. And his husband was chief of police. A puffed up college student wasn't going to work on him.

"I'm not here to yell at you if that's what you think," They didn't even have to stop walking if she didn't want. He motioned that they could keep walking if she chose. Perhaps somewhere less public.

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily didn't say anything, but she pursed her lips as she dedicatedly looked to the side, the color draining from her face. She scrambled for something witty to toss back, but all she could feel was a choking sense of embarrassed panic, and so she stood perfectly still, glancing up every so often as she tightened the hug on herself.

"Oh good, 'cause you know, it was the volume I was really stressing about, phew." Lily was frowning, and she ran a hand down her face. "Look, I'm sorry, I'll try harder next time." The low tone of her voice suggested the opposite.

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

"We both know you won't," He laughed lightly, seeming to take this less heavily than she was. "And I meant I'm not going to admonish you about things. You're an adult, as you've already stated.."

Since they hadn't continued walking he simply put his hands in his pockets and rocked a moment on his heels.

"And with everything going on and this unique situation," Alg scratched his head lightly and wrinkled his nose because he hated the delicate wording on magical things, "I'm not sure why you're bothering pretending with school. Why not just formally stop? Why waste time and money and drag yourself and some poor college clerk through paperwork?"

Just because he taught in college and had a wall of degrees didn't mean he thought it was right for everyone, "Are you trying to get thrown out?"

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

"It's not pretending," Lily responded, more defensive than true. "I just...like, there's a lot on my plate, okay? I'm like a full time spooky cop and part time I work at the gym because financial aid is garbage, and my channel is up and running and when you have two hundred subscribers you don't just get to miss a week of content, no one is that merciful."

She cut herself short at the words 'thrown out', her normally flat expression twitching at a hint of anger. "Dude, no--" she quipped, unfolding her arms, "--I'm...I'm gonna do this, okay? But it's not my fault that, like, tutors are expensive and office hours are right when fisher-me says 'no, it's naptime' and god forbid I miss one class, I might as well miss the week because everything just zooms by."

Lily realized that she'd been ranting, and she unfurled the fists she'd been holding, looking away with a long sigh. "Don't worry about it, man. I'll make it next class."

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

Alg listened, the same excuses he'd heard before and bad ones at that. While she was defensive, he was open in posture and simply rubbed a hand across his furrowed brow.

"Why though? What are you proving?" His hand slipped back into his pocket, "If you'd prefer to work and run your youtube channel, why bother going to school at all? You clearly aren't getting anything out of it."

Maybe once upon a time a college degree mattered but did it when you weren't pursuing things that required one anyway?

"If you cut out the school. You cut out the financial aid. You have the time, guilt free, for your other pursuits. If missing one class to you means missing a week, then you don't want to be there in the first place."

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

"Prefer is a strong word," Lily explained, more calmly this time. "More like 'I like eating and smoothies are expensive'." Her 'job' working with the campus rec center was really more of an internship, which meant that her paycheck was really more of a stipend, and while it covered some of her class expenses, it barely paid rent and was inevitably tied to her schooling. She'd lost her job at the supermarket after the whole Blackfriar's thing, but she hadn't put much effort into finding something new and she wasn't going to bring that up to her lit professor. He didn't need to know her life like that.

"Work's not an option, being a furry weirdo's not an option, school's not an option," she added, counting them out on her fingers. "School was my way out of my mom's house, and I'm not moving back to Colorado just because life is hard. I just gotta...organize better, or whatever. That's what college is about, right? Trying things, figuring it out?"

She rubbed her nose. "Why does it matter to you anyway?"

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

Alg looked confused as she asked. Wasn't it obvious?

"Because I care." Was that a hard concept to grasp?

"Listen we're all in this together now," Alg walked a few steps where an empty bench was waiting and offered her to sit with him. If she didn't, that was fine, "Eve and Leila, Jeremiah and myself.. we're in jobs and positions where we can help and our counterparts seemed to have done the same. We've all been looking out, even if you don't realize or you don't want it."

The professor ran a hand through his hair, "This world we are in now may be even more dangerous than our previous one." Because magic exposure, though it was known, could mean more. When weird things happened the world didn't write it off as coincidence or conspiracy anymore. Things weren't just 'swamp gas off a weather balloon' or 'performance art'.

"You are already out of your mom's house," Alg waved vaguely at the town around them, "And you're not going anywhere. So why waste time ... wasting your own time?" There were plenty of job openings if you'd commit to working them and he was confident she wouldn't end up homeless unless it was stubbornness.

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily didn't look at Alg. She didn't want to look at him, not when he kept saying things that made her feel something choking her. She didn't hate him, but she hated that he weaponized Eve as some kind of emotional bullet to get through to her, like that was supposed to make her see reason. She knew what she was doing, better than he did, and he couldn't just drop some life-altering advice in the middle of the sidewalk like he was some sort of free dispensary of feelings and paternal pep talks.

"If I drop out, then she's gonna find out, and then I'm getting shipped back home because that's what she does, and I don't know if that makes me not a moonwalker anymore or if I just can't get to the otherworld anymore and I mess up somebody's s**t in a shopping mall." Under the frustration in her voice was a low thread of fear, weaving its way into the way she hunched her shoulders and flexed her hands. She shook her head, let out a deep breath, and forced the calm to envelop her. She wouldn't let him see her crack.

"I mean, that's probably the way it goes down in the over-dramatic version of reality," she shrugged, letting the weight of her shoulders fall. "It's just...if I quit, that feels like quitting, and that sucks and I don't like it." She coughed out a laugh and it became a nervous chuckle, running her hands through her hair.

"Sorry, that's stupid. I'd, uh...know how to word better if I went to class or whatever."

iloveyouDIE

 

[iloveyouDIE]

"It's not stupid," Alg huffed a bit, "I hate that word." He did wave a hand, "But I understand."

The professor had heard it before but this was different. They weren't all exactly in a typical situation and he had a very hard time believing that Lily could be made to do anything she didn't want.

"No one is going to make you leave and if they try, no one will let you if it comes to that," Alg was sincere it seemed and he had an urge to put a hand on her shoulder, arm, give reassurance if he could but it would probably be unwelcome. He instead simply offered it out, his hand, held out for her to take and was warm, soothing, and reassuring.

"I have a very hard time believing anyone makes you do anything you don't want. So let go of that pride, or whatever it is, about quitting. It's not quitting. It's a proper allocation of time. It's following your passions." He huffed a bit through his nose, "You know my father wanted me to be a chiropractor and I learned a bit of it. To be in his practice and help him. He certainly didn't think that writing fantasy stories and fiction was going to get me anywhere.. besides that an english degree was a waste." So he'd been told. "He also didn't know I'd end up magical. And he doesn't know now either."

Alg gave her a very plain look, "There's more to life than what our parents think. That includes annoying surrogate ones as well. And I'll buzz off. I'll leave you be.." The professor looked idly around, still finding no one snooping and pleased about it, "I just wanted to tell you there were always other options."

Instead of debt and failing.

amitotic

sorry many words