[Video]

[whatsatisfiesme]

[First rule of cutting classes: Don't post on the school network that you're cutting classes.

No one's told Gilbert that one apparently, however, because here he is well into the morning - it's around second or third period - still in bed and capturing video of himself on his school-provided laptop. With just a long night-shirt draping off him still, he's nestled himself against the headboard and pillows with a book on Renaissance art and a small bowl of sliced fruit he's nibbling from.

After the strain that the riots put on his empathic powers, he'd been given nearly a week of recovery time...and now that's more than come and gone, and he's decided simply not to go back.]

It must be so tedious - burning through all your time in classes here, studying the same things a human school would be making you learn. It's a marvelous sham, isn't it? Do this work for a diploma so you can attend university, find a career, "become a member of society..."

As if society is going to want us any more then than it does now! But you can guess what the real lesson is, can't you?

[The smile he's turning on the camera now can really only be described as "flirtatious."]

This entire school is just one long class in how to pretend. How to play along and make nice for the humans, like we're all cats they've de-clawed. I hope you all have a lovely afternoon, sitting and listening to that. [He kicks back on the bed then, looking so comfortable it's almost a sin.]

I'll be right here.

Comments

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir can feel his body heat already. He grits his teeth, determined to get through this.]

You're solving for X incorrectly. Here, look...[He begins to draw on the page in response. His spare letters contrast visually with Gilbert's loopy, free flowing script.]

[whatsatisfiesme]

Hm, like this...?

[Of course, he has to close the space between them even further to bend past Liir and back over the book (rather than drawing it towards him), brushing his hair out of his eyes as he does the next example - poorly. His calculations are fine, as far as that goes, but he's not even bothering to set the equation to zero before "solving." It's not so much the math that's at issue as him not bothering to care what the problem is asking from him.

He nudges the book back to Liir, folding both hands atop one of his tutor's knees as he waits for him to check his work.]

I'm still not sure I get the point of it.

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir can feel his face getting hot, which means he's getting green. How embarrassing. He does his damnedest to ignore the touch, though a part of him is saying that it really doesn't mind.]

Because you're not taking it seriously. [In more ways than one.]

[whatsatisfiesme]

I am trying to take it seriously. It's hard, though, when they're only numbers on a page. They don't mean anything. When you could be doing something interesting...

[Gilbert draws his hands back into his own lap. He even inches away a bit more, giving Liir back some semblance of personal space. All so he can pointedly take in the green coloring him and ask:]

Are you so flushed from thinking about math, just now?

[friendofdorothy]

I'm flushed from the effort of taking you at face value. [Something one should never do with him, really.]

[whatsatisfiesme]

[That, at least, amuses Gilbert. He titters behind one hand, fighting back outright laughter.

He hides a game smile for a moment, and then he doesn't hide it.]

Oh? This all seems very "face value" to me.

[The two of them alone and on the bed, him barely dressed, how easily Liir agreed to an obviously hopeless "study session"...]

Not that I mind playing pretend.

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir looks suddenly serious. Well, more than he already did.]

I'm taking you at face value because I need allies. [There, he's said it.]

[whatsatisfiesme]

[And Gilbert goes from playful and pleased to put-out in under a second.]

Perhaps you should stop, then. Arguing politics with you all the time has already gotten tiresome.

[Of course, Liir's stance is closer to his than almost anyone else at the school, but all the same...ugh.]

[friendofdorothy]

I won't argue with you about your methods then. [How generous of you, Liir] Don't make me beg. You know Rin and I can't do this alone.

[whatsatisfiesme]

You haven't even said what you aren't begging me to do.

[He sniffs, head turning away. He isn't, on the other hand, letting offense make him refuse straight off the bat yet, so there is that.]

[friendofdorothy]

To come to class. At least some of the time. Rin and I are not...We're not good with people. [And Gilbert is? Well, by comparison...]

[whatsatisfiesme]

Of course, and everyone here is simply in love with me.

[That's sarcasm. He's still sulking. Especially hard because, all else aside, how is he supposed to reject a request like that?]

...I'm sure I'll get bored enough to attend sometimes. If they don't force me outright before long.

[Don't think that takes you off his shit-list, though, Liir Thropp.]