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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 10, 2019 16:11:42 GMT -5
"You're so dumb. I meant can I spend it with you."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 10, 2019 16:24:32 GMT -5
"You're certainly welcome to, but I can't promise I'll make particularly stimulating company."
Dressed down in a sweater, hair mussed from changing, Veidt looked significantly bulkier through the neck and shoulders in the absence of the boxy-looking blazer he'd worn a few minutes earlier, like a bronze someone had hurled into a J. Crew outlet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he sat back down at his desk.
"I think rumors of my social prowess have been greatly exaggerated,” he continued- and, after a pause, he added: “And so are the stories about what kind of substances I keep in my desk.”
He laughed at his own joke.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 10, 2019 16:31:01 GMT -5
"And rumors of your...." Adrien trailed off, tapping his temple with a mild-mannered smirk. His posture was appalling; he'd slumped sideways in the chair and slung a leg over one of its arms. "You feel like grading me, teach?"
He had been in the States about ten years by now, and it showed in the disconcerting fact that as halting as his English could be, his vocabulary was made up of a considerable amount of slang.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 10, 2019 17:13:55 GMT -5
“On your performance?” Veidt asked lightly, midway through unfolding a pair of reading glasses he’d produced from his desk.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 10, 2019 18:07:28 GMT -5
"Sure," said Adrien with a knowing, lopsided smile, "if you want."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 11, 2019 0:52:38 GMT -5
“I would consider it satisfactory.”
Veidt smiled- a perfect magazine-cover smile, with teeth- and then looked back to his computer.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 11, 2019 12:00:24 GMT -5
"Yeah, I bet you would find it satisfactory," said Adrien, with a strange emphasis on satisfactory.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 11, 2019 12:36:06 GMT -5
The implication was not lost on Veidt, who exhaled in a vaguely frustrated way, but managed to otherwise curb his discomfort.
"Adrien," he began, "that's... I'm flattered, to be sure, but it's not a topic I feel is appropriate for the situation."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 11, 2019 13:03:14 GMT -5
"The office?" asked Adrien innocently.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 11, 2019 13:11:05 GMT -5
"Adrien."
Veidt was looking at him rather sternly over the top of his computer now.
"Perhaps it is better that you spend your free time on your own time," he amended.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 11, 2019 13:34:26 GMT -5
"I notice you avoid being alone with me," said Adrien, sounding only slightly miffed. "I see that and I think this must be why."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 11, 2019 13:37:41 GMT -5
"It's nothing as personal as that," said Veidt. "I prefer to work alone as a general principle, as long as it's possible."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 11, 2019 13:42:42 GMT -5
"Yeah, I know that you work alone. And that's not so abnormal. But you are alone when you aren't working. You go home alone, you take breaks alone... At some point that stops being alone, and starts being lonely."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 11, 2019 13:50:09 GMT -5
"It's not as grim as all that," Veidt reassured him. "To be frank, it's rather useful not having to slow down for anyone else like that."
He paused on what he was doing and made a point of making eye contact with Adrien.
"If I'd intended to, I would have long ago."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 11, 2019 13:58:08 GMT -5
"I am not a fool," said Adrien with a tiny smile, wagging his foot to an inaudible beat. "It is not like that, where you can become un-lonely just because you intend."
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