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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 28, 2012 19:35:15 GMT -5
Xavier has the social grace to look apologetic, ducking his head slightly and peering up through the red curls that fall into them. "I'm sorry. I don't do small talk that often. I didn't realize that it was such a personal question."
And yet Pierce still shared with him, at least a little! How encouraging!
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 28, 2012 20:04:58 GMT -5
“You don’t?” Pausing, Pierce looks at Xavier, taking in the freckles, the hair and the marvelous green eyes before raising a brow. “Considering the fact that I am looking at a generally physically attractive young man, consider me skeptical.”
“Probably the attractive personality then,” he remarks with a slight smirk as he continues shelving the books.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 28, 2012 20:23:11 GMT -5
Xavier looks slightly taken aback for a moment before smirking and leaning against the shelf, watching Pierce.
"Well, just because I'm handsome, doesn't mean I feel like chatting with every smitten person that looks my way." His smirk widens. "But I appreciate the compliment."
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 28, 2012 20:38:23 GMT -5
Pierce’s pasty face turns decidedly less pasty.
“I- I mean- uhm... I meant that differently than it came out.” Why can’t books be larger? Hiding behind them was terribly, terribly difficult! How embarrassing. “Objectively, and certainly to people within your age group you would be... yes.”
A moment goes by wherein Pierce just fidgets with the hardcover in his hand before coughing and clearing his throat. “I... have to shelve these books, distraction aside.”
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 28, 2012 20:55:18 GMT -5
Oh my, has he flustered the poor librarian? That he means he wins! Wins what, he's not sure, but that pretty little blush is a total win for Xavier.
"Oh, don't mind me," he says, chuckling. "Shelve away."
After a moment, he adds. "So, does attractiveness come with an expiration date, then?"
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 28, 2012 22:18:40 GMT -5
No, Xavier is not winning anything. He doesn’t even know what he is winning, how can he be winning. That is nonsensical. Really, now.
“No?” Then the full meaning of the question registers and Pierces sputters for a few moments. “SHELVING,” he announces in a strained voice and proceeds to dodge the question.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 28, 2012 22:25:15 GMT -5
Xavier is clearly winning the conversation. Yes. That is how conversations work.
He finds he enjoys flustering the librarian too much to let that drop, and grins in amusement. "So, if you were, what, ten years younger, you'd find me attractive?"
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 28, 2012 22:35:14 GMT -5
“I wouldn’t find you attractive because I am not attracted to you!” Pierce huffs! He huffs most indignantly! He knows where this is going and he is going to continue stubbornly not looking at Xavier and shelving, damn you. Shelving!
He is also not blushing bright enough to outshine the lighting here, you can ignore that.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 28, 2012 22:44:43 GMT -5
"You just think I'm attractive to other people," Xavier says, looking terribly smug at having caused that bright, bright blush. "Objectively."
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 28, 2012 22:55:52 GMT -5
"I believe that is what I have attempted to convey, yes," he answers warily, stepping behind the book cart again. "In a socially acceptable and uninsulting- but still neutral manner at least, but apparently that is beyond my ability to do so. Utterly confounding," Pierce mutters and shakes his head. How can words mess up such a simple idea?
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 28, 2012 23:15:51 GMT -5
"Of course. Language, so confounding." Yeah, Xavier is not really looking any less smug here. "Surrounded by so many eloquent words, and yet your own tongue stumbles."
He gives the librarian a break. "But then we were talking about psychology texts, weren't we?" Before somebody brought up Xavier's good looks.
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 29, 2012 13:46:16 GMT -5
“Y-yes, psychology texts.” Pierce grabs onto the change of topic like it’s a lifeline, visibly relaxing despite himself. If only Xavier would stop looking so smug, damn him.
“Is there a certain subject you’re interested in or perhaps just a beginner’s guide?” He’s going to keep assuming Xavier is there for books. The other option was actually considering the man was here for something else and as strictly professional as Pierce is- and as terrified of the man as Phobia is- it was simply the safer and better option.
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 29, 2012 14:46:57 GMT -5
"Oh, I just have a passing interest in psychology, really," Xavier says, thumbing through the book of Poe for lack of anything better to do with his hands. "I think we all wonder now and then just what's going on in the human mind."
Xavier doesn't wonder so much as it inexplicably irritates him to no end when he looks at someone and can't quite figure out what they're feeling sometimes.
He smiles a Pierce. "Learn anything particularly interesting in all your reading?"
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Post by Phobia/Pierce Fobster on Jan 29, 2012 15:56:16 GMT -5
“Well,” he begins, drawing on Pierce’s vast knowledge of psychological oddities. “I’ve always been fascinated with dissociative disorders, particularly dissociative fugue, a subtype of dissociative amnesia.” He shelves an old green book with a dusty grey spine, trailing his fingers over the embossed letters there thoughtfully before continuing, “For no apparent reason at all, people would just up and leave, disappearing for hours or months at a time to either turn up dead or be found with no identity or new identities entirely.” Something that Phobia himself has become rather acutely acquainted with over the past weeks dealing with the odd bits and pieces of his human memories.
“The primary difference between retrograde amnesia and dissociative fugue is that the latter seems to be an entirely neuropsychological phenomenon. The sole causes seem to be some manner of traumatic events occurring in a person’s life,” although at this point, Pierce wasn’t ruling out inter-dimensional weirdness to be causes for psychological oddities. “As it is such a rare mental illness however- a prevalence of only about zero point two percent- there’s been very little to study.”
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Post by Rampage/Xavier Goodkind on Jan 29, 2012 16:27:22 GMT -5
That... is actually pretty interesting, and Xavier stares attentively at Pierce as he speaks. "Fascinating. So sometimes bad things happen to people and they just... wander off, forget who they were, and start themselves anew?"
Xavier may start wondering about himself in the future, when life forces him to look back at his past more and more, instead of letting his mind gloss over it, and each look comes up progressively more empty. For now, however, he thinks he is a man with a past, and just a few odd holes in his memory.
This does give him a good opportunity to dig for information about that problem without sounding odd, though. "Any other mysteries of human memory you'd care to share?"
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