om_main | Effy and Alice

Alice needs a smoke, but doesn't have a lighter. Effy has a lighter, but no cigarette. Funny how the world works.

Alice used to smoke a lot more than she did now, but spending a few months floating around without a body had helped kick the habit, and now she was nothing more than an occasional smoker. She tended to smoke when she was partying, or when she was hanging out with a smoker.

Or, once in a while, when she damn well needed a cigarette to ease the tension inside her.

Things weren't getting any better with Alisha, and Alice was very glad to have recently bought a pack. She stalked outside and immediately pulled a smoke out, only to realize, as she patted her pockets, that she didn't have a lighter. "Seriously?" she incredulously told herself, and turned around when the door opened for somebody else to walk out. New girl... probably not so new anymore. She didn't remember her name, but she seemed like the type to be able to help her out. "You got a light?" she asked hopefully.

Wordlessly, Effy produced a lighter from only god knows where and held it out towards the girl. Before fully handing it over however, Effy retracted her hand slightly and countered, "If you've got a fag to spare."

"Fair enough," Alice replied, pulling her pack back out to offer it to the other girl.

Effy accepted the cigarette and quickly lit it before passing the lighter on. After a long drag, she blew the smoke out in a steady stream. God that felt good. She had to figure out how they were getting these in.

"Thanks," Alice mechanically told her as she raised the lighter to the tip of her cigarette. Ah, that first drag was always the best. Her tension didn't dissipate, but it soothed over a little as she leaned back against the wall, tilted her head up, and slowly breathed the smoke back out, enjoying every moment of it. She let a few moments go by, and took another drag on the smoke before looking back at the other girl. "What's your name again? I'm Alice."

"Effy," she responded inbetween taking more drags, eying the tense girl curiously.

"Right," Alice acknowledged. "Well, you've got great timing, Effy." She really hadn't wanted to have to go back to her room for her lighter.

Effy nodded. After all, she had heard the frustrated mental chatter before she had even come outside. Rather than comment on that though, Effy instead asked, "Been out here long then?"

"No, precisely," Alice replied. Or Effy would've had crappy, late timing. Alice would've gone back inside for her lighter anyway, if Effy hadn't walked out. "So. Where in England do you come from?" She assumed England, given the accent.

"Bristol," Effy responded shortly, ignoring the thoughts streaming towards her.

"Is it a cool place?" she asked curiously. She had every intention of getting around to visiting England some day. But first, Italy!

"It's a decent enough place...London is much more exciting for travel though," Effy conceded.

"You been there a lot?" Alice asked after taking another long drag from her cigarette.

Effy paused her response long enough to take another drag or two. "Occasionally...there and Paris."

Alice smiled, then actually chuckled. Could Effy sound any more casual about going to Paris? She wasn't sure, and a while back she would've pretended to be just as blasé about it. Not now, though. "What was it like? I'm dying to go, some day."

"It can be...magnifique," Effy responded, shifting into French simply for the impression it would make on the other girl. "Of course, it can also be just as shitty as any other city."

"Oh, obviously," Alice agreed, mostly amused by the use of French. "But when it isn't shitty, it's freakin' Paris. It's definitely high up on my bucket list."

"Are you always this social when you're tensely smoking?" Effy asked, genuinely curious, because she was being much more talkative than Effy would have pegged her for.

The question took Alice aback, and she paused for a second, considering options. "I have a great capacity for self-distraction," she replied, building up her shields just in case the first of the two options was the right one. "Especially when the reason isn't worth that much grief. Are you psi, or was it that obvious?"

"I wouldn't need my telepathy to tell," Effy conceded with a shrug.

"Right," Alice stated wryly, not that surprised. She kept her shields flexible enough, instead of strengthening them all the way. Brute force wasn't what she was best at, but a poke at one of her shields and she'd consolidate it wherever was needed. "So how much did you catch, with your telepathy?" There was no hostility to the question; she had nothing against teeps, far from it. She just wanted to know, and if it came out a little dry, it was out of frustration with herself.

"Frustration with...Alisha," Effy stated with a shrug.

"Yeah, well, she's a bitch," Alice confirmed, and took another drag from her cigarette. She wasn't going to elaborate, more because she didn't go spreading shit about people, no matter how true it was, than for any other reason. "I really can't wait for this year to be over. What year are you in?"

"I think you all call it junior?" Effy responded and then shook her head. "I don't quite know."

"You're graduating next year?" Alice asked, amused that Effy would be enrolled in an American high school and not have the whole class thing figured out.

"Yes," Effy agreed with a nod. "And you?"

"This year, thank God," she answered without a second's hesitation. It was clearly very heartfelt, and impossible to mistake it as anything else, even with her shields up.

"Looking forward to what comes next?"

"I have no idea what's coming next," Alice admitted, but she didn't sound too worried. She was, but not compared to spending any longer than necessary here. "But getting away from the cesspool of drama here? That sounds like a good move."

"Probably a good plan," Effy agreed. After all, she had been subjected to more than one eyeroll worthy thought since coming to this school.

"Yeah, it's gotta be worse for you," Alice noted easily. She didn't know how Betsy did it, honestly, and she had no way of knowing if Effy here had even half of Betsy's range.

"No rest for the wicked," Effy murmured in response. The bright spot of this school was that so many people had shields it eased up the amount of voices assaulting Effy while she learned to build hers. Of course, she felt that the voices never truly left.

"I'll shield up around you, now I know," Alice offered with a small shrug. "Though I guess I really should be shielding all the time?" Tessa would say so, anyway.

Effy shrugged. "I'm supposedly learning that, soon."

"Soon?" Alice echoed curiously. "Why not already?" If she were that kind of psi, it'd be the first thing she'd be on.

"Just because they are trying to teach doesn't mean I am learning," Effy explained cooly.

"Let me rephrase," Alice stated, and very much didn't. "Why not?"

"Learning takes practice--effort--and it may take even me a while to be competent in it," Effy shared with a shrug.

"Well, I don't know how you do it," Alice stated. "If I had to live with everybody's thoughts all the time, I wouldn't be doing anything but putting in the effort, until it got a little quieter." She'd heard people's thoughts before, of course, while in Tessa's body, but Tessa's mind was already very good at shields, and with its processing capabilities, it had been easy for Alice to figure out how to work them, even before she'd learned how to use her own.

Effy chose not to disclose the fact that while it was true that shielding was a skill that took many hours of practice to acquire that she was also partially stalling, kind of afraid what she would be left with once her classmates voices faded out. Eventually, Effy countered with, "I believe we're talking on two different branches of the same vein."

"What?" Alice asked, confused.

"You believe I'm not putting in the effort--I am. I believe that teaching and learning are different, which is confusing you. Correct?"

"I have no idea if you're putting in the effort," Alice corrected her. She'd gotten the teaching/learning point when Effy had first made it. "I just figure I'd be obsessed with very little else, in your place. And you don't sound obsessed."

"Obsession is pointless if it can't speed up the process," Effy responded with a shrug.

"Well, in theory, we can say anything," Alice replied with a shrug, and put out her cigarette under the toe of her boot. "Obsession can be pointless or it can just mean intensive practice that ends up having results. Whatever."

Effy took a long drag of her cig as she observed her conversational partner. It was intriguing how defensive this girl was getting over Effy's apparent lack of effort for sanity. No matter--Effy doubted she'd form ties with anyone that understood.

Welllllll, okay. Alice pushed off from the wall to head back inside. Time to check out who was hanging around the rec room. "Anyway. Thanks for the light."

"Thanks for the fag," Effy responded lightly. Wasn't the first person she'd scared off, wouldn't be the last.