This is a companion fic to my story Crumble. It's more like a missing scene (The dinner when Tami come over). It would make so much more sense if you read my story Crumble first.
"You brought me pie," said Fang. He raised his eyebrows, and then turned back to his social studies text book.
"It's blueberry. Your favorite." I placed it of the table next to the bed, and then sat at his desk. His desk was cluttered already in the short time we had been here. It was kind of amusing to see how fast the flock had settled into normal life, to see how much junk we had collected in the short week and a half we had been here.
"Why do you like that text book so much? You like worship that thing," I said. Fang was an odd child.
"I do not worship it!" he said defensively. Finally! A response I could actually say something back to.
"Right," I drawled. "You just sleep with it." I got up and plopped down next to him on his bed. I leaned over his shoulder and read what he was reading. It was about the constitution and how every human had specific rights, like freedom of speech and religion. And then it went on to say some stuff with very complicated words. Of course Fang would read this. It did kind of relate to our tome in the school, I guess.
"You understand this?" I asked Fang not believing it.
He held up a dictionary with underlined words and dog eared pages. He smiled, quickly flipped through the book, and then underlined another word. Intelligence. I stuck my tongue out at him and his lips twitched.
He grabbed the pie and started eating it. "This is really good," he said with a mouthful of chewed pie guts. He waved his fork around and I ducked to avoid it.
"You're gonna poke someone's eye out with that!" I said and raised my hands in defense.
He just chuckled in response. How refreshing was it to hear that sound? A lot. I closed my eyes for a moment easily falling into my role as Fang's best friend.
"About dinner…" I started, thinking I caught him in a good mood.
Fang froze and turned back to his book. He put his fork down and underlined another word. I tried to see what he had underlined, but his head ducked over the book and his bangs hid the word from me.
I just had to go ahead and ruin the moment did I?
I grumbled at him for being stupid. "Do you want me to jump up and down on your bed?" Now that cracked a smile out of him, but he still didn't turn to look at me. "You annoy me," I stated and crossed my hands grumpily. Right wing man schmite wing man, this guy was freakin' annoying!
"Nothing new there," he said. His voice was as calm as ever and I wished I could slap him just to get an emotion out of him.
He'd probably just smack me back and then go back to reading the stupid textbook. He was paying more attention to it that me.
It was so frustrating, this whole normal life thing. How long were we going to try and lie to ourselves? Normal life never worked out for us, why should it now?
I stared at him read the book, and his nose scrunched up in concentration. That was a new habit, I've never noticed it before. I wanted to reach out and smooth the lines on his nose, that wouldn't go over to well. He looked up at me.
"Are you going to stare at me all day or what?"
I recoiled slightly hurt. In the E-house we would be perfectly comfortable in each others silence. All we needed was each others company and that was it. I didn't need to talk to cover the silence and it was never an awkward silence, it was a peaceful one. Now... well, you should ask Fang what happened to those days 'cause I don't know what happened to them.
"Just..." I tried to say something back to him, but found that I couldn't. When had this happened? When had we lost our closeness? All these feelings and stuff made everything so confusing. Urgh!
I got up, the bed rising as it lost some of the weight that was on it. Fang turned to look at me. I waved feebly at him. "I'll see you in the morning," I said lamely. Aren't I a queen with words?
He tilted his head ever so slightly giving him a puppy dog look, and I almost reached over and ruffled his shaggy long hair.
"Yea…" he said trailing off. He gazed at me for a second and then turned back to the book. My hands unconsciously clenched into fists by my side. "Thanks for the pie," he said quickly looking up but I had already closed the door.
Stupid textbook.
Stupid pie.