[7]
Painting a figure with hemiplegia is a science, rather than an art. 40K has rules, and lore, and skill, but it's the figures that truly makes it for you. It can take you hours. It requires exacting patience.
And you crush it.
The rest of the "Geek Street" team prefer D&D, so it was just you and Brian playing until, to your amazement, it turned out one of the football team liked it. Dean Ackles is a hulking slab of beef in a crewcut and nobody would think he likes nerd stuff, and he's adamant he does not. He likes Warhammer 40K. It's full of guns and cool shit.
You still hang out with the "Geek Street", especially Maricella – sisters have to stick together in nerd circles – but you've now got your walking stick in more popular circles. If Mean Dean says Brian and Daria are half-cool, shit, they can come to the party then. You usually don't because nothing about them interests you but it still makes you someone people talk to.
Some of the populars are actually smart. Some of them actually do like nerd shit – you found out the quarterback writes Quantum Leap fanfiction. You have something to talk to the quarterback about and you'd never have thought that. (You sold him on the 40K books)
There's some other secrets too. One of them, well, this is still too Texas to say. You won a lottery here but not too big. Not in 2001's southern states.
"You got into Caltech? That's great!" Joanie Chu is one of the second-tier cheerleaders, a Duchess Bee, beloved around the school and someone any straight male wants. And it won't be for another few years she'll come out. "Now how do we rig it so we share a room?"
"Good question." You don't look at her because you're busy on that figure. You're painting the Imperial Guard to look half-like Aeryn Sun from Farscape. You learned about Joanie the week after you learned she was a 'Scaper too. It was another week before you realised you were bi. "There's a lot of other students in the equation. We need to reduce the numbers slightly. Sarin gas on the first day seems easiest."
"Don't be weird, D." Draw any card but a Heart, that morbid sense of humour is one reason you two break up within two years. "Jeez. Once we're past the exams, we're at college. My parents never went, y'know? My brother was the first. They cried."
"Don't worry, we'll find the students are inept, the faculty obsessed with funding, and corruption reigns." And the hair is done. Face is all that's left. "Still, with Caltech's programs, I'm even willing to stomach being around California."
You say this constantly when you're in California but in 99% of all outcomes, you never leave. AND SO ON.
