Smoke Break (open!)

[Anonymous]

They made small talk until Kit had to go--rather abruptly.  His lunch hour was barely half over.  Liv ushered her off with effusive air-kisses and then leaned back on his hands and turned to Jory once again, shifting his weight against the surface of the roof, staring down into the sfumato of Haviah's lower reaches.

"Don't look at me like that," he said, studiedly avoiding Jory's eyes.  In point of fact he didn't know if Jory was looking at him, and probably he wasn't.  The phrase served as a proxy for 'don't judge me.'  'Or if you do judge me, please share your thoughts.'  He cleared his throat delicately and reached for his gel bottle of water, tipped his head back, and squeezed a long sip down into his throat.

Gulping and sighing against the cold, he looked back toward the pale-eyed Pilot, calculating.  

He so hated reminders.  And that kind of judgment.  

"She's a friend, and immaturity is cold hard currency in Haviah, you know that.  It's the very purest distillation of our many pleasures."  Liv's voice settled into an almost Haz-ish drawl.  "Ain't it, now?"

[Anonymous]

He shouldn't have, but Jory gave Kit's ass a little more than a passing glance as she left.  Other than being another person's ass there wasn't much appealing about it.  Virginal, higher-ranking, even ogling it was flirting with being counseled about keeping himself in check.  It was the way she walked that kept his attention.  She didn't walk like a woman that was trying to attract attention or one that cared about what others might think of her appearance.  

Since he wasn't looking at Liv now, and he hoped Liv wasn't identifying with another person's ass, he took Liv's words to mean that he spent too much time watching Kit.  Or maybe Liv was just reminding him that he was still there.

Jory looked at him and smiled, raking a hand absentmindedly through the ends of his hair.

A friend, cute.  That sort of effort really wasn't worth it for such a proud, stubborn virgin.

Ah immaturity, the most puerile of all pleasures. Marren sighed and giggled.  Jory ignored him.

"Hmmm," Jory closed his eyes, breathed out slowly.  "It's purely annoying in most cases.  Sleep now, just sleeping, that's," Jory purred, smiling contently- "that's the purest pleasure of anything Haviah has to offer.  Enjoy it while you can."

[Anonymous]

"That's treasonous talk, matey," Liv said with enormous, false cheer, grinning and shaking a finger at Jory.  "Every good Pilot knows the only true pleasure is the Network.  I was testing you.  And..."  He sighed theatrically.  "I'm afeared you failed."  He steadied his finger and cocked it into an imaginary blaster, aimed at the other Pilot.  Then he clicked the invisible trigger.  "Pew."

Opening his hand to fling the invisible gun away, Liv uncoiled himself upwards, from sitting to standing.  He stretched, hands clasped behind him, back arched, squinting against the sting of his wind-whipped hair.  He kept his eyes half-open and on Jory, in case he decided to try something.

Liv didn't really want to talk to him any longer, but he didn't want to leave.  He had the feeling he ought to back away slowly, as though retreating from a snake that would strike at any sudden movement, but found itself lulled by objects moving at a constant speed.

[Anonymous]

There was something horribly wrong with how infectious overdone, false glee was.  Jory grinned right back at Liv and laughed, later pantomiming shock with exaggerated raised eyebrows and clenched teeth when Liv raised the 'blaster' and 'shot' him.  He flipped his head up, but decided against toppling backwards.  The laptop might get in on the act too and this model was terribly fragile.  It could catch the barest trace of a wireless signal out in the armpit of the wastelands, but drop it while it was open and the screen would crack or keys would pop out.

Jory grinned up at Liv when he stood.  "If I were a goo-ood Pilot I would be a little more... blue," he mused, turning an arm to look at a stripe of green on his elbow.  He took the pack of cigarettes out soon after, lit one and took a drag.  "Your lunch break over?  Time always flies on the roof."

He was probably going to chase after Zyanensé.  Maybe even continue that strange game of bowl tag they had going on.  Jory lowered his eyes to the bowl in question and took another drag on his cigarette.  If he left the bowl here, maybe Jory could sneak it into Felicia's apartment and see what her reaction to the strange bowl would be.