Shit I'm still bad at clever log titles [Closed]

[reapsthewind]

Who: Dr. Benjamin T. Ratchet | Ratchet, Christobel Starsky | Starscream
What: ACCIDENTAL BUMPING INTOS and "oh hey you're also in on the crazy bullshit?"
Where: Locke University
When: weekday, during class hours

Chris usually had a few hours to kill between when she got off work and when evening classes started, ergo, she was wandering around the halls of the engineering department.

She's not paying attention at all to where she's going, and as such she manages to slam into a professor right as she rounds a corner. Great.

"Shit! Um, fuck. I mean! God damn it! I mean, oh lord," she says, scrambling. She'd learned not to just snap 'watch where you're going' last year. "Er... sorry."

She has a brief moment of panic, too. Are her contacts in properly? Hopefully? She's got long sleeves and gloves on, but the fact that her arms are metal might still be noticeable through the coat, given that she ran right into the dude.

Comments

[neonnerd]

Benjamin is nose deep in his notes for his next lecture as he walks down the hall - it's something he does nearly every day, as not even the several times he's literally run into someone have managed to break him of the habit.

It's much more often that the path is entirely clear and he encounters no one.

But unfortunately, today is not one of those days, as he both crashes into someone and manages to bang his elbow on her arm. Which normally wouldn't be much of a problem at all, except for the fact that this time, it feels rather like bumping his arm against metal.

He hisses, instinctively reaching to grab it, nearly drops his notes in the process, and scrambles to keep them from falling to the floor.

"It's quite all right, I wasn't-" he pauses, recognizing the voice even before he looks up at her. "Oh, Chris, hello. I haven't seen you in the faculty lounge lately."

[reapsthewind]

"Oh, hey, um..."

Give her a minute.

"Benjamin! Yeah, I uh... I'm taking the semester off from teaching. I got offered a part-time job at a local firm, so I'm doing that instead for a while. That and um, my life has gotten kind of hectic."

She starts helping to pick up the scattered papers and notes.

She pauses. "I actually do kind of miss the students." She's surprised to find that it's not a lie. "But not the administration."

[neonnerd]

At least she remembered, Benjamin's sure that's very nearly a compliment.

"Indeed! Congratulations, then, how are you enjoying it?"

The question is genuine, if absent, as his attention is quite clearly on her arms, staring at them as though he could see through the sleeves to determine what had caused them to feel as though they were made of metal. That, pared with the statement about hecticness, has caused him to wonder.

"My life has gotten rather hectic as well, as of late."

Then he smiles, amused. "The students are the best thing about teaching; they constantly surprise you. Often even in good ways."

[reapsthewind]

"Yeah... I still tutor in the evenings, actually. It means I don't have a lot of free time, but this one student of mine, Bakura -- he's in high school -- I was one of the only friends he had for a while, and I DID get him to actually like math... so yeah. I couldn't abandon him."

She pauses. "He's doing better now, though. Made lots of new friends."

She pauses again, tilting her head. Has she seen him on the network? She's not sure. This is the worst part, the not knowing. But... well. There's always that one way of asking.

"Through his Secret Numbers Club. It's worked out pretty well for him."

If this guy had been paying attention to the network, he'd no doubt have come across that way of referring to it once or twice, and it was a weird enough phrase that it couldn't be anything else. If he WASN'T part of this whole thing, then it'd just sound like some weird club that a high school student was involved in. No loss.

[neonnerd]

He listens with a light smile - it's nice to hear her speak this way of one of her students, to see her take an interest in him. It's the same as his own attitude towards teaching, and reminds him of the particular fondness he has for some of his own students.

And then she mentions the numbers club, and the smile on his face turns relieved.

"I'm exceedingly glad you said that, considering I was attempting to come up with a tactful way of asking why your arm felt as though it was made of metal, and the only thing I could think of at the moment was asking if metallic armbands were suddenly fashionable. I've been told there was an engineering PhD candidate around the numbers club; I'm not surprised to find it's you."

[reapsthewind]

"Shh!"

She waves her arms frantically.

"Not out here in the hall, jeez. It's called the secret club for a reason. Do you have a real office with a door? I could show you what the deal is but... yeah."

She paused. "Why is it not surprising that it's me? Is it because I kind of don't bother with homework sometimes because I would do that even if I wasn't part of a secret club. Thing."

And another pause.

"I mean that's totally why I don't do problem sets, sometimes. Saving the world. And stuff. Because I'm cool."