everyone's youth is but a dream

[wasallyellow]

Who: Audrey and whomever~
What: Using up a gift card.
Where: Bookstore?
When: Pick a day of the week.
Rating: G

The holiday had been hectic for Audrey - she'd driven to Cleveland with her dad to visit her grandparents, and apparently, so had the majority of her crazy (and loud) family, much to her surprise and slight horror. Though she tried to escape

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[live4themoment]

Jack's grandparents had sent him a shit load of cash for Christmas from Scotland so he could buy himself some stuff and they didn't have to worry about paying a fortune on postage to send gifts. But it was on one proviso - that he buy some books in the mix. Jack didn't mind books, but his attention span usually had him resorting more to music or DVDs than anything else, tough considering he spent most of his Christmas break stuck in bed when he hit a bad patch, books couldn't be a bad thing, right?

He was back on his feet now, mostly. He still felt a little shaky and his memory was up the shit. His Mom had told him four times to put the garbage out the day before, and he just kept forgetting. Not to mention forgetting to feed the cat and ending up with a cranky pussy trailing him around the house with an evil glint in its eyes. But it was that which let him into the cute little bookstore in Lima, wandering aimlessly around the aisles having no clue what the hell books to buy. He turned around the corner and was met with the sight of Audrey coming up from the opposite direction. he balked a little. They hadn't spoken to each other much since their Harry Potter date, but granted, he had started to pull away when he began to feel weird again. He was scared what she would have thought. Now, there wa sno avoiding it.

Praying he didn't say something stupid or start stringing his words together like he was drunk, he smiled as she approached. "Hey there, stranger."

[wasallyellow]

Audrey's eyes had been focused on the rack of bargain books near the end of an aisle when she heard a familiar voice, and she broke her gaze to find the source. She was surprised, then, when her eyes met Jack - whom she hadn't seen in weeks. She had assumed he'd lost interest in her after a few months of being her friend - something she wasn't really unaccustomed to (she was admittedly a bit odd, and her interests were a tad unconventional...in terms of a teenage girl, anyway) - and so to have him confront her was a pleasant surprise.

"Hey!" She replied brightly, smiling up at him as she moved closer. "I haven't seen you in a while. How are you?" She inquired, genuinely curious.

[live4themoment]

It was strange, because Jack had been more than into Audrey. He just hadn't had the guts to tell her that yet. Then right around the time he got assigned his Duet partner in Glee, he had to pull out when just trying to read the music had given him a headache. He had gone to Mr Schue, who was more than understanding, and it was downhill from there, ending up in Figgens arranging to have his schoolwork sent home.

Now he was really happy to see her. He had contemplated emailing her or logging onto Facebook to see if she was on chat, but he didn't want to sound like a whiner. "Yeah, I'm not too bad. Things have been sort of all over the place. You know how it goes. Did you have a nice Christmas? Relatives keep you busy? I was ready to throttle mine."

[wasallyellow]

Audrey liked Jack. She liked that he was smart, and didn't think she was totally weird, and she liked his goofy grin. She just liked being around him, and the absence of him in her daily life had been, well, something she tried not to focus on. She didn't want to seem desperate, and he was clearly preoccupied, so...she was just going to wait. She was a bit too happy that her waiting had paid off, which was probably why her smile was so wide.

"Yeah! It's definitely been crazy. And as much as I hate to say it...I know exactly what you mean," she said, biting her lip in shame before it burst into a chuckle. "But it was alright. I'm glad to be home, in the quiet, though. How about you?" Audrey wasn't quite sure how to segway into the next topic - something that had been eating at her for a while - and lacking social skills didn't ease her difficulty. "Is everything...you know, going well? I haven't really seen you around school..." she tapered off. That was sort of weird, wasn't it?

[live4themoment]

Jack's hand had come to sink into his pocket and he toyed with the inner lining of it nervous in an attempt not to seem nervous on the outside. It dawned on him that she maybe thought he had been avoiding her, and that was the last thing he wanted her to think. He couldn't lie to her forever. Especially if he didn't want her to think he was a weirdo if he started feeling off in her presence. Better she knew than freak out, right?

"We had relatives over from Scotland, and while my parents are Scottish, which generally makes me Scottish, I could not understand some of these guys for the life of me. I swear, they talk about a million miles quicker than my folks. I just had to nod and smile a lot," he admitted sheepishly. He drew in a small breath, probably in lieu of being able to grab his balls like a man. "I've been sick. It put me out of action for a few weeks. I had to pull out of the duet for Glee and stuff. I... I haven't been avoiding you, I promise."

[wasallyellow]

"I had a small child throw up on one of my books, if it makes you feel better," she offered, trying (terribly) to hang on to some sort of lightheartedness. She couldn't deny that she felt some worry - he'd practically fallen off the face of the planet, or her planet, anyway.

"Oh!" She replied, somewhat relieved. She quickly realized that wasn't the correct response and her tone dropped. "Oh. Oh, no. You should have called me! I made like, six gallons of soup a few weeks ago and no one was around to eat it, I could have brought some to you," she smiled at him, small and sheepish. "And I didn't think you were...of course not," she lied, with a small shake of her head for emphasis.

[live4themoment]

Jack winced in sympathy. "Well, luckily it wasn't a big child?" he offered reassuringly. "Still, book casualty, yeah? And now you're looking for a replacment?" he guessed, gesturing around the shop. "Maybe I can help you find it."

He chewed on his lip and then pulled them to the side briefly, his nose scrunching up a little. "Your soup would have been awesome, no doubt. Actually, I probably wouldn't have said no to that. Better than, like, organic sweet potato and lentil that Mom was trying to ply me with. Something about anti-something or other that's good for the immune system. What I had is gonna stick around a little longer than a flu, though," he told her and then a tiny bolt of panic shot up in him and he waved his hand. "But I'm not contagious! I'm not. Perfectly not contagious. And yeah, you did. But I thought about you a lot. I just, you know, didn't have my awesome face on. And not I make myself sound like Mr Potatohead. One of these days I will be totally awesome in what comes out of my mouth."

[wasallyellow]

"That would actually be perfect," she offered, a small smile tugging at her lips. "I've been roaming around for a good thirty minutes now. I keep pretending I just came back to look for something, because I don't want to ask anyone."

"That sounds...absolutely disgusting," Audrey said, scrunching her nose. Her face fell slightly at the mention of something lasting longer than a flu, and Audrey frowned a bit. "I don't really care if you're contagious, Jack," she offered, pulling her mouth to the side as she gave him a pointed glance, like he should know better. "I just care that you're, you know...okay. Mr. Potatohead. And for the record, I like that you're not good with words, because it takes a lot of pressure off of me."

[live4themoment]

Jack started to walk back along the aisle, taking in what section they were in. "So, fiction or non-fiction? It wasn't a first edition you lost or anything, was it? Because that would be a real bummer. I used to have a first edition Queen CD that my uncle got me. My cousin totally used it as a frisbee one day and it got intimate with a very large tree. I think I'm still mourning it."

"It was," he agreed with a laugh. "Still, my parents are Scots and come from the land of the Haggis. I'm about 75% okay. Does that count? Which is about 75% up from what I was this time last week, so progress," he said, giving her a thumbs up and a smile. "You don't need to be pressured. You're great to talk to."

[wasallyellow]

"Fiction. And no, thank God; I would have cried. I do not blame you for mourning," she looked up to him as they moved side by side, gazing at the shelves. "Did you smack your cousin? I would have. Well...maybe not smack, but there definitely would have been punishment."

Audrey winced. "I have no idea what that is, but I am horrified by the sound of it," she said, stopping to look at a shelf of V's. "Seventy five...I suppose it'll have to do. A hundred is generally what one shoots for, though," she offered with a glance over her shoulder to him. She stopped, turning to face him before she spoke again. "And thank you, by the way. You're very easy to talk to, too, if it means anything."

[live4themoment]

"Fiction. What fiction are we talking? There is probably a slim to no chance I have a copy at home to give you, so we'll have to just persist until we find it. I'm only here because my Nana is wonderful at cute yet emotional blackmail." Jack nodded. "Oh yes. I took his Transformer hostage and it lived on top of the fridge for about a year and by that time, he had grown out of it anyway."

He held up his hand, indicating for her to wait, and then bounded over to the cooking section and pulled out a large book on classic recipes. No doubt haggis would be in there somewhere. It still scarred him to know what his ancestors ate. He was so glad he was part of an emigrant family. He found the recipe and handed it to her. "Ugh, it doesn't even look appealing. Sheep's stomach filled with all other sorts of gross things. But they love it. They even have this whole ode dedicated to it." He gave a small shrug. "I might not ever be one hundred anymore. But it's cool. Well, not always, but it could be worse. You know all those people who think you're not easy to talk to? Screw them. They're not worth the conversation anyway."

[wasallyellow]

"Fitzgerald. You know, the author of The Great Gatsby?" She offered, looking to him somewhat hopefully. It wasn't rare to have a person her own age be unaware of whom she was referring when she dropped the name of an author or a composer. She smiled a bit. "Your Nana sounds like a smart woman.

Audrey stopped, eyes wide as she watched him quickly depart the aisle and run in some unknown direction. She waited, still caught off guard, until he came back, and simply smiled up at him and took the book from his hands, letting it rest in her arms. Reading the recipe almost made her feel sick. "Wow. This is...this is interesting," she said with a few nods. She folded the book under her arm and looked back to him, a wide smile spreading across her face and small blush across her cheeks. "Thank you," she said quietly, looking down. She turned to look to the shelves, surveying their contents for awhile, until she finally mustered up the confidence to speak. She didn't turn, but said in the clearest voice she could, "You know... whenever you're feeling particularly far away from a hundred, you can always call me or text me or whatever. I can bring you...not animal stomach."