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Aug 21, 2011 16:55

People say the time will fly by. They say you'll settle in, get used to the place, come to like it. It's not so bad, that comes up a lot. Eventually, it gets to be like home.

The weeks between Cameron's arrival and his birthday crawl.

He's a young man accustomed to long, full days, crammed with classes, practices, schoolwork, the occasional party. Here on the island, he does his best to fill the time, swimming, running, trying to approximate the routines that he maintained to prepare for the future, except that he doesn't have what he needs. The people are nice enough, he'll give the place that, and he's grateful for their kindness, even if the lack of economy remains bewildering to an economics major (and one who's all too aware that, a few weeks from now, he should be packing everything to get on a plane with Tyler, ready to settle in not on some island but in their new flat in Oxford, to begin business school there. It's not long until orientation, just under two months until term begins).

Mostly, though, the quiet is barely broken, except for his inevitable run-in with Zuckerberg and the novelty of an Austenian ball on a tropical island, little things here and there. There's a niggling sense he can't entirely avoid, a voice in his head worrying at him that says he should at least try and get to know people. It feels too much like giving into this, accepting he's here for the long haul, and he doesn't want to be. After a month and a half, it's harder to ignore that what he wants doesn't really matter. All the same, when their twenty-third birthday rolls around, he doesn't tell anyone about it; he barely knows anyone to tell. He doesn't try to celebrate. Even if he got a cake or something, he'd be eating it by himself, and he can't imagine anything much more pathetic than that right now. One of the great things about an August birthday these last few years has been getting to spend it at home. So much for that.

In the post-dinner lull, he settles in at the rec room piano. He's played it once or twice since arriving, though he's generally too aware of the presence of others to do so, not wanting to bother anyone. Really, he's sorely out of practice. They learned when they were much younger, and he always liked playing, but it's one more thing that fell by the wayside with college. Glancing briefly up to ensure no one is paying attention, he begins. "Gymnopédie No. 1," lovely as it is, is deceptively simple, and it comes back to him readily enough, though he plays slowly, carefully, even so.

Just as he's relaxing into the certainty he still remembers it after all, despite a couple missteps, the jukebox takes it upon itself to interrupt. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to; you would cry, too, if it happened to you. Staring blankly at it for a few moments after the verse begins, he gives it a grim smile. "Cute. Real funny."

[ Herp derp, shouldn't have taken this long to EP him again, but here he is, please come say hello. It's a just fine time to meet him. :D ST/LT welcome until I say otherwise. CLOSED to new tags.]

cameron winklevoss, kara thrace, belle, rogue, erica albright, ron weasley, jenny mellor, sonya blade-hasashi, anabelle leigh

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