Summer Classes

[vavarner]

Val's love of learning gives him an eagerness for classwork. He's sharpened all his pencils - he's got three, just in case one point breaks while he's taking notes. He prefers them to pens because they allow him to erase any mistakes he might make while note taking. He's got his five subject notebook, with each of the little tabs labeled with sub-

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[deadwhitemale]

Ellis gives Val a long look in turn, a very similar look to the one a dedicated night owl might give a chipper morning person on being woken up at six a.m. by the chipper morning person and told to come out and view the beautiful sunrise.

"You altogether too excited," he says, and returns to what he was doing, which is spinning one of Val's pencils on the wood of the table, fast flicks of his fingers, making the wood a blurring circle until it slows. And then repeating.

Ellis shakes his head a little. "I can get learnin' this cuz it's useful an' all, but I ain't understand why you so damn eager for it, sugar."

[vavarner]

"Cause it's new knowledge, sug." Val watched the pencil spin 'round, fascinated by how fast Ellis could get it going. "I always get excited 'bout learning new things. Plus the more we know about it, the more prepared we are if something happens. So it's a good thing. It can only help us to learn."

He gave a kind of self-conscious smile. "And, heh... as much as I'm enjoying summer, I kinda miss classes. It's weird not having any summer classes this year. I don't have anything I have to be studying or learning or researching. So I'm looking forward to having this. ... kinda geeky, huh?"

[deadwhitemale]

Ellis sighed. "You sound like some sorta encyclopedia salesman, Val." He gave the pencil another flick, rested his cheek on his free hand while looking at the dining room clock.

He looked from the clock to Val, gave him half a smile. "Awful geeky, darlin'. It is a good thing I do not mind none you bein' an awful geek."

A distant noise made him close his eyes-- the sound of Jonesy's tires on the gravel of the drive, the rumble of the engine. "Here he comes," Ellis said.

[vavarner]

Val reached across the table and petted the vampire's hair. "Aw come on, darlin' - computer salesman, at least. Give me an upgrade for the modern age." He gave a little tug to Ellis's ear. "Any rate, yes it is good you don't mind. I'd be terrible sad if you minded."

He manages to avoid a Yay! when Ellis says Jones is here, but he does take a moment to collect his stray pencil and align it carefully with the others so he's all ready to begin.

[vavarner]

Val sighs inwardly at Ellis scratching up the table. Well it's not like they have guests over to see it anyhow, and he supposes it isn't doing any harm. Still next time maybe he needs to plan ahead and figure out something safe for Ellis to fidget with when he gets antsy over these things. The important thing is that he apologized to Jones though - good, that's good.

His expression softens, he gives Ellis's knee a little squeeze to let him know he's pleased that he said that, then turns to Jones to try and smooth things over with a continuation of their education. "So um. Sher is your given name, and Amurdadh -- is that the name of the person what began your line, or does that have a meaning in another language?"

[myriader_others]

"Both," says Jonesy, sinking back into his chair although not without a Look at Ellis.

"It's... old, old Persian for immortality. Was the name a guy took a long time ago." And it's Jonesy's turn to fiddle a little with one of Val's spare pencils, though he seems more self-conscious than anything.

[vavarner]

Val makes a note of it, and chews his lip a moment thinking. He wants to ask more about the subject, but he's hesitant to press into things that might be uncomfortable.

"Is it alright if we talk more about names?" he asks quietly, looking to Jones to make sure he's okay to proceed. He does have more questions on the subject - but nothing that won't keep if it's going to make Jones too unhappy to go into it.

[myriader_others]

Jones huffs a little sigh, shrugs his broad shoulders. "Yeah, sure. We're doing this to learn and all. And it's not like Ellis can tell you about this part."

Dig for dig, but Ellis is busy savaging the tabletop and doesn't appear to notice, or at least, doesn't respond.

[deadwhitemale]

Jonesy crosses his arms, looking across the table at Ellis like he'd like to reach across and smack some sense into him with a sledgehammer. Ellis is still bouncing the pencil on the table.

Val's question at least makes Jones sigh, look over Val's way whilst shaking his head.

"He's not really a prince," Jonesy mutters. "Niccolo Machiavelli. Name ring any goddamn bells?"

Ellis adds in in his own deadpan, "He wrote a book, see."

[vavarner]

"....."

Val just stares at Ellis like he might like to smack him too.

"And you were going to mention this.... when?"

He'd been made Ellis's proxy by Niccolo Machiavelli. And now Ellis owed him a favor. Well, fuck.

"Oh yeah, it rings some bells. Goddamn. I mean I know it wasn't like we had a choice but--- you could've maybe mentioned who he was sugar. I would've liked to have known that. Is that part of being a proxy, being in the dark about shit, not being privy to the important bits of information?"

He puts a hand to his forehead, takes a few to catch his breath.

[deadwhitemale]

Ellis lifts his thumb to his mouth and absently chews on his thumbnail, looking away from both Val and Jonesy to the far wall of the dining room. The door.

Out, out, get out, go, you're faster than Jonesy, you could go, run, disappear...He tells Them to shut on up. Cain't always run. Sometimes you gotta stay put

[vavarner]

Jones is right-- this is way more enough for now, and he and Ellis most definitely have things to talk about. "Thank you for the lesson, Jones," he says sincerely, because well even though it ended in chaos... as, heh, come to think of it-- they frequently did last year too -- it's still stuff that's important to know and it's good of Jones to be teaching them.

And hell, it's not like Ellis is going to say thank you, he thinks with a little bitterness that he almost immediately feels guilty over. Ellis is chewing on his nail, and facing the wall --- Val's heart just melts. He can't stay irritated when Ellis is looking so lost like that