my life gets kind of boring {Morgan}

[Milo Thatch]

Milo had multi-tasking down to an art. Sometimes. Talking to girls and maintaining coherence at the same time, that he wasn't so good at, but things like eating and reading at the same time, as he was doing right at that moment, he was quite good at. The book, a particularly deep thing on ancient Indian legends, was held up in one hand, and his fork was held easily in the other, moving mechanically from his plate to his mouth and back again. Every now and then he had to set it down in order to turn the page, but for the most part, it was an efficient system.

Then he finished the book, and discovered that he wasn't done with his dinner yet. He frowned, a little disappointed with himself that he'd forgotten to bring something else to read when he'd been that close to the end of a book. Very short sighted on his part, now he was going to have to sit here and...not look awkward for the remainder of his meal. It wasn't so bad to be sitting alone when you were reading - reading a book sort of said "hey, I'm alone on purpose, catching up on my reading, not out of social ineptitude."

He hunched over his green beans, eating them quickly so as not to linger alone in the room too long, because another thing that could happen if you were sitting alone was that someone would feel sorry for you and try to engage you in a really awkward conversation. Milo felt awkward enough without people feeling like they had to talk to him.

But something was smiling on him, because just as he was about to start in on his fish, he caught sight of a familiar face coming through the door. Excellent. Someone he actually wouldn't mind talking to!

"Morgan!" he said, much too loudly. Several people at surrounding tables looked at him a little oddly, and he immediately experienced that feeling of embarrassment he'd been trying to avoid. He tried to rectify the situation by waving calmly, like a normal person, but all he managed to do was knock his plate across the table, spilling corn across the surface of it. At that point, he hunkered down and just tried to make himself invisible.

[morgan]

Morgan, for once, was in a good mood. No emo cloud was hovering over his head to send him into a bout of moodiness, his ego was not inflated past the normal air-pressure, nor was he obsessing darkly over various schemes to beat Arthur and/or Gaston at drinking games. Well, okay, he was writing a list of fresh insults to use on them, but in a happy, benign sort of way, if the word “benign” could be used on Celtic princes who lived inside timebombs that were or were not the sources of mysterious ticking noises. The point was, the King of Ireland’s Son was in a rare mood of “at peace with the world” and thus, was an excellent conversational partner…or as excellent as His Idiocy was ever going to get.

“Morgan!”

Morgan’s dark-haired head turned at the mention of his name and he gave the one who had uttered it a real genuine smile. Of course, said facial expression was much more of a leer than a friendly grin, but Morgan hadn’t the practice that most other people on campus did.

“It’s Milo, isn’t it.” Morgan said, coming over and sitting down across from the boy. He wasn’t about to snap at or forget the name of the only other person at school who appeared to speak his native language. “Doing well, lad.” He asked, but before he could get answer, he frowned and said, not unkindly, “Sit up, man, I can’t see you. And if you’re not going to eat your supper, I’ll eat it; I’m starving.” Morgan wasn’t used to asking questions, but he was a master at giving orders and, thus, it made his communication with nerdy, timid boys whom he had taken a platonic fancy to rather awkward, not that he noticed this.

He busied himself picking up Milo’s scattered corn kernels, one by one while he waited for an answer. Most of them didn’t survive the journey from the tabletop to his clumsy, strong fingers and he quickly turned the once-edible food into a faintly yellow, thoroughly unappetizing paste between his fingers.

[Milo Thatch]

Milo was going to apologize, offer some kind of sign of remorse for having created an almost-scene in the middle of a cafeteria. After all, he'd pretty much dragged Morgan into an embarrassing situation without so much as asking first. But he couldn't quite think of a way to apologize for something like that, aside from 'sorry for the fail' which might just be lamer than causing a situation in the first place, so he let it go and tried to just move on with the conversation.

He immediately straightened up when Morgan recommended that he do so. Milo wasn't a particularly rebellious boy, and had never been one to resist authority, so if somebody asked him to do something and it sounded reasonable, chances were he'd do it just to avoid a fuss.

"There's not much left, but you can have it," he shrugged, pushing the plate towards Morgan. "It's not that good. I only had a bite of the fish though." It didn't seem to occur to him that it would be just as easy for Morgan to go and get his own plate of unsatisfactory cafeteria food.

This was the point at which he should probably come up with something cool to say. Something about sports teams or class assignments, something that would lend stability to the recently established bridge of their newly forged friendship. Unfortunately, Milo's repertoire of "cool things to say" was about as extensive as the list of girls he'd ever kissed.

"So, what's up with you?" he asked, and with that question, exhausted his supply of icebreakers.

[morgan]

Morgan shrugged, pulled Milo’s food across the table towards him and started to eat. As expected, the king’s son had an odd mix of tables manners: those of a prince and those of a Scottish clan warrior. He ate with the poise and precision of a royal heir to the throne, but with the speed and intent of a hungry fighter who never knew when he was consuming his last meal. Some way through his first few mouthfuls, Morgan swallowed enough to mutter a hurried, “Thanks.”

He was honestly more grateful than he let on for Milo’s food, for it gave him an excuse to sit there without being awkward and let the other man (not that he acted like one, Morgan noted, with brutal, but for now, silent honesty) think up topics for conversation, or at the very least, whatever pathetic excuse for a conversation to social inadequates could carry on.

Morgan paused, the slowing the speed of his chewing momentarily and leaned back ever-so-slightly in his chair. His legs were spread at a comfortable angle, his head still, his air calm and collected. He felt confident and he felt like he was of more dominance and higher status.

“Nothing particularly interesting. Life as usual. You?” He offered his lengthy monologue without much emotion and kept their sparse exchange of words going with little effort on his part. He rather did like Milo and was genuinely interested in what he had to say, for the boy intrigued him and he wished to know more about him, but he neither knew, nor wanted to do the work that involved getting that information out of him.