-- IT'S IN MY BLOOD && [thomas]

Thomas did not live and die by the phone as a lot of people did, but he wasn't going to say he did not at all rely on it. After all, they came with everything these days. Apps, internet, music, whatever he wanted. And when taking a dump in a public bathroom, it was great to take his mind off of the location. Nobody enjoyed having to use unfamiliar restrooms to take a shit in, but he wasn't completely against it. When he had to go, he had to go, and he wasn't going to deal with nature callling him while he was out with Caterina. Clenching his ass the entire time would not be very fun, and he could guarentee she would notice, and make some kind of comment about having a stick up his ass or any other strike to his manhood.

It honestly was not the smartest idea for him to be sitting on the toilet with it, but he did not exhibit many signs of being clumsy. And it was something he did often enough, playing Scrabble in his spare time. There was a lot of that, especially since it was in-between class and meeting up with Rin. Enough time to do his business, because he always dressed nicely (in a suit, like a sir) for work. It only took a moment of him being distracted when he thought he heard a noise, for the phone to slip, and the plop to be heard from between his legs. He pulled up his pants and buckled them, muttering under his breath. He looked down into the bowl. ”Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Dear god, he already...he already went in it. Quickly, he shot a hand into the water, and fished it out, almost dry heaving as he shook the water off. ”Fuck.” Of course it wouldn't work anymore, he just drowned the goddamn thing. They needed to make smartphones waterproof, because he had issues with keeping a hold of his when going to the bathroom, apparently.

Thomas left the stall and came face-to-face with a man who he did not know, but assumed was a faculty member. And at the wide-eyed look he was receiving, he figured the man had heard what had occurred in the stall. ”I...I wasn't taking a shit,” he explained slowly, and then tilted his head as his eyes went to the side in debate of how true that was. Nothing would be able to make this situation okay, not even if he said he was giving birth to the messiah in the Academy's restroom, though for the fact he was a dude, it may have made it worse. ”Well, I was, but...” He waved the phone as explanation, and luckily it was just wet, nothing more. ”Dropped my phone in the toilet.” The man said nothing, just walked out of the bathroom, looking confused. It's not that weird, he thought, slightly affronted that he had been stared at like he was some kind of freak. He was, but no one should assume that simply by what they heard through a closed bathroom stall door.

He put the phone on the edge of the sink, debating what to do with it as he washed his hands and grabbed some papertowels. Using the papertowels to wipe off the phone, he decided just to leave it, figuring that someone will think it's their lucky day when it wasn't. He was due for an upgrade anyway from the company. It only took a few seconds for him to exit and head outside, his blazer enough to keep him warm in the weather. Normally he might have texted Caterina to say that he was ready and he moving, but it looked like that was not happening now. Luckily, it didn't take long to find her, the smoke from her cigarette like a signal. He gave her a huge grin, the kind that took up his entire face. ”Hey to you too,” Thomas said in amusement. He went to look at his phone for the time to see if he was late at all, and then remember, and sinking deeper into the depression. The same kind when he missed the bus by a few seconds or when he couldn't find something he promised he'd had. ”God, I feel like I'm a teenager about to go out and smoke up. This is weird.” She phrased it that way, how his friends used to phrase it as they huddled around outside the building, jittering with excitement about breaking some kind of rule.

Tom rolled his eyes up as if he were thinking about it, and nodded shortly. ”You're mean, but you don't scare me that much.” He did not feel afraid at all, even though he knew Rin was judging him right now and would be judging him the rest of the night. He hadn't been lying or (only) trying to impress her by saying that he did know how to have fun, because he did know. It had just been a while. ”First, you make predictions of me pussying out, and now you're predicting you'll lose a kidney because of me.” He shook his head, sighed. ”Really, what am I going to do with you?” The man knew, but he would be keeping that a secret because he didn't want to hear any shit about it before they actually got there. A verbal blindfolding, because he assumed that if he blindfolded her for real she would most likely react violently. She changed her tune and asked after his students then, and he said, ”Oh, just lovely. Didn't speak a word to me, just shut up and did their work. They weren't the problem today.” The problem had been with him and the fact he apparently was a klutz now. ”And how about the future homosexuals of Canada?” She couldn't even say that his own brood were dorks when she taught theater, of all things. It was like Rosie O'Donnell calling a whale fat. His hands in his pockets, he said, ”I suppose we're taking my car.” He could at least impress her with that, he had a nice Audi. Chicks dug cars. Everyone should dig cars, actually.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be encouraging the soulless viking, but he felt that he could handle it. Armor and all, he was impenetrable. A freaking tank. "Oh dear," he deadpanned, shaking his head. He could pussy out now if he was not as confident as he was, and Thomas Roth was built on confidence. Not Thomas Lula Roth, because that brought with it a note of horror that he would never explain to anyone. He could only imagine if Rin knew his middle name, he'd never hear the end of it (because she'd start calling him by it, because she's a terrible person). He grimaced at her grin. "You just want me to screw up so you can hold something over my head, I get it," he said with a tone that made it seem he had caught on to her tricks. He had to wonder if that was her true intent, but he figured she also wanted to have fun. No one went out with a person to have an absolutely terrible time so they could laugh about it later. Only the worse sorts of people, he supposed.

He shrugged, pursing his lips. Rin was right, that was exactly what he would be doing. He honestly did not mind her as much as he could guarantee other people did, but he was sort of like the kid who touched the stove and did not pull away immediately because he didn't realize it was hot. "Any morning classes? I know I was usually dead at seven am, couldn't be bothered to cause trouble for the teacher." Most teenagers were brain dead at that time, and with good reason. It was an ungodly hour to be doing anything, even now. Though, truthfully, he barely slept as is. He only slept when he needed to, it was just how his body worked. She seemed excited by the prospect of his day going wrong, so he only arched an eyebrow. "No, I do not care to share, because you'll make fun of me." Whether he was serious or not...eh, who even cared? He just was not going to talk about it with Caterina of all people. It wasn't too bad, but it was still stupid.

Tom snorted at her reply, not finding it offensive at all. Then again, he didn't find anything offensive. Some people would get up in arms about a comment like that, he guessed, the same kind of people who took any joke the wrong way. Living without a sense of humor was no fun. "That's terrible," he just said, but he was laughing. As expected, she made another crack, but it was about his car and he squinted his eyes as he opened the passenger's side door for her. "I left my Razor Scooter at home, that's for when I get my license taken." If it ever occurred. It only happened once for six months, and it was another story he would not be sharing with Rin. Tom looked rather gleeful when she assumed that he was not going to tell her where they were headed. "You guess right," he said, pulling out of the parking lot and keeping his eyes ahead. "But I'd like to hear where you think I'd take you." There wasn't many dorky places he could think of, and that was a good sign. He didn't know where to be a dork other than at school or his own home.

Skipping morning class sounded like him in college. He and his girlfriend had the same class, so she'd have to tell their friends that he was still asleep and not coming when he didn't come. Thomas had still passed it. "Might just be worse for the students," he said. They were the ones that had to learn. It may have been a difficult matter to answer some questions so early in the morning when the brain was still waking up. He believed that it was an impossible hour to get students to learn, considering brain functions did not reach their height until later in the day, a proven psychological fact. "I bet those ridiculous exercises you have to do helps." Stretching the body out, getting loose. It was funny to watch, but he imagined it was ridiculous to do. The reason he knew about them was because of an ex. He didn't have too many, but he had enough of them to start up a list.

Thomas scratched his chin when she asked what he had gotten his license taken for. "Us dorks do break the law where Doctor Who is concerned, and we have to speed and purchase the newest box they have out." He rolled his eyes, she just did not understand the life of a dork no matter how much she berated him for it. It was a more interesting story, but again, not one he would share with Rin. He gave one of his brightest grins when she called him a gentleman, a quite comical one as a matter of fact. And he was interested to hear her speculations. "Well shit, you are lucky I'm good at thinking on the spot," he said when she told him she hoped it was not a library. Then Rin said something about a skin bar, and he grinned. "Sorry, I just don't think we're at that level in our relationship yet." How appropriate would it be as co-workers to go to a skin joint? Besides, he heard a horror story from his buddy that he could never forget. They were just skeevy places that smelled like stale booze and sweat. Not as cool as the movies with men sitting around and talking about 'business'.

The question about a radio almost made him laugh, but he simply wore an amused expression. "No, I took it out because it was getting in the way of my algothorithims," he said. It wouldn't have been his fault had his car not come with a radio, some models didn't have amenities like that. But his came with satellite that he could sync his smart phone to, but the thought made him sad with how useless that was now. He would get another, a nicer one with the contract he had. "Oh god no," he said when she asked if he even listened to music. "I need my silence when I'm debating life's greatest philosophies." He turned the music up, glad it hadn't been blaring when they first got in. "What do you listen to? I might tolerate it." He listened to a lot of things, and he wasn't the kind of person that excluded rap and country from that list. It wouldn't be too far to get to their destination, but car rides without music always felt awkward to him.

There were a plethora of reasons Thomas never took drama, and the fact that it was drama was one of them. And listening to Caterina he wondered if it was actually in her interests to teach kids or torture them. She really was in the wrong profession, in his mind. Someone like her most likely shouldn't be around children.

His secret: he actually like Doctor Who. He liked many things, especially when he was high. The world was just a simpler place then. "Time travel wouldn't have been in my best interest." Because then he wouldn't have been in time for the box set! He'd either be in the future or the past or somewhere he wouldn't want to be. He laughed, and shook his head at her theory. "That just makes me sound like a loser." Losing track of the speed? How adventurous and crazy was that? "Ahh," he said, when she told him that she lost hers because of drunk driving. Usually people kept their DUIs under wraps, it was not something that he should be privy to.

She asked if he was uncomfortable with half-naked women, and he nodded. "Yeah, yeah, that's why I don't go to the beach. Or pools." Or out in public during the summer, because half-naked women were inescapable. He snorted when Rin said she should have informed him of her nudist past, and he acted surprised. "A woman's heart is an ocean of secrets," he said, shaking his head. Of course, he just quoted Titanic, but that was better left unnoticed.

It was actually an intriguing possibility, what she said. Singing problems. Though that would incur thoughts of sentient radios, and that's not exactly fun. "If only technology has advanced that far." There were rock, paper, scissors playing robots, but he surely did not know how to program a radio like that. He laughed again, actually in a good mood. For now. "Your theories are pretty far-fetched, but I'll humor them. And for the record, I'm not a shher. I'm a hit in the back of the head repeatedly kind of guy." He wasn't too fond of loud noises, especially indoors where sound bounced right back. Rin spoke of the radio and he nodded. "You're surprisingly acquiescent." For being such a bitch, really. Though he'd met worse. He'd met his sister.

He braked at a stop light and shot her a glance then. "Now that we're drawing closer, I want you to close your eyes." There was that urge to add on something about rape and kidnapping after saying that, but he controlled himself. Definitely not at that level, and he was almost afraid of what she'd say back to that.

Thomes lifted a finger from the steering wheel to wag it. ”I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on that one, Ms. Hipster Theatre Teacher,” he stated with an air of authority. ”The dorks are the ones that end up with successful careers. They get the business, the bucks, and the bitches. The Three B's.” He was proud to be a part of the group that always ended up on top. He had a shiny career as a Professor, with his shiny phD and his shiny Audi. He may not have been glamorous, and he kept the amount of bitches on the downlow, but he was doing better than most might have predicted. ”This may have come as a shock to you, but I was never considered a dork in school. I was the bully or the stoner, it traded off from middle school to high school.” He was also a trouble-maker, but what he said may already be too much for Rin to take in, and he'd let that settle in her brain for a while. Get her acclimated.


He sighed, shook his head. ”You have all these expectations of me, it's worrisome.” What else is she speculating on? He took a none-too-subtle glance at his crotch. Yeah, she probably went there in that demented little mind of hers. And he could predict what she came up with. It was a blow to the ego to think, but he knew at least. ”And I feel the need to tell you that revealing your wrists is insensitive around someone like me.” You know, prude that can't look at women showing off their bodies. Unlike some men, he can resist staring. It might have been the times he'd been verbally and physically abused as a young teenager by his mother for staring. ”I'm the mathematician here, I'm the one who should be taking things literal.” At least she didn't recognize the quote. Chick flick-watching, not something he thought he could like down.

Tube transport. That seemed familiar to him, and it took a second. But then he was smirking and shaking his head. ”Hitting those episodes of Futurama a little hard, aren't we?” Thomas said. He liked the show. Of course he liked the show, it was his kind of cartoon. But then again, he could watch anything and be content. He was not hard to please. But when it came to shows he really liked—that was a whole different ball game. And for a dork, he was good at making her laugh. ”I belong to the violent sub-species of library dwellers.” Sounded about right. Only a few times would he actually be violent, and given a weapon he felt that sometimes he needed to assert his dominance.

He squinted his eyes, tapping lightly on the accelorator again. He remembered a time when he would swerve off the road if he tried to converse when driving at the same time. It might have been a bad idea to drive while high the few times he did it, but he got many compliments about how good he was at intoxicated driving. ”Yeah, I mean...I could use the satellite to find a showtunes station. Maybe they have Annie, because I know she's your spirit animal.” They were both gingers, after all. At least Annie was the endearing kind that warmed the hearts of bald megalomaniacs. Thomas didn't know anything that Rin could warm.

The man decided to grin when she dismissed him as not being one to try anything, seeing if it would give her a reason not to trust him. But she closed her eyes and he kept driving, making sure to comment, ”My hands are now reaching for your shirt.” That would be a very dangerous thing to do, actually, unless he just took one hand off the wheel. The poor drivers around them that would have to witness such a scene.

He pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine, telling her, ”You may now open them.” The building proudly proclaimed that this was a Dave and Busters, which meant fun was going to be have. Thomas got out of the car and said, ”Now, we have to make sure to get completely wasted before playing any of the games.” That was rule numero uno in the rulebook. The D&B experience just wouldn't be the same without a gallon of alcohol sloshing around in your stomach as you play skeeball.

He couldn't see much of her expression to verify if what she was saying was true, so he cast a quick glance over at her before saying, ”Oh my god, I surprised you. How is that possible, my world just imploded.” And he tried to be a little more serious in explanation. ”I really was a punk back then. The wrong crowd and all. I do remember stealing a bike, though, that was pretty much the extent of my rap sheet at the age. Thug life.” At least it didn't have streamers but it did have a bell. Ding-ding, motherfuckers. Rin did state the truth about stoners, actually. It was kind of concerning, the numbers. That's another reason he believed he couldn't teach high schoolers. He wouldn't be able to confiscate pot because he knew that half of them did it. But hey, more for him. At least college students were better with hiding their paraphenalia. ”Well, I'm just lucky my parents never found out. Think my siblings suspected. My sister did, actually, and she blackmailed me to do her homework for a month.” She was ever the lovely sweet sister.

Rin made it known that she did not get her hopes up about people, and though that would be reassuring to some guys, he was actually pretty cocky, pun very much intended. ”Phew, I was getting worried.” But not really. He kind of hoped she realized that. He was very arrogant at the best of times, and he always had to assert his dominance. Even though he was playing the prude, and noting that the road wasn't very busy, he swerved back and forth when she took off her jacket. ”Oh my god, what the hell are you thinking? How dare you?” Tom took a few heavy breaths. ”In the good old days they'd chop your head off.” For being a total wench and whatnot. That's the time that he apparently belonged in. In the real world, though, he had absolutely no problem with her stripping. Why would he?

The ginger really was kind of soulless, he believed, but she did have a sense of humor. He was always appreciative of that. Though he had yet to meet someone who did not like to crack jokes, even if they were cheesy as fuck. Then he thought of his mother, who he had the feeling was afraid of humor. She got frightened whenever the siblings joked around, thinking they were serious about threats of killing each other. Maybe she should be a little worried about Farrah and Tom. ”The let down of future technology,” he said dolefully. No pretty cars. That was very upsetting. ”I don't know, it might be possible to pimp out tubes. What if, hear me out, they turn them into a giant bong. Then everyone would be stoned all the time.” It was an idea he could easily submit to the website highdeas, which he was glad actually existed. It really spoke to him.

He nodded. ”Anything sounds like a flower with us at the end. Except Penus. No, that kind of does too.” Leave it to anyone to make a penis joke with anything that can remotely sound like it. He believed it was a part of human nature, unavoidable like gray hairs when you get old and charlie horses that just wouldn't go away.

Thomas laughed at her acceptance that if she were to go int o the woods for a vision in classic Native American fashion, a curly haired orphan would appear to her and most likely sing to her about the sun coming out tomorrow. ”Yeah, you do have better hair. I mean, whoever told little orphan Annie to perm her hair? That is like, so not her style.” The only thing to make that statement anymore flamboyent would be a snap at the end of it, but he liked to keep both hands on the wheel. He could probably blame it on the paranoia after swearing her saw Bullwinkle in the road. He just should not have been allowed to drive, but he would not be telling Rin that.

He gave her an incredulous look. ”You're not even drunk yet and you're already threatening me with violence, now I can see reasons why I should be chickening out.” Then he lifted his eyebrows and shrugged. ”And well, since these are your terms and conditions, I'll claim to have heard them.” Tom wondered if anyone else ever feared that they were selling their soul to the devil whenever clicking in that little box. Or some other equally malicious force, like Cobra Commander. He started walking, checking his pockets to make sure he had everything on him so he wouldn't be running back out to the car. ”C'mon, I can taste the onion ring already.” They did have pretty good food there, but it had been a little while since he'd gone. He missed the sounds of all the games and the smell of booze once they got closer to the bar.

”Beer,” he requested of the tastefully vested woman tending. He turned to Rin and said, ”I used to have a card. But it probably got stolen.” And he knew by who, as well. He really did not have the best people to surround him, did he? Tom guessed he wasn't too awesome himself most of the time. He got his beer and said, ”Thanks.” Taking a swig, he asked, ”Which game should we play first, so I can kick your ass after downing another six of these.” He peered at the bottle as if to measure with his eyes. That sounded about right.

Thomas didn't quite get the desired reaction he wanted from her, but of course, this was Rin. He couldn't expect...anything from her really. She was a hard book to read. When she claimed her allegience to the bad crowd, he nodded. ”Yeah, I did expect that. Because you're a horrible person.” He smiled as he said that, but he was being rather serious. The point was that how she ever came to be a functional member of society may have had something to do with the fact people were afraid of her. ”All the police were trying to catch me riding dirty, but they couldn't get me.” Thomas didn't even remember any signs for the missing bike, so he got off. He wasn't just trying to impress her, because he could do better than a bike story. Rin apparently did wonder how he came to be a professor. ”Well, I should think that professor and dork are synonomous,” he said first. ”But uh...you know, I was always sort of awesome. It just worked out for me.” The truth? He was smart, yes, but he also worked hard. A lot of the times when he blew off his friends because he had other plans...those plans had been studying. And now he was the one with a phD.

He laughed at her words. ”Yeah, you're lucky considering you didn't have much of a choice.” Would've sucked if her parents did have kids. Older siblings you were born into the world with them, like he was, but younger siblings shook up everything. He wondered how his own siblings felt about his birth, but they proved that to him in the years after. ”Oh no, we don't. I'm doing good with my brother because I don't have to interact with him much, but I have to deal with my sister on a regular basis.” That probably did kill their relationship. It was the constant one-upsmanship competition between the two that made them not get along as well as they could. At least he had the better car. And she could gargle his balls.

It was easy to gain control of the car because he had not actually lost control of it in the first place, but he inhaled deeply at her comment. ”Of course you would. I'm sure they have one at the renaissance faire.” Or historical places. He didn't know much about the existence of guillotines in this day of age other than haunted hay rides and other scary attractions that could make use of it.

And he'd brought her to laughing again! He gave himself the proverbial pat on the back, and a round of applause. Granted, he was being pretty serious on that front. ”I know right, we'd have made leaps and bounds in engineering were I working for the government,” he said in a flat tone of voice. Thomas nodded again at her next words of ways to cure world hunger and AIDS. ”World Hunger is easy. Just make more food!” With that reasoning, Cher from Clueless was his spirit animal, like Annie was Rin's. If he were serious, he might have told someone else about this idea of his. ”AIDS is something else, though, I'll leave that to the scientists.” He was a mathematician, he was good with numbers, not diseases. Numbers and transportation tubes, apparently.

He couldn't help but snort at her gay comment. She always seemed to flaberghast him. ”I'll keep that in mind if the whole straight guy gig doesn't work out for me.” Which, it wasn't, but he never thought of turning to the male gender to test it out. He really didn't like penises all that much, and he wasn't ready to make the choice of pitcher or catcher. Okay, so it was pitcher, but switching dating scenes seemed more complicated than just sticking to the one. ”Don't worry, if you're rejected, it's not because I'm gay. It'd be because I'm afraid that you'd bite my head off in the morning.” He never had to worry about that, but with Rin, he probably would. It just seemed like a Rin thing to do.

Rolling his eyes when she patted his arm, Tom nodded his head slowly. He didn't want a black eye, he did'nt enjoy injuries and he was pretty sure that no one else did, either. Unless they were a masochist, and it made him wonder if Rin was that sort of person in bed. Probably. No soul. Instead of laughing as he would have liked, the man simply made a soft sound in his throat before asking, ”Hookers bill people? Do they carry around machine for your credit cards?” The wonderful world of hookers was a mystery to him. He never bought one because his money went toward other things and he always wondered what they might have had going on down there. It was a little scary.

There were a lot of video games with zombies and dance games and everything and as much as he would like to kick her ass in DDR, he also enjoyed air hockey. ”You're on. Do your terms and conditions mention a hockey puck to the eye? Because I want to be sure.” He didn't pay much attention to them, after all. Poor lawyers that actually wrote the things, but a claus for air hockey would be pretty entertaining. By the sixth beer, he was feeling enough buzz that he got another and took it with him to get tokens out of the machine before heading over to the hockey table with Rin. ”I have to tell you, I'm awesome at games when I'm drunk.” That was his secret gambit, luring her into a false sense of security when he was actually pro in the drunk department of gaming. And his seventh beer was just the topper to make him feel that perfect kind of woozy, drunk.