What Can It Mean To A Daydream Believer [open]

[Lux Lisbon]

It had been an unexpectedly long night for Lux, and she was suffering the aftereffects most ungracefully. Her eyes had deep circles under them, wispy, overripe plums that gave away her exhaustion. Her eyelids were leaded and it was difficult for her to maintain at least something akin to a state of relative consciousness. Her cheek rested in the palm of her hand and her long hair amassed in tangled tendrils in front of her face and over her hand.

Her nail polish, which had been carelessly and casually applied in the first place, was chipped to the point where there was only about a fourth of an inch of the merlot applicant left, barely coating the bottom portion of her nails. She was wrapped in a faded, oversized black hooded sweatshirt, borrowed without any intention to return from her brother. Her thumb poked a hold in between the cross seams of the sleeve and, in short, she felt blissfully comfortable.

It only took a few minutes in front of an open book for her head to slump down on her arms, which folded in front of her now and crumpled like tissue paper, affording a compatible gift wrap for her awaiting head. It took less than a minute for her to fall into a comatose slumber, her breathing regulated.

There had been an honest attempt at study, and a willpower to do it, about an hour ago. But now her exhaustion crept over her like a familiar terrorizer in the night, armed with a memory of relaxation and perpetuating with a comforting regularity of frequency. She found it difficult to object to it and succumbed nearly immediately, allowing herself to succumb to the malignant force and fall victim to the harloted level of sleep that her body subconsciously lusted for.

[Ian Isaacs]

Ian was rarely found actually going out of his way to find people but that's exactly what he was doing. Since he'd come back to Hogwarts, he'd often found himself wanting to be around people instead of being alone. With the shit roaming the halls, infesting the waters, devouring the kitchens--well it was easy enough to assume why. Ian was a bit of a scaredy cat when it came to ghost and other beastly creatures.

If this were a year or so ago, he could've gone into the forest for hours without a second thought. There were all kinds of awful things in there and he was never afraid of them. This was different though. The kinds of things that haunted the school were so much worse than the beasties in the forest. Not to mention the forest was fcuking haunted now. More than the usual scarey people-eating things were in there now.

So with no other option, Ian sought company. In the library.

In the form of a sleeping girl?

No, his eyes didn't decieve him. Was this girl absolutely crazy? It was like attempted suicide if you fell asleep in this school in any place save for your dorm--and even then it was a gamble. Perhaps he should sit with her. Just to make sure she slept peacefully and lived to see another day. That was very gentlemenly.

Well there was that and the fact that he wanted to hide out with people but not actually converse with them. People had always been something of a bother to him. They went on and on about frivolous things and thought their lives simply could not go on. Stupid kids. Sometimes Ian felt far too old to only be 16. Was that normal? Probably not. Then again, he never really had been normal.

Taking a seat, he tried to get a glimpse of what the girl was reading--or rather what she was sleeping on--but he couldn't really tell. The pages were crinkled and messy, more than likely due to her slumber. Chancing it, he grabbed the edges of the book and tugged a bit until it came free, his eyes widening when he watched her head smack onto the table.

Ah shit.

[Lux Lisbon]

Lux's head made a sonorous thump as it smacked the table and cavorted upward, later, in a state of something that cannot be tagged as anything other than sheer terror. Carelessless had lead her to a state of catatonia that she could have never awoken from, and though she was glad that she was, in fact, alive, the disappearance of her book, in addition to the copious amount of pain surfacing on her now pink-tinged forehead, was not exactly the way she wanted to be awoken in such a place.

Groaning, but picking her head up with as much rapidity as she could muster from having just been asleep, she looked around. The movements of her head were desperate and searching, but she really didn't have to look very far. There was a boy in front of her, vaguely familiar but wholly alive, or so it appeared, but she was by no means unwary of him.

"Who are you?" she demanded, looking at her book, which now resided in his hands. "And why did you feel the need to wake me up so...violently? A tap on the shoulder would have been fine, you know." The words were a bit harsher than intended, and she realized this immediately. Her features softened, hard lines mollified as she eased into consciousness.

"I'm Lux," she added, not hastily but not negligently either. Ah, well. Her blonde hair was mussed and she used her fingers to comb it back over her part line, though tendrils broke loose shortly after the visible adjustment. She used her head to shake them out of her face, to little avail. There was a red crease across her cheek and over her temple from where the stitchery of her shirt impressed upon her face. In short, she wasn't looking too attractive. But who did shortly after waking up? No one she'd encountered, that was for sure.

[Ian Isaacs]

Ian even winced at the seemingly echoing thud as the girl's head smacked off of the table inbetween them. Well piss. That probably wasn't the way you met a girl. Definitely not. This first meeting was promising to be one of his more awkward ones. And how the fcuk did that happen when he made it a point to avoid first meetings period. Seriously.

He almost wanted to laugh, as mean as that was, when she lifted her head up, violently shaken from her stupor. Her face was covered in those awful red lines--well that's what she got for sleeping on her arm in a library filled with ghosts. Okay perhaps not. He still felt like an ass.

There was a delayed stunned look on his face when she all but barked out a question of who he was and why he'd waken her up in such a way. Ian honestly had no idea how to answer that. Somehow, an 'I'm sorry I smashed your head off of this table here' sounded like something only a carnie could say with a straight face. Although he doubted she even knew what a carnie was so he couldn't say that either.

Well fcuk.

However, her face seemed to soften a bit and she introduced herself--Lux (what a strange name)--and Ian couldn't help but smile a bit. A bit amused at the way she tried to 'fix' her hair, he just sort of watched her for a minute. Yeah because he wasn't creepy or anything. Staring at someone he'd never met before. Can we all say awkward?

"I'm Ian?" He wasn't sure why his own introduction came out more like a question but he didn't exactly know how to fix it once it was already out there like that. There was a strange look on his face, knowing full well what he'd said but also knowing full well he couldn't repeat himself or risk looking like an ass clown. Ass clowns weren't usually looked at in a good light.

For a long minute he sort of just sat there with his confused look and without saying anything else. Perhaps he should initiate some sort of conversation? About what though? 'I'm sorry this situation is so awkward' didn't seem like a viable topic to discuss. It would probably resuly in a 'get the fcuk away from me you creep'. Of course, with the silence and the awkward look, this conversation was probably heading that way anyways.

Damn.

"Do you ... always sleep ... in the library?"

[Lux Lisbon]

She smiled when he answered her with what seemed like another inquiry, but in reality was just a statement. A lonely, somewhat befuddled statement that seemed like it needed a few friends to back it up. Sadly for it, none came. Lux didn't mind, in all honesty, although a little bit of elaboration would have been nice. Granted, she hadn't really given him anything to go off of other than her name and a bit of hostility derived from utter surprise, so she didn't know why she wanted more than she'd given him.

She supposed it was something of her job as a woman--expect more than you could have. Always. And then poke at life until it was so irritated with you that it gave it to you anyway. Life, in this case, was this poor victim of a boy sitting in front of her. She couldn't pity him too much for this, though--he had just slammed her head against a table and interrputed her sleep, after all.

Then again, she never really pitied her prey. It was too fun to play with them and then discard them when she, inevitably, tired of them.

"You don't sound too sure about that," she remarked, placing her palms on the grainy wooden chair to stabilitize herself and pushing upwards, sitting up straight now. Her shoulders rolled forward, her unruly hair tumbling over her shoulders in both directions, desperate to escape their reluctantly buoyed restraints that gravity had placed upon them, anchoring them either in front of her dockish shoulders.

The poor boy looked befuddled, and she reached under the table with her right hand, plaing a hand on his knee and squeezing gently. Whether or not he was ticklish didn't come to mind-- it was a flirtatious movement, intended to stir him but hopefully not terrify him. The movement toward him was obvious enough as it was, and she could only assume now that he'd caught it by no mistake of the eye.

"Not always," she said, cracking a grin. Her teeth, which were uneven and aligned in such a way that she had a sizeable overbite--which, she could safely say, was far better than the opposite, the underbite, for she preferred to look like a vampire than a bulldog (while, of course, not being either)--was entirely visible. Despite orthadontal proddings from her mother, she never got them fixed.

This rooted from her 12 year old generalization that British people had crooked teeth, and when informed of their impending move, she refused to get her own jaunty, protuberous set of compers fixed. It was all about the whole "fitting in" gig, which hadn't taken off too well on its own despite her teeth. She wasn't the weird sister--no, that was Cecilia's role-- but she was certainly the libertine one. And, strangely, the promiscuous one.

"I do almost always sleep when I open a book, though. It just...happens. It was bound to happen sometime, I guess. I mean, um, it could only be expected in a place full of books...?" It was her turn to end in a pseudo-question, and she didn't care. She didn't judge herself--that was counterproductive.

[Ian Isaacs]

Ian knew as soon as Lux spoke, she was picking on him. No, he hadn't sounded very sure had he. It was because of awkward moments like these that he chose not to go out of his way to talk to people. He hated this whole strange weirdness. It was hard to make a sentence sound anything other than redundant and because of that it seemed so pointless to even have a conversation.

It was just fcuking irritating.

What happened next happened in a very fast flurry of events. Something touched his knee. Something touched him in a haunted library and he couldn't see what it was. Something close to a shriek escaped him. A high-pitched, obnoxiously loud, screech. Ian jumped up out of his seat and looked around frantically.

Immediately he noticed there were no ghosts around. There were no lagoon creatures or satanic demons or anything of the sort.

And certainly nothing of the sort was cause for the touch.

Shit.

He pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened but he had a feeling that wouldn't go over as well as he wanted it to. "Not always--really. See I was afraid that you oftentimes slept in here. With the ghosts and things. The whole haunted library thing." He was talking incredibly fast and nothing he was saying was making any sense at all. Nodding a bit he just sort of stopped talking and smiled sheepishly.

He sat back down in his seat, regretting how he'd jumped out of it and wishing (now that he knew it wasn't a terrible beast of some sort) that that soft touch was still on his knee. Damn. People were im-fcuking-possible. Well, that was mainly due to himself. Whatever.

"Sorry--I didn't mean to--screech." Even saying the word just made him feel like an ass clown. Exactly what he'd been hoping to avoid. Fcuk. "I didn't realize that it was your--I mean that it wasn't some kind of fcuked up thing. You can--" Where the hell was he planning on going with that? 'You can put your hand back on my knee now?'

Definitely not.

Ian really had no idea what he was supposed to do now. Should he put his hand on her? What the fcuk was he expected to do?

[Lux Lisbon]

Lux smiled as he stuttered, and then faultered, and then tried to speak again. His scream made her stiffen, though, and her grip tightened on his knee with her fingernails digging into his skin with as much strength as her fingers could muster. His shriek scared her possibly more than her head-table trauma, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling to be frightened. Ironically, Lux loved scary things--scary movies and roller coasters were kind of her deal. Granted, most witches and wizards didn't deal with any of that muggle "garbage," but she quite loved it. It was her world, and would be even after she was completely introduced to the wizarding world.

Her hand fell from his leg and she sat back, cooly, pretending as if she too wasn't terrified. She bit down on her lip, and then on her fingernails. It was a bad habit, her gnawing. But it was a habit nonetheless, and even still she wasn't keen on breaking it. It was one of those habits she'd shared with Cecilia, and since her sisters "accidental death" she couldn't quite bear to part with it.

She didn't bother to mention, when asked, the fact that she wouldn't have been able to stop if she wanted to. It calmed the nerves.

To his next response she shook her head no, and then fished in her pocket for a packet of watermelon gum. She procured one and opened it, offering him a piece. The juicy, sugar-filled pieces were quite pungent, and to some malodorous, but she was addicted. Not quite, but it was her gum of choice. Oftentimes she chose it over cigarettes, although cigarettes werent exactly an addiction. Yet.

His smile made her smile, though, and she slid back down in her chair comfortably, her left foot-which had been slipped into a strange knitted slipper-sock-clog hybrid- now touching his foot. She kept her eyes on his face now, hoping not to startle him again, as she slid her feet from the shoes and and then tapped at his ankle, gently, with her foot. It wasnt much of a gesture, if anything, but it sufficed for her unsatiated need to give and receive attention.

She grinned a bit, her vampy-teeth showing again unbridled and unmasked by her lips, and quite frankly she didn't care. "Its fine, I understand that I startled you," she said, complacently, looking at him with her mischevious smile, which sparked an even more mischevous smirk.

Leaning forward now she retracted her foot and put her forearms on the table, doing some body oragami on the chair and folding her feet under her, sitting on her heels on the chair. "How do you know I'm not one of them?" she asked, grinning cruelly, "That I'm not secretly out to get you too? Maybe I'm not a girl at all. Not a real girl anyway. Would you know?"

[Ian Isaacs]

Ian felt so incredibly uncomfortable. He'd shrieked like a fcuking girl. Because a girl had touched his leg. Not only had he screeched obnoxiously, he'd jumped out of his chair and thought about running away. Wow. That was immensely pathetic.

Sliding back into his seat, trying to act as nonchalant as possible, Ian sort of fiddled with his hands for a minute and looked at the table, pretending to be amazed at the wood grain of it.

Apparently he'd made her uncomfortable as well. She was biting at her nails which people usually only did in circumstances where they were highly uncomfortable. Damnit. And she was cute too! Damn Hogwarts and it's fcuking ghosts and creepy things.

Ian shook his head when she offered him gum. He didn't chew gum. Ever. Was that weird?

Suddenly, he felt something else touch him and he almost fcuking flipped again. God that would've been a bitch. However, he realized what was going on a split second before hand. That wasn't a ghost. It wasn't a man-eating thing. It felt like...a foot. Now, Ian was weird, but he didn't particularly like feet touching him. That sort of made him feel incredibly strange. Slowly, he slid his ankle away from her, hoping she wouldn't think he was being rude. After all she had just stuck her foot on him without even making sure he wasn't going to puke before hand.

"A little bit," he admitted. Yeah--right. A lot of bit? That was more accurate. He was glad to feel her foot leave him even as he was still moving his ankle backwards. Thank God. He really felt awkward. "Well--what?"

Ian didn't have a good comeback for that. Fcuking hell and he thought he said weird things when he actually said something.

"If you're out to get me, I think I'm all right with that." After all, she was gorgeous. And as luck would have it--most girls found him creepy. He didn't talk much and he had a habit of looking at people in strange ways. When he was having a "day" he could easily charm his way into or out of something. Most days however, encounters turned out like this one had started. Awkward and uncomfortable.

Damnit.

"Lux, was it?" Yes it was, he knew that. He remembered everything, it was a talent or something. "You're a lot prettier than the girls who usually hang out in the library. Means there's got to be something there that makes you like the rest of us. Do you have hair in strange places because I don't think I could talk to you anymore if that was it..."

Perhaps he'd gone too far.

[Lux Lisbon]

Lux grinned as she felt his leg retreat. It was always interesting to see the reactions--she wasn't sure why, but some guys liked feet. Cecilia once explained her constant bare-footedness as an expression of freedom; in some Indian or Native American culture, bare feet symbolized freedom. Lux didn't know if this was true or not, nor was she so inclined to go look up the symbolism of feet. Paranormalities and other cultures were her younger sister's deal, not hers.

Unfortunately, Cecilia didn't have a deal any more. No, Cecilia was dead now, by her own doing. It was a touchy subject, though, and part of the reason for the move to England.

Lux scoffed out a judgemental laugh, but then realized her probable cruelty, albeit unintentional. It was bad enough that he'd screamed like that, and then she'd mocked him, and then he'd been embarassed, and then she mocked him again. Oops. That sucked.

She didn't have a problem forgetting about it, though, and let the conversation flow, even though the rest of the river of the conversation was probably going ot be equally as rocky. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

She nodded when he reaffirmed her name, but her gaze was beginning to wander around the creepish library while he talked. He began to give her a slew of a compliment, though, and she turned her head back, looking at him again about halfway through the first sentance. She waited out the entire compliment before allowing the corner of her mouth on the left side to twitch upward in a smile.

"Thanks," she said, lamely. "But....I don't usually linger in the library. Hence the sleep." She laughed when he asked if she had strange hairs growing in awkward places. "And no, I'm hair-free where I should be. My sister Mary is the one who has to wax her upper lip." And it was true. But then again Mary was also a cosmetics freak, and whether or not there was really much of anything to get rid of was questionable.

She shrugged, "Apparently unpleasant hair isn't genetically inherited in my family." And now perhaps she had gone too far, but that was beside the point.

Leaning back in her chair Lux let her shoulders slump below the top of the back of the chair, her shoulder blades sticking themselves rather uncomfortably between the wooden spindles of the back of the chair. She ignored it, though, and closed her eyes for another moment, letting her head drop back and exposing a bit of chubbiness welling underneath her chin.

Slowly she rolled her head back up, opening her eyes as well. "So, do you always strike up conversation with random pretty girls?"