daph vc : when and where i finally collapse is completely up to the gods

          ‘ hey , i was drinking that ‘ he tries to sound accusatory but apparently he has been in this chair for seven hours and so his voice does some puberty-esque acrobatics halfway through the sentence . clearing his throat he pushes thick-framed glasses up the ridge of his nose , fully prepared to argue that he hasn’t had that much and he’s a big boy who can handle his caffeine , but the argument dies on his tongue when the tremble in his fingers nearly knock his glasses off . so maybe he’s had a teeny tiny bit too much ; is he going to give graham the satisfaction of him admitting it ? no , not at all . ‘ fire cannot kill a dragon , flowers . i am made of caffeine and so it cannot hurt me . ‘

    ‘ no poking the dm when he’s trying to do math , ‘  he mumbles , swatting at the ruler kaz is using to reach him from across the table without looking up from where he’s trying to calculate how much damage the monster is about to deal her , ‘ it’s in the rulebook , now quit it or i get to roll an extra d8 . ‘  

      ‘  aw  ,  you thought it was nice ?  ‘  rapid - fire mouth is once again too quick off the mark and belatedly his brain catches up with the rest of the conversation , promptly he clears his throat in an effort to wipe the near smug smile off his face . ‘  sorry  ,   starting now my lips are sealed . cross my heart  ,  scouts honor  ,  ‘  he’s not a scout  ,  but he figures he can swear by their honor anyway  .  ‘  i won’t breathe a word of it  ,  ‘ perhaps he’d be a little more believable if he didn’t look so amused  ,  ‘   god forbid anyone finds out either of us can be tolerable  .  ‘

     ‘  come on  ,  sally !  ‘  he sits propped up with his back firmly against the inner wall of the locker , both feet on the door to keep it from slamming shut despite sally’s efforts . ‘ can’t we please postpone this to next period  ?  ‘  it’s not so much the prospect of being shoved in a locker that he minds – sure , the first few times had been panic-inducing , but he’s gotten rather used to it by now , it’s more-so losing the perfect excuse for missing the algebra quiz this afternoon he’s worked up about , ‘ please , work with me here ! this could be a win - win situation ! ‘ 

‘ no , it’s just — it’s just a little smokey , that’s all ! ‘ wishful thinking , that is . the drone lies on the grass like a fallen meteor , emitting concerning quantities of thick grey smoke . this is the third time this happens , and he can only charm the tech teacher’s favor so many times - he’s running out of star trek trivia and this one looks like it’ll be on a rocky starting field to begin with . ‘ aw , man … ‘ he groans , kneeling a few feet from the drone’s spluttering corpse as stray sparks fly beneath the metal and plastics of its body , ‘ that is fire . shit , yea , okay , that’s absolutely on- – that’s on fire big time . ‘  no amount of rare trivia is going to save his grade from literal fire . ‘ i’m dead meat . ‘