open-ended life

Mads and Georgette had been trying to meet up for a while, but neither of them exactly had an empty schedule. As it happened though, they both finally seemed to have a free morning to meet for coffee or tea at Hatter's.

It was a welcome addition to his weekend plans, which were mostly grading and exam prep.

"I'm glad our scheduled lined up this morning," he said, sitting across from her with his tea. "Otherwise I'd just be grading all day."

[outfit]

The words were all said in a quiet voice down towards the ground as a breeze danced around Avery's feet.

"It's not nice to be lonely all by yourself. Or lost."

Put! The wild! Animal! Down!

"What's up by the way? Did you need something from the library?"

"No, I'm actually hiding. I don't want to talk to any of the other lecturers in my department right now because my brain can't handle our usualy conversation topics right now, so I can't sit in my office and grade assignments." Mads said. "But they won't look in the library to chat."

Though, in her hazy state she couldn't remember where or when. Maybe he was her professor. Maybe they'd fucked...maybe both?

"Don't mind if I do."

She took the drink and started guzzling it down until it was nearly empty. "Thanks! Feel much better." She did not, in fact, feel better.

Oh, fuck him. He wasn't getting out of this so easily, was he? What kind of person would he be if he just let some drunk girl wander around?

"Where are you going? I'll walk you there."

"It's fine." He said with a weary shrug. "Keeps me from sitting at a desk all day, I guess."

"Small wins I guess," Mads said, looking at the stack. "I don't remember being that careless as a student. Then again, I also actually did all of my assignments and didn't let AI write for me. I practically lived in the library."

"Okay all safe and sound. And mission accomplished." Sylvia grinned showing the book she had managed to grab. Some desperate student would be thrilled.

But call him booboo the fool for doubting her, he supposed!

"Glad your feet are flat on the floor now."

"But he was lonely at the lake all by himself! He got lost and I told him he could stay in my pond instead where I could visit him all the time and he said yes and he's very tired so we should probably take him home."

"...right. But have you considered he's got a turtle family that might be looking for him at the lake?" Mads said. "Imagine if someone just took you home with them if you lost your dads, you wouldn't like that, would you?"

Chundering into the bushes.

And getting spotted by a professor.

"Then go head and keep walking, handsome," April said as she unscrewed the top to her water bottle (that was full of vodka) and took a swig.

Mads blinked, utterly grossed out.

"Ew, I'm like 40, stop that." He muttered, turning to walk away...but he stopped, sighed, and walked back toward her.

He uncapped the bottle of water he'd just grabbed from a vending machine and handed it to her.

"Here."

Why had she wanted to learn French? It was a university requirement. Well, a language was. But why French? Was it just because it seemed impressive? Because it was the sort of thing her mother would’ve approved of? 

Then, it clicked —

“What you asked earlier,” she said, voice low, as the band took a quick break to do some sound checks. “I do like French movies. I’ve always wanted to go to Cannes. I think they’ve got some of the best cinema out there. Maybe I should start watching movies without the subtitles.” She let out a laugh. “Might be too hard at first. Unless it’s one I’ve seen before.

Now French people, I could give or take. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that.” She snorted, then grew quiet as the band started up their next song. 

Mads listened, genuinely interested in her answer.

To him, wanting to watch French movies was a perfectly good reason to be invested in French.

"Not at all, especially people from Paris. I think French-speakers from Belgium and Switzerland are much more pleasant to talk to." Mads said, before focusing on the main point. "I think that's a great reason to want to learn a language. You could also watch them with the French subtitles so you can read along if you miss a word in French, that's what I do until I feel ready to watch a movie in a language with zero help."

A beat.

"There's also a plug-in you can get on your laptop with bilingual subtitles, real language nerd shit. But I find that most useful when I'm SO brand new to a language."

He stopped before he bored her with my unsolicited study tips.

Poor turtle.

He was probably just trying to live his life before Avery came along.

"Okay look away in case it all tumbles now."

"Tell me when I can turn around."

So two chairs perch precariously on top of each other with a little bit of her magic to keep them steady and her tiptoeing just to see the book and grab it, wasn’t a bad thing. She was being quite safe honestly.

“Honestly a good idea. I’ve just passed my first year here and while I’ve been done my probation I have no idea if there’s a rule they can still fire me for reckless behaviour.”

There was the hint of a smile though, evident in his voice.

She shrugged. The band got up on stage, introducing themselves, and then began to play. They were quite good. Drizella found herself nodding along. She snuck a glance at Mads to see if he was vibing with it as much as she was. 

"Do you actually care about French culture and French people?" Mads asked, as a genuine question. "Because I find I can only be arsed to put the time, effort, money, and tears into learning a language if I also love the culture, food, music, and people. Like, I never formally studied Farsi but I learned it because I had an Iranian friend when I lived in Turkey who was like 'you should learn Farsi so I have someone to speak it with' and I said 'sure, I could probably do that.'"

To really make his point, he added, "Failed miserably at trying to learn German. The language itself wasn't the most difficult. I just don't have any German-speaking friends to make me care so I couldn't stay motivated. But that's okay, I once got around the working-class areas of Berlin by speaking Turkish. So I get that, needing a reason to keep motivated."

When the band started to play, Mads had to admit, they were good. As a guitar-player himself and former guitarist in a band, he was particularly tuned in to the guitar.

And Mads did not have time for situations today.

Mads blinked.

Cancel prom? Interesting.

"That wasn't on my Jun Moon petition bingo card, but I'm intrigued. Why?"