favorite liar | xavier thorpe

11. sick of this small talk

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

"So, what's your favorite color?"

Iris and Xavier have gotten comfortable in the storage closet after banging on the door for ten minutes. They assume someone will come in by lunch time, and since they've already made up, they're taking advantage of the break.

"Orange. Yours?" Xavier answers.

"Gray."

"Of course. What's your middle name?"

"Guess."

"Oh, not this," Xavier clearly doesn't think the middle school-esque experience is as enticing.

"It starts with an L," Iris ignores his disdain, now excited for the game.

"Lilac," he pretends to not care about the answer.

"Close! On the right track."

"A flower?" He confirms, Iris nodding. "Mmm. Lavender."

"It's not a color," Iris senses a trend in his past few answers.

"Lily."

"Oh my gosh, how did you know?" Iris pretends to be surprised, knowing that was the only plant really left that would make sense.

"Wild guess," he also pretends to be interested in the actual outcome. "If you could meet any celebrity right now, who would it be?"

". . . Your dad," Iris says after thinking. "Parents are the windows to our souls."

"You would hate my dad," is Xavier's response.

"No," Iris says taken aback. "Why do you say that?"

"He's just. . . everything that's wrong with the world."

"That is not an answer."

"Okay, fine," Xavier straightens up a bit against the shelves he's resting against. "So, you get visions," he nods at Iris, ready to go into everything.

"It's true," she confirms, ready to go along.

"Do you think you're better than everyone because of it?"

"A few people," she knows she's not going along with his rhetoric, but is having more fun this way.

He's tilts his head disapprovingly at her answer before getting back on track. "Well, he thinks he's better than everyone."

"So, that's where you get it from," Iris realizes a second too late that might not have been the witty remark she thought it was. "I don't mean it like that," she tries fixing. "I just. . . well. . . nevermind," she decides to quit while she's ahead.

"No," Xavier leans forward a bit as she sits back, maybe trying to melt into the wall behind her. "What were you gonna say?"

"Well," she doesn't know how to get out of this now. "Obviously I don't think this anymore," she gives a disclaimer. "But. . . when we met, I did think you were a little. . . entitled? Just, like, in the sense that it was. . . weird to talk to you. Like, I thought you were judging me in a way, y'know? I don't know, it's stupid," she shakes off, not really knowing where to go with this.

"What are your visions normally of?" He doesn't seem that fazed by her words.

"What?"

"I remember when we first talked about it, and you said they weren't interesting," he then explains. "Why not? What are they of?"

"Um," Iris doesn't know how to tell him she had a vision of the two of them almost making out. She's smart enough to know that they don't always come true, but he doesn't want her to think she's, like, weird, or anything. "Just. . . silly things," she decides to describe them as. "What's for breakfast the next day. Wednesday's are more intense," she then finds a way to shift the conversation. "She said, um. . . she said she saw Rowan using his telekinesis to throw you against the wall. . . when he was still here, I mean," she hopes that was a subtle enough transition.

"Yeah," Xavier looks down, seemingly ready to go along with the conversation now. "It was over that book I know you and Wednesday stole from the library. I assumed Rowan took it because we kicked him out, I confronted him, and he got super pissed."

"He normally get like that?" Iris asks. "Like, anger issues?"

"Not really, just since a few weeks ago. . . since you and Wednesday showed up, honestly."

"Hm," Iris can see how that makes sense. "You keep in touch with him?"

"I tried. . . I think he just wants to leave Nevermore in his rearview," Xavier explains, but there was hesitation in his tone.

"What are you guys doing?" Tyler opens the door on the two, both immediately standing up as if they were doing purposeful work.

"The door was locked," Iris explains, being the first to push past and get into the main room after the moment dies.

"We tried calling for help," Xavier is right behind her, but Iris senses he knows she knows he's hiding something.

"Wednesday?"

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

"This isn't creepy at all," Iris commented when Wednesday led her and Thing into some abandoned shed that Wednesday thought would answer all her problems.

Some homeless guy was there, Thing did his thing, chasing the guy out, Wednesday got a vision of the girls's great great great great ancestor, Goody Addams, it started raining, the monster appeared out of nowhere, but didn't bring any harm to the girls, and for some reason they ran into Xavier as they were walking out and Wednesday was explaining her vision, and he gave them an umbrella.

The girls realized the monster is human as they trailed its footprints off into human ones, but the rain washed it away before they could show Xavier, and Iris wasn't very appreciative of the doubtful tone in his voice when they talked about it.

He then had a change of heart, however, explaining how suspicious Rowan was being when he texted him, and now he agrees with Wednesday and Iris that there's something more suspicious going on. He then contradicts his previous statements again and explains to Wednesday that emotions are prevalently rooted in emotion, not logic.

Then, Wednesday (or Thing depending on who you ask) set the new Joseph Crackstone statue on fire and got sent to Weems's office.

"Should I wear this or this?" Yoko holds up one light blue t-shirt and one dark blue colored t-shirt, pressing both to her body as Iris looks up from her bed where she's reading Emma by Jane Austen.

"The blue one," Iris answers.

"Anyway, how was the Weathervane?" Yoko takes the pause of her changing her shirt and Iris flipping her pages to debrief. "Divina ended up switching into Pilgrim World," Yoko goes into her own answer first. "And I ate most of the fudge we were supposed to hand out anyway, so."

"Xavier and I are friends again," is Iris's update.

"Were you ever not friends?"

"He was mad that I was mad about the Nightshades thing," seems to be the simplest way for Iris to put it. "And I have called him entitled, like, three times, so I don't really know how he feels about me, I guess."

"Oh, he's totally in love you," Yoko clarifies. "Now, I can't decide if it's as a rebound after Bianca - no offense-" but Iris doesn't even look up from her book. "But why else do you think he wants to be your friend?"

"Because I'm an awesome friend," Iris takes offense at this now.

"Well, obviously," Yoko dramatically emphasizes that's not what she meant. "But everyone knows that I take the title of being your best friend, and he's just kinda there, hence, it makes sense he's okay with being second to me if he wants to be more than friends anyway."

". . . Sure."

a/n:
every time I try watching Pretty Hard Cases my laptop explodes sos