Friday [popcorn]

The young man sniffed, a half-ass laughter as he circled his way around the end of the couch, continuing to gaze down at her. Ah, something must have been wrong with her after all. Where was that bitter tone that'd he'd come to know? "Well," Liam cursed under his breath, the amusement yet to leave his face. He took his seat on the edge of the couch, sitting half-way off on what space her body offered left. He propped his arm up on the back of the sofa, hovering closer. "You're stuck with me now, Blondie."

His voice was getting closer. Maisie craned her neck to look down the couch, and sure enough, he was hovering over her. He was smiling. The embittered girl glared at him, biting her lip and saying nothing. Rather, she gave him the room. She didn't kick him or spit at him, but brought her knees up to her chest, wriggling her small frame to sit against the arm of the couch. "Fine," she said, "But don't expect me to entertain you." Her eyes shot to the black screen of the TV.

With silent amusement, he watched her pull her legs up squirm out from under him, careful enough to brushing him in the slightest - as if his touch was poisonous. Once she'd finally managed to make the room, he scooted back, eyes flickering to the abandoned remote. "Aren't I here to entertain you?" Liam mused under his breath, sliding closer down the sofa and throwing his arms behind the back of the chair, a mischievous gleam in his warm eyes. For a moment, he paused, a light bulb going off in his head. He shuffled around in his pocket, pulling out a sweet-scented roll; herbs twisted delicately into a crops brown paper. "My plan for the evening." He introduced, holding it nimbly out to her.

She was surprised that she hadn't smelled it before then. Maisie had turned on the television, beginning to absentmindedly flick through the channels when a whiff of the drug hit her nose. She paused, glancing over to him. A wide-eyed grin later, she launched herself to her knees. "Where did you get that stuff?" she asked excitedly. She knew there was a drug dealer, but she hadn't seen him around in so long. She assumed he bailed for a larger market elsewhere. The girl snatched it from him, and with a newfound energy, leaped over the couch. "Hold on, let me get my lighter," she said, already far into her room.

She had quit cigarettes, but no one said anything about weed. It'd been forever since she had weed; maybe that's why she'd been so on edge as of late...

Maisie had perked up lile she was a kid in a candy store. He hadn't expected the joint to be snatched out of his hands so quickly, staring away at her a bit dumbfounded as she suddenly sprang to her feet with glee and disappeared into her room. Once the coast had seemed to be clear, for the short time being anyways, he allowed himself a small laugh before dragging himself back off the cough.

"Lighters," He repeated with a low tch under his breath. "You insult me, Blondie." Liam pushed open the rest of her door, standing in the doorway and leaning sharply against the frame - gazing curiously around inside her room. With a simple snap on his fingers, flames flared to life between his nimble grasp. "What's better?"

He merely smiled because he didn't remember.

Maisie had been searching for her lighter for a few moments, tossing over papers on her desk, peeking around her lamp and groaning when it wasn't under her bed. Where did she leave it? When was the last time she smoked? She was about to let out a groan, or curse in Liam's general direction as if he had the power to fix it.

Or perhaps he did.

When he called for her, she turned around from where she knelt beside her bed, digging her heels hard into the floor as she huffed, "Don't call me that." Of course, all that was forgiven when she saw his finger, the flame that seemed to hold there, contained but never fully grasped. It reflected in her eyes as she marched over, placing the join loosely in her lips and sticking her chin out to him. "I knew you were good for something, Ginger!" she exclaimed through pursed lips, a mostly-closed mouth, grasping the join thinly between two pinched fingers and angling it towards him.

He held back another laugh, opting to scoff once again instead and stepping closer up to her as she leaned eagerly out. "Whatever," The Summer muttered under his breath, reaching his hand out, careful to avoid the flames from kicking away at any of that golden hair of hers. He stood carefully there, using the opportunity to look her over and admire her hazy blue eyes as the end of the blunt began to burn away into red embers. Once he wavered long enough for her to take her hit, the young man stepped back, stepping around her and inviting himself to take a seat at the end of her bed.

Maisie took a long drag, plopping down next to him on her bed. "I never invited you in here, you know," she said after a second hit of the joint, but her voice already seemed to loosen a bit. She passed the joint to the boy and ran her hands through her hair absentmindedly, hardly noticing the TV playing in the other room. Her most amiable roommate was in the infirmary and the others were god-knows-where. Whether or not they took up the whole apartment and made buffoons of themselves was seeming less like a worry to her.

"I needed this," she breathed, her bangs falling messily. "Midterms are a bitch."

He picked the joint from between his fingers, looking over it in thought, a hint of a smirk stuck to the corner of his lips. Liam gave the end a fresh light. She meant to say that he hadn't earned his way inside yet. Hell, he never had to share if he didn't want to. It was a stubborn thought, despited knowing her sharp words meant next to nothing. The young man brought the blunt to his lips and let the soothing smoke fill his lungs. A familiar warmth washed over him, leaving him somewhat lightheaded, and with a stupider looking smile than he'd had before.

"Never took you for the studious type." He sure as hell was never an A student. Before passing the drug back her way, Liam took one more hit, not one to rush things but figured she wouldn't want him holding it to himself for too long.

Her next hit made her cough under her breath. The girl giggled a little and smiled at what he said, waiting a bit for her lungs to calm before speaking a lightheaded, "I'm not. But it helps me get through failing a little better." Thinking about her mom's reactions to her inevitably poor grades normally made her stomach turn. It was tranquil then, though, next to Liam. "I think I'm gonna try to escape sometime next semester. Go back to Dallas, figure something out. School's not my kind of thing."

Liam smirked. In truth, there was no way in hell he could be considered a shining academic example of any sorts. He managed to drag himself through enough work to be considered barely passing and instead to use his time with other things that caught his interest; be it movies, training, or - most likely - hiding away in his room and having a smoke for the evening. Biggest asset of the joint, it made even doing nothing entertaining.

"You're a cowgirl too?" He mused, running a hand through his hair and leaning back on the bedding. "What's so good in Texas?"

Cowgirl. It was that kind of go-to lingo that made southern girls hate city boys. "Ooh, it's where I can go to my trailer park and listen to country music while spittin' tobacco and hushin' my should-be teen abortion," she cooed, in her best hillbilly accent. She tongued her cheek indignantly. "It's home. There's no better greatness than that. It's sure better than wherever the fuck we are now."

Maisie waved around the joint a few more times before dragging it and handing it back on a chorus of soft-pitched coughs. "Don't you miss whatever circus you're from?" The girl leaned closer to him, still blowing wisps of smoke out of her mouth carefully, almost distracted in the shapes her exhales formed.

He laughed. Perhaps it was the weed getting to him, her dumb-ass accent, or the perfect look of exasperation she carried; hell, or any combination of the three, but he didn't hide his own grin away for once. Liam took the joint away from her again, taking in a long drag and letting the smoke free slowly before he spoke again. "No," he said. "I'm from the garbage side of San Fran. It's shit." Where all the hobos and junkies and wanna-be failing artists roamed free.

Maybe Dallas had more to offer, but as far as he knew, the school wasn't a complete shit-hole. The red-head let himself linger, embracing how soft the bed felt under his hands, or the way her hair seemed to glow in the dim sunlight. After his second hit, he picked up the conversation right where he'd left off. "There's some perks here," he muttered, sitting up and meeting her eyes. "View's nice." Liam held the smoke back out to her.

Maisie was about to say "oh?" and her mouth retained this shape, the circular, open shape. She met his eyes too, and there was a brief moment that absolutely nothing came to her head. It was empty, floating in his gaze, her lips dry, her cheeks unpaling and blossoming slightly. Then she smiled. And she laughed a lot. It wasn't the weed that brought the laughter.

She took it, almost as a pacifer, placing it in her lips to stop herself from giggling, or rather, pretending to giggle. Her chest felt tight and unnatural, almost sour, and after one more drag she turned away from him. Her mind was no longer empty, but filled with heavy questions, questions unlike her, questions her mind had never materialized before. Quietly, she stood, stretched, and started walking; her feet took her to her desk, where she began to tidy it, awkwardly with one hand has the joint remained sticking from the other.

"Tell me more about this view," Maisie said softly, as softly as she'd ever spoken to him, softer than she'd ever spoken since her last run-in with Gary. Her eyes looked up to the window in front of her, the scarlet that shone to cover the red heat on her face. "I don't see it."

In that sudden dim silence, even with the light clouds fogging up his head, it was easy to lose his smile once he picked up on how rigid the girl was being quite so suddenly. Now, Liam had never been the best at speaking, and perhaps it was by the grace of the blunt that he had managed to refrain from saying something stupid thus far, but what was he supposed to tell her now? His eyes stayed glued to her carefully as she lingered by the window, her back turned away from him. How was he supposed to answer that?

"You're... not looking in the right place," Liam muttered under his breath. His hand wrapped around the back of his neck, stretching out and lazily pulling himself up to his feet again, the warmth of the drugs weighing him funnily enough down; like his own body were made of led. The red-head propped one up beside her, leaning in somewhat close, watching her from the corner of his eye. "It's not outside." Or in those mango books of hers.