Cammie & Adrinne: Grades and Rings

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

A talk about the preptests for the GED becomes another reading of sorts on Cammie's old ring as she assuages some old curiosity.

"So, I completely think you're ready for that GED," Adrienne praised, passing back the latest practice test she'd been looking over for Cammie. "Any idea when you're going to go for the gold?"

Cammie shrugged, "I dunno. It requires effort. Which really isn't something I do," or really something she was used to being worth, but that was another story. "I'm just uncommonly gifted at practice tests and multiple choice."

"Effort, huh? Would you be more inclined to make an effort if there's bribery involved? Or I could get the shop to take away all your hours and convince Nathan to do the same at Elpis if you don't take your test, if that would help?"

Cammie had been taking a swig from the flask she had bought for the express purpose of carrying around antifreeze and she sputtered, "Hey! What in either of those jobs says 'needs fake high school degree!?"

"Hey! Watch where you're spluttering!" Adrienne warned, sliding her chair further away from Cammie. "The part that says 'thou shalt not be a lazy bum', I think it is," she quoted sagely. "If that's what it takes to get you to actually take the test, I'm prepared to rewrite my hiring policies to incorporate that specifically. 'All Carmilla Blacks must have fake high school degree," she grinned. "You're not hiding laziness behind fear, are you?"

"My fear and my laziness go to picnics together. They always win the three legged race," she returned. "You're not really going to do that shit." That was massively unfair.

"I may be forced to if you're not going to make the effort on your own," the math teacher threatened, hoping Cammie wouldn't figure out that she was teasing. "There's nothing to be afraid of. You know this sh- stuff cold. And hey, if you do it, I'll let you spend fifteen minutes with my credit card on the t-shirt hell website," she grinned.

"I could do a LOT of damage in fifteen minutes," Cammie pointed out, the grin she had was evil.

"Then do we have a deal?" Adrienne asked with a smirk.

"Fine. But I'm doing it in one day," Cammie said, "I'm not going in for tests more than once, after all."

"Fair enough. Oh, did you ever get a new chain for your ring?" she inquired, sipping at the coffee she had on the desk. "I noticed we just got some in i the shop which made me think of it." Actually, it was hard not to think of Cammie's ring and what she'd witnessed of Cammie's past when she saw Cammie, but Adrienne wasn't going to point that out.

"Yeah, got one from Crazy Jane," Cammie said, fishing it out from under her boybeater and holding it up. She hadn't worn it in years, the reason being simply that it was easy to grab on to and on the street you couldn't have that. But she had always had it and a beat up photograph with her. "Question: Exactly what do you do anyway?" she asked, playing with the ring on a chain.

"I teach math and own a modelling agency?" she deadpanned.

“That deserves the avoidance prize,” Cammie said, “I mean, what you do,” she’d never call them ‘powers.’ It was a compliment hers would never get. She wasn’t gifted. She was cursed. So she wouldn’t call them ‘powers’ or ‘gifts’ with anyone else.

"I wasn't avoiding the subject, I was just being annoying," Adrienne answered with a smirk. "I read things. I experience the history of any object I touch, as if I'm standing there with it, only not because I don't actually have a body or anything, I just see and hear and smell and all that stuff of whatever's going on around the object. Sort of like watching a movie, I suppose, because I can go forward or backward and even get glimpses of precognition. Why so curious? 'Doesn't seem like you."

“Same thing, really. Well, one’s annoying at any rate,” Cammie returned with a grin of her own and shrugged, “It’s really not. Normally I could care less what people here do. But it sort of got me wondering, you know?”

"Wondering what? Do you want me to read something for you?"

Cammie shrugged, “Yeah, I guess so. I mean… yeah,” Queen Articulation had struck again.

"Hmm, maybe you should wait a little while longer until you take the English test," Adrienne teased. "What would you like me to read?"

“Bah. No one uses English anymore anyway. Everyone speaks LOLcat,” Cammie said, holding the ring up a bit, “This, again. It… um… belonged to someone important. To me anyway. Shocking, I know.”

Adrienne nearly called Cammie out in her flippancy about having people who were important to her, but she held her tongue. That might sound comforting, and comforting made her nervous. "Sure, I can do that," she said instead, shrugging casually as she reached into her bag to clean one of her hands. "You want me to tell you about the ring before it came to you, yes?" It was a request she'd come to anticipate when it came to her powers. Sometimes she wondered why she didn't go into business as a traveling side-show carnival act, not telling peoples' fortunes but telling people about the pasts of loved ones who'd made presents of special objects.

“Yeah.” Cammie said, handing the ring on the chain to Adrienne, “Before I got it. It was… it belonged to this guy, you know?”

"I'm fast-forwarding if I get to any sex scenes," Adrienne warned with what she hoped was a reassuring smile for Cammie.

“That’s fair,” Cammie said.

Deciding to start at the beginning, Adrienne watched the ring being made, packed up, shipped off, saw it picked up by the guy she'd seen with Cammie in the other reading. Greg? Was that what she'd called him?

* * *

He almost didn’t hear the door open and barely managed to hide the ring away in his back pocket before being set upon by his much smaller girlfriend.

“Hey, what’cha hiding?” Cammie asked, grinning up at him.

“Nothing."

“Liar,” she said brightly and the game was on. The game of keeping her hands away from his back pocket.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said.

She gasped, making it as loud as possible, “You ARE hiding something! Show me!”

“Later!” he laughed, “You’ll see later…”

* * *

Adrienne let go of the ring and blinked her eyes back into focus. "He didn't have it long before he gave it to you," she murmured, not sure if Cammie would have known that or not. "It seems like maybe the only reason he ordered it was to give it to you. He looked sort of nervous about it, too. And you were quite the Little Miss Grabbyhands about him hiding it from you, weren't you?" she smiled.

“I was always Little Miss Grabbyhands,” Cammie said with a grin. “Yeah, sounds like him.”

"Quite attractive, too," the older woman said with a grin.

“What can I say, I can pick ‘em,” Cammie said, “He was pretty hot. Kinda dumb, but hot.”

A finely sculpted eyebrow shot skyward. "'Was', in the sense that you're not together anymore, or...?" she left the alternative unsaid. Her previous reading of the ring had shown Greg wounded by Cammie's powers, but she hadn't seen him actually die...

“He died,” Cammie said simply, “’Bout four years ago. People don’t survive me. I survive people.”

Adrienne shrugged. She thought the sympathy route was the wrong way to go, so she went with nonchalance. "That's all anyone can do. It's just a little bit more literal for you than most of us. You can control your powers, at least. You have more control now than you did then. You can be around people, bump into someone in a shop; some people here can't even touch another person." She didn't think Cammie was the type to wallow in self-pity, so Adrienne didn't remind her not to.

“Yeah, now I’m just more of a slow death,” Cammie said brightly. Three days of close contact was more than enough to keep people sick. So even now she stuck to herself. “Better than nothing.”

"Indeed," Adrienne agreed with a nod. "Did you want me to keep reading?"

“Nah. I was just… curious, I guess,” Cammie said with a shrug.

"Well, that's what I'm here for," the psychometrist replied with enthusiasm.