Alma leaned her head upon the heel of her hand, surveying Locke with a smirk. She, too, was enjoying the bantering thoroughly. Locke’s tirade cut down the other classmates for their “inflated sense of self-worth”, which only made the woman’s grin broaden.

“…you are just like an old man, you know that?” she observed frankly, letting out a faint laugh, “I wouldn’t be so skeptical of people. I mean, sure, most of them are idiots, but there are some intellectuals out there. It would be unfair to lump them into the same category.”

Alma twirled a strand of hair. It was easy to forget that some of these people might be a good deal younger than her.

“Maybe… an upper-division ethics class or something,” Alma said with a shrug, “Like a seminar on evolution would be the best context…”

Locke pointed-out how heated it was getting, and Alma shook her head, “I’m not angry. I enjoy bantering like this.”

She hummed as they discussed the stakes.

“How ‘bout we get something to drink after… there’s a cafeteria on-campus, right?” Alma proposed, “Loser purchases said drinks?”

Two sodas, or a soda and a tea, wouldn’t be quite five dollars.

An old man. Did she just say he was like an old man? "Yeah I know. You aren't the first to say that," Locke answered, realizing a second too late that it had been a rhetorical question and that Alma probably didn't care if he had answered it or not. But he had and it was too quick to ignore that words were indeed said. "Let's just say that I've been taking on a lot of responsibility in my life. And I wouldn't say that I'm skeptical." Alright, so he was skeptical, but that didn't mean he had to say that he was. Just as Locke preferred to not think of it as running away, but rather as taking a vacation, he had chosen the label for his behavior. "Just realistic. I see how things go in the past, I make judgements on the present and the future based on that. Idiots always talk loudest, and they don't listen to intellectuals. You can't make anything foolproof because those fools are so darn ingenious."

The last part was an attempt at humor. His skills with getting chuckles depended entirely upon if the punchline should be said with a straight face or not. Locke was deadpan humor, while his best friend was more of the slapstick variety. With interest Locke watched Alma fiddle with her hair and it made him think of himself. There wasn't that mop of hair to hide behind anymore, but he had become more confident. Was it that Alma was feeling shy about something? Probably not. You're probably boring her. When a guy messes with his hair it's because he feels awkward. When a girl does it it's because there's nothing else for her to do.[/i]

At least he hadn't offended her with their debate about the ethics of discussing mutations. Alma had even said that she enjoyed this sort of banter. Why was she so bored then? "We could..." Locke started to say, half a second before Alma offered her opinion on what the payoff should be of their little bet, causing Locke to instantly shush up. Whatever he was going to say was abandoned. "Drinks sounds good. I'm a Fanta guy, just so you know." Oh yeah, awkward social skills was going to win him this bet.

Alma listened while Locke spoke, half of her attention lingering on the professor. He was making a steady progress on the syllabus, having now moved onto discussing the texts for the course. She glanced back at the boy beside her, tilting her head. The hair-twirling slowed to a subconscious stop. The class, as a whole, turned to the next page of the syllabus, and Alma followed along. As if she was actually paying attention. Locke made known his preferences for soda.

“You say that like you’re going to win,” this earned him another impish grin, “But I am determined to defeat you.”

The fussing with the hair wasn’t so much a conscious sign of boredom, but a subconscious thing that her hands began to do when she wasn’t taking notes. Even if her mind was preoccupied with conversation, her hands had nothing to do.

”I’m not the betting type, if I say I’m going to win, it’s because I am,” Locke said with a confidence that he usually lacked in other aspects of his life. It wasn’t often that Locke was able to, or even wanted to boast. There was a reason why the word humility was so similar to humiliation. It wasn’t always that Locke was humble, but often times that he was easily embarrassed. When the chance came about that Locke could boast, it was not only rare, but to be savored. ”See, I know how this sort of thing always ends up, and I’ve an ace up my sleeve.” An ace that was really just being too shy to do anything to get himself a lab partner.

Since Alma seemed to be so interested in reading the syllabus at this point Locke felt compelled to look at it himself. One of the last labs that they would be performing in the class would be a fetal pig dissection. He smiled before chuckling awkwardly. The last time he had discussed pigs with a girl, he had been defending his capability to eat bacon while watching a very specific scene in the third Saw movie. Gina couldn’t understand how to him the scene had held no terror or even a squick factor. Eaan had no problem scarfing down his breakfast that morning either, but the prospect of actually opening up the pig would have made him freak out. “How many students do you think are going to protest about the pig?” he asked Alma, wanting there to be some conversation going still. High school bio had been educational in that when a student is presented with the chance to cut into a dead animal, either they will hack away with gleeful abandon, or declare the entire thing unethical.

As for Locke, well, he didn't particularly enjoy dissection days. For one thing he failed to see why they had to look at a frog or pig's body composition to gain an understanding of the humans. Wouldn't it be easier to just use one of those plastic models you saw in magazines, where the body is a clear shell that little pieces rested inside? Fake skeletons were used for the bone system, why not a fake human? The smell was also an issue. The formaldehyde made him think a little too much of being in the hospital again.