A Sight to See

"Mainly by little kids who think they're cool because they're doing what the older kids are" Draylen added to what Nathaniel had said, sighing slightly. He had never really cared what was 'cool' or not. "Mom. Mum. Not that different for me, but it's more natural to say it with an 'o'" he decided, after having tested it. He had never really tried to say it the British way before, but it wasn't too odd. He had heard people making fun of the British way of speaking before, but the only problem he had with it was the slang. The accent itself could be pretty sexy.

"There's nearly no difference. Might as well not make a deal of it." How much of their language sounded the same or could mean the same? Well, Nathanial didn't entirely care enough to find out. The bookstore was fairly large here, he liked that it was larger than the library in the area, which was rather sad. They said they were expanding when he mentioned it, but he doubted it since he had asked a bit ago. They also had no noticed of possible expansion or fund raisers to help them get there. "I don't care for the books that are nonexistent, or the ones that are too popular. Something in the middle I guess."

Draylen nodded his understanding, unsure of why some people made such a big deal over that. Sure it was a bit strange for Americans, used to their spelling of things, but that wasn't such a big difference. "Hmm, yeah. The middle's always safe. Popular enough to know they're pretty good, and not popular enough that they're some crazy fad" he was used to looking around the bookstore for the titles he rarely heard of, but looked interesting enough, or that other people had just put down. He turned into the large store when they got there, pausing for a moment, always unsure of where to look first.

Nathaniel took in a deep breath as he entered the bookstore, looking at all the titles and covers of books. All were a story of their own, and all were known to an extent of people, very esoteric. Some books were lucky to be highly esoteric, which were some of the ones he avoided, unless he really liked the author. "I love bookstores," Nathaniel sighed contentedly, drifting to whatever shelf called him. He always felt like he connected to the pages of books so well, he would always fall in love with the books with even the most unrelated character. He found he had a problem with female main characters though, and tended to avoid those.

Draylen followed his new friend to a shelf, looking at some of the titles he had read previously. Looking for books by the same author was always a good start. "Me too. I think my favorite smell in the world is books. Well, and chocolate, but still. Paper just smells really good" he smiled as he breathed in the fumes of paper and ink. He ran a hand down the spine of a book he had read before, which was one of his personal favorites, before moving on, dropping his hand to rest on the shelf as he looked at various covers and titles.

"Yeah," the Brit agreed, inhaling the scent of the books around him. New books smelled great, older books that had been treated well had a smell about them that could get sickening eventually, but for the while would remain something beautiful. He had quite a bookshelf at home from his collections from England and America. "I always want to get so many of them," he said, wishing books weren't so expensive sometimes. "I love to curl up and spend the day reading in some place nostalgic."

Draylen laughed slightly, nodding in agreement. "Yeah. When I was younger, every time I asked my mom if I could buy a book, she would take me to the library. But through birthdays and Christmas, I got a nice bunch, but my mom threw a lot of them out last year" he made a face, glancing at a few of the books he had lost. He had built his collection up since then, but he only had about thirty. "That's my favorite thing to do on rainy days. And during snow storms and such" he read in a different place depending on the whether, and the time of year.

"Rainy days, snow days, just nice days where you can sit somewhere quiet and read is nice. It really brings nostalgia to your senses later when you sit there and wonder what you used to do in that area. "I think just having a day of comfort once in a while makes everything else worth going through, just get to sit there and do whatever you like and be in a good mood." Nathaniel was usually in a fair mood, he was easy to set off in some terms, and harder to bother in others. He tried to balance days he got upset on something, even minor. He turned around to look at Draylen, his hand brushing against the other male's backside. He pulled his body away in a jerking motion, having felt a spark from them touching, even if it had been an accident.

Draylen hummed lightly in agreement, nodding as his green eyes scanned, trying to pick out something that sounded good, that he could ask for for his birthday. "Yeah. That's what weekends are for. At least, in school that is." With work, he didn't exactly get a weekend. He could have a shift at any time during business hours. He jumped slightly when he felt something brush against his butt, identified in a moment as Nathaniel's hand. He had felt the spark and he blinked slightly, colour rising in his cheeks. "Ah, sorry" he muttered, looking away, even if it hadn't been his fault.

"Err, no, sorry," Nathaniel said with an incline of the head, not making eye contact with Draylen. Had he imagined that spark that went through him when he touched Draylen? Maybe it was just because he had accidentally brushed up in a more sensitive area of the other. He didn't know who the situation was worse for, both were pretty embarrassed from what he could tell. He moved away more, coughing into his fist. "Ah...anyway, err, I'm going to, err, look over there." He sidled to where ever over there was and shook his head. That had been quite the oddity for him.

Draylen looked away, nodding. "Uhm, yeah, I'll just, ah, look at these" he decided quickly, aware of how uncertain he sounded. That was a rather interesting experience, he had to admit. He hadn't expected that feeling, but now he couldn't stop thinking about it. And it wasn't as if he hadn't had anybody touch his ass before or something. He bit his lip, picking up a random book and pretending to read the back.

Did people normally feel like that when brushing up against someone on accident? Yeah, they felt embarrassed and almost had no explanation other than they had done it on accident, and yeah, it was an odd place to touch without being in a relationship of some sort. If Nathaniel weren't the person he was, he would almost consider brushing up against someone else like that just to see if he got the same current going through him as he did with Draylen. If he had to guess, he might just throw out there that it was the abilities they had that were connecting, but he hadn't felt it when Draylen had had an episode in Starbucks and had practically jumped on top of him.

Draylen bit his lip as he looked at the back of the book, not really seeing it. He had no idea what he was feeling, but he knew that Nathaniel was embarassed about what had happened as well. That fact was interesting to him since most people would appologize and shrug it off. Maybe he had felt it too? He sighed, actually looking at the back of the book now, only shuddering when he realized it was about ghosts. He hated when coincidences like that happened. The first book he randomly picked up to look like he was doing something being something to do with spirits. He put the book back down, shaking his head.

Nathaniel had wandered over to the children's section by the time he looked at where he was going. Happy, colorful books with hardcover to prevent as much damage to the pages were lined up. He remembered some of them, a lot of the titles though were completely a mystery to him. He looked at a few of them, flipping through a few as he sat on the floor. He would imagine most people would be staring at him funny if they saw him looking through these. A young man sitting on the floor looking at the poorly drawn children's books with extra large font and six or seven words per page. Some of them could be elaborated on and make great stories if they were ever given a bigger plot.

Draylen skimmed down the shelf before realizing that Nathaniel was gone, although he found him easily, since he was able to sense him, in the way he did with ghosts. He followed to the children's section, raising an eyebrow at the male sitting on the floor looking at picture books. It was oddly contrasting with his appearance, but he just smiled. "Reliving your childhood?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

Hearing Draylen approach, Nathaniel collected his composure at not only being discovered by Draylen at looking at these childish things, but also because of why he had gone here in the first place, not that he actually knew he was headed here. "Ah, something like that. More like looking at what I missed though," he said sheepishly, showing Draylen the page he was looking at. The puppy children books were annoying but cute depending on how they drew the dogs. This one just happened to be a dog looking for a family. Nathaniel would admit he had a soft spot for animals, had tried going vegan before, and used products not tested on animals.

A grin slipped onto Draylen's face when the other male answered, despite the awkwardness of what had happened only minutes before. He laughed slightly, scratching one arm with the opposite hand idly, just so that he wasn't standing there doing nothing, as much. "I'm pretty sure I read that book when I was like, four" he said, sitting down beside Nathaniel, looking at the book curiously, sure he had read that one before.

"I don't think I read this one," Nathaniel said, examining the picture once more. Happy animals that could smile and cry bothered him just a little bit, but he made due with it because it was a children's book and they didn't understand that. Now, novels written like that for the animal to have more than just animalistic feelings, that was stupid, in his opinion. A load of barmy if you asked him. He was one for fantasy and all, but just animals talking and junk, that wasn't for him.

"Really? It was one of my favorites" Draylen grinned, looking at the title and remembering. This was one of the books he had his dad read to him a million times. "Do you have a lot of the same kids books in Britain?" he asked, green eyes flicking from the picture book to Nathaniel's brown eyes. He had read quite a few British novels, but he didn't know if childrens books worked the same way. He would assume they did, but at the same time, there had to be a billion kids books out there.

"Umm, I'm pretty sure some of them aren't the same, but then, every country has different children's books, and some of the same." He only saw a few he had read as a child. His parents hadn't gotten him that many books, he got them from school or the library. "I just like the books with animals," he said, flipping through more of the book to see the pictures of more animals. He liked going to stores and finding the books with the touch and feel things in them.

Nodding in understanding, Draylen picked a random book off the shelf in front of him. "Yeah, I guess it depends on a lot of things, but that makes sense" he said as he opened the book, looking down at the bright yellow duck shown on the first page, seemingly very happy. He flipped through, not reading the pages, but from what he could tell, it was something about the duck and it's friend robin got lost while they were playing. "Some children's books are just weird" he decided, closing the book and sticking it back on the shelf, looking back to Nathaniel.

"Indeed," Nathaniel concluded, putting it back and standing up, brushing off his pants. There was probably nothing on them, but it was a nervous habit and a habit in plain. He used to sit outside a lot in England, and that required brushing his pants off each time he got back up from sitting in the grass or the side walk or something. "Adult books are odd too, the ones with the barmy aggro's are just plain, ugh." They were a pain when dealing with inner conflict in books. Especially females, they never made up their mind and somehow thought it was their duty to fix this or that.

Draylen looked up as the other male stood, feeling rather short once he was standing up straight. He glanced around at his level for a moment, noticing how close he was to Nathaniel's crotch like this. He hopped to his feet instantly, fighting the colour rising in his cheeks, that he was sure wouldn't have been as bad if the other hadn't accidentally touched his ass. "Uhm. . . barmy aggro's?" he repeated, unsure of this as well. He was going to have to get to know British slang sometime soon.

"Yeah, it's as you might say, insane or crazy aggravations. Aka, the people who never make up their minds. Mainly females in books," he said, since the females just shouldn't be the lead of books. The only reason people put them as main characters was to show what weakness of the book was there, that it wasn't a male solving the problem like usual. He'd give females credit for being smarter than men sometimes, but usually when it came to fear level, fighting level, and pain tolerance, men were better in the books. Nathaniel was far from real life sexism, he just tended to favour males in books.

"Ahh. Makes sense" Draylen nodded, understanding what he meant with his example. Almost the entire female population annoyed him, minus a group of his friends, and his family. And even then, some of them botheres him occasionally. "I think females in general, most of the time. Have you heard some of them in A&F?" he asked, disbelief in his tone. It was amazing how girls could care so much, and have such a hard time making up their minds.