false god

chapter 2

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rub out those kinks!

Travis had a lot of weird...quirks. If you wanted to be Travis's friend, you just sort of had to accept these strange oddities. There was no changing them, no convincing him, nothing of that sort. Sure, everyone had them, but Travis had a lot of them.

One of these quirks was that he hated opening gifts in front of others.

It made sense. Travis was the sort who hated small talk. He found it inane, pointless, and usually boring. He hated pretending to go along with small talk even more, and if that's what it took, he'd rather just not talk to you. On a similar thread, he hated having to pretend right away, in front of you, that he liked your present if it was truly awful. He always quoted a particularly bad sweater from his godmother in his youth that had made him staunch on his choice that all gifts would be opened in private.

He had a way with words, so he would always send out really nice thank-you cards and you'd never know the difference.

Taylor was fairly sure he did not hate the laptop charger from last Christmas. Firstly, who hated chargers? Unless they murdered your family, they were a pretty safe gift. Second, he trashed his old one the day after Christmas and had been using the new one sense.

Unfortunately, these gifts weren't so black and white. And because Taylor knew Travis, she wouldn't get to see his face as he unwrapped them.

She let it go for the night of the party. She wanted him to enjoy his birthday, so despite her genuine curiosity about if he'd enjoyed the gifts, she kept her mouth shut.

The next morning, however, all bets were off.

She was nice and made him french toast because otherwise, he wouldn't take the time to make food himself (but always wolfed down anything put in front of him), and Taylor believed breakfast to be the most important meal of the day.

"So," Taylor leaned over the partition, "Good party?" She asked, staring off with an innocent question. Travis was shoveling food into his mouth and answered full of toast. Taylor swatted him with the spatula, rolling her eyes.

"Swallow, neanderthal," She teased.

"Good, I said," He replied, "Low-key, just friends, casual. Plus, I beat Pat in Mortal Kombat for the official 100th time." He said with a smirk.

"Right, right." Taylor plated her own food. She hesitated, but decided to just go for it, "Did you like your gifts? From me?"

Travis was silent. She thought at first he was chewing again, but when she turned he was studying his food with a strange expression. She knew she made some damn good french toast, but they could not possibly be that interesting. His cheeks were flushed red.

"Trav?" She prompted again. He swallowed his food funny, choking a little bit. She frowned, unable to figure out why he was making that face.

Oh god, he hated the gifts. Maybe she didn't actually want to hear this?

No, she was far too curious. She did.

"The calendar is fantastic," He finally said, once he wasn't dying, washing the food down his throat with a deep swig of extra-dark coffee, "Seriously. I almost want to start using it now! I mean, it would be super awesome if I used it as a writing exercise, you know, like every day I do a short drabble with the 'word of the day'," He said, beginning to gesticulate with his hands, "You know?"

Taylor began to relax. He was honestly excited, not just faking it for her benefit. Criminal Science was something Jughead could talk about for hours, but it was always obvious when a book or writing-inspired thing just wasn't holding his interest. He had a certain disdain for NaNoWriMo, which she would never understand, and he usually couldn't even get through attempting to talk about Twilight or Fifty Shades without looking like he was being tortured.