kore_logs | Apologies are difficult...

Entry tags:

Apologies are difficult...

Who: Meyer & Ned
What: Meyer has some apologies to make, given what happened during the week they were all not quite themselves. Apologies, needless to say, are difficult.
When: Forward dated to Day 67
Where: Ned's house.
Warnings: Swearing? Feelings? Definitely awkward apologies.

A very wise -- and very cunning -- man had once told Meyer that knowing when to apologize was more important than being right. It was also more important to apologize at the opportune moment than to simply do as your conscience dictated (if your conscience dictated anything at all.) The apology needed to sound genuine; it had multiple parts, all of which fit together in a specific way: it was a careful balance of humility and grace -- not too subservient, yet not grudging; not overly wordy, but eloquent and to the point.

Yet for everything Arnold Rothstein had taught him about apologies, there was no simple and straightforward phrasing to fall back on when your apology included seeking forgiveness for turning into a vampire and attacking a near stranger. No apology gift seemed to suffice, either. At home he might have offered a bottle of liquor or a wad of cash, but neither of those seemed quite right here.

Lost for a proper script, Meyer felt a little like he had as a child, when he was still learning the complex game of wriggling out of trouble. It was like going in front of an angry tribunal when the victim knew just as well as you did that you were guilty -- except as a child, the tribunal had been his mother, and in this case, the tribunal was Ned.

That was why, as he stood, hat in his hands, in front of Ned's house, he had to take a deep breath. It wasn't guilt that filled him so much as the queasy fear of losing a potential ally, but luckily, that feeling and guilt translated the same on his face: an unsure smile, a furrowed brow, an appropriately contrite expression all around.

He took one more deep breath, and knocked twice on Ned's door.

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Unbeknownst to Meyer, his timing is fortuitous. If he'd come by to apologize just a day or so earlier, he'd have seen an unshaven, red-eyed, sleep-deprived wreck of a man rather than the cheerful, slightly flour-dusted version of Ned who comes to answer the door. After Jesse's return, his view of the world is downright rosy.

So when he sees Meyer at the door, despite the unfortunate circumstances of their last (and first) meeting, his response is not fear or mistrust, but cautious curiosity.

"Meyer," he says, and then steps aside politely, "Come in."

Edited 2013-04-27 02:38 (UTC)

Mistrust is one of Meyer's primary responses to anything out of the ordinary, so he's confused by Ned's seeming curiosity. Shouldn't Ned be backing away from him, or even threatening him? After all, it wasn't so very long ago that Meyer had attacked him, though the circumstances weren't entirely within his control.

"Ned," he responds, trying to wipe any trace of confusion from his face as he smiles at Ned and steps forward, entering the house. "I... wanted to speak to you about the... unfortunate circumstances of last week."

Will Ned be amenable to it? Some people might not want to hear apologies, might want to forget anything happened entirely. He and Charlie hadn't discussed that week since it had happened, but then, they rarely discussed anything. It was better put behind them -- but this was one apology that needed to be made, no matter how uncomfortable it made him.

Ned nods; he had been expecting as much. He has a feeling that a lot of people have been having a lot of conversations, around the town, about what happened when they'd all been changed. It seems likely from Meyer's affect (he actually has his hat in his hands, of all things) that he's working his way up towards some kind of apology. It won't be the first one that Ned's entertained, but the whole process doesn't look to be any less awkward the second time around.

"Come in the kitchen?" he requests. It would probably be more polite of him to set aside his baking and devote his full attention to Meyer. Then again, he thinks it will be easier for himself to get through whatever they're going to talk about if he has something to do with his hands, has some excuse not to look at Meyer. Because he looks at Meyer and can picture his face with blood all over its mouth and chin and it's... disconcerting, to say the least.

So he leads the way inside, through the living room and around the corner to the kitchen. There's a small table with a few chairs in the corner, and Ned pulls one out for Meyer before heading back to the counter where he'd left the lump of dough he'd been kneading. The air is warm and sweet with the smell of the apple pie that's currently in the oven.

He scatters a little more flour and goes back to kneading the dough. If Meyer wants to talk about it, he's going to have to be the one that starts the conversation.

He follows Ned into the kitchen, sitting down in the offered chair, fiddling with the hat in his hands for a few seconds before finally setting it down. It helps to have something to hold onto, but it looks wishy-washy and disingenuous to be toying with his hat as he speaks. He's always known what physical signs, what tiny expressions, what bizarre quirks make a person look trustworthy or untrustworthy. He's generally good at looking trustworthy, although sometimes his smile is a little too charming, a little too sharp.

The smell of the pie in the oven is enough to make him both hungry and a bit more relaxed -- he's never quite moved beyond the intense cravings for sugar he had as a child, and pie is one of his favorite foods, regardless of what kind if is -- and it's easier for him to discuss this when Ned isn't directly looking at him. There's nothing accusing in Ned's demeanor, not at all, but that doesn't mean that Ned isn't simply good at veiling his feelings.

"What happened was a..." That's not how he should begin, and he has to start over, shaking his head. It doesn't make sense to refer to it in vague, blameless terms like that. It was something he did. They both know that.

"I apologize for my actions last week. Losing control like that was unacceptable."

There's no doubt that his words are stilted, that even that took herculean effort -- as much as he knows that admitting to one's mistakes is sometimes necessary, he's still learning how to admit his mistakes to himself, and loss of self-control is the biggest mistake of all.

Ned finds his choice of words highly illuminating. It's not some variation of "I'm sorry for what I did" or "I'm sorry I hurt you;" no, it's "I'm sorry I lost control". Interesting, that. He's also, now that he is just listening to Meyer's voice, aware of its formality, its accent. He can appreciate how economical an apology it is. No excuses, no justifications. Just what is necessary. And that is more than enough for him.

"Apology accepted."

And Ned himself feels as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, saying those words. He's a firm believer in second chances. Besides, he's done much, much worse in his time. It would be the height of hypocrisy not to forgive Meyer for something as trivial as what he'd done.

He turns a smile on Meyer: small, but genuine. Meyer's discomfort is clear, and Ned thinks he ought to perhaps give a little context.

"You were hardly the only one who wasn't in control of their actions. As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't even your fault. Give blame where blame is due." And he gestures with the rolling pin to the camera in the corner. Best not to forget the root of their troubles, the reason behind all the monsters.

Meyer has hurt people in far worse ways in the past, but the difference in those cases was that his actions were controlled, careful, and what he'd done to Ned had been anything but that. His whole life he's tamped down any impulses, especially angry or violent ones, learned to temper any desire to lash out, held himself in check so closely that even people who have known him nearly his whole life sometimes marvel at how little anything seems to bother him.

He follows Ned's gesture with his gaze, looks at the camera, shakes his head again. He hates the idea of being watched every moment, especially by strangers. In his more vulnerable moments -- and he'd be the first to admit he doesn't have many of those -- he wonders what their captors are doing with the information they glean from watching the residents of the town. Perhaps watching people turn into vampires or plant-conjurers (he still hasn't quite figured out what Ned was, really) provides some sick entertainment, but watching someone bake a pie or argue with their roommates can only be diverting for so long.

He's grateful for Ned's easy acceptance of his apology. The words had been difficult to choose, for all their seeming simplicity, and even to his own ears, his over-enunciation of his words had been jarring.

"The affliction wasn't my fault. What I chose to do with it was. You didn't go around attacking people."

Ned glances over, not exactly surprised by Meyer's continued chagrin, but taking note of it nonetheless. He seems uninterested in taking the out that Ned has provided for him. Ned interprets this as a sign that he's responsible, wants to be the only one held accountable for his actions. Perhaps it is just that he doesn't like to think of himself as powerless, or even having diminished power over his own choices. After what happened with Charles, Ned thinks he can understand that position.

"No, I didn't." He stares down at the kiwis he is peeling as he speaks, "But then, I wasn't a vampire. I still ended up doing some things I wouldn't have, otherwise." Ned feels his face go hot, hopes that Meyer isn't looking closely enough to see him blush. Time for a nervous ramble to cover up for that. "Beside which, you should know that I think there was something wrong with me. I mean, because of the change. It wasn't just you. Or- or Charlie. I think in addition to the flowers and the healing powers there was something about me that made people just... attack me. People who normally never would."

Yes, people. As in rather a lot of them.

He notices Ned's blush, but that's only because he's an inveterate blusher himself, and picks up on it easily in other people. He's not unkind enough to say anything about it, though; he hates it when people notice him blushing, and has trained himself out of finding most things embarrassing. Most. There are still certain things that will cause the color to rise to his cheeks, and he vaguely wonders whether that might be the case for Ned, too. He won't ask. That would be rude, and rude is exactly what he's attempting to avoid.

"You mean you were... attacked by more than just me? Er... us?"

He doesn't intend to apologize for Charlie, but he does have to acknowledge that to some extent, the attack on Ned had been a joint effort. While Meyer hadn't approved of Charlie's impromptu kidnapping of Ned, it probably wouldn't have happened had Charlie not been out looking for Meyer in the first place. He's exceptionally good at accepting responsibility for things that aren't technically his fault.

Ned nods, dropping the now-sliced kiwi into its proper bowl and setting down the paring knife so he can count it out on his fingers. Not ostentatiously, but he honestly isn't sure he could keep it all straight otherwise, and he's not going to list their names aloud. He wants Meyer to know that he isn't alone in this, but he's not about to rat anyone else out. There had been Galen, with the nightmares. Meyer, and Charlie (he thinks he has every right to count them as two). Tony, because even if he hadn't bitten, he'd done enough. Veronica, despite her politeness. And of course, Charles.

Ned ends up with six fingers held out, indicating six attackers. He looks up at Meyer, gestures with his hands in mute indication of the number. Even for him, the one who lived through it all, it's a little shocking to total it up like that. All that, in a week, and with Jesse dying on top of it... his breakdown a few days ago is suddenly not so surprising.

Honestly, Ned is glad that he has Jesse's return - the miracle of that, the joy of it - standing in between him and all those attacks, or he isn't sure he could be so calm and cool talking about all of it. Even so, it was all so recent, and there's an edge to his voice when he says, lowly, "It was a bad week." He picks up another kiwi, focuses intently on peeling it neatly so the skin falls away in a perfect spiral.

Six? It's surprising, and the surprise is probably evident on his face. There had been a fair amount of dangerous people -- or should he think of them as monsters? -- around the city, of course, but six attackers seemed like a statistically high number. Maybe Ned was right, maybe there had been something particularly alluring about him. Meyer had to admit, Ned had been the one he'd been most inspired to attack, been unable to avoid.

In fact, Ned had been only one of two people he'd attacked that week, though he was almost surprised by that fact. He could chalk it up to his self-control, but he knew it came down to the agreement he and Charlie had made midway through the week. That was an agreement he preferred not to talk about, not to think about. It would, hopefully, never come up again.

"Yeah, 'a bad week' is putting it mildly," he agrees, watching as Ned peels the kiwi. "What're you making?" That's an easier topic to deal with than the topic of horrific transformations, and besides, he's genuinely interested.

"I survived."

He means it to come out as flippant, but the word gets a bit stuck in his throat. Does it technically still count as surviving if he died and came back to life? Then again, that is apparently something that people do here. There was himself, and Jesse, and apparently that woman whose body had been found in pieces.

When Meyer changes the subject Ned is more than happy to follow his lead, wanting to show he holds no grudge, rather than just saying it.

"Pie. This one's going to be kiwi and lime." He looks at Meyer as he speaks - easier to face him when they are discussing something a little less heavy. He keeps slicing the fruit deftly without even glancing down at it, his hands moving with the kind of practiced ease that comes from endless repetition. "Gotta do something with all that fruit I left all over the place."

"You make a lot of pies?"

He can tell from the way Ned's slicing the fruit that he has, or at least, that he spends an inordinate amount of time cutting up fruit. He wonders if Ned might be a chef of some kind, and if so, what he can do to convince Ned to bake a pie for him. It would be exceptionally rude to expect him to do so after everything that had happened -- if anything, Meyer should be the one baking things in apology, except that's the kind of thing his mother would do.

"What's kiwi taste like?"

The fruit Ned's slicing doesn't look particularly familiar, and he's spent quite a bit of the conversation staring at it so as to avoid making eye contact with Ned. Once the topic has safely moved on, though, he feels comfortable enough to look up at Ned when he speaks instead of gazing intently at Ned's hands and the kiwi.

"You've never had a kiwi?" Ned's smile is warm and without mockery. He remembers just now what Meyer said when they first spoke; if he really is from 1920s, perhaps it isn't so surprising, after all, that he's never had a kiwi. He holds out a slice of the fruit for Meyer to try. It would never cross his mind not to let him have as much as he would like.

"I'm a piemaker. Was. Back home. Had my own shop and everything."

"I'm not sure I've ever even seen a kiwi," he answers, giving a slight smile in return. He reaches out to take the slice, surprised that Ned's offering it to him. He hadn't been angling for it, exactly, but even if he had, he wouldn't necessarily have expected Ned to be generous, not after what had happened. Certainly, most people he knows wouldn't have offered him much of anything except a punch in the face -- or maybe something a lot worse -- if he'd attacked them.

His mind doesn't linger on being surprised for too long, though. Ned's explanation of what he did back home is intriguing, and for once, it's intriguing in a completely personal way. It has nothing to do with his own business interests, but pie very well may be his favorite food. It's strange; Ned seems to have a way of making him think about food one way or another, although admittedly, thinking about pie is a lot better than thinking about drinking his blood.

"Just pie? Do you make other baked goods?"

"They're native to China. Don't think they started growing them anywhere else until after your time."

Now that he has enough fruit cut up for the filling, Ned washes his hands and goes back to the dough. He's delighted to talk about his work with Meyer. He'd really much rather be a baker, in Meyer's eyes, than a guy who managed to get himself attacked six times in a single week. One option makes him look pathetic, ridiculous. The other makes him seem competent, worthy. Ned might not be the most sure of himself in a lot of ways, but he knows that he is good at what he does.

"Pie's my specialty, but I can make most things." He is also a good cook in terms of non-baked goods, but he doesn't want to sound like he's bragging. "Went to pastry school and all of that. Waste of money, mostly, but it did broaden my repertoire."

He hadn't been judging Ned for being attacked six times in one week -- although he had been feeling slightly bad for him, considering how unpleasant his attack against Ned alone had been -- but talking about baking lets him put his own role in Ned's attacks further from his mind. Besides, having a professional baker around is never a bad thing.

He finally takes a bite of the slice of kiwi he's been holding, making a face somewhere between confusion and enjoyment. "It's kind of sour." He probably doesn't actually need to say that; he assumes Ned knows what kiwi tastes like, after all, since he's cooking with it.

"What kind of pie do you make best?" Yes, this is obviously a highly necessary question to ask. "And," he continues, "the way I see it, pastry school is probably a lot more useful than most schools."

"They're sweeter once you cook them," Ned points out, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile at the face Meyer makes. "If you stick around long enough you can try them in the pie, see if you like it any better." Once more, Ned doesn't think twice about offering Meyer the fruits of his labor. Giving people pie is just what Ned does. It's the most natural thing, to him.

Ned considers this question as he rolls out the dough, lays it in the tin and begins to trim the edges. "I think that depends on the person eating the pie. If your favorite is apple, I'm best at apple, and if your favorite is peach, I'm best at peach." He could never choose a single flavor of pie above others. That would be absurd. Pie is pie; it's all wonderful, each flavor in its own unique way. Never underestimate Ned's capacity for sentimentality, when pie is involved.

"It's definitely more useful. Can't think of a single thing I learned in boarding school that actually proved useful." That isn't precisely true, of course. He'd learned plenty of useful things: how to hide from bullies. How to hide bruises. How to keep his head down. How to talk his way out of trouble. How to lie. How the world worked. It's just that none of those lessons were the official kind.

He sets about fluting the edges of the crust, asks, "What about you? What did you do, before all this?"

And once again, he's surprised at Ned's generosity, half of him wondering if Ned has some ulterior motive, half of him wondering whether Ned simply is as kind as he appears to be. The fact that he doesn't hold a grudge for the attack is one thing; he's right, to some extent, that the transformations, the unfortunate effects, weren't the faults of the people who were unlucky enough to undergo them. Regardless, the fact that he's willing to offer not only forgiveness but food strikes Meyer as strange, out of the realm of his experience.

"I think my favorite's apple," he finally says, but it takes some thought. He likes all pie, likes all sweet things. Maybe it's a product of growing up in a place where food itself was scarce, let alone luxuries. Maybe it's that sugary food is inherently comforting. Maybe it's just the taste of it. Whatever it is, he'd happily choose pie, cake, or cookies over almost anything else, although lately, he's been craving cigarettes to the exclusion of nearly everything -- but those don't really count as food, even if he often eschews a meal in favor of chain-smoking and drinking coffee.

The question about what he did before he got stuck here should be an awkward one, should give him pause and make him struggle to fabricate an answer that doesn't sound overly rehearsed and suspicious, but it doesn't make him stumble at all. "I ran a card game. Nothing fancy, mostly poker. I guess you could call me an entrepreneur."

That's all true, strictly. He does consider himself an entrepreneur -- he and Charlie have always found ways to make money, though rarely on the right side of the law -- and he does run a card game, although that, too, isn't particularly legal. Still, nobody could accuse him of lying, even if they could accuse him of glossing over the darker details.

Ned isn't surprised apple is Meyer's favorite. It's a lot of peoples' favorite, had always been the best-selling pie in all the bakeries where he'd worked over the years. Besides which, it is so traditional, and Meyer is from the past. He probably hasn't had the opportunity to try things like quince or kumquat.

"The one in the oven is apple. Actually..." He breaks off, opening the oven to check on the pie's progress. Ned never sets timers for his pies. If anyone were to ask he would say that he bakes intuitively, rather than empirically. When a pie is done, he can tell, from the smell and look and some other ineffable quality about it.

(Of course, there is another, less palatable answer beneath the surface one. The reason he learned to bake without timers in the first place is that, for years, some brands of them made him remember certain things and then have minor panic attacks. Hardly pleasant. So he'd adapted, learned the skills he needed to avoid ever relying on them.)

His senses are telling him that this pie is perfectly done, so he dons some oven mits and takes it out, setting it on a rack to cool. He'll dish Meyer up a slice once it's cooled enough that he won't burn himself.

"Aways been terrible at poker, myself. Don't have the luck for it." Ned doesn't appear to believe there's anything potentially shady about running a card game. What does he know, after all? It was the 20's, people probably played a lot of cards. What else did they have to do? History had never been his strong suit.

"And... Charlie, you said he's your business partner, so he runs it with you?" He might have forgiven Meyer and set all that aside in his mind, but Ned finds that bringing up the other man is still uncomfortable. It jolts him out of the current conversation and reminds him of what happened. Meyer might have bitten Ned, but in the end, Charlie had scared him far worse. Still, he thinks, it hadn't been his fault, just like it hadn't been any of their faults. He lets out a short breath, asks, "By the way is he... alright, now?" Ned mostly sounds awkward, but there is a hint of real concern there. River had hit him rather hard a few times.

He watches Ned move the apple pie from the oven to the cooling rack, aware that he's probably hungrily staring at it, but unable to avoid it. The food around here since his arrival hasn't exactly been gourmet, maybe because neither he nor Charlie bother cooking much, or maybe just because supplies are low. Either way, there's been nothing like an apple pie. If Ned's forgiveness wasn't enough of a reason for Meyer to begin to like him, his ability to make pie is.

He smiles a little at Ned's poker comment. Maybe there's something a little smug in that smile, or maybe it's just simple amusement. "It's not really about luck," he says, "Or at least, not mostly. Some people win a lot because they're lucky, but for most people, it's a game of statistics." It probably doesn't take a genius to figure out which side of the equation Meyer falls on. He's always liked statistics and numbers, always enjoyed figuring out the most profitable solution to a problem. Luck isn't something he puts much faith in -- it's for other people, people like Charlie, who can seemingly fall headfirst into any problem and walk out the other side unscathed.

"Yeah, he runs it with me. We've been business partners for a long time." It felt funny to say that, since below the formal suit and the strange amount of poise with which Meyer seemed to hold himself, he was really very young. People tended to assume he was older, closer to Charlie's age, and he rarely corrected them.

"He's fine. It all worked out." Another man might have offered an apology for his friend, but Meyer doesn't think that's his place. Whether or not Charlie feels bad for kidnapping Ned -- and he's not sure, although he assumes he is; they haven't discussed it in any great detail -- he'll have to be the one to tell Ned himself. It would be disingenuous to deliver Charlie's apology for him, and besides, secondhand apologies rarely hold much weight. Needless to say, their shared house had been an unpleasant place for the duration of the week, and he's glad it all worked out, glad they're all back to normal.

Ned would hardly begrudge him that hint of smugness. Truth be told there are other aspects of poker - statistics, yes, and the ability to lie convincingly - that he knows he lacks. For him, it's a foregone conclusion. If he's just going to lose (and he will always lose) why play at all? That strategy has translated to quite a few aspects of his life.

He remembers Meyer's counting tic when he was a vampire, wonders if that isn't related to what he says about statistics and poker. For a lot of people, their transformations seemed to reflect certain of their traits. For Meyer apparently, it is not so much predator as potential card-counter.

"You seem young to have your own business already, if you don't mind my saying." Ned intends it as a compliment. It had taken him years and years to earn enough to finally invest in opening his own shop. Perhaps starting a card game was a little simpler, in terms of starting capital. He wonders how long a long time is, though, and if it's a question of the times. Curious, the areas in which the differences emerge.

Ned nods his understanding when Meyer reports that Charlie is doing fine, not pressing for more details. He hopes, privately, that there is no lingering animosity between the two of them on his account. He pauses in applying the egg-wash to the in-progress kiwi-lime pie and cuts Meyer a slice of the apple, handing it over with a little smile. It's nice, to have a little normalcy back in his life.

More and more as they are speaking together, he is finding Meyer intriguing. Ned cuts himself a small slice of the pie and sits down to join him. "When I was your age-" or roughly thereabouts, Ned guesses, since he can't quite tell how old Meyer is. Younger than him, he thinks, "-I was still working odd jobs, trying to save up. I'd only just opened my own place when I got brought here."

The counting habit as a vampire had only been a logical extension of what he does anyway. When Dean had asked him later if he was an accountant in his normal life, he'd almost laughed -- it was so close, and yet so far, from the truth. Maybe if he'd stayed in school beyond the eighth grade he might have been an accountant, but that seemed unlikely. The truth was, he'd probably always been intended for a life of crime. It was what he did best.

"I'm twenty one," he says, accepting the piece of pie with a thankful smile. He wouldn't necessarily have said that to someone else, but Ned doesn't seem like the type to take him any less seriously given his age. The way he'd phrased it had sounded far more like a compliment than a putdown. Maybe it was because Ned had his own business, knew how difficult that kind of thing was to get off the ground.

Of course, he doubts Ned's business doubles as a drug front, like his own, and he doubts that Ned has to turn over much of his profits to someone else for protection; maybe it takes longer to start up a business when you're doing it legitimately, when there's nobody backing you and there's no sense of impending doom if you don't succeed -- or at least, not the kind of impending doom that comes with a bullet in the head as opposed to a loss of profits or concern about the business closing. That's what he assumes a completely legal business is like, although he wouldn't know, not really.

"What kind of odd jobs did you used to do, if you don't mind me asking?" He's always curious about people, wanting to figure out where they belong, what possible use they might have in his life. The fact that Ned is a baker -- and an excellent one, he realizes, as he takes a small bite of the apple pie, wanting to savor it for as long as he can -- means he's already more interesting than about eighty percent of the people here, but finding out what other potential uses he might serve is a natural instinct. It's not as though he intends to use Ned, nor does he see his attitude as particularly strange; he assumes everyone thinks of other people in this way, as potential allies, as potentially useful.

Ned can't imagine that Meyer's gotten to where he is, at his age, without a significant amount of work. Somehow, he doesn't seem the type to have just inherited enough money to start a business on his own, and that would rather go against his self-proclaimed title of entrepreneur.

It is such an oddly normal conversation to be having, in this place, with someone he met under such unusual circumstances. Ned is rather grateful for it.

"Whatever I could find, really. Baker's assistant. Cake shop assistant. Florists' assistant. Inventor's assistant. Gardening. Doing deliveries. Dog walking. Teaching baking classes. Window washing. Cleaning people's houses. Waiting tables. The usual stuff."

And then, because he knows his secret is out, knows that Meyer heard his announcement, he is able to add, "Selling fruits and vegetables, too. I'm always mad at myself that I didn't think of it earlier. Started working at a grocery store, and they'd always put me in charge of getting rid of any produce that was going bad. Except, because of my..." he waves one hand, to indicate his powers, "I'd just keep all of it, and bring the stuff back to life to sell at the farmer's market on Sundays."

That was the innovation that had helped him finally start saving up enough to make a difference. It was profit from nothing, was using his power to his advantage, for once.

He can't help but laugh a little as he takes another bite of the pie. "That's a creative way to use your--" he's not sure quite what to call them, and pauses. Powers? Abilities? He finally settles on "-- unique skills." After all, although Ned had made an announcement about his powers, that didn't mean he was comfortable discussing them in any great capacity.

He's impressed by anyone who can use whatever skills they're given in an interesting and profitable way, and although he's never had any experience with someone who has actual powers, he doesn't see it as being much different than any other talent: something that could be and should be exploited for maximum gain. He admires, too, the fact that Ned started his own business through work and saving money, not through simply being handed anything. It wasn't that he had anything against people who inherited money, exactly, but their experience was so far removed from his own he couldn't imagine it.

"I can't say I've done anything exactly like that..." Of course not, since he has no mysterious powers to speak of, "But starting up any business seems to involve an inordinate amount of finding clever ways to sell things."

"Might as well get some good out of it, right? I did the same thing at The Pie Hole - that's my shop. Can't get the fruit any fresher than after I've touched it." It had good for him, too, in ways other than financial. Had been, he now realizes, the first in a long and ongoing series of tiny steps towards accepting his powers. His ability to touch dead things back to life had taken so much from him; it was only right that he should use it to take something back, even if it was only money.

From the sound of it, Meyer knows quite a lot about business for someone his age. That, coupled with his earlier skepticism about schools, and what he'd said about being partners with Charlie for some time, makes Ned even more curious about his life.

"I'll say. Luckily for me, most people don't need much convincing when it comes to pie. So... why cards?"

Edited 2013-04-28 00:19 (UTC)

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