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:: Tommy Banner can't help but sense someone's eyes locked upon him, and so he turns slightly in order to survey the few people behind him. After a brief amount of consideration of the young man who seems almost as occupied with his fizzy-drink as with Tommy himself, he decides to approach him, gingerly :: Hullo...? Are. You. Quite alright, there?? :: He winces as he realises how bloody stilted that sentence sounded. ::

"I'm fine." The response is automatic, not anything with thought behind it. He'd learned despite his issues with social situations that only his mother actually wanted to really know how he was doing. He shifts so he can look at the man, one of those rare people who actually had a sense Embrik had been staring at them. There's something slightly off about him, and that's always worth a few hours of observation.

There's probably something else he should say, here, but nothing comes to mind, so he studies the man's eyes and wonders who decided this soda tasted like pumpkin in the first place.

((of course that could have something to do with how attached i am to this man, here, who is also slightly-- special, mentally and emotionally! xD ❤))

"Al-alright, then.... If you're. If you're sure, then..." Tommy has the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that he's attracted this kid's attention, somehow, and thusly,he decides it's best to stick around at least until he can figure out if he's seen this young man before. "Sorry, but-- I was wondering-- do. Do we know each other, perhaps...? Oh! Perhaps you're in. In one of my maths classes? At the uni, that is to say..."

"We're not in any of the same classes. I'm hard to miss." He tugs on a strand of white hair for emphasis. Purebred humans hated visual variance, so hair like his had gotten a lot of unwanted attention in his formative years. Less so when they realized he could fight back and bad things happened to people's belongings when they pushed his buttons. Although no one ever put together the disappearances and the connection there... "But you've probably seen me around. I've been told I'm hard to forget."

But dyeing his hair wouldn't help that. He knows; he's tried. Still, his eyes take in the rich browns of normal human hair and he wonders if things would have been easier if he'd been born looking more like this man.

"Oh, yes?" Tommy shrugs blandly; he had gone to secondary school with, and even roomed with, an albino, so the hair didn't really fuss him, at all. What did worry him was the boy's apparent attention upon him, so intense it almost physically hurt to be stared at so. "Well, I can't say I would necessarily notice any... albino or. Whatever genetic anomaly... You happen to have. I mean, usually my own eyes are upon my notes. N-not my. Students. I'm afeared..." He winces apologetically, even though the boy was the one who first brought his bizarrely washed-out colouring into the conversation.

"I'm not albino. It's a family thing on my dad's side; goes back as far as we can trace it." But his interest has been renewed by Tommy's unexpected response. Embrik can usually count on bringing his coloration to the front as a way to make people uneasy and those people always make their excuses and leave. This is new, this apologizing for nothing - he's seen it, but it's rarely been directed at him before.

He wants to keep the older man, like a rare bird, locked up somewhere safe where they can meet again. But the real world doesn't work like that, so he looks down at his soda, brown eyes contemplative. "So you're a teacher, but you don't like looking at people. Wouldn't that make it hard?" To him the best part about people is watching them from a distance where they can't do anything to impact his world, and teaching seems like it has some of those traits to it. Especially at that level where annoying students would only tke up a small portion of his day.

"Oh, no," Tommy protests, weakly, even as he finds himself locking eyes with this boy, strangely enough, in a way that he has never done with anyone outside his immediate family, before. "Honestly: I do think that not looking at my-- my students is real--. Really the best way to avoid having. Y'know, nerves, over talking. In front of a large class, especially...

"I mean, within the large lecture halls, especially. I think there are literally. Hundreds of seats in those bloody lecture halls..." He winces apologetically again, of course, since he's almost certain that this boy, who is so insistently staring at him, is in no way sympathetic to the idea of being "nervous" in front of a crowd.

"Crowds don't bother me. It's individuals. They're the ones who say horrible things to you. They're the ones that try to hurt you. Groups and classes just sit there in their own little world." It's part of his love-hate relationship with school. He likes observing things from a back row seat, but he hates the confrontations that make him stand out as just inherently inhuman. "They stick to themselves. You've never talked to a group about this kind of thing, have you?" It's not really a question.

He holds out his hand for the other man to shake. "Embrik Molan. Nice to meet you." And for once, he means it. People who don't navigate the world so well... they're not like him, not really, but they're the closest to him you can manage and still be human. He likes that. Particularly when things are quiet and subdued. It's like, for a brief moment, he's a person too, by proximity and proxy.

For a moment his face drops its' usual hardened lack of expression for a more genuine one. "You wanna sit down? We can talk." That's... what people do, when this happens, right? Normal people. Real people.

"Oh no, i have not..." Tommy answers the rhetorical question anyway, before thinking it through and realising that it was in fact, rhetorical. He blinks, barely, as he continues to lock eyes with the younger man, until that is, he realises that there is a hand being held out for him, and he glances downward just briefly enough to catch the hand within his own. "Nice to meet you-- Embrick Molan. I'm Tommy. Doctor Tommy Banner. So... What language is your name hail from...?" he asks, as curious as a cat as ever.

"Embrik is old Norse. Molan is Gaelic - it means 'bringer of the storm', which I guess is accurate. Things tend to go pretty badly around my family." Not so much now that his father was in prison where he belonged, but the toll on his mother was obvious enough to anyone with eyes. He notes the vague roughness on the man's fingertips that comes from schoolwork, or maybe reading a lot. It's odd to feel it on an adult but teaching will do that to a man. "I forget what Embrik means. My mother's into etymology but that's not my talent." Pause. "I'm not sure I have a talent." Other than killing people, that is, which is not something he wants to make part of his daily life and not something he could make a career out of.

"Ahh... I see..." Tommy manages a brief smile at the younger man, as he explains the origin of his name.

Then, of course, he grimaces slightly as the young man puts himself down so thoroughly. "Oh, I'm sure that's not true... I mean, you must be good at something, mustn't you? I mean, to end up here, at Oxford...?" Unless, of course, he was some psychology student's pet project. Of course, this mere thought prompts another apologetic wince in Tommy's greenish-hazel eyes; how dare he even think such a thing about another man?

"I'm just here because some psychology students think it's interesting to do a paper on me. That's it. That's always it. Even when I actually go to college that'll be the main reason people talk to me. But... even though I hate talking to people one on one, I'll take it. It's better than never speaking to anyone at all."

That must sound thoroughly pathetic, but Embrik has learned it doesn't matter. People are temporary. They don't last, they leave, often abruptly, and so there's no point in being anything but completely honest. This is a human world and he isn't human, and so he's puzzle piece that doesn't fit.

At least he has his memories. The stalkerish pictures he takes just serve to remind him the world isn't empty. He's so many kinds of crazy he suspects he could make a living off of it. Maybe that'll make up for the total lack of talent and he'll coast through life. It doesn't sound so bad.

"Oh yes...?" Tommy winces with some sympathy-- possibly even empathy-- as he listens to this young man go on about how no one likes to talk to him, save of course, for research purposes. "Well, if it helps at all. I do enjoy talking to you, and--. Well, to be honest... I don't really like talking to people, either," he confesses, low and so soft that the hoarseness of his voice was almost negated. Almost. "I mean, not in public speaking situations, such as my lecture hall with hundreds of seats within it, and certainly not one-on-one either...."

"Then why take on a job where you have to talk to people? Isn't that hard?" It'd be like if someone asked Embrik to be a life-coach or something - intellectually he might be able to cobble together something halfway decent, but as for actually doing it? He'd quit in a day. "And... thanks. For liking to talk to me. I don't think anyone's said that to me before."

"In-indeed... But still, it's the only job I'm really qualified for. After so many years in Academia, I mean-- I mean to say: I doubt that I ever could leave academia, even if I tried to." He grimaced apologetically again, as he realised that this kid would probably be stuck in Academia for life, too, but-- more as a test subject than as a teacher or student.

"Anyway, if you ever care to visit my office, of course, you'll be welcome, even if it's not officially my "office hours". Actually, especially if it's not my office hours, given that most times are filled up by my students, whose gaze I strenuously avoid, of course..." Probably more because he was worried that making eye contact would encourage the ladies who seemingly became interested in Maths solely because of all the "handsome lecturers" at Oxford, but still. It was a Thing with him, by now. And of course, the way this boy was continuing to stare at him, as if trying to memorise every bloody detail of his face, was starting to unnerve him just as much as those young women who came to his office hours. "Anyway, I do have a class to get to--." A little white lie, but still, he did at the very least, have papers to mark for his next class. Tomorrow, but still, regardless. He had to get away from this staring boy before he had a panic attack, or even worse, an asthma attack, without his inhaler on him right at the moment...

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((ooc p.s.: i totes DIG your headcanon in your profile, there! =D <3))

Thanks! I'm trying, but it's the first time in years I've attempted an OC, so I'm kinda nervous.

((❤ well, i really like the little sociopathic runt myself! ❤ ))

He's not a total sociopath. That would require much more competent writing than what I've got going.

aww! D= ❤ i'm sure that's not true...! ❤ i mean, not that i WANT this cutie to be a sociopath!

He's fighting his sociopathic tendencies. He just sucks at it. Because his life is made of fail.

awww! ❤ {{snuggles the poor boy!}} xD

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{{cuddles him AGAIN!}} aww, poor boy! xD ❤

You keep saying cuddles and my mind keeps picturing a dysfunctional romance between these two.

oh GOD, no; i'm so sorry, but: NO ROMANCE for Tommy! xD ❤

Oh, wow, poor Tommy. That's harsh.

aww! xD ❤ it's really NOT as harsh at it sounds; i mean, he's an ASEXUAL & aromantic gentleman!

For now. Muses morph on us when we least suspect it, the traitors.

true enough, but this muse has been with me so bloody LONG i doubt he'll change that drastically!