Watch Me Now

Damn. She was good.

He hated being manipulated and being proved wrong. He sighed and reached forward as she started to turn away, saying, "Okay," in a conceding tone. "Okay. You made me look dumb, you aren't a complete idiot, you worked your clever little kid wit and got me. Okay?" He stared at her, grimacing.

"I'm not nice to anyone so please don't feel offended. I apologize, it was unfair of me. I'm sure I can endure your presence, and I can even manage to be pleasant along the way." This was going to kill him. Slowly but surely, he was sure.

"You think I want to talk to you."

Not a question, a statement. Lucy didn't want to talk to him. She also didn't appreciate the phrase "little kid." She just wanted the watch.

"I don't want to talk to you. I just wanted to help fix your watch. You're only being nice to me now because you think you can get something out of it," she said. "I'm not going to give you what you want just because you're nice to me. You're not a decent human being so I don't want to speak to you."

Shaking herself free she walked off again.

He hated kids.

He knew that was why she was upset now. But could she blame him? She was at least three or four years younger than him. How could he be expected to take lip from a girl so much younger and still have his dignity as a scientist or a wizard. He would not admit he was wrong and she was right... to an extent.

"I am sorry, and you're smart. You're right. When it comes down to it, though, we all want something from each there. Basic human nature. The question now is," he jogged and turned around to face her. "What do you want from me?"

Lucy didn't slow down. She just kept walking and if he wanted to talk to her, he'd have to keep up. She deliberately sped up her pace. They were out of the Entrance Hall now, in a hallway and Dexter was still talking. She rolled her eyes. He so didn't get it.

Suddenly, heaving a sigh, she stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose. This was going to take so long! Sure, Dexter was clever in a purely academic sense, but when it came to real life, he was the most stupid person on earth.

"I appreciate your apology," she said, even though she didn't really because experience said he probably didn't mean it.

Nevertheless, he had said it and Lucy wasn't going to quibble over whether a hollow apology was valid with someone so obviously new to the mechanics of social etiquette.

"But I don't need you to tell me I'm smart. First of all, I already know that and second of all, it implies that the only valid intelligence is the sort you approve. Which is patently ridiculous," she said.

"Look, you can't get what you want by trying to flatter me," she went on. "You can only get it by changing your ways, for real, and being nice. If this is confusing you, maybe you should think about what house I'm in. Hufflepuffs aren't just pushovers and rejects, you know. We get put in our house for a reason."

Dexter almost ran into her when she stopped so suddenly, having picked up his pace to keep up with her at the precise moment she stopped. He halted his feet but he waved his arms and almost toppled over her, leaning over her like a creep, before pulling himself backwards. She began to speak and he scrunched his nose up in frustration.

"I'm not nice, though. so if I tried to be, it wouldn't be for real. I'm not even that nice to people who are nice to me." He thought of Pippa, even though his obnoxious rudeness was fueled by affection. One could say he was nice to Trowa, but that was cordial, and that was because they had an agreement. Like business partners. "I can... work at being nice, but I can not insure it will be to your standards."

Lucy rolled her eyes.

"Don't sound so proud about it," she chastised him. "Instead, try asking yourself why you're not even nice to people who are nice to you."

She could guess the answer already, from the conversation they'd had earlier. The Hufflepuff in her needed him to know it as well, though.

"Don't want to turn out like Voldemort, do you?" she added as incentive.

"Voldemort had serious flaws in his logic, fueled mostly by ignorance. I will not attest to be the mostly socially sound of mind, but I can not deny that logic is where I shine best." He had to admit, no one had ever compared him to Voldemort. But he had heard whispers. 'I try to be nice to him. He's the sort of kid to show up to class and snap one day and start cursing everyone.'

He paused. There was no point in lying to her, for it was fairly obvious why he was not nice. "People are not nice to me. When I try, I get taken advantage of. When I don't, I get taken advantage of. Why waste my efforts then." He sighed. "I have now disclosed personal information to you, I think it would be prudent that you help me and lead me to the car."

Privately, Lucy disagreed, but she settled for simply looking amused at his declaration.

"Wrong answer!" she exclaimed. "Or rather, wrong question. I didn't ask why you don't bother to be nice to people; I asked why you aren't nice even to people who are nice to you. You were incredibly rude to me just now when I wanted to help you. Why is that?"

She was going to confront him with this no matter how much he tried to avoid it.

Dexter was done with this game. He let out a frustrated groan and said, "It's because the only thing I have is being a genius, okay? And when some pesky little girl younger than me starts following me around telling me what I should try and do I feel like she is trying to take that from me, okay?"

For once, Dexter sounded more human than robotic, his voice and vernacular more related to the tones and vocabulary of a teenaged boy, rather than a scientist or a cyborg. He let out a sigh. The cost of this was now getting to be too much. "I'm wasting my time here," he said slowly, turning and beginning to leave.

Exac- what? NO!

That wasn't what he was supposed to say. The only reason Lucy hadn't walked away before was because she could tell he was an intellectual snob and she intended to make sure he knew that there was something very wrong with being mean to people just because they weren't as clever as you. It was just as bad as being a blood purist.

'Sides, he wasn't a genius. Lucy refused to believe anyone in Hogwarts was a genius. Geniuses did things like split the atom and talk about string theory. Nobody in Hogwarts did that, not even Mr Clever-Clogs here. But that was a problem for another time. Right now, she was busy being stunned.

Her mouth was hanging open. She shut it with a clack of teeth.

"You are so melodramatic!" she finally yelled after him. "You think you have it so hard! Well here's news, Brainiac, the rest of us have lives as well!"

Lucy stormed off down the hall in fury.