Firefly Glen a bigger man than you, he stepped on me

despite winterbourne's softening expression, arcturus is still horrified -- god, why was his body so noncompliant? why was he so stupid, all the time?

a flush rose to his cheeks, his blood hot and simmering beneath a rippling pelt that suddenly seemed too hot and oppressive. if he could just melt into a black puddle, just trickle down between the cracks and the stones until winterbourne left - until the world forgot about him and pale cirrus clouds passed overhead and the days revolved into nights -- until eventually, the earth forgot about him too, and he at last sunk into puddley, insensate oblivion, having forgot his own identity.

a bit dramatic, but that's what teenaged boys were -- arcturus couldn't even look up from the ground he was so busy focusing on being small. smaller than a flea, or a speck of sand, or a grain of nothingness...

but the boy spoke, which in turn made arcturus pull from his self-hating, drama-llama world: had this stranger still given him the time of day, despite arcturus clearly defining what the latter half of the "barely-sentient" gene-pool consisted of?

he tried a smile that was half-hearted and fake, though his tail's whumping was genuine. a few times he tried to speak, and a few times some croaks left his mouth --  come on, you idiot -- this is easy --

"a-arcturus." he finally muttered, completely ashamed it had taken him so long to answer. maybe he really ought to crawl under that rock until he died, considering he couldn't even master saying his own name.