She stares at her hands, blinking back tears, but even the blurriness of her vision can't keep her from looking at the words burning on the screen of the console in front of her.  Failed? But I tried so hard... The class is let out, the room empty, but she can't seem to summon the energy to clear the screen and gather her things.
        A polite cough from behind her causes her to swing around, blinking guiltily. Erin Grady is standing in the doorway. Oh no. She pushes the ''clear'' button quickly but she knows he’s seen. But for once he doesn't look like he's going to say something to embarrass her.  He looks almost...
        “How long have you been standing there?” she asks, knowing she sounds tearful, like a petulant child. He smiles, that smile he usually gets right before he says something that makes all his friends laugh at her, and her heart sinks. Then he comes away from the door to stand in front of her. She looks up at him uncertainly, not quite realizing the pathetic picture she presents, like a bedraggled pixy.
        He tousles her hair, an overly familiar gesture that makes her bristle like a kitten, and then he sits at the empty console next to her. “Not doing so well, are you? I think what you need is a tutor.” He says, not unkindly, and she stares at him stupidly, running a hand back through her hair. He looks irritated, but it's gone so fast she wonders if she really saw it. His next words make her feel even more pathetic. “Hello? Are you hearing me?” She half turns away from him, tearing up again, painfully embarrassed.
        Taking a deep breath, she looks back up at him. “And who's going to do it? You?” She says, with all the sarcasm she can muster.
        “The kitten has milk-teeth...” he says, laughing, at her. Again. Flustered, angry, she makes as if to get up. Quicker than she would've thought possible, he grabs her wrist, squeezing hard enough to keep her there. He lets go before she can gasp. “Come on,” he says, persuasively, “what have you got to lose? If your grades aren't any better after the next test, you haven't really lost anything by it. What do you say?” She is uncertain. She knows he ranks near the top of the class, but...
        “Why?”
        He shrugs. “Because I feel like it?”
        Slowly, reluctantly, she nods, and he smiles that smile again. It makes her shiver unhappily, but he doesn't notice, springing out of the chair and pulling her with him. “Where are we going...?” She starts to protest, but her voice comes out so soft that he can ignore it if he wants to.
        He continues pulling her with him, until she plants her feet and drags back. He stops and looks back as if surprised at finding her there and finally lets go her hand, smiling.
        “What's the matter, kitten? I thought we could go down to the bar and talk a little. We have to get to know each other if we're going to work together, right?” At her obvious disbelief, he puts on his best winning look. She'd seen him use it on his friends when he wanted them to go along with his plans. She sighs. For some reason this is important to him, so she shrugs, trying to look agreeable. It shouldn't be so bad, right? Just please, please, don't let this be some joke that she'll hear about tomorrow. Seeing her capitulation, he grabs her hand again and, swinging it, continues walking them towards the bar.
        When they near the entrance, she pauses again, long enough for him to notice. He turns to her with that familiar, hated, mocking look back on his face.
        “What's the matter? Nervous?” he asks brightly, shaming her into striding through the doors a little ahead of him, chin up.
        She strides in, chin up proudly, walking ahead of Erin. But soon enough her momentum falters and she pauses so that he runs into her back. She feels, rather than hears, his irritated exhalation against her hair. When he grips her shoulders she cringes inwardly, expecting public humiliation; but he merely steers her without a word to a back table, deftly threading them through the crowd.

((That's it of that snippet! *L* Here's another one I started to RP with the abovementioned friend but never finished. It's so short it's almost not there, because I didn't save Barin's posts... See? *points below* The jury is still out on our friend Erin.))

        She saw Mara turn and knew who she was smiling at. Idrys could also envision the look he would be giving Mara in return. She had seen it often enough. She twitched in her seat, trying not to hunch her shoulders as his gaze resumed boring into her back... or was she simply too wound up? She hated this place, was so tired of her classmates, especially Erin's "pack". Though they had left her alone of late. Dammit... she was not imagining things! And he wouldn't allow her to ignore him. All smiling and logical... She thought she hated him, but at the least she distrusted him. Though he had not yet asked what she had started to suspect he would. She seethed quietly. Torment. That's all it is. Some new torment.