"How do you breathe into your—this is probably better with practice. I'm going to cough and wheeze horribly, aren't I. Alright, hit me."

"You are going to cough hilariously," she agrees, and lights him up. Then lights herself up, and inhales demonstratively - into the mouth and throat, hold, into the lungs, hold, release.

He tries that. It goes exactly as predicted.

"Fucking hell," he says between coughs, eyes watering.

"Mazel tov!"

He keeps coughing for a little while longer because he also got some spit in while he was coughing which didn't help. "I hope it gets less unpleasant with practice."

"You will note that I'm not coughing."

Inhale. Hold, in, hold - cough, small coughing fit, larger coughing fit as she lets the smoke escape. "Fuck, hubris."

(She's still coughing less and less violently than Peter, though.)

He laughs, shakes his head, and tries again. Coughs again, although this time it's mostly from having triggered the previous cough.

Smoking!

Vivian relaxes noticeably. She'd been a little sharper-edged and wary since the first revelation of the day, but now the tension starts going out of her. Not coughing gets easier for both of them as their reflexes dull and muscles loosen. Viv ends up sitting on a tree stump, not even gargoyle-perched, just kind of sitting with her legs crossed.

"Kinda want to apologize to Marcus," she admits eventually. "It's not really his fault he's a dumbass. Or like - you know. Actions have consequences but I didn't have the slack to meet him halfway, you know."

Peter's leaning against a tree, now, and he's been uncharacteristically quiet. He's not—quite—a chatterbox, but he's not the kind of person you'd typically associate the phrase "companionable silence" with.

He looks over at Vivian when she speaks. "Apologize? What for?"

"He came to your magical adventure prep event and spent the whole time listening to us talk about gender, putting his foot in his mouth, and getting shit for it. I could've spotted him a little weed for his trouble. But, like, I didn't actually want him smoking with us, because he'd gotten on my nerves. So I brushed him off. Which was kind of a dick move."

Peter snorts. "Being a dick is how he bonds. If you're a dick to him he'll think you're friends. Kind of."

"I guess. He seemed pissed but that could've been the mental illness I have that makes me think people are pissed at me."

"Oh, he wasn't, trust me. ...not more than his background levels of it. I'm pretty sure. If anything I think he was kind of relieved and glad of the excuse to go home." Iiiin and oooout he's getting the hang of this he should not be thinking anything along those lines because that is hubris and will make him have another doubled-over coughing fit he should cease that at once. "He goes quiet when he's really mad. If he's still being loud and obnoxious he's fine."

"Huh," she declares.

"I hope if you can get us powers they're not all feminine," she says pensively. "...unless that's too close for comfort and you just wanna talk about like... whatever. Robotics team groupchat drama."

Snort. "I'm fine talking about powers but also what is the robotics team going to do without me." Another snort. "They're so fucked."

"Buh. My sister's incoming freshman next year, she's smart and shit, I'll tell her to have a coup."

"That'd be funny. Grown-ass seniors getting whipped by a freshman..." He shrugs exaggeratedly and takes another puff then blows it slowly. "They need it though."

"Lola can beat them into shape. And they'll have an off year this year but sometimes you have an off year."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right."

They don't, actually, discuss powers anymore, despite Peter saying he's fine with it, because he's kind of refusing to have any new thoughts about them. He meant it when he said that he is not having any new epiphanies today.

When he gets home later Felicia is acting weird in a way their parents notice but Peter is a sufficiently good actor that they don't suspect a thing. It helps that the thing is a literal magic notebook that does not make any sense under their understanding of the universe, but anyway.

That night he is tempted to grab the notebook again and read over his choices and options, but actually his better judgment says that he should instead actually sleep on it, and he grudgingly listens to his better judgment. ...well, tries to, but of course he rolls in bed for half the night and when he wakes up he's feeling like underslept garbage. He leverages that into not going to school at all, making some use of the "I'm a straight As student and I'm feeling like crap and also I'm eighteen just let me sleep" excuse, which his mother isn't happy with but she does agree that he's eighteen and missing one day of school isn't gonna kill his academic career or whatever.

He texts his friends to say he's not coming to class today, sleeps another four hours, gets up, brushes his teeth, doesn't have breakfast because he never has breakfast, and then he sits down to talk to the notebook again.

hello again! i'm sorry for leaving you hanging so long, i've been processing stuff in my head

Don't worry about it! I'm glad you're taking the time to sort things out.

could you bring back the pages on which we had our conversations? i want to review everything we talked about and the power options i picked and all that

Of course!