It was getting nauseating, tracking his housemates thoughts, and so Virgil had carefully treaded around them instead of right through her head - in the Greenhouse itself he simply began to walk down the aisle in the opposite direction from Jordyn. She was critical of him. He knew that: he had that effect on people. Virgil didn't blame them because he liked to pick at their personalities but he couldn't help thinking that his jabs were less... personal.

He paused at the end of the table and turned into the neighbouring one to join the herb-pruning witch. The plants here were headless or bodiless. Victims of Dimbledy's precise snipping. Her response to his rambling had not been so precise, and he let it drop knowing there was no reaction to be gotten.

          "Is this you reading me, Virgil, or thinking about your own little crush?"

Virgil glanced up from the limbless remains of an especially sad looking herb and affected a thoughtful, surprised expression. Was she asking if he saw some of himself in Cepheus Gamp? He'd not thought to turn his own statement on to himself.

"No," he said resolutely after a moment of examining the sad herb. "He's much better than me. He's kind, and he makes it look easy." Virgil said this in a soft voice, smiling to himself and thinking of the way the older wizard had backtracked on saying anything about the older Gamp - just yesterday, not far from here. "Sometimes we like people because we see what we wished we did in ourselves."

The words had a ring of truth about them. Virgil picked out a small flower bud that had fallen to the soil, its petals coiled tightly without ever a chance to bloom.

He closed his fingers to gently crush them around the plant. "But it doesn't matter why I like him, or why you like Tawse, does it? The fact is-" Virgil looked up and sighed, brow wrinkling faintly, "- we can't help ourselves. We just do. What a stupid thing it is to exist."

Pressing her lips together, Jordyn was skeptical of Virgil’s assessment.  No one was that good or kind.  It was too difficult to manage that.  Though, she did have to reason that it probably wasn’t entirely too difficult to be better than Virgil.  She elected to not say that out loud, however.  It was against better judgment, especially if she was attempting to take the high road. 

Virgil did well enough traversing the low road for himself, anyhow.  That was quite deprecating.  Jordyn couldn’t act like she didn’t think the same of herself most of the time.  It was most assuredly how she felt when she was dating Jai. 

That had kind of been a spectacular disaster though.  Mostly because of her actions, if she was going to be truly honest about it.  She’d tested all sorts of limits with him and forced him into impossible corners hoping he would lash out and dump her because she was clearly not a good enough person to be with him, but as he proved that over and over again he refused to see it.  It had been on her to cut the relationship at the quick.  She’d gotten hexed pretty terribly for it, too. 

Glancing up at him again, Jordyn nodded.“That’s true,” she conceded and put down her trowel.  “But, it’s part of being human, isn’t it?” That’s how she rationalized it, anyway.  “Not only the stupidity of existence, but paling in comparison to other people.” 

             "But, it’s part of being human, isn’t it? Not only the stupidity of existence, but paling in comparison to other people."

What a curious effect it had, to hear someone else repeat one's own words. The stupidity of existence. Virgil didn't agree with that sentiment even though he had just uttered it, and he dusted his hands of the crushed flower bud before slipping them into his pockets. If it was indeed stupid then the opposite was also true: it was glorious as well.

"Do you think you pale in comparison to other people?" he tilted his chin down and narrowed his gaze at the Head Girl, wondering in what implausible version of events would anyone consider Dimbleby lacking in presence of all things. "Or aspects of yourself?"

Virgil saw deficiencies in himself when he thought of Cepheus Gamp but he also knew himself to have strengths not many people could (or would want to) equal. His self-loathing was intermittent, hardly consuming. Not consuming enough to keep from wanting the desirable.

He leaned against a table on the opposite aisle of the same aisle Jordyn was traversing, the indulgent haze in his eyes clearing away. "Although, you know, stupid as infatuation is... it does make everything look sweeter..." the prefect remarked and cast his attention over the blooming greenery in the glass house.

Jordyn raised her eyes at his question.  She thought it was glaringly obvious to everyone who looked at her compared to her classmates.  She’d never felt entirely up to snuff with everyone else.  She had to work so hard to even be close to the rest of them.  She tried her hardest, naturally, but sometimes that could only do so much.

Virgil himself had commented on her shortcomings in the past.  She assumed he would be the first to nod and agree.  “I think that’s for other people to judge,” she finally responded to his question and shrugged, focusing her attention on other things. 

Her carrier was getting quite full of ingredients for Professor Vaillancourt and she didn’t really want to carry much more down to the dungeons.  She wouldn’t ask for Virgil’s help either.  Not because she didn’t think he would, necessarily, but more time with him generally ended with someone getting hexed or her being publically embarrassed. 

“I do agree on that point though,” Jordyn pulled off one of her gardening gloves.  “It is nice,” it was a tepid assessment, but Jordyn was also not the sort to jump feet first into a pool.  She stuck toes in the shallow end and then carefully slid in.  “When you’re not worrying about the next thing that will blow up in your face, anyhow,” she laughed as she removed her other glove and chucked both into her carrier. 

“I prefer to be more cautious about getting so excited, personally.” 

            "I think that’s for other people to judge".

Jordyn said this like it was a fact and he had to stop himself from giving her a long, hard look. There was no question about whether or not the head girl was an over-prudent reptile with something sharp stuck up her arse but that was a strong marker for personality; it didn't in any way wash her out.

But it all came down to a fact that Virgil could see with clarity right now, better than he ever did before: Dimbledy cared too much about what other people thought.

He didn't say anything, only folded his arms and snorted as he shook his head at her in disbelief. She wouldn't take that sort of honesty from him. People generally did not. It was like trying to seek comfort on a bed of thorns, when he tried to help them see. Perhaps, if it came from somebody Xavier...

            "I prefer to be more cautious about getting so excited, personally."

"I think it's fortunate that you have the luxury to be cautious," Virgil remarked and reached into his pocket to extract a glossy red packet  - the rain outside had slowed to an easy drizzle so he'd be safe to light up soon. "Or am I the one who has the luxury of distance from the object of my desire?" he shook out a cigarette.

Cepheus Gamp being unattainable made it easier for Virgil not to worry about it going awry at any moment. It also gave him incentive to further his agenda. But getting excited, in all fairness, wasn't something he could tell his heart-rate not to do.

"If it's any help," his smile melted into a sleepy and smug little thing, "I don't think it would be monstrous if Tawse manages to blow up in your face. Just a bit messy, really."