"I know I don't. I mean, I'd like to be interesting all the time, but that's never going to happen. It's just that I want to impress you. To dazzle you. And not in the stupid, facile, completely meaningless way I dazzle clients. Because they're easy to dazzle. You tell them something that sounds smart and artistic and they decide you're an advertising genius. I try not to use the word genius in reference to myself, but I can't help it if other people use it in reference to me."
It's amazing, for someone so perpetually fighting his own low self-esteem, how very cocky he can sound. The thing is, advertising's the one thing he knows he's good at, and there's no sense in pretending he's not. It'd be like Ned pretending to be bad about making pie. False modesty, and completely obviously unnecessary. That's why, when he's talking about his job, or anything related to it, his loquaciousness isn't nervous so much as energized and bright.
"I'll try not to worry so much about it. I always want to make a good impression on you, though." He shifts his cup of hot chocolate to his other hand and shrugs. "I like to spend time with you, too." It's an honest, straightforward sentiment, one that other people might find difficult to say, but those kind of statements are probably what Ned's come to expect from him.
They walk on for a little bit, wandering into a park, and he likes that they're not hurrying, that they don't have anywhere to go, that they're just strolling. When they walk under an underpass linking one side of the park to the other, he seizes the moment of privacy to put a hand on Ned's shoulder lean up and kiss Ned on the cheek, very quickly, knowing that it's still an almost dangerously daring thing to do, considering that they're outside and someone could walk by at any moment.
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It's amazing, for someone so perpetually fighting his own low self-esteem, how very cocky he can sound. The thing is, advertising's the one thing he knows he's good at, and there's no sense in pretending he's not. It'd be like Ned pretending to be bad about making pie. False modesty, and completely obviously unnecessary. That's why, when he's talking about his job, or anything related to it, his loquaciousness isn't nervous so much as energized and bright.
"I'll try not to worry so much about it. I always want to make a good impression on you, though." He shifts his cup of hot chocolate to his other hand and shrugs. "I like to spend time with you, too." It's an honest, straightforward sentiment, one that other people might find difficult to say, but those kind of statements are probably what Ned's come to expect from him.
They walk on for a little bit, wandering into a park, and he likes that they're not hurrying, that they don't have anywhere to go, that they're just strolling. When they walk under an underpass linking one side of the park to the other, he seizes the moment of privacy to put a hand on Ned's shoulder lean up and kiss Ned on the cheek, very quickly, knowing that it's still an almost dangerously daring thing to do, considering that they're outside and someone could walk by at any moment.