Logs:Shotgun Style

Shotgun Style
Dramatis Personae Shane, Tok
In Absentia	2024-07-12 "Maybe I’m a bad liar because I’m not a liar."
Location <XAV> Art Room - Xs Second Floor
Smells of paints and chalks and turpentine mingle freely in this room, well-used, well-stocked. Natural light flows in, plentiful through the large windows. The long counter-like tables are speckled with spots of color, and half finished projects often stand on easels or propped in corners. The many cupboards lining the walls are crammed full of art supplies. The Art room is empty in the Friday afternoon hours, summer classes finished up for the day and most students off to enjoy start of the weekend, the cooler, albeit cloudier day, a welcome reprieve from the recent heatwaves. Tok, however, is in the art room. They wear a plain blue t-shirt that maybe appears one size too large, collar hanging below the dark exoskeleton patches on the sides of their neck, baggy cargo shorts, and sneakers. Their socks are two different colors, yellow and blue, and their usual sweat jacket has been abandoned on the floor nearby. They’ve wedged one of the large windows open, and seem to have their own art project going. On one of the tables by the window is a haphazardly torn open bag of water balloons, stray string, and different kinds of tape they grabbed at random. Tok giggles to themself as they tie another filled water balloon to a string, and feed it out the window that conveniently sits above one of the doors to the school. They tape the string down next to some other strings, all also attatched to water balloons hanging precariously out the window, strings ready to be cut with their claws to unleash their attack. Tok’s tail waves eagerly and they poke their head out to see below. When it doesn’t seem like anyone is coming anytime soon, they begin to tie the string around another already filled balloon. Shane doesn't make much noise as he saunters into the room, one hand in the pocket of his crisp white linen slacks. He's otherwise in a pair of impeccably polished cordovan jodhpur boots, and tailor-fitted white short-sleeved button down embroidered with pale blue detailing, its fabric stark against the deep and slightly metallic-sheened blue of his skin. His eyes, immense black and pupilless, are a little hard to read in terms of where they are focused, but the hitch of his hairless ridged brow and small quirk of his lips make that pretty apparent all the same. He's drifting unhurried closer, brows still lifted. "Does the string make that more efficient somehow versus just, like, dropping them? Seems like it's kinda just asking for some wasted splashes." Tok’s dark eyes, nearly matching to Shane’s save for the bright white pupils, startle up towards Shane in surprise and they yelp. The water balloon they’d been carefully working with brushes against one of their claws, and pops on their clothes. Based on some other small pools of water around the window, and some other wet spots on Tok’s clothes, it’s clear this isn’t the first time this has happened so far. Tok smiles nervously, sharp teeth on display, “Uhhhh….Pshh I’m not…these aren’t my water balloons…uhh…” They look between the water balloons, the now popped remnants of the one in their hand, and back to Shane, before accepting their fate with a shrug, “Eh. Figured if there was a big ‘ol group that walks by I could get most of them with a huge splash! If I cut all the strings they’ll fall all at once for like—maximum splashing.” They explain, excitedly, “Also, they pop real easy in my hands.” They peel the remnants of the water balloon off their palm with a sharp fingertip, “Unless…I used a bucket full of them and dumped them all at once…?” They pause distractedly, before remembering who they’re in the room with, “…Which…I totally won’t be doing.” They say, but they’re clearly watching for Shane’s reaction, testingly. "Wow, you are not a good liar, are you?" Shane seems almost impressed with the blatantness of this attempt at lying. Almost, because his next (dry) question is: "Do you just, generally, assume everyone is incredibly stupid? Like, you were not giving that your best effort. ... I hope." He doesn't actually seem particularly bothered -- not by the balloons, at least, jury is still out on whether he's bothered by the transparently low-effort dishonesty. He's hoisting himself up onto a stool at the end of one of the long tables, close enough to see out the window though he's making no effort to interfere with this project. He's scratching idly at a small spot of spilled paint congealed on the table, peeling it up with one (also sharp!) claw. "Can't you hold them -- y'know, carefully?" He is demonstrating this in the air, miming holding a roughly balloon-shaped object in his palms, webbed fingers flexed slightly wide and slightly back so that his claws are at a small remove the invisible balloon. Tok’s ears snap downwards at the remark, and they splutter, “Well- I don’t- Maybe I’m a bad liar because I’m not a liar.” They lie, tone defensive, with a raise of their eyebrows. “What-Would you rather I put more effort into lying?” They ask, confused. They narrow their eyes as Shane takes a seat, studying his movements and expression. At his lack of interference, a hesitant smile pulls at the corner of their mouth. Their stare is drawn to his claws, and webbed fingers, and they look back up to his face, “Carefully? Wow, I hadn’t thought of that.” They respond, sarcastically. “Bet you can’t hold more than one in each hand like that without popping them though.” They challenge, and begin tying another string to a water balloon, now holding it like he had shown them. “And what kinda splash is just two water balloons. At this range you gotta go for shotgun style.” "I mean, you've lied like, three times minimum in the twenty seconds I've been in this room so I'm pretty sure the not-a-liar ship has sailed." Shane's brow has pulled back down flat into an expression that looks extremely unimpressed, but maybe this is kind of incidental to the shape of his face because there's amusement in his voice. He's gone back to picking lightly at the paint on the table, peeling up a second stray dot and lying it neatly atop the first. He's giving some earnest consideration, while he does this, to Tok's confused question. "I mean, maybe, yeah. Like, it wouldn't be my first choice or anything, I'd rather you put more effort in figuring out when you even need to lie in the first place. But like, with a face like that --" He's indicating Tok with a jerk of his pointed chin. "You're probably gonna run into plenty situations out in the world where you gotta. Probably better for you in those cases if you didn't make it so see-through. Like -- what's your end goal with that? Either you're talking to someone you didn't actually need to lie to about this shit, and then you've just insulted them for no reason, or you're talking to someone you did need to lie to about this shit, and then you've made someone who's already a danger to you even angrier. Kinda lose-lose." Tok ties off the string without popping the balloon. They glance up at Shane, curiously, but don’t respond immediately. They feed the balloon out the window carefully, and tape it next to the other ones. Their face scrunches, and their hand comes up to their neck, idly scratching at the spot where the exoskeleton patch meets their skin, when they finally respond, “End goal? I dunno- I-I’m not thinking about it that deep.” They glance away, quickly, before continuing, “Usually whenever it got to the point where I’d be lying, I’m just getting the hell outta there. People ain’t gonna believe me anyways.” They say, unbothered, then grin, “S’like you said, with a face like mine.” They nod at Shane, mirroring his earlier action, “And yours.” They shrug, “But I guess I’ll work on it.” They watch him pick at the paint idly, “Got any tips?” "I mean --" Shane's brow is scrunching, and he's glancing between Tok and the door. "I get that it probably was true, plenty, wherever you were before." He's spreading his webbed hands in front of himself, then dropping them back to the table. "But you lied to me straightaway and you clearly weren't trying to get away. Pretty obvious you clocked right quick I wasn't a danger. There's as many jerks here as anywhere for sure, but have people here been, like, trying to hurt you?" He's kind of absently clicking his claws against the table, other shoulder rolling in a lazy stretch. "Think sometimes we make habits when shit's real bad that are --" his words are hitching only a tiny bit here, barely noticeable, "-- useful then, but then we keep them in situations where they aren't really helping. Lotta people trust me." When he does smile it is disconcertingly wide, splitting across the entire length of his narrow face in a kind of horror-movie fashion -- though he stops shy of actually opening his inhumanly wide mouth there's still a very large number of very large shark-sharp teeth in there. "Face and all. But, like," he is putting the smile away now, back to picking at the paint spills on the table, "I try to be pretty trustworthy. Back when I treated everyone like my enemy, that's usually what I ended up with." Tok shakes their head, quickly, “Nah nah, nobody’s hurt me here. Kids are just weird ‘bout stuff sometimes.” They say. They wince and they draw their hand away from where they were picking at the exoskeleton patch. Their hands automatically move to their tail instead, and they run their claws through the fur. They stare at Shane as he smiles, and their eyes widen a fraction. They study Shane a moment longer, his eyes his teeth, the way he picks at the paint spills, like they’re searching for something. They continue to smooth the fur on their tail. “I think I get it.” They admit after a prolonged pause, “How’d you know when you didn’t need them anymore?” They ask. "I'unno," is Shane's first unhelpful answer, together with an equally unhelpful shrug. He taps one claw lightly against his most newly-removed dot of paint, and places it delicately by the others he's removed, shifting the small plasticky dried-paint dots into some meaningless pattern, then looking at them critically and shifting them again. "I don't think that's a real thing. Anymore. There's no -- switch that gets flicked like, safe, not safe, good, not good. I think..." He's hesitating a longer time, and in the interim plucking up another few small speckles. Rearranging the whole lot into a kind of wobbly smiley face. "I think the end goal does kinda matter. Is this a place I'm staying or a place I'm just passing through? Am I trying to make friends, get a paycheck, help people out, just trying to survive long enough to get somewhere else? Maybe some of those habits I made are going to still help me, if a cop decides he doesn't like my face when I'm walking down the street, but that doesn't mean they're useful if a new kid here gets freaked out about my teeth when I'm walking down the hall, right?" He's rearranging his paint flecks again in some mild dissatisfaction, removing one of its wide-staring eyes so that he can add a few sharp teeth below the curved mouth. "So what's your context? If you don't have one, if you haven't thought about what the other person's might be, you're never really going to know. Just gonna be trying to put old patterns onto new people -- no matter how close you're watching 'em, not really seeing if they fit." Tok pushes themself onto the window sill as Shane talks, bringing their knees up to hook their heel on the edge. They curl their fingers into the spotty fur at the end of their tail. They release, then curl them again, and repeat. “I just-“ their voice catches, and a quiet warble sounds in the back of their throat. They swallow hard against the sound, and huff, “I-I can’t trust this place, yet.” They stare hard at the smiley face he makes, and maybe they’re looking someplace past it, “I want to, though. Sometimes I just- I need to make sure.” Their fingers curl into their fur and they tug. "Didn't ask you to," Shane assures Tok readily. He's removing the second eye from his smiley so that he can add more teeth. "What's making sure look like, to you?" Tok breaths out, sharply, then in. “I don’t know.” They say, strained, too quickly. Their hands dart up to their t-shirt collar and tug, then to the sleeves of their t-shirt, then up to the back of their head where they tug on the baby hairs. “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I thought it did- when freakin aliens happened.” They laugh, “It felt like- Finally. I can stop waiting, Y’know?” Their hands travel towards their bangs and their fingers curl in there, “But then- it worked out? And- I’m back in waiting mode.” Their eyes dart up to Shane, watching him, “I hate the waiting. Sometimes I feel like I have to- I dunno. Test it? Make the other shoe drop so I’m ready for it.” Their tail wraps tightly around their waist, and they lean back against the closed windows, allowing their hands to drop from their hair. “I dunno. It’s- I’ll get over it. Or the other shoe will drop.” "I think the problem is there's no point where you know it's safe and things are fine. Life is weird and messy and constantly changing and people who are assholes can have your back and your friends can hurt you and nowhere's ever all that safe and most places aren't all that dangerous." Shane is sweeping the small flecks of paint off the table and into one cupped hand. He drops off the stool, ambling over to the trashcan to dust his hands off over it. "You're kinda just gonna be waiting forever because there's never a sign -- or, really, there's like, a million signs, constantly, all the time, and you'll miss all of them if you're busy looking for the Future Thing You Expect instead of all the things actually happening right now." He shrugs, checking his skin and flicking one last shiny yellow fleck from his palm into the trashcan. "... also," sounds just a bit wry, "if you just threw the shoe up there to begin with just to test, no surprise when it comes back down." Tok leans forward to rest their chin on their knee, pulling their leg closer to their chest. They track Shane across the room with their eyes. They hum in thought, and their eyes dart out the window, tracking people walking by. They look back up to him and let out a long breath, shoulders relaxing from their hiked position, “Maybe...You make a good point.” They admit, and a small smile tugs at their face, “I’m gonna think about it.” They promise, “Thanks…You’re good at this.” "Had good role models." Shane is glancing up toward the window too, after dusting off his hands. He turns, tips his chin up at Tok before heading for the door, his claws flicking with some wan optimism towards a cheerfully colored Cleanup Checklist on the wall. "-- Try not to leave too much of a mess in here while you're waging balloon war, yeah? Happy hunting." Tok smiles, for real now. “Yeah! Uh- you got it.” They promise. They twist on the sill they’re sitting on to get a better view of the group of people walking up below, unaware of the water balloon trap above them. Tok waits, and waits one moment longer, then cuts the strings all at once.