ArchivedLogs:Easily Confused
| Easily Confused | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
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14 June 2014 Pretty much everyone is. |
| Location
<NYC> Home Improvement Store | |
It's a home improvement store the day before Father's Day, which means the place is a little /full/ of people wandering the tall metal shelf lined aisles who otherwise wouldn't be, trying to pick out tools on account of those are Dad Things, right? The staff is rather occupied and a little harried even for an early afternoon, assisting people with their last minute gift shopping. Micah's wandering has been less /wandery/ and more focused than most, lingering in the more carpentry-oriented sections of the store to select lumber and stains and a few hardware pieces as needed. The small red plastic cart he pushes is mostly collecting the latter, lumber order planned for delivery straight to his van after they check out. The auburn haired young man's attire suggests that he's planning to put the goods to use straight away when he gets home, bright yellow T-shirt and faded bluejeans both bearing a fair share of paint and stain spatters, grease smears, and other signs of stuff-being-accomplished with them on in the past. "S'there anythin' y'needed t'look for yourself, Shane? S'always odds'n ends y'come up with after y'been in a new place for a minute." Shane is, maybe, not being excessively helpful on this trip; his contribution so far to shopping has been to ride along on the cart, climb up onto shelves, fiddle excessively with tools; at the moment the small blue teenager is wielding a length of wood like it's a fencing sword, battling some imaginary opponent in the aisle. It's possible he had a little too much caffeine at the shop this morning. He's /dressed/ a good deal more civilized than his rambunctiousness and sharp claws and inhuman blue features might suggest, a neatly tailored red vest over grey short-sleeved button down with equally well-tailored slacks and polished Oxfords. There's still a distinctly strong scent of coffee to his clothes that the sawdusty hardware-store smell hasn't filtered out just yet. "Well, I /always/ like handling wood," he answers Micah cheerfully. K.C. is somewhere in between the two, in her style of dress, un-stained clothes but definitely aggressively /casual/ ones. Baggy cargo jeans and an also-loose-fitting green-and-darker-green ringer tee that combine to leave a very much androgynous presentation to her attire. She's wearing a very faint frown as she enters from the opposite end of the aisle, her eyes intermittently skimming the shelves but intermittently focused on -- evidently nothing, looking at the air beside her. She has a cart of her own that she leans against as she walks, one arm on its handle and the other hand fluttering fingers in front of her with brief intermittent /twitches/ of hand as though batting at nonexistent bugs. She stops her cart a few feet shy of Shane and his swordplay, looking vaguely in the direction of the teenager though her eyes never quite manage to lift high enough for eye contact. "Handling wood," she echoes first, brows furrowing deeper, "you're doing that. Right now why are you -- you're very blue. Is that -- why is that." Micah's lips twitch in faint amusement as he observes Shane's play. "I'm gonna be kind an' /not/ tell you how exactly this is like shoppin' with Spence right now. How many cups of coffee did y'have t'day?" He pauses to compare samples of wood stains. "An' thanks for /that/, Captain Innuendo. 'Least I gotta upgrade you from eight t'twelve for that." K.C.'s twitchiness draws Micah's attention, just checking up on the movement and its potential intentions. "You're very observant," he counters the woman's observation, leaving Shane to handle himself as far as her question is concerned. "Th -- four," Shane answers Micah, brightly. "Big ones. Big-big. I'm easier to keep track of than Spence, though, I don't blip between the aisles and also --" He stops short when he's addressed, gills flaring briefly and his eyes opening wider. He tips his wood plank out towards K.C. in indication. "-- And also I'm blue," he affirms with a crooked thin twist of smile that admittedly doesn't hold much humour. "I don't know, genetics? Why the fuck are you brown?" K.C.'s fingers pinch at nothing in the air beside her, turning her hand upward briefly then spreading her fingers open again like catching a firefly and releasing it once more. She frowns down at the space beside her, one eye twitching in repetitive pronounced blink as she considers Shane's question. "I don't know, genetics?" she echoes, before affirming this more confidently: "Yeah, yeah I think genetics. I think that's for me, too." She turns aside from her cart, fingers now dancing along some of the smaller blocks of wood on the shelf, moving on from one type to another quickly. "Your neck's open -- his neck's open," she maybe addresses this second half to Micah instead, following it up with, "I'm very observant. I observed that. Why are you here?" "Big-big? So, that's really more like, what, eight cups? Twelve? Y'should maybe slow down for y'/do/ start blippin' like Spence. Or just vibratin' 'round like Peter." A slight lofting of one eyebrow comes at K.C.'s echoing, that behaviour combined with the small tics reminding Micah more than a little of some of his patients. "Yes, genetics're for decidin' what everybody looks like. 'Least t'start out." His fingers trace the side of his own neck. "Gills. They're for breathin' in water 'stead of air. Don't worry, he's fine. We're shoppin' for...I guess just me buildin' furniture since Shane's just playin' around." "Triple shots," Shane affirms, grin flashing bright and toothy at this. "But in my defense I closed last night and opened this morning and Dai kept me up late and /fuck/ did I need the caffeine." His mouth snaps back closed as K.C. continues speaking, and now /his/ ridged brow furrows. He looks at her for a long while, glancing back to Micah after this with a little bit of uncertain puzzlement. He taps the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other, weight shifting slowly before he finally answers. "It closes again. See?" He tips his head slightly to one side, neck stretching a little as his gills press down flat. "My dad's shopping," he adds, gesturing with his wood plank towards Micah. "I'm just here to be a pest to him, basically. You looking for something in particular?" "Just playin' around. Just playing." K.C.'s fingers flutter against the wood again and she finally picks up a chunk of pine, bringing it to he face to sniff at it deeply. "Breathe in water? Fish breathe in water. You breathe in water? I don't, I can't do that. How do you learn that?" Her fingers press at the wood, and she takes another breath of it before placing it very carefully in her cart and nudging it over to make sure it is settled just-so in one corner. "Furniture. I build that. I like to build that is that your job? It's not my job I just like to. Make things. What are you making?" Her fingers pinch briefly at the air again, a small twitch touching at the corner of her mouth. "Pest. Yeah-okay. Me too." “Yikes. Just be careful, sugar. Too much caffeine really can be a problem. Mess with your heart rhythm an' all.” Micah puts down one sample, picking up another and holding it up against the first still in his left hand. “Shane breathes in water on account of he was born with gills. Ain't somethin' y'can do without proper equipment, whether it's what y'was born with like him, or if y'get SCUBA gear like most of the rest of us need.” He nods at the question of building. “I do build things for work, but not like this, usually. I make medical equipment an' braces an' things for people t'wear t'help 'em do things. I'm shoppin' for makin' furniture now, though, for m'house. Makin' all kindsa things but the next one on the list is a table'n chairs for the dinin' room. Y'plannin' t'build somethin'?” "Pfft my heart's strong as fuck. Like an /ox/. Oh man that smells good, doesn't it?" Shane relaxes further the more K.C. speaks, initial wariness dissolving into a casual acceptance instead. "The pine, it's nice." He returns his plank to its shelf, letting his own claws dance against the wood, too. "I /am/ a fish so that's why I breathe in water. Fish-gills, fish-eyes." He chomps his teeth together briefly. "Fishteeth. Can't really /teach/ it but --" He shrugs, waving a clawed hand towards Micah. "There's technology for people to do it, too. Who're /you/ being a pest to? You need to step up your game if you really want to be properly pesty. Climb up walls. Play with everything." "Like an ox. Like an ox." K.C.'s head shakes at this, quick and sharp. Her hand bats at the air in front of her again, brows furrowing once more. "Like a fish? Fish aren't ox you can't be both. Don't be -- don't be silly. That's --" She stops abruptly, looking back to the shelves with an agreeing nod. "Pine is soft. It's easy." Her own teeth bare, chomping once in mimicry of Shane. "Sharp. Shark. Sharp. /I'm/ building a table. I'm going to build a table. Where's your house? What do you help people do?" Her mouth gives another twitch at Shane's suggestion. "There's no walls here. Where do I climb?" “Most people say Shane's like a shark more'n anythin', as a whole. He was just sayin' that the strength of his heart was like the strength of an ox, which is quite strong.” After comparing yet another shade, Micah finally selects a can of stain and sets it in the cart. “Pine /is/ soft. Too soft for what I'm doin' lately. Want hardwood for tables, last against lots of wear. What kinda table're y'plannin'?” He gestures vaguely in a direction to indicate what way one would drive off to reach his home. “Lower East Side. S'a brand new place. Uh...don't climb in here. Shane's bein' a bad influence. Usually y'get in trouble an' there's lots of sharp an' heavy things on the shelves here, too.” "I'm /pretty/ sharky, yeah. Pretty sharp, too." Shane's grin is still broad as he dusts imaginary lint off his vest. "And yeah just as a general rule you shouldn't listen to jackshit coming out of my mouth, I'm a terrible influence. Listen to my dad, he's /respectable/. And he helps people do all kinds of shit. Walk. Fly. Maybe not fly. Still working on that part." "Doll-table," K.C. answers. "Making my house. My house smaller. Shrinking it. But I made the real table too." Her hands stretch out wider, like indicating the size of the /real/ table it's modeled after. "Brand new. Brand new place. Yeah-okay. This is all brand new. New house. New city. Don't know where your house is." She shakes her head, fingers fluttering at the air again. "Oh. Lower East Side. Oh. Okay. I'm higher than that. Do you fly? Do you build planes? I've never built a plane." "Dunno 'bout respectable, but I'll at least not get y'into trouble on purpose," Micah clarifies with a chuckle. "Oh, a dollhouse! That sounds like fun. Might be able t'get away with softer wood for the smaller scale an' lighter users. Always thought that was kinda precious, the model-of-your-house dollhouses. 'Specially if you ever have t'move away, y'get t'take your house /with/ you." He shakes his head at the question of flying. "Haven't helped with flyin' yet, no. Fortunately," he adds, thinking of Dusk with a slight shiver. "Mostly I make braces t'help support feet an' hands, or other parts. Or whole new limbs for people as need 'em." Pausing in his supply hunt, he tugs up on his left pants leg to show a metal shaft above his sneaker and multicolour Dalek-covered sock, the shaft fitted into a coppery-toned control unit below the hinge of a knee. The rest stays hidden under the jeans fabric. "Makes walkin' a sight easier." "New everything? You new to New York? Cuz it's pretty rad here if you don't mind everyone being batshit crazy. I mean it's at least never boring, yeah? Where were you before?" Shane, in continued Bad Example, is kind of absently stepping up onto the shelving unit to climb from one shelf to the next, hanging sort of lazily off its side. "When he /does/ branch out into flying, though, he's already got like a fucking billion customers lined up. Who /doesn't/ want to fly, really." "Model-of-your-house. Model of, yeah, no, I moved away. Already moved away. So model -- model of the other --" K.C.'s forefinger and thumb press together, flicking back open a moment later. Her forefinger taps at the air, eyes shifting to stare at it. "New here. New -- new -- new -- Jersey. Before. Not now. Here now. Never boring. Lots to see." It takes a while for her gaze to move, when Micah tugs up his pants leg, not reflexively tracking the movement until she drops her hand and looks around again. She stares down at the leg with a slow tilt of her head, one eye twitching closed again. "No," she finally decides, "that's not a -- where'd your leg go? That's a stick." "Oh, well that /will/ be nice t'have, then. Reminder of the old place t'keep with you." Micah pushes his cart slowly down the aisle, giving Shane a Look that expresses his opinion of climbing the shelves without actually saying anything. "No, that's m'leg," he answers K.C. with a chuckle. "Born without on that side. Had a bunch of others 'fore this'n, but they've all been prostheses. No bio-leg." Eventually, he lets the pants leg fall back to its natural position. "It's a leg. That helpfully doubles as a club when he needs to give a motherfucker a beatdown. Actually okay probably standing firmly on two legs is a way better position to give beatdowns /from/," Shane admits, answering Micah's Look with a scowl. He jumps down off the shelf, moving to step up onto the side of the cart instead as Micah pushes it. "Yeah. S'a lot to see. Better if you have people to see it /with/, what're you /doing/ in the city?" K.C. remains staring down at Micah's leg even after his pants have fallen back down, fingers flicking twitchily at the air beside her. "Give a motherfucker a beatdown," she echoes, eyes just slightly wider. "Huh. Huh." She trails slowly after Shane and Micah as they move away, her own cart abandoned where she'd been looking at pine blocks. "Doing -- tables. Building a table. I'm shopping for that I told you already. I don't have people to -- well /you're/ people. I'm seeing it now. With you. Are you going to give a beatdown? That doesn't -- is that respectable?" “I think Shane meant t'ask why y'moved to New York from New Jersey,” Micah clarifies helpfully. “Also, he has the worst mouth, y'might not wanna just say what he says. An' I /don't/ beat on people, he's bein' silly.” His nose crinkles slightly as he remembers something. “Though maybe not /too/ silly. I got arrested at a protest once an' the cops took the leg from me, so I guess he's not the /only/ one who thinks I'd beat somebody with it. But I /wouldn't/.” "We /are/ people that's very observant. But yeah I meant like why you moved. And also having people to, uh, I don't know, hang /out/ with? Have fun? Just chill? The city gets lonely as fuck if you don't. Just crowded all the fucking time you kinda need someone to navigate that with." Shane props his elbows on the side of the cart, gills fluttering slowly in silent laughter as his mouth turns up into a toothy grin. "Don't listen to him, cops took his leg because they know beneath that cuddly exterior there is a /stone-cold gangsta/." "I'm observant," K.C. agrees easily, fingers fluttering at the air again. "And it's always -- it's always lonely, people don't --" Her brows furrow momentarily, hand swatting at the air. "I moved to get comfortable. Get comfortable in the city. Because I have to live here now. For school, I'm starting -- I have to go to Columbia and that's in the city. I'm getting used to it now it's big and I have to be used to it. Before school starts. He doesn't look -- stone-cold are you stone-cold? That's a wrestler. On TV." "/Shane/," Micah scolds, "you're gonna confuse her, keep tellin' tales like that." He looks back over to K.C., shaking his head. "No, I'm not. Shane's tellin' stories t'be funny. Like he said, y'pretty much can't listen t'half of what comes out of 'is mouth. If it ain't profanity or bad plans it's him jokin' 'round. I'm not hurtin' anybody, promise. An' I'm not a wrestler, neither." Glancing over the items in his cart, he takes a mental inventory of what still needs to be found. "Oh, goin' t'Columbia. That'll be nice. S'a good plan, comin' out early t'figure things out 'fore you're all busy with school." "Whaaat." Shane's eyes open wide and innocent at Micah's scolding. "Look, she's going to Columbia that means she's like a fucking genius, right? She'll figure out what's what." He digs into his pocket, pulling out his phone to send a quick text message. "You don't know anyone here yet? Cuz I have a friend who's starting at Columbia in the fall too. And another one who's already there. And they're both sweet as hell you should come by for a coffee or something, hang out, s'probably easier starting at a new place if you know people already, right?"
"Bad plans. Bad plans. Good plan. Yeah, it's a good plan. See I make good plans." K.C.'s fingers flick at the air again, hand spreading open beside her as she frowns once more at the empty space. "Frosh meat, frosh. Frosh that's not even a word. What's ze. Is that a word I don't know." Her hand closes, falling back to her side. "I'm not supposed to have coffee. Not a lot of coffee. I like a chai though. That's with the spices." Her eyes fix on the shelves again, fingers starting to trail along them as a small smile curls across her face. "Yeah I'm like a fucking genius, right?" “Geniuses're some of the most easily confused people I've met, oftentimes. 'Least when it comes t'conversation.” Micah says this with a smile, perhaps thinking of specific people or instances. “Chai's one of m'favourites, too. With the spices. I got no idea what frosh is, but 'ze' is a gender neutral pronoun. Why d'you ask?”
Shane's phone is just buzzing again, though he stops halfway through composing his reply to narrow his eyes sharply at K.C. "What? The fuck did you see that from there? You know it's fucking rude to read other people's texts, right?" Though despite the cursing, he says this without genuine heat to his tone. More just a good dose of /startle/. "Frosh is slang for freshmen. That's you, if you're starting this year. And I own a coffeeshop down in the Lower East Side. We have a /good/ tea selection too, though. My friend's brother is like a crazy fucking tea snob, so I asked him about where to source from. Anyway our chai rocks and you should come by in the evening." "Yeah I saw that from here." Though K.C. is staring at the shelves in front of her and not even in Shane's direction. "I have to eat dinner in the evening. That's dinnertime. You own a coffeeshop that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool, huh? I don't own a -- where do you get coffeeshops?" Her smile returns, fingers flicking once more at the air. "I'm easily confused are you -- are /you/ easily confused? I like the spices can I -- come to your coffeeshop, is that allowed. I don't understand about your pronoun. There look now I'm confused again. Easily. Easily confused again." "Oh, y'were textin' that?" Micah looks confused now. "Yes, I can get confused easy sometimes, too," he answers the amazingly-timed question with clear amusement. "'Course y'can come t'the coffee shop. 'Least as far as we're concerned. An' you could go either before or after dinner, no need t'interrupt your schedule. There's tea an' cocoa an' food. Y'don't have t'drink coffee just 'cause it's called a coffee shop. There happened t'be one that closed down an' didn't nobody wanna reopen. So Shane an' a friend bought it. Ain't exactly somethin' that happens every day, though, you're right." "Ba's easily confused because he's /also/ a fucking genius," Shane explains as he finally sends another text. "Seriously, most of my family is goddamn geniuses. /And/ easily confused. Hey did you know you left your cart back there?" He waves his phone-hand towards K.C.'s abandoned cart. "You should probably not forget that. And the pronouns is just -- well I mean you use 'he' for men and 'she' for women, right? But I don't know what /you/ prefer so I just went with neutral until I know what you like. Anyway my shop's called Evolve, you got a phone? I can send you the address. And you can swing by after dinner, I'll introduce you to Dai. Maybe Flicker if he's off work. You'll like Dai, though." A faint hint of smile pulls at his lips as he says this.
"Preferably this evening," K.C. echoes, fingers flicking at the air once more. "No not September /class/ is in September I have to move in the dorms in August though. That's before September. I have a phone you can send the -- yeah, send the address." She rattles off a phone number, New Jersey area code. "How do you know I'll -- people don't like /me/ though. A lot of -- it's because I'm a pest." She frowns at Micah's cart, the slowly looks down the aisle at her own. "Oh -- Oh no I left my cart back there. I did, I should probably not forget that." Her fingers still trail against the shelves as she turns to head back down the aisle, wandering off to pick up her cart. And then continue on, heading the other way down the aisle as though she's forgotten the others behind her even exist. | |
