ArchivedLogs:Planty

Planty
Dramatis Personae Kelly, Shane, Sugar
In Absentia	2013-12-03 '
Location <XS> Forest
Quiet and shady, the trees rise all around here high and thick. In stillness, woodland creatures make appearances, though sudden noises scare them back into the cover. Dappled sunlight filters down between the thick foliage, and the ground underfoot is heavily overgrown, though here and there paths have been worn, by deer or years of students wandering familiar trails. The weather, while still chilly, was a far bit warmer than it had been, and without any rain, and some actual /sun/ to shine down, the outside was actually pretty inviting for people willing to bundle up a bit. And Kelly was certainly willing to do just about anything to get out doors. A recent shopping trip has added some variety to his wardrobe, as he's wearing some loose geans with only a little bit of wear on them, as well as a red zip up hoodie, though his hood's currently down so that his hair and flowers can get some air. And while he still opts to do without his shoes, he has cut some socks up so that they'll warm up his ankles at least. There wasn't any school assignment or project that brought the teen out here other than the fact that there were trees, and he hadn't climbed them yet. Hands gripping branches while feet braced against trunks, Kelly was grunting his way up a particularly sturdy fellow trying to settle on a branch 15 feet above the forest floor. There's probably not any school assignment bringing Shane out here, either. He rarely does the ones he has and moreover it's unlikely some school assignment would call for the slick red blood that glistens on his sharp claws and lips. He's approaching from somewhere deeper and farther off, far away from the mansion and heading back towards it. He has a grey Xavier's sweatshirt thrown on over a long-sleeved black shirt, tan lightweight hiking pants heavily dirt- and grass-stained and flecked with blood, and a cloth grocery bag slung over one shoulder. He moves quietly through the trees, bare feet picking a near-silent path more out of habit than any particular need for stealth. He isn't alone, either; at his side is Sugar, the large blue dragonfly shiny-sleek in the afternoon sun. He's slowed in his walking to dig something out of his bag, a wet messy handful of -- some kind of organ. Liver, perhaps, raw and bloody that he offers on a palm to the dragonfly to eat from his hand. "{Good girl.}" His words are very quiet, spoken in Vietnamese though his gentle tone is unmistakeably fond. "{We'll go find B, share all this, yeah? He'll --}" He stops speaking at the sound of rustling branches, grunting student, his path changing to bring him by Kelly's tree with a soft sniff at the air. His head tips back, squinting upwards into the branches. "-- s'classes over already?" He sounds surprised. "Yeah, been over for like, an hour I guess." Kelly says, mostly amused until he looks down at shane and Sugar and then his eyes go wide! He hops down out of the tree... except he doesn't really. One of his hands fusing with the branch, it sort of just... sets him down, bending and twisting to do so before he rips his hand free of it with a wince and a small splash of green blood. "Gosh, Shane, you hurt?!" he says not quite in a panic, just concern. And seeing Sugar, the same question is repeated: "She hurt?!" "Fuck did you go and do that for?" Shane sounds puzzled as he looks at the blood on Kelly's hand. "Coulda climbed down without hurting yourself." He reaches back into his bag with another wet squish, claws digging in and tearing free another hunk of meat. "Why would I be hurt, /you're/ hurt." Sugar is nosing forward now, poking her head towards the meat in Shane's hand. He turns his palm up, letting her eat it and rubbing at her nose below her enormous eyes with his other hand. "Why'd you hurt yourself?" Kelly balls his hand up into a fist and gets a little taken aback by the turn around. "I just saw all the blood and thought..." Kelly tried to explain. "That... isn't your blood is it... or Sugar's..." he finally begins to understand. Looking down at his own hand, he bits his bottom lip lightly. "I'll be ok..." he says as he winces again, and... he probably would be. "'pologies. Just... kinda wanted to get down in a hurry when I thought it /was/ your blood, and... kinda let the brain turn off for a bit." "Woah, that's okay, I pretty much turned /my/ fucking brain off years ago, haven't used it since." Shane takes back the hunk of meat once Sugar has eaten half of it, tearing off a mouthful for himself and then giving the dragonfly the rest. "Nah, s'not /my/ fucking blood. Hare, couple squirrels. And a /woodcock/ that's a great name, isn't it? We ate all that though. Meant to save some for B but uh --" He pats a bloody hand against Sugar's nose again. "Like a fucking garbage disposal, this one." His fingers beckon at Kelly's hand. "I'll tell you a secret, though, even if it was my blood there's no hurry, I am hard as shit to kill. Mad scientists, mutant haters, killer cops, fucking zombies. I've died a /few/ times and I'm still going, these /woods/ sure as shit aren't going to do me in. C'mon, let's see it. That really okay? It's not big is it?" "I don't even know what a woodcock is... but I'm from the south, and even /I/ haven't eaten a squirrel before." Kelly says with a teasing poke to his roommate, but offered out his hand just the same. When he opened up his palm, it looked as if the skin on his entire palm was simply ripped away, exposing a green bloody mess inside. "Usually I'm more careful, and it's a lot smaller but... I had no idea you were hard to kill." He laughs slightly nervously. "And... it'll heal over... it always does..." But his words are kinda dreadful at that admission. "I kinda new you hunted, just... kinda thought it was with a bow or a gun or something." Sugar is given a more worried look than he gave her the first time, especially since he now knows she's carnivorous. "It's like this fat juicy little bird. B loves them, they're kinda plump and -- mostly all moved south by now, I really shoulda just let Sugar have the squirrels only. But she /did/ do most of the work catching it so eh." Shane licks blood off his claws once his hand is free of meat, leaning forward to inspect Kelly's palm though he keeps his own messy hands well away from it. "Shit, dude, that looks ugly. Let's go get that cleaned and patched, yeah?" He gestures back towards the mansion. "And I'll eat fucking anything if it's made out of meat. Can't really afford to be picky anyway. I don't think I'd know what the fuck to do with a gun though I do go to archery practice with B. Hunt with these though." He grins, baring his razor-sharp teeth at Kelly. He turns towards the mansion, glancing to see if Kelly is following. "I heal fast. And I'm pretty much made out of leather and rubber and teeth so I can take kind of a beating. You don't really sound too sure of that healing thing." Kelly follows along, giving Sugar another glance. "Is she nice?" he wonders, though reaching out to pet her is going to require more courage than he can gather right now. "I mean, you and Jax seem to like her a bunch." He adds. "I'm sure it will heal, just..." Kelly shrugs, trying to sound more confident than he was. "Sometimes when it heals, and any time I have to grow back more than a little skin... it comes back all planty instead of pink and fleshy." "Is that why you gotta eat so much?" Kelly asks, "Cause you heal fast? I have to eat a whole bunch too..." He says, then adds a quick: "I'm serious! Like, a whole bunch more than I used to or I start to turn brown and wrinkly." Trying to head off any fat jokes from the statement. "She's great. She's completely a sweetheart. She comes hunting with me and B sometimes, she likes that. Stretch her wings, fly. Gentle, though. She takes my little brother for rides. Just -- have to get to know her." Shane rubs at the back of Sugar's head this time, with a smile. "She likes being pet." A little more licking cleans most of the rest of the blood off his hands; he wipes them off against his pants afterwards. "I think I gotta eat so much because on land pretty much everything about my body is fucked the hell up. When we just stay in the water we regulate a lot better. Eat normal amounts, process it more efficiently. Out here everything's just kind of shitty. Body's constantly trying to eat itself or forget how to breathe." He shrugs a shoulder, glancing over at Kelly. "Yeah, I get that. I mean, mutant physiologies get all kinds of fucked." He looks down to Kelly's hand, and then up to his face instead. One hand lifts, claws still extended out long and sharp, but his touch is gentle despite looking kind of monstrous. Just a light careful brush of the side of one claw along a flower that sprouts from the other boy. "Is it bad? Coming back planty? I mean, it's kind of gorgeous. Not that skin's not pretty too it's just. All different kinds of pretty." "Gosh man, didn't know it was so bad on ya out here. Is that why you kinda... well, toss and stuff at night? I was worried at first it was 'cause I snored, but... well, I almost called the med staff last night, thinking it mighta been more zombie sick stuff." Kelly says, blushing at the compliment a bit more than normal, and looking away sheepishly. "I guess it isn't horrible... I used to think it was horrible, but... you know, I'm just not sure how much of me is going to be left when it stops, if it stops." Kelly finally admits, his flower wiggling a little after Shane touches it. He reaches out his non-bloody hand towards Sugar, slowly risking a pet where Shane seemed to pet her, but he was definitely nervous. "Were you always blue?" Kelly asks, "I mean were you and your brother born like that, or was it like me and it sorta happened later?" But since compliments were being exchanged he certainly didn't mind also telling him that: "I mean, you look kinda awesome, actually. And I'd love to be able to swim like you do." "Oh -- yeah, shit, my bad. I hope I'm not keeping you up. S'just hard to -- breathe." Shane shrugs a shoulder, his hand lifting to rub absently at the gills at the side of his neck. "We're good in the water, on land I'm just kind of a fucking wreck." He watches Sugar as Kelly pets her; the dragonfly seems just as cautious to be reached for, edging slightly closer to Shane, but at the petting she presses her head up into Kelly's touch. Shane grins. "See? Sweet." His fingers flex, claws retracting to tiny sharp points rather than longer skewers. "Oh -- shit, yeah, we were born blue, freaked our parents the hell out. Took a while to finish growing everything right but the blue and the fingers, that was always. And thanks. Most people just think I look kind of like some sort of fucking -- water /demon/. Which," he allows with a sharp grin, "maybe I am." His hand lifts again, this time towards Kelly's neck and the bark growing there, though he hesitates shy of actually touching it. "S'that not -- you? I mean, when it stops. If it stop. Won't that all just be you, too? Or does it make it hard. Like, does it hurt? Is it hard to move? Or is it just different. I watched a friend here grow a whole carapace, looked just plain human when he enrolled and now he's pretty much a freakish bug-kid but it's gorgeous and it's still him." Kelly relaxes a lot when the large Sugar pushes up into his hand and he pets her more gently a few more times. "Thanks for puttin' up with my screamin' before, Sugar." Kelly says to her, still not QUITE sure if she understood talking or not. "Oh you don't keep me up, don't worry 'bout that. I used to live near a riffle range, every morn'n at five, place would sound like a war zone. I can sleep through /anything/ guaranteed." He laughed. "Uhm its ok, you can touch it." Kelly allows, turning his neck to let Shane have a better look at it. "And it doesn't hurt, or nothing... truth be told... it feels the same to me as my normal skin anymore. Cept the vines, they feel normal, like fingers and all, but they don't always do what I want 'em to do." THIS part Kelly is careful to say in a low voice. "When I'm by myself and can go outside and let the sun it my chest and back... and let my roots dig into the groud... it feels better than just about anything. " Thinking about being a bug kid, Kelly shivers, though, his leaves rustling when he does. "I'm sure he's cool and all, just... always been a little scared of bugs, specially spiders and bees." Kelly excuses. "But I'm sure your friend is cool, if I ever meet him." When Kelly says it's okay, Shane's hand comes to rest lightly against the bark, fingertips brushing slowly against the rougher surface. "So it is you. /And/ it's gorgeous." His eyes slip closed, a small smile on his face and his fingers still curled lightly against Kelly's neck. "Kinda know what you mean, a little bit. I slip into the lake with B and when it's just us and the water it's like everything's perfect." His words drop off into nothing, the gills alongside his neck fluttering rapidly. After a few seconds his eyes open again and he steps back quickly, drawing in a sudden sharper breath. "Oh, shit, right, I'm taking you to get your hand cleaned up." He starts moving again, brushing his fingers lightly against Sugar, too. "C'mon girl we're going home. -- Oh /man/ if you don't like bugs you should probably just stay the hell away from his room, then. Peter kind of /is/ like a giant bug now and he rooms with Ivan who is pretty much always /covered/ in bugs so if crawly things freak you out their dorm is probably straight out of a goddamn nightmare." "That sounds exactly like it." Kelly says stepping away himself, grinning as he listens to Shane's description of the water. "Like that's the one place you're really supposed to be." But the reminder of his hand has him sigh. "I need to quit doing this..." he grumped to himself and heads on in. "I met Ivan once, kinda... really intense kinda guy. But if the two of 'em have like huge bug collection, probably better if I just meet 'em in class or something... cause... yeah, I enjoy sleeping, and would like to continue doing it without spidereatmyfaceandears dreams all the time."