ArchivedLogs:People and Monsters

People and Monsters
Dramatis Personae Nom, Shane	2014-05-01 '
Location <XS> Boathouse
Perpetually filled with the quiet background noise of the lapping tide, the boathouse is a cozy escape from the mansion proper. The few boats docked here are small, but suffice for sails around the lake (or, in the case of the one swift powerboat, a speedy motor around it) -- posted signs by them remind users of the regulations required for their use. Tucked away in the back half of the boathouse are living quarters, small and spartan and snug, with a kitchen, bathroom, small sitting area, and a bedroom fit for two. It's morningtime at Xavier's, after the first two classes during the break before the third. Often a time spent frantically doing /homework/ for the day's last period that prooobably should have been done the night before. Shane is doing nothing of the sort, at the moment. The diminutive teenager is out in the boathouse, over by the sitting room windows looking out at the lake. In neat grey pinstriped vest, similarly grey slacks, green button-down, very polished Oxfords, he's looking as tidy-neat as he ever does. There's /music/ coming from the boathouse that gives away his presence, not really audible from the far-off distance of the mansion but easy to hear at closer range to the lake. The lively strains of a violin, Wieniawski's "Scherzo Tarantelle" as his bow dances over the strings; his violin is an odd electric one, black and blue and with its strange hollow half-body shape looking more like a stylized /impression/ of a violin than a more classical instrument. It's an amorphous mass that lurks beneath the waters. Traveling quietly, lurking to 'get after the fish'... She's had a productive afternoon. Still, some people might find it off-puting, the way the blob grows tendrils of ropy muscle that shoot out of the water to drag the semi-spherical mass of her body up and onto the floor of the boathouse with a low crocodile rumble. A gigantic toothy mouth splits the orb, and then of all things... it coughs up three wriggling fish and what appears to be a vaccuum sealed package full of clothes. A mere moment later, and the form resolves into Nom clad in some sort of wetsuit thing. She's quick to explain herself to Shane,"Notbreakrules! Fishnotcomefromkitchen! Notcount!" Yes. She's worried someone will tattle. Even if it's just Shane. Then she realizes she interrupted music. So she makes fiddly motions as if to encourage Shane to continue. The unexpected interruption ceases the music instantly; Shane drops his hands, violin clutched tight by its neck in one and his bow gripped a little /too/ hard in the other. His teeth bare, gills flaring outward and his eyes opening wide as he drops lower into a half-crouch. His gills close, a slow snarl growling up from his chest; it quiets only when Nom takes a form he's /seen/ before. He straightens, grip loosening slightly on his instrument as he flicks a glance between her and the fish. "... Count? What the fuck?" He shakes his head, puzzled, and leans back against the windowsill. "How do you breathe under the water?" Nom frowns at the last question, then reaches up to tug her nose. It comes away on a tendril of increasing length. Then she lets it snap back into place,"Make nose really long, or..." She reaches down, fingers digging into bellyflesh and parting it,"Make big airhold here sometimes. Nom clever! Eat sand if run out." She can't change into other people... but she can twist her body in some truly bizarre ways somehow. She plops down on the boathouse floor,"Get six visits to kitchen. Already do three. Food not from kitchen. Not count." Having thusly explained, she picks up one wriggling fish, opens her lamprey-mouth very wide with that crocodile rumble, and bits its head off. Crunchcrunchcrunch. Swallow. "Youplay nicemusic! Moreplease." "Huh." Shane's head tips to one side, watching the stretching-nose trick with a curious lift of brows. "Grow your own freaking snorkel. That's pretty neat. How deep can you go with that? -- Guess that wouldn't really matter out here, the lake isn't /that/ deep. Not enough for the problems you get in the ocean anyway." His nostrils flare as she bites into the fish, and then he turns his head to look back out the window. He gives one quick-sharp exhale at the request, one side of his mouth twitching up and then flattening out again. "S'not a fuckin' concert hall, dude, if I wanted to /entertain/ people I'd join the damn orchestra. I sure as hell don't care how much food you're eating, though," he assures her. "Okaythendon'tplay." Rather than snarky, her tone is just... matter of fact. She in fact sees Shane's nostrils flaring... and holds up one of the increasingly less wiggly fish by its tail, showing it off to the boy,"Youwantsnack?" She bites another half off the fish, with no signs of slowing in her eating. As usual, she's deadset on earning her name. "Howdeep? Notknow. Always deepenough. As long as have enough skin. Need more, hafta eatpeople. Too deep, reinforcebones. Hard." And then, because it's Shane and he makes cursing sound fun, she exclaims,"Fuckin! Notdudenomore. Dudette." "What the fuck is a dudette this is not the eighties there is no such thing. Dude has no gender." Shane moves over to the sitting room's coffee table to set his violin back in its case, shaking his head at the offer of fish. He digs his phone out of his pocket instead, flicking on its screen to open up a browser and search. Urbandictionary. Dude. "'A word that Americans use to address each other'," he reads, "and the second definition, 'the universal prounoun'. Nothing in there about being a /man/. Dudette makes you sound like a fucking Ninja Turtle." Nom exclaims,"TURTLE!" She leans over to the area where she crept in... and begins feeling around. About a minute later, she comes up with a turtle,"Turtle." Yes. The look on her face says that's dinner, too, now. "Dudette." This is said defiantly. "Nom like dudette. Notcare about gayties." Yes. She just called the eighties the 'gayties'. She moves on to her next fish, though, before anything else. Crunchcrunchcrunch. "Dudettedudettedudette." Pause. "MetGlitterdad! Nommakingpestopizza. Glitterdad lovepesto." "Fine, I won't call you a dude but I sure as /hell/ am not fucking calling you a dudette that's stupid as shit. I don't think people were any gayer in the eighties than they are now, anyway. People are /pretty/ fucking gay now." Shane's teeth click together at the mention of Jax. He returns to the window, slumping in against it with his gills fluttering rapidly. "Fuck pesto," he grumbles, tone abruptly /irritable/ where it had never been so before. "You can't eat pesto when you're /dead/ anyway." "Gaypeople! Yay! Gay-O-L. Gaymosexual!" She finds these words funny. Thus setting Nom rolling onto her back and laughing. Well, right until she notices the turtle trying to get away. Then she bites that in half and gets back to snacking while she thinks on the matter. She probably misses the whole point of Shane's statement though. Evidence? Her reponse is,"Sound peaceful. No breath, no hungry. No worries." She gets a nearly philosophical look on her face... right up until she takes another bite of turtle. Shane's shoulders just tighten at the exclamations, teeth clenching. He turns back towards the window, forehead thunking down against it. His gills ripple open alongside his neck, fluttering quickly; when he speaks his words have an oddly hitched breathless quality to them. "If it sounds so great what the fuck are you doing here? Most people kind of want to be alive. Nobody's forcing you to stay." "Promised Baldy not try again." The girl leaves a fish behind, finishes off her turtle, and goes to hang in the water, halfway. She finds it... comforting. But her eyes get that far off look to them,"Want bealive with hunger byebye. Best nom have. Glitterdad, Glitterborg, B. MakeNom feel heartfull. They have happysmiles, make Nom tummy happysmile." "That's a stupid-ass promise. It's /your/ life. You live it for you not anyone else." Shane's eyes are still fixed outwards, shoulders tensed. "Happysmiles." This just makes him /snort/, outright. "You know my Pa's an illusionist, right?" He shoves webbed hands into the pockets of his slacks, gills still fluttering. "So what if it never goes away? I mean, most mutations, you're kind of just stuck with them. You gonna be okay with that if that hunger-thing's just /with/ you forever?" "Hunger... complicated. Brainpart broke... BEFORE mutation. Makehungry. Wanteat things can't eat. Mutate. Now eat anything. Medicine help. Not perfect. Nom go until hunger eat Nom brain again." Pause. "Glitterdad make pretty lights. Glitterdad are beautiful. Glitterborg are beautiful. Humans just meat. People what pretty." Another pause, and then decides,"Makepretty family." She nods at this assessment, then aswers to Shane,"Not be okay if with Nom forever. Not matter. Not up to Nom." "Pretty lights. Right." Shane lifts his head, thudding his forehead back against the glass. "People are ugly as fuck." Thump. "It is up to you, though. Not the hunger, I mean. Just deciding how to live your life with it. Deciding if your mutation makes it not-worth being alive or not. /That/ part's up to you." "Not agree. Think people pretty. Monsters ugly." Right. Well. Nom kicks her legs through the water thinking on this,"Choice. Choice illusion." Apparently she's capable of being morbid. "Slick blood. Crunching bone. Salt. Pennies. Running. Screaming. Glorious. Inside people. Love. Comfort. Art. Music. Tears. Also inside people. Nom know nothing, Pottymouth." "What's the fucking difference?" There's a sharper edge to Shane's tone here, eyes narrowing out towards the lake. "I've known a fuckton of people who /are/ goddamn monsters." He drags his hands out of his pockets, pressing one palm against the fluttering gills at the side of his neck. "And you're wrong about that. The world piles a crapton of shit on you but /how/ you react to it? That's the /only/ fucking choice we have." "People hurt people and feel something. Monster hurt people and feel nothing. Monster are machine. Never alive." She lets herself tread water for a little bit now,"Not sure Nom believe. Nom will watch. See what Pottymouth choose. See if make difference. Nom were monster once." She cackles, bizarrely enough. "Baldy make unmonster. Hopeitstick." "You're incredibly full of shit. S'just a trite line of bullshit that gets people all shocked when /normal people/ do horrific monstrous things. Because you know what, every-goddamn-body could be a monster. There's not some magical bullshit line between person and not-person that you switch off. Some people are monsters /and/ they're still fucking people and they're ugly as goddamn hell." Shane pushes away from the window, scooping up his violin case in one quick snatch-jerk of motion. "And it sticking or not, /that's/ your choice too." "Nom not know what you want. Nom think you full of shit. Nom tell you what she choose believe. You attack choice. Nom going. Talk when Pottymouth less angry. This you-place. Not Nom-place. Nom may be wrong, but Nom am happy here. Nom have so much here. Grow up. Bad things happen. Then worse things happen. Pottymouth not know anything about Nom. Pottymouth have so much right now and so unhappy." The girl pauses, and then notes,"Nom am sorry if Nom am being unecessarily mean, but Nom not want spend time with people make Nom unhappy." She spies her last fish, and points at it,"Pottymouth am going eat that?" "Go /fuck/ yourself." Shane whirls on Nom, eyes narrowed sharply. "You goddamn fucking -- what the /fuck/ do you know about what /I/ have? You don't know /jackshit/ about me either. You spend half a freaking hour with my dads and my twin and suddenly you're an expert on how fucking sunny /my/ life is?" He chuffs out a heavy breath, gripping his violin tighter and stomping towards the door. "I don't want your goddamn fish. I've got class anyway. Spend time with whoever the hell you want, I don't give a fuck." "Other people, far away. No mansion. No family. No food. No love. Pottymouth am hypocrite. Little boy, shouting make people pay attention. Shout loud enough, get way. Little boy, throwing tantrum. Swear, stomp off, get lastword. Nom have temper too. You angry. RAWRAWRAWR. So loud. So scarry. Ignore what Nom say, pick thing that upset Pottymouth most. You talkgood Pottymouth, not listen well." She climbs back out of the water to collect her fish, snapping the head off of this one too. Shane doesn't say anything in answer to this, apparently actually perfectly content to let Nom have the last word. His gills flutter again, fingers tightening around his violin case as he stomps back outside, closing the door -- actually rather quietly -- behind himself.