Logs:Monster Club

Monster Club
Dramatis Personae Anole, Bryce
In Absentia Shane, Charles	2024-10-20 "I didn't really know him."
Location <NY> Byron Park - Salem Center
Like a lot of this town, this park is a bit precious, overly dedicated to its old-fashioned aesthetic. Its garden is very manicured, its cobblestones paths not particularly disability friendly. The terraced fountain at the center is both lovely and charming, as is the colonnaded patio beside it. The town has seen an influx of people today, most headed straight to That Weird School, but now that the memorial service there has finished plenty of them are drifting back in intermittent clumps, to get some food or catch the train back to the city or just linger in the mild afternoon sun. Anole (casual-casual in old jeans and a brightly colored tee off of Ryan's Shelter tour) has been in the first camp but is now moving into the second, spilling out of the diner with a large cluster of even more monstery looking freaks. A lot of them are heading toward the train but Anole is lingering, sending a few quick texts on his phone as he ambles from the street into the park with no particular aim in his steps. Here in the center of this park, seated on the lip of the post-summer-dried-out fountain, one small bright monsterling in khakis and a black polo is licking somewhat halfheartedly at a large ice cream cone (it's got a big double-scoop serving of vanilla and strawberry) -- Bryce hasn't eaten too much of the ice cream, largely only swiping at it intermittently to prevent the inexorable sticky drip that would likely be a nightmare on his long furry fingers. Though he's been morosely contemplating the steadily melting ice cream his eyes pull up when the cluster of monsters exits the diner -- he's staring at them with wide eyes and then yanking his gaze hard away. He takes another lick of his ice cream and starts to get up when Anole comes nearer, but then sits himself back down hard. Anole stuffs his phone back into his pocket. Bryce's vivid feathers catch his eyes and slow his steps. He veers over nearer to Bryce, tipping his chin up as he comes to a stop a few feet from the fountain. "You knew him?" The way Bryce now hastily fixates on looking straight ahead and eating his ice cream (with something approaching enthusiasm, even) somehow manages to make him look approximately a thousand times more interested in Anole than when he'd been staring at the young lizard-man. Despite this he still gives a very small eep when he's actually addressed, startling up straighter too-quick. With the jerk, the top pink scoop of his ice cream tips and falls off the cone. There's a very brief moment when he looks almost like he might cry, but he licks unhappily at the backs of his fingers and finally peeks back at Anole. "Huh? Sorry. I mean. What?" "Sorry." Anole winces as the ice cream splats. "Shane. Just figured -- y'know." "Rightright. Of course." Bryce says this immediately, but it's followed by a fidget and a frown. "I mean, no. Not really. Kind of? We met, but -- how did you know that..." He licks again at his fingers and hunches lower. "Did you?" "Ummm --" Anole somehow manages not to roll his eyes, but their quick widening and the laughing pull of his lips wink in that direction. "Have you, maybe, uh." His green fingers waggle towards his green face. "Seen yourself? It's a little obvious." He turns on his heel slowly, giving a once-over of the rest of the park. His eyes stop on a young man sitting across the patio, earphones in and very engrossed in a novel; there's a lightningflash snap, loooong and pink, and then he's dropping a mostly-full water bottle into his palm. He wipes it off against his shirt before offering the water to Bryce. "We were classmates," he answers casually, but then after a small pause: "We were friends." Bryce is staring at this water bottle trick. Uncomprehending, first, but then shuddering just a little when comprehension dawns. His nose wrinkles. He pulls his hand back but then, gingerly, reaches for the water bottle. His dutiful "thank you" sounds a little bit strained. "Of course I've -- oh. Um." He studies Anole's face, then drops his eyes. He uncaps the water bottle and tucks it beneath his arm so that he can transfer the half-gone ice cream cone to one hand, lean over and gently squeeze at the bottle to rinse the rest of the sticky residue from his fingers. "I'm really sorry. He seemed..." Bryce shakes his head. His thumb runs roughly over the backs of his furry knuckles, and he rinses them again. "Should... I know you? Are we all supposed to, um. To know... other people like..." "Yeah! I can't believe you've been missing all the Monster Club meetings." Anole hops up onto the fountain lip, not too close from Bryce. He's perching there in a crouch, glancing aside to the younger boy. "All monsters don't know each other. Shane -- he tried pretty hard to look for our folk where he could." Bryce hunches a little further at monsters, frowning at his ice cream. He sets the bottle down on the lip of the fountain between them, and keeps rubbing his thumb restlessly over his damp fur. "We aren't monsters." It's a fairly halfhearted protest -- there's a question in it more than an argument. He returns to licking slowly at the remnants of his strawberry-tinged vanilla scoop. "The Professor did say he was a -- a protector to all, um, all the students..." Here, too, a question, though he isn't quite coming up with it. His thumbnail scrapes at the peeling edge of his cone's paper wrapper. "Heh." Anole drops his fist to the stone between his sneakers. "He would say that." He shakes his head, gives a small and tired shrug. "I'm sure he would've been, too. But just kinda by a weird coincidence, the bog kids didn't really need the same protecting. They had the Professor and all of them to do it." His hand lifts, drops; with a slow exhale he baps his fist lightly against the stone. "I think you can call yourself whatever feels comfortable to you, but. The world is still going to look at us and think monster." He curls his fingers against the lip of the fountain, arm tight as he squeezes down hard. "Anyway, I'm sorry, too." "The school's for all of us." Bryce has forgotten his ice cream. He turns towards Anole, pulling one leg up onto the fountain to crook his knee against his chest. "And the world has a lot of judgments, that doesn't mean -- I don't know." He drops his chin to his knee, his mouth twisting to one side as he gnaws idly on the inside of his cheek. "I didn't really know him." "Yeah." Anole is absently rocking backwards, muscles in his arm tightening as his weight settles back against his clamped grip. "Thing is, the other teachers, the other kids, no matter how well-meaning they are they are never going to understand some things. Having someone in your corner who does can be..." He's looking down at the patio stones when he pulls himself back up, but shoots a quick look at Bryce. "You didn't. That's something to mourn all on its own." The quick breath Bryce draws in and sudden wide-wide-eyed look he returns to Anole suggest that something has just clicked into place for him. He's just staring at the lizard-man for a bit. The next cold drip of his ice cream snaps him out of this -- he ducks his head again and licks the ice cream off before rinsing Yet Again at his furry fingers. Once he's put the water bottle back down his other hand scrubs, hard, with the back of his wrist at damp eyes. "... where's Monster Club?" "Heh," comes again, but softer, this time. Anole shakes his head, his arm wrapping around his shins. "I think we're maybe going to have to figure that out."