Logs:S'more Friends

S'more Friends
Dramatis Personae Anole, Bug, Nessie
In Absentia	2021-01-31 "Ohh, wow, it will be like camping at home!"
Location <MOR> Welcome to the Freakshow - Morlock Tunnels
Wider and more spacious than many of the surrounding nooks and niches, this chill cavern is the central hub of the Morlock's underground network. With tunnels branching off in many directions, it takes a while to learn to navigate from here to where you want to go, but there's generally plenty of more experienced people around to teach newcomers the ins and outs of the pathways. Here, though, is a safe place to come and relax, for what value of relaxation can be found among moss-covered walls and the occasional stagnant puddles on the floor. There's been furniture brought in, a mismatched assortment of crates, mattresses with busted springs, a few broken and subsequently repaired chairs, a folding table in a corner. Shelves along a wall hold entertainment; books, a smattering of board and card games, sometimes snacks. There's even electricity, wiring none too safe and visible in places where the wall has been broken open; the naked light bulbs flicker often and the lone outlet has had so many power strips attached it is undoubtedly a fire hazard. It is quiet, at least as quiet as it can be in an occupied area, except for the crackle of the fire in a barrel, cut to make an appropriate fire pit. A couch with its arms falling off is currently occupied by a spanning mass of blankets, out of which at least one head is poking out to stare at the source of warmth. Bug's eyes, normally appearing black, seem more iridescent when reflecting the direct light of the flame, reflecting the reddish-orange glow from multiple facets. "I should put some more stuff in there to burn," remarks Bug, who makes absolutely no motion to actually do it. His voice is somewhat obscured by the internal buzzing of many tiny flapping wings trying to generate some extra heat. In fact, instead of leaving the comfort of the cocoon, he sinks even further into it, as if slowly being devoured in quicksand. There's another mass of blankets at the base of the couch, from which Anole's head isn't exactly poking out, though the firelight occasionally reflects off his bright green eyes somewhere in the shadowy folds of his blanket next. "Hmm." He isn't immediately moving either, after this suggestion. But shortly afterwards there's a THWP-THWP-THWP -- a long sticky unfurling of pink shooting across the room, a mass of flattened cardboard yoinked back towards them. "Pthah," Anole says, tongue licking distastefully against his lips. He struggles just enough upright to start haphazardly shredding the boxes. There's a quiet clicky skittering from the direction of the storage area. Nessie has a (fresh, dry) patchwork quilt draped over her lower body, and an ancient NASA sweatshirt on her upper one. She's carrying a canvas grocery bag in one hand and giggles as she swoops in towards the two blanket-bundles by the fire. She sets the bag down beside the couch, plucking up a large piece of cardboard in one arm -- her pincers make much quicker work of the shredding than Anole's hands. "Gosh, you two -- uh, or, you, fifty-thousand n two -- look real cozy. Shane says hi. I saw a person wearing soup cans for a face do you think that could be like a new trend?" Bug's eyes open a little wider when Anole's tongue thwips out to nab more combustibles. "I need to get a stretchier tongue. So handy. I mean, handlike?" When he hears the clickety skittering, he straightens up a little to catch sight of Nessie. "Hi back to Shane! And hi, Nessie! You were out there? How are you still al-- Soup can face?! That's weird, even by my standards. If I had a soup can face I think it'd be..." He pauses to consider, the buzzing emphasizing the thought. "Alphabet soup." "I would be a borscht." Anole doesn't think about this at all. "How do you have soup cans for a face?" He pulls his blanket back enough that now his face is more visible, the blanket still making kind of a hood over his spikey head. "We could stretch your tongue for you," he offers, sticking his own out halfway to the ground. He gratefully hands his cardboard over to Nessie as well. "Ooh, s'he good? Thank goodness because I was gonna have to start in on the Simms Mild Smoked Snack Sticks soon. Desperate times. -- How are you not a Nessie-cicle now though?" "Just put soup cans where the face is! Obviously. I turned into a whole entire scorpion ice-statue and then I unfroze," Nessie replies cheerfully. "It was great while it lasted though, I was so glittery." She dumps some of the new shreds of cardboard into the fire, leaving a small pile of cardboard shredded beside the couch for later kindling. "He's good! Being all rock-starry doesn't seem to have changed him much. Um oh right right though but there's some cozy-things for being cozy? You guys look like you got cozy down already but --" She's unpacking some graham crackers, chocolate bars, marshmallows, from the bag. "Borscht! Nothing can beet that!" says Bug, laughing a muffled laugh into his blanket. "Does that come in cans? You woulda been a great shiny statue! But I think I like it best when you are not froze." At the sight of the crackers, chocolate bars and marshmallows, there is some struggling with the blankets while Bug's hands find their way out, to make a grabby gesture at this snacky food. "Ohh, wow, it will be like camping at home! Tell a campfire story or something! I dunno! I never been camping!" Anole's head thunks back against the couch, but his groan does sound amused. "We could paint you. You could be glittery any time -- oh man!" Now he sits back upright, snatching at the crackers and chocolate and passing these both straight up to Bug. "Nessie you're the greatest Shane's the greatest you all rock." He plucks up a bag of marshmallows, tearing it open first and only second casting around the room -- the old and slightly rusty wire hangers he finds in a corner are probably not the most sanitary of things (especially not after he's zwipped a few of them back over with his tongue) but he gamely wipes them on a corner of his blanket and untwists one to skewer a marshmallow with it and poke it toward the fire. "Wait are we talking like hook hand man door car bloody mary ribbon head kinda or like true kinda stories what is the s'mores mood." "Oh my gosh I would love being glittery." Nessie bounces slightly in place, tail swishing in excitement. Her eyes widen at the talk of campfire stores and she shakes her head, hands lifting palm-out. "Ohh-h-h no, you enjoy the s'mores and your spooky stories I'm gonna finish putting the food away. That storeroom is creepy enough without ghost stories on my brain. Have a good sugar rush!" Her tail is still swishing as she skitters back away. "We'll save you some s'more, but we'll finish off the spooky stories before you get back!" promises Bug. He shakes off some more of the blankets and waves towards Nessie when given the crackers and chocolate. A quick search has him finding the most platelike object that he can manage nearby (a pot lid, with no matching pot), so that he can prepare the treats so that they are ready to grab the marshmallows. "If you're a cowboy, you're supposed to tell true stories, but for regular people camping, probably the hook vengeance ghost stuff." Anole is in the process of untwisting a second hanger and spearing more marshmallow as Nessie hustles off; he bobs his head as she goes. He sets the hanger carefully on the edge of the fire barrel, watching the flames lick towards the marshmallows. "What about if you're a knight-in-training? What about fake spooky stories that have turned real? I been hearing some wild gator rumors lately like. Not the old ones but real mangly type hauntings. -- do you think gators have ideas about vengeance?" Bug places the graham cracker on what would currently just be a chocolate sandwich, then rests the put lid in his lap, balancing it there. His brow furrows a little bit, and he repeats "Fake spooky stories that have turned real? I heard some rumblings about gators, too, but I don't know much about it. Are there for real some sewer gators? I thought... well, I thought that we were what people mistook for the New York sewer gators!" "Oh yeah at least that's what I heard like. Real chompy monsters. Not like us monsters, other -- Oh my god." Anole sits up straighter, his eyes gone wide. "We're the monsters? We're the urban legends?" He sounds absolutely delighted with this. "I need to be having, like, a hundred times more fun with this than I currently am. Why haven't I released more red balloons out the sewer grates? Flashed weird colored lights at people late at night? Dressed in a ragged wedding dress and briefly appeared halfway down subway tunnels? Wait are you doing anything to further our image?" "I haven't done the wedding dress stuff or... red balloons. But umm. Sometimes there are swarms of red bees that blast out of the drains? And I think that might be alarming?" Bug sounds very unsure about this, his lips pressing together in a fine line. "But yeah! Some of us have like, long snouts! And some of us are green! And some of us roll when we are mad, probably? I just figured..." He gestures vaguely up towards the surface. "That's alligator stuff, right? So there are real non-us gators? Why are they in the sewer?" "Okay that would probably freak me out if I wasn't expecting you," Anole admits. He reaches out to turn the marshmallows, letting them toast on their other sides. "Oh wow I'm green and spikey. I bet I make a great gator. No no no but right, yeah, I mean gator-gators -- I don't know why they're in the sewers though. Maybe some other mutant group down here is trying to spookify up their own image?" "Rival sewer mutants? I am sure there'd be enough sewer for all of us. Not like we're using the whole everywhere," says Bug. The sound of buzzing comes from inside him, and there is some sluggish crawling under his skin. "I think you'd be a good gator, but maybe you shouldn't hang too much with those gator gators. If it weren't so cold I could... take a look down the tunnels, but umm." He gets up and approaches with the prepared unmarshmallowed smores. "I think that probably it's just best I hang out where it's comfy." "Maybe not rival sewer mutants maybe potential friend sewer mutants! Maybe they're just shy." Anole pulls the marshmallows from the fire, smooshing them down onto the waiting smores. "Guess we won't find out till spring, though. Thankfully, for now we got comfy down." "Maybe they're talking about us the same way? We're kinda reclusive too, right? Someone'll have to be the first to say hi. If we see a big alligator we can give it a note or something," suggests Bug, his gaze turning down towards the pot lid holding the newly crafted smores, the chocolate already starting to melt beneath the airy sweetness of the hot marshmallow. He grins when he looks up, his teeth more crooked than his smile, "It'd be great to make s'more friends!"