lostcarnival | How (Not) To Dress To Impress

Who: Foster and YOU
What: Foster's stubborn refusal to wear presentable clothing gets him on the RM's shitlist. He gets turned into a cow.
Where: The carnival grounds
When: Before the kidnappings
Warnings: Over-the-top self-deprecation, and... uh, he gets turned into a cow.

A. Before

To be honest, Foster wasn't terribly interested in his new... career. His 'hiring' was less of a blur and more of a short yet tedious process of being told what he was going to do and why and then being left to do it. Which... he understood. But he didn't really... care?

He didn't care about the job. His mistakes, yes. He couldn't stop thinking about it. But the whole... part where he was supposed to talk to people? What was he supposed to do? Didn't she know what kind of disgusting, worthless garbage she was counting on? Why, she'd be better off with no one than relying on someone like him. No, she would be better with even literal piles of refuse lining the walkups to her shows. His revolting presence would drive people away, would... would...

Also.

He didn't really like talking to people.

But he had a couple of days to "settle in." To... explore.

And then he has to get to work.

Which he does--a skinny, sallow figure the off-brown colour of an old cement road, dressed only in striped flannel pyjama pants and a haphazardly wrapped blue scarf. On his breaks, he retreats back to the back lot--honestly just a dressed up trailer park, he doesn't understand why they call it a backyard.

And he might not dress for the job--barefoot and ribby, with no shirt and tangled yellow hair--but he's definitely got a way with words.

"Life is short, you know! Too short to live without a little wonder. Without awe. Without magic! But tonight... tonight you can have all that and more! Buy your tickets now..."

He smiles, just shy of brightly.

"Regret lasts a lifetime. No matter how long or short...!"

B. After

There's a new addition to the menagerie.

It's not very exciting. In fact, it's so ordinary that it's kind of odd.

But there it is: a sleepy-eyed, standoffish brown cow.

If you talk to it, it ignores you. If you try to pet it, it moves away.

So.... normal cow?

~~Lmao no~~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Chiaki's sitting on the steps of another trailer nearby. (It might be hers. She just kind of sat down wherever.) She's mostly focused on playing her game console - after not having it out all day, she gets withdrawal, honestly, surely Psii knows that. But anyway, here she is playing, and this guy's over there... practicing? Probably.

"It's good." She says it quietly as she plays, trying not to focus too much on the actual content of the words he's saying, since they, uh... hit close to home.

"If... uh... fuck." Foster isn't super paying attention, and the words process a few seconds after they're said. She's quiet--so quiet he almost didn't hear her anyway, to be honest, but now he's lost his train of thought entirely. "What?"

What's... oh, the game she's playing. Obviously.

He turns around to where she's sitting behind him, pausing for just a moment before leaning to peer in, upside-down, at what she's playing.

"....you came outside to play a video game you could have played indoors." He glances up at her--with his eyes only. "That's kind of weird, isn't it?"

She was actually trying to comment on his skills, give him a compliment -- oops. But now strange half-naked man's in her face. She shifts back a little bit, understandably.

"I stayed outside." She doesn't really look at him, still focused on her game. "It's dark indoors."

She's never minded the dark. That's not actually the problem.

The real problem is that there's more people outside than inside.

A compliment for him? That's either a very bad joke or she has no taste.

'It's dark indoors.' What kind of logic is that? Then turn on a light....? He stares down at her game, flatly.

His eyes shutter partially, his tone distant. Cool. Sharpened. "It must be nice to have such an excess of time that you feel free to waste it like that."

It isn't hard to turn off a light at all, really. That's what she gets for avoiding the issue.

She feels her face heating up under his gaze. "It's not a waste."

"No?" Foster doesn't look moved.

"What is it, then?" He doesn't even wait for an answer, actually. "It's a waste of time." He understands--he used to wish he could understand better, but he's simultaneously so very, very grateful that he can't.

Other people are the ones who don't understand. They all live just long enough to think they have time to spare. That there is a future.

It's a lie.

He doesn't have--didn't have that kind of time.

And people who think they do... the fact that someone would squander their time so wastefully...

It makes him really sick.

"... It helps."

It helps her, it helps her get friends, it helps people have fun, it just...

There's a lot she wants to say to Foster and not sure how much she should say. So she just buries her face in her game again with a muttered apology.

...it... helps? With what?

Foster doesn't even ask--he just grabs the game system from Chiaki's hands, yanking it abruptly from her grasp and holding it up to look at it for a second. Not that it actually matters what she's playing. There's not much in the way of games that would change his mind in any way.

"... here. I'll help you."

She can hate him for it, that's okay. He expects it, really. But that's what he's here for.

"H-hey!..."

The little spaceship on the screen is promptly shot and explodes. Chiaki blinks, looking up the machine she's barely had time to play since arriving, as the Game Over music plays.

"Please give that back." She's doing her best to hold her voice steady. It's not like she hasn't been bullied before, but she sort of had hoped that that time might be over. Apparently she was wrong.

"....I wish I was allowed to." Foster smiles apologetically--the flettingly detached look is already gone, replaced by a sort of gentle regret that isn't entirely sincere. He's glad he has a job like this to do--people he can help even in a place like this.

"I know you're gonna be upset at me. You can hate me, that's normal!"

He is, incongruously, conscientious enough to turn the system off before putting it behind his back, where Chiaki can't see it.

"It's not yours." She looks at the ground rather than at Foster, trying to remember where she was when he distracted her. "I brought it from home. I haven't been playing it during work, I just play it after. It helps. Please give it back."

She's almost resigned. There's not a great chance that her words are gonna work at all, but it's worth a try.

'It's not yours.' No shit, obviously not.

She doesn't understand what he's saying at all. That's... fine. Like Lars said--he's just impossible to understand. It's to be expected, really. The things that garbage would say aren't things real people think about.

But he knows that feeling bad about this will just make it more right. So he gives her another bright smile. "Don't worry. You'll understand."

Then he turns... and leaves, her game system in hand.

How (Not) To Dress To Impress

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