lostcarnival | MOPS AGGRESSIVELY [Open]

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MOPS AGGRESSIVELY [Open]

Who: Foster and you!
When: Day 151
Where: Carnival Grounds - Various
What: Psi has hits upon a clever way to get Foster's goat.
Warnings: Foster.

A. Taking Out The Trash

Anyone who generally takes notice of Foster at all will notice that the past week or so, he's been unusually... hardworking. Not with magic or other suspicious lurkings, but with cleaning. He's constantly busy--scrubbing walls, hauling garbage, mopping floors.

He's not just doing his job, he's pushing himself.

Why?

One word:

Papyrus.

Psi's solution to his disagreement with Foster was actually fairly clever: rather than confronting (or antagonising) Foster further, he'd simply assigned Foster to assist Papyrus in his janitorial tasks.

Papyrus? Thrilled.

He immediately cast himself as Foster's mentor, giving the necromancer a whirlwind tour of the job and peppering him with questions and reassurances and instructing him in the finer points of mop handling with an intensity of optimism and good faith that was honestly pretty repulsive--

Foster retained approximately none of it.

Which only seemed to motivate Papyrus to try harder, which drove Foster further into impotent fury, which inspired Papyrus to champion his achievements and potential more, which antagonised Foster even further, which...

Well. Anyway. The harder Foster works, the faster he can leave Papyrus behind, or so the logic goes. He's honestly taking his aggression out on the grime, but he's also trying--desperately--to achieve a level of performance that will shut Papyrus up.

Or at least end the ordeal faster.

...

Mind your feet.

B. Duck and Cover

Prior to the Carnival, Foster had never been gainfully employed in his entire life. This--his contract here, as part of the Carnival--is the most employed he's ever been. Despite that, he's been grudgingly cooperative with it. Until now. Obeying orders and performing thankless labour for no reward is somewhat gratifying to him, honestly. But this?

Papyrus is not just exhausting, not just grating, not just insufferable... he's relentless.

Escaping him as soon as their work is done is a challenge, because he never wants to let Foster leave.

And even once he's detached himself from the skeleton, Foster still takes pains to avoid him other times. Paranoia has a tendency to drive Foster to unnecessary extremes. Now even eating is to be done in odd corners of the carnival, lest Papyrus see him sitting in the open and sit down to enthusiastically strike up a one-sided "conversation."

A lot of his preferred retreats are kind of strange--instead of his trailer, for example, he can sometimes be found on the floor of ferris wheel carriages. Or hidden inside of the midway game stands, a trick he unwittingly shares with Papyrus' brother. Or in the barn's loft--which is cool, shaded, and hidden from view. Between the elevation, the lack of light, and the bales of straw... it's by far the best place in every way but one: getting a plate or bowl of food up a ladder is basically impossible.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Foster is just standing there, his paws over his face, clawtips buried in the edge of his hairline.

He isn't crying. He isn't visibly angry.

It's impossible to tell What he's doing until Yuya's apologies push him over the edge. Then he drops to his knees on the scuffed (but freshly mopped) wood, face still buried in his paws--

At which point it becomes obvious what he's doing.

He's laughing.

He's laughing, breathlessly, possibly a little uncontrollably, and definitely inappropriately. He'd been holding it in, swallowing the sound and making small, disquieting, fragmented noises as it built inside his chest and bubbled up his throat until finally he breaks and it just...

...comes out.

He doesn't glare at Yuya, or yell, or let out any muffled sounds of pain. He's just still, and that moment drags on for an agonizingly long time for Yuya as he waits for an outburst.

But the one he didn't expect is laughter. It stuns him for a moment, that Foster thinks this was funny.

"... Aha." Yuya straightens back up, abashed. He doesn't laugh as strongly, but at least the lack of anger lightens his own mood. "I really didn't know you were back here! I was way too focused on my routine..." He comes a little closer, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees as he looks down at Foster.

"No! No, by all means!" Foster wheezes. Saliva wets his bottom lip and flecks his chin slightly; laughing and swallowing are mutually exclusive activities for most people--the difference is that Foster never quite regains his ability to do so once he's worked up.

"My presence absolutely shouldn't mean anything to you! Otherwise it'd be an inconvenience, knowing I exist at all!" He gestures dramatically, the tips of his claws brushing his own collarbone before he reaches to retrieve his mop, hooking those claws under its wooden handle and scooping it up in one surprisingly fluid motion.

Yuya's weak smile fades completely and he stares at Foster with a dumb look. Because, in a word: what, Foster?

"You're not inconvenient," he starts slowly, glancing aside for the ball--luckily it didn't roll far, so he moves over to put his hands on it and reclaim his prop. He doesn't take his eyes off of Foster for long, however.

"Is your job with the carnival cleaning? Like a janitor?" It's just idle, curious questions--his tone light and unassuming.

"Haha!" Foster gives another, now more brittle laugh. "I'm much worse than that. My very existence is a hindrance to society--an intolerable presence, a rotting waste of space. I'm unsightly, disgusting trash!" He pauses, watching Yuya closely. Very closely, his eyes lidded at half-mast. He's now on edge, waiting for the slightest hint of resistance, the smallest trace of argument in Yuya's tone.

"Which makes this... mildly ironic. But cleaning is what I'm doing now. I started out as... as something else. Then the Psionic decided to petition the Ringmaster otherwise. Janitorial duty is just another demotion." His tone... evens out a little, actually. Instead of bitterness or agitation, talking about what he clearly regards as a punishment is apparently easy.

Edited 2017-09-04 01:13 (UTC)

Yuya's shoulders raise a bit and he certainly opens in mouth in readiness to question Foster's line of thinking again--but he remembers that last time that just resulted in Foster storming off, so instead he lets out a short breath and lets Foster continue to talk. He still doesn't agree with that, but he's pretty sure his opinion alone isn't going to convince Foster to ease up on himself.

"I guess someone has to do it?" Even Yuya can't find much of a bright side to being a janitor. It's not a glamorous job. "I'm one of the acrobats... uh, I guess I didn't introduce myself before, but I'm Yuya!" With that, he offers another smile.

Yuya is either a faster learner or a more easily bullied person than most of the carnival.

Foster just looks disappointed with him when he tries to put a positive spin on janitorial duties, but at least he doesn't say anything. Or, you know, leave. Of course, if he thought Yuya was actively trying to avoid that, he'd already be gone.

But that'd just be absurd.

So he waves a paw at Yuya with a... purposeful smile.

"Oh, well, then you have better things to do than talk with someone like me... I'm sure the Ringmaster would rather you not waste time when you're supposed to be working."

"I'm not wasting my time," he wrinkles his nose with an expression of mild offense. He's not lazy! "I'm just at my limit for hitting my head into the ground."

Literally, but he's still half-balancing his knee on the ball, rolling it side to side. He hops on his foot briefly and when looking down and back up to assure his balance--stops and stares at Foster. Or, more accurately, Foster's side.

He leans over and points at the fae mark. "Is that from Miss Pru's sword?"

Oh, but he is. Yuya is wasting time on Foster--wasting a precious commodity he doesn't even appreciate having. A resource--the resource of existence in its most essential form, the basic currency of being alive; a wealth so dear, so essential that Yuya is blinded to what luxury having it to waste even is.

Foster?

Foster is a waste of time. To his very core, every second of life, every second of time itself that he occupies is a disgusting, degenerate, putrescent waste.

".......you think she did the right thing."

His tone is icy with something cruel enough to be mistaken for hate, but his smile doesn't fade.

If his worthless, rot-eaten brain has managed to retain only a single worthless thing in the past decade, it's how to smile.

"Wh--no! That's not it at all!" It's Foster's tone that gives him the warning first, and he argues back before he even thinks about the reason why. Not that his tone is disingenuous--but the reason Yuya doesn't think Pru was right probably isn't the same reason that Foster does.

He absently puts a hand to his chest. He should explain himself quickly. "It's just that... it left a mark on me, too, kind of like that."

Just a point of similarity that surprised him, because Portland has left all sorts of weird changes on everyone.

Foster doesn't believe him. He doesn't believe him because he's forgetting a lot of what he 'knew' in Portland, in bits and pieces--casualties, he's certain, of the inexorable, progressive march of his brain's return to decay. He's forgetting a lot--but not enough to forget what Yuya said to him at the ritual site. Not enough to imagine for even a second that Yuya wouldn't believe that mere living is something that should be aspired to regardless of individual or condition.

Not enough to keep him from wanting Yuya to just fucking say it--

"A mark on you?"

Yuya nods, pointing as the spot over his heart where the blade pierced him. He realizes Foster what down for the count at that point in the ritual, so he wouldn't have seen it.

"I had to be stabbed with it, too, for the ritual. And this mark showed up after that. If it's the same for you, that's probably what caused it."

Edited 2017-09-18 22:12 (UTC)

Foster stares at Yuya, all but unblinkingly. It's the kind of long, unerring stare that, from a man who either barely glances at people or else pins them with his stare, is fairly uncommon... and probably not terribly reassuring.

Internally, his thoughts are churning--maelstromic, in motion, but machine-like in their inexorable course. On a simple level, the thing that's requiring so much process is nothing more than the task of figuring out how he feels about this information. On a more complex one, though, it's deciphering what it means. Until now, it was the barest, thinnest layer of consolation, a translucent film lying between him and an apocalyptic form of anguish, a level of devastation that would have destroyed him absolutely. That the mark of Pru's lie was physical evidence of the touch of her blade.

But now, that perspective is made more literal.

And Yuya was stabbed with the same blade.

Which means......

The more Foster stares, the most unnerving it gets. His expression is impossible for Yuya to read, and he can't tell how he's taking this information. Does he not believe it? Should Yuya offer to show him? Or does it just remind him what he failed to keep in Portland, and is that still affecting him?

Yuya lowers his hands to press them against the balancing ball, wilting a little with uncertainty under Foster's gaze.

But he won't break the silence first, so they're engaging in a very uncomfortable stare-off now.

Yuya's mark is... very different from Foster's in form. Instead of a crosshair, a target, a marker of injury, it's more like... a music clef. A rune.

No... it's not about how he feels about it. What he feels... is meaningless. It's a worthless question. But Yuya--

How must it feel, to share something so symbolic, so special, so sacred with such utter garbage, such a miserable failure. How defiled does he feel? How pathetic? It's like a emerging bubble forming beneath a lake, an emerging vent inside of him, rising, dawning--

"How's it feel?"

He locks eyes with the acrobat, his tone just shy of contemptuous--but it's antagonism, frankly. Like he knows what the answer is, but wants to hear it from Yuya. He wants to hear it with his own ears, feel it said out loud, in Yuya's voice--!

How does it feel?

Yuya blinks back to awareness at the question, absently scratching the mark through his shirt. His expression shifts to something contemplative, and he glances down as if this balancing ball will have the answers for him.

"Uh." He starts, looking back up at Foster. "It hurt at first, but that's probably because I was stabbed. It doesn't really feel like anything now? I guess it's kind of like a tattoo."

Yuya, of course, not being remotely on Foster's wavelength misinterprets his question completely.

'Not being on Foster's wavelength' is probably the lowest benchmark for some kind of sanity, so good for Yuya.

Less good is the blank look he gets, like he just totally bypassed every single possible reaction, good and bad, and settled on something that doesn't even answer the question.

Which.... technically, from Foster's perspective, he didn't.

"Not that," he snaps impatiently.

...after a good couple of seconds of total incomprehension, anyway.

Edited 2017-09-24 02:55 (UTC)

"Not that?" Now Yuya just looks confused. Foster asked how it felt, he told him how it felt. He's not sure what was lost in translation, so there's another silent stand off as Yuya tries to figure out what else he's supposed to be feeling.

"... It's kind of a relief to know that's probably normal? Everyone's been worried about what happened, and I don't really know what to expect after something like that..."

He gives Foster and expectant look as he speaks. Is that more what he was looking for?

Wrong.

That was absolutely the wrong answer.

"Normal?" Foster echoes, somehow not mockingly. Yet. "Normal?"

It's not even next door to the right answer.

He starts laughing. Again. Only this time, it should be a lot more obvious what his laughter really means.

It's just so incredibly, pathetically stupid of Yuya, to believe that something like this is not connected--

No, how lucky it is for him, to believe that! How easily blinded, how innocent, how... how honest.

But then he stops, looks Yuya directly in the eye, and says

"..... no."

Yuya's expression twists in frustration as Foster laughs. He doesn't find what's funny at all, except maybe that Yuya misses the point and he bristles a little at the brief thought that reminds him he's not the brightest, and everyone's always noticed that and so helpfully pointed it out--so what if he misunderstood, it wasn't clear!

"It's as normal as anything can get in this place!" He grumbles, looking away sullenly. "I just noticed it, but it's not that important anyway."

"You've been Marked," he informs Yuya succinctly. It's clear from the way he says it that he expects that to mean something to Yuya--but honestly, it's unlikely to mean jack shit to anyone outside the confines of Foster's own head.

He doesn't pause for a reaction, though, sparing Yuya from any further uncomfortable misunderstandings. Instead, he has to face a different kind of discomfort, as Foster steps closer--directly into Yuya's personal space, his startling blue eyes locked with the teen's as he closes the gap between them.

"You might want to be careful about having a... connection to something like me," he says, then laughs--as though disquieted, as though insinuating, as though knowing.

Yuya looks up at Foster as he comes closer, but he doesn't lean back--in part, he forces himself not to because he doesn't want Foster's hysteria to win over his emotions. He also believes Foster won't actually hurt him, unsettling as he can be, because they're both with the carnival. You just don't turn on your allies like that.

"You don't make any sense." Maybe if he says it Foster will explain himself, or maybe he'll just continue to be an enigma to Yuya. "Are you saying that because you think you're trash? I can't take back getting stabbed."

Oh, Yuya.

Oh, Yuya.

It's a shame Yuya didn't ask someone besides Strange about the man he's inches away from right now, because that is a whole lot of very dangerous assumptions he is making all at once.

But not backing up was actually a pretty good move. Foster regards Yuya evenly for a long moment, his eyes lidded--he doesn't give Yuya any more space, but he does notice that Yuya doesn't try to make more. To try and escape.

.... interesting.

So he doesn't move back, and he doesn't lay a hand on Yuya, if that was a concern--but he doesn't bother to explain himself. Of course he isn't making sense. Yuya believes too hard in life, in ideas like 'he thinks' he's trash, in preserving his illusions.

"I wouldn't, to you." His tone is evenly contradictory.

Foster's lack of movement one way or the other keeps Yuya just as rooted in place.

He wouldn't what? Wouldn't make sense? That's the only part Yuya can make the connection between. He's not wrong that Yuya isn't understanding now, but he's trying.

"It might if you explain it to me? I want to understand, but I don't see anything wrong with having something in common." Because for Yuya that's all it was--some small point of similarity for them. For all the meaning Foster has applied to the marks, for Yuya... well, he's had enough people fawning over his decision, but he knows how selfish his reasons were.

"No." Foster doesn't budge. In either sense.

Primarily, he just doesn't think Yuya has it in him to be worth the time. But peripherally, he's curious. Will Yuya give first, or will he wait? Either to back down or shove Foster away?

If Yuya just wants Foster to give him the answers, how quickly will he give up when he realises they aren't available?

MOPS AGGRESSIVELY [Open]

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Whoops didn't get a notif......

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DID NOT REALISE I WAS THIS LATE ON THIS TAG holy shit

o7

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Let me know if you can't... find a way to respond to this.

You're good!

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Thanks for your ongoing patience <3

O7!

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