fandomhighdorms | The deck, Tuesday afternoon

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The deck, Tuesday afternoon

Fall in the Midatlantic didn't seem to be in any kind of rush to be, you know, fall-like, especially compared to fall in New York over the break. So Tip was out on the deck with her sunglasses on, wearing shorts and a tank top while she contemplated the large pumpkin in front of her. It was still a little early for a jackolantern that would last all the way to Halloween, but she was in the mood to stab a gourd with a knife.

J.Lo kept texting her ideas for clever two person costume themes they could be doing on Halloween if she wasn't so far away, which was apparently what Tip got for being best friends with the space equivalent of a melodramatic grandmother and then daring to go away for school.

She found herself a good "spooky" playlist, which mostly consisted of white ladies claiming to be witches (it had a lot of Fleetwood Mac on it), turned it up loud, and started scribbling ideas on her pumpkin with a dry erase marker. All her attempts at scary faces just ended up looking Very Disappointed in her. This was maybe going to take awhile.

[Open! Anyone else woken up from the breakweek nap?]

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"That doesn't look scary," Rhys said. Because his opinion was clearly important here.

Yes, that was definitely something you wanted to say to a girl with the urge to stab something. Tip scowled down at the pumpkin and jammed her carving knife into the top where the lid would go.

"What if I give it an angry V eyebrow?"

Yeah. That probably wouldn't help.

Which would be why Rhys made a little yelping noise and tried to back up a little without letting on that he was backing away a little. It mostly involved nearly tripping as he ran his fingers through his hair smoothly.

"M-maybe give it a scar?"

That's alright, Rhys, Tip was too busy looking at her now-stabbed pumpkin to notice. She tilted her head one way and then the other thoughtfully.

". . . How would you carve a scar?" she asked. "I'm already going to cut it all up. What would make it a scar and not, like, cheekbone lines?"

She wasn't planning to give her pumpkin cheekbones. Don't worry.

Aw yeah, he succeeded in seeming cool.

"Make it jagged?" he suggested. "How would you do cheekbone lines?"

"Like this." Tip drew two little sideways L shapes on either side of the pumpkin's nose. ". . . Yeah, that looks dumb. Like I'm trying to make a sexy vampire pumpkin or something."

Hmmm. Maybe it'd help if it didn't have a nose? She rubbed the little triangle away with the side of her fist.

. . . Now it was a chibi sexy vampire pumpkin. That was Very Disappointed in them.

Rhys crossed his arms over his chest to give it a thoughtful look. "I'm not seeing the sexy part, honestly."

"I didn't say it was sexy. I said it looked like I was trying to make it sexy." Tip sighed and rubbed out the whole face to start over again. The front of the pumpkin was turning a disconcertingly mottled shade of burnt umber from the marker residue. "Maybe I should just go for a silly pumpkin."

"Make it a Kuzco pumpkin," Rhys suggested, wigging the fingers on his metal arm.

She said silly, not obnoxious, Rhys.

Tip was willing to roll with it. Except: "I don't know where I'd get enough gold foil for his hat."

"If that's all you're worried about, we can get spray paint." Rhys did not help his situation with his roommate. Not at all.

"I guess," Tip said. "You don't think he'd take it as some kind of tribute to his amazingness?"

He would absolutely take it that way. And then critique it on its lack of likeness.

"...okay, that's a good point," Rhys replied. "Maybe something really scary. Like... like a scag or something."

". . . I don't know what that is."

Also a good point.

"They're like... if someone mixed together an alien wolf and a lizard. And then made it really want to kill everything."

WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE, RHYS.

"Can you draw one?"

AWFUL. HIS LIFE WAS AWFUL.

"I think so?" he ventured, holding out his hand for the marker.

Tip handed it over and turned the pumpkin to face him. "Go for it."

Rhys bit the inside of his cheek, accepting the marker to draw a cartoonish, but still recognizable scag (http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/borderlands/images/1/13/Peter.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121031044948) for the lucky people who hadn't had to deal with one. "Oh, and their mouths open sideways. Its... really creepy."

Edited 2016-10-19 01:48 (UTC)

"Are those scales, or does someone actually make armor for those things?"

"Definitely scales," Rhys said quickly. "I think it'd eat anyone who tried to do that. Pandora has the worst wildlife."

"Your universe is bizarre."

"Yeah, it really is," he said, looking at the scag and sighing. Because somehow... he sort of missed it.

"Why do you look homesick?" Tip asked.

Because seriously. Its mouth opened sideways.

And he hadn't even mentioned the scythids or spiderants yet! Oh, or the stalkers. They could disappear on you. That was... that had been an interesting holiday party on Helios when one of those things escaped confinement.

"What?" He made a face like it was clearly not true. "No I don't."

He really did.

"Is this island not dangerous enough for you?" Tip asked. "We got attacked by giant psychic frogs."

"I don't want things trying to kill me all the time!" It's why he was a pretty shitty Vault Hunter. "I just... I had friends there. Kinda."

If they weren't dead or hated him for the whole Jack thing.

"Which talking about the creepy wolf-lizard thing reminded you of?"

She could actually see that. If J.Lo weren't texting her 30 times a day, she'd probably get a little moon-eyed talking about the Gorg. Not because she missed them, but because they were one of the first things she and J.Lo really bonded over.

"Vaughn and I hit one with Vasquez's car when we first got to Pandora," Rhys said, looking at the pumpkin sadly.

Back when his life was a normal 'you've been demoted' level of shit. Before it was 'oh god, you're gonna die on this awful planet' shit, 'EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE' shit, and now the 'you're randomly a teenager' shit.

"Did the car win?" How big were these things, anyway?

"Oh, the car won. I thought we hit a bandit at first, but thank god it was just a scag," he said with a relieved laugh.

And there was the casual disregard for life of Borderlands.

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The deck, Tuesday afternoon

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