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 Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:42 pm
It had been more than a few days since receiving his sentence of an untold length of time in the wilderness. It appeared that he was at least surviving, left alone with little-to-no knowledge of the tactics of the jungle. He was starting to wish his Dad had sent him to boy scouts when he was a lad.
Today's challenge was an important one to him. After spending many nights huddled cold and wet after the sun went down, Alec strived the master the art of building a proper fire. Besides the warmth it would provide, he bet that the disgusting food of the jungle would probably taste better if cooked or warmed. Not like he'd managed to catch a single fish yet, though.
So the boy now sat crouched a ways away from his riverside "camp", scraping two feeble twigs together amongst random growls of frustration.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:02 pm
Zach wandered along the river, toting a paper bag with a lunch inside - a meat sandwich, holding the bread and all other fixings. In other words, a large piece of meat, cooked rare. It made him a little bit sick to eat, given how it wasn't fresh from a carcass, but he preferred it anyway. Blood was messy and difficult to explain.
He stopped when he heard odd noises - growling, scratching, the crunching of leaves and twigs. A predator? Chubbs? He froze, looking around. Someone was sitting near the water a ways off, immersed in whatever it was they were doing. They didn't look dangerous. from the back they appeared human enough. Despite the protesting of his neurotic reptilian mindset, he felt it would be pointless not to go look. Fingers squeezed more tightly around the top of the paper bag, and he approached, his tail brushing leaves around as it dragged along the ground.
"Uh, hi..."
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:28 pm
Alec was so enthrawled in his task that he hadn't heard Zach's approach at all, despite his unstealthy methods of travelling. His head snapped around, peering across his finned back with narrowed eyes and minor disorientation. What the hell was that big ol' red thing? And what the HELL was he looking at?
The teen realized how malicious his gaze must've unintentionally looked and meekly sat back into the grass, dropping the worn and useless twigs. Now he recognized this guy. He was that crazy looking scaled monster he'd seen... that day.
Man did he smell good. Or was that the bag he was holding?
"'ey..." He answered the greeting, feeling embarassed all of a sudden.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:04 pm
Zach finally got a glimpse of the guy, recognizing him as the one who'd been attempting to pump Aubrey full of some presumably bad chemical, and also the threat to his... friendship... with Amaya. So, up close, this was the guy who'd actually tried to escape. And that remnant of purple and green hair seemed familiar... he must have seen this guy before he'd grown the head of a shark.
Even the thought of Amaya made him apprehensive of the grey-faced guy. She'd been looking for him, though, so he really had to curb the territorial feelings he was getting. No one was supposed to come between him and Amaya. He purposely lashed his tail, trying to focus his thoughts again. He had to stop thinking like that.
"Amaya wasss looking for you."
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:30 pm
Alec's expression was blank with weariness and a somewhat subdued fear. The young irish punk's nerves were being strained to their limits these fast few days and he was beginning to understand the significance of the fact that he was stranded in the wilderness with the threat to not even so much as approach the Village for help of any kind. Black eyes followed the sharp movements of Zach's tail, unable to shake the feeling that some sort of threat via body language was being lost in translation between the two of them.
"Realleh?" He gawked, somewhat surprised. He'd been out here so longand everyone knew he'd been kicked out, how could she have missed him? It wasn't like he was hiding or anything. "She's ekay righ'?" He didn't want to encourage the use of that voice from the mouth of that monster but he was curious to know if the Staff had indeed left her out of it.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:03 pm
"She'sss fine. She wasss looking for you is all." The tone of his voice remained flat. He sized up Alec in his mind, seeing little that would make another lizard want him.
He continued to watch the shark-faced boy for a little while longer before slowly sitting down across from him. The paper bag was placed in his lap, where it crinkled a little as he set it down. This was decidedly awkward. "Ssso... you're out here for a long time, I've heard."
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:09 pm
Alec watched the dragon place the paper bag in his lap as he sat down, eyes unintentionally following the object as the scent wafted to him from inside it's confines. His empty stomach couldn't mistake that smell; meat. Food. Edible.
"Oh." He chirped, a little confused. Not knowing what exactly what was going on, he kept up with the conversation. "Uh ye... a guess? Beats me." Having no means of counting the days (seeing as he hadnt thought of recording how many times the sun rose and set in that damned place). he could only guess by the way Zach spoke that it must've been awhile. Hopefully "a long time" meant a week to this guy. "'ay.... a' neveh caugh' ye name? A'm Alec." If this creepy scaled guy was going to haunt his campsite, he might as well put a name to the face.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:26 pm
"I'm Zachary. Or Zach. However you'd like to sssay it." He didn't have to tell Amaya where Alec really was if the guy didn't seem good enough for her.
"Lisssten... I don't really know what'sss going on, but Amaya and I... talked... and I jussst want to make sure of a couple thingsss." And he thought it had been awkward several minutes ago. Why was he doing this? Why? Before they'd met out in the jungle she'd meant nothing to him. Maybe something was wrong with his serum, or his animals, or him. "You wouldn't hurt her. Right?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:40 pm
Zach. Right, he could remember that.
Just as Alec was about to go on with an innocent string of questions or comments, he found himself silenced as Zach continued on to what seemed as a serious topic. Before he'd even finish his statement the teen was shooting him an odd stare, now completely confused.
"Huh?" Was the first thing he uttered before his mind would kick in with the processing of such a blunt and awkward question. Amaya? What did she have to do with anything? "Wha? No!"
What the hell did he mean by that? What, he was afraid the 'dangerous' irish kid was some homicidal maniac? He didn't know the circumstances, he didn't know the meaning, the reason! Who the hell was he to judge him!
"Wha' th' 'ell d'yea mean by tha', ay?" His face now bore a deep frown, somewhat insulted by his presumed accusations, temper flaring. After a moment he paused, making an effort to slow down before he jumped to any more conclusions. He steadied his voice down to a low tone, as if he was the defendant in a trial. "Ay... look, A'd neveh 'urt Amaya, she's me mate. A woul'nt 'urt aneh'one. Tha' one time... tha' one time w's diff'r'nt..."
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 11:37 pm
"No, no! I don't mean like what you did to Aubrey..." he grumbled. He threw his hands up. "Okay, you know what? I'm going to ssstart over."
He held out his left hand and pretended to shake an invisible hand, then halfway through his bland speaking he spread his fingers to better show the wicked claws on them. "Hello Alec, I'm Zach. You may know me asss the guy who attacked Aubrey before, the lassst time there wasss a public announcssement from Dr. Moreau. And if you didn't, you do now."
His tail swished a little. He was agitated. Cameras and microphones everywhere. He wasn't supposed to use that kind of thing like a title, he was ashamed of it. Attacking people was bad, as elementary as that sounded. Better get back to working on that cure to lovesickness. This wasn't some kind of violent hoodlum like he'd half-expected, just a kid who'd made a really stupid decision. If this guy would just get with Amaya, he could stop pining after her. Every hint counted. "Amaya isss a friend of yoursss, right? You care about her?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 11:57 pm
Alec's frown deepended into an expression of concentration as he gave Zach his chance to explain himself. If all this apprehension wasn't over the attack on Moreau and Aubrey, then what was getting him all worked up?
Listening to the new introduction, the teen nodded slowly and recalled the incident, not daring to draw a similarity between the two. It wasn't a proud thing to boast about attacking a staff member, it only caused trouble for yourself and others it seemed. He followed along clearly until Zach suddenly swung back to the subject of Amaya again, confused as to where the connection was. "Well ye... sure a' deh." He answered slowly and unsurely, tilting his broad head to the side as if you request further explanation.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:53 am
Zach was strongly tempted to just walk the extra distance between them to get right there in front of Alec, shake him a bit, and explain that the sooner the shark and iguana just got together, the sooner he'd stop worrying about Amaya and could get back to a routine more normal than his current one. Already he wanted to find her again, the product of various instincts (human included) bleeding into one another.
Instead, he had to settle for simple words. "I mean really care about her. Maybe... more than a friend. You know what I mean, right?" Screw the age gap. It wasn't like he was that much older than they were. He'd been a high schooler before, albeit the shy kind that got shoved into lockers.
The bag crinkled again as he slowly picked it up. It was past noon, and he was hungry. Time for lunch.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:18 am
Alec stared, just... stared.
He may not have been the sharpest tool in the shack but he knew what the term "more than a friend" implied."A' d'neh." Was his quick response but he found himself floundering. "A mean a' neh, wha' ye mean.. bu' a' d'n too... a'..."
The teen was flustered to say the least, hormones so delayed in this one that they barely ever raged for any reason. It took a lot to get him to stop thinking with the upstairs brain. There was Antony that once... twice, but she'd made it so painfully obvious that he was hard not to accept it. But Amaya?
It wasn't as if he thought of her as a monster or a freak anymore. He was long past the shock and awkwardness of being around giant animal-people. The fact of the matter was that regardless of her looks, he could still clearly remember the old Amaya. She was just about the closest person to him on the entire island, even above the fuzzy prude that was his neighbor. She was always there for him; for eachother. But to think of her as more than a sister was more than simply awkward.
Yet, if she was like a sister than thinking anything else would made him feel perverted, dirty, disgusting, and he didn't; but if she was more... if he felt.. something, than wouldn't he know already? The truth was he felt numb and he didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
Zach required an answer, but even after a lengthy pause of silence he had nothing to offer.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:31 am
Zach was about to keep nodding, but the silence kept going longer and longer. This teen "didn't know". This was not what he was expecting. He'd been expecting a concise, heartfelt "yes", or something along those lines, enough to stamp out any feelings he had for Amaya in knowing that someone else had won her affections before him. There wasn't a fluke to their meeting in the jungle before. It was uncomfortable having those feelings in the first place. Now he'd never be rid of them.
"I, uh, I sssee then... jussst friendsss. Ah. Well." He reached into his lunch bag and drew out the slightly cool steak with his clawed hand. Courting teenagers was bad. Why hadn't she done something? What was wrong with both of them? Somehow, he just didn't feel hungry any more. His gut was instead filled with anxiousness.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:39 am
Although he barely kew or cared about Zach, Alec couldn't help but feel he'd disappointed him in some way by how indecisive his answer had been. Even though the question was both inappropriate and downright unexpected, he felt a sort of sinking as the dragon man ended his line of questioning. What was that all about?
His mood now dropping to match the company around him, the sharkboy could only sigh and glance up, finally seeing what was inside that bag. It was meat. And it looked so good.
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