Atlas Gym, Thursday Late Morning

[firstofitskind]

Liam's mood today was... well, 'melancholy' was perhaps the right word for it. He'd tried going for a run earlier in the morning, but the caroling birds had kind of thrown a wrench in those plans. Oh, the song had been nice enough at first, but it didn't stop.

So, to the gym it was, where there was a notable lack of birds and he could do some tai chi in (relative) peace. He was steadfastly ignoring the faint peppermint smell that still clung to the wooden practice weapons, however.

[ooc: it's my weekend and i'm bored, so a post!]

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[notallbluemonks]

Today was Beau's day off, but there was only so much you could go around threatening birds with a quarterstaff before the lack of results put you in an even worse mood than usual.

She stalked past, grunting an irritable "'sup" to Liam on her way toward the practice dummies.

[firstofitskind]

Honestly? Hard same, Beau.

Hence the sympathetic nod and the: "Yeah." she got in response to that irritable greeting.

[notallbluemonks]

"Fucking birds, right?" Beau called over her shoulder in between some good solid whacks to the practice dummy which had surely never done anything to her to warrant this treatment.

[firstofitskind]

A bit stronger language than Liam would have used, but... he agreed with the sentiment.

"It could be worse," he had to admit, practice sword moving through the air in a slow, controlled manner.

[notallbluemonks]

Beau stopped pummeling the dummy long enough to watch him for a second, but a second was all it took before she was shifting her weight from foot to foot and drumming her fingertips impatiently on her staff.

"Sure," she allowed. "Usually can. The thing is, around here I have no idea what the exact range of worse really is, you know?"

The dummy got a vicious jab to the solar plexus.

[firstofitskind]

"Well," Liam said. "The birds aren't dropping anything on us," he pointed out. "That's a start."

[notallbluemonks]

"Statistically it's going to happen eventually," Beau said, clubbing a backhand strike across the dummy's head. "The real question is gonna be whether it has some weird-ass side effect when it does."

[firstofitskind]

“Ugh, I hope not,” Liam made a face. “I draw the line at magical bird shit.”

[notallbluemonks]

Beau took a moment to sort of roll that sentence around in her head for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. So that’s a definite degree of worse. Y’know, it’s kind of a catchy tune they have going there? For the first three or four times, and then it’s like dude, really?”

[firstofitskind]

“The worst part is I just know I’m going to catch myself humming it for the next week,” Liam said with a sigh.

[notallbluemonks]

"If you hear me yelling for no apparent reason from like half the island away . . ." Beau rolled her eyes. "Are we sure that song isn't evil? Some kind of curse or something?"

Why would you give people these ideas, Beau. Why.

[firstofitskind]

"Nah," Liam shook his head. "If that were the case, they'd be singing one called 'Baby, it's Cold Outside'."

[notallbluemonks]

Oh, wait until Beau heard that one. The ranting would never end.

"That sounds . . ." She made a face. "Deceptively harmless, as titles go. Do I want to know?"

No.

[firstofitskind]

Liam glanced at Beau. Then at her staff. Then at the practice dummy she'd been beating the stuffing out of.

"You really don't."

[notallbluemonks]

Beau nodded and spun her staff in her hands. "See, that kind of makes me want to know more. Probably in that I'll-live-to-regret-this kind of way."

Not that that would be a deterrent, really.

[firstofitskind]

"I reserve the right to tell you 'I told you so'," Liam said solemnly.

[notallbluemonks]

"Dude, please, I've heard that so many times." Beau snorted. "I have to know why this song is actually evil now."

[firstofitskind]

"Okay," Liam said, unclipping his Global and searching up a YouTube video. He hit 'play', holding out the device so Beau could see. "Since you asked."

[notallbluemonks]

Yeah, Beau got about two lines into the song before she started glaring, five lines before her hands started twitching into fists, and not even through the beginning of the second verse before she burst out into a horrified "What. The. Fuck. DEFINITELY FUCKING EVIL."

[firstofitskind]

... Yeah, Liam was suddenly really glad he hadn't actually handed her the Global, otherwise it would probably be on the other side of the gym by now.

"I told you," he said pointedly.

[notallbluemonks]

In pieces too, probably.

"Yeah, fine." Beau's fingers were still twitching. "This song is the fucking worst, man, who came up with this shit?"

[firstofitskind]

"Apparently the song sounded less creepy back around the time it was first released," Liam said with a shrug. "But that could also just be the kind of thing people say to make themselves feel better about the fact that they like this terrible song."

[notallbluemonks]

"Meaning that people were less sophisticated about identifying shitty creep behavior," Beau grumbled. "Probably. Or . . . yeah, making excuses. That's always a thing."

[firstofitskind]

"Unfortunately, yes," Liam said with a sigh.

[notallbluemonks]

“Uuuuuuugggggghhhhhhh.” Beau threw her head back, for all intents and purposes basically growling at the heavens. “WHY DO PEOPLE SUCK?”

[firstofitskind]

"If we knew that," Liam said dryly, "My job would be a hell of a lot easier."

Not that his job here in Fandom was all that difficult, really. Not compared to what he'd done before. But it was the principle of the thing.

[notallbluemonks]

“. . . I mean, at least that’s consistent between worlds,” she said after a moment. “So that’s . . . something, I guess. I’m gonna find the guy who wrote that, and I’m gonna punch him.”

Ah, if only.