ataraxionlogs | Open like the elevator doors in The Shining

Entry tags:

Open like the elevator doors in The Shining

CHARACTERS: John Tillman and YOU
LOCATION: Various
SUMMARY: A WILD TILLMAN APPEARS!
NOTES: Prose or action tags are cool by me
Backdated, presentdated, futuredated w/e w/e
Feel free to harass him in hallways, in the showers, while he's cooking food, or... pretty much anywhere you can think of.

I look forward to playing with you! I'm 'whatuhflamer' on aim and 'queefofchat' on plurk. Don't be shy if you want to plot something out! I'd be happy to start a thread.
herp derp that is all

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Space Spam," Tillman replies easily. He watches her watch him from the doorway, trying to assess hether or not it would be typical behavior based on their previous encounter. She'd strutted in like she owned the place before...

Most suspicious of all was the fact that she had a shirt on. The last demon he had encountered had given him things it thought he wanted. In truth, he didnt care how anyone dressed as long as they weren't being forced into it.

"You like salad?" He offers, face neutral.

She hadn't noticed Tillman before, hadn't cared. It's different now, especially since she knows he's upset in some way. Still... he's put the knife down, and she can quickly wield claws and teeth and furry bulk if she has to. So she heads in, heads over to the counter to inspect the space spam.

"Yeah, I like salad. Not picky about food, but that was one thing it was super hard to come by out on the street. Pretty sure it was hard to come by out in Iran too, huh?" She remembered, brings it up because she's trying to -- she doesn't know. Something. Trying.

He leans a hip against the counter as she approaches. The container of salt on the counter isn't necessary for any of the cooking he has planned. The can of processed meat on the counter likely suffices for several day's intake of the stuff. It's there so he has a means to stall on the of chance that she reacts unfavorably to his next move.

"Yeah. Not the greenest place on earth," he agrees, ever the expert at maintaining civil conversation when things are amiss.

"Christo," he says suddenly. Although his expression remains the same, his shoulders tighten visibly.

Instead of suddenly having some odd demonic fit, Jaye blinks. "Are you suddenly Spanish?" They tend to gravitate toward the American Southwest in their travels back home, probably because that's where the coyotes are the most common. Jaye's heard all sorts of languages as a minder, picked up a few words -- mostly swear words and propositions -- but rarely uses them. She has no idea why Tillman is dropping some -- or is it Latin? she's not sure -- but it just adds onto how weird this all is right now.

Tillman is relieved at the lack of head-spinning and projectile vomiting. He touches his forehead briefly. Still, demonic mind control is new to him. He knows damn well that there are other ways to do it.

"Never mind. Follow this for me?" He requests as he holds up one finger and moves it back and forth across her line of vision.

This is familiar, at least, and Jaye rolls her eyes -- and automatically assumes he thinks she's been knocked around. It's a logical assumption, considering how much she spars. "I don't have a concussion. I know what a concussion feels like." But she follows it, arms crossed over her chest.

"Good?"

"One more," he says, repeating the motion. Her eyes are tracking smoothly, but he has no real frame of reference for how smoothly the Nanex works from an outside perspective.

When her focus was extended away from him, he brought his other hand up and flicked her in the throat. If she didn't react? It was mind control.

Jaye reacts. Her arms were crossed but that quickly changes, hand snapping out to grab his wrist, nails suddenly longer and sharper and curved -- bear claws. She's snarling before she thinks about it, teeth suddenly obviously not human and eyes animal-brown instead of blue. Her hair is several shades darker and shaggier as well, but she doesn't shift any more than that, taking a deep shuddering breath and forcing it back -- mostly. Her teeth return to normal at least, eyes flickering between colors as if they can't decide what they're supposed to be.

"Don't do that again."

Tillman had survived for as long as he had because he was good at taking new information in, processing only what was important, and reacting. He had been described as a tactical killing computer. It wasn't far from the truth.

In his world, shape-shifters did not exist except in fiction. He's never encountered anything like her in person before. He doesn't panic. He quells the instinct to pull his arm away when he feels her claws.

The tactical plan he coordinates in his head is this: draw the knife at his belt, stab. Don't worry about losing the knife, there's another one three feet behind on the counter. Draw the gun. Aim for the head. He even goes so far as to factor in that different animals should be shot in different places, depending.

She doesn't attack him and seems to have reigned herself in. He remains still, tense, ready.

"Alright," he agrees.

Her eyes flicker again, blue-brown-blue, before finally settling back into blue. She takes another deep breath, her hair returning to its normal texture and color much more instantly. The claws stay out though, because he's huge and he's armed and Jaye will never, ever go down without a fight -- and now she wants answers.

"Now what the fuck did you do that for?"

Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that speaking with a mouthful of foreign teeth is difficult, she probably would have kept the canines, too. Still, this will work for now.

Tillman raises the hand she isn't holding still and fans the fingers out on both. He's still on alert, but the objective kill-instincts have retracted. He barely knows her, but it's enough to be concerned for her. Getting into a fight definitely was not on his agenda here.

"I was testing your reflexes. Concern from my home world." He keeps the response short and simple because during a standoff like this, details will only clutter it up.

It's a 'surrender' position but Jaye doesn't relax, years of experience having taught her that it doesn't always mean what it looks like. She's still tense, adrenaline humming; she's going to need to get some of this energy out after this. It rarely goes away on its own, probably won't with the way everyone had reacted. She'll be thinking too much.

"You're goddamn lucky that I like you." Why is pretty well implied by her reaction. She eyes him again before releasing his wrist, taking a couple steps back. Her claws turn back into nails, slowly, letting him watch -- she can shift in the blink of an eye, so if he does decide to attack, she figures she's still got time.

"I see that," he agrees lightly as he doubles the space between them.

"My bad." The apologetic phrase might seem like an unnatural thing for someone his age to say, but he's from the future. He was a young punk in the nineties, when 'my bad' served as 'sorry.'

Because the situation seems to have settled down quite a bit, he goes on with his explanation. "In my home world, there's a man that's figured out how to turn people into drones. Prisoners in their own bodies. Every jump, I worry that someone with that technology will make it here."

"Like I said. Just don't do it again."

Her arms cross once more, defensive instead of offensive. His explanation explains why he tried at all, but it doesn't explain why he tried on her. "What, you randomly decided to check? 'Hey, maybe that chick I feed sometimes is actually a complete drone, I'm going to flick her in the neck?' Because I know I make some decisions people would call fucking stupid, but that's... really fucking stupid."

Jaye's kind of a little butthurt. She'll get over it.

"I saw that video you put out. It--" God it sounds so stupid out loud. He doesn't know her well enough to be a judge of personality. He doesn't regret checking but... well. Maybe he should have thought of a different way. "You didn't seem like yourself. You were too still. Too compliant. I didn't think you were the type to take someone's shit."

He dresses the salad and mixes it (maybe a bit too thoroughly) just to give him something to do with his hands.

"I'm not," she practically snarls again, though she's all human this time. Not even Crowley's shit, but yeah, okay. It looked fucking weird, maybe, but she wasn't there to talk. "I didn't have much to add. His show, I just get paid to take appointments, throw people out, and look pretty in the ads."

Unaffected by her defensive tone, Tillman plopped a serving of greens into a bowl and slid it down the counter toward her. The fork that followed clattered quietly, all metal-on-metal. "I can respect a job. I'll keep my nose out of it from now on."

The bowl is grabbed, as is the fork -- doesn't matter who made it and how grumpy she is with them, outside of obvious poison potential; food is food. She doesn't answer for a moment, stabs a vegetable with her fork harder than necessary and eats. When she's done chewing, though, has swallowed it down, she pauses. Looks up, tilts her head at him, and speaks slowly, like she's trying to suss something out. "You were worried."

Tillman dishes a second bowl for himself, but he makes no move to eat it just yet. "I was," he agrees. He raises an eyebrow questioningly. Did she find it so strange?

She doesn't reply for a moment, clearly trying to puzzle this out. No answers come, though, other than what he said about people maybe being drones -- but what did that matter to him, anyway? So she asks. "Why?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Open like the elevator doors in The Shining

Brackets take forever for me to get on my phone, just fyi

ahhhh sorry!

Lmao no worries! I just wanted to clarify why I wasnt matching your brackets

/LICKS YOU

no subject

no subject

ITT: Tillman cements himself as a creeper forever

CRIES

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject