Whine and Cheesed Off!

"Ohmygaad, Syd!" Allie said and held out her hands in mock surrender. "Sorry I offended your too cool for school sensibilities." She replied, trying to stifle a chuckle that was beginning to percolate. "You like to beat people up, I figured you would like to beat lots of people up!" She grinned and raised her nose in the air haughtily. "I didn't realize you were an artiste."

Allie laughed at Syd and then shook her head. "Doesn't that go against your emo code? To do something artsy fartsy? Even if it IS beating people up?"

Allie was feeling so good that she nearly forgot about the hatchet and approached Syd with a mischievous grin. "If you feel bad for your new bestie you could always crash the party. Or you could beat one of them up before hand to make it fair. You get to help out your new friend and create some more of your art!" Allie laughed again and turned and looked at the screen. "Which one would you rather beat up if you had to pick, Syd? I think you should beat up that masked chick. She shouldn't be allowed to hide her ugly face like that."

Syd's scowl blended into her ever-present apathetic mask as her eyes drifted down to her hatchet. The dull gray blade was worn, but evenly so, by a machine. It gave the appearance of use, but it still needed to see some actual use, and not just on a banana...

"I don't care about helping Gwendolyn Dupont Bettencourt," she grunted. "But... It would serve them right for being entitled brats and crying so much. Maybe someone should make them cry for real."

She patted the butt of the hatchet blade against her palm while she stared vacantly at the TV. "Julia Rodgers," she said. It was an easy choice to make. Julia was smaller, and it would be easier to smash her around.

With that, she dropped her hatchet on the kitchen counter on her way down the hall to her bedroom.

Allie was glad her and Syd were on the same page. Even though they were both worlds apart, some how, some way, they often ended up coming to similar conclusions. At least, when it came to matters of business, not that Syd thought of it like business. It didn't matter. They both wanted Julia beat up and now Allie would make it happen.

As she meandered towards the bedrooms, she stopped at the hatchet. There was a good possibility that Syd might bury it in her skull one day. Allie picked up the hatchet with her thumb and forefinger and let it dangle like it was something icky. She was tempted to throw it away, but decided to set it on top of the refrigerator. Maybe Syd would just forget about it.

With that unpleasantness behind her for the moment, she walked back to Syd's room and invited herself. Allie would scream at Syd if she barged into her own room, but Allie didn't see a problem with the reverse.

"Hey, Syd, do you think about Chicago at all? Is there anything you miss?"

Syd laid down on her narrow twin bed in the corner of her room, the way she always did, on her back with her legs straight and her hands folded over her stomach. At the foot of the bed was a dresser, and on top of that was her TV, and she usually watched something while she laid around, but it wasn't uncommon for her to just lay still and ruminate.

When Allie walked in, she was staring at the space on the wall, up by the ceiling, and the TV was blank. She didn't acknowledge Allie except for her characteristically terse reply.

"No."

But after a moment, she expounded. "You have too many attachments to stupid things. I don't miss anything."

"Hey!" Allie scowled at Syd's response, wagging a finger at the girl. "Don't you assume that just because I asked you if you missed Chicago that I missed it! There's only one thing I wish was around here and that's baseball park hot dogs, got it?"

Allie crossed her arms under her chest. "I'd say baseball stadiums, but they have those here. I just don't want to eat gross Japanese food while I'm trying to watch a game. Ok? Got it?" She emphasized.

Allie leaned against the door way and stared at Syd. "Were you just laying here? You're the least fun person ever, you know that? And you're weird." She added. "It's not healthy for people to just lay around, Syd. You'll just keep thinking about all that stupid stuff you think about. You need to put that mind to something productive. Or, at least something fun."

Allie moved into Syd's room and stopped at the TV, grabbing the small anime figurine that was on the dresser. There was a part of her that was surprised it was still there, but Allie was secretly glad. She turned it so it more prominently displayed the barely clad chest at Syd.

"So, did you ever get any games for your thingy?" She asked.

Syd shifted uncomfortably in her bed while she waited out the tongue lashing. "Whatever," she said.

"It's important to be in tune with your inner world. You should try thinking sometime," she lectured, and then Allie's question made her pause. Her lip twisted into a scowl and her eyes drifted over just to the right of the TV, hidden from the door, where the second-hand PSP sat.

She really didn't want to answer that question, because being enlightened and playing God of War seemed like a hard sell, but she gave it a begrudging "Yeah."

Allie could not roll her eyes hard enough at Syd and all her inner world crap.

"You think too much." She retorted. Allie thought when she needed to, but she knew how to kick back, relax and have some fun. What kind of fun was Syd? "That's good..." Allie said and turned her head. Conversations with Syd were either daunting, awkward or both. Allie sighed.

"You wanna go to a ballgame with me sometime? I don't wanna go alone, you know? And, you could just play your game or something or read one of your books. You don't have to get into it or anything, I just need a body and you're at least good at existing. I mean, it's about all you do..."

She wasn't trying to be mean, but as she spoke her words, she lifted up her eyes and looked at Syd, trying to flash a teasing smile as she raised her eyebrows. "Who knows, maybe someone will get hit with a pitch or something?" She said, trying to sell it to Syd.

If Syd even heard Allie, she gave no indication. At first, she closed her eyes like she was just going to go to sleep, which she did often enough when talking to Allie, but then she sat up, swung her legs over to the floor, and gathered her long white pony tail behind her. When she stood up, it reached all the way down to her butt.

She opened her eyes slowly as she walked to Allie. Without her red contacts in, they were a pale, icy blue. Not a particularly pretty color, not striking in any way, at least at first. She stopped an inch from Allie and didn't look her in the eye.

"Do you want to know what I'm really interested in?" She whispered. "I need a body for that, too."

Allie watched as Syd stood up, her mouth opening a bit as she looked up at Syd. The girl was a little bit taller than her and definitely had a more imposing figure, despite being much leaner. It was one of the reasons Allie was drawn towards Syd in the first place, and she hated it when Syd put it back on her.

Allie gulped as Syd whispered creepily at her. She knew the girl was mostly tough talk, but she also knew Syd enough to know that it was never one hundred percent certain.

Allie stared at Syd's eyes even though Syd wasn't looking at her and then furrowed her brow. She couldn't be pushed around by Syd! "I-I'm getting you a ticket, Syd." Allie said, taking careful steps backwards. "So, yeah!" She said and turned, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Why can't you just be normal, ugh?!"

Syd took a step forward and stayed right with Allie. The redhead was trying to brush her off, but Syd was having none of it.

She pulled her ponytail around in front of her, her hand sliding down it as she slowly coiled it around Allie's neck. "Do you really wanna know what I think about?" She whispered.

And with that, she let her silvery hair slither off of Allie's neck and fall back down against her body, and then she went back to her bed.

She laid down and turned on the TV. There was a cop show on, and a male and a female detective in overcoats were standing in a morgue and asking the coroner straight-faced questions. She half paid attention, but Allie's remark about being good at existing was still stuck in her head.