Gabe, Sharon: FAFO
Feb. 10th, 2024 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_catseye posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsNot everyone finds Sharon's antics adorable. Including karma.
All accessible rooms were Sharon's rooms. Certain residents, either through natural inclination or this reputation, insisted on exempting themselves from her territory by employing their locks. The occupant of this suite was one such individual, and so the failure of a bolt sliding into place had summoned her like the click of a can opener on a lid.
She wasn't a monster. She had her own version of the thirty second rule: that is, whomever had forgotten to lock their door had approximately thirty seconds to remedy the situation before Sharon invited herself in. That no one else knew of its existence was not her problem.
The suite's interior was not as interesting as she had hoped. It seemed well-appointed but not especially cohesive; standard-issue furniture interspersed with personal touches like a colorful southwestern rug and what even Sharon could recognize as a particularly well-made bar cart. She inspected the latter long enough to note the unusual amount of foreign liquors it contained before moving on. What plants there were required little watering, and all but the succulents were inches from life support. This corroborated the evidence of her nose. The scents in this suite were the very old overlapping with the very fresh. Its owner seemed to leave for long stretches at a time.
Something caught her eye. One wall had been turned into a makeshift gallery covered in post cards, wall art, photographs, and other artifacts of places traveled and experiences lived. It looked interesting.
Conducting illicit explorations in a 12lbs form was a double-edged sword. On the one hand it increased her odds of escaping detection, but on the other she had to work a little harder. Without a second thought Sharon leapt onto a nearby bookshelf so she could get a better look at the wall.
Gabriel, laundry detergent in hand, could tell something was amiss before he walked back into this room. The door was more ajar than he thought he'd left it, even for a short errand. This was the kind of detail studying with Kevin had taught him to notice; the sort of thing that in the past he'd never seen.
And after he heard the noise of something jumping on his furniture, he was a bit on guard. So he stepped in tentatively, scanning the room until he saw a cat.
"Jesus fuck!" He didn't jump, exactly, but he was certainly startled. Especially because the cat was... violet.
Sharon froze. The shelf offered no convenient cover, and even if it had she'd already been spotted. She was caught.
Maybe, anyway. Gabriel had never met her before. Perhaps there was a way out of this.
Rather than fleeing Sharon raised her tail like an inquisitive flag, adopted her most vacant expression, and uttered a tiny prrrp of greeting.
"Not that." Gabriel fully entered the room and shut the door behind so the cat couldn't leave. "You're fucking purple, Sharon. You literally introduced yourself to me as 'purple.'" He dropped the detergent onto the nearest surface. "What the actual hell are you doing in here?"
Sharon kept her gaze wide-eyed and vague. "Mrrrp," she said as she swiped a tongue across one paw and began to wash her face. One of the things Kyle had mentioned about her counterpart was that her mental faculties were affected by her shapeshifting. This had never been the case for Sharon, but Gabriel didn't know that.
"Jesus Christ," Gabriel, never one to invoke the Lord, muttered. Of course she was being difficult; cats were difficult. As if he needed a reminder why he was a dog person. He scanned the room, trying to see if she'd messed with his stuff, when he eyed the half-full spray bottle he probably should have used more often to water his half-dead plants. Before she could react, he used his powers to grab it, then appeared in front of her on the shelf, aiming it and trying not to feel the least bit stupid.
When you'd spent several months relying on the minor fauna of New York City to round out your diet you came to rely heavily on the information delivered by your senses. A twitch of movement that caught the eye, or a faint rustle from a pile of dead leaves and old receipts, or even the faintest whiff of not-quite-spoiled meat from the depths of a garbage bag. Her senses were her life.
Therefore the experience of seeing Gabriel abruptly go from over there to right here had the same effect on Sharon that a backfiring car had on a skittish horse. In the 5 seconds that immediately followed several things happened:
1) Sharon launched herself upwards and slammed her head against the above shelf.
2) Disoriented, Sharon automatically began to flail.
3) Sharon's flailing caused her to misjudge her footing.
4) Sharon fell off the shelf.
Gabriel, unfortunately, could not help but snort, forgetting for a minute that this was not a cat but was someone he shared a mansion with. But her movements were, objectively, funny, and he figured she sort of deserved it. "Shit, sorry," he said, trying to control his face. "Are you — are you okay?"
Sharon, stunned, barely heard the question. It only took a few drunken staggers before she reoriented herself. She streaked past Gabriel for the door -- and found it had been closed. There was a moment of pathetic scrabbling before Sharon remembered thumbs existed and shifted into her hybrid shape. She yanked open the door, half-tripped on legs that couldn't remember whether they wanted to work as a set or a pair, and fell out into the hall.
What, Gabriel wondered, was the proper etiquette in this situation? He had managed not to be grossed out by her shape-shifting, which was more disarming than anything else. But what do you offer an intruder who injures themselves in your home?
"You don't, uh..." He did not even so much as move toward the door. "An aspirin maybe?"
All accessible rooms were Sharon's rooms. Certain residents, either through natural inclination or this reputation, insisted on exempting themselves from her territory by employing their locks. The occupant of this suite was one such individual, and so the failure of a bolt sliding into place had summoned her like the click of a can opener on a lid.
She wasn't a monster. She had her own version of the thirty second rule: that is, whomever had forgotten to lock their door had approximately thirty seconds to remedy the situation before Sharon invited herself in. That no one else knew of its existence was not her problem.
The suite's interior was not as interesting as she had hoped. It seemed well-appointed but not especially cohesive; standard-issue furniture interspersed with personal touches like a colorful southwestern rug and what even Sharon could recognize as a particularly well-made bar cart. She inspected the latter long enough to note the unusual amount of foreign liquors it contained before moving on. What plants there were required little watering, and all but the succulents were inches from life support. This corroborated the evidence of her nose. The scents in this suite were the very old overlapping with the very fresh. Its owner seemed to leave for long stretches at a time.
Something caught her eye. One wall had been turned into a makeshift gallery covered in post cards, wall art, photographs, and other artifacts of places traveled and experiences lived. It looked interesting.
Conducting illicit explorations in a 12lbs form was a double-edged sword. On the one hand it increased her odds of escaping detection, but on the other she had to work a little harder. Without a second thought Sharon leapt onto a nearby bookshelf so she could get a better look at the wall.
Gabriel, laundry detergent in hand, could tell something was amiss before he walked back into this room. The door was more ajar than he thought he'd left it, even for a short errand. This was the kind of detail studying with Kevin had taught him to notice; the sort of thing that in the past he'd never seen.
And after he heard the noise of something jumping on his furniture, he was a bit on guard. So he stepped in tentatively, scanning the room until he saw a cat.
"Jesus fuck!" He didn't jump, exactly, but he was certainly startled. Especially because the cat was... violet.
Sharon froze. The shelf offered no convenient cover, and even if it had she'd already been spotted. She was caught.
Maybe, anyway. Gabriel had never met her before. Perhaps there was a way out of this.
Rather than fleeing Sharon raised her tail like an inquisitive flag, adopted her most vacant expression, and uttered a tiny prrrp of greeting.
"Not that." Gabriel fully entered the room and shut the door behind so the cat couldn't leave. "You're fucking purple, Sharon. You literally introduced yourself to me as 'purple.'" He dropped the detergent onto the nearest surface. "What the actual hell are you doing in here?"
Sharon kept her gaze wide-eyed and vague. "Mrrrp," she said as she swiped a tongue across one paw and began to wash her face. One of the things Kyle had mentioned about her counterpart was that her mental faculties were affected by her shapeshifting. This had never been the case for Sharon, but Gabriel didn't know that.
"Jesus Christ," Gabriel, never one to invoke the Lord, muttered. Of course she was being difficult; cats were difficult. As if he needed a reminder why he was a dog person. He scanned the room, trying to see if she'd messed with his stuff, when he eyed the half-full spray bottle he probably should have used more often to water his half-dead plants. Before she could react, he used his powers to grab it, then appeared in front of her on the shelf, aiming it and trying not to feel the least bit stupid.
When you'd spent several months relying on the minor fauna of New York City to round out your diet you came to rely heavily on the information delivered by your senses. A twitch of movement that caught the eye, or a faint rustle from a pile of dead leaves and old receipts, or even the faintest whiff of not-quite-spoiled meat from the depths of a garbage bag. Her senses were her life.
Therefore the experience of seeing Gabriel abruptly go from over there to right here had the same effect on Sharon that a backfiring car had on a skittish horse. In the 5 seconds that immediately followed several things happened:
1) Sharon launched herself upwards and slammed her head against the above shelf.
2) Disoriented, Sharon automatically began to flail.
3) Sharon's flailing caused her to misjudge her footing.
4) Sharon fell off the shelf.
Gabriel, unfortunately, could not help but snort, forgetting for a minute that this was not a cat but was someone he shared a mansion with. But her movements were, objectively, funny, and he figured she sort of deserved it. "Shit, sorry," he said, trying to control his face. "Are you — are you okay?"
Sharon, stunned, barely heard the question. It only took a few drunken staggers before she reoriented herself. She streaked past Gabriel for the door -- and found it had been closed. There was a moment of pathetic scrabbling before Sharon remembered thumbs existed and shifted into her hybrid shape. She yanked open the door, half-tripped on legs that couldn't remember whether they wanted to work as a set or a pair, and fell out into the hall.
What, Gabriel wondered, was the proper etiquette in this situation? He had managed not to be grossed out by her shape-shifting, which was more disarming than anything else. But what do you offer an intruder who injures themselves in your home?
"You don't, uh..." He did not even so much as move toward the door. "An aspirin maybe?"
