Remodeling (Open )

[Ϛ Cylo]

When Eve didn't immediately accept his help, Cylo didn't pursue it. She may have enjoyed cleaning, but he didn't think it therapeutic at all, so why push for it?

"You know, if you were a guy, you'd never get away with saying 'polishing my weapons alone'."

With that sentence and its accompanying grin, he was back to normal, and the road to a more civil Cylo was closed. Perhaps not for good, but it would be a long while before he even thought of exploring that route again.

"Well, it's good to know we have terrible conversational skills in common. If I ever need to bore a pacifist to death, I'll come get you to help me talk about fighting for a few hours straight. And if that doesn't work, you could always just throw things at him while I distract him with bitter sarcasm." He paused to stroke his chin, smooth though it was. "We should definitely fight crime together. I can't see any evil villain-type surviving that onslaught."

Cylo had, surprisingly, run out of garbage to pick up, and considering he neither had any faith in his folding abilities nor knew where to put anything away, he simply sidled over to the nearest vertical surface and leaned lazily on it, watching Eve fold. It was kind of interesting, to him, watching such a destructive force clean and organize so meticulously. It was almost poetic.

[Eve Stone]

She chuckled more than once at his ramblings about their mazing conversation skills. This guy certainly was an interesting talker that was for sure. It was a nice bonus that he was also attractive. Shaking her head she put away another stack of folded laundry pausing as something he'd said earlier went through her head.

"Polishing...alone...Oh!" Sad as it was that it had taken her that long to figure that out she threw a rolled up pair of socks at him. Though she was smiling when she did it, the comment was so typical of a boy. Eve rolled her eyes slightly going back to finish folding her last stack of clothes. After the clothes would come the fun part of trying to find homes for all the miscellanious crap she owned.

"Hey, I happen to respect pacifists. If they can get through life and solve problems without having to use their fists." She shrugged snapping a shirt to try to get some wrinkles out. That failing she folded it anyway. "They fight with different tools that's all. But I have to admit it would be fun to trap a girly girl and talk about blood, gore, and what kind of weapons are the best." The picture made her grin wickedly making sure that goal made it to her list of things to do.

Seeing that he was done picking up trash she felt bad for making him just watch her clean. It must feel like watching paint dry or something to that extent.

"So Cylo, other than your dashing good looks, quick tongue, and your abilities to pick up a crazy woman's trash. What other fun talents do you have? Any hobbies other than fighting?" Looking for something to talk about. Eve tucked in the clothes into the drawer then turned to look at him. She didn't really have any hobbies other than fighting except, exercise, and her drums which she had yet to unpack.

[Ϛ Cylo]

Cylo caught the socks easily and (big surprise) grinned. "For me? You shouldn't have!" He looked down at his feet. "Do you think they'll fit? I should probably try them on. I hope you kept the receipt, just in case."

While Eve ranted about pacifism, he took off his footwear, using the wall for balance, and tried a sock on. "Def-initely too small," he announced, looking up at Eve with a silly smile. "Oh and don't get me wrong, pacifism is great. Technically I should be a pacifist because of my religion, but I don't always follow the rules to a tee," he admitted. "It really does come in handy some times though, inaction."

A certain murderous redhead came to mind, but the thought was interrupted by what Eve said next.

Now, Cylo may be a little full of himself, he may consider himself to be the best thing since life was invented, but he really isn't used to receiving compliments. Usually he just gets insulted and told off and takes it in stride because he 'knows' they're wrong about him. In fact, if Eve's words hadn't been delivered with a hint of humour as they were, it's pretty likely he would've been caught so off guard he'd be rendered mute.

However, this was not the case.

"Oh, so my dashing good looks, quick tongue, and sanitation abilities aren't enough for you? Talk about high maintenance!" This gave him a little time to think seriously about her question.

Hobbies? I play piano, but that's boring.

...I can sew like a grandmother on speed? Heh, no way I'm telling her that.

"I'm pretty much a one trick pony," he admitted. "Oh, I do dirtbike though. Is that a hobby?"

[Eve Stone]

This time she actually laughed as he put on her sock. Holding onto her bedpost with one hand and her gut with the other she laughed as he went on about her sock. This guy was a total riot and she put him on list of people to keep in touch with. Simply because he could make her laugh.

"Heh, and I thought I had big feet. Guess that's a good thing that your's are bigger it's nice to know." She winked then started picking up various trinkets that had gotten lost in the chaos of her ragings. "Your religion? What are you a monk?"

"Oh, yeah extremely high maintainence." Eve didn't even know where her hairbrush was, and all she was trying to do was find out more about the guy. "One trick pony?" This guy had the weirdest sayings.

"You don't do anything like talen show worthy? Sing? Tap dance? Play the drums?" As she mentioned drums she pulled out her drum stick and began spinning it with a cocky smile. She'd have to find somewhere to put her drumset, though where she had no idea. Two chests, a desk, a four poster bed, and a dresser took up a lot of space. Maybe she could shove one of the chests in the closet.

[Ϛ Cylo]

He found himself surprisingly happy to see the girl laughing, and told himself he'd have to work on making that happen more often.

"A monk? I guess you could say that. I'm a Taoist. I won't go into the details because they're boring, but basically they value doing absolutely nothing very highly. It's a lazy man's dream religion."

He slowly took off the sock and put his own footwear back on as he spoke. When he got it all sorted he straightened up, re-rolled the socks, and stuffed them in the pocket of his jacket. Apparently he intended on keeping them.

"And no, no singing, no dancing, no drums. I don't think there's a creative bone in my body. Well, except for when it comes to fighting, go figure. But apparently the same can't be said for you," he commented, nodding at her as she displayed her mad drumstick skills. "Where's your kit? I demand you show off your skills. Otherwise I might leave here thinking the only thing you're good at is throwing stuff and folding clothes."

He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, as if waiting for the show to begin.

[Eve Stone]

He was keeping her socks? That was interesting, when boys took token from girls it wasn't usually, well, socks. Whatever suited him it wasn't like she didn't have plenty of pairs anyway. The religion sounded boring though most religions sounded boring to her, thus she didn't have one.

"Oh, this?" She pointed at the drumstick and shrugged. "If you can spin a staff one handed it's not that hard to spin a drumstick."

Eve tossed the stick back into the large box containing part of her drumset. Cringing when it actually hit one of the drums making a nice toom kind of sound. So much for being nonchalant about that. Her eyes narrowed at the box and she had the urge to kick it but refrained. That was certainly something she did not want broken.

"Okay, so maybe I do play a little. But they are packed up, and you have to be good at something other than fighting." One reason she'd picked up the drums was because being able to keep a beat acutally helped her control her fighting a bit. Another was that it helped her hand movements. The only things she was good at was throwing stuff and folding clothes. Her drum playing was just for fun.

"Come on, if I share you share. Besides I still have cleaning to do." Most of the room was clean by now not very organized but clean. At least it didn't look like a rampaging dragon had just gone through it.

[Ϛ Cylo]

Cylo pouted inwardly when Eve didn't ask about the socks. He had a perfectly good explanation all worked out for it, and she hadn't even bothered to question him. As good as it was to see someone who didn't care so much about ownership, like everyone else these days seemed to, it was a little saddening to see great material go down the drain.

"I can't spin a staff. At least, I've never tried. I fight with my hands, or if I really have to, a gun. Weapons just complicate things."

He didn't comment on her shoddy denial of drum-playing-skills, mainly because he had bigger fish to kill. "I don't have to be good at anything, let alone more than one thing. Why must you be so demanding all the time? I'm only human!" The irony in that statement pleased him, though it'd be lost on Eve unless she'd managed to guess that he wasn't exactly run-of-the-mill.

Then again, the whole idea of the Academy was that no one was run of the mill.

"Seriously, watch me try to paint and manage to knock someone out instead, and maybe then you'll believe I have a pretty limited range of talents."

He slowly made his way over the the drum box and poked at it with his foot, trying to peek inside. He'd never met a girl who could play the drums before, he had to admit he was intrigued. Of course, in truth he may have known many girls who played the drums, because he usually alienated them before he found out such personal details, but this thought simply didn't occur to him.

"Don't tell me you're going to try and get out of playing the drums for me, though. If it's tit for tat you want, I'll beat something up for you. I really don't mind."

[Eve Stone]

He was a fighter and yet he didn't use weapons. She often didn't use weapons to fight but she enjoyed all styles of fighting, and wanted to be able to fight in any circumstance. The choice though was his alone to make and if it worked for him she wouldn't judge it.

"I personally have not gone much into studying guns, though hand to hand combat is fun." Though if he kept as cool a head as he did dealing with a raging girl while fighting he'd probably win. Emotions always slipped her up in her fighting.

"Okay, okay, you don't have to be good at anything. Geeze, Red, just trying to make conversation. I'll cut my tongue out the next time I even suggest you have other talents." Smiling a bit she leaned against he dresser. He wasn't merely a human otherwise he wouldn't be at the school. A Gifted maybe or some other race, but that was his information to give out. She hated it when people nosed into her background so she wouldn't do it to others.

"And I'm sure your painting skills far surpass mine. I'm limited to finger painting and stick figures." Drawing had never been a big thing amongst her family circle, making out fight plans? Certainly but X's and O's worked perfectly to represent people.

Eve watched him come over and poke her box, her eyes watching him intently. Inside was one of her few possessions she would actaully get upset over if it broke. But seeing as he didn't do anything else do it she relaxed.

"If I wanted to see people beat each other up all the time I would've stayed home. " Eve sighed opening the box and grabbing out a drum, and two sticks. "Fine, Mr. Demanding."

Eve started drumming slightly tapping out a rythum until it got into her and then went on from there. The sticks were almost a blur as she struck out a beat tapping her foot along with it. She used the sides and different parts of her sticks her hands moving almost on their own as the beat flew from the sticks. Nodding her head she drummed out one of the easier pieces she'd learned then ended the short display with a roll of her sticks.

"There, happy?" It wasn't the most amazing display of drums one could do, but she hadn't outright destroyed the idea of drumming. Maybe if her heart was more into it or she had a song in mind she might've done better, but he'd only wanted a small display and thay was what he got.

[Ϛ Cylo]

"Cutting your tongue would probably work, but it's a little excessive maybe? I dunno, but if you go through with it, can I keep it? It'd probably fetch quite the price on the black market, a dragon tongue, and I'm not exactly rolling in the dough."

He really had no idea if the information was accurate, but accuracy wasn't really the point of what he said, and if she really cut her tongue out, he'd be a little too stunned to pick it up and put it out for auction. And at the moment, he was too busy trying to figure out whether or not he liked being called 'Red' to worry about making sense.

He was interested in just how protective she seemed to be of the drums; it belied exactly how important drumming was to her, and it was always good to know what people liked. If they were in your good books, it'd help you get closer, and if they weren't, it could help you really get under their skin.

"Hey, no way, you're actually caving? That's no fun; you're supposed to argue with me for a few hours and expect me to give up!" But the complaining wasn't genuine, and he gladly sat back and listened to Eve drum for a few minutes. Of course, when she finished, he found himself in a bit of a spot. He really had no idea what you were supposed to say to something like that, and wasn't exactly great with compliments to begin with.

In the end, he went with an uber-lame 'that was nice', and instantly felt like a loser for it.

[Eve Stone]

Good to see he wasn't taking her cutting the tongue out thing seriously. Some people she knew probably would've taken her for being serious and reacted differently. It was always nice to know that the other person had as sick of a humor as you did.

"Hey, I'd sell my own tongue thank you. If you want money for tongue cut out your own." It would be a right shame if he didn't have a tongue, then she couldn't laugh at his smart a** comments.

"Yes, I'm caving. It's either I cave or you never shut up about it." She rolled her eyes and proceeded to do her little drum solo. Afterwards she clicked her sticks together in one hand and shrugged at his response. It wasn't like she was some world reknowned amazing drum player. All it was was something relaxing to do that didn't involve fighting.

"So...I know I'm amazing and all but to stun you into silence is a bit more than I had been expecting." Eve grinned at him tossing the drumsticks back into the box the drum following them much more gently. Was she really that bad? Not really caring she stood and went over to her bed straightening the covers.

"Okay, so what else do you do besides fight, and clean random girl's bedrooms?" Once again she was trying to get to know him. Hopefully he'd actually give her a substantial answer to work with. Otherwise she'd just give up and let him do all the talking, he seemed to enjoy it more anyway.

[Ϛ Cylo]

"Well good luck haggling for a decent price without your tongue. You'd end up getting ripped off, and then you'd be without tongue or a decent amount of money, and you'd probably become some sort of hobo. But if you let me sell it, with my amazing oratory skills, I could probably get enough for it that I could split the profit with you and you'd still make more than you would have on your own."

He regarded his nails in what may have been an appallingly bad imitation of nonchalance, clearly impressed with his own reasoning. And he seemed to be seriously considering it, what with the near-absence of his usual grin as he spoke.

"Or you could just not cut out your tongue in the first place. You know, whatever works."

As was typical of Cylo, he couldn't remain serious for long, and with that, the patented grin returned.

As was not typical of Cylo, he found himself feeling guilty that he had not properly expressed how much he enjoyed and appreciated her playing for him.

"No, really, it was great. I might go as far as saying it was the best thing I've ever... heard played... on one drum." He thought of something mid-sentence that changed where he was going with it. "I guess I've really only ever heard someone play one drum this one time, though, so that doesn't mean a whole lot. I don't know, it was good."

He decided to stick with what he was good at and end his 'serious compliments' career once and for all.

"Honestly, there's not much more to me. I'm here the same reason everyone else is; develop their power. Basically I just run around a lot. It's pretty chill. Other than that, I fight, I make sarcastic comments, and I clean. But that's usually just something I do on weekends. Cleaning peoples' rooms is more of a hobby, you know?"

He found himself sincerely wishing we could give the girl more to work with, for some reason.

[Eve Stone]

He had her smiling and shaking her head with his great theory of how they should go about selling her tongue. Man when he went with a sarcastic comment he went all the way. It kind of amazed her that he'd take the comment this far. At least it made thing interesting.

"Well, you might have the amazing, silver tongue but I have this great intimidation factor on my side. Being psycho and all." She tried to sound as serious as he did but ended up laughing a little bit at the end of her sentence.

As he went on with his compliments she shifted uncomfortably on the bed. Eve wasn't fishing for compliments and she didn't get them often other than her fighting. So him dishing them out as awkwardly as he was made her feel itchy.

"Yeah, yeah sure I'm amazing. I think we've covered that issue enough." Waving her hand at him she leaned her shoulder against the bedpost, one foot hung off the side of the bed while the other sat flat her knee bent comfortably.

A little disappointed that he wasn't giving her any other hobbies or activities she rolled her eyes to the ceiling trying to think of something to talk about. She could always talk about fighting or weapons, or she could play twenty questions and see if she could throw him off in some way.

"Okay, single? In a relationship? Engaged? Or, dun dun dun! Married?" Eve rolled her eyes back to him with a crooked smile in place. This could be fun.

[Ϛ Cylo]

"Oh yes, you're clearly psycho. I feel less sane just being in the same room as you. I bet Hannibal Lecter hounds you for your autograph, doesn't he?"

One thing that Eve would soon learn about Cylo; when he got stuck on one sarcastic subject, he would ride it out until it crashed into a flaming heap on the ground, and then he would carry the ashes around in a bag with him. The way he saw it, there was no point in wasting good material; he was going to suck every last drop out of humour from it until it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Of course, this was an extremely good way of turning people off of his humour for good, but really, he did it all for himself anyway, so that didn't bother him much.

The questions about his 'relationship status' threw him off big time. His initial assumption was that this meant the girl was interested in him, but this was quickly crushed by the enormity of the fact that no girl was ever interested in him. But beyond that, he still had to think of a proper answer to the question. Cylo-etiquette dictated that he couldn't possibly give her a straight answer, but he hadn't had much time to think of a sarcastic one.

"Married? Heh."

This was mostly stalling for time.

"Forget what the history books tell you; they invented divorce just in case some poor sucker had the misfortune of marrying me in a drunken haze." Of course, he couldn't drop it there. No, self-pity was not something Cylo wallowed in. "Don't get me wrong, the ladies are clamouring for me and my obviously amazing looks, relationships just aren't my style. It's just too hard to find a girl who can keep up, you know?"

A bit of a lie, since he'd never even been involved with a girl besides drunken flirting, but it was a spectacular view of the highly conceited side of Cylo that didn't come up too often.

[Eve Stone]

Eve cuckled slightly at the Hannible Lecture comment, sadly enough that happened to be her favorite book trilogy. The man was a genius and the twisted fictional stories just intrigued her to no end. She'd read them all at least twelve times, the only books she'd really ever read but at least she'd read something.

"Hannibal? Puh, he worships the ground I fight on. He has a shrine to me." She fluffed her ratty hair and tried to look pompus but didn't pull it off very well. "Maybe we should sell your tongue it seems to work so much better than mine. With its quick witty responses and all."

It almost appeared like she'd caught him off guard with the relationship question. Then what came out was something she hadn't expected out of someone so sarcastic. Something very sad sounding and she bit her cheek in regret for even asking it. He almost sounded lonely. The next sentence was more what sounded what she'd heard so far, but it still rung sour.

"Yeah, us chicks just can't handle your extreme amazingness." She draped an arm over her eyes and turned away. "It's almost too much for even me to handle sitting here talking to you."

Dropping her arm she turned back to him with a smile. "I'm not the best with relationships neither, but who needs someone to tell you they love you anyways? It's only something to drag you down and make you blind."

Okay, time for a new question.

"Have any siblings?" That seemed safe, not nearly as personal as her last question.

[Ϛ Cylo]

"Who doesn't have a shrine to you?" Cylo said, scoffing at the very idea that someone might not, dismissing it as absurd with a flick of his hand. "And my tongue isn't all that great; it's my brain that you'd want. It does all the heavy lifting, my tongue is just the messenger."

He was immensely glad she didn't pursue the relationship subject in a serious manner. He really didn't have a great handle on the whole thing and didn't feel like making a fool of himself any time soon. At least, not by accident. Making a fool of himself on purpose was a whole different story; he did it all the time.

"Oh it's true, I get that all the time. People are always leaving because they can't handle my amazingness. Usually they give some lame excuse like I'm actually an a**hole or something, but I know the truth."

The grin faded slightly as Eve got serious again. He didn't quite know what to say to that, but luckily, she moved on before he could even make a feeble attempt at replying.

"I uh, I have a couple siblings, yeah," he said with a shrug.

Understatement of the century.

"You?"