[1v1] Office Humor (Pickworth + Zar)

[Toshihiko Two]

Pickworth had decided (after properly turning in his registration) to familiarize himself with the parts of campus that were not cafeterias and trash bins.

Armed with his old (and by now a little dusty) agenda organizer, which had also been...doodled over...(but he'd done his best to erase those bits out), he had meticulously charted out the location of each dorm, and was now working his way through amenities.

The Gym was next.

The only entrance was via the lockerooms, which Pickworth had not entered. He seemed a little distressed by the signs that indicated proper dress/uniform was required.  

[Baneful]

Zar arrived at the gym with great trepidation, he'd never been there, but he was trying to turn things around, he wanted to get some of the strength back into his body, to embrace more of that lurking creature he'd felt, to embrace it and in embracing it, control it.

He was dressed in unused gym gear, loose black fabric and a black t-shirt. He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got there, the details of physical exertion outside the bedroom were frankly a bit of a mystery.

What he wasn't expecting to see hovering outside the lockerooms was a familiar face, older than he remembered certainly, but without any of the usual ridiculous attire. It was like he'd walked into the past.

Pausing in his tracks he raised a brow. "Decide to give up the deviant lifestyle?"

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Oh, hello, Zaram," Pickworth looked genuinely cheered to see a familiar face, but embarrassed at the question.

"I've been- kind of irresponsible lately, I don't know what came over me. I don't think...I've talked with my father in a while, and,"

He looked at the sign.

"Anyway. I've just gotten my registration in, can you believe that? This is...really a nice campus."  

[Baneful]

Zar gave Pickworth the kind of look of concern and condescension usually reserved for someone subject to a great tragedy. "More than irresponsible." he said gently. "You have been quite, quite mad."

He flinched at the mention of his registration only just being filed, such irresponsible paperwork practices hard to process. "Only just? My dear boy, you really have been completely out of it." It was much harder to want to punch the other boil in the nose when he looked so respectable and he even sauntered over to give him a manly pat on the back. "And why yes. It is a nice campus, when it isn't under siege from forces unknown."

He looked him over thoughtfully. "Did you come here to spar?"
 

[Toshihiko Two]

"I wanted to see what it was like inside, but I didn't know there was a dress code," Pickles admitted, picking at his clothes, which were stiff, formal, and brown.

Zaram was dressed appropriately. He was always good at planning ahead.

It was just another item in a long list of screw-ups.

"I mean, I can change my jacket...what do you think?"  

[Baneful]

Zar gave the other boil a thoughtful look, he really wasn't dressed for gym.

"I do not think changing your jacket would help fit within the rules." he said, with a frown, before his expression brightened. "I have a change of clothes in my locker though, you are in luck. If you should like to borrow them." He always over prepared for everything, you could never be sure of anything in Amity.

"Provided you can enter the male locker rooms." You really could never be sure of anything in Amity.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"That's...that's very kind," Pickworth said, flushing, "haha, I should have known. That you'd have something. You're always- it's very kind."

People fixing his mistakes often cost him something.

"Oh, certainly. I mean, I haven't tried them. The forms should be through by now..."

Pickworth brushed back his hair, and put his palm next to the locker room door.

It opened with an ominous creaking sound.  

[Baneful]

Zar gave Pickles his best "kind" smile. It wasn't really.

When the door opened, he followed, tail flicking eagerly at his heels. He wasn't entirely sure what had even happened to Pickles to knock him back into the realm of common sense, but he was curious to find out, and see if there was any way to capitalize on this specific little state of affairs.

He made his way to his locker and nimbly opened it, fishing out a perfectly folded set of clothes. "I have no idea if they will fit you I am afraid. I am rather. Tall I suppose. And tend to wear my trousers.. short." Most stopped around the knee to leave room for his hooves.

"But beggars cannot be choosers hmmm?"

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Thank you," Pickworth said, taking the offered clothing bundle before it could be jerked out of his reach.

He put them carefully on the bench along with his notebook. The perfect folds were now slightly rumpled around the edges. He undid his tie with fast and practiced fingers.

"What...what about you, are you meeting someone?"
 

[Baneful]

"Me? Meeting someone? That would imply that I possessed the commodity known as friends my dear boy. I do not. I am here simply for the betterment of my own person." He couldn't shake the predatory edge in his posture as he eyed the other boil. Normally Pickles unsettled and intimidated him, but right now, whatever had happened had made him a great deal less worrying.

"I am off the clock, so to speak."


 

[Toshihiko Two]

Pickworth shed his jacket, and unbuttoned his vest and shirt. He folded each item. Under his clothes he was pale, and scrawny, with some small and boyish hints of muscle along his arms. He struggled into the oversized shirt, which was practically a dress, then hiked it up to unbutton his trousers. He kept his shorts on. Zar's trainers dangled down to his calves, but he drew the drawstrings tight, tying a bow to keep them in place.

He retrieved his jacket, and turned it inside out. It became a not-quite-matching training jacket, but it was close enough. His wizard hat quickly became a baseball cap.

"You need another person for a spar, don't you?" he asked. "And you have friends. ...We're friends, aren't we?"  

[Baneful]

Zar casually observed the other boil, already dressed himself he had never heard of politely averting one's gaze while someone else changed.

"Not bad." he volunteered when he was changed, the result being a lot more suitable than what he'd arrived wearing at least. His look of vague curiosity once more curled into a smirk as the subject of a spar came up. "You'd do that? Wonderful."

He nodded with the heavy slowness that came from having a head full of horns. "And we most certainly are."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"It fits the regulations," Pickworth said, if not with cheeriness, then with an allowed measure of approval.

He put his own clothes in an open locker, securing it. He hadn't been volunteering to spar with Zar, it's just the way Zar had phrased things, his sentences had come out that way, and...he couldn't turn him down now, he guessed.

He hesitated, not sure whether to put the notebook in the locker or take it with him.

"Do you think I'll need this?" he asked. "What's it like inside?"  

[Baneful]

"I should leave it behind, it might get ruined in a spar." he was perfectly fine with kicking Pickworth up and down the gym hall but it wasn't very pleasant to get innocent notebooks involved in the fray. "Inside it varies, I tend to stick to the less wet parts of the area, I am not much of a swimmer."

He curled his tail ferally, keeping his attention unnervingly intently on the other boil. "Though it is of course entirely up to you."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Pickworth put the book into the locker.

"Well. That's that then. ...I'm not a very good fighter so um, go easy on me."

He rolled up his sleeves, but they kept uncurling and sagging back down.