A Practise Session ((Shae and Owen))

Quiet afternoon in the music room. In fact, Owen was surprised to find that he was the only person there currently. Which was no less than perfect, really; he'd been longing for a practise session in peace here for a long time. He preferred not to embarrass himself with his lack of musical talent in the presence of others.

He dawdled around the doorway, trying to arrive at a conclusion of exactly what to do, at least, before someone else trundled in and ruined the everything. At first, he reached for the acoustic guitars, before hesitating. He remembered very well all those bungled lessons he took, and how he quit out of pure frustration of not being able to play it right. With a frown creasing his face, he turned away, instead, heading towards the drum kit.

Picking up both sticks, he sat on the rather small, squeaky seat, staring rather blankly at the arrangement of drums before him. Found the foot pedal, pressed it experimentally a few times. Cautiously checking once again that the room was empty, he took a deep breath, before raising both arms and slamming both drumsticks on the instruments before him. He hit randomly, occasionally crashing a symbol on the off-chance that it wasn't already loud enough. And it felt incredible.

Despite the racket, the actual noise seemed to cling to no rhythm at all. That's exactly what it was - noise. It would be easy to deduce just from looking at him that he'd never sat at a drum kit in his life.

It was the kind of sound that made little animals scurry to find shelter. And everyone else as well.
If the person making it was trying to sound like an ongoing car crash then they were doing a terrific job, Shae mused as he walked up toward the source of the awfully loud racket. He wanted to know just who or what could possibly cause such a noise to exist.

He walked almost silently as usual, but it wasn't like it would have made a difference. He reckoned he could have stomped up with a marching band and still managed to sneak past. He wasn't sneaking past however he was sneaking up. He got to the door and peered inwards. He'd never really spoken much to Owen but he recognized him from around the place. So that was who or what.
Chuckling to himself he pushed the door open, leaning in the door frame. And he fully intended to stand there watching with a smirk on his face until he was noticed, however slow or quick that was to happen.

The audience screamed before him. Their arms reached into the skies, their hair being flung everywhere, their mouths agape like wild chimpanzees. He crashed down hard on the symbols, barely heard over the furious roar of his fans. Girls screamed, 'We love you Owen!', tears streaming down their face in pure awe. Offering them but a suave wink, he expertly twirled the drumstick in his hands. He caught a glimpse of a purple and black hoodied fan at the side who was--

Owen stopped short. He was back in the classroom, staring at the guest standing at the doorway. Immediately, a furious blush took hostage of his face. "Uhm..." Awkwardly, he reached a hand out to grab hold of the still ringing symbol to silence it, before dumping the sticks down on the drums, looking away as if he hadn't been playing them at all.

"I'm not doin' anythin'...!" he tried to explain, anything but smooth as he raised an arm to scratch behind his head. "Uh.. H... How long have you been standing there...?"

Shae's smirk widened, and he causally stepped out of the doorway.
"Oh, a while... that was quite the, aah.. sound you had going there. Very loud." He glanced over to the drum kit and then back to the poor unsuspecting boy in front of him. He was really quite bored- and this was a perfect opportunity to get back into one of his favourite pastimes.
Teasing the hell out of people.

And Owen was the perfect candidate.
And this the perfect set up.
Perfect~

"So.. is... drumming, something you enjoy a lot then? You seemed to be enjoying yourself..."

Loud. Wasn't exactly a compliment, but at least it wasn't an insult. With a sheepish grin, he twirled the drumstick around in his hands, accidentally losing his grip and scrambling to catch it again.

But still, he had a reason to be wary of Shae. The smirk he was wearing was setting off all his alarms - alarms that told him that the following moments were going to be particularly annoying.

But first, the question.
"...Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty good, aren't I?" he brashly claimed, raising his head a little higher. There was little point in lying, but he was unable to stop himself anyway. Perhaps to blanket his insecurities under an air of confidence, which rarely succeeded most of the time anyway. Old habits die hard.

"...You wanna shot?" he offered, waving the drumsticks around temptingly. Maybe he didn't have to endure the spotlight of shame by himself. Shae was probably as just as awful.

((Ok. I have a new rule now- no slacking off. I will reply to all posts within 3 days- otherwise I just never do >>;;;;;.))

Shae raised a brow as the items responsible for the loud noises were offered in his direction.
Well on the one hand, he was certain he could at least do better than THAT.
On the other, he wasn't sure he could make it sound GOOD.
Better to be on the safe side.

He shrugged. "Never been much oh a drums person myself- I play violin... at least I used to." He made sure to sound nonchalant as though it meant nothing to him at all. "Do you.. play, any other instruments? Guitar perhaps.. piano?" If he hadn't been so good an actor, there would have been a rather evil grin plastered across his face, instead however he just sported a pleasant and almost neutral smile. Only the way his eyes flickered slightly as he asked the question might have given away that his intention was to be entertained- at Owens expense.

((Sorry for the delay mi'self! o/ But stuff is out of the way now!))

When Shae didn't immediately accept the offer to relieve him from his embarrassing position, he slumped the drumsticks back down on the drum, causing a small, disappointed 'dum' noise. "Oh... Okay." He was moments away from voicing his distaste of violins, but closed his mouth again. No. He was going to get along with this guy. Make friends. He needed desperately more of them.

....Which of course, was easier said than done. How did one go about doing that? Owen could say right now that he was being pretty nice, but there was something missing. That something was obviously the 'impressive' factor.

Before he could stop himself, he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I can... play that stuff." Wasn't necessarily lying, he could physically play it. He just had no skill whatsoever.

However, with a glance to the piano in the very same room, Owen suddenly realised another problem that he had to deal with. Undoubtedly, he'd be asked to play it. And he simply couldn't. He couldn't even read the flipping music sheets. It called for Lie #2.

"But I can't play right now. 'Cuz my wrist is sore." He shrugged. "It's a bummer..." Truly a shame. He began rubbing his right hand to exaggerate the fact, faking a wince.

He raised both brows, being a master of lying himself he found it quite easy to see the probability that neither of those things were true, but he wouldn't call the boy out on it, he'd just lie right back, so to speak, and go along with it.

"Oh that's a pity.. did you hurt it when you were uh.. drumming, just now?" he gave a sympathetic smile, although he felt so sympathy at all, only amusement as he did his utter best to embarrass Owen further. "Maybe I should look at it, it looks like it's hurting quite a bit..."
He took a few casual steps forward and held out a hand, to offer 'help.'

"No!"
Owen bit his lip when the response came out blunter than he intended, and he ducked his head down, shoving the aforementioned wrist between his thighs. "I mean... no. It's fine. It's cool."

Whilst he tried to chuckle, it carried that certain undertone of anxiety... for various reasons. For a start, for the bunch of lies he was spewing, he was believing him a bit too well. And that didn't happen unless the person was either really young or really stupid. This newcomer didn't seem like either; Owen had reason to believe that this was all some sort of phony.

But on the other hand, he was stubborn. Too stubborn to back down, too stubborn to admit defeat. The lies continued. "I mean it's fine right now, but then it, uh, acts up when I play an instrument... No point in lookin' at it... I uhm..." He trailed off lamely, before squinting at him.
"Who are you?"

((Aaand an entire month later. I just plain suck. I'm sorry Dx.))

Shae fought the urge to laugh at the ridiculous lies this guy was coming forth with.
Only when you play an instrument, oh sure I'll believe that.
Sure, why not.

He also didn't seem to believe that Shae believed him though, so at least he was apparently smart enough to realize just how unbelievable his excuses were.
"Me? We haven't met before? I'm sure we've walked passed each other at some point or something like that have we not- no?" He feigned mild surprise. "Well I'm Shae Lantern, a pleasure to formally meet you. And you are?" he raised a brow.
Maybe he would at least get an honest introduction.

((It's okay...! Happens. ^^; ))

He shrugged cluelessly at the question. He was pretty sure he'd seen this guy around, and he'd probably shared a conversation or two with him months ago. But he'd never put any effort into remembering his name at all - he didn't have much of a reason to.

"Yeah, a pleasure." Yeah right. He still didn't like the feel he got from this guy. Even if he hadn't done anything but ask a bunch of questions. It was just a gut feeling... "Owen." From the way he mumbled his name, it was easy to tell that he didn't particularly want to be here.

"Don't you have like... somewhere else to be?" He raised an arm to rub the back of his neck, as if to soothe a pain there. "Yaknow... anywhere but here?"
It was the politest way he could think to say 'piss off'.

Shae raised a brow. That was a pretty firm 'go away.'
Unfortunately he wasn't that nice, so the double meaning sort of 'went over his head.'

"No, no where else I need to be.. quite bored actually- I was hoping to find something to do."
He wondered how he could properly stir up the situation further.
He didn't want to miss the opportunity to entertain himself- but this guy was pretty close to just telling him to go away. He practically was.
That wouldn't do at all.

"Perhaps you'd like to come to the kitchens with me? I was thinking of getting lunch..."

He was moments from asking just what that 'something to do' included; Owen had little doubt that it would probably include an attempt to annoy him. Then he stopped, suddenly feeling a small twinge of guilt.
He could have been... possibly judging him a little too harshly. Truly, from his prior impressions, he didn't really seem that bad of a guy. Just weird. He hadn't even done anything to incur his hatred... apart from perhaps inadvertently causing him that bit of humility with his earlier 'performance'.

With his best attempt to disregard his bitter inhibitions, he shrugged at his offer. A bit out of the blue, but who was he to deny it? He didn't have a reason to stay here to continue to have his musical talent put under question. "Okay."

He stood, giving one last sombre glance back at the drumkit as he departed it - a silent promise that he would return one day, and without the prying eyes.
He started towards the door, before giving Shae a look over his shoulder. Then he scoffed. "I bet you just don't wanna show me how much you suck at music."

He chuckled as he started after Own.
Well it wouldn't hurt to repair the other guys pride a little, he didn't want to be sent away after all.
"You might be right.. I haven't played in at least fifteen years.."
That was true- he wasn't all that interested in violin anymore.
He'd been there and done that.

Going to get lunch had also of course just been an excuse for him not to separate from Owen- he didn't need to eat and only did so for leisure. Owen didn't know that though, and he didn't need to know it either. At all.

((http://www.lillegardisland.com/t654-a-lunch-session#13608 New thread!))