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It's Brittany, Bitch | Ερις (eristic) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-06-26 15:21:00

who are you, really
Who: BB & Matt.
What: BB's covering some art exhibits and runs into Matt. An unpleasant encounter ensues.
Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
When: Monday, June 26.

BB tucked herself into a corner at the LACMA, taking a minute to observe the number of people present inside Young Il Ahn's Unexpected Light exhibit. She glanced from one person to another, counting how many Asian faces she saw, versus the blurred canvas of white. Her eyes leapt from them to the abstract paintings on the wall, her head tilting to the side a little. For a moment, she wondered if she should feel something more simply because they'd been created by a Korean-American, and while they were appealing, there was nothing specifically Korean about them that she could really describe. There was something else though, in the chaos presented in the colors and shapes; the neatly ordered chaos that bled from the screens, almost reaching out to the people standing around, looking at them. She wanted to jump up from her place on the wall and tell people to move back, couldn't they see what was happening...

She was halfway across the room before she stopped herself, blinking, realizing what she'd done. To save herself from embarrassment, BB glanced down at her notepad, pretending to be writing something. She looked the picture of a student, or a curious attendee, just... not someone who felt like she was having a psychotic break. Looking up again, she chewed her bottom lip, glancing around as she scoped out who she would approach to ask for an interview before she spotted a whitebread brunette male wearing glasses that looked so familiar, and why, she wasn't immediately sure. And then it hit her—Pax. He was that new guy who'd moved in just after the floor changes, who'd posted once on the network and whom she'd seen around in a variety of other posts, but never in person. The fact that he was here, now, presented her with an opportunity she wasn't going to push away, even if there was no real reason to talk to him. He didn't know anything.

Right?

But then she was pushing through the crowd, slipping through the empty spaces and the full ones too with thanks to a carefully-placed elbow here and there, until she was right beside him, staring at a painting.

Matthew had escaped to the museum for the day, trying his best to gain some knowledge of the area by visiting the tourist traps. He did this for any location he moved to, visiting their tourist attractions in order to become more familiar with it all, but southern California had more things to see and do than he had expected.

Plus there was an element to museums that he liked. While they could be crowded, they were also private. He could pass from room to room, surrounded by people, and never once speak to them and it was socially acceptable. But when the small woman took her place by his side, he immediately took a step away to give her (but mainly himself) more personal space.

BB immediately closed the gap; her hands clung to her notebook, and she cast him a sidelong glance, narrowing her eyes as though studying him in minute detail.

"It is you." She stopped speaking, as if those three words were explanation enough, though neither her lean into his space nor her close-quarters study paused.

This brought around all of Matt’s attention as he looked fully at her. “Excuse me?” Already slight panic was going off in his mind and his heart. He didn't recognize her at all but perhaps he was wrong.

"You," she whispered, glancing away from him covertly, as though she expected someone else to drop into their conversation uninvitedly, much in the same manner as she just had. "The guy who just moved into Pax. You're him, aren't you? Just... Don't look at me, keep looking at the painting. We're gonna talk, because we're both here and don't think I don't find that suspicious."

Matthew’s eyes widened but he seemed to listen, turning his face to look straight ahead at the artwork again. Still, he blinked and licked his lips. “It’s...a museum...how is it suspicious…” He blinked again and shook his head. “Wait a minute, I don’t even know you.”

"Um, yeah, you do," BB shot back, looking at him like he was stupid. "Pax Letale? The forums? Hello?" Of course, any other person would have found their cursory exchange to be little more than a strange encounter. BB recalled it simply because Matt had arrived at a strange time, making the moment memorable. She narrowed her eyes at him. "You posted a message when you arrived, and I said it was weird because of certain things...." One hand lifted away from her notebook, making a swirling motion in the air as though to coax remembrance from him.

Suddenly, Matthew knew quite well who she was. Her comments to his introductory post were paranoid and now this encountered perfectly matched. Raising his eyebrows briefly, his lips formed a small o and he sighed. “BB, right? I’ve heard a lot about weird stuff going on at the apartment complex but I haven’t had much of a chance to experience them. I moved cross country so I spent my first month getting settled. You know, buying furniture and things like that.” He stared at the artwork before him and clutched his hands in front of him, wishing he had chosen any other museum to attend.

"Mhm," she said, the noise emphasizing her complete disbelief in his story. Of course, she herself was familiar with a cross-country move, which should have made her more sympathetic. And yet...

"And what, now you're just taking in the local culture?" Or making it look more believable that there's nothing to worry with him... For a moment BB was taken aback by her own paranoia, but it seemed a little too coincidental... That someone moved into the complex? Come on, Britt!

"Stall that, what've you heard about the building? I mean, nothing seemed weird before you moved in?"

Matthew couldn’t help but look down at the woman with a bigger frown than before. “No, nothing seemed weird, other than the lack of tenants. There aren’t too many people living there. But I moved in and was busy with work and when I wasn’t at work, I was trying to, you know, settle in. Other than that, I suppose I’ve heard weird stuff since moving in. Just about everyone I’ve met from the building have told me about weird things going on.”

"Like what, exactly?" BB was now turned fully away from the multicolored painting they were standing in front of, her arms laced over her front in a defensive posture that was clearly meant to intimidate; unfortunately, her stature and persona did not lend itself overmuch to being anything close to 'scary.'

Matthew leaned away from her gaze and frowned. “Weird dreams, people talk about that a lot. Then there’s that guy that went missing from that one apartment on the first floor? And the murder--or was it suicide--as well?”

BB's mouth settled into a line, her shoulders rising and falling. "Suicide, supposedly, according to the cops. But it's just a little too weird, especially since that trash-- I mean, Brent just up and left without a word." BB spoke as if she and the man were close, personal friends, when they were anything but; still, the fact that his apartment had been left fully furnished (if one could call a hoarder's house that) without any sign of its occupant was too weird to go without notice. And now it had been cleaned out, made ready for a new tenant.

"It's especially weird because that guy disappeared just after he went to the spa," she mentioned, her eyes leaving Matt for a moment and wandering back to the painting as she thought. "I told people it was a bad idea, but did anyone listen? Of course not." And now Alice was hacking up seeds, and Max had cat teeth, and Brent was... Well, she could easily think of what he was, but it was difficult to say as much out loud without seriously naming herself a nutcase.

Matt’s shoulders fell the moment BB looked away as if whatever was compelling him to stand up straight was lost. He needed to get out of this conversation, it was getting far too close to home. “Look, can you just spit out why you’re accosting me in the middle of the museum?” He whispered in a hiss. “I’d like to continue enjoying the museum and be left alone.”

BB started, turning back to Matt with a clearly annoyed expression. "You know, you don't have to be rude about it. Shit's weird where we live, excuuuse me if I try to get the next best thing to an outsider's point of view on it. Man, you were bad at making friends back home, weren't you? Now, like, what I was asking, was what weird stuff did you hear about... But, like, you haven't had anything weird happen to you?" Her hands gesticulated as she spoke, her left holding the notepad and pen she'd come equipped with. As she ended, her right index finger pointed almost accusingly in Matt's direction.

Matthew took another step back, the truth of her comments about his lack of friends a low blow. Then it dawned on him that he, a man in his thirties, didn’t have to deal with this. “Leave me alone,” he murmured to BB before stepping away. “Just… leave me alone.”

And he turned and left the room, abandoning the museum completely to return home. He only hoped he wouldn’t find BB waiting outside of his apartment door...ever. One interaction with her was more than enough.

BB blinked, watching Matt's receding figure disappear into the crowd. After a beat, she tried to follow, pushing her way through people and around corners, but Matt's whitebread look was a credit to his ability to completely vanish inside the museum's densely filled space. Gritting her teeth, she made a mental note of the encounter and then turned back to her original assignment for even being there -- what most people would call work, something that had eluded her mind for days as of recent because of her current living situation.