A Stubborn Stain to Scour [Sidra]

[Dylan Black]

Dylan hunched over the janitors cart as it wheeled through the halls between the classrooms. The mop made a loud squelchy splat as it pushed back and forth over the tiles by itself, and as Dylan dusted over the various placards on the walls, pictures of student's artwork, of awards... Blegh. Overachievers the lot of them.

The whole thing was totally not what you'd expect a man like Dylan to do. His headphones were in and he was trying to ignore the noise as a few kids stampeded behind him to go and make a mess somewhere else. He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, quietly mumbling under his breath as the 90's rock blared through his headphones. Moving his free hand through his hair, he whistled the mop back over and opened up the first classroom.

Someone had puked.

Well this made his day even better. The carpeted floor was sodden with vomit and he wasn't even sure what to use on carpet. Ugh. Pulling on his rubber gloves, he began to gingerly scoop the vomit into a biohazard bag and tied it tight. Then he paused and summoned the wet vac from the corner of the room. "Vacuum this shit will you?" He frowned, plugging the vacuum in. "Do this for me and I'll even put one of those lovely scented air cleaners in you." He added as a bribe. And grudgingly, the hoover moved over the damp patch, sucking up the filthy liquid while the man moved to scrub the desks.

Teenagers were disgusting.

[Sidra Cotton]

Driven from her own dorm.

Again.

It was getting old, her roommates weren't what she would choose for herself. Stella had potential, but she was too damn meek. Too damn quiet. Lost in her own world. Most of the time she could handle it. Most of the time. Such was not the case, and in an attempt to get away, allow her sewing muses to recoup, and keep from getting into another altercation with one Vincent Romanov, Si chose to go for a walk.

With the heat wave being what it was, and her clothing styles being what they were, she opted for the air conditioned buildings. The classrooms were mostly empty, there were a few kids doing summer school, others brown nosing their way into what they hoped would be a nice shiny "valedictorian" on their college applications. And one annoyed goth who's purple PVC boots slapped the tile of the halls.

Wandering aimlessly, just trying to get her pent up energy and frustration out, Sidra poked the tip of her tongue against the sharp edge of her fangs. They'd dulled, but were sharp enough to give a satisfactory twinge.

Whistles caught her attention and drew on her curiosity. Turning on the heel of her boot, she followed the sound and ultimately ended up leaning against the frame of a doorway and watching the... janitory bribe a vacuum.

"Well that's effective," She commented, not quite a compliment, but certainly not total derision either.

[Dylan Black]

As shocking as it might be, Dylan doesn't judge people on clothes, so when her Royal Gothness commented on the vacuum bribing, the man pulled one headphone out his ear and gave a hearty noncommittal shrug. "Beats sucking the puke up with a straw." He grunted with a surly expression, letting the little hoover do it's business on the stinking wet patch.

"If this is yours, I'm rubbing your face in it." He added sourly, spraying the carpet with stain remover. "It's disgusting. Fucking puking kids." He mumbled, stopping the hoover after wet patch was dry and the room no longer smelt of stale vomit. Sitting up and lifting a cloth, he, as promised, slipped a sashet of sweet smelling vacuum freshener into the little vac, before closing his eyes.

Well, that was one horrid mess cleared up.

Standing up and dusting off his hands, he wrinkled his nose and looked over at the girl in the door way. "Shouldn't you be frolicking and doing whatever obnoxious bullshit people your age do?" Dylan pulled off the rubber gloves and ran his hands through his hair. "Shouting loudly, missing the toilet seat and pissing up the walls." He paused, then shook his head. "My mistake, women don't do that unless they're mentally retarded."

"... Leaving the contents of their uterus on the rim. That's the one I was after."

[Sidra Cotton]

“Rule number 34,” Si shot back, though the image of someone sucking puke up through a straw was less than appealing. To her. Someone, somewhere out there would find it to their liking. Just as someone out there would love to have their face rubbed in it. Hell, there were all sorts in this wacky crazy world.

“Not mine, but I’d love to see you rub some these folks faces in their mess.” It would be more than mildly entertaining and something Si wouldn’t mind giving good money to see. She figured he’d be able to do it, surly and suppressed as he was. Never under estimate the people in charge of keeping a place clean. As far as she knew, most of them got their jobs because they had a small record of some kind and it was a part of “rehabilitation” or something like that. Weren’t there any number of crappy cable shows based on that very scenario?

He was funny. Not that she would admit that to him out loud, but his wit was sharp, and he was more entertaining than the mundanes she was forcibly surrounded by. And she did judge by appearances, but never pretended to do otherwise. There was an honesty in that, and as far as Si was concerned, she was more honest about her intentions than anyone else.

“Well aren’t you just full of jokes. I don’t frolic. I don’t have to shout loudly,” but that wasn’t to say she didn’t on occasion. “And I don’t ‘finger paint’ with my uterus waste.” Crossing her arms over her chest and locking one ankle in front of the other, Si took on a casual pose. She wasn’t going anywhere for a bit, he was… different. And different was interesting. Not worthy, he hadn’t proven that yet, but maybe he was better than most. Not her, certainly, just most.

“Do you always have to bribe them, or can’t you exert some kind of firmer control?” What use was having a power to command inanimate objects if you had to wheedle their obedience out of them with promises of… air fresheners?

[Dylan Black]

Dylan looked a little blank at her responce. Rule what? Was this some sort of... sexuality thing? A fetish for sucking vomit through straws? He'd have to google it later on his laptop back at the trailer. Either way he decided to give a hearty shrug and simply mutter "What ever gets people going."

However, when this girl professed a desire to see someone's face rubbed in the vomit, Dylan couldn't help but smirk a bit. "Find them and I'll oblige, but I'm claiming they fell." He said, sounding slightly cheered as he sat on one of the desks and tried to see if he'd missed anything in the room that needed cleaning. At least he'd made the sick go away, that had to be worth a bonus.

"Sounds like you're a model student." He grunted with a wry chuckle. "Next thing you'll be telling me you tidy your room and don't flood the sinks with toilet tissue." The janitor eyed a cobweb in the corner and gave it one of his most unpleasant looking glares, yawning and jabbing the feather duster up in it with little care as to whether he completely removed it. As far as he was concerned he was so done with this room that he was tempted to put safety tape over the door and call it a crime scene. The crime? Vomiting on the floor and making him scoop it up with his gloves.

"Not always. The wet vac knows I always send it in to suck up the most disgusting of fluids." He paused, eyeing Sidra seriously. "You'd want bribing too if you had to suck up piss, overflow from the toilet and vomit." Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he arched an eyebrow. "So, what the fuck do you want? I can't see you scrubbing anything in that corset and as much as I love being watched doing my disgusting job, I'm not feeling it today."

He paused, before glaring.

"Vincent didn't send you did he? Because I swear that fucking moron is going to get mop raped so hard he can't eat solids." In part he vaguely hoped not. If only because he might have just found the only teenager in the school that didn't steal his supplies or act like some sort of disgusting rutting animal in heat. Oh how he hated breeders. Especially when they flushed condoms down the toilet. Playing prize fishing with a prize no one wants is not that fun.

[Sidra Cotton]

Allowing herself a few seconds of laughter at the idea of being a 'model student', Sidra shook her head. "Not hardly. I don't go clogging sinks, but I'm not exactly Ms. 4.0 either." And she didn't really want to be. Her goals in life were simple enough, and she'd already obtained the two major ones.

Successful custom corsetry business that was only getting better as SHE mastetred more techniques.

When the suggestion that Vincent had sent her to bother the man, Sidra did a very Sidra thing--bared fangs and glared back. "He and I are not on terms. Of any kind." The idea that she would take orders, or even a suggestion form him was beyond offensive. "That boy knows who his superiors are and not to bother them." Or be squished like the bug that he was. A waste of flesh and oxygen. Someone who tried to hard and allowed his 'winkie' to do all of his thinking for him.

NO, certainly not someone Sidra associated with. While she was quite well versed in some of the kink culture, she used that mostly as a tool to tweak people. Squeaking the mundanes, after all, is a sport.

"Though, you may want to rethink your punishment for him. I'm fairly certain he's into that sort of thing." Her opinion was based purely on overheard snippits of conversation and personal observation of the annoying twit who thought he was sex incarnate.

He wasn't.

Narrowing her eyes at the janitor, Sidra studied him for a moment. He wasn't like most of the other people she met. There was the teensiest seed of respect for him. Though why he was a janitor and not doing something else with himself was reason for some concern. A body had to make a living, while it was living, and all that. She understood taht much, but still. Guy had potential to be more. To be better.

"Why work here at all?"

[Dylan Black]

Well, wasn't this an unusual occurrence. Someone who was tolerable AND a student to boot. Dylan slipped up on one of the tables he'd just cleaned and checked his watch. He was due a coffee break anyway. "If you don't clog sinks then you're already a better student than 90 percent of the attendees." He said with a low laugh, before clicking his tongue.

"I call coffee break." He said simply, watching the girl with a brow arched. Okay she apparently despised Vincent nearly as much as he did, and that made him clap at her. "I'll take that to mean you don't approve of the cock-driven little fucker." He grinned, the first time in... well, goodness knows how long. Probably since this morning when Gillian the Axolotl did a perfect loop-the-loop in his aquarium.

"I think you might be right." He added flatly, pulling off his jacket and hanging it over the handle of his janitors cart. "Anyone who thinks it's appropriate to show their genitalia to people working and doing their jobs is mentally retarded." Dylan frowned. "Moronic pile of shit that he is."

At the question about why he was a janitor, the smirk that had appeared on Dylan's face disappeared and he curled his lip. "I'd say none of your fucking business." He growled, before shrugging his shoulders and loosening up. "But as you're less of a pile of hormones and vomit, I'll share." He crossed his legs up on the table and leant back, watching Sidra's reactions with a keen eye.

"I don't like putting effort into things unless it's on my terms." He began, clenching his jaw a moment. "I get fired a lot for attitude problems. I don't like people that much. This is the only job where I'm justified in my hatred for all things fleshy and sexually active, and it pays enough to pay bills and have a few luxuries." He rubbed under his nose for a minute, then stared off out the window.

"Plus I can use my power here. That's always extremely useful. Especially when dealing with people who think it's funny to tip my garbage bags over." A dark smirk lit up his face. "Always so entertaining watching them run from a sentient trash can."

[Sidra Cotton]

Less of a pile of... flattering. Really, super flattering. Pulling her eyebrows down, Si offered the janitor one of her less pleased looks, though doubted it would have any effect. So far he felt as a kindred spirit. Someone she could potentially respect. Though it entirely depended on the rest of their conversation. AND how he acted after. Respect was difficultly earned, and easily lost when it came to Elitist Si.

And she was, admittedly so, elitist.

His answer was reasonable, and sounded very much like her own. Things had to be on her terms. Her choices. Her life. She was the common factor and she was the mistress of her own destiny. Just as he was his. While Sidra had never been fired, she also vowed to never put herself in that situation. She'd broken Terms of Service on varying sites to sell her corsety. Lied about her age to do so, but it was money coming in, and a career just waiting to bloom as soon as she was of a majority.

Costumers and so on with more money than they deserved. All just waiting for quality work. She provided it. At a price.

Slowly she bobbed her head in agreement, but a bark of laughter was once again pulled out of her. "Now that I'd love to see. You'd think they'd learn. Or use common sense." Si paused, then shook her head, "No, no. I'm overestimating them." It was a sad reality of the majority of the world. Mundanes. Content to go about their lives blind to the innovation and abilities. Content to die with talents and creativity they didn't know they had.

Not her.

And apparently not the janitor.

"You may just be worth the flesh you're made from." It was a grudging compliment.

[Dylan Black]

Dylan didn't really know how to flatter people. His vocabulary, whilst not as stunted as someone such as Mr. Verax, was still limited to grumpy things. Insults and derisive comments about a world that was so full of human mistakes that he wanted little or nothing to do with it. The last person he complimented was his mum, for wearing a dress that made her look what people would call "glamourous" and he'd only managed to do that because her Grazia magazine was open on the "instant glamour and beauty" page.

Dylan did get the idea that Sidra was a very likeminded person, and this tickled him enough to keep him sat down and talking. He had dorms to clean later, which was always fun. Most people were smart enough to clean their own, but he had come in to clean toilets and vacuum up large amounts of crumbs left by beds. The dorms were easily his favourite part to clean, if only because teens weren't smart enough to hide knowledge of indiscretions and Dylan knew enough about some of these kids to write a small novel.

"They never learn." Dylan said simply, stifling a yawn. "Yesterday I was cleaning dormitories and found porn magazines under the bed." His expression soured a little. "Pretty much the most cliche place of putting something you don't want found ever." Shaking his head, he turned to face Sidra properly, leaning back onto his arms.

"I was about to say the same thing for you." Dylan's smile reappeared. Just a tiny tweak at the corner of his lips. "So what is it you intend on doing for the rest of your life?" He added, scratching under his chin and checking the clock. He had enough time to continue this conversation, at least. Or perhaps the tolerable teen would accompany him round the rest of the school and watch a little bin bag festivity herself.

"I can't imagine you behind a desk." He thought out loud. What was it that young sarcastic corset wearing women did these days? Pro-wrestling? Dancing? Like hell he knew. Sidra was the first person he'd met outside Chicago with that particular sense of style, and indeed, the first person he'd met in his time alive wearing a corset and being tolerable.

[Sidra Cotton]

He cleaned the dorms? Was he the one shifting her Living Dead Dolls displays around. Pairing different dolls together or altering their pose? She had been blaming her roommates, or the prankster, but hadn't considered the Janitor before. Hadn't even noticed that things seemed to be cleaned magically.

The stain left by Danii, for example.

Storing this information away with the idea of using a webcam to capture the offender in the process, Si shifted her weight to the other foot.

"Never behind a desk. I make and sell custom corsets." Rapping the one she wore with her knuckles and allowing herself (as always) a moment of pride. "This is one of mine. The hair falls too. It's amazing what people will pay for a well constructed corset. Especially if they're costumers of one flavor or another." Pride. Definite pride. "I make my own hours, and I get orders fairly regularly."

The room with all the fabric and the sewing machine. Yeah. That was hers.

"Best part about it, is I don't have to deal with other people. Never have to deal with the public if I don't want, and I get to put some goth out into the world, one corset at a time."

One never minded talking about their accomplishments and talents. Sidra least of all. Her father had encouraged her, and she'd been deeply influenced by his choice of bedtime stories--Brahm Stoker, Mary Shelly, and so on.

Though Dylan was mindful of the time, Sidra was heedless. She'd found someone worthy of her presence. A rarity.

"I have a fine selection of male corset patterns as well, should you ever be interested in amping up the look."

[Dylan Black]

As it is, Sidra shouldn't worry too much about Dylan fiddling around with the items in her dorm. He tends to leave things exactly as he found them - since that's technically his job. Students complain if it looks like the janitor has been rifling around in their things. Dylan, for all intents and purposes, is meant to be the invisible hand cleaning up vomit, clogged toilet, moldy items... you get the idea.

"Custom corsets, hm?" He pondered this new information with a little curiousity. Never met a corset maker before. Bankers - idiots, the occasional "sassy" hairdresser and a few aspiring scientists that took great joy in questioning EVERYTHING, but never someone who turned their hand to making custom clothing. "Clever, and something different. A bit like yourself I suppose." The compliment came out awkward, since Dylan struggles saying anything nice, but he did smile.

The idea of never dealing with people sounded glorious. Scratching his chin, he felt a sting of jealousy. "I should imagine that's fucking awesome." He growled, launching off the table and grabbing the cart beginning to wheel it out the room. "If I had less bills to pay, do you know what I wanted to do?" It was unusual for the janitor to share anything about himself, but since Sidra was actually a human being, rather than a waste of oxygen, he decided to indulge her. "A Writer. The idea of just holing up somewhere and writing and being paid to entertain idiots without being near them gives me unending joy." Or it would do if he didn't sound so deadpan about it.

"I need to clean the next classroom. You can tell me about male corsets in there if you want." He added, as the cart stopped in the door.

Not that he had any intentions of wearing a corset. As non-irritating as Sidra was, the only things he wore with any sort of joy were leather jackets, vest tops and tight pants. But not Vincent tight. He'd sooner strangle himself with a living hose than have anything in common with that pile of human excrement.

[Sidra Cotton]

Shifting her shoulders up and into a shrug, Sidra made a noncommittal face. It wasn't like she had anything else to do of any importance or interest. Too, it was rare to find someone worth talking to and he seemed moderately interested in the male corsetry. While Sidra knew she couldn't convert everyone into a sale, and a janitor probably didn't make enough to actually afford one. But his interest was enough encouragement.

Shifting out of the way, she waited for him, and his animated tools, to pass her before resuming her pose in the next door.

"Male corsety isn't really all that different from the female underbust. They're usually more subdued in color. Though, personally, I prefer the vest ones to the "under bust'.They just look snazzier." And damn if they didn't trip her trigger. Men just looked better when dressed in a closer-to-Victorian fashion. Top hats. Waist coats. Corsetry. "I have a few in stock, the next time you're by the dorms swing in and I'll show you." He wouldn't have to try any on, just look. Visuals were always better than a verbal explanation anyway. At least to her way of thinking.

"They don't sell as well, but I have a few... special clients out there." The South East Leather Fest attendants, for example. Though with that crowd she was jockeying for position against Marvelous Mayhem and a few other sellers.

[Dylan Black]

Dylan wheeled the cart into the room, nudging the door open with his elbow and surveying the disaster. Well. At least there wasn't any vomit in this room, which was an improvement on the last one. It even seemed like there wasn't much to clean up. Some gum stuck to the underside of the table, a few crumbs on the floor and a couple of pen doodles on the table.

"Oh right." He said shortly, thinking to what a female underbust was. His brain scanned through a few movies, and he got a vague idea. "Like in Van Helsing, yes? Kate Beckinsale's blouse and corset combination?" He was surprised he remembered that, but vampire movies were good to watch and despite the ridiculous amount of romance in it (urgh, breeders everywhere) it was a relatively good film. "I'll remember that. Thanks." Being invited into a dorm? Weird. But Sidra seemed like her room was probably tidy enough to not make him want to kill himself.

"In Chicago..." He began, not entirely sure why he was sharing this, but Sidra seemed as good as any for an abrupt Dylan story. "My parents live near the local fetish club." He'd only found this out when his dad had pointed it out with a nudge and a wink. More ways the sexually active population indulge themselves in disgusting activity. "If you continue being less irritating the rest of the world, I might ask my dad to drop your details in through the door." He offered a shrug, then got to scrubbing the table.

He did sneer at the idea of helping provide more kinks for someone, but Sidra hated Vincent, and anyone who hated Vincent deserved at least a tiny bit of appreciation. He chiseled a piece of pink bubblegum off the bottom of the table and waved the scraper at the goth. "I fucking hope whoever stuck this gum under here gets smothered in their sleep with a giant used tampon."

Charming.

[Sidra Cotton]

"I'll get you some of my cards then, for your dad." To have her name circling the fetish clubs was definitely a point in her favor. Her work. Her name. A boost in business. Though it was in her nature to automatically correct Dylan on his assumption of the clubs and their activities, she chose not to. Some asexual were more violent about their lifestyle than others, and if she was right about him, he'd be one of those.

As it was, a kink didn't always have to involve sex. Hell, her corsets were a kink. Tight lacing was a kink. Shoes. Post-it notes. There were hundreds, thousands of kinks that didn't involve either nudity, or sex of any flavor. But that wasn't totally important. Not at the present.

Besides, he was hilarious. His outbursts, and imagery for tormenting her fellow students was totally worth the misunderstanding about kink culture. But he was, mostly, mundane. More entertaining than the average mundane, but mundane still. "There's a kink for that," she didn't know for sure, but rule 34 promised it was true. "I'm sure if we did a google search we'd find something." Which was almost always the case.

"Or, you could animate the gum and have it chase after the culprit. Surely it can 'hound' them out via DNA or some memory or something." It was a shot in the dark, she had no clue how his power worked. Or hers. Just that they did.

[Dylan Black]

Sidra is apparently already the king of reading Dylan, but then, if you're disdainful for most of humanity too, it's not too hard to extend your own ideas onto Dylan. "That'd be helpful, yes." He said bluntly, frowning. Dylan would have probably grumbled if Sidra had corrected him, but give him a few months to get acclimatized to her and she might be able to teach him a few things without being sneered or growled at.

"Tampon kinks." He repeated, arching an eyebrow and looking disgusted. "I don't think I want to see the google images that accompany that." He said flatly, pinging off another lump of gum. "I suppose people can be excited by anything." He added, looking up at Sidra. "Yesterday in the supermarket this fuckhead of a man decided to be an ungrateful piece of shit." Oh yes, it was time to tell the Jake story, since he was sure Sidra would be just as irritated by this. "So I tell him to wind his neck in and we fight." No biggie, Dylan fought more regularly than he ate hot meals. "And at the end." He wrinkled his nose, looking disgusted. "The fucker kissed me."

That was the thing that Dylan hated most. People touching him. Hugs. Pats. Breathing. Sneezing. Existing. Sidra was kind enough to exist out of his personal bubble and suggest ways of making students suffer for their inability to tidy up after themselves. "Has no one in this fucking universe heard of personal space." He ranted, before looking over at Sidra. "Except for you apparently. Someone raised you right." He shrugged, pausing in his scraping.

"... I wonder..." The grumpy janitor mused, twitching the gum to life. "Any ideas who chewed you?" The gum rolled around. He took this as a yes. "Find an orifice and make yourself at home. GO." He pointed at the door, and the tiny piece of gum rolled off, rather speedily. "What do you know, you ARE full of good ideas."

Dylan gave a compliment. This means the world will end.