ic [IC] Looking for Treble

[Fox]

"N-nah," Matt countered; he seemed briefly distracted, but he got over it quickly enough. One of the dogs made a sound like laughter, but it was directed at the boy, not his guest. "Everyone learns about things for the first time sometime, right? Better late than never. Too many people hit the dirt never knowing really important stuff. And not much more important than music. Besides, I tried showing savages printed word once," he added, drolly. "They tried to eat it."

 

That the dogs definitely found funny, and the one toward the end of the bed found its head pinned between the mattress and his master's foot in an attempt to quiet its laughter. "Words are delicious," it insisted, defiant to the last.

 

"But, uh, glad you liked it, I guess? If you liked it. Not gonna lie, didn't think it'd have that big an impact. They aren't always my favorite metal band."

[Gizmo]

"I'm not sure whether or not I did," Winifred admitted, turning the headphones over in her hands. The surprise had faded from her eyes and know there was only the analysis of a scientific mind reflected in the way they flicked back and forth. "It's an opera, a portable, personal orchestra. But if you can reproduce the sound so uncannily then one player could be an entire section, couldn't they. Layering." Absently her index finger traced something in the sheets of the bed, going through the motions of jotting down the notes she was taking in her head. "And then 'metal'. Metal because the instruments are made-- no. Qualitative, not descriptive. Strong. Durable. Cutting?" Finally looking up again she met Matthew's eyes. "Show me the one that is your favourite, then."

[Fox]

"My favorite....?" Matt looked slightly overwhelmed at the very idea of a favorite song, glancing down at his music box and then back over to the dogs as if they were to be of any help whatsoever. At their obvious lack of sympathy and assistance, he made a grumbling noise and started thumbing through his collection. "Overall, I dunno, it's too hard to pick? It'd depend on my mood, and what I'm into lately, and whatever else....but, uh, in metal...."

 

The boy fished out another worn, beaten jewel case, gently retrieving the disc inside and deftly swapping it for the one Winifred had already sampled. "Little different," he admitted, hitting buttons - from the snippets of sound audible in the headphones, apparently skipping through songs. "Same kinda genre, different group, different sound. But I guess this one's something I keep coming back to. Means something to me, I s'pose."

[Gizmo]

Even in her distracted state that drew a brief half-smile from Winifred, who paused with the headphones half raised back to her ears. "Is that so? That suggests a level of personal investment of which word among our classmates would have you incapable, Matthew." Her accent seemed to become slightly stronger for a moment as she enunciated in short, clipped syllables and it took a moment to register that the Englishwoman was making an attempt to tease him. Her sense of propriety quickly overwhelmed her sense of humour however and with a light clearing of her throat she admitted, "Though perhaps I am in no position to judge." She placed the headphones atop her head and focused once again on the music, even more intensely now that she wasn't so startled.

[Fox]

"Wh...I care! Sometimes. About....stuff."

 

He'd have sulked if he wasn't sure it would have been critically un-cool, and if he wasn't busy glaring daggers at the dog by his feet, which had demonstrated an unseemly amount of mirth right up until Matt shoved its head so hard with one sock-laden foot that the creature's upper body disappeared into an old blanket, paws flailing in faux-helpless sibling-esque struggles.

 

One of the others snorted, though it did shoot its master an ambiguously important look. Matt frowned back, some unseen communication passing between them. "...yeah, okay," he muttered, settling back to let Winifred finish her music with a minimum of distraction. "I know, I noticed it too, earlier. We'll take care of it tonight, alright? Caring doesn't mean we can't let it wait a bit."

[Gizmo]

Winifred seemed too engrossed by the new song to notice the exchange between the headphone's owner and his dogs, chest rising and falling as she took slow, measured breaths. When the song ended and she took the headphones off again she was less dazed but her expression read as grave. "I should like to hear more of this if it could be arranged," she requested with a careful diction that demonstrated the specific etiquette for asking a favour in her mind. "The other sorts you mentioned as well, I think, if they are as different from each other as this is from that which I was already familiar. I had underestimated my..." Pride made her hesitate before she squared her delicate jawline and bluntly completed, "Ignorance. I should like to make a study of it."

[Fox]

"Yeah, I've got, uh...." Matt turned to search his things again only to run into one of his dogs, which had already dragged an old, beaten portable cd player out from goodness knows where and dropped it helpfully on the bed. "...yeah, that. Good boy," he praised, giving a quick head rub to a creature that, for a moment, could have been any other big, dumb animal.

 

"Nothing wrong with ignorance. S'what the dogs always tell me, anyway," he said, one of the other hounds supplying a plastic grocery bag for him to package the player and selection of disks in. "'It's just a chance to learn, Howl,' or whatever. Better to admit it now and enjoy life than wait 'til you're gone. Don't have much of a chance to learn after, most of the time. Here you go."

 

He held the bag out, shrugging. "Headphones are an old pair of ear buds - not as nice as the big set you were just using, but lighter. I think the batteries in the cd player are dead, s'why I wasn't using it, so you're on your own replacing them. Little hatch on the bottom, shouldn't be hard to figure out. Try not to break anything? They're just, y'know, things, but they're important things and the music's a lot harder to replace than the player. I do want 'em back."