Guns & Roses

Chapter 24

[Hank]

A few days since he attempted talking to them, he still hadn't tried again. He felt like he was wasting time, but he just felt like he needed to get over a few things first. While Sheriff seemed to buy into the whole apology thing with little convincing, he realised that he still couldn't help but end up pissed off when talking to them. Thankfully they held it together for the rest of the conversation, but he hated having to act all buddy-buddy with them. Besides, they hardly kept the conversation going like Hank hoped they would, so he made barely any progress in getting them comfortable with him... from what he could tell, anyway.

He sat staring into the scarlet sky which loomed above him, slowly zoning out while trying to figure out his next move. The next course of action was obviously trying to talk to them again, he'd been scheming topics to talk about days prior and he believed he had enough for a full conversation. All he needed to do was make it seem natural, but so far he couldn't find an excuse to talk to them without it seeming premeditated. Last time he had the whole apology scenario, this time though... He tried pulling examples from memory, from what little interactions he's had with Sanford and Deimos, he should have something provided by them as a guideline to initiating the conversation. Nothing immediately came to mind, in fact, all the times they did start talking to each other it usually came out of the blue, though they both acted as if it were completely natural. Based on that he figured he might be overthinking the whole thing, given his limited experience with people skills.

Hank sighed in frustration, it was now that he wished he'd put more effort in approaching other people when he was younger. Maybe then he'd know how to navigate this problem. Though if he had better people skills he might not even have a problem in the first place, he could be completely misjudging their character and not realising. He abandoned that train of thought, he'd been over this already and didn't need to be right in his suspicion for things to go well, either way it went he won't be seen as the "bad guy" anymore because he's supposedly going to be their "friend."

He pulled himself from his thoughts, blinking a few times to take reality back in, before promptly getting up to go find Sheriff again. If he was right in thinking he could start talking to someone for no apparent reason, it was going to make his job a lot easier.

Finding them was fairly easy, they were sat with the burlap bag in their lap not too far off, either counting stock or having their share of rations. He couldn't tell, but he didn't particularly care, as long as they weren't eating more that 2B had set for them. Hank started strolling over, pondering what his opening statement should be, before settling on a simple "hi." It would get the job done and with luck he wouldn't have to deal with awkward pauses again.

Hank was stood over them again, he hesitated for a second, the awkwardness of having no situational reason to talk getting to him, before shrugging off the feeling and starting.

"Hi." He said simply, he wasn't sure if he was supposed to say more, but he didn't exactly have anywhere to go from there.

"Hey..! It's uh... been a bit, huh?" They replied, he could tell they were still a little nervous, but he got why. Sheriff lifted his head, with the brim of their hat out the way he could see them properly.
'Good. Now I'll know how far I'm getting with this... friendship... thing.'

"Yeah..." Hank said coolly, losing control over this tone for a moment. Even with how little they said, they still annoyed him. Beyond that, he was desperately trying to find a way to segue into one of his predetermined topics.

"So... you have a dog." Hank continued, trying to coerce them into contributing to the conversation.

"Well... had, it's been a while so... he probably got taken to a shelter somewhere..." Sheriff sighed, their eyes glinting over with some form of sadness. Hank couldn't relate, he'd never seen the use of having a pet, but if it got them talking...