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"Do we gotta be naked for this?" Abby squirms a bit as he fixes the polygraph's pressure component on his bicep.
"You feel seen, don't you?" Baby goes over the questionnaire they'd worked on together. He only added a single question that his lab partner hadn't reviewed, of the 100 they looked at together to craft a randomized 20 question set. "If you feel observed, it'll mess with your reactions."
"Yeah but we're establishing a baseline so we don't throw out the proof." He turns, the pink-haired man giving him a once-over. "It doesn't explain why you're naked though."
"To make you feel less self-conscious." The smaller man shrugs, trying to not smirk at seeing Abby's gaze drift down to his hips before darting away.
He himself tries to be more conscientious of taking in the footballer's muscular physique and dorito torso. And his corncob abs. Yum.
"You sure you don't want to sit down for this?"
"And get my ass-germs on the chair? Nah."
"You have great hygiene." Baby drawls, but that wasn't his problem. He looks down at his clipboard, and turns on the machine. "State your name, age and class. Please."
"Andrew Abby Jung, 20, and Psyche 101."
The polygraph lines quivered under the needle's ink. Good to know it was working.
"To set a baseline, tell me two truths and one lie. Ending with the lie, please."
"I have a younger brother, Ryan. I volunteer at the animal shelter on weekends. And I love football."
The needle hardly jerks as Baby jerks his head up in disbelief. "You don't love football?"
"My family's poor as shit, I ain't goin' nowhere for higher ed if it ain't on a football scholarship." Abby shrugs. He sounded so sure of the facts.
"But you're taking the same class loads as me. You could totally get a non-sports scholarship."
"Eh. Too many concussions. Memory's janky as fuck."
"Ah huh. And professor Kang singling you out for folks who need to catch up with the material...?"
"She's just bein' nice." Abby harrumphs.
He left it at that, and went on to ask the rest of the questions. Favorite color, foods, thoughts on lessons and other concepts. Abstracts from recent assigned readings. The polygraph continued its up-down pattern per Abby's answers.
By the end, Baby is pretty sure he knows how to tell a lie from a truth. So he shoots his shot: "Do you want to go out with me, on a date?"
"Yeah?" He watches the bigger man flush red, trying to backtrack. "I mean I'd...like'ta. If you wanna, I mean."
"So what, you like me or something?" His heart is hammering fast, but he keeps his expression as cool as he could.
"Yeah... I gotta, and. You seem pretty cool, Baby." Abby furrows his brow. "You uh...is this still part of the...?"
"Nope, we're done twenty questions. Wanna play pool, and...maybe grab some dinner, while we're at it?"
Abby nods and he finally lets himself have a giddy laugh.