milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Well, this is new. And that's OK! New is good. Unexpected is not, particularly, and that's why this particular young man's surprise at finding himself wandering strange corridors has quickly melted to suspicion, and then anger.

He schools himself out of it by the time he finds the stairs. He waits at the bottom of them, perfectly still apart from large, dark eyes that flit over the whole place, taking it all in with no expression on his face. Only the Window gets a second look, and when he's finished his surveillance he walks over to it and stands there, staring in mute wonder, one hand pressed to the glass.

He can investigate the room later. This is more interesting for now.

[OOC: Open all weekend! <3]

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he looks up eventually.

...ugh, he has seen that look on people's faces far too many times. He rolls his eyes.

'What?'

What look? She's just standing here watching the strange boy be strange! Nothing wrong with that!

"Find anything good?" She honestly wants to know.

It's what everyone else does, when he's not putting a charming face forward. It gets boring to look at.

'Just clothes so far.'

Half of him is tempted to pull it all out on the floor and leave it, but his better judgement has him folding it all and putting it back exactly as it was.

'Come and look, you might find something that fits you better.'

She starts to come in and then stops. Going home with new clothes might get Papa thinking she took money and that's the last thing she wants. But she goes to look anyway, not that she'll take anything.

"What they keep clothes here for?" She asks, peering into a box. "Not laundry, that's for sure."

'They belong to someone, obviously.'

All the same sort of style so far, all the same size. He huffs an annoyed breath, and starts on a new one. Electronics! He paws through wires and bits of old adapters, confused by things that haven't been invented in 1986 but interested all the same.

'Why aren't you taking anything? It's been here for years, no one'll miss it.'

She shakes her head adamantly. "Papa'll think I took money. He'll get real mad." Not that most of the electronics are familiar to her, or that she knows what to do with.

And then she finds a box of books and a moral dilemma begins.

James ignores this for a long time, because he's unearthed a Game Boy from his box. There's even a plug, and a Tetris cartridge. Needless to say, it has his attention.

'So tell him him you earned it,' he says eventually, hitting buttons at high speed, slotting everything together perfectly.

'Or you found it, or someone gave it to you, or you swapped something for it.'

What's difficult about this?

Eventually she decides a book isn't worth Papa's anger today, even though he'll probably be anyway.

She wanders over to see what he's found and watches over his shoulder.

"He won't believe me." And he'd take it away, probably try to sell it. "Don't your Papa ever get mad at you?"

'No. Why would he?'

He has a brother to blame things on, and he's an exceptional liar. Exceptional at Tetris too, anticipating block placement the instant the game tells him what shape is up next.

'If you tell the right story, he won't know. Or is he smarter than you?'

He must be. Sucks to be her.

His Papa never gets mad? She doesn't buy that.

"What about if you cook dinner too late, or you turn the TV off when he's sleeping? He don't hit you for that?"

'No.'

Her dad sounds like a drunken, abusive savage. Doubly sucks to be her.

'I don't cook dinner, my Ma does. He doesn't hit us for anything. You should hit yours back.'

He glances up.

'Do you know how?'

Oh.

She shrugs. She's hit him back plenty, especially when she was younger, but then she just ends up at the doctor's. Whether she does it well or not doesn't seem to matter.

"Do you?"

'Yeah.'

He's at level 110, and bored. He tosses the Game Boy down and leaves it beeping on the ground, so he can go through a new box. There's half a bottle of gin in this one, and he gives the label a speculative look.

'Want me to show you? If he's big, you can use a weapon.'

Weapons are totally out. While she will be willing to kill him at some point in her life, that time is not now. Even hurting him is unfathomable because all she can think about is what punishment she'll receive in return.

Still, it might be useful for the boys who aren't so nice to her at school.

"Yeah, show me how to hit."

'All right. What'll you give me in return?'

He says this while pulling an old and well-used bong out of the box, but he doesn't know what it is so he just leaves it to one side.

Tess has nothing.

Still, "What you want?"

He turns around with the gin.

'For you to drink two full glasses of this.'

"I know what that is." Maybe not that it's gin specifically, but she knows it's alcohol. It's what Papa drinks and she's not going anywhere near that, ever.

She shakes her head. "Don't need to learn how to hit that bad."

'What have you got against it?'

He says this like it hasn't been obvious almost since he started talking to her.

'One glass then.'

Awww, compromise. The beautiful folly of youth.

She rolls her eyes at him.

"Don't act like you're stupid." He's clever and she can tell.

"This room's boring, can we go somewhere else?"

'Yeah, OK.'

He abandons the gin, but shoves the Game Boy and accessories into his pocket.

'Outside, or upstairs? Or there's kitchens.'

She was going to say they should go upstairs, but then he makes suggestions.

"Outside? There's a outside? Let's go there!" Something she sounds genuinely excited by.

He looks at her funny for a second, then shrugs.

'If you want. It's out the back door.'

He leads the way, again not seeming to care if she follows.

'What's so great about outside?'

Again, Tess follows along, skipping this time.

"There's lot of fun outside! If there trees we climb 'em, maybe chase rabbits or snakes."

Skipping. She's skipping.

Mary and all the Saints, why are girls so stupid?

'Why don't you speak properly?'

Speaking properly is important.

'Don't you go to school?'