milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

'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?'

It won't be much longer until she learns that herself.

"Course I go to school. They think maybe I need my own classes." Which sounds kind of nice to her.

She catches up to him and stops skipping, walking along beside him now. "You ain't told me your name yet."

'It's James.'

And unimportant, but there it is.

'What do you need your own classes for?'

He sounds bitter as he asks it. English schools in the 1980s are extremely resistant to allowing years to be skipped, or exams taken early, or even extra homework. It's the most frustrating thing in the world, and his boredom at home is rapidly turning to outright fury - that he will not allow himself to express. So yeah, he sounds bitter.

Honestly, she doesn't really know why, but she can take a good guess.

"S'pose I learn faster. They all having trouble with numbers and still reading little kids books. Things for me come easy."

At least at school they do. In the rest of life, maybe not so much.

James's face turns sullen, his lower jaw sticking out ever so slightly to unconsciously embellish his displeasure.

'What's your best subject?'

It's not fair. It's not fair that other people get chances to move on, and he's left to go out of his mind in classes filled with the most pointless people ever to exist.