Participants:
| Scene Title | Cruisin' The Strip |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa and Kendall see the sights in Vegas, and discuss the weather back home. |
| Date | May 2, 2010 |
Las Vegas
With Abby and Gillian wandering off to do their own thing, Melissa has snagged Kendall, deciding to squeeze bonding and sight seeing in all at once. Multitasking ftw! So she's got her phone, room key, money and, of course, her camera. Who knew Mel was an amateur photo freak? She's been taking pictures since they got to Sin City. Lots of pictures. TONS of pictures.
She's also got a Guide to Vegas type map, and is peering over it while she walks down the Strip with Kendall. "So…what sorta thing you wanna see, Kendall? And don't say the whore houses or I'll pop you."
"I've already been to Hooters." during the day, when it's PG-13. Not that Kendall is implying it's a whorehouse, but anyway. "I dunno." he is so decisive today, a true leader.
"Hooters isn't a whore house though," Melissa says, grinning over at it. "And you're helpful. Okay, lessee…They've got those roller coasters on top of buildings, a wax museum, various animal shows…ooooh. And we haven't gone to M&M world yet. A whole building devoted to chocolate can't be bad!"
"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea." chocolate doesn't just cheer up women, everyone loves it. "How much can we buy?" Kendall asks Melissa. "I wonder if we can get enough to swim in." ….ew, that's gross.
"Not enough to swim in. I mean, if we swam in it, would you really wanna eat it?" Melissa says, nose wrinkling. "We can buy a bunch though. Oh! they have an art museum. You like that sorta thing, or just like creating art?" she asks curiously, looking back at him.
"It depends on the art. Some of it bores me to tears, others inspire me. Let's go get chocolate." seems like chocolate is more appealing to Kendall than anything else.
Melissa laughs and nods, tucking the guide into her back pocket. "Sounds good to me. I rarely need a nudge to get chocolate. I think it's…uh…" She pauses, turning right, turning left, then finally pointing. "That way." Though she doesn't sound too certain. And so she starts walking. "You havin' fun?"
"Yup." Kendall replies, though looks around. "Wish I was old enough to gamble though…. it sounds like a lot of fun." well, except for the part where you lose thousands or even millions of dollars, get addicted, and end up ruined for life as well as ruining the lives of your family and possibly your children as well.
Melissa nods. "Yeah, I can see that. Though hey, how about this…I'll bring you back for your twenty-first birthday. That'll be my present to you. That and a hundred bucks to blow. How's that sound?"
"Sure." Kendall grins at Melissa, although he keeps glancing at the casinos as they pass them. "It'd be worth it just to go in and look." he comments. "Are we allowed to do that?"
"Allowed? Of course! Pick one and we'll go in. You just can't gamble, is all. But we can totally go in one," Melissa says, nodding and grinning.
"Ok. But first, chocolate." he spots the giant statue of one of the M&M mascots and points at it, nudging Melissa. "There it is!" and he trots off happily for it, minding traffic, of course.
Melissa grins and shakes her head, but she takes off after him, pausing outside to snap a few pictures before heading inside. "You've got a one track mind, hon. Though considering it's chocolate, I guess it's alright. We should totally go to the wax museum before we leave though. Get pictures taken with all the dead celebrities."
"It was always my dream to get my picture taken with Einstein." Kendall deadpans, then stares around at all the chocolate being offered for sale. His mouth is almost visibly salivating.
Melissa laughs and bumps him lightly with her shoulder. "Hey, it's Vegas and we're tourists. We're supposed to do stupid shit. Now…wanna be sarcastic, or wanna get bags of chocolate? Personally I'm voting for the chocolate."
"Bags of chocolate. How much can we get? Can we get enough to put us both into a sugar coma in an hour?" Kendall grins at Melissa, then goes off to the containers with every single color of M&Ms available that you can't normally get anywhere but online. "Huh."
"Oh god. We have to get sugar coma amounts? You're gonna break me," Melissa says with a feigned pained look on her face. "Well, what are you waiting for? Bag 'em up!"
Kendall laughs and starts grabbing anything that catches his eye, in a fit of greed. Heh, Sin City indeed!
Despite having agreed with the urge for chocolate, Melissa takes a minute to just laugh and watch Kendall, before loading up her own bag…or four. She pays, then ushers him out. "So…what casino do you wanna hit first? Want fancy and upscale or more colorful and laid back?"
"Fancy and upscale, although all of them are like that. I've never seen hotels like this in my LIFE. They're practically shopping malls, EACH." Kendall shakes his head, messing with his bag until he gets something opened, and starts munching as they walk. What? He's a growing boy, he needs sustenance!
"Then…well, you've seen some of the Venetian, so…Bellagio? I think they're the one with the fancy water show too. Could be interesting," Melissa says, altering her course. "So…what've you been up to lately? Back home, I mean. We haven't really had much of a chance to just talk lately."
"Thinking about getting a job. There's a comic book shop after all, and I figured, it's a good place to start working if you want to be an artist." Kendall shrugs. "Can't just depend on people to pay for everything."
"And uh, sure." he adds.
Melissa glances at him, frowning a little. "If you want to get a job I'm certainly not gonna tell you no. Don't think you gotta get one though. I mean, you're only sixteen once. And once schools open again, it won't leave you a lot of time to just fuck off and have fun."
"Ha, well it's not like I'll be getting one any time soon with the weather the way it is in New York. I've had months of fucking off." he looks in a direction he feels is New York-wards(although who knows?) "Think the weather will stop being fucked up by the time we get back?" she used swear words, so so will he!
And Melissa doesn't bat a lash at his language. She has no room to talk anyway! "I don't know. I hope so. But if they don't give Liette back to her sister and father, I'm guessin' probably not," she says with a faint grimace. "It's good to be away from all the snow though. It's May now. There should not be snow up to the second story in Maybe. It's just…wrong."
"Wait, what?" Kendall asks, blinking at Melissa. "What does Liette have to do with this?" he tried hitting on her once and failed miserably.
Melissa glances to him, then to the sidewalk ahead. "This is all between us. But Liette's sister is probably the one who's causing the weather in New York. I've tried to fix it, but…" She trails off and shrugs.
"Oh, her sister… she mentioned having a sister. Julie, or Julia, or something? She's causing this? Why?" Kendall asks, brow furrowed. "Hasn't anyone tried just, y'know, stopping her? And doesn't she ever sleep?"
"I'm guessing that sleeping doesn't really affect anything," Melissa says with a shrug. "But yes, Julie and Liette. But if Liette is right, they only keep a particular ability for a few months. And apparently she's not going to stop voluntarily unless she gets her sister back."
"But the weather's been like this for months already, shouldn't it have faded by now?" Kendall asks. "And, uh, why not bring her back then, if that's all it takes? Seems simple enough."
"It's not my choice," Melissa says with a faint smile. "The people you met, at the safehouses? It's their choice. And they voted to keep her instead of giving her back to her family, because her father…is not a good man. But I'm gonna do my best. Liette wants to go home."
"He's not a good man? Well why don't they rescue her sister then if he's a bad guy?" Kendall can understand good guys and bad guys. It happens all the time in video games, movies, and comic books. "And why doesn't her sister just leave and find her? She's old enough to do that." after all, Kendall's 16 too!
"I don't know," Melissa admits. "I've never met her sister. Maybe her sister doesn't know where Liette is now. Or their father won't let her for fear of Julie getting caught too."
"Getting caught by who, us?" Kendall is perfectly willing to include himself among the conspirators of Ferryman.
Except Melissa isn't. Not anymore. And so she shakes her head. "No, not us. Them. The people I used to work for, who run the safehouses. It's just a moral dilemma at this point. Do they continue to hold Liette hostage for her own good? Or give her what she wants, what her family wants, and give her back, also ending the blizzard?" She sighs. "They refuse to give a child to her father though. They think they know best." In a lower mutter, "Jackasses don't know shit."
Kendall frowns at that, looking confused. "Uh… from what I could tell, she wanted to go back. So… why don't they? It doesn't make sense, hundreds and thousands of people are dying because of this blizzard, and all because of one girl? Just because her dad's a creep?"
"He does human experimentation. Some tests on Liette as well, but Liette enjoys them. So honestly? I think they're just trying to act like the good guys, when they're…not. Not entirely. The ends don't always justify the means, but sometimes, they do. So they're letting an entire region of the country suffer because they have a holier than thou attitude," Melissa explains.
"Huh. Well I'm glad I'm here then instead of there. Feel sorry for the rest of New York though." thus sayeth Kendall, in shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of Las Vegas.
Melissa smiles and nods. "Yeah, me too. Now…let's hit this casino, then go jump on one of the roller coasters that's on top of the hotels."
"Ok!" and Kendall goes running off for the door, Melissa will just have to hurry to catch up with him.
