Participants:
| Scene Title | Go to School or I'll Kick Your Ass |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa comes by to give Kendall a portable DVD player and the movie K-9, and holds a conversation with him and Anders tries to flirt with no success. |
| Date | March 29, 2010 |
"The Den" is a cover name for a Ferrymen safehouse based out of Roosevelt Island. The structure is an expanded basement beneath the Butcher's Fancy located just across the street from the Summer Meadows development on the south side of Roosevelt Island.
Beneath the floorboards of the butcher shop, the Den sprawls out as a surprisingly large underground complex comprising more than just a single building's basement. The basement of an adjacent tenement building under management by the same owner as the butcher shop is compiled into the same structure. The entry point of the Den is a large hall with an eight foot ceiling and industrial spiral staircase descending from the back stock room of the butcher's shop above. This room is decorated with old patched up sofas, a single television and a few old bookshelves stacked with records and an old fashioned turn table. Speakers for the turntable flank the couch, but the left most one is always cutting out.
Adjacent to this hall is a storage room containing non-perishable foods stacked in cans and jars on old wooden shelves as well as a small armory consisting of typically no more than five or six bolt-action rifles and boxes of ammunition and a pair of handguns, necessary in case the safehouse were ever overrun.
Opposite of the storage room is a wide doorway in the concrete that leads into an eight foot long earth and board tunnel lined with hanging construction lamps that connects to the basement of the adjacent tenement building. It's this tenement building that serves as residence for some of the safehouse's tenants. The basement itself contains a boiler, furnace and work-bench with tools, along with stacks of old newspapers and magazines in cardboard boxes. Stairs here lead up to the ground floor of the two-story tenement building, which was condemned by the town in 2008. The front doors are bolted shut and do not provide entrance, which is why the basement access was created to keep outside appearances.
All of the exterior windows of the condemned two-story building are shuddered and covered with weatherproof plastic to keep in heat, while only the ground floor has any working radiators. The tenement building itself looks like it may have been little more than a halfway house before it was condemned. Small rooms consisting of little more than a single mattress on the floor are barely large enough to be considered full bedrooms. The ground floor features the only working bathroom, as well as a communal kitchen and dining room. The second floor is largely vacant, due to the poor stability of the flooring and lack of any furnishings in the remaining rooms.
At night, no lights are allowed in the tenement building, to give it the presence of abandonment.
Boring. That's the word that Anders would use to describe his stay so far in the The Den. Everyone's sick and sleeping most of the time, and they can't even have lights on at night. It's early evening, and the light is fading, so he's tossed aside the Stephen King book he was reading and now is playing someone's DS as he lies on the bed. Earbuds in his ears snake their way to an iPod, though the heavy metal he listens to is leaking out a touch — hopefully not enough to bother Kendall in the other bed across the room.
And here Melissa is to liven things up! She comes up to the sick ward, bearing gifts. The trio of kids are peeked in on, as are D&D and Else, then it's to Kendall and Anders's room! "Anyone awake?" she asks, rapping lightly on the door.
Kendall can't sleep anyway right now, so he's just being bored and pretending to sleep. Eventually, he rolls over and stares at the DS in Anders' hand almost, uh…. hungrily? Not quite, since he wouldn't eat it. He's about to say something, but then Melissa knocks on the door and he lifts his head. "Maybe." he replies, then coughs.
Anders chuckles. "You wanna play? Once I die, it's yours," Anders offers, then looks up at the door. "Come on in, Sunshine!" Apparently she's not Melancholy anymore, so he's going with the opposite for irony, maybe. "I think everyone's decent." It's a joke — he's wearing plaid PJ bottoms and a t-shirt — there's no surprises there.
Melissa comes in and gives Anders a dryly amused look. "Good. No way I wanna see you naked." Okay, so maybe he's cute, but still! She looks to Kendall, smiling. "Brought you something," she says, moving over to him and offering him a small bag with a portable DVD player in it and a copy of K-9.
"Oh, you brought it!" Kendall had forgotten all about it, and now he's got something to do! "Sure." he adds to Anders. Wait… did he just say 'sure' to the being in Anders' will or something?
"No pressies for me?" Anders asks, pouting playfully for a moment. There is a faint sound that denotes the death of whatever little pixel character he is playing. "Ah, damn. I suck at this." He winces a little as he gets off the bed, but pads over on bare feet to the other bed to bestow Kendall with the DS as well. "I can't get past that level anyway, no matter what. You'll probably have a new record in no time." He heads back to the bed and flops once more upon it.
"Sorry. But you weren't around yesterday to have never seen K-9. Though when he's done with it, if he wants to share, that's fine," Melissa says, shrugging and plopping down on the edge of Kendall's bed. Then she looks to the teen. "When you get better, if you wanna come stay at my place, that's cool with me. But you will go to school. No arguments there or I'll kick your ass. Sound like a deal?"
Kendall seems reasonably happy… up until Melissa drops the 's' word. Sulk. "School's a waste of time though! I don't need anything to get a job! I can draw stuff professionally, you know. What would school teach me that Wikipedia can't?"
"What to do if the internet's down and you can't use wikipedia, maybe," Anders supplies, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back on his pillow. "Can I live with you, if I promise to go to school, Melissa?" There's that crooked smile and his eyes all but disappear as he regards her from across the room.
Melissa pokes Kendall in the middle of the chest. "You're going to school. You never know when it might come in handy. I don't care if you go to college, but you're finishing high school or I'll kick your ass." Her gaze flicks over to Anders. "You're already past high school age, boyo, so you're SOL."
"You're so violent, you know that?" Kendall complains, setting up the DVD player with the movie. He glances at the DS, torn between one or the other. Eh, he can play it after the movie, it's just an hour and a half or so long, right?
The cad on the other bed sighs, petulantly. "But I still need someone to care for me and my education and all that! That's age discrimination. Or something." He closes his eyes for a moment, then adds, "It's a pretty good deal, Ken, ol' boy. I'd take it if I were you. It's nice to have someone lookin' out for you, you know? Don't complain, dude."
"Yeah, yeah. But is it a deal?" Melissa asks Kendall, her head tilting. She gives Anders a thankful look, then nods to him. "It is a pretty good deal. It's not like I'm gonna ask you where you're going every second of the day or embarrass you in front of a girl or anything stupid like that."
"Fine." Kendall gives in finally with a sigh. "Just two years to go after all." he's a sophomore! "But I have a bad record with schools, my elementary school was destroyed in the Bomb and my first high school was blown up too." he went to Washington Irving after all.
"You don't need to embarrass him in front of chicks. I'm sure he can do that all on his own," Anders says. He's helpful, see? There's no reason for Kendall to fear Melissa's interference on his social life, when it's not like she could make it worse, right? "I doubt the fact you went to the schools is why they got blown up. Third time's a charm?"
"Yeah, well, so long as you are not the one doing the exploding, I'm fine with that. Well, that and so long as you're not hurt," Melissa says with a grin and a shrug. Then she rises to her feet, tossing Anders a grin as well. "Well, I still won't do it."
"Well maybe the second one was because of me. I mean, it was an anti-Evolved terrorist group, right? I'm not going to say I was the only reason, but likely part of it." Kendall points out, though he's slightly distracted by watching the beginning of the movie.
"Dude, you can't blame yourself for people wanting to blow shit up because they're prejudiced. 'Cause if it weren't that you're an Evo freak, it'd be because you're a white male, or maybe because someone doesn't like your religion or maybe because you're dating someone they don't approve of. Can't go through life worried about that, though, or else they win, right?" Anders closes his eyes. "Wanna come tuck me in, Melan- Melissa?"
"I hate to say it, but Anders is right. That wasn't at all your fault. People are bastards. It's a sad fact of the world," Melissa says, nodding. Then Anders gets a roll of her eyes. "Nope. I'm goin' nowhere near any bed you're in. Besides, I gotta jet. Just wanted to give Kendall the movie."
"I wish I never had a power at all." Kendall's going down a familiar path again, here it comes. "I'd be living a normal life and I'd still be at home."
"You, me, and probably a thousand or more other people, kid. Believe me, I would rather not be here and not be sick, but we have to shovel the shit we're dealt, dude." His eyes open and he glances at Melissa. "Duuuude. Anyway when you come back you can bring a meatball sub? I'm //starving and I can't stand another bowl of chicken noodle soup."
"Yeah, I'll bring a meatball sub. And anything you want, Kendall. Just give me a call and it's yours." Melissa glances between them and smiles. "You two behave now, hmm? And maybe I'll bring over some more movies." A quick grin, then out she goes!
Kendall glances over at Anders and shrugs. "Thousand or more other people didn't get abandoned by their parents for being Evolved." and now he'll turn away, sticking the DVD player right in front of his face to watch. Unless, of course, Anders has more to say!
Anders just shakes his head. "You don't know that, kid. Everyone's got shit that's happened to them. I'm sure some kids other than you were, or even worse. Sorry it happened, but you gotta just forge on, dude." He closes his eyes — it's too dark to read, he gave away his game, and he didn't get a cool DVD player and movie, so he may as well sleep.