Participants:
| Scene Title | Hardened Criminals |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Amadeus ruins a would-be-sweet moment in a fledgling friendship. |
| Date | May 16, 2011 |
The mood has been a bit strange… a good kind of strange, really. Amadeus hasn't been smoking pot or really drinking much, he's been cooking nearly every night, and that usual air of bitterness has been relatively absent. One could imagine he seems almost happy lately.
When Amadeus comes in today, after buying groceries, both legit and smuggled, he sits the two bags in the kitchen and walks back out to Daphne with two white gloves that look almost like cat paws, with red paw prints on the palms. "I bought you some mittens. I know it's kinda early, but I thought they'd be cute on you."
Curled on the couch reading, and reading of all things Pride and Prejudice, Daphne looks up with surprise. "Mittens? It's… May. A little early is a bit of an understatement," she says lightly, then reaches for them, raising a brow at the paw prints.
"Well, this explains where at least one of the three kittens' mittens went," is quipped, but she reaches to set them on the table. "Thanks for thinking of me," she adds, dog-earing the corner of the page to set the book down next to the mittens.
"I finally got some stuff resolved, like, it's off my chest." Amadeus sits on the couch next to her, wearing his usual AC/DC shirt, which she'll note that he washes every night. Who needs more than two shirts! His Metallica shirt is for special occasions. "So I'm cool with stayin' here with you until these walls go down."
But then there's something else that needs to be addressed, something that's been weighing on him. "Am I ever gonna see you again, when we get outta here?"
Another dark brow arches as he talks about getting stuff off his chest, but she doesn't pry. She never pries, really — mostly because she's kept her own secrets most of her life and respects the same privacy for others. Even others who break into her house.
The question draws her brows together, and she reaches down to fiddle with the hardware around her ankle. "I don't know," she says honestly. "If I get out of here…" her eyes grow wet at the thought, "I'm probably running, to be honest. It's not very brave of me, but there are places that I don't have to be afraid and where I don't have to be reminded that I'm not very brave every second of the day, once I get there. The world is wide, you know?"
She frowns and looks over at him. "It doesn't mean I don't care," she adds.
"I don't think all that bad stuff about you." Amadeus reaches over to take her hand, though leaves the gesture at that before he continues. "You don't have to run, but if you wanna, take me with you. I like livin' with you, I don't wanna go back to bein' a lonely loser in a van. Don't know why, but you make me feel like more than that."
She squeezes his hand and smiles. "I do have a boyfriend, out there somewhere, so he might not wanna roommate if we head off to Paris or something, but I can get you away from New York and wherever you want to go — if you want to go somewhere different, or if you want to come with us wherever it is. I just know that … every time I should have left this city, and didn't, something bad happened. And every time I came back, and shouldn't have, something worse happened."
She laughs a bit wryly, letting go of his hand and picking up a cushion to put on her lap. "My father would say 'it's not dumb to make a mistake, but dumb not to learn from it.' He'd probably say I'm pretty stupid right about now."
"I keep forgettin' about that guy. Or hopin' you forget." Amadeus takes his hand back and briefly looks down at it, then props his feet up on the table. "I wanna go with you, I ain't gonna get in the way, but if you guys ever break up I'll be like a goddamned vulture.""
Daphne smiles and reaches to ruffle his hair. "Your honesty is always so refreshing," she says, then suddenly leans to peck his cheek impetuously. "'That guy' is a good one, and I don't plan on breaking up, but you never know. I didn't really plan on getting rounded up by robots in Alaska and thrown in this charming gated community to live in Suburbian bliss, either, so… who knows."
"So why ain't he here? When's the last time you saw the guy?" Amadeus asks as his cheeks warm a bit after the kiss, though he's one to try and play off a blush. "I gotta be honest. The whole trickin' girls thing never worked for me, but if you tell fifty chicks in a week that you wanna fuck 'em, you're gonna fuck at least five." He apparently likes those odds.
Looking over at her, his gaze is a little more serious now. "Give me a real kiss, like, I ain't askin' for nothin' else, but ya never know when it'll be the last chance I can ask somethin' like that, before we're back in the real world and stuff. Just, one real kiss."
"He's not here because he didn't get caught like I did, Amadeus," Daphne says, for once using his name instead of "Chronic." Her brows furrow at his words about telling chicks he'd like to fuck them, and her own cheeks flush.
"No," she tells him when he asks for a 'real' kiss. And suddenly she's off the couch and across the small apartment in the kitchen, rummaging around for a soda in the refrigerator. The door shuts and the sound of the soda can opening can be heard. "Don't push your luck, buddy," she says, leaning against the refrigerator and glaring at the couch.
"Hey, you don't gotta get all excited, I've asked chicks to do a lot worse than a kiss. All you had to say was 'no'." Amadeus shakes his head, then snickers and crosses his arms. "For a hardened criminal, you're almost fuckin' innocent. It's cute."
Daphne rolls her eyes. "I never said I was a hardened criminal. Just a criminal. And I'm not innocent. I just don't wanna screw up a pretty decent roomateship with confusing you with any sort of affection that isn't going to lead to anything more. There's no point in kissing if it's not going to go beyond that, and no point in seeing what it might be like, if you're not gonna get to have it. Right? So you can either use your imagination — please, don't go overboard on that! — or you can just forget it. Got it?"
"Ain't gonna forget it, we're totally gonna fuck at some point, don't know when, and I already use my imagination." Amadeus stands up and walks over to those grocery bags, starting to dig through them. "Can we make fish pot pie?" he randomly asks, having bought a few fish by the looks of things, and some pie crusts.
"Only if you want to eat by yourself," Daphne quips, moving away again once he moves into the kitchen, a blur of fuchsia and denim blue and the pale cream of hair and skin before she leans against the doorway to watch him put away food. Apparently space is an issue at the moment, and she's keeping as much of her own as possible.
"I'll just eat a Cliff bar if you want it, though," she adds, with a shrug. He got the food, he can make whatever he wants.
"Don't be like that. I'll just make lasagna, cats like lasagna right? I saw that on a documentary or somethin'." Amadeus continues to put things away, then shoves the bags into the bottom cabinets. "Wanna help me? I ain't never really did this before. And what the fuck is a Cliff bar?"
"Only cartoon cats, I think. Garfield," Daphne says, and sighs, moving closer to go get a pot of water to boil the noodles. "I don't cook much," she admits, filling the pot with water from the tap and then moving to the stove.
She shrugs as she turns the dial. "But I guess I have plenty of time to learn." Time is one thing she has on her hands these days.