Participants:
| Scene Title | Love and Video Games |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Valerie turned 18, and decided to have a picnic party with Kendall, and provided video games. She tells him she's leaving for a little while, but makes a promise to him. Heh. |
| Date | March 18, 2010 |
Despite living in the same location for the last month or so, there's been only a small amount of dates for the two teenage lovebirds who first met in Gun Hill half a year ago. And the fact that neither of them have much prior experience with dating has a lot to do with it.
But when Kendall comes home from his latest courier mission for the Ferry, he finds a smiling dimpled blonde to greet him, waving him toward one of the rooms often used for storage— or occassionally, for privacy.
The shade of Valerie walks right through the door, leaving him to open it to reveal a room that's been set up for a picnic dinner. The real blonde girl sits on the comforty blanket, with a basket in the middle. Looking up, she comes out of the persumed trance from projecting herself and smiles. "Kaylee helped me set up… for a date." Thanks big sis. "Kind of the affordable birthday present package."
Kendall is slightly flabbergasted by Valerie's appearance, even more so by the picnic basket. "Er, ah, hi." he's not bothered by her walking through a door, since he's seen her walk through plenty of other solid objects, but the mention of a 'date' kinda threw him for a loop. "But mine… oh, duh, yours." he clears his throat, hoping she didn't notice his almost faux pas. "A date? Your sister did?" wait, aren't family members supposed to do their best to discourage, not encourage? Kaylee did mention causing bodily harm to him at one point. "Happy birthday." he concludes lamely.
Well there's no bed set up, so it's not like the older sister encouraged anything rounchy like someone's did at Christmas.
"It's not really my birthday, cause of the time travel part of my life, but we can pretend," Valerie says, leaning over to pull the lid off the fake wicker basket and reveal what's inside. A lot of things in tubs. Some grapes in one tub, and sliced apples in another, dipped in lemon juice to keep them from browning due to exposure. And sandwiches. Made just like they both like them. "It's not much, but— I also got permission for that," she gestures toward the wall, where there's two fully charged PSPs sitting on the floor, along with a stack of games. They haven't had their video game playing in a while. She probably had to get permission to charge them.
Kendall nearly cries tears of joy at the sight of the PSPs. "I love you." he tells her tremulously. "And, hahaha, I've done the time travel rigamole too, although you were dead a lot longer than I was, technically." moving closer, he sits down next to her. "Pity we can't find someone who has electricity as a power and plug them in. I could probably sneak a TV in here. Alas… power issues." sigh. Food is eyed, and he appears appreciative of the spread.
"We'd probably get in trouble for wasting power— but we can play for an hour or so at least!" Valerie says with a tremendous smile, a little red around the cheeks. The lighting in the room is even provided by lanterns instead of overhead lights. Power conservation is a big deal when living off the grid. "And maybe you can take them into work and recharge them so you can play a little every day." It's better than the lack of playing that they've done, at least. Her small hand snakes over and grasps his, rather than the food.
Kendall readily allows her to grab his hand, squeezing hers in response. "Eh, we can get more than an hour out of them. I've played about five hours without needing to plug it in to charge. And yeah, I'm sure one of my bosses, at least, will allow me to charge both of them at work." he nods sagely. "Which games do you have with them?" he eyes them, although he waits for her reply instead of going over and popping open the slot to see.
"They're borrowed, so…" Valerie leans back carefully to slide the game carrier closer to him, where alternate games are located. Most of the games are of the LEGO series. Batman. Indiana Jones. Star Wars. Harry Potter. Then there's a Prince of Persia game, a Lemmings game. Inside the game systems, though, is Little Big Planet. She always was a fan of the little sack person
Kendall raises an eyebrow at Valerie as he notices the titles. "Who'd you borrow them from, a couple of 8 year olds?" he jokes. "If I knew you were preparing this I woulda brought mine." because somehow Kendall got his stuff back from being confiscated on Pollepel and had stowed it away behind an illusion here.
"But the little sack person is so cute," Valerie says with a flush of her cheeks. "You can bring your games for next game-date night. Especially if you charge them at work, so I don't have to pull birthday girl favors." Cause birthday girl seemed to do a lot of it. "But— " she hesitates, pushing the picnic basket closer. "Let's eat, then play." There's a hint of hesitation in her voice, as if she has something else on her mind that she's delaying on.
"Sure." Kendall's definitely amenable to the 'eating' bit, although he glances at her curiously, noticing the hesitation. But she'll probably say what's bugging her, so he dismisses it for now and helps himself to a sandwich. Foooood. Cue feeding frenzy, plus manners.
The feeding frenzy eventually calms down to some gaming, as they lay down on tha cleared off blankets and play so they can glance over and watch each other. It's not the traditional two player games they'd been used to, but it's close enough. Missing a jump with her cute pink princess sack person, Valerie puts down the game and looks over, waiting for him to pause, before she says, "The reason I wanted to do this is cause I'm going to be leaving for a while— I don't know how long." It's the first time her smile has faded to a more serious expression.
Kendall pauses the game at that, setting it down and blinking at her. "Really? Where are you going?" he asks, brow furrowed. "I mean, still be in the area, right? You're not going to… Texas or something." pause. "Any reason why you're leaving? Can I know?"
"I'm going… to try and see my dad," Valerie says softly, looking down toward the game and her cute little sack person standing there waiting before looking back at the boy next to her. "I've tried to project myself to him, but I've never been close enough, and I have an idea where he is— I just have to get within a couple miles to do it."
Kendall blinks at that, and sighs. "Ah." mention of parents tends to depress Kendall. "You don't quite know where he is? At least you know who he is, right?" and that he's still alive. "Eh… hopefully you won't tell him about me. Fathers are stereotypically anti-boyfriend." he tries to joke here.
"I don't plan to tell him a lot, other than that I didn't die four years ago, and that I'm happy," Valerie says, looking guilty as she glances away, perhaps because of the parents topic of doom. No one wants to hurt someone they care about if they can avoid it. "I'm sure he'd like you, though— not that it'd matter if he didn't."
"Well I have no intention of telling my parents I didn't die a while back. They were probably happy that such a stain on their perfect image was erased." Kendall sighs. "I know Melissa sent them a letter, or told them, or something."
"My dad probably already knows I'm okay," Valerie admits quietly, looking over at Kendall after a moment. "I'm not going to see him for him— I'm going to see him for me. Which— your parents…" she trails off, trying to find the right words. "They sucked." That's the best she can think of. "And no matter what they think I'm glad you're in my life. Things would've been harder if I didn't have someone who'd gone through similar things— dying-not-dying. Time displacement paradox. All that. And being cute and close to my age helps too," she adds, leaning enough to bump her shoulder against his.
Kendall laughs. "You're the cute one. And yeah, I know, everyone tells me that they don't deserve me, and all that stuff, but it still hurts, y'know? But whatever, it's been about a year. At least this time around I don't have that flu." he shudders. "That was awful, I'm glad I got the vaccine." he leans lightly against her. "Well good luck with your dad, I hope he's not some kind of asshole or anything." because people can change in four years!
"Some people would probably say he is, but… I think he could be worse," Valerie says, smiling faintly over at the other teenager, showing that she thinks he has it worse. Though her father did have an evil future version who tried to change the world dramatically and had to be put down like a dog.
Yeah, life is complicated.
"We should do this again, on your birthday— though we should see if we can have the picnic in a hotel room— since we'll both be eighteen." Though she's smiling with dimples, there's mischeviousness in her eyes.
Kendall blinks at that. "Wh- y'mean, what?" he blinks a few more times, and clears his throat. Damnit why did he have to be born in JUNE? "But, uh, well, I can't wait." enough vaccilating, who cares if he'll get killed the day after, at least he'll die happy!
"And until then, you'll just have to settle for this," Valerie says, leaning closer to him, pressing her lips against his. It starts out sweet and simple, but the little sack person is going to have to stand there and wait— and wait— and wait— because they're both too busy to play video games.