Participants:
| Scene Title | Mixed Tape, Still No Deal-ia |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Maybe Amadeus would have had better luck if he'd burned a CD… who owns a cassette player anymore? |
| Date | September 12, 2010 |
Gun Hill is named after Gun Hill Road, the street that the five story tenement resides on. A bright red brick exterior separates it from the surrounding buildings, making it difficult to miss even though the complexes on either side of it are similarly coloured with fresh coats of paint in yellow and blue donated to their proprietors by an urban renewal project devoted to eliminating graffiti from the Bronx's residential zones in an attempt to raise property value and reestablish the borough as a desirable place to live.
Inside, the building shows more obvious signs of wear than the rusty fire escape affixed to its front, including old hardwood floors so scuffed that no amount of wax or polish can return them to their original luster, and faded wallpaper in neutral shades of cream with a strange mottled texture. Instead of an elevator, the tenement's upper floors can be reached by taking a stairwell with numbered flights and roof access via a heavy metal door that sticks more often than not.
It's early in the evening when Amadeus returns home from work. He had to stay late at work, sweeping. Who sweeps? Maybe it's a test of his dedication to the job… He finally makes it up the flight of stairs, walking down the hall with a black grocery bag, his black AC/DC shirt on, and a pretty worn look on his face. "Fuck, man." is all he says just as he's beginning to reach Delia's apartment, the girl he's been looking for who's been in the same building as him, and the same floor even.
The woman in question is just leaving another part of the building and taking the steps two at a time to get to the top. Her hair is wrapped into a bun at the nap of her heck, a few stray curls escaping out to frame her face. She's also just leaving work, only hers is much closer to home.
Dressed in a set of gray scrubs and her white gift shoes, she rounds the bannister at the top and sort of freezes. Though she spots Amadeus from the back, she doesn't completely recognize him at first. After all, they've only actually seen each other three times.
Amadeus knocks on Sable's door a few times, grunting when no one answers. "Damnit Sable, you were supposed to be home." so he finds himself walking to an empty wall in the hallway, not realizing anyone's watching him, then just sits back holding the bag, waiting. "Fuck."
When Amadeus speaks, that's when the switches turn on in Delia's head and she cringes visibly. Glancing down at the stairs, she clenches her jaw as she back peddles a couple of steps. The redhead is bviously thinking of retreating back down until the man either leaves or gets wherever he needs to be.
Unfortunately, that's also when the keys slip out of her hands and are sent with a clash against the hardwood. "Oh god," she whispers to herself, turning quickly and stooping to grab them up. Maybe if she's lucky, he won't recognize her. Maybe if she's luckier, he's still angry about the fact she wouldn't get into the rapevan to hang out.
Amadeus' head quickly turns at the sound. To an alleycat, jingling keys could mean thugs ready to try and stick firecrackers up your butt. Sometimes he forgets he's not a cat. "What?" he asks himself, approaching the sound and the sight of the woman, then just stares.
That hair.
"That hair." he both says and thinks, which causes his heart to skip a few beats. "Delia? What are you doin' here? God, you're actually fuckin' alive. I saw the news, and like, I've been hangin' out at the book store, got to know Lydia and Kaylee and stuff, but I ain't seen you around, so I got kinda worried. I wanted to talk to you about the other day, and like, give you somethin'…"
Straightening, Delia turns to face Amadeus and pastes on a fairly tense smile. "Hello Amadeus, what are you doing here?" Her voice is tight and strained, her posture completely stiff as the man approaches and she backs up a step or two. She's gotten used to leaving out the truth, not actually lying but not telling the whole story. Not a benefit for someone who tries to stay honest.
"I'm stayin' with a friend while I save up to get my own place. I got a legit job, instead of that thing I told you about before." Amadeus slips a hand into his pocket, taking a deep breath. He's not good at these things. Emotions, and having to express them. "I lied, the other day. When you rejected me. I wasn't pissed, and when I said I didn't care, that was a fuckin' lie too. I didn't mean to lie, I just didn't wanna seem like a total pussy. Truth is, I was fuckin'… you know… hurt." His eyes avert to her shoes, very bad at this.
He finally looks back up, clearing his throat again. "I know you've got that awesome preppy guy, but I ain't gonna give up. I've got the job and I'm gonna have a place, and I'll fuckin' clean up. I ain't gonna ask you out again yet, but I'm gonna show you how bad I want it. And I made this…" He removes his hand from his pocket, then holds out a cassette, with 'Dealia's Mixtape' written on it.
"How bad you… want… it…" The words are repeated very slowly as Delia tries to digest the verbal diarrhea coming out of Amadeus' mouth. Unfortunately, she focuses on completely the wrong part of his entire speech and just stares at him. "P-please don't show me. Especially not in public… and yeah.. I don't really want to see. That's something for you and your future wife, husband… doooooctor?"
The redhead actually flinches when he takes his hand out of his pocket, but instead of some sort of lewd weapon, he's holding a cassette. Her eyebrows furrow together slightly and that tense smile plasters itself on her face again and she swallows audibly. "A mixed tape… great?"
"Is there a problem, Lia?"
The deep rumbling voice growls out from just behind Amadeus, where a tall man stands a good four inches over the young man. Hands rest on his hips, as he stares that the punk kid messing with his daughter. His expression is mostly, unreadable, but his eyes have a rather dangerous glint to them. Much like a hawk, focused on a little mouse, waiting for it to do the wrong thing.
The look is softened by the fact, he's merely wearing a pair of paint spattered jeans and a solid red flannel shirt, hangs over his frame, over a equally paint splattered white t-shirt.
Benjamin Ryans is not the sort of man that takes well to his daughter being nervous about a guy. It usually means the young man is of a questionable nature. Of course, she doesn't know who's questionable son this is.
"I don't mean sex, I mean, how bad I wanna date you. You're the first chick I ever met who didn't make me wanna have, like, interior motives." But then Ryans shows, and Amadeus turns his head around to get a good look at the man. Usually his height is a pretty good asset, by why is it that every girl's protector in the city seems to tower over him? When he doesn't have his bat? "I'm given 'er a mixtape, 'cause it's what guys who can't play instruments give to girls they like. I like 'er, she doesn't like me, so I've got a job and I'm gettin' my own place and goin' legit and stuff."
As legit as he can manage at least, turning around completely to face the man now. "That's like, the basic rundown. Who're you again? Uh, fuckin' Sir." he tries to say with some respect for the taller and older man.
Delia's jaw. just. drops. when Amadeus swears at her father. Her eyes grow wide and the entire blue iris is surrounded by a disc of white. Her face turns a dark crimson as she's stuck somewhere between utter humiliation and rage at the young man's display of lack of etiquette. "Amadeus Deckard!! How dare you swear at my father?!"
Her arms fold over her chest and she stands there stiff, her breathing growing deep as she seethes. "You better believe I don't like you! Especially when you act like that in public!"
Looking past Amadeus, Ryans focuses on Delia, brows tick up just a little at the younger man's name. "Deckard?" he asks a hint of surprise in his voice, blue eyes gaze falling Amadeus again. Eyes narrow at the kid, jaw tightening some. His daughters would know the signs, but the boy, it's hard to read the man as he leans closer.
"Leave." Ryans growls out. It's a single world, but there is a clear threat to go, before he forces him to go.
"Wait, I didn't mean to swear, I can like, ffffureakin' stop." Amadeus takes a deep breath, straightens his back, then tries to look, well, brave, which he can be, at very bad times. "I don't have interior motives with your daughter, I just wanna date her. I ain't gonna ask her out again until I've straightened up, 'cause I know I can't compete with that awesome guy she's goin' out with. So like, I'm gonna stand here, like a freakin' man, and ask you." He takes another deep breath, and briefly looks back at Delia, and returns the gaze to Ryans. "Can I date your daughter, I mean, if she decides to let me? I don't care if I have to wear a freakin' purity ring and take some solemn vow, I even made 'er a mixtape, you saw."
Delia slaps a palm over her face and draws it own very slowly, stretching the skin into something that looks like 'The Scream'. "Please Amadeus, just stop… and go… before he hurts you." She knows that look on her father's face. She's seen it multiple times on some of the many men her sister brought home during her time living with them. Never once, in her entire life, did the redhead ever expect to have someone on that list of recipients.
The fact that he doesn't have an interior motive makes Delia feel a bit better. The fact that he's willing to change his entire life just for a chance of dating her makes her feel a little ill. It's an expression that Ryans knows very well by now. Especially when the young woman is behind Amadeus shaking her head violently and waving a hand across her throat in a gesture of 'no no no'.
Okay. Benjamin is amused now, but he doesn't let this show, instead he says simply, "She already has someone." Though the edge has edged from his voice. "and I do believe I heard her say she doesn't like you, boy." He looks over at his red haired youngest, a single brow lifting to make sure that he heard her right.
Spotting her flailing gesture, there is a little hint of a smirk, but it's gone as quick as soon she can see it. That predatory look falls on Amadeus again, daddy lion is ready to act, "Say the word, honey, and I will make him leave." Ryans says softly, though the rough edge is still in his words.
"Fine, alright? I tried. That famous author chick, Savannah Burton or whatever, she told me I should try gettin' a job, she said most chicks worth havin' would want a guy who's makin somethin' of 'imself. But if that douche prep boy is so good, then I'm gonna go and keep makin' somethin' of myself 'till someone better sees what a freakin' catch I am!" Amadeus straightens his shirt, then moves to walk around Ryans so he can head to Sable's apartment again.
He closes his fists tightly, still taking breathes. "When I was a cat, it was always the straight-laced girls who took me in, fed me, and protected me from teenagers with firecrackers." He looks back to her one last time, as something finally dawns on him. "Before I go and pick my roommate's lock and leave you alone, I just wanted you to know it. I know why I like you now. 'Cause you're the kinda girl who'd take a cat in from the freakin' cold, even though it might have some sorta disease, or be dirty. If I was still a cat, I'd follow you home. That's all, I guess."
Guilty. On all counts, Delia is guilty. She turned the book store into a cat haven for strays during her time there, even the big mean one in the back was nice to her. "Sorry Amadeus, I really hope you turn into that catch for someone better than me." For now, Delia is happy, even if she feels too guilty for something that she really shouldn't.
Turning on her heel, she looks up at her father and offers him a slight shrug. "I'm going to go get some air, then maybe head back to work." Maybe she'll buy a book while she's out. Without another word to Amadeus, she lifts a hand in parting to her father and runs down the stairs.
Ryans is like one of those creepy statues at in the haunted mansion at Disneyland, the ones with the eyes that seem to follow you. This is Ryans as he watches Amadeus move past him and down the hall, he's just a statue. On that is showing rather nice restraint at the moment.
His daughter's intentions of getting air, gets a firm nod of his head. "Watch yourself… you know what to find me, if you need me." Ryans' head turns to watch the younger man, before he moves on to whatever chore he was working on, before the interruption.
Amadeus heads down the hall, digging into his pocket for the few lockpicking tools he generally keeps on hand, then starts fiddling with Sable's knob. Hopefully she'll return before someone catches him and he ends up in even more trouble.