Participants:
| Scene Title | Starts With Mega, Ends With Tron |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes and Sable chat. Inquiries are made, questions are dodged. They jam. |
| Date | January 26, 2010 |
Magnes' Apartment
When Sable arrives at Magnes' place earlier in the afternoon, she has to walk into the back door of Panucci's Pizza, up the stairs, and into another door. Said door isn't closed all the way, he left it cracked for her, but at some point sort of forgot she was coming over. So he's once again having a bit of a gratuitous training montage, flipping and twirling a long metallic staff around himself, in a way that means he's either a martial arts master, or using some sort of ability. Given that he's, well, obviously kind of a geek, the later might be a safe assumption.
He's in the middle of his rather geeky room, with all sorts of posters, the largest being the life sized Baroness and Starfire in a bikini posters above his bed, his Lois Lane next to it, and the Mary-Jane from Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane on the back of his door. There's shelves of trade paperbacks, plenty of video games stuffed into his modest entertainment center, and Batman & Superman beanbag chairs in front of it. Off to the side, directly in front of the door, is his modestly sized bed, with rather plain dark blue sheets.
He steps back, completely shoeless, twirling the pole before thrusting it forward, causing his red shirt with the black Spider-Man symbol to sway a bit with a brief lack of gravity. He's also walking on his baggy blue jeans a bit. "I don't know why I bother, I always end up smashing someone with a door or something, never get to use my melee skills…" he mutters to himself, shaking his head without noticing prying eyes.
Sable doesn't usually think about other people enough to bother spying on them. The world barely exists until she enters the room. But this is less a hard and fast rule and more like a general operating assumption, and as Sable drags Adelaide, her acoustic guitar, up the back stairs of Panucci's (not, of course, before seriously weighing the pros and cons of trying to steal a pie from the kitchen), she catches Magnes' movement through the crack in the door, and in an instant her solipsism is overcome by her curiosity.
She slides into a crouch and peers at Magnes, a wicked smile forming on her lips as she watches, not mocking but instead entertained. Idle fingers toy with the guitar-bag's zipper as she tilts her head to listen to him briefly soliloquize - classic superhero stuff. There is a temptation to see what he'll do next, but this temptation faces another pro/con assessment, and for the same reason she decided to /not/ steal a pizza, she decides to not keep up the spy-work: she doesn't want to risk pissing Magnes off.
But she's not about to let him go without /some/ embarrassment. She wouldn't have knocked normally, and she doesn't knock now. Sable stands up, and gives the ajar door a light kick, sending it swinging open. "Barbarians at the gates!" she declares, cheerfully, and saunters into Magnes' well decorated nerd cave.
As Magnes has the pole swinging in the air inbetween his fingers, she absolutely startles him and he dives down into a police roll, stopping on one knee in front of her, hand thrusted out. She'd feel a slight invisible force, one he chose to pull back once he saw her face. Of course, there's the matter of the spinning pole, still up in the air, twirling… she really scared him. "Oh, crap, uh, hey."
His cheeks are red, and the door closes behind her, pole slowly dropping to the floor. When she's actually in his room, she can see what looks like a new 88 keyboard on a stand, at the other end of the room. And next to that is a rather long box with red Christmas gift wrapping and white snowflakes. "I got you a present, for the band. And uh, could you lock the door? I don't want people just, well, walking in. You were invited, so that's fine, I just don't want Mister Panucci teasing me about girls in my room again."
The force flutters her hair a little, but just as quickly as he thrust out his hand, the girl had neatly sidestepped, the evasive move done automatically. Much as she would like to play it cool, Sable finds her eyes wide without her consent, and her heart rate momentarily elevated. What the hell?
"Jumpy?" Sable says, and the slight jag to her voice betrays her actual discomfort. Her eyes flick across him, then move to scan the room which she can now fully appreciate. "Man, you read too many comic books or, like, play too many video games. Whichever is supposed to cause violence…" She very obviously doesn't mean it when she says it. It's just idle goading as she slips out a foot and hooks the door with her heel, swinging it shut with a medium-volume slam. She sets her guitar against the wall and starts to ambulate, making a loop around the room. Her eyes cut back to Magnes when she's standing behind him. "Teasing? Shit," she grins, "Well, when you're a rock star and unable to /keep/ girls away from you room without armed security, I guess you'll just have to move somewhere else. Like a penthouse or somethin'." She folds her arms across her chest, "Whass this gift then?" She sounds, more than anything else, a little suspicious.
"I haven't had the most, uh, normal year, so, just a bit jumpy." Magnes assumes she doesn't watch the news, and he's not about to tell her to. He stands, grabbing his pole and sitting it in the corner of a wall first, then he grabs that wrapped box. "I was thinking, well, if we're gonna be starting a band, you should have something to match your talent." Heading back over, he offers the gift, and when she unwraps it she'll find it's the package for that guitar she played when they first met in that music store.
"Normal years are years you won't remember," Sable says, with air of one producing a nugget of folksy wisdom, "That and years burned out of your skull by good China white." She takes the box, and from the get go she already knows what it must be from the weight and dimensions of it, well loved as only the unattainable can be. She hesitates before opening it, thumb working at a strip of tape as she dallies, biting her lip. "Oh… shit…" she says, as if she's about to get bad news. She looks up at Magnes. "Talent? What the hell do you know about my talent? Oookay…" she closes her eyes, then tugs the box open, slipping her hand inside to feel it, to feel the fret board, up and down the strings. She grimaces. "Oh no… Oh Christ no. You didn't. You fuckin' can't have." One eye opens, peering plaintively at Magnes. "Do I have to, like, let you screw me because of this? Is that the idea?" The way she says it, it sounds like she'd almost find such a cynical motive a /relief/.
"Not saying you're not up there on the list of girls I'd love to do that with, but, I'm not a jerk, and I certainly don't think you're a whore." Magnes says this quite seriously, sitting on the bed to watch her with the box. "And I was taught to play piano until I was about ten, and kind of played off and on since then, whenever I got the opportunity. I'm not saying I'm an expert, but I know when someone's talented. And you've got the spirit to do what you wanna do. I'd say this is kind of a karma gift, for sticking with it no matter what, for following your dreams and stuff."
Sable gives Magnes a suspicious glower, though it's /probably/ feigned. Finally, she smiles, turning to the box and tugging the beauty of a instrument out of its packaging, cracking styrofoam and sending little white fragments hither and thither. "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me!" she declares, "Not a whore? You charmer. I see your tactic, now. Nice-guy approach. Very clever. Luckily, I'm immune. My kung fu is stronger." She lifts the guitar into her arms, then presses her face against the strings, cradling it against her. The way it indents her cheek looks pretty ridiculous, but she's obviously not shooting for grace and dignity right now, because she starts to murmur. "Mmm… you sexy thing. Neither of us is gonna get one bit of sleep tonight…" Creepy. This weird display ends as Sable looks up at Magnes and states, abruptly "She needs a name. Gotta name her."
"I think every time I talk to you, my brain grows up a little." Magnes laughs, crossing his legs on the bed. He briefly raises an eyebrow… at least she's having a positive reaction. "Names, I'm not so good there. Most of my names would probably start with Mega and end with Tron."
"Naw, gotta be a girl's name," Sable says, just assuming, however rightly, that Megatron is male. If such sex/gender identifiers can be rightly ascribed to Cybertronians. But that's a question for the philosophers. "Guess I shouldn't rush it. Her name'll come to me eventually." She sets the guitar down with great gentleness, leaning it against the wall, then unzips Adelaide's case. "Sorry, hon…" she murmurs, as she reaches in and unlatches the strap, drawing it out and then moving to fasten it on the nameless, new guitar. She slings it around her shoulders, adjusts the strap, and starts to test the strings. The sounds are low, faint, without an amp, but Sable still seems to enjoy the sensation. "Influences," she says, apropos of what is unclear, "What did you play when you played? What do you play when you play now? Chopin? Beethoven?"
"Mostly Chopin and the piano parts of Mozart songs, Beethoven is good too. I always thought video game background music was fun to do, then my mother would hit my knuckles with a ruler." Magnes shrugs at that, floating across the room suddenly, not even realizing that she's never seen him do it before, he's just kind of used to it. He taps the bookcase next to the TV a few times. "I put the amp in the room behind this case, since my room's a bit small and I didn't wanna trip over it. But yeah, video game background music can vary a lot, sometimes fast metal, sometimes classical orchestra, techno. It all sets the entire tone for both the game and the particular situation. The same emotional situation in a different game has an entirely different feeling because of the music."
"Yeah, I've heard some of the recordings from Video Games Live," Sable says, nodding, entirely without sarcasm or irony. "Some good fuckin' compositions. That'd be a rad influence, and no lie. Plus it'd give us a shot at writing a hit dance tune." At this she grins. "Check out Little Boots, arright? Electropop from the UK. Great beats, good melodies, and /damn/ she's cute. You could get some inspiration. You can read music, then? Can you write it?"
"I can read it, not sure if I can write it. Can't be that hard if I can read it, right?" Magnes holds his forehead after that cluster of words, then shakes it, landing to walk over to his keyboard. "I'll check Little Boots out. You like girls, or something? not that there's anything wrong with that."
Sable frowns at this last question, not with upset but with searching consideration. After a moment's maybe slightly uncomfortable staring at Magnes, she asks. "Ever see the statue of David? Y'know, by whassisname, the guy… um… the orange turtle? Michelangelo!" There it is. "You ever seen that? A picture or maybe, like, the real thing?"
"Never seen the real thing, but I've seen pictures." Magnes leans a bit, appearing confused, but intrigued. "Um, why?"
"Beautiful, ain't it?" Sable says.
"I get your point." Magnes chuckles, getting comfortable on his seat, then starts turning the pages of his sheet notes on top of the keyboard. "You're seriously, well, kind of wise. I feel like I'm talking to a sage when I talk to you. It's no wonder you write music. And, hey, I was wondering, are you wearing contacts?"
Sable gives a crooked grin. "If I'm the sage of our age, you're probably better off on the corner with a sandwich board shouting 'bout how the end is extremely motherfucking nigh," she says, "Anyhow, let's crack out the amp. You got your own keyboard, right? We should jam, see if we can create a, um… wavelength or whatever. Harmonic wavelength. Thing." Guess when you /try/ to sound sage, you end up sounding spazzy. "Nope. No contacts. I'm a jaundiced vampire who wears full body paint to hide the sparkles."
"That's kinda hot." Magnes stands and goes to push the case to the side, then opens the hidden door and reaches in to pull the amp out. It's clearly a spacious room, and she can briefly see a ton of clothes before he shuts the door and puts the case back. Maybe that's where his dirty secrets are. "Alright, just find a good place to sit, and I'll plug it in."
"Full body paint? Yeah it would be, but with no body heat to speak of it's not that big a deal," Sable says, willfully and rather goofily misinterpreting 'hot'. They're not all winners. Sable shakes her head. "Gotta stand. Gotta get used to the weight, see if the strap needs more adjusting, y'know? Not gonna sit on stage. That's not the act I want." She lifts an arm and sweeps a pointing finger across an unseen horizon. "I wanna be sprinting across the edge of a huge stage, half blinded by the lights, screaming like a maniac while I kick out riffs, Angus Young style." Her arm drops. "Only way I'm gonna be sitting is if I end up in a wheel chair."
"Mister Panucci is gonna kill me." Magnes suddenly realizes, staring at the floor, which is right above the shop below. He plugs her amp in, then goes to sit at his keyboard, shaking his head again. "After today, we'll go and practice at the Rock Cellar. I know the owner."
"Yeah, that's where I first saw you!" Sable says, "Bouncing 'round the room. Man, that'd be badass to do while doing a Phish cover. Too bad that song's their most, like… I dunno. 'The Distance'-y. Overplayed and, like, not true to the Phish, like, essence. But whatever. It'd be fun." She starts to tune the guitar, then, closing her eyes, strums a chord. Her smile is blissful, ecstatic. She lets out a sigh of satisfaction, which she seems occasionally capable of getting, unlike poor Mr. Jagger. "Let's do this."