The Condensed Version

Participants:

deckard_icon.gif simon_icon.gif

Scene Title The Condensed Version
Synopsis Deckard and Simon catch up with each other over breakfast. Concisely.
Date April 8, 2009

The Lighthouse


Simon has been here at the Lighthouse for a few weeks already, and he's slowly considering to be his home, albeit a temporary one. Even with monsters on the prowl, long bathroom lines in the morning, and Deckard, it's not a half bad place to hang your hat at the end of the day. Plus, the work Simon is involved with here has helped the kid on his long road to self-realization and responsibility.

Right about now, though, he's doing his best not to be responsible, and has instead pulled one of the dusty tomes off from the bookshelf. The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac. The perfect author for a kid like Simon. A stiff and yellowed page is turned as the boy, sitting in a red beanbag chair, finishes off one of the book's chapters.

It's quiet downstairs, for whatever reason. Brian's off dragging the younger kids around the zoo or a carnival or a junk yard full of old tires and rusty nails. Being himself, and also being wanted by multiple law enforcement agencies, Deckard opted out.

Potentially for lack of anything else to wear owing to laundry build up, he's in a suit by the time he makes his way up out of the basement. There's nothing extraordinary or expensive about it, really, but it fits and it looks halfway decent and he's even bothered with wearing the black shoes that he should be wearing with it as opposed to a random pair of sneakers. Upon taking note of Simon in the living room, he…politely declines to acknowledge his presence. Instead, he heads into the connected kitchen to grope around in the refrigerator after bottled water.

Ever since he was slapped around by the crazed zombie of Staten Island, Simon has been doing his best to avoid Deckard. More than usual, even. Right now his feelings towards the old man are muddled and confusing to the kid, because he saw how Deckard acted during the attack and that brought up something that felt like - could it be admiration? No, that's crazy.

Still, when he watches the man in the suit rise from his underground lair he doesn't immediately want to spit on him or anything. That's something of an improvement.

Who were all these strange ghosts rooted to the silly little adventure of earth with me? And who was I? Simon reads those words and realizes he doesn't feel like philosophizing, so he closes the book and pushes himself off the chair. The noise of little Styrofoam balls rubbing up against each other rings through the silent lower floor. "Morning," Simon mutters, loud enough for Deckard to hear.

Kh-thunk. The refrigerator door is nudged shut and Deckard straightens, bottled water in hand. A squint determines that no grimy little hands have gotten around to breaking the seal on the specimen he's selected, so he sets to unscrewing the cap in the dull hope that the contents will ease off the dryness in his throat and wash down the advil that feels like it's stuck in there.

Simon and his book are glanced at while he's still reading, but even with younger, clearer vision restored to him by Abigail's constant meddling, the title is too far away to make out. He's not quite curious enough to flat out ask, so.

He lifts up the uncapped bottle, only to hesitate at the sifting rustle of the abandoned bean bag and the, 'Morning,' that follows. Hhhh. What? One brow twitches down and he turns his scruffy head as if to see if there's a friendly midget that's managed to sneak up behind him. Or, you know, another kid. There isn't. He looks mildly suspicious accordingly when his looks back to Simon, right hand reaching vaguely after a familiar looking flyer for GUIDING LIGHT BAPTIST blah blah blah. "Morning."

Blink-blinkety-blink goes Simon's eyes as he stands there, trying not to drown in the awkward air that has rushed to fill the space around the two men. Moving sideways, but keeping his eyes on Deckard, Simon makes his way to the bookshelf. As if submitting to the fact that the two are both being civil, the kid nods his head and turns to find a place to set his book. It fits neatly in next to a worn Alice in Wonderland popup book and some larger religious text. Funny little collection there is here.

At this point, Simon's stomach starts to rumble, so he figures working his way to the kitchen will be his next step. So he starts walking over, eyeing the old man as he does. "Move, please," he says when he gets near enough to have to pass Deckard.

The automatic response is to just stand there like a git holding his water, and that is pretty much exactly what he does. Simon's not a tall guy, which means Deckard has some six inches advantage to make the awkward staring thing even more awkward on his end with the fact that he has to tip the angle of his jaw down when he gets close. He smells like a guy who has recently taken a shower, and mouthwash. And toothpaste. And maybe, distantly, a hint of something boozier. Probably whiskey.

Only once he's taken a sip of water does he step slowly out of the way, like he isn't 100% sure Simon's allowed in the kitchen on his own with all the big boy utensils and bags of uncooked noodles.

Simon waits patiently for Deckard to move out of the way thanks to something deep inside of him that keeps him from shoving. Not here. Not where all the little chillins live. Inside the kitchen, he busies himself with setting up the toaster and getting some bread out of a cupboard. "Ok, so this is weird, right?" he says as he liberates two pieces of bread from inside their plastic wrapping and stuffs them into the toaster.

"You and me. I mean how the hell did this end up happening?" The toaster buttons get pushed and turned and the heat starts to build up inside the machine. If there's one thing Simon would have never ever expected to ever do, EVER, it would be to sort of have breakfast with Deckard. Like they're sort of doing now.

"Long story," muttered without much inflection, Deckard rankles his nose against the scent of bread starting to cook itself in the toaster and glances back to the fridge. It's a little odd for him to be awake this early at all, but with drinking less and mugging people less and various other equally unhealthy things less he's been sleeping and eating more. He's less gaunt as a result. Better-rested.

Also, he bought eggs in direct defiance to Brian's inexplicable hatred of them, so. Back to the refrigerator he goes, water dropped down on the counter so he can have one hand free to hold the door open while he tosses a stick of butter after it and knuckles out a pair of eggs.

"Very weird."

"Yeah, I'd say," Simon agrees to the intensity of the weirdness between them. He leans against the counter near the toaster and waits patiently for it to finish cooking. After a moment, the toasted bread pops out of its enclosure and Simon starts to pull out a plate to put it on. He's hungrier than he thought and ponders making some bacon or something, but that would mean more time spent with the creepy old man hanging around.

"Can you pass - never mind," Simon mumbles before sneaking his way over to the fridge, where he'll try to pull out some jelly or jam or whatever is kept in there that will make his toast taste better. "Um, so yeah, long story," the kid tells Deckard. "Why don't you, like, tell it to me or something." He rolls his eyes at himself for even saying those words and then adds, as an afterthought, "The condensed version, please."

Stove top turned on, Deckard uses the same hand to retrieve a frying pan from a nearby cabinet, followed shortly by a fork. A lump of butter is forked carelessly off the stick and into the heating pan, left to wind around the hot metal as it will while he puts the rest back in the fridge. Simon is narrowly avoided all the while, with no move made to assist with whatever it was he wanted passed over. He has two hands of his own.

"The bad guys threatened to do Rated R things to me if I didn't rat you and your friends out. I declined anyway, with the help of one of said friends. Hid in a safe house for a while," crack goes the first egg against the pan side, yolk and white released delicately into the waiting pain. The shell is tossed over into the sink, right across Simon's face if he happens to be in the way. "I found out the bad guys were trying to end the world and…I live here, so." Crack. The second egg goes down after the first and its shell is also tossed into the sink.

Simon chooses a jar of grape jelly out of the fridge and shuts the door. He does his best to avoid close contact with Deckard like the plague. In such close quarters, it requires some creative footwork. SWOOSH - some egg shell goes flying in front of him and he glares daggers at the man who tossed them. A knife is then pulled from a cabinet and held for a moment in a clenched fist. Not like he's going to stab anyone or anything.

As the bare bones account of Deckard's life prior to the Lighthouse are explained to him, Simon goes about jellying up his toast, and when the story is done Simon looks at Deckard with suspicion. "Are you saying you actually did something to save the world? Whatever."

"Don't worry. Part of the master plan was for me to get kidnapped on purpose." Only slightly passive in his aggressive irritation over Simon's disbelief, Deckard shoots him a dirty look sideways while he teases his fork under the edges of frying egg whites. "I spent the first part in the brig and the second part running around trying not to get shot while the ship sank."

A lean over after salt and pepper ends in another resentful look (briefer this time, at least) and he dusts both over his progress so far. "Where were you? Updating your myspace?"

A bite of toast is taken and the plate is held underneath Simon's mouth so it can catch the crumbs. The jelly is something he hasn't had in a while, but it's so good he'll have to remind himself to eat some more often. Another bite is taken as the kid imagines Deckard running around, hiding from a hail of gunfire. It makes him smile, though only briefly.

The Myspace comment makes Simon roll his eyeballs around in his head. "I don't even have one of those things, man. And for me, I was out taking care of things. After I almost got blown up at school one day, well, I took off," he says with a bit of regret in his voice.

The smile earns a hazy scowl in return, gruff irritation shadowing from scruffy head to scuffed shoes. With more alcohol in him, he'd probably think it was funny too. As things are he's in his usual piss poor mood and the memory makes him flinch with ill-suppressed discomposure. He was trying to do other things. He shot a bad guy. But none of it really seems worth elaboration. Least of all to jerkface mcgee here.

Deckard flips one egg over, then the other. "The way things are going lately, you made a poor choice of burroughs to live in if the idea of getting blown up bothers you."

Some more of that tasty toast is eaten up and soon Simon has finished a whole piece. It makes his stomach shut up, but he's still pretty hungry. He considers what Deckard says and should probably agree with him. Still, that's just not something he's ready to do.

"Well, it used to bother me a lot more. Now, I figure if it's going to happen, then it probably will no matter where I am," Simon explains with a lazy shrug of his shoulders. "Besides I kind of like it here. Sometimes."

While the eggs are sizzling away to their doom, Deckard follows Simon's original example and corners a couple of limp pieces of bread next. Out of the wrapper, into the toaster. The lever is depressed with a little too much force, a paper plate is rescued from yet another cabinet, and then it's back to the eggs again.

"You could move upstate. Live in a suburb somewhere. It'll probably be at least two or three years before anyone has enough resources to try ending the world again." One after the other, the eggs are forked out of the pan and onto the plate. He turns the stove off.

"Now way, Upstate blows. Besides, then I wouldn't get to see your pretty face every morning," Simon tells Deckard, though after he says it the idea does seem kind of nice. Not only would he be Deckard-free, but he would also probably be safe from all the bad bad things that go on here. He would also be bored out of his mind, so it's completely out of the question.

The final piece of toast is worked on quickly, with all the ravenous hunger of any eighteen year old boy. It's chewed on, mashed in his mouth, and finished off in an efficient and practiced manner. "Anyways, I won't bother you anymore. I want to finish that book. Over there." Simon nods in the direction of the living room as his plate to the sink - no paper for him - and turns the hot water handle.

What was that about hot grease and pouring it down the sink? Don't do it? Deckard can only dimly recall the exact terms of that conversation, as he didn't actually intend to cook for himself when he initially got here. So. He pours, careful to do it slowly enough that he doesn't turn himself into two face in the process. The mostly empty pan is then clanged down into the sink to allow Simon access while he goes back to his own breakfast.

He's studiously silent in the wake of the pretty face remark, mostly because it's early and he can't think of anything to say back that doesn't sound incredibly gay. A grunt is the most intelligent response he can manage while he drops freshly finished toast over his eggs and turns back for the table to eat by himself.

When he can, Simon cleans up his plate. If he knew the thing about grease down the drain he would have called Deckard out on it, but he doesn't so the chance isn't there. Oh well. The plate cleans easily and Simon leaves it out to air dry. He won't be far, so he'll just put it away later. Deckard and his breakfast are eyed for a moment, but not for a long.

"Ok. See you around, I guess," Simon says with a careless wave of his hand. He's turned around and off to read his book before all the children come out from wherever they are hiding.

"Sure." Just, sure. Deckard doesn't even look up from the drop of his plate on the table once he's sat himself down after it. Granted, even in his disinterested neutrality he's a hell of a lot more tolerable than he's been in the past. Awkward, grouchy conversation is better than gun pointing, right?


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