Participants:
| Scene Title | Titanic |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Like the movie, this isn't about the boat. |
| Date | March 30, 2011 |
Marina: Good Mooring
"-And so I'll read a book
Or maybe two or three
I'll add a few new paintings
To my gallery
I'll play guitar and knit and cook
And basic'ly
Just wonder, when will my life begin?
Then, after lunch, it's puzzles, and darts and baking…
Papier-maché, a bit of ballet, and chess…
Pottery and ventriloquy, candle-making…
Then I'll stretch
Maybe sketch"
Someone is inside the boat, the glow of a television filtering through the curtains that close off the interior from the exterior, the muffled sounds of some woman singing across the HD television mounted on the wall of Hortenses boat. Anchored, tied down, doors locked, everthing secured on deck, she's obeying the curfew as always. Patrol has come and gone with their requisite knock on the hull and her rearing her head so Hortense is settled in and all around the 'Good Mooring' seems well.
Inside, she's settled on the built in couches, bunny slippered feet up on the dining table, just to the side so as not to obscure her view. pink tank top, striped flannel bottoms and a VS terry bathrobe, a avacado mask on her face painting her nails an outrageous shade of blue while she's watching her guilty pleasure.
Disney movies.
Shhh, don't tell anyone guys.
When boots find their way on the deck of the Good Mooring, the steps are utterly silent.
For cool points, only, because the shadowed presence lifting himself up from land to sea doesn't remain so stealthy for long — unseen at first through muffling curtains, because her light is coming from within, and there's nothing to reflect his shadows inside save for what moon is managing to struggle through thick cloud and smog. And then a sharp, vaguely off-key wind chime sound of spontaneously breaking glass misses a beat in act one of Tangled.
It's not an explosion, but it is a shatter, glass shards of every window coming to litter down on deck and the interior of her cabin in a sputtery waterfall of crystal raining confused on either side, beneath her curtains. The fabric is suddenly gripped from the outside and wrenched out of the way, one ring breaking from the railing but otherwise intact as the large frame of a man suddenly levers his way inside, all legs and burly shoulders, monkey energy and noisy command of territory.
The last time Hortense saw Joshua, he was being dragged off unconscious by a bunch of security guards, leaving cracks and blood on the floor. He's wide awake now, and gripping what appears to be a brown bottle of bourbon, with too little contents.
Bouys bump between dock and boat, black water sliding chill past fiberglass to hump soft against briny wood and rusted nails. The patrols have gone. It's a quiet sort of March night - out like a lamb. Below fifty. Most've the homeless in Battery Park are curled up in their makeshift beds, huddled mussily together for warmth.
Save one.
A second presence winds more gracefully aboard, boots crept quiet for all their combined weight contributes to a near imperceptible sink against wave motion's rolling rhythm. Enough to make little neck hairs prickle a moment before settling the way they always do when paranoia's relieved by the more mundane reality of a passing patrol or. Stump.
Except, you know. This time it's real.
Joshua's in through the window. Calvin prefers the cabin door, lock turned under his hand smooth as an apple to grant him a slinking, sideways sway past (and into) the jamb. Ginger mane, colorless eyes smeared bleary by the night's acitivities thus far and teeth shown deadly white over the long sweep of his coat.
"Evening."
Is it still a home invasion when your home is a Boat?
Glass shatters, rains down upon the floor and the brush goes across her neails makes a quick left at alberquerque and she's left with a streak of blue going across her knee's when Joshua's so nicely giving her finally a reason to change the curtains on the boat - Thanks, no really, she was looking for a reason.
It's that no one has ever had the audacity to really break into her boat that has her sitting there, tilting her head and staring at Joshua while Rapunzel bemoans the life dealt to her and being stuck in her tower, bottle of metallic blue nail polish oozing out over her table. Really. They never do. The Yachts a few berths over always have the better stuff than her.
Brown doe eyes wide, she looks away from Joshua towards Calvin when he's just opening the door regardless of it's locked state and letting himself in down the stairs proper.
"whu…." There's two guys in her boat. With booze. There was no party invitation - oh hey, party. She should really plan that soon for her friends… once the weather start to get be- Her brain snaps to, getting around the booze and men to realize that there are men on her boat.
That's when the screaming starts.
Nail polish top hurled, remote controls hurled, shes moving fast thanks to the intimate knowledge regarding her own boat and diving for the doorway that divided the main area's of the boat from the bathrooms and the two bedrooms to the front, attempting to kick the door shut behind her.
This will jsut give her mother fodder. It's so isolated on the boat Tenny, you shouldn't live on the boat Tenny, you should try to find yourself another man Tenny. You should take your money and get an apartment Tenny it's much safer.
Mother knows best, mother must be a pre-cog.
Arms wrap around her waist before she can cross the threshhold. The strong scent of bourbon, sweat, and the deoderant that fails to cover it, and Joshua is wise enough— or practiced enough— not to hold onto her for long. Enough to grab, to backtrack a few steps seeing as the cabin's dimensions are already plenty intimate. "Here I thought you'd be all for a party, party girl," is snapped near her ear, into her hair, before a throw wheels her around to clock shoulder against door frame, and then release her stumbling back where she came and vaguely Calvinwards.
Victoriously still gripping liquor bottle, although some of its contents soaked into her robe, errant droplets cast the floor. "You got somethin' better to do?" She doesn't, because with a glance of hazel eyes, the television's screen cracks and splinters with the same pattern as her windows.
"Shhhhh," says Calvin, who's only too keen to feel his free hand smoothly around the curve of her hip once she's come careening his way. Rum for bourbin, an acrid tang of steel in his skin and warmer on his breath. "Shhh."
The cabin door's already closed behind him, bolt snapped back carelessly into the socket by the time he's down the stairs. A little on the slow side, he grins blearily at her and at Joshua and at the broken glass winking bright at them from the floor. Quietly pleased with himself — cuddle comfortable for all that it's also likely short lived.
"You'll wake the neighbors."
She'd stopped screaming when she'd connected with the wooden walls of the cabin, air going out with an audible whoosh and blinking a few times as she was manhandled then sent off careening towards Calvin who see's fit to get his palms all over her and proving that nothing comes between a girl and her calvin. Only in this instance it means the dread locked not-quite-rasta who's making her heart skip near erratically in her chest as stumbles then dives for the office area near the stairs and him.
Hands try to make for the emergency flare gun strapped to the wall in preparation should it ever be needed. "Get the fuck out of my boat!" She has neighbors, two more - the third has taken off for warmer climes - and whether they hear her or not, who knows. But she's got a plan and that includes sinking a flare gun into Calvins chest.
Or groin, she'll take groin, if she can get to the flare gun. Where is the fucking Curfew patrol when you need them. For that matter…
Where's that annoying water evolved WHEN YOU NEED HIM.
The groin is an unacceptable option.
It's sad that they have to degenerate into violence but then again, Joshua probably started it, with the window cracking, the rough treatment knocking her into wooden edges and ginger rastafarians. And he certainly isn't complaining either, by the sight of the slithered grin, hint of ivory teeth, as glass cracks into smaller pieces beneath his heavy boots as he moves across the short distance, and whole, coloured glass glints in the arcing swing it undertakes.
Bonk.
He could put more muscle behind it. He has a few to spare. The glass doesn't even smash, amazingly, when it smacks her over the skull, but it does sacrifice all that bourbon, making the interior of the boat reek with it in a clatter before his hand empties itself and goes to snag onto her dark hair. "But we just got here."
Should've stuck with ginger.
Calvin laughs after her scrambling escape for the office thing and the flare gun — not terribly masculinely, either, but with an earnest kind of inebriate good humor that shows his teeth flatters him all the same. As much as anyone can do anything to flatter themselves when they're having a hard time keeping their feet on a house boat they just broke into.
She's not going anywhere, is the main thing, but it's cute that she tries. He tosses his emptyish bottle off to the side somewhere when she goes diving off him for the flare gun and that's about all, sickle dreads swept lank out of his face. Still smiling at her expense, with a little isn't that endearing? scrunch at the bridge of his nose about the time Joshua tangles her up and the bottle goes bonk.
"Awh," he says once he's sidled deeper on in past the pair of them, "you broke the television, man!"
Must have, the disney soon to be princess isn't singing about brushing her hair, or well, nothing is going to be singing about brushing hair off of that screen. There might be some animated stars swinging around her head though as bottle bounces off her head, the sharp rap of glass to skull that leaves the brunette emitting a sharp yelp, dropping the flare gun and hands moving nearly of their own automatic accord as if that could soothe the burts.
It's the fingers that curl in her hair, Joshua's fingers, the stink of bourbon that is going to be very hard to get out that makes her go rigid and stiff, ceasing to give up a fight and instead takes to quivering and shaking where she is, half crouched in the alcove, her hands covering Joshua's and watching Calvin as he ponces through her home.
"What do you want?"
"Worse things I could be breaking." This punctuated by a squeeze of the fist in her hair, sending shivers of pain across her scalp, and it might take wildly firing synapses rather than conscious thought to have her remembering a cop's exploded head.
Muscled arm back around her waist after yank the robe down off her shoulders to bundle awkward around her, and cinching her in close, that hand splayed flat on ribs covered in pink cotton. Avacado, meanwhile, smearing everywhere, smelling almost as strong as liquor. "Why?" Joshua asks warm and damp near the nape of her neck, as her head is tipped to the side with a tug of glossy locks. "You offering to make up for your bullshit? 'cause no one's around to hear you scream Evo and do shit about it."
Calvin's coat is cut long enough to swoosh when he swishes, which is nice for him in that he has something to entertain himself with in lue of television or squeaky toy. He looks down at himself as he walks, right hand out for balance over couch and compact furniture until he's had a peek about her bedroom arrangements and turns. Heel, toe aaand shoulders, long fingers turned over in a magician's flourish that groans resonant through the boat beneath their boots and — to a lesser degree — the neighboring docks.
It takes him a moment to catch up, then, blue eyes thick with kohl stiill bleary when he manages to focus enough to make the maths of 'one and one may equal two' happen. They've gotten awfully — close. In the last three seconds or so.
And still he hesitates, a slow breath taken and held and brows knit in the background in time with something turning over in his gut like liquid lead. S'not. Too bad.
Two bedrooms, one with a full queen bed, straight ahead a more wide and triangular one, both rooms colorful. There's even a real looking bathroom, full shower. This is a boat made for living on, not some little day tripper. But not the Yachts that moor a few boats away. The kitchen they are in even seems to be a decent one. This place bigger than some of the more smaller excuses for bachelor pads in New York.
Hortense knows full well what happened the last time she saw Joshua lay his hands on someone, jellifying them in their skin, saw Calvin smash cars with nary a flick of his hand and if her television and windows are any indication, she knows she's in deep shit and no paddle to help her, much less a canoe. So it's little wonder that even with Joshua's roving hands and smell, Hortense remains still. Like a rabbit caught in in between two foxes, nose quivery and ears shaking, adrenaline playing through her system
She follows Calvin with her eyes, breathing coming in shakey little gasps even as she lets one hand move ever so slowly towards the radio and electrical equipment on her desk and imbedded in the dash. Creep for the various buttons that will send out mayday's to whomever man's coast guard channels. "You killed cops. Hurt Smoov's bodyguards"
Her body gets a jolt of movement as Joshua encourages her back against him, feet coming loose from slippers. "Too many fuckin' cops like that around the place. I was thinning the herd." Calvin's pale eyed eyeing goes unheeded, unacknowledged, more focused on Hortense fitted against his body, the push of his own hips and the way he can manipulate her just so with tugs at her hair, the hand pulling her tanktop uncomfortable. "And as for the bodyguards— they tased me. 'Cause of you, princess. You gonna apologise, you fuckin' bitch?"
Emphasis doesn't happen in his flat tone, decidedly monotonous than his usual exuberance — but it does happen in the push away from the radio and for tops of her thighs to connect against half-moon table installed in the room.
Shoddily manufactured sobriety struggles to stiffen Calvin's spine on short notice; he's all 5'11" of himself again without conscious transition from a slouch. He's still, too — a part of the boat as much as the floorboards are for a few more uneasy seconds while he watches. Swallows. Says: "Jershua."
Too quiet to be heard the first time, he has to grit his teeth a bit and blink hard to bite out a steelier, "Josh," a beat later, once the younger man has pushed her back into the table under him.
Jeezus.
"Stop fffucking around and knock her out. Someone might've heard her squawling."
All limbs and avacado, she's starting to tear up from all the bump, conks and shoving that Joshua seems to be doing as he takes liberties with her. She yelps out again when her slender thigh connects with the wood and Calvin does have a valid reason to demand what he's demanding. Joshua took out the windows and curtains which help to buffer the noise in the cabin on a normal day.
Her scalp burns from the grip in her hand and tugging, the bourbon bottle that was thunked upside it and at Calvins admonition of Joshua, she's starting up again, not wanting to be knocked out. Unconscious wasn't good. Unconscious could mean a great many things and in a split second, she's gone from relatively docile 5'10 of woman to trying to smack her head back, catch Joshua in the face with her head, catch his ribs with her elbow and hope that he'll let go of her.
So she can run for the bedrooms again. Make for the hatch that leads to the deck.
Joshua has barely time to let the sullen set of his expression form around the glance flicked Calvin's direction by the time girl becomes whirlwind. Her skull catches him in the face enough to inspire an ow! of complaint, and a loosening of his hold of her until he's mostly holding onto her bathrobe. Thinks fast enough, however, to twist it and hitch her getaway, and roughly kick her long legs out from under her with one of his own, as easy as a bowling ball through pins.
"You do it," is defensive snarl, plenty of blame in there too. You made her all mad, bro.
Joshua's efforts earn a long-suffering sigh and sloped shoulders, alcohol warmth creeping back in after temporary strain. There's a tatty quality to his clothing that he's managed to avoid most previous nights — loose threads at the cuffs of his trousers and scuffs at the knees. Overall Calvin looks like he's been running around town drinking all night because he has, worn out because he is and prepared because he knew he'd likely have to be.
Still. Preparation alone has to contend with his fumbling grip and it takes him a good twenty or thirty seconds to get the cap off a little unmarked brown bottle and then the white cloth and so on until he's finally squatting woozily down into a crouch at Hortense's side to apply said cloth square across her face. Five fingers splayed, white cotton cool across nose and mouth.
"S'this smell like chloroform to you?" he asks a beat later, ginger brows at an uneven tilt.