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 Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:28 am
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon...."
Melchy growled to himself and bit his lip, frowning at the machine with totally focused intensity, tail lashing as he guided the little claw down to the plastic ball and pressed the 'close' button. He frowned as it scrabbled at the little bubble, halfway sliding off the smooth plastic before catching in the center joint. He held his breath, staring at it as it moved closer and closer to the drop point, swinging perilously back and forth more and more with every inch it moved. There was twenty bucks on the line for him, here, and he had spent the better part of an hour investigating the machine and what techniques worked and didn't. This was his third attempt, and he was almost there, almost...almost....
The bubble fell off.
"Oh, shi--FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" Melchy snarled, throwing up his hands in disgust and spitting like an angry cat. About a dozen harassed-looking mothers with noisy toddlers looked up in alarm and frowned at him, and the pretty girl leaning boredly on the prize counter glared at him.
"Kid, language!" she snapped, and Melchizedek winced and then wilted. Whatever. He was gonna get that piece of crap if it was the last thing he did. Growling furiously, he pulled two more quarters out of his pocket and slotted them into the machine. He was going to win this if it killed him. He was a pirate. Pirates got what they wanted. He never lost.
Not even at the arcade.
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Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:12 pm
Leviathan was not really sure why he was at the arcade. It wasn't like he was a gamer, or anything. He didn't have any younger siblings to blame, either. It seemed like a good idea at the time, it really did. But once he got there, the lobster boy suddenly felt very uncomfortable. All these games needed lots of hand skills. The child looked down at his gloved hands and sighed. He was about to leave when he heard a familiar voice.
"Melchy?"
He hadn't seen him since his was a toddler! Momentarily forgetting about the stupidity of the place he was inhabitating, Leviathan darted over the cat's side and glanced over at the game he was playing. "How goes, dude?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:21 pm
Okay, third time was supposed to be a charm, but fourth time had to be the clincher, right? Melchy was nudging the little claw forward, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, tail flicking as he (kindasorta) stalked his prey in his mind....just a little more, almost there, and....
Someone said his name, and he jerked, twitching the claw too far to the left and pushing the button at the same time. "Aw, ********! If I have to tell you again, you're gone. Three strikes rule here!"
"Okay, okay, sorry. Gawd!" Melchizedek threw up his hands and turned to look at the person who had said his name. At that point, of course, Leviathan was right next to him and he jerked backwards, tail puffing in surprise even as Melchizedek strove to cover any alarm at all with a smile and a nonchalant jerk of his head. "Hey man, things're okay, 'sup with you?"
God, how long had it been since he saw Leviathan, jeez? Ages.
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:06 am
Leviathan chuckled a little as Melchizedek jumped, his tail puffing out a little. He couldn't cover that up, no sir. He just nodded to his pirate friend and cracked a toothy grin, deflated mood evaporated into the crazy atmosphere. Sure, he didn't really want to be here, but when was the last time he hung out with a guy? Melchy was the first guy that came to mind, as it were. That's so sad. (But really, once he grew, Leviathan probably wouldn't mind so many female friends at all.)
"I'm just chillin'." Melchy probably didn't need to know about how he got grounded for a months, or how the only reason the was over, exactly, was because Sable up and disappeared. He also didn't need to know how his new housemate maced him in the face. Yeah. "You know. Surfing and stuff." Leviathan shrugged. No one really expected him to do much else, it was good cover.
"But you don't really look like you're doing all great at this game. You know they totally rig these things so you use all your money on 'em and don't get any of the cheap little toys, right?" A pause. "What the hell do you want with one of these things, anyways?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:38 pm
"This is one'a those lame-a** ones that they actually fill with crap you want," Melchy said, keeping his voice low enough that the girl at the counter would probably not hear him, and anyways, if 'a**' or 'crap' were enough to get him thrown out, then he didn't want to be there. "That bubble has twenty bucks in it. I've only spent like...a dollar, so I figure a return'a about eighteen/nineteen ain' so bad, eh?" he answered, not really listening to Leviathan's response. Conversational etiquette, the boy knew and could do. Actually paying attention and using his brain.......he was less good at that.
"God, I ain' seen you in like......f'r'ever an'a day," he remarked. "Cap'n hauled my sorry tail out to some godforsaken rock an' taught me to sail. Three damn months, I'm actually pretty good at it, but seriously. My entire summer down the bleedin' drain. You have fun with yours, 'er same kinda sitch with the folks?" Melchy couldn't even remember if Leviathan had folks. Presumably, he had some sort of parental figure, but it could be like him and Katrina. Melchizedek wouldn't have called her 'mom' if he had been paid.
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Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 11:06 am
Leviathan snorted and shook his head. He could tell Melchizedek was not going to take whatever comment he made about his crackpot plan seriously, so why waste his breath. (Honestly. He was pirate. He could do so much better than twenty measly dollars if he actually put some effort into it. Or, he could do as Rook would, and just cheat the machine. He was a pirate.) "Well, good luck with that." Better to leave that conversation where it lay.
Oh, his summer? "My summer wasn't all that interesting." He shrugged. "My dad worked and I went to the beach every day with my older brother. I surfed. It was boring. But it was really good." Just because something was same-old same-old didn't mean it wasn't fun anymore! Surfing was really an excellent example of that. "This winter has really sucked, though, man. Total drag." Leviathan hesitated.
"...I reckon this is the first time I hung out with another guy since this summer." Another pause. "Damn."
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Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:34 pm
"Okay, what?" Melchy stopped what he was doing, turned to Leviathan, and put his hands on his hips. "For real, man?" He shook his head a little bit. There was no way Leviathan hadn't hung out with kids of the male persuasion in that long. (It hadn't yet occurred to Melchy that, other than Carlisle, whom he had rather mistaken for a girl to begin with, he hadn't seen or hung out with any boys his own age in just as long, if not longer.) "Well, that's bullshit." He paused, looked at the girl behind the counter, and then tossed his head.
"C'mon, let's go do something, then," he said decisively, turning and heading toward the door before he could get thrown out. "Iunno what, but seriously." He shook his head and waited for Leviathan. "Can go find something to do, anyways. You gotta be kiddin' me, that you ain' seen any guys in that long."
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Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:55 am
Leviathan rolled his eyes, following Mechly reluctantly. While he never really wanted to be in the arcade in the first place, he wasn't exactly in a...well, he hadn't been feeling tip-top recently. He was never in the mood to do anything. Well, until a thought struck him. Trotting after the pirate, Leviathan puzzled over the idea for a moment before give it voice. "Let's go to a bar. Or the mall and pocket something. Or, you know, I've always wanted to try gambling, you think they have a race track around here?" he rattled, brushing some hair out of his face as he turned to face Melchy.
What? He was with a pirate, of all things! Of course he was going to take advantage of the situation and suggest something entirely illegal! Leviathan was raised with a morbid curiosity, and honestly, everything was worth at least one trial run.
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Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:35 am
"Cap'n says they don' take kids," Melchy answered with a shake of his head. "I mean, we c'n allus try, but seriously, I'm like...four feet tall and ye, frankly, don' look any older than me, even if yer taller." He shrugged slightly and then tossed his head. "I mean, 's'worth a try, but..." he frowned at Leviathan. "Why th'criminality alluva sudden, mate?" It wasn't necessarily that he minded, though most of his own criminal impulses were tempered by the fact that Katrina would skin him alive if she ever caught him doing anything piratey at all without her permission, but a random suggestion of something illegal seemed...a bit odd to him. And while Melchy had no objections to pocketing money if it wasn't his, or items if he really wanted them and nobody was around, it wasn't behaviour he tended to see in other kids.
He slowed up and frowned, trying to figure out what direction Hawkiss had taken him in the last time they had gone to the tracks. It'd probably be easier to just go shoplift if Leviathan was really serious about comitting a crime.
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:29 am
Leviathan frowned back and shrugged. The boy hand been in a terrible mood since Sable had left. And he was with a pirate and he often wondered what happened when you did bad things, and, and, and. "Sable's not around anymore and Juno always does illegal things, so it's not like he'll care," Leviathan pointed out, scowling. Juno did do all sorts of shady things, so Leviathan wanted to, too.
"But if you don't wanna." Leviathan shrugged. "There's probably something less illegal to do around here." A sigh. He was always kind of curious, and even Melchy didn't want to do it with him, he'd do it on his own. Juno got some sort of thrill out of. And while he knew Juno wasn't the greatest roll model ever, that didn't mean he wasn't curious.
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Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:07 pm
"Hey, I reck'n we c'n find something less hard to get away with if we put our heads to it. I mean, we could go lift somethin', if you really wan'ed. Just gotta be somethin' easy t'hide. Cap'n'd prolly tie a brick to my feet an' chuck me in the ocean if she caught me with stolen goods. She's tryin'a lay low 'er somethin'." He shrugged and looked thoughtfully at Leviathan. So his...dad? Something? Anyway, whoever this 'Juno' was, he was a criminal? That was.......interesting.
"Um," he began thoughtfully. "What sorta illegal stuff's this 'Juno' bloke got goin' on?" he asked, wondering if Leviathan would give him some sort of a clue as to their next course of action. Admittedly, Melchy tended to avoid illegal activity, but there was a certain allure to it (arson, for instance), and he was just as curious as Leviathan as to those sorts of things.
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