[REG] At my signal, unleash hell [Jesse + Barnaby] - FIN

[Chibi Sheepcat]

Despite the fact that people browsing movies tended to move very slowly, the allure of hundreds of unwatched films lured him back to the rental store week after week. He'd already been through half the "thriller" section, but today he was feeling a definite pull towards the "action" section. Some men liked action movies for the fights, others for the beautiful women, but for Barnaby, it was the thrill of the chase. Who didn't like fast-paced car scenes?

After making a detour through the fantasy section to avoid the cluster of people blocking one aisle, the redhead finally arrived at his desired location. Luckily, most people seemed to be fighting over holiday specials, which left him open to browse as he pleased. As he dragged his finger along the titles he stopped when he hit G, picking up a movie he'd never seen before. Gladiator? Huh. Looked like some good fighting, but he didn't see any fast cars. Bummer. With a sigh, he put the video back on the shelf. Rats.  

[candy lamb]

It was a Saturday. The video store had a handful of people in it, but only a handful. Video Buster was one of the smaller stores, but it had a pretty good alt section and a pretty terrible kid's section, so you tended to find teenagers in there looking up Korean horror films. The blue-haired girl at the desk sat there reading a magazine and chewing gum -- actually, Barnaby knew her, it was Charys Murphy who was in his year and who only took her iPod out in the case of a nuclear winter.

It was also at this point that a couple of Hillworth boys swaggered in. You could tell the Hillworth boys, generally. There were three of them -- their leader was a tall Hispanic boy who said grandly, "Murphy," in greeting to Charys. All she said in return was, "Are you going to steal anything."

"Don't make me put you on my list, Murphy," the boy warned her, but pleasantly.

"Whatever, just don't do it while I'm watching."

The boys went through the store, going over some of the titles, taking them out and making jokes to each other, stopping for sixty whole seconds on "How To Weep The Weepy-Weep Way." Then they finally stopped next to Barnaby, and the lead boy grabbed the title that he'd just put back and rounded on the red-headed boy.

"Do you realise," he said, "that you, king a*****e, just put back the greatest movie of all time?" His eyes were intense. "Of. All. Time. Piece of s**t. I can't believe you just passed this up. Wow. Probably thought it wasn't good enough for you, huh? Damn. You are so wrong. You probably only watch, what, Barbie Horse Adventures."  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

The sound of the door opening made Barnaby look up, though it was more of a reflex than anything else. Jingling bells always made people look up, as though they expected someone exciting to walk through the door. While some may have argued that a bunch of Hillworth boys were exciting just by default, the redhead couldn't say he recognized them, and thus went back to his movie browsing. Horrible attention span thy name is Barnaby Price.

He'd tuned them out the moment they'd started talking, and thus hadn't expected them to take interest in him or the movie he'd just put down. Apparently, however, he'd insulted their leader by turning down Gladiator. Bummer. "Hey man, don't be hating. No bikes, no love, what can I say?" Barnaby stuffed his hands in his back pockets, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards in a grin. "But I can be convinced, if you think it's so great." It didn't look like your average family film, but his mother wouldn't complain. As long as he was home and safe she would have probably let him watch porn on the television.  

[candy lamb]

"No, no, I don't think it's so great," said the boy a little heatedly. His associates simply looked amused, and were leaning back or looking at other DVD covers -- pulling them up, then holding a spirited DVD whak battle. "I know it's so great -- boys, boys, be classy." That was to the DVD whak battle. "You only watch something if it has a ******** bike in it? Go watch Goonies. ******** you. Seriously. Hey."

The DVD cover was waggled in front of Barnaby's face. "I am talking about a story of epic heroics. Warriors. Stabbings. Murder, death, kill. And that's not good enough for you because it -- " the boy pitched his voice higher -- "has to have a leetle bike in it. What kind of white trash are you, that everything got to be 2 Fast 2 Furious."

His voice had risen. Charys Murphy at the desk had taken out one of her earbuds. "Alvarez, are you being a douche to my customers," she called out.

"I'm schooling him on Gladiator, chick."

"Oh. Bored now," she said, and went back to her iPod. (This was patently disloyal to Barnaby.)  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

Oh boy. Here we go. The redhead debated making a desperate and thinly veiled gesture of 'please help me I think I've encountered a rabid fanboy' at Charys, but dismissed the idea almost instantly. She was a girl, after all, and though that meant many good things it also meant many bad things. Not only was he certain she wouldn't recognize his sign language, he was almost positive she wouldn't come to his rescue. Thus, he was stuck with Hillworth Sr. and cronies.

"I watched the Goonies. Good movie." Barnaby took the DVD cover when it was waggled, tuning the other boy out as he turned the cover over to read the back. He was probably only repeating the summary anyways, which went something along the lines of: There's a guy and his family dies and that sucks and he's going to be the very best to get his revenge. P.S. It's in Ancient Rome. The redhead made a soft "huh" sound, and turned the case back over in his hands, vaguely aware that the Hillworth boy was still taking about something. With any luck, he was still stuck on the bit about stabbings.

"Does it have chariots in it?" Chariots were a decent enough substitute for bikes.  

[candy lamb]

Charys would probably only help Barnaby in the situation that Jesse started pantsing him: he was left to the untender mercies of the Hillworth boy and his fanatical, wide-eyed devotion to Russell Crowe. At least he wasn't menacing him with Master And Commander. Watching hours of homoerotic sailing would probably reduce Barnaby to tears.

"We should get Eurotrip, Jess," one of the other boys was saying.

"Jesus, I'm not putting up with your creepy ******** for that girl from Buffy," said Jesse in distaste, and unfortunately set his laser rays back on the redheaded boy before he could slip away. "Yes, there are chariots, and it's goddamned glorious. So either you can go touch yourself to the Goonies again or you can watch something worthwhile. What's it gonna be, huh?"

"Some guy stone cold kills a tiger," said one of the other boys.

"Shut up," said Jesse.  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

"Alright, sold!"

Barnaby spun the movie case around on his finger and grinned. What was the harm in satisfying one fanboy? Besides, he could always fast forward through the boring parts if things started to slow down. It wasn't like this Hillworth boy would ever know the difference. Unless he intended to follow him home and watch it with him, and in that case he'd have to phone home and tell his mother to expect someone over for dinner. Knowing her, she would be positively thrilled.

Still balancing the movie on his finger and watching it wiggle, he asked, "Am I going to be allowed to get other movies, or am I only allowed to touch the ones you know in the Biblical sense?" He couldn't just go home with one movie. That would be boring. "You seem to know this section pretty well. What else is on your 'movies I'd jump total strangers for' list?" Let nobody say that Barnaby Price never tried anything knew.  

[candy lamb]

Jesse shot him two fingers, pointing them first at his eyes and then at Barnaby's, the universal symbol of I'm watching you. Then he dove into the Action aisle and rummaged around until he came back up with three cases -- Master And Commander (poor Barnaby), Braveheart and 3:10 To Yuma. "You should kiss me on the ******** lips for this," Jesse warned him, "only don't because I'd punch your lights out. There you go. If that doesn't wean you off gay-a** car films, nothing will, capisce?"

"Those films are all basically about dudes kissing," said Charys Murphy, who'd taken a bud out of her ear in interest.

"Shut the <********> up, Murphy," Jesse warned her, but not too vehemently.  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

He had a hard time repressing his grin, but he managed somehow as Jesse went to go find him more movies. Little bit of a crackpot, but nothing too serious. At he was fast at finding movies. Barnaby didn't even want to think of what would have happened if he bailed early and just rode off with Gladiator.

When Jesse returned with his movie choices he took them without complaint, though he did raise an eyebrow at the first title. Master and Commander? Oh well. Life would be boring if he didn't try new things, so why not boldly go where no man had gone before? The redhead was just about to thank his 'hero' – if you could call him that – for the movies when Charys interrupted with a comment about them. Barnaby couldn't help but laugh, giving Jesse a friendly punch to the shoulder as he passed him by.

"I'm being set up to watch gay movies? That's pretty dastardly, even for a Hillworth boy," he teased, but he headed for the counter with the movies anyways.  

[candy lamb]

"Oh, come on -- come on," the boy said, aggrieved, and now he was following Barnaby to the front desk where Charys Murphy was chewing bubblegum and taking out an earbud so that Barnaby could pass her his video card. "These movies aren't goddamn f*****t movies. They're epic films. They are about the human goddamn condition, even a Hillworth boy knows about the human condition. Don't think I'm an idiot. I ain't." (Barnaby had not mentioned Jesse being an idiot.) "So Master And Commander starts out a little slow and there's no tits in it. Don't discount it just for that, jesus."

"There's not even any girls in it," informed the bluenette at the counter. "There's a woman for like two seconds to make you believe that the navy dudes aren't playing bum rush each ********> you, Charys Murphy," Jesse said aggressively.  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

The redhead couldn't help but laugh at Jesse's insistence about the greatness of the movies. Having never seen any of them he couldn't exactly vouch for his bro-of-convenience, but Jesse seemed to be handling himself fairly well against his blue-haired opponent. Charys may have had the upper hand by default, having the most logic on her side, but Jesse was a man and therefore his "no u" arguments got +5 by default.

"I don't think you're an idiot, I was only messing around," Barnaby replied, sounding fairly honest. And he was being truthful, for the record. He didn't think Jesse was an idiot, only slightly (key word being slightly) obsessed with movies about men and… well, men apparently. But who was he to judge, right?

Even so, as he passed his movie card to Charys he leaned in and stage whispered "They aren't really f** movies, are they? 'cause you know…" He gave her a look that could have been interpreted in a few ways, but was probably intended to mean, "lol".
 

[candy lamb]

Charys looked both ways. Then she turned back to Barnaby, mock-furtively, and cupped her hand in front of her mouth in the universal up-and-down signal for giving a b*****b. Jesse gave a noise of complete distaste, throwing his hands up in the air, but then she said: "It's cool, it's cool. I'm just messing with you." She was swiping the videos through. "Getting back at you for using up three parking spaces most of the time for your leather bear bike. What's it's name again? Annabel?"

"Allison," said Jesse, "Allison Lee." His cohorts were checking out the comedy section now, as he hovered over Barnaby getting out the 'f** movies'. "Don't be such a goddamn player hater, Murphy."

"I playa hate, I hate the plate," said the bluenette, and swiped the others through. "Okay, that's seven bucks, due next Tuesday, have fun watching naked men with your mom."  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

Barnaby let out a low whistle. "That bad huh? Wow." Maybe he should screen these movies before he let Minnie Mouse see them. He might end up scarring the poor dog by making her watch things she wasn't ready to see. She was, after all, only barely mature in dog years.

At the mention of the bike the redhead raised his eyebrows. This guy had a bike too? No way! "Oh so you're the one who's been hogging the spots. I've been wondering why I can't park mine close," he said, as he fished around in his pocket for the money. Finding the correct amount, the redhead handed it over with his best dashing smile and a "thanks". It was his only defence against Charys. She might not be too impressed with him if he brought in his movies late. Again.

Collecting his DVDs into a pile, he asked over his shoulder, "What model you driving?"
 

[candy lamb]

Now Barnaby was interesting. Jesse Alvarez turned the full green weight of his gaze on to him, considering, looking him up and down as though he had to reconsider him fully. Him and his sunny, careless smile. The rest of his boys were still off looking for s**t like There's Something About Mary -- but he was looking at Barnaby. After a moment, he said:

"'82 Yamaha Vision. She's a good girl; has a flat spot in the throttle." Deeply suspicious, but opening up. Just like a beautiful chrysalis. Charys Murphy just gave Barnaby a thumbs-up -- she was pretty good about anyone bringing in s**t late, and tended to bypass it if she knew about you -- but Jesse Alvarez had crossed his arms, and was looking at Barnaby now. Still looming. "Hey. Wait. You the guy that owns that red Suzuki? That's a Bandit, ain't it?"

Charys made louder d**k-sucking motions.  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

If he noticed the fact that he was being appraised anew, Barnaby didn't appear to show it. He was too busy balancing his DVDs on one hand so he could return Charys' thumbs up. It was nice to know he had an in with the DVD store's staff.

His attention returned instantly to Jesse, however, when they got on the subject of bikes. The Scarlet Bandit, being his one true love, had got him interested in other motorcycles; if only compare them to his own. "Vision eh? Very nice! Don't see one of those every day." From what he had seen of the bike when it was parked outside it was pretty sleek. It looked nothing like the Spectrum that he had seen only days earlier.

The redhead tried to restrain his enthusiasm when Jesse asked about his bike, but he only managed to dampen his grin just a bit. "The one and only. Bandit 650. Runs well for its age and it delivers pizza."