Life's a Drag, Pun Intended [Open]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Finally having moved all the scrap he allotted for the day from the borders of the explored city to the little abandoned building he's calling The Warehouse, Howard nearly collapses onto the couch he's 'borrowed' from a neighboring, uninhabited house. After laying completely still for a few minutes, soaking in Stacy's downright weird artificial sun - though he guesses it's not much weirder than the FAYZ's - he sits back up and looks over today's haul.

A bedframe. About sixty pounds of various pieces of scrap metal, mostly aluminum this time, from the looks of it. Some PVC piping. A cardboard box full of jewelry, some of it looking expensive. Some weird alien cube that keeps making humming noises when it's not chirping. A dead iPod-ish computer thing. Corked bottles full of smokey, glowing substances. Walkie-Talkies with no batteries. Folding chairs. A box of gel pens. Flashlights. What looks like an alien ukulele. Something that may or may not be a magical wand. T-shirts with four arm-holes. An empty refrigerator that doesn't appear to work, but may be useful with a lock installed. Not that he'd have been able to get it here without the trolley he also kiped. And another plastic box full of various odds and ends. There's another mountain of stuff, slightly better organized, just behind The Warehouse's door.

Howard chews on the end of one of the gel pens and sings to himself as he starts sorting. It's probably nearing time for him to actually let other people come look through the stuff too. He cracks his neck and rubs one shoulder ruefully - skinny teenage bodies aren't made for dragging refrigerators.

"Spacey Stacy, give me your answer, do
You're totally crazy and more full of snot than the flu
Your food is a sloppish nightmare, but it's better than starving, I swear
It's not your fault, but could you use some salt? Because some spice is much overdue..."

(( OOC: Feel free to have your character find stuff in Howard's pile of junk, as long as it makes sense to have found in The City. ))

Comments

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

This reference Zouichi does get, or he thinks he does.

"Thanks, Howard. Do you think you could have picked a creepier song for the occasion?" He looks around. "So, this is what you've been up to in your spare time. Quite a pile."

He hauled this here himself? Or did he ask for help?

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Not my fault 'Stacy' rhymes with 'Daisy'. Well, kind of." He shrugs, still slowly gnawing on the end of the pen. He looks almost suspiciously at Zouichi - the training session has been weighing heavily on his mind. Even more heavily than the stuff Orc should have been around to carry has been weighing on his arms. Ha, ha. It's funny except that it really isn't.

"Yeah. Been working on this every day. My back and shoulders have been murderin the morning. You can take a look through the stuff - it's free, but I get veto power. One of those flashlights is mine."

He finally stops chewing on the pen and wipes it off. "And I guess I've claimed this pen too."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"You'll get no argument from me." Zouichi isn't really interested in the pile of stuff, but he does give it a cursory look. "You know, if you need help doing any heavy lifting, I'm around. No point in injuring yourself, even if you are a medic." That refrigerator, for instance, he could have carried around one-handed. Yeesh, Howard, are you trying to kill yourself?

Howard's voice is more or less normal, but he's got this look on his face that makes it pretty clear he's remembering what happened. Which is fine; Zouichi remembers, too. But it makes things awkward, so he tries some humor.

"I'm sorry for making you cry the other day."

Okay, slightly sarcastic humor.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"When Orc gets here, he'll help out. I'm doing fine on my own now. See, I even made some trolleys and carts." He gestures dramatically over to the makeshift little creations he's made out of cardboard, twine, pipes and jars - they actually work fairly well, for something slapped together out of scrap. "Course, then I found a shopping cart and made them totally obsolete. Thought you'd be proud of me, since I'm not, what was it you said? 'Standing by and letting other people do my dirty work'?"

There's still a bit of soreness there, obviously, even as he shrugs it off. He presses the edge of the pen against the side of his face, twists his mouth a bit. "I'd say I'm sorry for punching you but you kind of asked for it," he jokes.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Ah. Not if, but when. What will you do if Orc never gets here, Howard?

Zouichi recognizes a dig when he hears one, but it doesn't particularly bother him. More proof that, under that congenial outward face, Howard is sometimes seething, circling, trying to find a tender spot in which to thrust a spur. Of course, it might be defense just as much as it was aggression: hurt the other party, hurt him hard and fast until he cannot get back up again and hurt you.

Zouichi rather thinks that dislike of physical violence aside, Howard has just the right mindset for lessons of survival.

"I was only trying to get you to put your heart into it," he says, which is only partly true. Part of him did mean what he said. And, as Howard had accused, a troubling part of him had gotten off of it. "I don't want you to be hurt because you were unprepared."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Deny the gaping emotional void, duh, Zou.

"Yeah, well, mission accomplished. Now I know exactly how to punch someone who's giving me a rundown of my flaws," he says peppily. "So how've you been today, Zou? Reduced any more teenagers to weeping messes?"

Despite the fact that he is still keenly aware of that tension, and still burned over it, that doesn't mean he can't still treat it like a big joke. In fact, it's a lot easier to compartmentalize it like that, something to tease Zouichi about rather than something that still hits home. Howard can always play on Zouichi's defensive reaction to getting called in his love for violence if he wants to try and get under Zouichi's skin.

After a beat, he says, "I forgive you, by the way. Probably."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Yes, I took care of three this morning," Zouichi says, completely deadpan. "In fact, after this, I plan to ruin prom." Space prom!

Go ahead and laugh, Howard. Just remember, Zouichi can crush your head.

Zouichi nods. "Thanks. Probably." That took him a bit by surprise, though it may not show on his face; people aren't really in the habit of bestowing forgiveness on him so directly. "So, have you been practicing?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Good for you. Teenagers are so annoying," he says with a giggle, fully aware of how hypocritical that sounds. It's not as if he can't be self-deprecating. And as much as the FAYZ forced kids out of their childhood, he can't deny how young he still is.

He nods. "Installed a punching bag somewhere in here. Haven't broken my thumb yet, so either I'm not hitting it hard enough or something you said resonated. I still don't have any plans to actually end up in a fight with anyone, though."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

An odd thought for Zouichi: it's good to see Howard smile. Though he doesn't approve of Howard's behavior in the FAYZ, he also understands that Howard is young, and moreover, he's been living under strain for quite some time. He doesn't know how long Howard was there, exactly, but suspects at least part of his height (or lack of it) is due to the lack of resources.

And the lack of food, fuel, and authority, crowded amongst only your fellow teenagers, a good portion of whom probably stabbed each other in the back as soon as they could be reasonably sure to get away with it? Would have only exacerbated the situation.

He nods. "I'm glad. Hopefully, you'll never need to get in a fight, but it certainly can't hurt to prepare for the worst. Where'd you find a punching bag?"

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

By and large, people's places are to be respected if they're not the enemy, so Chase at least does the courtesy of knocking. He's seen some of the dragging stuff around in the city, and knows Howard is in the salvage business. As such, he's brought something of a gift - the body of a burned out vehicle of some sort, too wrecked to be much more use than scrap for Chase, and he has no current projects needing burned scrap metal - but figures Howard might have some use for it.
The hammer is over his other shoulder, leaving him to knock with one foot.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard hears the knocking and, expecting Albert, takes his sweet time getting up off the couch and answering. But he does look pleased to see Chase. "Yo, Thor! Good to see you, man. Ooh, and you brought a housewarming present."

He drop his voice a bit. "You wanted to see the firepower, right?"

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

He drops the vehicle shell off as soon as he's shown a place for it, then turns his attention to the mention of 'firepower'. "Yeah, got no use for that right now, but saw you trying to move heavy shit around and figured you might want it. And hell yeah, if it involves firepower, good booze or good music, you got my attention."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard peeks around the husk of a car, taking note of the frame and that while melted, the insides of the dash should still be usable. Shame about the radio, though, that's completely busted. Some of the axles look salvageable, though - he can use those to make a flat cart to move things around and sell off the rest of the metal. The fiberglass from the one remaining back window could be useful too.

"Can't help you with music, and you do know there's a beer tree, right? And come on in. I chose this building for a reason. Whoever had it before me was a total paranoid freak," he says. Once the door's closed, he goes over to a large drawer in what was once the kitchen, and pulls the floor out of it. It's a hidden passage to the cellar. "Might be a tight fit for you, but I fit bigger things than you down here."

If the radio had worked, he'd have jacked it already...

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

"No worries, got a smaller form I can shift to if its needed." he replies casually, since Plays mentioned there's no big secret of shifting here. Fine with him.

"Beer is a good start, and ale at the tavern. Neither of which is whiskey, let alone SoCo. As for music, looking at getting a band going, but still need to find someone to do the wiring, or jack a stereo from somewhere, find some AC/DC or Megadeth or fucking something. Its too quiet around here."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Oh yeah? They make you in normal-person size?" Howard easily slips down the small staircase into the cellar."You want whiskey, you're gonna love this. It's not ready yet, though."

The cellar is small and cramped with the valuable and contraband-ish stuff, but off to one side he's set up a few stills. Most of the materials were salvaged from the strange, massive still in the building he saw the other day. "Don't have any materials to distill, though, so if you run into any vegetables send it this way. I did this back home with cabbage and artichokes and corn and the like. Find me samples of stuff and I can try and figure out how to match it."

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

For ease of traversing the way down, and demonstration, Chase goes lupus, turning into a near-200 pound rotweiler and padding down into the cellar before shifting back so he can converse again.

"I'll see what I can find. I got a couple magic tricks that help me find shit in the city, but I doubt that'll include many vehicles. And the clearer idea what I'm lookin' for, the better. Still getting used to the environment before I work too hard at it - and letting the people who are already at salvage do their thing. I got plenty of shit to do, after all... but I'm willing to help here and there.

As for the whiskey... hell yeah. Beer and ale is good, but if I'm going to fight a war here, I'm damn well going to need some harder shit too."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard raises an eyebrow. "How offended do you get if people tell you to sit, stay and heel, Rover?" And yes, he is keeping an eye on those teeth. Canine bites hurt. Orc got his guts ripped out by canines.

He nods. "I can make some stuff that's pretty hard. At least, could back home. This is a bit of a different set-up since I couldn't find a chemistry lab to raid, but honestly I don't need much to work with."

He narrows his eyes and studies Chase closely, thinking. "What kind of magic tricks? Do you charge?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

The Chancellor came knocking at the unusual singing.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard looks up, only marginally startled. "Did you start out that color or did your mother feed you too much broccoli when you were a kid?"

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"We start out this color, and our mothers are an intensely problematic subject. I was curious as to what was going on in here." As always, his lips don't move, and the transmitter emits a rich, natural English voice.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard takes a step back at the headspeak, but then just shrugs. "Okay, so no 'your mom' jokes. I'm the resident junkyard packrat, didn't you hear? You can look through the stuff, if you want. It's free."

Supposedly. Howard likes to call in favors at later dates.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"Interesting. Thank you." The Chancellor begins to look things over and then stops when he sees a particular cracked crystal amulet.

His eyes are very intense as he looks to Howard again.

"Where did you get this?" he says, reaching and pulling the amulet out from the other necklaces.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard squints at it, thinking back to wherever he found it. "Jewelry box in an abandoned building, outskirts of the City...south. Wit all the rest of the stuff in that box."

He's not looking at the amulet so much as at the Chancellor's expression. Something about that amulet is very important, in some way. He's curious as to why.

[ternaui.livejournal.com]

"The owner is not likely to be on the ship, then?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard shrugs exaggeratedly. "Could be they're on the ship and I just got there first. Finders keepers and all."