YPTS -- Simon and Vivien

(OOC -- This is a conversation between Simon and Vivien. It begins following the link below, and will end and return to the main thread with another link as the bottom of the last reply.

Vivien's Violin

Enjoy reading, but if I were you, I would wait to read until it's posted in it's entirety at:

"You Pay To Stay"


Unbelievable. The junk that people pay good money to store away. Simon just shook his head. "So ... what do we do with all of this?"

Dan neared him, scanned the storage unit.

Simon saw no surprise in Dan's face. "So ... this is typical?"

"Oh, yeah. You'd be surprised." He smiled, a reminiscing smile that Simon had been seeing more and more often during his two weeks of pillaging storage lockers with Dan. "There was this guy who collected comic books ... not all collectibles ... most were just, everyday, normal ... Anyway, he had this unit, a twenty by twenty filled ..."

Dan went on about the books and the guy and an auction he finally held, right here at SecureStore. "Sixty-five thousand comic books. He got just over three and half grand, and his storage bill over the time he'd had the locker was just short of six grand."

Dan shrugged, chuckled, looked back into Simon's new area of labor. "Okay, well ... the tires go on the roof. So will most of the parts. They'll make good debris for dropping ... you know, should the Vikings ever come knocking at the gates."

They both laughed. They'd been trading jabs about how Dan jokingly referred to SecureStore as his little Keep sometimes. Dan had actually confided that he had a design for a trebuchet and a "fireball launcher" -- Simon couldn't recall the name of that one off the top of his head -- and that if he ever got around, he was sure he could build one out of the "resources" housed within the building's 12 floors.

"The rest," Dan said, taking a tired breath, "Well, I'll sort through it while you load the Bert'."

Simon rolled a pair of dirty tires onto their worn tread and started wheeling them toward the larger of the elevators, Big Bertha On his return to Dan, he thought about the first rule of "gleaning": Dan first.

Dan, the "Master of the Keep" had stressed one simple rule: he was always the first one into a unit. Simon understood why: a few days earlier, one of the less trustworthy gleaners had been caught stuffing his pockets full of cheap cigars he'd found in a basket with Congrat's, it's a boy notes. (Simon recalled thinking at the time how old those cigars had to have been; he didn't recall the last time someone had handed out cigars to celebrate the birth of a child.)

Needless to say, "cigar guy" was no longer gleaning.

There was another irony as well. Behind the box with the smokes, Simon -- the man's replacement -- had found a gun safe. Dan had forced it open and found three shotguns, a scoped rifle, several handguns, and a case of gold ingots -- the type small scale investors bought for "security" -- that was so heavy it took both Dan and Simon to lift it out.

Simon didn't know what Dan had done with the treasure, nor did he care. His interest -- and the reason he was sweating his behind off up here going through other people's garbage was what they'd found days earlier: a smell leather and wood case that Dan had put a price on -- six units or 48 hours, which ever comes first -- a price that Simon would be able to pay by the end of work today.

Simon and Vivien

Simon knocks on the door and wait. He knows she's here; he just saw her enter a moment earlier.

So, he knocks again, slings the case behind his back, and -- realizing he's sweating like a pig -- just waits...

Vivien

(OOC- I have a hard time writing in first person, so I will continue in third)

Vivien awoke from her dream to a knock on her door. Realizing she was stark naked, she let out a small yelp and scrambled to find coverage, ultimately deciding on a green towel lying in a mess on the floor. Wrapping it around herself, she answered the door to find a man she had seen a few times around SecureStore yet did not know personally. Gripping the towel fiercely, she blushed and said-

"Yes? What is it?"

Simon was very handsome, and Vivien had a hard time meeting his eyes- she had a hard time meeting any man's eyes. When moving to put a piece of her strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear, she forgot and half of the towel came crashing down, almost leaving her exposed were it not for her quick reflexes. Her face turned crimson as she waited for his response.

Simon diverted his eyes quickly -- but not too quickly.

"Sorry!"

Okay ... now what? Oh, yeah. "I, um ... are you busy?"

Vivien recovered the towel with lightning reflexes, allowing Simon to look to her again without embarrassing her ... further, at least.

She's so pretty. She's so young. He knew she was at least 18, even though she looked two years younger than that.

Back at the Facility, the Staff there may have been doing some hokey stuff -- Simon didn't know too many of the details -- but one of the Guards he had befriended had told him once that everyone was "legal". Simon assumed the man had meant "of legal age".

He continued to clutch the case behind him, hoping to keep the secret secret until he had a chance to explain it.

Vivien

"Are you busy?" Simon asked.

Vivien recovered from her initial embarrassment and peered at Simon through her long eyelashes.

"No," she started carefully, "I'm not busy. Why?"

Vivien took time to admire Simon's appearance. He was slender, but not emaciated. He had a feminine face made masculine by some five-o-clock shadow. His hair was a dark brown disheveled mess curling around his well-sculpted features.

When she realized that Simon had noticed her looking at him, her eyes turned to her feet, and her face regained its crimson hue.

Simon tried not to smile, but he couldn't help it; in less than twenty seconds, her neck and face had been enveloped in red twice. At this rate, she was going to pass out before he ever got to introduce himself.

He repositioned the case behind him so he could grip it in just his left hand, then shoved his right hand out to her.

"Hi. I'm --"

He paused, letting his eyes drop for just a moment, then looking back up to her face. "This, um ... this would be alot easier for me ... if you were dressed."

He took a step back ... then realized he was blushing as well.

Vivien

"This would be easier if you were dressed."

Vivien chuckled, allieviating the embarassment she felt at her state of undress in front of a stranger.

"Of course. You don't mind if I step back in and put some clothes on do you?"

Simon shook his head and smiled, gesturing towards the door with a charming face that seemed to say 'by all means'.

Vivien smiled back, and retreated into her room, where, after a few minutes of rummaging she re-emerged in a pink polo shirt and white pants that seemed to be from the seventies- and the wrong size. Vivien noticed Simon's questioning stare regarding the white bellbottoms.

"It was all Dan had in my size at the time. I know they're atrocious. I don't believe I caught your name- what was it you wanted to see me about again?"

Vivien had put up her guard, her no-nonsense persona- a defence against the opposite sex- had begun to emerge.

(OOC: (I'll delete this OOC later)- I have to go- I have work tomorrow morning, but I'll be on sometime past 4 EST (Its midnight here now))

Simon laughed and quickly responded, "Well, I don't know if atrocious it the word I would have used. How about ... retro."

"Retro?"

Simon shrugged. "Retro. It mean ... well, it means you can wear anything you want and call it style ... I think."

They stood there for a long moment, just smiling to one another.

Vivien tipped her head to peak past Simon, who quickly twisted just enough to keep the surprise as it was ... a surprise.

She looked back to him and asked, "So ... you wanted to talk about ... what?"

He hesitated for a moment, trying to remember the story he'd worked on since he'd found the case, gleaning storage lockers with Dan. He'd written extensively in his journal, another "purchase" made from Dan; written about the case and it's contents, about the "girl" he wanted to give it to, about the reason why it was so important to him. And yet now ...

He needed to remember the words. You didn't just give something like this to a beautiful girl ... woman!, he reminded himself ... with out some sort of explanation. It would look like ... well, it just wouldn't look right.

But the words wouldn't come to him, and before he knew it, he was just talking ... fast.

"I've been working with Dan, gleaning lockers, which means, gleaning I mean, that you clean out, well you probably know what gleaning is so I don't have to explain that, but what I mean is that I've been working with him, Dan I mean, and, well, I heard you humming something one day and I didn't know what it was and MaryAnne was standing there and she said it was Mozart and she said you played the violin and so..."

Simon came to the last of his breath, drew another deep one, ready to continue ... but instead just flashed the case out from around his back and presented it to Vivien.

She stared at it for a moment.

Before she could react, he turned it away from her, flipped the latches, turned it back to her, and flipped the top.

And while he hadn't been able to remember any of how he had planned on explaining the giving of the gift -- which was ironic, as they had been his words and, as a former journalist, he was usually really good at remembering his own words -- he remembered every word of what had been written on the sales advertisement that had been in the violin's case when he opened it.

"Romanian made, hand carved ... Stadivari pattern, Genova 3 model, four four design--" and here he mumbled "--what ever that means ... and flamed, solid Carpathian Maple."

He stopped to catch his breath again, then asked with true ignorance, "So ... is that good?"