52 - Phone/Action

[ceasetoexist]

[Phone]

So, y'know? A bunch of people are babbling about yet another stupid dance, but forgetting what's most important about this month.

Halloween. The single best holiday ever.

Which leads me to ask: does anyone actually have anything planned for it? Last year's kinda sucked, but maybe we'll get lucky and crap won't go insane this year. So let's do some kind of widespread party, or make a haunted house or something. It's the one time of year actually worth anything, so hey! Let's do something, you nerds.

[[It's odd. For once, he actually sounds excited about something.]

[Halloween is a remarkably big thing for Pokey. In a lot of ways, it's one arguably one of the few things that goes in his list of "things that make me happy". And so, even though he has until the end of the month, he clearly needs to prepare for it now. Especially after how everything went to hell in October last year, getting ready early couldn't hurt. So Pokey can be found around town doing a few things today.]

A. The Comic Shop

[One of the most important things about Halloween, of course, is getting a decent costume. And as hokey as some comics can be? Sometimes they have some pretty cool looking villains. So at least those could give him some ideas. While reading through one, he gives a small snort.]

Lame.

[And throws the comic to the ground. There's quite a pile of them now, just littering the area as he tries to find something decent.]

B. Screwing Around on the Lawn of 502 Ricardo Street

[Halloween also means there needs to be Halloween decorations. Considering he hasn't found too many to his own liking at the stores, however, Pokey has taken it upon himself to make his own. So the yard is currently littered with cardboard and spray paint as Pokey tries to make his own ghoulish displays of festering zombies, vampires, and other monsters. To say Pokey isn't artistically inclined would be generous, but hey. He seems to be enjoying trying at least.

Occasionally, he takes a break to sit beside a large tarp. Underneath it is the remains of Josephine, slowly starting to come back together as the boy and those he's asked for assistance have helped him with it since the mechas destruction. He leans against it, slowly sitting beside it. It's odd. In a way, even if she still isn't complete again, the mech's presence is comforting. And he'd like to imagine that, even if he isn't working on her at the moment? His presence is in some odd way comforting to her, as if it could actually tell he was there.

And he picks up something he'd laid down at the spot, and works on it. Not a part of the mech, but something smaller. Still a device to work on, a simple one, meant just for practice and to entertain himself and, in a weird way, for nostalgia. It'd been awhile since he'd made one, and he felt like doing it just to see if he could remember it.

For anyone choosing to pass by at that moment, it looks like Pokey's making some kind of gun out of...well, a bottle of mustard. Not the most impressive thing, but it looks like it could actually function.]

C. The Drive-In Theater

[Pokey may be too young to use a car, but that's not exactly stopping him from getting into the drive-through either way and just sneaking to one of the unoccupied spots or, otherwise, leaning against one of the less attentive drones' cars. The movies still suck, as far as he's concerned, but at least their playing monster movies there which is better than the crap they play at the Atomic Cinema.

Oh. And just so you know?]

Hey! Hey stupid! Don't go in there!

[Yeah. Pokey's one of those people. So enjoy hearing some kid just shouting at the screen if you're there today.]

Comments

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

That seems like a strange thing to be celebrating... Don't most people dislike that kind of thing?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Pokey shrugs a bit.]

It's the one day of the year people really let loose about it. And it's-

[There's something else, and his mouth hangs open as he tries to articulate what it is. There's another reason the day is special.

But he can't remember what it is.]

...It's Halloween. That's really all there is to it.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[Lucas will give Pokey a curious glance, wondering what it was he was trying to say.]

Well. Hopefully, the town doesn't let loose too much with the mayhem. You remember last year...

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Oh. And yeah. Pokey just freezes at that for a moment. He just barely manages, in fact, to suppress a shudder.]

Yeah.

I remember.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

No eating strange candy this time, right?

[And he'll manage a faint smile.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Oh. You meant that part. That wasn't so bad.

Pokey just immediately relaxes and shrugs.]

Eh. I don't make any promises on that.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[very quietly]

.....No hazmats, hopefully, either.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

........

Yeah.

We can hope.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

...It doesn't seem like it's been a year. I still remember Westport sometimes, and --

[He cuts off. Pokey wasn't exactly the ideal person to be spilling his guts to.]

I wonder if Lucy can still control them.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

....I'd think she could.

[He shrugs, meekly, this time.]

I mean we have no reason to believe otherwise. But you've been here longer, so I guess you'd know better.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

...Yeah. We just haven't heard much from her lately. Maybe that's not a good thing.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Probably not.

...If she's getting bored? She's probably going to send something pretty godawful at us.

[He would know in this situation.

He's nearly an expert.]

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

We could try and entertain her. You could scare her with those things.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

...I don't think the entertainment we could usually give her is what she wants.

[There's a slight bitterness there as he says that. He tries to hide it, but he clenches down on his hand that's holding a bottle of spray paint at the moment, knuckles turning white.

He knows what entertains her. And he knows it does because, not so long ago, it's what entertained him.

And he hates that.]

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[Lucas isn't exactly psychic - wait, he is - Lucas isn't exactly a mind-reader, but he notes the white knuckles, the bitter expression... And he wonders what conclusion he ought to come to regarding that.]

I guess not. ...Maybe we can convince her that what she does want isn't the right thing.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

....If she didn't have so much power, maybe.

With how strong she is? I'd think it'd be harder.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

Changing reality so easily is a little on the all-powerful side... But there's no point in just giving up, right?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

...I'm not saying give up. I don't plan to. Not after all this bull.

But I'm saying I don't see it ending peacefully.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

There can always be a way to do things peacefully.

[pause]

Although sometimes it helps to have the power to show you can do things the other way, too.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Alright then. Maybe I don't want to do things peacefully. How about that.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

What kind of force do you think is powerful enough to beat Lucy?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

...I don't know.

[And he doubts there's very much he could do personally to help either way. His own abilities are relatively limited and, well...he's not a hero. What right does he really have to try and take down another villain, let alone hope to succeed.]

But there has to be something.

If you have some idea of how to entertain her enough that she'd let us go or stop torturing us, I'd like to here it. But by now? Just letting us go isn't enough.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

...You think she should be punished?

[Lucas has some things he can say in defense of his pacifistic approach - 'look, it worked with you'. But that was a point that both of them would prefer unraised.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[He knows it worked for him. And at the same time? Pokey feels that he should've been punished. In part, he isn't sure he isn't being punished.

Your ideas about friendship and needing and loving others? Got through to him Lucas. The other part, about forgiveness and second chances? Still hasn't. And that includes his case as well.

So he'll just look at Lucas and state simply.]

Yeah. I do.

[a-gentle-boy.livejournal.com]

[There is a pause for a moment or two.]

I think so, too.

But not by beating her up with whatever powers we can get our hands on. That's not how punishment should work...