Who: Kanan Jarrus and Agent York What: Shenanigans When: Recently Where: York’s apartment building Rating/Warnings Low; contains links (All SFW) Status: Complete when Posted!
Hanging out with York was pretty good stress relief, and Kanan really needed to relieve some stress. His carefree attitude and sunnyside disposition was exactly what Kanan needed to distract him from recent events.
He had known from an early age that the world was cruel and unfair. He’d drawn his fair share of short straws. However, it was one thing to deal with the crap the world handed to you that you could do nothing to change, it was another to be unable to really help those you cared about. Frustrating. Maddening. Kanan wasn’t used to not being able to shrug his shoulders and pass shit off with a simple “oh well.” So York’s invitation to come over, have a few beers and watch some terrible made-for-TV movies was too good to pass up.
They had just finished riffing on a SyFy movie with special effects that would have been terrible even by 1990’s Photoshop standards and a story so flimsy, he and York had been able to laughinginly poke holes in it wide enough to drive Cadillacs through. Kanan cracked open another beer when he heard something scratching in the wall behind him. “What the?” Kanan looked over his shoulder, then at York. “Do you hear that? What is that?”
So, York had met Kanan through Wash and Carolina, and he was a good guy. York needed more friends in the area, more dudes to watch games with, play Xbox with, have a few beers. (He couldn’t have those with Wash anymore.) Today they were working on some SyFy movies and beers, along with a box of Girl Scout Cookies, when something…
York turned around so fast he nearly got whiplash. Some weird scratching? Of course York heard it. He couldn’t see anything--one of the downsides to having one eye meant that some of his vision was a little impaired--but he’d definitely heard it. “I don’t… I don’t know.” Absent-mindedly, he set his bottle down on the endtable and pulled himself up from the chair.
Kanan got to his feet too. He placed his beer on the coffee table before approaching the wall. He could still hear the scratching from within. “It’s coming from inside the wall,” he said with a frown. The scratching had a familiar quality to it, which caused Kanan’s frown to turn into one of repulsion. His time homeless and on the run had required that he’d sleep in some fairly unsavory places. These places had been smelly, dirty and on occasions abandoned, except for the rats living in the walls. In some cases rats that Kanan had sworn had been the size of chihuahuas. He glanced back at York. “I think your buildings got rats, man.”
“Rats? No way.” York was torn between disgusted and nervous. Rats really wigged him out. Of all the things in the world, why did it have to be rats? He moved closer to the wall, cautiously, and leaned over so he could put his ear against the wall.
For a moment, there was nothing. And York felt relief spread through him. Then the scratching came again, twice as loud as before. He gave a “YEESH!” and jumped away from the wall.
Rats were not Kanan’s favorite either. But he’d dealt with plenty before. At least these little assholes were in the walls and not running across the floor without a care in the world. Kanan followed the scratching as it made its way through the wall from one end of the living room to the other. Rats were not necessarily a big deal, but god that noise was creepy. “You got any traps to put out?” He asked.
“No.” York said, shaking his head. “Maybe we should go get some. Put them in the cupboards.” He scratched the back of his head as he considered his options. Poison traps, snap traps, live traps… or he could get a dog. A rat terrier or something, might snuff out the little beasts. Or a big, mean, angry, tom cat. That was another good option. One that was practically feral and would spend his nights and days hunting the buggers.
“I haven’t seen any indication that they’ve come into my apartment. They’d be leaving clues behind, wouldn’t they?” York’s place wasn’t pristine, but he wasn’t a slob, either. He probably would have seen rat droppings somewhere.
“Maybe,” Kanan shrugged. “Probably. Maybe not in places you’ll see right away.” He rubbed at his beard thoughtfully. “You rent this place right? If they’re in your walls, chances are they’re in your neighbors walls too. Even if you did put traps down in your place, that doesn’t mean your neighbors are. Hmm. Does your landlord live on the premises? Property manager? Maybe there’s something in the basement we can use.”
“She’s kind of an absentee landlord,” York said, thoughtfully. “But we’ve all got a key to the basement. Maybe there are some traps down there.” It was a good thought. York turned to lead the way out of his apartment. There were four units in the building, and they all shared a basement, parking lot, and a rooftop.
There were stairs at the end of the hall leading down to the basement. York drew his keys there and jingled them absent-mindedly as he led the way downstairs. The basement door was locked, so he fiddled with his keys until he found the right one to unlock it. “I haven’t been down here since I moved in,” he mentioned.
Kanan took a quick glug from his beer before he followed York out of the apartment. Was it normal for a tenant to have keys to the basement? Kanan really didn’t know. He didn’t remember having such free roam in the building he’d had his apartment in back east. Not that he’d spent a lot of time in that apartment. Mostly just to crash between jobs. So long as he paid his rent on time, his landlord left him alone.
“Spelunking in an apartment basement,” he said behind York as they headed down the stairs. “Not quite how I pictured spending a Friday night.” He grinned. “But I could stick it to a couple of rats.”
“Oh, you love it.” York grinned over his shoulder at Kanan as he unlocked the basement door and pushed it open. “This is more exciting than dinner and a movie. And a lot cheaper.” He winked. Well, he winked his good eye. The other one stayed scarred, white and glassy. “C’mon. It’s adventure time.”
He reached around for the light switch, and flipped it on. The overhead flourescent light came on and flickered, sending the room into a blueish glow. There was a water heater against one wall, and some gardening equipment; shovels and rakes, and a bunch of boxes… weird things. York stepped into the room and glanced around.
“This is how horror movies start,” Kanan stated before stepping into the basement after York. His eyes squinted in the harsh fluorescent light. “Two dudes doing something they think is a good idea, usually after a couple of cans of beer. We’re going to be the victims of some very bad special effects. At least its bright down here. We’ll see it coming.”
The brilliant fluorescent was casting some pretty gnarly looking shadows on the wall. Kanan was starting to think that maybe he watched those shitty SyFy movies a little too often for his own good.
Rat traps seemed like the kind of thing to be kept in boxes. So Kanan went over to the stack along the wall to take a look.
“At least it’s not dark and stormy outside,” York offered. He moved over to the other wall--the one covered in shelves--to read some of the boxes there. The dust was so thick on some of them he had to wipe it away with his fingers to read the labels. “And no one’s said I’ll be right back.”
Because that’s what happens in horror movies, right? York smirked to himself. His brain was trying to figure out a way to turn this into a prank.
Kanan shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I guess,” he admitted. “That’d be cliche as hell. And don’t you fucking dare say ‘I’ll be right back’.” Yes, that was what always happened in horror movies, no matter if they were good or not, and it was an infuriating cliche.
Kanan started looking through the first box on top of the stack. Inside the box were several items wrapped in severely yellowed newspaper. They were wrapped so well Kanan couldn’t make out what each item was by sight. It was unlikely that anything to drive the rats from York walls was inside, but Kanan couldn’t resist picking up one of the items and unwrapping it as though he had discovered a mummy’s tomb.
York started laughing. Of course, that’s exactly what he’d had in mind to say. But when Kanan told him not to, he couldn’t very well do it. “All right, all right,” he said, grinning. Then he turned back to the boxes. Some of them looked like they were filled with previous tenants’ belongings. He recognized the names and numbers as his neighbors, briefly met in the halls. Then he stopped. One of the boxes had his apartment number on it. But that wasn’t his name.
“Hey,” York called out, all thoughts of saying I’ll be right back far from his head now. “You ever heard of anyone called Andre Modred?” He took the box down off the shelf. It was a banker’s box, and it was a little heavier than he’d expected.
Kanan’s brows furrowed as he unwrapped the items in the box. A cup. A worn looking photo item. Some chachkies and knick knacks. All personal stuff and keepsakes that seemed odd for a tenant to leave behind. This stuff appeared to have been down here for a long time, if the newspaper they were wrapped in was anything to go on. 1992, by the date on the page worth of ads he was currently discarding.
He glanced over his shoulder when he heard York call out to him. “Andre Modred? No. Why, do you?” Kanan abandoned the box he was looking for to join York at the other side of the room. “Isn’t that your apartment number?” He asked.
“Yeah… that’s my apartment.” York frowned as he stared down at the box. “I was told the old guy died. At least, that’s what the neighbor told me. His kids came over and cleaned out his apartment. I wonder what’s in here. I have no way of contacting them. Maybe the landlord can get this to them?” He really wanted to open the box, but didn’t want to invade anyone’s privacy.
Kanan looked at the box. He was curious what was inside too. He had a couple of moments of wondering about his birth parents -- where they were or if they were alive and if not were their belongings stuffed in a box in a corner of a basement somewhere forgotten and collecting dust. He just didn’t know and it concerned him.
“Open it,” Kanan told York. “If his kids were by, this must be stuff that they didn’t want. It still belonged to him. It might be important.”
“Important to… whom?” York asked, though he was already moving over to the table near the back of the room. The light was better here, and there was a spot he could set the box down. He lifted his fingers to tug at the lid, but it was taped into place. “Crap,” he commented, then dug his keys out of his pocket. A little chuckle escaped him as he used one of his sharper keys to cut through the tape. “...I’m a little nervous about this. And excited. Literally anything could be in here.”
“I dunno,” Kanan shrugged, “This Modred guy.” He followed York over to the table and watched as he started opening the box. “This was his stuff. It had to have meant something to him.” He peered over York’s shoulder as the other man dragged his key through the tape and lifted the lid to the box. Like the other box Kanan had been looking through earlier, the contents within were all wrapped in newspaper, although it was much newer judging by the dates on the pages. “Why do you think your landlord kept all these things instead of donating them or throwing them away?”
York opened the box with reverence, and carefully removed the newspaper wrapped items one at a time. The first he pulled out was an antique flask with a leather case. Then a zippo lighter, a deck of worn playing cards, a stack of 1970’s Playboy magazines, and some other odds and ends. York found a pair of sunglasses that he liked a lot. They made him think of James Dean.
“Man.” York said, sorting through the things. There was an old, electric razor and a shaving kit, along with a watch with a cracked glass face. “This is amazing stuff.”
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Kanan understood why Andre Modred’s family probably hadn’t wanted the old Playboys, the cracked watch or the well-worn deck of cards, but the presence of the flask surprised him. Even if the family themselves didn’t want it (and why wouldn’t they?), it was probably worth something. Kanan was baffled why the flask – or anything else in the box – was even still here.
“It is,” Kanan agreed, “but why is it still here? Why did your landlord hang on to it? If it were me, I’d probably have tried selling some of this stuff.” His eyes were lingering on that flask. If he was the same man who had initially moved to Orange County, he probably would have pinched it without a second thought. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”
“I have no idea,” York mused aloud, trying the lighter. It lit and produced a vivid flame. It reminded him of another lighter, one that made his jaw set. He closed the lid and put it back in the box.
“Maybe he didn't want to throw all this away, but didn't know what else to do with it. It must have been left behind by Modred’s kids if it's still here. I'll take it upstairs and give the stuff a cleaning.”
Kanan wasn’t sure if he should be touched or creeped out that York’s landlord had decided to hang on to a dead tenant’s personal items, especially after the family had already taken what they wanted. If he was just going to put them in a box in the basement, why not donate them? In the end Kanan decided it was definitely more creepy than touching.
At York’s suggestion to take the box upstairs to clean the items, Kanan frowned. “Yeah, ok. Remember the conversation we had coming down here? How this is how most horror movies start? You saw the movie about Anabelle the Doll, right?” Kanan had. Three times, in fact. “This is the other way horror movies start. Someone finds a creepy-ass mystery box, takes it home and then has his ass haunted by a demon or something else that wants to om nom his soul. You sure you wanna take this upstairs?”
“I don’t really believe in ghost stories, Kanan.” York didn’t roll his eyes, exactly, but it was hard to take that sort of thing seriously. Sure, they were joking about horror stories before… but a haunted zippo? Or stack of porn mags? Really.
“Someone’s gotta take care of the old man’s stuff. And I’ll give it more respect than rotting down here will.” York shrugged softly, then put the top back on the box. “Let’s get some mousetraps and get back upstairs.”
“Hey, I never said I believed in that kind of thing,” Kanan argued, “but this is Orange County, man. You know…the place where a haunted fog came rolling through the county for a week and Disneyland spewed Stormtroopers for two days? Same place in which you are a space marine and I’m a Jedi? For all we know the old guy was a Dreamer too and his Dreams were filled with all kinds of haunted stuff.”
Kanan glanced at the box in York’s arms. York did have a point, though. The stuff had meant something to Andre Modred and it seemed kind of cruel to just leave them in a box. Kanan sighed and shrugged. “If you wanna take it upstairs, I won’t stop you. Maybe if it is haunted, whatever it’s haunted with will scare the rats away.” Kanan laughed.
“Maybe it’s haunted by a mean, old cat. And so long as I keep the tuna in fresh supply, he’ll leave me alone.” York gave the other guy a grin, then his one eyed-gaze shifted over the man’s shoulder. “Ah! Mousetraps.” He tucked the box under one arm, and headed across the basement to where there were a stack of unopened packages of mouse traps on a shelf. How had they missed them the first time?
“Maybe,” Kanan said with a soft chuckle. He stepped out of the way so York could collect the mousetraps he needed and hoped silently that they would be enough to deal with the problem York had in his walls.
He glanced at the other boxes in the basement and wondered for a moment how many others were abandoned items left by previous tenants. Maybe it’d be worth taking a look another day when rats weren’t threatening to tear through York’s wall.
He smirked once York had gathered what he needed. “Let’s take your treasure box upstairs,” he said. “We’ll wage war on the rats first and then take inventory of our booty.”