InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Gladiators, ready?"

Melanie Weiss (mrsfixit) wrote in inpoormerit,
@ 2010-03-21 19:17:00

Entry tags:

colin, colin and mel, mel

Tinkering
Who: Mel and Colin
Where: City Hall
When: Mid-day

Mel was going stir-crazy with nothing to fix and nothing to build. Once the initial shock of their arrival had worn off, Mel's fingers had started to itch...and her parents had learned early that when Mel's fingers were itching, something was bound to end up in pieces.

With no other project to focus her attention on, Mel had decided to take apart the large clock set in the wall of City Hall. It wasn't that she had noticed a problem with it -- it was just that clocks usually possessed such an intricate system of gears... Once the image of so many little pieces popped into Mel's head, she could scarcely think of anything else.

Tools in hand, Mel had settled on the stairs outside of City Hall. Her long hair was pulled back into a hasty bun behind her head, and it was already beginning to slip free of its confines. Mel was so intent on her goal that she scarcely noticed: the large face of the clock sat beside her, and she balanced the backing on her knees. The round pane was easily three feet across -- and although she could not even begin to examine the components in the top half of the clock, her eyes were currently drawn to a nest of gears at its base, all ticking tirelessly away as she carefully worked around them.

Cripes, but this clock needed a good cleaning... It was probably a good thing she came along.

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	smalltownguy 2010-04-04 02:07 am UTC (link)
	Colin caught the door and followed her in, then shut it behind him. This was weird and oddly normal at the same time. And for some reason, he had Small Town by John Cougar Mellencamp stuck in his head. "Crazy is an understatement," he agreed as he looked around the store. "I don't think I want to understand these people. They are completely fucked up." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mrsfixit
2010-04-04 02:53 am UTC (link)

"I agree," Mel answered as she paused, marvelling at the package in front of her. Just because she liked to tinker did not, unfortunately, mean she found work tinkering -- at least not of the official kind of work she had hoped to find. Had she been able to, she might have seen packages like this before -- but, this not being the case, this was a new and fascinating experience for her. "Colin," she began, at once seizing upon the familiarity of his name as she held up the package. "Did you know you can buy shop rags?" That was what old t-shirts were for, wasn't it? Her laughter was almost snorted as she added, "What a waste of freaking money!"

Since they weren't trading money for the goods, the package went into her cart -- it would be easier than trying to find a clean piece of her t-shirt. Mel had a bad habit of using her clothes as over-sized rags, but she had never minded it much: she didn't wear dresses to change oil, after all.

"Where were we? Oh, right. Crazytown." Her gaze was a trifle more serious when she said, "It's kind of nuts, but I can't stop thinking about how hungry my cat must be getting back home."

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smalltownguy
2010-04-04 06:48 pm UTC (link)

Colin laughed and shook his head. "Yeah," he admitted. "We buy 'em all the time. Even between me and Robbie, we don't have enough old tee shirts to use. And we go through a lot of those. Especially when somebody brings in their old clunker that they don't keep up."

And back home was the wrong thing to bring up to him. His mind immediately went to his family. "Yeah," he agreed quietly. "My family's gotta be going crazy by now." Which he shouldn't be thinking about since he couldn't do anything about it. But he was and it was making him sick to think about how crazy with worry they must be.

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mrsfixit
2010-04-05 01:13 am UTC (link)

There was no use dwelling on it, Mel agreed. Yet, she couldn't help it. She supposed this was harder on those with families they were close to -- but her cat couldn't feed himself, and that worried her.

Rather than answer him, she picked up a squishy stress ball, giving it a good squeeze through its mesh covering before turning to face Colin. She had never been good at dealing with emotions, much less talking about them. It was much easier to avoid the topic altogether.

"Heads up!" she sang out, lobbing the stress ball at his chest. Plenty of baseball with the boys had given her a decent arm -- and, fortunately for Colin -- good aim.

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smalltownguy
2010-04-05 05:01 pm UTC (link)

It was a cat. They were more self-sufficient than people gave them credit for. Unless she had the cat tightly locked up, it was probably fine. It'd go kill birds or mice or mooch off the neighbors. That's how his shop ended up with a feline mascot. Emily had fed the damned thing once and it kept coming back. Cats were just like that.

Colin had never had to learn how to. The biggest catastrophe in his life up until this craziness had been his best friend seeing his sister behind his back. Which had turned out just fine. He'd never been to a funeral even, both of his grandmothers and one grandfather were still alive, the other grandfather had died when he was a baby. His parents were happily married and all in all, his life had been pretty damned good.

So he wasn't at prepared to deal with anything this big, crazy and fucked up. The warning she called managed to catch his attention long enough that once the ball bounced off his chest, he caught it with a loud hack of air.

"What'd you do that for?" he demanded, although a smile was playing at the edge of his lips. It was a good distraction from things he really didn't want to think about right now.

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mrsfixit
2010-04-05 07:32 pm UTC (link)

Mel deliberately picked up another of the squishy balls, feeling the shifting of the materials inside the ball between her fingertips.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," she answered with a mischievous smirk. Hefting the ball in her hand, she lobbed the second one his way too.

Mel really was just a big kid at heart...and nothing seemed more entertaining than randomly flinging stress balls at people.

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	smalltownguy 2010-04-06 03:35 am UTC (link)
	The second one he actually caught before it whacked him anywhere. That was how she wanted to play, huh? "Oh, it is so on." Colin smirked back before lobbing one, then the other stress ball back at her. Yeah, this was better than worrying about his family or what these whackjobs were going to do to them. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mrsfixit
2010-04-06 01:41 pm UTC (link)

Mel laughed, raising her arms (and therefore the basket) in mock-defense. The basket bounced against her torso when the ball hit it, making her realize that, perhaps, it was not the best thing to be holding during a stress ball fight.

"I have to warn you," she began, peeking from over her arm. "I have a lot more balls than you do." She paused, snickered, then added cheerfully, "And mine might be bigger too."

That was the reason Mel had never gotten along with girly girls -- her sense of humor ran along the same tomboyish lines as her hobbies.

Setting the basket down in a manner that could be called dropping it, she picked up two more of the stress balls to toss in his direction.

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smalltownguy
2010-04-09 04:24 am UTC (link)

Colin laughed at her comment. "Bring it on," he challenged, trying not to think how utterly absurd a stress ball fight was under the circumstances. Apparently, they were going as crazy as the people who'd kidnapped them.

He managed to catch the first one, and took the second one in the shoulder. He winged the one he caught at her and ducked down to grab the other one. Luckily, stress balls didn't roll very far.

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mrsfixit
2010-04-13 02:18 am UTC (link)

The exchange of stress balls was short-lived, as it became apparent that Mel was no strategist. As Colin's balls bounced off her shoulders, her arms, and other parts of her body, Mel whipped them in his direction, three for each one he sent back her direction. She had good aim, but her haste to empty her basket first certainly did not contribute positively to her onslaught.

At last, she had been completely disarmed by her wild attempt to out-throw him, and, with a laugh, she scampered for cover behind a display of garden seeds -- flimsy cover at best.

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smalltownguy
2010-04-13 07:02 pm UTC (link)

Neither was Colin and she probably hit him twice as much as he hit her, just because she had more ammo. He laughed as she ran out and went for cover.

"Is that all you got?" he challenged, nailing the display hard with one. "I thought you had more balls?" Okay, that was a horrible thing to say to a woman, but somehow, he doubted Mel would be offended. She seemed like one of the 'one of the guys' types.

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