chosehumanity | 71 Serendipity Street, Wednesday Late Afternoon

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71 Serendipity Street, Wednesday Late Afternoon

Tomorrow, Mitchell was going to head back into the considerable danger zone that was his house.

Tonight, he was going to enjoy clinging to his hopes that Gilbert had somehow brought about a change in Annie, stuff a lot of beer in the fridge, and introduce a friend (well, acquaintance, really, but he was hoping on friend, eventually) to a wonderful program about scamming people.

Really, Mitchell was a simple soul.

By the time the chosen hour came along, he was hanging back on the couch, chilling, and sipping off a beer in thought.

[[ for That Spindly Redhead ]]

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Hey, who was Reno to say no to hanging out with the teaching buddy whatever it was, who seemed like a pretty cool guy? He'd made certain that Rikku was doing okay before setting out, of course, and by the time he'd made his way to Mitchell's door, he was settling back into that confident, lazy grin of his as he knocked.

A program about scamming people. It was kind of like he was setting out to watch a documentary on Turk real estate, when you got right down to it.

The door opened, as Reno no doubt had known it would, and Mitchell stuck his head out, quirking a slight smile. "Hey," he said, pulling back to create some space. "Come in, man. Want a beer...?"

"Man," Reno laughed, stepping inside and glancing around, "askin' me if I want a beer is like askin' a fish if it likes to be wet, yo."

It was sad because it was true.

"Cozy," he added, nodding into the room.

Reno was not easy to please, when it came to living spaces.

"Thanks," Mitchell said, bustling into the kitchen. "When I first got here I had to share it with this hologram. He was a real pain in the arse--" He reached over and opened up the fridge, pulling out two beers. "But he left. I don't come here that often, though. Have a place with a friend down in Bristol." He peeked back into the living room.

Into the living room, where Reno had spared no time at all finding himself a corner of couch to flop onto.

"You prefer roomin' with people, then?" Reno quirked a bit of a smirk, there. "After nearly a year livin' on my own, I'm startin' to wonder why I ever bothered with roomies before, man."

Except for Rude. But Rude was more like an extension of Reno, less like a roommate. Reno was missing an arm, when he was missing his Rude.

[ooc: And we will just handwave and pretend that I was insinuating that Reno has low standards and there was no 'not' in that last ping, la la la.]

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I like having space to myself sometimes," Mitchell said, and he extended one bottle of beer in Reno's general direction as he came closer to the couch. "But it gets a bit lonely after a while, you know? Having people around keeps you human, I find."

"Guess that depends on the people." Reno's tone was light, dismissive even, as he reached for the bottle. He'd spent years perfecting 'light and dismissive' while cramming entirely too many undertones in for most people to catch. This was no exception. "But, yeah, I suppose I can see the charm in havin' people around, so long as they ain't gonna go stickin' their muddy boots on the coffee table, yo."

They were having a bit of an undertone-off here already; not being among people, for Mitchell, generally meant an inevitable trip off the wagon and copious murders to show for it.

"Are you planning on sticking yours on it, mate?" he asked, sitting down with his own bottle. "Just for curiosity's sake."

"Well, that depends, too," Reno drawled, pausing for a swig. "How clean do you like your coffee table?"

See, he could be courteous before proving that he was an absolute slob.

Mitchell shrugged one shoulder. "Not particularly," he said, good-naturedly. "It's George who gets his snit on if there's a spot of dirt on anything."

"Well, then I'll kick my shoes off first," Reno decided, because that totally made everything better, right? "Life's too damn short to worry about dirt, anyhow."

"It usually is," Mitchell agreed, the corner of his lips twitching a little under the force of undertones. "Carpe diem, and all that."

And that one had Reno raising an eyebrow, looking Mitchell's way over the rim of his beer.

"Sorry, man. I don't speak French."

Or whatever that was. Reno's grasp of Earth language was tenuous, at best.

"Latin," he corrected, lightly. "It means 'seize the day'. And you can't say the Romans didn't know how to do that."

"Well, no," Reno laughed, "but that'd be 'cause I ain't got much clue who the Romans were, neither."

Reno was so very well informed on Earth's history, truly.

"It ain't a bad rule to live by, though. Seize the day... I'm gonna have to keep that one in mind. In, you know..." A pause. "English."

"Sounds good," said Mitchell, who cracked a slight grin and got up. "But we'll leave the Roman history lesson for some other day, yeah?" He picked a DVD up from the coffee table.

That was probably a very good idea. It would keep Reno from asking questions like, 'Why did the Romans speak Latin instead of Romeish,' and would probably keep him from attempting a gross mispronunciation of carpe diem while he was at it.

"We got important hustlin' to watch," Reno agreed with a laugh. "Priorities, man. Damn straight, you gotta keep your priorities in order, yo."

Edited 2010-07-14 16:53 (UTC)

"Very important hustling," he agreed, pushing the DVD into the player and clicking on. He walked back, finding a space on the couch to sit again, picked up his beer, and relaxed. "I think this one starts off with the White Van con," he said, conspiratorally.

"That the one where they're sellin' cheap-assed speakers outta the back of a van, in parkin' lots and junk?"

Hey, scams were scams no matter where you were from. And if you were from a place where white vans existed, there was probably already at least one person who had figured out a way to make a quick dirty dollar out of it.

"Or cameras, or TVs, things like that," Mitchell agreed. On-screen, they were going through the vague-ish set-up of the con. He relaxed some more, swigging from his bottle.

"Funny thing," Reno smirked, "I ain't never fallen for that one."

That probably had something to do with Reno's alarming tendency to simply lay people flat with a raging fist the moment they started making the transition from slimy to pushy.

"See, what people gotta do is just grow some backbone, if they don't wanna end up broke and draggin' shitty electronics home every other day, yo."

Mitchell gave that an easy shrug. "It's the times," he said. "Back in the day, when people were poorer, they were a little more suspicious, I think. These days... these cons can be hard to keep track of. Even if they're too good to be true." Which was totally Mitchell's academic reason for watching The Real Hustle. Yes.

"Back in the day," Reno echoed, and that came with a short laugh and a shake of his head and a long swig that drained most of the rest of the bottle.

For him, 'back in the day' was 'today, back home,' or else, 'when I was a kid, when there was home.' That there was ever a day that wasn't 'the day' very rarely occurred to him, anymore.

"There's just too much shit like this flyin' around," he decided. "Maybe people wanna get scammed, just so they got somebody but themselves to blame for how shitty they really got it."

"That's where the telly comes in," Mitchell said, with an amused edge to his voice. "People can't say they haven't been warned now, can they?" On screen, they proceeded to scam the life out of a couple of passers-by.

And Reno snorted, swishing the last mouthful of beer around in the bottom of the bottle. He'd down it in a minute, sure.

"Nah, they've been warned," he agreed, smirking. "The real dumbass ones out there'll try an' claim that they ain't been warned right, but they really got no excuse, yo."

Taking another long drink off his beer, Mitchell said, "Those are often the ones responsible for things like McDonalds warning about the heat of their coffee," he said, idly. "People who run towards their own doom can't be stopped." Cheery.

"And common sense ain't common at all," Reno agreed. There went that last mouthful, down the hatch. "Are all the scams on this show like the white van?"

"It's got a little of everything," he said. "Cash point scams, card game scams, fraud..."

That had Reno letting out a short caw of a laugh. "Card game scams," he echoed. "Damn, those ones are the best, though."

... What?

Mitchell just snorted, and laid his head back on the couch, shooting Reno a look. "Got a lot of experience there?" he asked.

Reno shot Mitchell a look right back, corners of his mouth twitching.

"Let's just say, I ain't got a bad poker face when it counts the most, yo."

"You look like you would," he observed, idly, glancing back at the screen. "But who knows, you might still learn something."

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71 Serendipity Street, Wednesday Late Afternoon

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