ArchivedLogs:No Go Away

No Go Away
Dramatis Personae Dan, Mei
In Absentia	2013-05-06 Mei decides to change locales.
Location <NYC> 201 {Dan} - Sunrise Apartments
Monday nights are for...well, not much, honestly. With a night off, and his best girl up in Westchester for her teaching gig, Dan finds himself with an odd evening free. So, it was a trip to his favorite pizza place and a stop at the corner store for a six-pack of beer, and now the ex-soldier is settling down for a peaceful night of watching high-octane action movies. Dressed in a white t-shirt and baggy plaid pajama bottoms, he's camped on his couch, feet dangling over the arm as he balances a plate with a couple of slices on his stomach. On the screen of the laptop on the coffee table, a man in a tailored black suit is shooting at a group of pursuers while doing nigh-impossible back flips as Dan streeeetches to grab at his beer without disturbing his plate. Mei has not been having the best of times at Jim's and has been spending quite a bit of her time on the roof instead when possible, or in the halls of the apartment building. She stopped by Dan's place a few times but he wasn't there. So this time when she stands there and knocks on the door she half expects no answer as she fidgets and taps one foot as she looks up and down the hall then knocks again. The time between knocks is hardly any at all, not really giving much time for Dan to respond, but it makes it clear that the person in the hallway is impatient in their knocking. The knock upsets the delicate balancing act Dan was attempting, and his plate slides from his stomach to bounce his pizza onto the floor. And there is no five second rule for the floors in the Sunrise. "Damn," Dan says, and lifts his voice as he sits up. "Hold on, I'm coming!" He scoops up the pizza and tosses it on the plate, setting it on the coffee table as he stands and moves to the door. Wiping his hands on his pants, he undoes the locks, and pulls open the door just enough to peer out. "Yeah, what do yo -- holy fucking shit." His eyes widen, and the door slams shut just long enough for the chain to be removed and then the door is opening. "What are you doing?" is flustered sounding, and Dan POINTS into his apartment. "Get the hell in here." Mei blinks at Dan's reaction then shrugs and enters the apartment, being a bit quick about it, as Dan's tone seems to demand some urgency on her part. She frowns and looks around the place. "No dirt. Better." She says as she apparently means real dirt not just a place that needs to be cleaned up. She walks into the apartment, sort of central in the first room and turns around to look at Dan, "You leave me with crazy peoples!" She accuses. "Dirt everywhere! Strange man come in window, make eggs, then just... go! Yelled for cleaning!" She says, obviously frustrated, "Why you no come get me?!" Dan watches with a stern, paternal look as Mei enters his apartment, then pokes his head into the hall before he closes the door and locks all the locks. He stares at the door for a moment before he follows the girl into the apartment. "Well, it isn't /clean/," he says to her comments about dirt. "But it isn't a pigsty, either." He may have forgotten her lack of experience with the English language, and he moves past her to drop the blinds in his windows casually. When she rounds on him, he holds up his hands, eyes widening. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, kid. /I/ didn't leave you anyplace," he reminds her. "Those guys are Murphy's friends, not mine." His jaw sets, as if about to launch into some stern lecture about Something Kids Should Know, and then he exhales roughly. "Shit, kid. This is new to /me/, too." Mei looks around then frowns and looks back at Dan, "No. Dirt!" She says firmly as she puts a hand up to about an inch above her ankle, "See? Dirt! All over floor." She tries to explain, "They crazy. I no stay there anymore." She says firmly. She doesn't say where she's going instead of course as she looks at Dan with a bit of a confused look, perhaps frustrated too. "You fix things? I pay if help?" She offers, some desperation leaking into her voice. It is clear she's not been doing too well in her new 'home' as it were, in that place with Jim and Ash. She gives a rather heavy sigh then finds a clean place to sit, even if it is just on the couch Dan had been sitting on when she knocked. It takes a minute for Dan to register what Mei is talking about, and his brow furrows into a deep V. "No shit?" he says, moving towards the small kitchen. "Dirt on the floor?" He snorts. "I knew that guy was a fucking nutcase. You hungry?" he asks, already getting a plate out of the cabinet before turning to grab a soda from the fridge. "And some guy broke in to make /eggs/?" He doesn't sound like he quite believes this. Two slices of pizza (pepperoni and mushroom) are placed on a plate, and held out towards the girl. "If you stay /here/, you're gonna have /rules/," he says, lifting his eyebrows. "None of this crazy running around the building shit, yeah?" Mei nods, to Dan's first questions, "No shit!" She says, which some how sounds rather comical coming from this young Asian girl with her broken English. "Dirt on floor, bed of moss! Guy break glass, make eggs, then leave. Others no know him. Just... eat eggs." She shakes her head, and mutters something that probably is in Chinese. Then she tilts her head as food is offered. She eyes it tentatively then accepts the plate and sniffs the food supiciously. "Rules? What rules?" She asks as she takes a small bite of the pizza then.... apparently deciding she likes it, a /lot/ starts to eat it a whole lot faster. This is such a bad idea. It's clear in the sudden wince as the ex-soldier realizes where he's landing himself. Dan frowns to himself as he watches the girl try the pizza, nodding tightly as her appetite picks up. Then he leans forward to set the soda on the coffee table. "First of all, you don't answer the door," he says. "For anyone. If I haven't been there when you met them, they don't come in. /Do not/ remove that chain." He accompanies this speech with small mime-y gestures that are probably more confusing than helpful. "Second, you don't answer the phone. If I'm not here, or in the shower, let the machine get it. Third, if anyone comes in through one of /my/ windows," he says, moving to the door of his apartment and picks up an aluminum baseball bat there. "You break their fucking leg with this, and then get the hell out of here. Understand?" He points with the bat, briefly, before returning it to its spot. Then he returns, dropping heavily onto the couch next to the girl. "If you can live with that, you can live here until we get this shit sorted out." Mei listens to all of that and it isn't entirely clear how much of it she picks out properly. As she stuffs her mouth she gives a nod, apparently liking the pizza quite a bit. She looks at the bat then nods, and says something through a mouth of food that sounds a bit like, "Mphendooieooooldan." Which is rather hard to finger out until she swallows and says, "Man in window, I throw gold at him, but he... no get hit." She frowns a bit as she looks around then asks, "I clean? Is okay?" She seems tentative about that topic. The place probably could use a good cleaning. "How we sort shit?" She asks, picking up some of Dan's language as he goes on, although perhaps her picking up of the casual use of the word 'shit' might not be for the best but it seems to be being picked up by her. "Yeah, don't be makin' gold, either," Dan says. "You just grab the old girl over there and give it to 'em across the knee." He indicates where with a thick finger on his own knee. He follows her gaze around, and lifts a shoulder. The place is cluttered, more than dirty, but it could use a good going-over. "If you want to clean, kid, I'm not gonna stop you. I'll get some stuff in the morning." Her question drops him into a thoughtful silence, and he rubs a thumb along the scar under his eye. "Depends. How do you /want/ it sorted out?" he asks, finally, motioning at the girl. "What do /you/ want to do?" No one had asked Mei that question before. She sits there looking rather stunned as she stares at Dan. "Me?" She says as if maybe she heard the question wrong. "I... can choose?" She says softly, obviously at a loss that this could be something she gets a say in. Suddenly a sort of semi-panic filled lookc crosses her face. "I... do not know!" She pauses then makes a hesitant sound followed by, "What... can do?" She asks as she tilts her head, apparently not having a clue on what her options might be at this point. "No go back China." She says firmly, as if this is not something that should even be considered. "No get hurt." She adds as if this could be a consideration. Then gives a questioning look to Dan, obviously at a loss. Dan seems startled by the girl's reaction, and he drops a reassuring arm over her shoulders instinctively. "Hell, yes, you can choose," he rumbles, giving her a small shake. "You're not a /thing/, kid. You're a person. A very /valuable/ person, yeah. But you get to choose what happens in your own fuckin' life." He smiles loosely, and shrugs. "You could go to school," he says. "We could find you a nice family to set you up with, and you could go to a real school, around other kids." He wrinkles his nose, clearly not a fan of the find-a-family plan. "I don't know, kid. There's a bunch of stuff you could do, but I guess going to school is the most important thing." That arm pulls the girl into his side, then. "But you ain't goin' back to China," he promises. "And you ain't gettin' hurt. Not if I got anything to say about it." Mei doesn't seem to mind Dan's arm around her shoulder and eats as he talks. When he ends she's finished the pizza he provided, apparently she was hungry. Then she says, "Had special school in China. Was very good. Good numbers, good science. When make gold, was going to new school when." She frowns, "Traids." She mutters that almost as a curse word. "They hurt. Make gold, no hurt. Go school?" She says, encouraged by this possiblity, then she frowns again, "Have family. Have father. Need send money." She says as she tries to figure that one out. "How?" She asks as she looks worriedly at Dan, as if he should just know how she can send money to her father back in China off the top of his head. "He sick. No talk for long time. Maybe... maybe no alive?" She admits, then sighs, "Too much. No know." "Hey, slow down, kid," Dan says with a chuckle, giving Mei another small shake. "Let's just focus on one thing at a time. Or maybe two," he amends, releasing her shoulder to lean forward and claim his beer. "Let's figure out how to get the damned Chinamen off your back, and maybe getting you settled somewhere permanent, and then we'll worry about the other stuff." He doesn't sound unsympathetic to her case; if anything, his voice is a gentle rumble. "You want some more pizza?" Mei nods a bit sheepishly at the offer of more pizza, "Yes, please." That part she can say fairly clearly. She bites at her lower lip then thinking says, "They think I die, they no look?" She suggests, "Make think dead?" She gives a hopeful look, "Then they no look." She adds, as if this might not be clear. She frowns a bit as she clearly is trying to figure out how to accomplish such a feat. She actually leaves it at that, not flooding Dan with more questions or comments this time as she glances around the apartment thoughtfully. She seems to be considering things as she looks around, slowly taking in the surroundings Dan lives in. "It's in the kitchen," Dan says, pointing. "Help yourself. Also, the bathroom is right off the kitchen, and my room is through that little hall." Might as well give her the tour. Dan's place is pretty much like you'd expect a bachelor on his salary would have. The furniture isn't /nice/, but it clean and not very battered. There's no art on the wall, but there /are/ some drawings in crayon hanging on the fridge. And oddly, a basket of decidedly little kid toys tucked in one corner of the living room. The suggestion of how to deal with the situation doesn't sit well with Dan, and he sips at his beer thoughtfully. "I don't know about that, kid. I mean, yeah. If they thought you were dead, they might stop looking. But I ain't the FBI, and I wouldn't know how to even go about doing something like that." He taps his lip thoughtfully. "Lemme think about it." Mei gets up to get some Pizza and peeks down the hall on the way. She spies the basket and the drawings and when she returns to the couch and sits down she asks, "You have child?" She asks as she points to the fridge and the pictures, giving a some what curious look. Then Mei seems to consider Dan's answer about faking her death and ventures, "Maybe just go away? Hrm... school not here? School there?" She doesn't give a very good idea of what she means by 'there', as she struggles with the language. "Big city. No find?" She touches her hair, "Change me? Look not me?" She adds, thoughtfully. Dan wrinkles his nose at the question, and bobs his head. "Yeah. But she don't live here. She stays with my sister." He leans forward to grab his phone, and pulls up a picture of a girl of about three, with amethyst skin and violet hair, laughing as she hangs from an arm that's most likely Dan's. Then he's turning the phone so Mei can see the screen. "Her name's Colleen." "You don't have to go away, unless you want to," Dan says, frowning. "It /is/ a big city. Easy to get lost in. But we can probably do something to help you look less like the girl on the flyers." He taps his beer with one finger, considering. "I'll get you some stuff when I'm out tomorrow." Mei peers at the girl on the screen curiously then looks at Dan. She doesn't ask any more about the girl though, perhaps thinking better of it. She nods at the second half of what Dan says though. "Go away, not far away?" She ventures. "Go near away?" She's trying to get the English right. She hmms softly then nods, "Change me, no look me, then no find me." She agrees to the idea of making herself look less like, well, herself. After a moment she ventures, "Big city. Go where no Triads?" She asks, unsure how far their influence stretches in this strange city she's been dumped in that she knows almost nothing about. Dan rubs a hand over his face at the language barrier, and his brow deepens into a V as he struggles with Mei's question. "Argh. Dammit, kid. Just stay, okay? Right here. No go away. Not far away. Not near away. Here." He jabs a finger at the floor determinedly. "It's a big city, but I don't know that there's anywhere the Chinamen wouldn't find you. You just stay here. Lay low until they give up." He presses his lips together briefly. "I'm sorry you're goin' through this, kid," he says after a moment. "It's some fucked up shit." At Dan's tone and struggle with her words, Mei looks a bit nervous but not exactly scared. She is feisty after all. But she obviously isn't keen on Dan's current tone. She struggles with the language a bit then nods slowly, then takes a deep breath and lets it out also slowly. She seems thoughtful for a moment then realizes something and says, "You tell Jim?" She obviously hasn't informed her prior 'host' that she's here, or that she's planning on staying here, she didn't even know that second bit until just a little bit ago. "I stay, you tell. We wait. Wait until... Shit not fucked?" She ventures, trying to use the swear words properly and... well, again it comes out rather comically. Dan's frustration is a balloon that's immediately pricked by the pinpoint of Mei's sudden realization. All the stern goes out of his expression, and he blinks at the girl. "What? Yeah, yeah. I'll tell 'em," he promises. "They shouldn't have a problem with it. You're still in the building, and I'm on /your/ side." He grins lopsidedly, and leans back, tipping his beer to his lips and taking a deep pull before he swallows with a nod. "Yeah, kid. You just stay here and we'll wait till the shit's not fucked." He chuckles, a stuttery rumble that devolves into a roll of laughter. "'Shit not fucked'. You're all right, kid."