ArchivedLogs:Games, Toys, and Teenagers

Games, Toys, and Teenagers
For Maximum Entertainment Value
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Micah, Toru
In Absentia	10 April 2013 Micah runs into Lucien while he is trying to buy a present for Matt. Toru...gets /teenager/ all over the games shop.
Location <NYC> Pandemonium Games
Two floors of geekery, Pandemonium Games is, at first blush, a bookstore rather than a gaming store, small and cozy with aisles dedicated to sci-fi and fantasy books. The glass counter opposite the bookshelves, admittedly, does hold a wealth of cards from various collectible card games, though binders of Magic cards predominate. Bins of dice stand at one end of the counter. It is the lower level of the store that is usually the busy one, though. The stairs leading down to the basement head first into shelves and shelves of games; board games, RPG sourcebooks, Warhammer figurines, battle mats. Beyond the shelves of goods, a much larger room is mostly bare save its many wide tables, filled at all hours with people playing tabletop games of all kinds. It's eveningtime, and with work done for the day the lower level of this store is packed. A little too warm, a little too close, the basement is full of the sounds of gaming, dice rolling and cards being shuffled and a /whole/ lot of arguing. It smells of sweat and pizza and books and in the small room adjacent Lucien looks -- rather unlike he belongs in the jeans-and-nerdy-t-shirts crowd. Dark vest, pale button-down shirt, dark slacks, all carefully tailored to his fit. He does not smell like sweat or pizza. Just sandalwood and amber. He wears a slightly pinched expression, though perhaps this is less at the sounds and smells of the next room and more at the wall of stacked board games he is looking at. His arms cross over his chest. He frowns at the boxes. Uncertainly takes one off the shelf. Forbidden Island. He examines it critically, and then takes his phone out of his pocket to open up its browser and type something in. Micah definitely looks more like he fits in, in his faded, patched jeans and chocolate brown T-shirt on which a stegosaurus is bemoaning a nearby T-rex's 'sudden but inevitable betrayal'. He has been upstairs for some time engaging in the ancient ritual of Trying Out Dice. To find the good ones. Good ones that are also sparkly. He finally settles on a d10 in a swirly, sparkly emerald colour that seems to do well with not rolling 1's. There may be a rule about only buying one die per game store visit. Micah tromps down the stairs in search of the item he had actually been sent for: a D&D status marker set. He is headed their way in a beeline when he catches sight of, "Lucien? Are you lo--shoppin' for Matt?" Lucien tenses, for a moment, at the sound of his name, a slight stiffening of shoulders, a muscle jumping in his cheek. He sets the game back where it came from, turning to -- relax, slightly, at the sight of Micah. "There are so many --" He unfurls fingers towards the stacks of games, his tone mildly aggravated. "How do you know what the good ones are?" Micah grins broadly, remembering to be more 'greet-y' once he is over his surprise at running into Lucien here. "You go off of recommendations from other people. Or you just pick new things that sound fun, to try them out. New and different can be good, too." He rolls the green die around his palm with the pad of his thumb in idle circles. "Did you have a type of thing in mind at all?" Lucien's eyes drop, fixing on the sparkly green die in Micah's palm. "Yes. A game." This is so helpful, Lucien. He says it, though, like that should have been obvious. "I play games with him," comes with a slight frown. "We play -- chess." His eyes lift away from the die, sweeping the shelves instead. "What do you enjoy?" Lucien's (lack of) description of his game buying needs earns an arched brow. "A game. Really," Micah adds in a sardonic tone. He is still grinning, however. "Well, y'aren't really gonna do much more with chess other than buyin' sets that look different. I...kind of like everythin'. But y'know what they say. Bi people. Present them with two options and they'll always choose /both/." Micah fails to prevent giggling /or/ blushing with this comment. Oh, well. "Prob'ly a better question is what sort of things /Matt/ likes to play?" From the stairs there comes the tromp, tromp, tromping of someone making his way down them with no regard for not being a nuisance; Toru, clad in jeans and a generic hoodie, looks a bit like he should fit in with the store's clientele. After surrendering a large messenger bag at the front counter, Micah may have noticed the teen looking through the books upstairs at an impatient pace; he's apparently come down here to see if there's any better selection. Looks like it's mostly /games/, /god/. Don't mind him, he'll just sliiiip by the conversing pair, with a slight raise of the eyebrow, as he makes his way down that aisle to see if there's anything worth paying attention to. "Mmm. No. He has a set already, he likes it rather a lot. We got it made --" Lucien stops, shakes his head abruptly and glances over the shelves again. The question makes him open his mouth. Close it. There's something almost /discomfited/ in his admission: "-- You would know better than I. I do not know much about -- the kind of things you get up to at Hive's house." He turns back to the shelves as Toru enters, returning the raise of eyebrows with a lowering of his, brows creasing in a faint frown. He shifts just that much closer to the shelves, the faint ripple of tension returning to his posture with the new arrival. His eyes slip back to Micah's die. "-- You are -- really into all this?" “I don’t know what he owns already, unfortunately… Are you lookin’ for somethin’ that takes lotsa players, or just two?” Micah feels the need to pause and smirk at Lucien’s description of ‘getting up to things’. Nefarious Game Nights, apparently. He holds the d10 out to Lucien. They /are/ fun to play with and he keeps looking at it…so, share the love! “Nope. Just pretendin’. Don’t know how I ended up here.” Micah’s nose crinkles with amusement. “Though I do have to admit I’m more into RPGs and such than board games, forced choice.” Lucien's reaction is noted, from afar, and rather than continue to peruse the aisle he's in, Toru stands a ways down and watches that pair for a moment. Sure, he tries to be a little subtle about it, but it's pretty obvious what he's doing. At one point he actually does start towards them again, but ultimately mumbles a curse under his breath and turns his attention, such as it is, to the shelf he's standing in front of. With little regard for what he's looking at, he'll occasionally pick up a box, flip it over to read the back and then replace it, apparently not really too concerned with what he ends up with; he's probably just trying to find the cheapest one. "I suppose it would be ideal if it /could/ be played with just two. He does not have much company." Lucien reaches out, taking the die from Micah; there's a slight brush of fingers against Micah's palm with this transaction, that comes with a subtle brush of something happy-warm trickling into Micah's mind. "You seem to end up a lot of places," he says with a small crook of smile. He turns the die over in his hand, looking at it thoughtfully. "-- Do you have a predilection for sparkly things?" This miiight carry an undertone of amusement to it. It fades as his eyes slant sideways to catch Toru watching them. "Do you need something?" It's not quite cool in tone, but it's not warm, either. “Well…if you’re more into traditional games that you could play with him without goin’ all /complicated/ you could pick up a mancala board or dominos or the like. Don’t gotta get all hardcore Settlers of Catan or Small World or anythin’. Most people who are enough into games will play pretty much anythin’ with some strategy to it.” Micah giggles at himself again. “Or not. I mean, I love a game of Grape Escape with kids. Play-Doh destruction! Not so much strategy.” He watches the die pass into Lucien’s hand. “I like colourful. And shiny.” Micah’s head turns to regard Toru. “Yeah, are you needin’ help?” Toru sets down the last game he was inspecting, turning to face Lucien, and idly cracks his knuckles. "Well, I /was/ gonna forget about it..." There's a vague bit of Bronx in his accent, oddly enough. But rather than respond to Lucien, he instead turns his attention to Micah. "But since you asked, I was just thinkin' if I should ask if your buddy has some kinda problem with me. I wasn't gonna say nothin', but. Since you asked." He shrugs, but then gives a slight upward nod towards Lucien. The posturing probably isn't as intimidating as he thinks it is. "Goodness, that is quite a presumption," Lucien says, bland-calm in tone, still turning the sparkly green die over in his hand idly, "I do not know you. If I had a problem with you, you would know it." For a moment, his bright green eyes flick over Toru, but it's a quick dismissive sweep that soon returns to Micah. "-- Play-doh." He sounds like this idea might actually intrigue him. His lips curl up into a small smile. "Yes. I had noticed your taste for the colourful." Micah blinks at Toru for a moment. Maybe he missed something? “Um…no, honestly, you prob’ly /would/ know if he had a problem.” A hand musses at Micah’s hair, sending it from messy in /one/ direction to messy in /another/ direction. “Don’t think nobody’s lookin’ for trouble.” He’s growing enamoured of the idea of Lucien-plus-Play-doh. “You’ll have to go to a toy store to find that, though.” His own comment earns a snort of laughter as he regards the room for a moment. “Okay, a toy store for actual /kids/, I mean…” Hazel eyes settle back on Lucien. “And it ain’t like that was a /secret/ or nothin’.” "That's funny 'cause I was thinking the exact same fuggin' thing." That Lucien doesn't know him, that is. But after puffing himself up a bit, Toru ultimately. ... lets out a bit of an irritated breath and shakes his head. "Whatever, man." Shouldering his way past the pair, empty-handed, he gives a sarcastic wave on his way to the stairs. Really, you can tell it's sarcastic! "I got better things to do than spend my time in a racist nerd-cave. Have fun being nerds." "-- What." Lucien is eying Toru /so blankly/. "Racist --" His tone is just about as blank. He looks at Micah almost helplessly, for aid on this. "Is /abjectly stupid/ a race, now?" Shouldering past Lucien mostly just encounters solid-unmoving muscle. Lucien doesn't bother following Toru's path, looking away from the teenager to Micah. "I spent quite a bit of time in toy -- oh. Kids. Mmm." He wears a slight frown, at this. "I do not think I would even know where to find one of those." Which means looking back at his phone. Taptaptap. Micah is not helpful. He is blinking again. “Did I miss…was there an /invisible/ racist incident? Because weirder things have happened.” His brow furrows slightly as Toru /teenagers/ off. “I don’t even know.” Lucien’s half-comment about toy stores earns a snicker, despite being unfinished. “Definitely not /that/ kind of toy store. Smartphones are your friends for locatin’ stuff, though.” And THAT remark from Lucien has Toru turning right the hell back around, walking within about five feet of the older guy's personal space, and glaring up at him. Fingers may be pointed. "/Stupid/? /That's/ the defense you come up with? When I walk down an aisle and two /white guys/ are hogging it up and one of them /glares/ at me and then huddles up against the shelf like he's afraid for his life, what the fuck else is it but you thinking I'm gonna pull some kinda shit because I don't look like you? You don't consider that fucking /racist/?" He pauses there, for breath, eyes a bit wide. "You don't think maybe I'm sick of dealing with that crap from people like you?" Lucien /eyes/ the pointing fingers. He does not look impressed. "I think you want to leave," he says, quiet. Mild. And that's all. "Whoa," Micah offers softly, like he is trying to calm a spooked horse, both hands held palms-out. "I think maybe a lot of misinterpretation must've happened here, because that's about...not possibly /further/ from the truth of the situation." His hands pat gently at the air. "Ain't nobody bein' helped by yellin'. I'm sorry you feel like people are givin' you crap often enough to jump right to that conclusion. It's not a pleasant feelin'." He spares a glance for Lucien, just to check in. "What, and 'go back where I came from', right?" Toru takes in a deep breath, still with the pointing, and without really realizing he's raised his voice, shouts, "I am from BROOKLYN!" Appropriately, all traces of that Bronx in his voice have vanished. He's not so much keeping up with the thug appearance here as he actually does seem to be a little upset. "And /you/," he practically spits out, just before turning to leave once again, "are a shit-covered asshole." Before he makes his dramatic exit he stops, and points at Micah. "You're okay." Aaand now he's off and up the stairs. "Yes," Lucien says, with a lift of eyebrows. "And go back where you came from." In the face of the teenager's upset he seems largely unmoved, just watching this tantrum with a faint press of lips. His hand lifts once Toru has gone, forefinger and thumb pinching at the bridge of his nose, tired. "Were /you/ looking for something, here?" “Oh good. I got my crazysauce seal of approval for the day,” Micah jokes with a weak smile once they have been deserted by the teen angst. “He must have…prob’ly not been havin’ a very good /week/.” He lets out a deflating sort of sigh. “I was just pickin’ up some more status markers. For D&D. Because Fourth Edition is insane to keep track of. Y’didn’t used to /need/ all these /bits/ to play D&D.” Micah manages to put the brakes on Nostalgic Gamer Rant. “They’re just…” He gestures at the far wall, on a shelf that is mostly filled with miniatures. "With his attitude, I imagine he was not having a very good /life/." Lucien admittedly does not say this with a great deal of sympathy. Or any sympathy. His hand drops, and he exhales a slow breath. "You are very charitable in your interpretations of people." His brows are creasing again. Kind of displeased at this thought. "I do not know anything about -- D&D. I think I am out of my depth, here." He's slipping his phone into his pocket, stepping back away from the shelves. Micah waves a hand vaguely toward the stairs. "Teenagers. Everythin's a crisis. Some of them eventually grow up an' get over it." He chuckles at Lucien's /trying/. "Well, you rescue me from the tea menu and I'll rescue you from the game shelves. All works out in the end." He wanders toward the shelf he had indicated, to retrieve tiny plastic pieces in a plastic container. "I don't think I /manufactured/ quite so many crises as a teenager," Lucien muses. "Life provides quite enough on its own." His lips press together, and he studies the shelves critically again. "He likes the ones where you play cooperatively," he finally volunteers. "Tea is much simpler than all this, though." Micah traipses back, shaking the plastic container to make the pieces rattle inside. “That’s true enough.” He chews at his lip as he thinks on that last bit of information. “Games that can be cooperative. Pandemic is cooperative and plays with 2 or more people. Scientists curin’ diseases maybe not the most fun for bein’ in the hospital, though. Ooo…maybe Castle Panic? It’s maybe aimin’ at a slightly younger crowd, but you get to slay monsters and defend the castle.” "He has a morbid sense of humour." Which is, evidently, reason enough to take Pandemic. Lucien spends a moment hunting for it before taking it off the shelf. "He can name one lymphoma, and vanquish it. I suppose cancer is not quite prone," he allows, studying the box, "to creating outbreaks, but. He enjoys fantasy. Some allowances can be made for /catharsis/. What is your favourite?" Holding the Pandemic box, he gestures with it towards the shelves. Micah responds with a chuckle to the declaration of Matt’s morbid sense of humour. “Yeah, that’s prob’ly like somethin’ I would do. I just…learned not to assume that everyone works that way.” He pulls a scrunchy face, giving the game pieces another rattle-shake. “Y’know, I am terrible at pickin’ favourites? I don’t even always have the same favourite /colour/. Board games are even /moodier/. I mean, sometimes you’re just in a silly mood and then somethin’ like Apples to Apples is nice. An’ sometimes you just need to slay some monsters and… Y’know what. All lies. Dark Tower is the best board game that ever happened. It’s ancient, but if you can find one where the Tower still works, it’s the /best/ thing.” "Is that how you work?" Lucien's gaze ticks up along Micah's form to settle on his face last. "You do seem to have no dearth of positivity but --" He shakes his head, tucks the box beneath his arm. "Dark Tower. I shall look. The internet has many things for sale /and/," this next seems to be the greatest selling-point of online shopping, judging by Lucien's tone, "I do not have to talk to a single other human being." One more glance over the shelves, and then he is shifting to turn towards the stairs back up. "Hmm...sometimes. Spent enough time /in/ hospitals, myself. Either got to be cheery or a little twisted, far as I can tell. An' really no reason y'can't do /both/." Micah shakes his head at the declaration of internet shopping intentions. "Oh /no/, y'don't want to try to buy that one. It's be, like, $300 /at least/ to get one that works. Best deal is to know someone who /still/ has one after forever. Thing came out in...1980 or somethin'. I suffer from chronic retro." Micah follows Lucien up the stairs, rattle-rattling his game pieces all the way to checkout. "Both does seem the most entertaining way to go." Lucien's smile has returned, by this. He still looks thoughtful at the mention of the game. But right now he has a /mission/, and he continues on up to -- rather /solemnly/ -- purchase the game. "I might /might/ be able to convince Janine to let me borrow hers. For /kids with cancer/. The sick kids card is a /doozy/. For if we manage to pull a small game night at the hospital, of course. Prob'ly maybe no one else will have played it before, though. Huh. Worth a thought." Micah's purchase is less solemn and more /chipper/. He finally returns to the conversation from the tangent-train of thought he had hopped on. "’Sides, we all know I go for maximum entertainment value, generally speakin'." "Does Matt still count as a kid?" Lucien's eyebrows raise at this thought, but he's still smiling. He slips the handles of his newly-acquired plastic bag over his wrist. "Still acts like one, I suppose." He starts for the exit, holding the door for Micah. "Do you? It is hard to tell. You can barely stop smiling for a minute at a stretch. I thought perhaps you were just easily entertained. -- Have you had dinner?" “Sure he can! Especially for the purpose of /guiltin’/ to borrow really rare vintage games!” Micah is…beaming at this. Yes, he does barely stop smiling most of the time. “Oh I /am/ easily entertained. That tends to maximize one’s entertainment value on a daily basis! I have not done the food-thing yet. Was that a ‘let’s do that’? Because I’d do that.” His prattling is equally as enthusiastic as his smile. "Kid. He is older than I am. I am hardly --" Lucien dips his head, hiding his wry smile. "Well. If it is for the sake of the games. It /was/ a let's-do-that." He waits for Micah to head out before letting the door swing shut behind them. "I know a delightful Vietnamese place not far from here." Lucien is not quite so enthusiastic as Micah. But his smile stays in place as he leads the way off towards dinner.