New old things (Saul/Lucien)

[Lucien DeChain]

Lucien also grinned at the beast-like man's interjection. He wasn't sure what to make of Saul Kelly, though he seemed like a friendly enough fellow. And he liked toy stores...

On the idea of a quest for one specific CD intrigued Lucien, and at Ari's suggestive comment, Lucien raised his eyebrow, showing interest.

"Oh? Well, we could always go to try and find this album.. Which one are you looking for, exactly? We might be able to find it more efficiently if we know which stores to look at..." He replied, with a curious tone. Lucien had always been a fan of such things as quests, mysteries, puzzles.. And this was no different.

In fact, it was better.

[Saul Kelly]

Saul tapped curiously on the table, zoning out into past memories of the great music he had once listened to. Apart from the world, he forgot about Rogues and Crows and Gods and friends and Luciens, and instead was caught in a purgatory of absolutely nothing remarkable. Presumably, Ari and Lucien chattered away in the background of his little disappearance.

[Vespyr]

”uh, it’s an Oingo Boingo album… I dunno which one but I heard they were good. I don’t know what kind of music it is… probably something alternative or punk maybe?” Ari answered, his brow furrowed as he stared down at the table for a few moments as if he was unsure or nervous about something. But he shrugged it off a moment later.

[Lucien DeChain]

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap...

Lucien's eye twitched. As Saul went off to his own little world, Lucien tried desperately not to let it show how annoyed the absent tapping was. After a moment, he calmed, and tried to respond to Ari's statement.

"Oingo Boingo, was it? Well, I've never heard of that artist... Shall we go find out if the music stores have any left?" He asked, slightly excited at both the chance to go on an adventure, and the idea that he would be guiding his friends, leading instead of the usual following.

{ooc: What time is it?
ADVENTURE TIME!}

[Saul Kelly]

Returning from his journey to elsewhere, Saul rejoined the conversation in time to hear Lucien's suggestion of moving to locate the elusive record that Ari was in search for. Smiling and nodding his head as he attempted to scoot out of the booth, excited to begin their journey and let the youngest member of the group free from the seating arrangement. Waiting for Ari and Lucien to take the lead, as both had been on the territory while Saul had not, the man nervously bounced on the balls of his feet, continuing on with the theme of annoying habits that he was unaware bothered his host.

[Vespyr]

Ari's eyes lit up at the suggestion and he nodded, immediately following Saul as the boy scooted out of the booth. He stood beside the taller man, dwarfed as usual, but he glanced up at the older boy with a somewhat delighted grin. It reminded him of the time he and Saul had gone to the mall and raided Hot Topic, and ended up deciding to pierce their noses. Ari still wore the little silver ring in his septum.

What a good fucking day.

[Lucien DeChain]

And Lucien followed suit, standing up and smiling at the duo. They seemed to have quite the history together, these two... Lucien thought back to his earlier conversation with Ari, alone, in this very place. And he looked to Saul Kelly, wondering if this was the 'roommate' that he was running from. If that was the case...

But, it might have been the complete opposite. These two looked like quite the chums.

At any rate, they seemed to be okay now, and Ari gave no signs of trepidation. So, he gestured towards the door, and started on his way out of the establishment.

~

As they were on their way, Lucien would take the lead, since he knew the way. He would lead them south west, into an old strip-mall area. There, in the distance, Lucien could see the still-standing brick walls of the record store, its brightly painted mural faded and covered with graffiti. It looked like there was a bit of gang activity in the area, or there had been in the recent past. Though, since it was bright in the daylight, and there was no one to be seen in the area, Lucien figured that it was safe enough. Besides, he could handle himself, and even if Ari and Saul Kelly couldn't, backup could be there in three minutes.

Lucien looked back with a smile to Ari, pointing forwards to the old store. He was rather hopeful, and even if the particular album wasn't there, surely there would be some other gems that would catch the slim man's eye...

As Lucien looked to the shorter man, with the long hair that covered some of his face... He felt something strange. It was a feeling he couldn't shake, but couldn't explain. Fear? Trepidation? Was something wrong? Or maybe just off?

...Lucien didn't know. So he let the feeling pass, and kept it in mind as he ventured forward.

[Saul Kelly]

Always pleased to go to a mall, Saul followed enthusiastically behind Lucien, hopeful that this particular one would yield interesting finds. His previous journey to a tattered mall with Ari had resulted in the best day he could remember for a long while, and ended in the two kids getting their very first piercings.

Though until the world ended such places held very little significance to the man, Saul craved any chance he got to explore the ruins of them. His own sort of safe urban exploration, more often than not the man himself was the scariest thing in the facility.

And this held true. The beast boy trailed behind Lucien still, ready to lash out at anything that tried to ruin the good time, as it was clear that he was more than capable of holding his own in such fights. Once the store was in view and pointed out, however, the man ran on ahead like a child as he saw a world of things to learn about before him.

[Vespyr]

As Saul ran on ahead, Ari pedaled along on his bike a little ways behind Lucien until he'd caught up. He a little nervously returned the man's smile with a pleased one of his own and reached up to brush the hair out of his face before they went on.

"did you used to live around here?" he's ask as he pedaled alongside Lucien toward the record shop, matching the man's pace.

Once they got there, Ari locked his bike to a lamppost before trotting over toward the door and carefully pushing his way inside. He glanced about to see where Saul had run off to with the traces of a mirthful grin tugging at the corner of his lips. The place was kind of a mess, but he looked around for the header signs labeling the music genres, looking for somewhere to start. Might as well try alternative? That was vague enough.

As he meandered into the aisles, he hoped everything was still mostly alphabetized. Ari ran his nimble fingers thoughtfully along the spines of the CDs as he passed, his blue-grey eyes on alert.

[Lucien DeChain]

Lucien saw Saul Kelly run ahead, and glanced back to answer Ari's question.

"No, I grew up in Colorado, actually. I just moved here about a year before the bombs fell." He replied.

A rather large bit of bad luck, there, actually...

Once they squeezed their way in to the old music store, they would all see that it was not really as looted as Lucien had thought. In fact, mostly everything was intact. Everything, that is, except for a certain Mariah Carey CD.

So, as Ari scanned through the Alternative section, Lucien found his way over to the metal section, looking also for a specific few bands, ranging from Folk Metal to Progressive Metal. All in all, most of his influence for music was from hanging around with Wedge.

Lucien looked to Ari, who was only an aisle or two away. Saul Kelly was closeby as well. To them, he spoke aloud, holding up a specific album labeled Parallax II: Future Sequences.

"So, did you two grow up around here, then?"

[Saul Kelly]

After settling down, Saul had meandered towards the section marked 'Local' and flipped through the CD's. Somehow he doubted that when the looting started the first thing people would go for was anything in this category. Pausing for a moment with a jolt, the man found a name he recognized and grinned wide-eyed at his prize. Years ago, he had been dragged along to some concert at a local club and the headliners of the show had been the ever-fantastic, classy Millionaires.

Ecstatic to have found something valuable, Saul raised the disk case above his head in triumph. He was broken out of his little trance by Lucien's question, to which he snorted at.

"Noooope. I'm from, like, Ethcondido area. Than Diego, that kinda thing." A long walk from there to here, it turned out to be. Oh, well. Saul continued skimming through the CD's, though he certainly doubted anything else the other two located would beat his find.

[Vespyr]

Ari craned his head up a little to see over the aisle partition, and spotted Lucien in the metal section. His brow raised a little with interest. Lucien didn't seem the type, but that was pretty cool.

"yeah, I grew up in Long Beach." he replied as he returned his sights back down to the CDs. His nimble fingers flipped eagerly through dusty tabs in the 'O' section of the alphabet. Oasis... plenty of bands he didn't recognize... The Offspring... no, no, no, no... Oingo Boingo. Ari grinned and picked up a rather exciting-looking album called Dead Man's Party. It was the only one there. The teen flipped it over to examine the front and back; it definitely looked like something Cain would recommend.

"hell yes."

Having found what he needed, Ari wandered over to the progressive metal section to join Lucien and see if he couldn't find some Cynic to add to his collection.

[Lucien DeChain]

Lucien nodded to Saul Kelly, smiling. He had never been to Escondido, or San Diego, but he figured they were nice places. And, somehow, the lisp was getting less bothersome to the young man. Though, it was still there...

As Ari joined him, looking over the first part of the alphabetical order, (which was in absolutely atrocious condition,) Lucien moved down from Between the Buried and Me to make a space for Ari, something in him not wanting to be too close to the boy. He made his way down to the E-s, looking for... Yes, here it is!

Lucien pulled out five discs. Out of all the looting, all the salvaging, all the people who had destroyed this music store before them... Somehow the entire Eluveitie discography was here.

He grinned big. "Oh, wow. This is definitely a great find." He lifted his arms and fanned the CDs out in the air, like a giant poker hand. It was the best full house to ever exist.

[Saul Kelly]

Rather pleased with his treasure, Saul flipped much more carelessly through the disks, now almost disinterested in what the store had to offer. He wasn't even sure why he had the CD he had to begin with. The man lacked a CD player. Maybe if he found a whole bunch of CD's he could make a disc city in the living room.

Yes, he'd do that. Still in the local section, grabby paws snatched up more objectively bad music before the pile was a foot tall. Pleased, the man meandered over to Ari and Lucien where he loomed curiously, seeing what kind of things the others had acquired.

[Vespyr]

"ohhhh snap," Ari grinned. He didn't recognize the band but the bounty that Lucien had just pulled off the shelf still looked like something to be quite proud of. He turned his eyes back to where his fingertips sorted through the good, the bad, and the things he had never even heard of until he found what he was hoping to see, Carbon Based Anatomy. Score.

Ari glanced up to see Saul approaching with a giant stack of CDs in hand. His blue eyes widened curiously.

"hey, want to put some of those in my backpack?" he offered, so the man wouldn't have to carry the precariously high stack of albums around all day. He swung the worn-out black Jansport off his right shoulder and unzipped it, sliding his two CDs in before holding it open for Saul if he wanted to.

"we should totally go over to Jaq's later with my boombox." he suggested, smiling eagerly.