Virtual Violence (Wren)

[Dante Russo]

Dante was invited to someone's room. That was weird, but he wasn't complaining. The situation with Jo Jo wasn't turning out so good. The last thing Jo Jo said to him was that maybe they shouldn't talk anymore. This was deeply disturbing to Dante. He was starting to think that he might have to actually talk about his feelings in order to put things right again. Dante shuddered at the thought.

Ugh, not dealing with drama today. Today, he was going to waste time with video games, and hope he didn't get his ass beat.

Dante stood outside of Wren's door, feeling a bit odd about being this eager for the presence of another person. Well, the presence of a sane person, anyway. Wren appeared to be surprisingly reasonable. Which was also weird.

He knocked three times on the door, and tried really hard not to look like he wanted to rip somebody's face off. Because really, he was managing to fuck up the only part of his life that meant anything, and it was pissing him off. Hopefully Wren had something violent for him to play.

[Wren O'Hara]

Wren had been feeding his fish when a knock on his door made him look off to the side. He looked back to the fish tank to find that he’d accidentally put one shake of fish food too many into the tank; silently apologizing to his scaly roommates, he rested the cardboard carton of fish food on his desk and went to open the door.

It was Dante – of course, Wren had known that. Hardly anyone ever bothered to knock on his door anymore. It was a welcome change. He raised his eyebrows slightly in greeting.

“Hey,” he said, opening the door wide enough for Dante to step in. His room wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t exactly clean, either; it smelled faintly of chlorine, like Wren, and had the slightly rumpled look that was characteristic of the rooms of teenage boys. Behind the small fish tank, Wren’s navy blue comforter lay crumpled into one corner of the bed. He quickly pulled it off and tossed it into the corner, where it wouldn’t be in the way.

“There’s snacks, if you want something,” he said, motioning to a moderately-sized plastic shelf that contained an impressive stash of potato chips, pretzels, protein bars, and two twelve-packs of grape soda. “I’ll hook up the thing.”

He busied himself by doing exactly that, opening the small drawer under his television stand to reveal a slightly scratched PS3 console. He fiddled with a handful of cords for a moment, plugged them into their respective slots, and sat back on his heels, satisfied.

“You wanna pick first?” he asked, offering Dante a half-smile. He scooped up an armful of games and dumped them on the bed. “Oh, and do you want the blue or green controller?”

He usually used the blue one, but it was polite to ask, and he didn’t really care either way.

[Dante Russo]

Dante looked up at Wren when the door opened. He gave an irritated sort of smile. "Yo," he said before stepping through the door. He glanced around the room, quietly making judgments.

It was messy, and it smelled like a pool. Dante made an attempt to keep his own dorm neat. Even the common areas, although with roommates that was slightly infuriating. Dante was a little obsessive compulsive. Part of that was figuring out how to make the most of the tiny apartment spaces he'd lived in his whole life, and part of that was just mild clostraphobia. Clutter made him feel crowded.

He also noticed the fishtank. Dante stared at it for a moment. Who the hell needed a fishtank? That wasn't even like a real pet. You couldn't interact with them, and they were super easy to kill. Dante would estimate that he could have bought food for a month (for he and Rebecca both) with the cost of that setup. Dante walked up to it and peered through the glass with a slightly predatory look in his eyes.

Pulling himself away from the tank, Dante settled his eyes on the shelf of snacks. Quietly he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He couldn't help thinking of those times when all he had to eat was bread. Excess. That's what this was. Plain and simple excess. But really, what did he expect from someone who actually had a gaming console. This probably didn't count as excess to most people. Pfft. Fuck the middle class.

Dante turned his head when Wren spoke. He grabbed a bag of pretzels from the shelf and opened it on his way over to the bed. "Blue, and anything that involves killing things," he said, popping a pretzel into his mouth. He leaned over the bed, looking at the games Wren had brought out. His eye was overwhelmed by the amount of input, and Dante was having trouble finding and reading titles. Why are there so many? Seriously! Who needs this many games!?

"You're kind of a rich bastard, aren't you?" He said with a quiet smirk. There was just a little bite in his tone. A touch of resentment beneath the teasing nature of his comment. He wasn't trying to start any extra drama for himself, especially since he happened to find Wren tollerable. Of course, he had a problem controlling his mouth, so that plan could easily go south very quickly.

[Wren O'Hara]

Wren handed Dante the transparent blue controller without hesitation. He picked up the green one, flipped it over to make sure the batteries were still good, and positioned it upright again. At Dante’s announcement that he wanted to play something about killing things, Wren huffed out a small, good-natured chuckle. He began sliding the plastic cases around on the bed.

“Bad day?” he asked, although not unkindly. He tossed Forza Motorsport and FIFA 13 to the side, since there was a notable lack of killing things in those. Instead, he held up Payday 2 for Dante’s perusal. “This one has killing,” he informed the other boy. “And cocaine.”

He paused, fishing a pretzel out of the bag and munching thoughtfully. Dante’s next words were kind of low, and Wren had to strain to hear. After he’d heard, he wondered if he’d heard correctly.

He stared blankly for a moment, uneasy. Rich bastard? Did his room really give Dante that impression? Lots of people at Hammel had more stuff than he did, he thought a little defensively. But then, he thought back to his home in Nyack – the one with the loving family, in-ground pool, and seven televisions – and he sobered up.

“I try not to be,” was all he managed to say. “I mean, I dunno.”

The look on Dante’s face made him feel like apologizing for some reason. He looked away, popping Payday 2 out of its case.

[Dante Russo]

Dante took the controller from Wren. "Bad week, man," he said, shaking his head and glancing up at the game Wren was holding. He snorted and chuckled when cocaine was mentioned. Dante had tried a lot of things, but not as many things as his buddy Spike (ex-buddy, more like). One of the most hilarious things he'd ever seen was the day Spike tried coke. Bitch thought he was superman!

Right, but then Dante said something snarky.

Holy shit, D. This is why you have no friends. Dante silently kicked himself a little at Wren's reaction. He didn't really understand it. This dude was just weird. He didn't get defensive or jab back, or any of the things Dante generally expected from people. He didn't even get offended, he just got, well, sort of sad looking.

Again, it wasn't any fun, and it sort of killed any desire he had to get all aggressive.

"Dude," Dante said, casually reaching out and hitting Wren's shoulder with a loose fist, "lighten up a little. You are no fun to pick on. At all." Dante looked at Wren seriously, then raised an eyebrow and pointed at the fish tank with his thumb. "But seriously. You got snacks and a fish tank up in this joint. If you tidied up, this shit would be classy."

Dante sat down on the edge of Wren's bed, munching on another pretzel. He was slightly disturbed by the effort he'd just put forth to sort of take back what he'd said. The way he'd just sidestepped into 'naw man, just kidding' to save this kid's feelings... Why the fuck did he care?

[Wren O'Hara]

“That sucks,” Wren said with as much sympathy as the passing nature of the conversation would allow him. He knelt on the floor again, polished the shiny inside of the game on his shirt, and slid it into the PS3’s disc drive. The console whirred to life, filling the small room with background noise.

He repositioned himself next to Dante on the bed, still looking a little morose as he ran his thumb over the joystick on the green controller. Dante’s fist on his shoulder snapped him out of it, and he looked at the other boy, a little startled; he was instantly reminded of their first conversation a few days ago, when Dante had accused him of making a sad puppy face.

He huffed out a small laugh at the memory.

“Sorry,” he said, although his lips were still upturned at the corners. It wasn’t something he did on purpose, but he wasn’t sure how to explain that without sounding lame. It was just how he’d always been, was all. The ‘quiet one.’

He looked around his dorm; could it be classy? It was just pretzels and a fish tank… The title screen flashed onto the small (well, relatively small) flat screen television.

“Blue controller is Player 1, so you can push Start,” he told the other boy, leaning back in a heap on his mattress. He then stuck his hand blindly into the pretzel bag and retrieved a handful of salt-covered goodness. He looked over at Dante; he hadn’t forgotten that he’d said he’d had a bad week, but Wren wasn’t sure how to approach the subject.

He settled by figuring that, if Dante needed to vent to somebody, he could do it while they were blowing shit up.

[Dante Russo]

Dante glanced down at his controller, took a moment to figure out which button to press, then started the game. He struggled a bit through the menu, but soon enough here was gameplay. Dante was quiet for little while, except for the standard, "wait, how do I..." questions that came when one was unfamiliar with the game they were playing.

Maybe quiet was the wrong word. Dante asked at least a dozen questions within the first ten minutes. It'd been a long time since he'd played any kind of game like this, but once he figured out what he was doing, Dante was pretty good.

He really enjoyed shooting people in the face.

"HA! I should be a hitman. That's a valid career choice, right?" Dante grinned, and glanced away from the screen for a split second to see Wren's reaction.

He was really only half joking. Dante's opinion of himself generally led him to believe that he'd wind up being some kind of criminal. He couldn't imagine being hired to do anything worthwile. He'd probably end up working a couple minimum wage jobs, and after a few years he'd get fed up and turn into that guy who shows up to work packing heat.