| Early Monday evening after school and Donny's at the usual haunt, only this time he's behind the counter. He's going over a list of things that the manager had left for him to do and he's checking them off as he goes. The local rock station is playing on the radio, loud enough for ambiance but low enough to not be obnoxious.
Tabitha got off of the bus and, instead of walking home from the stop, she walks to the comic book store, instead, a bag of lucky charms in her hands as she fishes out the last few cereal pieces from it, leaving the marshmallows behind. She makes the door jangle on her way in, and, "Hey," she greets Donny. "I didn't know you even worked here or stuff."
Donny smiles when he sees a familiar face walk in. "Hey Tab." He says, moving the list over. "Oh, it's my first day, on a trial basis." He shrugs. "I get decent money from my mom, but I figure I should try to be responsible. We're not like the trust funders across town." He smiles. "So what brings you here? Looking for something new or did you need to take a nap?" He asks, jokingly.
"Wow," Tabs sounds really impressed, coming to lean on the countertop. "I wish I could work here, but my mom doesn't want me to have a job. Probably she's right, you know, I'd probably just..." she shrugs. "Forget to go. I can be forgetful like that. But!" She pulls her backpack off of her back and plops it down onto the countertop. "Wait," she instructs Donny, opening it up and looking around inside.
Donny nods. "Yeah, I can understand that. You've got a full enough plate with school as it is." He says, before looking towards the bag. "Whatcha got?" He asks, curious.
Tabitha scavenges through her stuff, pulling out her Earth Science homework and dropping it on the floor, then pulling out her math homework and flipping it over on the countertop. "Here it is," she pushes the math homework over toward Donny. On the back, she's doodled a little poster advertising for a gaming group to start up a tabletop RPG campaign.
Donny smirks as everything gets displaced. "I'm guessing that this isn't your way of asking me for help with your homework?" He looks over at the sheet. "You want to start up a group? At school, or in general? I can probably ask the boss to put up a flyer?" He offers by way of suggestion. He shrugs. "I'm not well-versed in that kind of thing but I can be persuaded."
"That's kinda why I brought it by, I hoped I could get it put up here." Nevermind her math homework on the back of it, which will likely never see the light of day again. "Kids at school, sure, but there are a lot of cool people who hang out here at the store, too." Tabs has an odd definition of the word 'cool,' obviously.
Donny nods and takes the paper. "I'll ask the boss later. I don't see why he'd have an issue. The latest you should see it up there is by tomorrow." He says with a smile. "What kind of gaming are we talking about here?" he stops a beat.. "We don't have to wear tights, do we? I don't look good in tights..."
"No, not a LARP, though... man, a LARP would be fun, too," Tabs looks thoughtful about the prospect of putting one on, eyes growing distant as she gets lost in thought, leaning over the countertop before she snaps out of it. "Oh, no, but not a LARP. Just tabletop. Maybe D&D or some World of Darkness." She looks down under the countertop at the selection of dice. "Ooh, do you have any of the VtM dice sets?"
Donny nods. "Yeah, We have the books too, if you need any of those." He smiles.. "Pretending to be a character other than yourself, running around whacking people with NERF swords is fun?" He chuckles and shrugs. "Iunno... I'll take your word for it."
"Oh, we have all the books at home," Tabs smiles awkwardly, a crooked little gesture. "At least all the old books, I grew up loving those, and haven't had the heart to betray them for the new stuff yet," she wrinkles up her nose. "You should come play, though. It'll be fun."
Donny nods and smiles. "I will. I mean, I can't exactly give an opinion on the products we sell here without actually having tried them out." He smiles and steps back, taking a seat on the stool behind the register. "So what else do you have planned tonight, besides ignoring your homework?"
"Humm... well, I gotta be home in time for dinner, or else mom's going to be worried. After, though, I dunno, I'll probably just grab a shower and then go online and see who's around to chat with," Tabs answers frankly, unashamed of her lame, lame social life.
Donny smirks and nods. "That's true, there's that." He says, looking out. "I'm not one to talk, anyways. My social life has been rather.... non-existent these past couple weeks." He says, shrugging with a sigh. "I may just do the same. It's not like I'm going to hear from MJ anytime tonight." He says, again with a sigh and a bit of cattiness in his voice.
Tabitha's eyes widen. "Mary Jane? Are you accidentally Spiderman now?" she asks, sounding oddly earnest in her inquiry, crossing her arms underneath her and one ankle over the other behind her. "What's your IM handle? Maybe we can chat later."
Donny smirks. "It's... an inside joke between Jena and I... She lives next door to me.. So.. she's the Mary Jane to my Peter." He sighs and shrugs it off. "Me? I'm FenderBender." He smirks.. "Not very witty, I know..."
"Oh, hey, cool, who do I get to be?" Tabs wonders, "Like Hobgoblin or something?" she grins impishly, then taps her mouth with a forefinger five or six times. "FenderBender. I feel like I've seen that name on the chats before. I'm cobweb."
Donny smirks. "If you start throwing grenades at me, then sure." He chuckles. "Maybe Felicia Hardy, at least she became Black Cat... I'd say Gwen Stacy but... well... we all know how that ended." He smirks and nods. "Masquerades." He says, knowingly.
Tabitha's eyes widen, and she sings, "Paper faces on parade! Masquerade!" as she recalls the night in question. "Oh, yeah. I could totally be Black Cat. She's got the moves, right?" and, planting her palms upon the countertop, she pushes down and leaps up into a super-heroine crouch right there on the countertop, one knee up to her chest and one leg outstretched to one side, both arms straight down in front of her. "Hwaah!"
Donny chuckles and nods, then is taken aback at the leap.. "Uh.. yeah.. Great, but you might wanna get down from there.. before you hurt yourself.. or... break..something..." He looks around nervously.. "And before I get fired..."
"Aw," Tabitha just wants to climb things, that's all. But she hops back down, sniffs, once, unrelated, and then grins. "Okay, well, ring me up a set of those oWoD d10s, and, uh, we can chat online tonight about ideas for a campaign. I kinda wanna run Changeling, honestly, but more people might want to do Vampire."
Donny shrugs and nods. "Sure." He says, grabbing a set of the dice from under the counter. He rings them up and quotes a price. "I should be on tonight. It's not like Dad is keeping me to a curfew or anything."
Tabitha rummages in her pockets for a wad of crumpled-up bills, scavenging out a five and then enough ones to cover the cost of the dice. "I thought that a curfew was for, like, when you go out of the house," she grins playfully, taking her new dice. "I'm going to have to do a purification spell on these to get rid of all the botches."
Donny chuckles and shrugs. "Whatever you need to get them to work. If you need supplies, I hear there's a good apothecary in town." He says as he makes the sale and hands the change over. "And that.." he says.. "Is the last transaction of the night." He says as he makes his way over to the door, changing the sign over to 'Closed'. He holds the door open. "I don't mean to kick you out but, you've got a campaign to prepare."
"I do!" Tabs skips on out with her new dice, happy as a clam. "See you later, Spidey!" she grins big on her way out, beginning to sprint on home, making tracks down the sidewalk toward their neighborhood like something was chasing her. Something big, with teeth, fangs, the whole nine.
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