iselldrugstothecommunity | There Are Flowers in the Garbage [Musebox]

There Are Flowers in the Garbage [Musebox]

Expecting that school, both correspondence and not, was going to keep Howard and Diana busy was probably a vain hope. Howard's sleep schedule keeps him from usually having evenings free (either he's napping or he's zombified), but occasionally his and Diana's free time overlap. Tonight is one of those nights.

See, it's after Christmas, and the grocer down the street throws away most of the turkeys that weren't sold by that day. Some of them are well rotten by now, but some of them were frozen before they were tossed, and as such they're still more than edible. Howard told Diana about this heinous crime, and they spent the last night unable to really sleep without thinking of all the meat going to waste.

So tonight they're striking a blow for justice. Or for hunger. Whichever. Howard's donned black clothing to blend in with the background, and has brought his backpack and a shopping cart. At the very least they can get some emergency stores for the freezer. He waits outside Ian and Barbara's house for Diana, tapping his foot.

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He wouldn't have to wait long.

Diana snuck up behind him, knowing she had to be fast or his paranoia would alert him. In a few graceful movements, she'd wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him from behind.

"Hiya boyfriend~" She stole a kiss on his cheek before pulling away from him and moving around to the front, smirking.

"I wonder how Barb would take us sneaking out at night together?" Diana teased, hitching her own bag more securely on her shoulder.

The way Howard's body goes stiff is less reminiscent of surprise and more of revulsion. "Get off me," he snarls. "Act's over when we're out of the house."

He gestures down the road. "She'd probably make Ian sit me down and give me another talk about condoms. Did I tell you about that? I was like, two seconds away from dying of embarrassment when Ian offered to get a banana out and show me."

He wonders if Barbara's given Diana a safe sex talk either. The Chestertons are pretty liberal about sexual attitudes, or at the very least, realistic about how well repression works on teenagers, but Diana's a girl, and they're supposed to be all prudish. Howard's supposed to be the horndog of the two, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Diana follows him, they're not side by side, but they are in step with each other.

She has to cover her mouth as they walk to contain her own laughter, not wanting to give them away, but the whole image of that scenario was just too funny. "Oh, and I bet you jumped at that offer."

Calming herself down, she tucked one of her long bangs behind her ears. "Barbara's been asking me if I want her to get the pill for me, since I can't legally get it myself." Diana shook her head, amused. "She always goes bright red though and says it while she's cooking or cleaning so she doesn't have to look me in the eye."

"I think my exact reaction was to die a little inside and remind Ian that my medical training including sex ed." He snickers too, though. Oh, their foster parents.

"I can't believe they think that I have taste bad enough to be getting naughty with you." He rolls his eyes. "But at least it keeps Ian off my back about getting a girlfriend."

She puts on that pouty face. "How rude. And you think you're not damaging to my reputation? How am I going to pick up some innocent sixties boys when they think I'm together with cute neurotic Howie?"

Not that Diana couldn't coax them into forgetting that.

She looks at the trolly. "So, where are we going to hide it all? I'm pretty sure Barbara's going to notice the sudden increase in poultry."

"Yeah, I'm totally the albatross around your neck. At least you're not worrying some ass-backwards racist is going to assume I'm harassing you and kick my ass in the name of your virginal honor." Especially since Diana's the one who does the harassing. "Besides, innocent sixties boys? I thought you were more the megalomaniac type than the innocent type."

He drops his voice down as they approach the store. The lights are all out, and security systems are still fairly primitive, so this should be an easy job.

"Barbara never checks the icebox in the basement. We'll just store them there are move one of them at a time up every week, pretend it's a gift or something. I can make up some crap about how I'm saving my allowance for food. She'd totally believe it, from us."

"Ooo, look who's been paying attention in English class." She taunts in a mockery of a praising voice. "Yeh, I remember the expression on that boys face when it leaked we share a house. The scandal." Diana shrugs in regards to his comment. "I like to switch types, otherwise it gets boring."

"Sounds good." Diana whispers, opening up her bag to find a torch. It's both a blessing and curse that it's an old model, the lights not very bright but at least that won't draw much attention.

"I like English. I just hate English teachers. You know that." He's not nearly as stupid as his slacker attitude can communicate. "You can just call me your foster sibling or something. No need to play it up for anyone but Ian and Barbara."

He'd really rather she didn't.

"Alright, give me cover." He sneaks towards the door and gets his lockpicks out.

"Will do." It's more convenient that way for both of them anyway.

She aims the light just away from him, so he can see the lock but the light isn't pinpointing him like a giant target. Neither of them want to find out what it'd be like if the police spotted a black kid stealing from the grocer.

The fear FAYZ drives into you helps in these situations, you're always looking around, always listening.

"Got it," Howard whispers, and pushes the door open. He gestures for Diana to follow him into the store room, with the trash bin in there. His own flashlight is too small to be effective in there, and they both need to carry turkeys.

He opens up the trash bin, leans over and roots around until he finds what feels like a big, slick block of ice in the shape of a turkey. He pulls it out and hands it to her. "Jackpot."

She pushes the cart through the door, stuffing the torch between the metal grating and the handle to free her hands.

Diana smiles as he passes it over. She knows it's stupid, but she still gets excited at the idea of such a large amount of food. Gently, she places it into the cart, not wanting to drop it in and make a noise, then holds her arms out for more, like a production line.

Howard mostly gets excited off of stealing, although the food is a definite, definite bonus. He passes Diana another, and then another.

Five turkeys in, he pauses. "Did you hear that?"

Someone's outside the storeroom.

Diana freezes, turkey in hands. Quickly she places it ontop of the others, then flicks the torch off and backs up.

She desperately wants to reach for the cart and pull it with her but she knows better tries to edge towards the shadows.

Howard presses himself against the wall and slides down behind the trash bin, hoping no one comes in.

It's a vain hope. There's a voice outside. "I know you're in there, you little brats! I can see the footsteps!"

The door swings open and Mr. Frederick, the grocer, comes in with a large flashlight. He shines it around the room, stopping on Diana's face.

Diana goes pale, rooted to the spot, her blood feels like it's dropped a few degrees.

She opens her mouth, points just behind the man and screams loudly to distract him before dashing out of the spotlight and behind the shelves.

Mr. Frederick does turn and look, but he snaps back to attention soon enough to close the door after him and cut off the escape path. He slams his hand on the lightswitch and the whole room lights up.

Howard tries to sink further behind the bin, but Mr. Frederick reaches down and grabs him by the upper arm, hauling him up. "I've already called the police on you! You think you can bring your little girlfriend with you and steal my things and maybe snog her in my store room after hours? Is that what you think?"

He drags Howard in front of the door, so Diana can't get out either. Howard twists and thrashes like a cat stuck in a trap, yelling something or other, but whatever it is it'd make most people's ears turn white.

Diana had only just managed to get over the blinding experience of having a flashlight in her face when the lights come on.

She's not sure what to do. If this were FAYZ, she'd attack without thought, it was how you survived but this place had consequences, she couldn't just assault someone and not expect repercussions.

But as she sees Howard struggling, she lets panic and adrenaline take over her. Diana picks up one of the boxes containing some cabbages and hurls it at the man to stun him, her good aim winning out. As the heads roll across the floor she runs into him, smacking into the man with her shoulder, hoping the combined weight of her and Howard will knock him off his feet so she can grope for the door handle.

Howard wrenches away and also goes for the door handle - unfortunately, he and Diana mostly get in each other's way. Mr. Frederick gets up and grabs them both by the back of their shirts - he's a big man, and it's not difficult, despite the struggling.

"I have them in here!" He yells when he hears a car engine, and two police officers open the store room door. "They're trying to run!"

Howard goes slack seeing they're outnumbered, and puts his hands up. He knows logically Brit police aren't armed, but he's smaller than them anyway. One of the officers pries Mr. Frederick's arms off the two teens.

"Alright, let them go, they're not going anywhere. Let's find out what's going on here. No more roughhousing."

Diana doesn't appreciate being held by this man but stops struggling the moment she hears the engines.

She complies, standing still with her hands up. Great, they were being arrested. This was going to put Barb and Ian over the freaking moon.

She doesn't say anything though, just casts a glance at Howard. What excuse can they really come up with? She hopes Howards got a good one because otherwise she's going to have to improvise quickly.

Howard, on the other hand, can't come up with anything clever and instead just goes with honestly. "We were just going through his trash. Is that illegal?"

Well. Yes. But.

One of the officers pulls Mr. Frederick to the side and starts asking if he owns the store, so on so forth. The other stays with Diana and Howard and looks as if, while he's not going to browbeat them, he'll still stop them if they try to make a run for it. "Alright, whose idea was this?"

Diana didn't jump straight at the question, that would be too suspicious, but she did make sure to talk before Howard.

"It was totally his idea. I don't know why I let him talk me into these things." She sighs, as if expired with the whole situation. "It must be those puppy dog eyes."

"Hey, it wasn't..." Howard shoots her a look. Traitor. They're so screwed. "You know, the door was open, and we were looking for a dark place to, you know..."

He really doesn't know how playing up the dumb horny teenagers angle will work, especially since he and Diana aren't exactly the same race, but it's better than nothing. He just hopes they buy that the first story was an attempt at getting out of admitting the truth. "You won't tell our parents, right? I mean, she'd be in huge trouble..."

It looks like it's about to work when the other officer comes over. "The owner says he's seen the boy skulking around a few times before, and caught him stealing once. Doesn't recognize the girl. We should probably bring them both in overnight."

Dammit.

She would try to look offended at Howard's look but honestly, he's thought worse of her than that.

"What?" Diana glances back and forth between the officers, looking every bit the shocked young girl in over her head. "Overnight? For making out in a store room?"

She sticks out her bottom lip and gives Howard a pathetic look, for the officers benefit more than his, of course. "I told you this was a bad idea."

"For trespassing. The owner says that the store room is locked with a padlock every night, so there's no way you two just slipped in here. And he's going to take inventory to make sure you didn't steal anything." The first officer shakes his head at Diana. "Don't try the doe eyes on me, young lady. I have a daughter your age."

"Come on," the other says, leading them towards the car. "Be well-behaved and I won't cuff you on the way there. You can call your parents when we get there, no way this grocer's letting you use his phone."

"Well, this is great." Diana mutters as she gets into the backseat. "I'm sure Barb and Ian will just love being woken up at this hour."

She leans to look out the window before glancing at Howard. "You do remember their number, right?"

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