maskormenacelogs | two tiny crime boys

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two tiny crime boys

WHO: Boba & Marty
WHERE: MF, the mean streets
WHEN: afternoon o'clock
WHAT: gonna steal a car!!!! for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.
WARNINGS: TINY CRIMES but should b fine

Martin Darkov tries his very best at everything he does, but the thing he tries the hardest to excel at is minding his own business and staying out of the way. Much of that is just him by nature, rather than the life he was groomed for in Olvoski; being born and raised anywhere else would've yielded a similarly meek boy. A bit light on the trauma, perhaps, but still just as keen to be harmless and unassuming as much as possible.

Yet no one is perfect, and the fine art of staying in one's lane is not without unexpected bumps or swerves. Sometimes concern or curiosity becomes too strong to ignore, to say nothing of all these repeated notions of having choices in what to do with his time: The number of times he'd been punished for stepping out of line here is far, far smaller than the homeland full of rigorous training and threats of gruesome dismemberment via monster.

It's why, instead of staying on the way back to the house, Martin wound up stopping at the mouth of the near-empty parking lot, ears full of the sounds of...something. Some tinkering. If it were just the sound, though, he'd have carried on and only been somewhat worried of trouble, but he saw legs sticking out from underneath a lone car at rest there, and there was suddenly in him the fear of someone in trouble.

By the time he's carefully stepped over, tilting and straining to peer and what's going on, a face appears and catches him by surprise, making him step backward, blinking.

"Lu-lucky?"

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Boba hates new clients sometimes. Until you’ve worked for someone at least once, it’s hard to know what their expectations are, what they believe is a fair rate of pay, how they communicate their requirements...

Or if, after a week of delivering contraband for them, they’ll laugh in your face when you come to collect your payment.

”Don’t worry, kid,” the man had said. ”Come back when you're jacking cars and maybe I’ll have some paid work for you.”

Boba isn’t stupid. He knows how important one’s professional reputation is, even for low-level work like this. And he knows how important it is to cultivate a reputation as someone not to be messed with.

So he’d stood there, looked the man in the eye, and said, “Okay. I will.”

And now he’s here, making good on that promise. He just hadn’t mentioned it would be the man’s car he’s stealing.

He’s just about to clamor out from under the vehicle and try starting it when a familiar voice causes him to start. He peers up from his prone position in surprise, before struggling to right himself.

“Martin?” He cranes his neck, trying to see if there’s anyone with him. “What are you doing here?”

It is him. Martin's more baffled by the second, especially by being asked exactly what he intended to ask.

"Going back to the house," he replies, tilting his head. "What...uh, did you lose something under there, or?"

Boba finally manages to get to his feet and starts to brush himself off. Martin’s question gets only the briefest of hesitations before he answers with absolute conviction, “No. This is my car.”

He says it so casually and so confidently, it’s almost easy to forget that he’s too young to drive. Or at least, too young to have a license.

“I’m just trying to get it started.”

Martin blinks, stepping aside to give space for his return upright.

Those two points...those sail high and far above Martin's head -- him, who got sat behind the wheel of a car with Andy months ago (when he was unexpectedly like two feet taller). The most attention cars get from him are noisy street crossings and getting rides back from Andy after work.

So why not? Lucky can have a car, too.

"Is it broken?" he asks, looking past him toward the car in question. "Or does it start up in a weird way? Andy's starts from the inside with a key..."

“It was broken,” Boba says, moving past Martin to open the driver’s seat door. “I think I might’ve fixed it now.”

He slides into the driver’s seat, next to which a bundle of exposed wires sticks out from the steering column. All it takes is some fiddling and then there’s a low rumble as the car starts up. Boba has to suppress a grin. It's really not too different from starting a speeder—and what difference there had been, he'd bridged with what he picked up from more local sources of knowledge.

“See?”

"Whoa..."

He's never seen dangling wires in Andy's car, so this is a surprise. And impressive, too; they look confusing to manage, but Lucky does it without even breaking a sweat.

"That looks really complicated," he says, scratching the back of his neck. "Do you have to do that every time you want to turn it on?"

The question almost gets a snicker out of Boba but he stifles the impulse.

“Yeah, it’s a pain. That’s why I’ve been thinking about getting rid of this one.”

He hasn’t actually decided how he wants to go about that, however. He could always just drive it to the nearest scrapyard but that’s a little too tame. In this line of work, you need to make your messages heard loud and clear. Plus, it would be a shame not to get some use out of it first.

He looks over at Martin again—and then a considering expression appears on his face.

“Did they even have cars on your planet?”

"I don't think so," says Martin, his mouth twitching in a crooked smile. "I mean, not where I lived. There were wagons sometimes, but nothing like this."

Perhaps humans elsewhere had them? Lumas members always said humans were remarkable, inventive, and smart...it's possible they're out there. But it's not a thing for Darkovs.

"The first time I heard one, it...it scared me out of my skin, ha..."

The more Martin speaks, the more the idea in Boba’s mind solidifies into a plan. He’d wanted to get some use out of the car before destroying it and this seems a good a purpose as any. It might even be fun—all the moreso since this is supposed to end with the car being destroyed.

“Do you want to learn to drive one?”

Martin blinks.

"Me? You mean-- right now? With...your car?" He grimaces. "I don't know if that's really a good idea...What if I broke something?"

Andy had tried to teach him, back when he'd magically been a good two feet taller, and that was scary enough! At least nothing broke that time...

Boba shrugs. “I want to get rid of it anyway, remember? And I’ll stop you from getting us killed.”

If he can survive getting shot at in Slave I, he’s sure he can survive whatever Martin can throw at him.

“Don’t worry. It’s much easier than piloting a starship.”

"I mean--that's...good..."

He can't deny that. Not that he knows how complication starships are, but Boba is going out of his way to be reassuring about it. And...Martin has been behind a wheel once before, so it's not completely foreign territory.

He exhales, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Al...alright. If you think it's worth trying..."

Boba nods and then gestures to the passenger’s seat next to him.

“Come on. I’ll show you how it works first.”

That’s certainly one of the reasons he’ll be driving first. The other is that he needs to get the car out of this parking lot, just in case its owner returns sooner than expected. He might be willing to get Martin in some trouble, but he’s not about to get him tangled up in his work disputes.

Martin climbs into the passenger seat, leaving the door hanging open until Boba closes his own himself. This one is roomier than Andy's beater, so he can just sit on his knees on the seat and face the driver side and watch what he's doing.

"They all work the same, right?" he asks worriedly. "On the inside, I mean. Even though you had to start it up funny."

As Martin climbs into the car, Boba adjusts his own seat so he can better reach the pedals—albeit with some effort. Cars here aren’t really designed for people their age.

“Most of them, yeah,” Boba answers. “If you can drive one of them, you can drive any of them.” The absolute confidence of his tone belies the fact that he hasn’t had enough experience with vehicles here to know if any of that is true. Fortunately for both of them, though, he knows enough to be able to drive this car.

“Down by my feet, there are two pedals," he explains. "The one on the right makes the car stop and the one on the left makes it speed up.” As he says this, he shifts the car into reverse and backs it out of its parking space, before shifting it into drive. “This wheel controls what direction the car goes in—if I turn it left, the car goes left and if I turn it right, the car goes right.”

He demonstrates by driving out of the parking light and turning right onto the road. Boba drives quickly, doing his best to put distance between them and the car’s original location. “Red traffic light means ‘stop’ and a green one means ‘go,’ and you can only drive on the right side of the road.” Boba says, weaving casually between other cars and earning a few unhappy honks as he does so. “If other cars get in your way, you can just drive around them.”

He glances at Martin. “Are you getting all of this?”

Once in motion, Martin's perching gets a bit precarious; he has to grip the back of the seat and clutch the dashboard to keep from wobbling around while leaning over to peer at the pedals and then the shifter. These things are familiar enough just from that one-day lesson Andy had given him when he was much taller, but he'd hardly claim to be confident about any of it. He barely gives the lights much of a look, because those are the things he's most familiar with, considering the number of times he'd nearly gotten run down early on here.

"Um, yes, mostly." He fidgets in his seat. "I knew about the light colors. And the wheel part. It was the pedals I got mixed up a lot in trying..."

“Just remember that the bigger pedal is for stopping,” Boba says. He tries to think if he’s forgotten anything.

“Oh, and this lever is important too,” he says, placing a hand on the stick shift. “It’s on ‘D’ now, which makes it go forward. ‘R’ makes it go backwards and ‘P’ is for when you want to park.” He thinks for another few moments. There may be some extra functions and features, but he's pretty sure he's covered everything important. “I think that’s everything you need to know.”

He drives for a few more minutes until they come to a quieter, less well-policed part of town. Then, he pulls into a deserted parking lot and parks the car.

“Okay,” he says, looking at Martin. “You ready?”

Any relief he'd have gotten from being brought to a stop is dashed quickly as Boba looks to be ready to hand the reins over. Martin frowns softly, giving it a moment of thought. Ready is hard to speak to -- ready for how much?

"Well, um," he shifts, getting his legs out from under him to sit properly in the seat. "If I don't have to go far, then, maybe. And--and not around other cars. I don't think that'd be good."

Boba looks around at the relatively quiet streets surrounding them. “There’s not a lot of cars out, anyway… but you can start by driving around the parking lot if you want.”

The parking lot is empty, so they don’t have to worry about Martin damaging any other cars. And if he damages this one, well… Boba can’t say he’d be all that upset.

That seems a safe suggestion. Boba wouldn't have him doing anything life-threatening after all, right? He's in the car with him! So, naturally, Martin trusts him -- enough to mumble agreement and get to switching seats. Enough to putting his hands back on the wheel of a car for the first time in minds -- the first time this size, even though he finds he can barely see over the dash if he wants to reach the pedals.

This'll be fine, right?

Unfortunately for Martin, Boba is not actually a great metric for safe, wholesome behavior. That said, as Boba gets out of the driver’s seat and walks around to the passenger’s side, even he feels the slight misgiving that maybe, just maybe this isn’t a great idea. Piloting vehicles has always been literal child’s play to him; his father had taught him how to pilot Slave I when he was half Martin’s age. But there’s no guarantee Martin will learn as fast as he did or have the same instincts. So Boba stops halfway to the passenger’s side and gives Martin an appraising look through the front windshield—

Before seemingly coming to a conclusion and walking back to the driver’s seat.

“Move over,” he says, not unkindly. When Martin obliges, he’ll squeeze into the driver’s seat next to him and rest a foot on the brake pedal. He even takes the extra precaution of strapping a seatbelt across them.

“I’ll stop you if you’re about to get us killed,” he says, almost offhandedly. “Now, you have to move the lever so it’s next to ‘D’ instead of ‘P.’”

He's not so sure about this anymore. Even with how confidently Boba explains his reasoning, Martin gets one of those I got a bad feeling about this feelings twisting in the pit of his stomach. He's never seen anyone drive around like this. To be fair, he doesn't actually make a point of noticing how people drive, either, but still.

There's no real good excuse beyond that for arguing though, is there? And Martin's not sure hesitating now will be very good; he'd rather not let this be a waste of anyone's time, let alone Lucky's. So he swallows against that unpleasant, prophetic feeling and fidgets just a little more so he can see a smidgen more over the dash.

"'D' instead of 'P,'" he repeats, looking about until his eyes flicker over toward the lever in question. He wishes D and P didn't look so alike in shape...

Once done, the car naturally begins to ease into motion without any pressure on the gas, which startles Martin. His hands aren't even on the wheel yet.

"We-wait, I'm not doing anything yet! Why is it moving?!"

The slow movement of the car doesn’t faze Boba. He isn’t too impressed by Martin’s panicking, though.

“We aren’t even going that fast,” he says, watching out the front window as the car gently rolls forward. “You have to hit the brakes if you want us to stop, remember?”

Technically, Boba could do it, but he’s supposed to be teaching Martin, right? It wouldn’t count if he did everything for him.

"Ri-right..."

But that doesn't explain why they're crawling at all! Had he more of a spine, Martin would question Lucky's teaching skills here, but...well. Y'know.

And so, looking down at the pedals on the floor, Martin steps on one.

The gas one.

Boba had thought he’d given a simple instruction. There’s only two pedals to choose from and he’d already told Martin which was which. He definitely isn’t expecting Martin to floor the accelerator or for the car to shoot forward through the parking lot with a roar of the engine. Fortunately for both of them, aside from grabbing Martin’s arm with a panicked, white-knuckled grip, Boba’s second startled instinct is to hit the brakes with equal force, slamming the car to a stop. His third instinct is to glare at Martin.

“I said hit the brakes, not the gas!” he snaps. “That one.” He points down at the pedal his foot is now firmly planted on. “Get it right next time.”

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry--" Martin's face burns hot red, and he's unwilling to look over and see the angry face that he already knows is there. "I got mixed up. I'm sorry."

He swallows, then, after a beat, scoots his foot over to the edge of the pedal Boba's got pressed.

"...There."

Boba keeps up the glare for a moment more, then sighs. “It’s fine,” he grumbles. “Just don’t do it again.”

Now that Martin has it firmly pressed down, Boba eases his foot off the brake pedal. “As long as you press the brakes all the way down, the car won’t move,” he explains, “If you take your foot off the brake and the car isn’t parked, it might move because of gravity or because it was moving before. But if you want to speed it up, you have to hit the gas.”

He points down at their feet again, this time pointing to the accelerator. “That’s that one,” he says pointedly. “Have you got it now?”

"I-yes. Sorry. I won't...mix it up again. I mean--I'll try not to." He knows better than to make promises he can't keep!

Martin's heart is still pounding from fear, but the longer they remain still and idle, the less distressed he becomes. Not utterly free of it, of course, but...not outright quaking either. Clutching the wheel tightly keeps his hands from showing off a quiver, too, so he sets to doing that, too.

"I-I'll only go if...if you say so," he says, grimacing at the obscured view of the fence line ahead. "And...stop when you say so."

“Good,” Boba sighs. “But you’re going to have to learn how to stop and go without me here, too. Maybe we’ll work on that some other time.” He says it as if this car will still be around ‘some other time,’ which he’s pretty sure it won’t be. But Martin doesn’t need to know that.

“Let’s try driving around the parking lot,” Boba suggests, once again resting his foot lightly on the brake pedal without applying any pressure. “Go straight, and when you get close to the end of the lot, start turning the wheel to the right.”

Now that Martin's not surprised to find the car moving without his say-so, there's a lot less drama afoot. Or feet afoot, smashing down pedals all willy-nilly as before. The car scoots along in this idle state, with Martin not even daring to graze the gas pedal. Martin fidgets in the seat a little so as to better see the pathway ahead, the fenceline of the parking lot drawing ever-nearer. Yet...he promised. He won't do anything without Boba's say-so, and so only when he says so does Martin turn -- a bit too generously a turn, but a turn nonetheless. With a few more corrections from Boba, though, this action gets a lot less dramatic on the next couple passes, and it's not long before they've done a handful of rotations around the lot, all without Martin ever touching that damn pedal.

It's probably akin to the most boring, unfun theme park ride ever, but Martin's never been on one of those, either, so this is pretty one-of-a-kind for him!

"This is...good, right?" Martin offers him a hopeful look after about the fourth rotation of this, the most unexciting of circles.

Honestly, Boba was hoping that Martin would start to take initiative after a few very boring circuits of the parking lot. Apparently, that was too much to hope for. Boba’s pretty sure he’s never been in a car or speeder that’s moved this slowly for this long.

When Martin asks his question, Boba looks over at him with an actual expression of pain on his face.

“Your turning is… better,” he says, struggling hard to lead with something positive like his dad used to do. “But you can’t go this slowly when you’re on a real road. You have to go as fast as the cars around you, or faster.”

He straightens in his seat, nudging Martin with his elbow. “Try pressing the accelerator some. I’ll make sure you don’t get us killed.”

"Um. Alright."

Alright, he says, but he sounds wary about the idea. Because he is. Because that pedal was trouble from the start, so he's not entirely convinced it'll get any better on a second go.

Still, once bitten is twice shy, and the press that Martin gives is nothing like the stomp from the first try. It's still enough to have him sitting up straighter with worry as things speed up all the same, because apparently he just has to look doom in the eye or something.

Boba breathes a sigh of relief as the car starts moving at an actually bearable pace. They’re still just circling the parking lot, but at least they’re doing it with some speed now.

“See? This is much better.” He’ll let Martin do a few more circuits of the parking lot, occasionally pressing him to go a bit faster. Boba has to admit, Martin is doing okay for someone who didn’t even have powered vehicles in his own universe. But that does mean it’s only so long before Boba gets impatient to move on to something more challenging.

“Alright,” he says after a couple more loops, “I think you're ready to try a real road now.”

"Re-really?" Martin's voice cracks a bit on that. He swallows, clears his throat, swallows again, and exhales. He's not in a good position to fuss and be embarrassed about that -- there's bigger fish frying right now.

The idea that he's made enough progress to do real car things is a bit hard to believe, but...but Boba's the only one with any expertise in this matter, so who is Martin to argue? Mouth twitching in a nervous, queasy smile, he lets the car coast as he looks out toward the road.

"It's...just the same idea, right? Without turning the entire time. That-that's not...terrible. I think."

“Yeah. And I can tell you when to turn.”

It sounds reasonable enough. After all, Boba is technically still in the driver’s seat. If Martin looks likely to do anything overly dangerous, he can always grab the wheel or hit the brakes. It doesn’t seem like there’s much that could go wrong that he couldn’t handle.

"Exit the parking lot there," Boba says, pointing, "Then turn right. And always stay on the right side of the road."

That's fair. Martin figures if staying on one side is what has to happen, that at least means he doesn't have to think too much about maneuvering around places and things. He doesn't frequent the downtown area enough to realize there's a whole lot of exactly that, especially during times with lots of foot traffic or cyclists...

For now, though, puttering out the exit at a pace even senior citizens would find a bit slow proves to be simple enough. albeit an almost close call for one of the side-view mirrors.

Accelerating is still...a trial, however, with Martin not committing to keeping consistent pressure on the thing, recoiling when he feels it's too fast. But...at least "too fast" is becoming less unbearable: it's a side effect of having a long stretch of road to chase after instead of a boxed-in lot.

It might be fun? Martin's not sure; his heart sure is beating quite a lot all the same.

"How far?" he asks at a point. "Should I stop? Or am I going to turn somewhere? Or--"

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two tiny crime boys

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