Cecil on the Lam (Cecil x Marta)

Marta had a code of ethics and he stuck too it. Simply put, he refused to ever ask anyone for help. Yet, he had an urgent need for money and food, the former primarily used to purchase the latter.

Similarly, he had a strictly legalistic approach to finding money. If he found money bundled alongside any identification or other objects, such as in a wallet or bag, he was obliged to find its owner. Similarly, if he found an incredible amount of money, he would also be obliged to find the owner, which could in theory be identified (not a lot of people who would for example, lose $5,000 or something).

However, that being said, if he found a totally unremarkable amount of loose money that was unidentifiable in any sense, such as a few dollars or quarters, it was all his. This seemed like the common-sense approach to finding lost money and he had once been told by a family friend that Rabbinical law largely took this approach, imposing strict obligations on returning identifiable lost objects, but not loose change.

Thus, with all of this legalistic force behind him, Marta had come once again to the infamous cursed vending machine of Seven Stars Academy, behind the gym. Cursed because it had a tendency of never actually spitting people's change out when they put in dollar bills, which was a problem because none of the items ended with a "00". However, this was a glorious opportunity for Marta, who currently had his hand stuck up the vending machine change chute.

In reality, the change was just getting stuck in the vending machine, which meant Marta could regularly harvest the vending machine for more change. Unlike most people, his relatively thin arms and small hands were adept at doing this. And for now, the day was going great. School was over. It was cloudy, so it was a cool and brisk day for change harvesting.

Up until the point when Marta realized he could not extricate his hand from the vending machine change chute. "Uh oh." He quickly took his free hand and flipped open the phone. NO SIGNAL.

Oh no. He started to finally worry. Surely, someone would show up and help him. After a few minutes, he realized why nobody was outside. It started raining hard, soaking him and his school uniform.

He should have brought an umbrella or a coat or something...it was pouring it down now. He was going to get soaked through on the way back.
Still not as bad as it could be, at least...the metro station wasn't too far from the school. If he went that way instead, maybe it could spare him the worst of...
Oh.
Oh dammit...that wasn't a good situation to be stuck in.

Tucking away his earphones carefully, Cecil approached the unfortunate figure as he consigned himself to being drenched. "Are you doing alright the-ere..." Cecil's voice trailed off as he came to actually identify who was there. He crouched down, looking worried as blonde strands started to weigh down and stick to him in the rain. "...heyyyyy...so, uh, hell of a way to meet again, huh...?"
Dear god did this feel awkward.

Marta was very very very wet. His school uniform was completely soaked to the point where additional water simply rolled off the already saturated uniform. The same applied to his hair. He had been in the rain for a very long time. He had luckily stuffed his phone underneath the vending machine, the only dry place within an arms length of the vending machine. Which was literally where he was stuck.

Marta looked up at the voice that had finally come. His savior! Yet, he couldn't jump for joy. It was the boy that he had shamefully fallen upon at the park. That boy somehow went to the same school, judging from his school uniform. Marta had to play it very cool, lest his reputation be ruined forever.

So this situation was indeed awkward. Yet, there was only way for Marta to respond to his absolutely absurd situation. With an absolutely stiff upper lip that betrayed little about the gravity of the situation, "Ah. Good afternoon. This is indeed a surprising place to meet again."

Marta turned his sopping wet head at the boy, "Do you happen to attend Seven Stars Academy? That would certainly be quite the coincidence." Nothing in Marta's casually polite voice betrayed the fact that he was clearly stuck in a vending machine, sopping wet in the middle of a rainstorm.

Cecil's voice takes a drier tone as he looks flatly at Marta. "Of course not. I'm clearly just a trespasser in the uniform." He holds the look a moment before rolling his eyes. "Yes, I go here. Not the time, though. Why do you have an arm up the vending machine?" He pauses, thinking...and facepalms. "The weeds weren't actually a trend at all, were they...geez..."

He takes a deep breath, and looks at Marta once more. "Just...one little question...whatever you were fishing for? Are you still holding onto it?"

Marta felt like he was the target of just the slight snark, which was incredibly uncouth to his sensitivities. Yes, of course Cecil was obviously a student, but saying obvious things and having them reaffirmed was a typical part of polite conversation. As a result, he moved to respond in a way to minimize the student's faux pas, "Entirely possible. After all, if you were a Psyche Terrorist who wanted to spy on Class Zero, stealing a Seven Stars uniform would be the most inconspicuous method." Marta had absolutely no idea how partly correct he was.

He gave a polite smile however, "But yes, I do suppose that question was a little unnecessary." His smile didn't waver when the boy asked the feared question, largely because Marta knew that the first person to see him would almost certainly ask him about why he had a hand up the vending machine. He already had a very convincing lie set up.

"Yes, well, as you can see, I had ordered a diet soda beverage. Something about the sentence revealed that Marta was not an expert on soda. "However, the machine did not return my change. As a result, I sought to retrieve my change. Not for its instrinsic value, of course, but for the principle of the matter."

Marta gave a wryly defiant look, "There does seem something inherently unjust about being impoverished by mechanical failure. I simply chose not to acquiesce to such fate." That was Marta's attempt at a joke in good-taste, but it was probably not the most obvious.

Marta then softly chuckled at the boy's last question, "Oh no. I fear that my change has been lost to me forever, both in time and in space. The fates cry in mourning."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
"Do you really think there are that many school age terrorists wandering about? An old man in the student uniform would only look more crazy." He shakes his head. "Saying you're not a student when you're pretending to be one would be stupid anyway. I get the logic, but...come on, apply more and it's just a really dumb thing to ask if that's what you wanna know."
He groans. "Just...just nevermind."

After the first sentence, Cecil gives Marta a look that becomes increasingly unimpressed and unconvinced as the long story that he had fabricated goes on, longer and longer and longer. The theatrics were unimpressive, the whole thing stupid, and frankly, all of it was dumb for one reason.
"...this vending machine sells crisps." He points to it, and funnily enough, there isn't a single spot where a drink can be found. The machine was certainly well-stocked enough for there not to be any doubt on that. "If you're going to lie, at least look at the machine first."

Marta gave him an odd stare, "Would it? Both a real student and a fake student would say they were a real student, so knowing that a student says that they aren't a real student tells you little, besides that they chose to make a joke. The most convincing disguise isn't always the best."

He coughed in the exceedingly wet rain, as it appeared the young man gave up on the topic. However, instead, the young man seems to have caught on to the greatest weakness of Marta's argument. As he was lying on the ground, he couldn't actually see into the vending machine. So he had made an educated guess on what the contents were. They were apparently not beverages.

However, does it count being caught in an obvious lie as long as you don't act in any reasonable way that you were caught in a lie? Well, Marta was determined to test this proposition out.

He gave a rather unamused frown, "Well, that's an unfortunate disappointment. I was reassured before enrollment that the Academy was going to endeavor to offer healthier food options. Perhaps bottled teas instead of sodas. And carrots instead of crisps." He was not lying about that, actually. He then waved his one free remaining hand rather dismissively, "I suppose they still have a great deal of work to do on that front."

His face lightened slightly but otherwise remained entirely calm, as he thought of a way to downplay the blatant lie, "Yes, well, I do suppose that explains why my soda beverage never came. My eyesight has been rather...blurry recently. I suppose that's another reason to avoid this particular vendor in the future." Marta was not lying about his eyesight. One of the side-effects of his ludicrously low blood pressure has been occasionally blurry vision. Though this was largely a morning phenomenon, not an afternoon phenomenon.

"...either you don't know, and you can't really prove things either way without doing stuff they've got no reason to go along with - I mean, unless you're staff or something, but odds are they would know - or you do know, and the whole thing is a little suspicious if they aren't actually a student..."
He shakes his head. "Forget it. Not what's important here."


Cecil continues to be unimpressed with the explanation at hand as it expands out, trying to patch the exposed hole, though if Marta pays attention they might notice Cecil shudder at the mention of tea. "...you're telling me that you can't tell the difference between a crisp packet and a bottle? Even after said packet drops out for you and a bottle doesn't? But you can tell the price for what you're getting, which'd be harder to read."

Marta further nodded, simply because he was in far too in order to extricate himself by going any further. He felt like a Spanish conquistador, stranded in Mexico after Hernan Cortez ordered their return boats set on fire. Only one path to go down now.

He gave a quizzical look, "Ah, so that's why I wasn't able to ever find my change. Perhaps there wasn't any. I can't exactly double-check from here if there should be any."


Marta quickly glanced over at the young man again, "Well, I wouldn't honestly know, simply because a packet never actually dropped out." Technically true.

Marta was really reaching the limits of playing dumb while keeping a straight face for perhaps anyone who wasn't him. However, he was trained to keep a straight face in every circumstance.

As thoroughly flimsy as it was, he felt satisfied with his explanation, he decided to see if he could get away with changing topics, "So on the point of this infernal machine, you see, I'd hate to exactly ask such a favor, but..."

Cecil gave Marta a long, hard look, and groaned. "Forget it. We both know you did something stupid, and I'm not keeping you stuck here trying to get you to stop making stupid lies." He shakes his head and moves his dripping body, pulling out his phone. "Don't know who I'm supposed to call to get someone out of a vending machine, but I guess it's time to find out...I'm not gonna do something stupid trying to pull you out myself." He pauses as he looks through things. "...geez, fire brigade?"

Marta gave a weird stare at Cecil, "...why would you do that?"

He began frowning, "No, it should be simpler than that. Presumably, my hand is stuck in the change chute. I do hate to ask this, but from what I can see, the best first strategy is for you to order some uh, 'crisps' as you call them. While of course, paying with a relatively high-denomination bill in order to force the change chute open."

Marta of course, gave no indication as to why he could not himself do that.

To be fair...Marta didn't need to. The angle he was at, it looked to Cecil that trying to put anything in the machine was more likely to injure him than anything else.

"...I'm getting someone here if this doesn't work." Sighing, Cecil retrieves a dollar and just orders something from the machine, not looking at what it was and honestly not really caring. As the machine goes about its business, he watches Marta to see just whether or not he would actually get free from this.

Marta felt the pressure immediately loosen around his hand as a quarter dropped into it. It must have been the young man's quarter.

He immediately yanked his hand out of the chute and out of the vending machine. Luckily, he had rolled up his shirt sleeve, so instead of cutting open his shirt sleeve, he only made a bleeding cut on his relevant arm.


"Oh. Well, I got out."

He gave a nasty frown as blood started dripping all over his uncovered arm. What was the term? Don't cross the road, go down the street? It was almost certainly nowhere deep enough to be dangerous, but it did still look pretty nasty spurting out blood.

Marta turned towards the young man, totally ignoring the bleeding wound on his arm, "Thank you for the help. Here's your change." Marta handed over the quarter he had caught, which was now covered in blood.

The combination of being in cold rain for a very long time, generally poor health, and now blood-loss, made Marta very woozy, which is why he actually found it reasonably difficult to hand the quarter over without just a little, barely noticeable trembling.

Cecil sighed with some measure of relief as he saw him getting his arm free, and grabbed whatever it was he'd just ordered. He'd spent the money might as well not just leave it there.
...vegetable crisps?
Huh. Those were a thing. Maybe they'd be good.

He looked back to Marta as the boy made to hand him his money. "Not a prob...lem..." He pauses. "You're bleeding." Shaking his head, and still taking the quarter to remove that as an avenue to focus on, Cecil took Marta and started dragging him along. He could feel the shaking beneath his hand, and frankly, after what he'd seen of the boy he was really starting to doubt their ability to look after themselves. Might be messed from him, but at least he had his priorities straight. "Need something to get you patched up with...get you out of the rain."

The effect of naturally low blood pressure, some degree of blood loss, a general lack of food, and just being cold made Marta significantly predisposed to his typical fainting spells. And as a result, the young man who yanked Marta off the ground in hopes of helping him managed to accomplish one thing - completely rendering Marta unconscious.

Marta's body simply went completely limp as the young man began dragging him, thus offering no resistance but also being noticeably affected by gravity.