2007-10-21: Moral Centralia

Starring:

Lee_icon.gif Sylar_icon.gif Nathan_icon.gif Mikhail_icon.gif Cass_icon.gif Lachlan_icon.gif Cam_icon.gif Peter_icon.gif Elena_icon.gif Mohinder_icon.gif Fenton_icon.gif Meryl_icon.gif Mariska_icon.gif Felix_icon.gif Trina_icon.gif Niki_icon.gif Mandy_icon.gif AJ_icon.gif Kitty_icon.gif

Summary:

TV Show Montage! (Feel free to add your character's stuff into the montage, just keep the bold formatting on the song itself, and make sure that where I've split up people's contributions - Peter, Elena, Fenton, that the parts stay close to each other. And don't forget, if you like someone's pose, please +vote them!)

Date It Happened:

October 21, 2007

Moral Centralia


New York City - and elsewhere

Lee has returned to the music workshop. He has his electric violin with him, but also a guitar, which he's not as good at. He has no room to be arrogant about the guitar, or about his vocals, and, as he proceeds to work with a ska trumpeter, a drummer from a biker-rock band, a classically trained bassist with a Zeppelin T-shirt and a 70-something keyboarder, he actually hears what they're saying, responds, has conversations, puts in some work.

He fist-bumps with the people he talked shit to the last time he was here, offers to buy a drink after. They don't say no. His group moves to the front of the stage for the performance segment.

"We're going to do 'Moral Centralia' by Harvey Danger." Lee announces. "One of those songs that one day you will be appalled to discover your favorite TV show is using for an ending montage. You know. Little clips of your favorite characters doing things." The crowd chuckles.

"Don't deny you watch those shows." Lee teases as the band gets set up and warmed up. The crowd chuckles again, but does not deny it. "Let's do it." Lee says, and the keyboardist begins to clink out the first little hook and the drummer begins to shake the sleighbells.

Lee starts out soft: "'You are weak; I am strong,
And I've done nothing but lead you on.'
She said."

Sylar's eyes open, a smirk slowly creeping across his face as he stands from his kneeling position. The woman's brain falls out of his hand to drop with a soft, sickening thud on the floor next to the severed skull covered in flowing brown hair. He straightens his jacket, his eyes slowly falling to the body on the floor. He smirk grows larger as he heads to the door, taking one last glance at the body before casually exiting the apartment, locking the door behind him as he shimmers and disappears from view.

The drums hit, the beat starts: "Drove around all night
Stoplights were interminable
But I get along all right."

Lachlan is trying to open a jar of pickles. He glares. Finally the pickles open! Lachlan flexes. Manly.

"As long as I don't have to interact
With anyone else…"

The studio is silent. In front of a large canvas-covered frame, Mikhail stands there with a blank stare. From another angle, the canvas is revealed to be empty. The art student frowns slightly, picking up a brush and dipping it into one glob of paint. A few blue strokes are slashed across white, the end result being…a stick figure in action. Miki sighs, hands clasping his face in subtle frustration. It's going to be another long night.

"…On a meaningful level
I'll be fine…"

Nathan walks into his bedroom, dressed in his woolen jacket, jeans, boots, with a duffle bag over his shoulder. He puts the bag down onto his bed and begins to unpack. The radio is playing quietly and there's a snippet of an advertisement - Crane's campaign. He quickly switches it off.

"Because I don't want to marry my convictions
Not right now."

An unmarked medication bottle rattles as Niki pours a few red-and-white pills into her palm, standing in the bathroom. Next, she opens the cap of a different bottle altogether and lets more pills fall. Prescription, this time. SANDERS, NICOLE. Do not take with other medication without doctor's supervision. She looks through the crack of the open door, where the TV flickers with light before staring soberly into the mirror and picking up her glass of water.

"Not right now.
Not right now."

Mr. Jones sits in a battered Volkswagen outside a sprawling, crumbling house. Inside a half-dozen kids can be seen through the soft-glowing windows. A group home? They seem happy, playful. His expression is blank, he stares until his blue eyes seem unfocused and distant.

"When wicked thoughts come inter alia
You wind up in Centralia, morally -
Looking for a decent cup of coffee."

In a room that obviously belongs to a hotel, Cass sits cross legged on a neatly made bed that has been taken over with folders and charts and test results. Though she has a pen between her fingers, her hands cup her chin with her elbows resting on her thighs. There is no breakthrough. In the background, Mohinder paces the floor while on the phone.

"Drowning halfway
It seems like I'm stealing your worries
But really I'm just giving them back to you…"

Alone in the apartment that she and Jack share, Trina is straightening up a little. Running a vacuum cleaner's nozzle attachment through the couch cushions, she stops when it gets stuck on something. She plunges her hand into the fabric depths and when it comes back out, it's wrapped around one of Jack's empty 'medicine' injectors. The dark-haired woman rolls it around in her palm for a moment, considering it with a furrowed forehead and prominent frown. She then closes her hand around it, shuts her eyes, and slowly exhales a breath.

"…Once again
It's all about me."

Fenton's feet hit the ground and he's off and running as soon as he lands. Even the night's shadows aren't enough for him to blend completely into the darkness as he makes a mad dash down an alleyway. Behind him, two more figures are just clearing the wall he'd gone over, still intent on making trouble. It's too late for this. He supposes this is what he gets for taking a shortcut when he's still new to the neighborhood. No point in stopping now; his flat's just a few blocks more, if he recalls correctly.

"…And pride is not a factor, no -
Once again,
It's all about me." Lee nails the loud high note, making up for sorta missing the earlier, soft high note.

Fenton takes a sharp corner and recognizes the back of his apartment complex, takes a leap towards the overhanging fire escape- that's suspended a good seven feet above him. His foot seems to step on something in midair, helping him reach the ladder and swing up. There he stays, still and quiet with the shadows, the two guys that had chased him coming around the corner, pausing in confusion as they look around before they run off in another direction, Fenton watching them between the iron bars.

"'You are weak
I am strong…'"

The basement is dark and ugly, enclosed in cinderblock with a large '5' painted on the wall. There are cells down here, each cased in thick glass. Behind these are the inmates of thie prison, most of them resigned to their fate, some pacing, others visibly angry… Through one scratched and etched piece of glass, a woman is pounding on the walls, but they aren't giving an inch. It's the recently re-captured Mandy Larson.

"'…And I've done nothing but lead you on and on.'
She said."

Skin pale and flushed around the eyes, Peter stands at the sink of a bathroom, water running, looking into the mirror, obviously having just finished cleaning up. His shortened hair is damp with water, and he's shirtless. Quiet breaths are taken and his eyes shift from brown to slightly greener, and then back again. Suddenly he glances toward the door as if he's heard something and turns off the water and moves to leave the bathroom, running a shaky hand over his face.

"Feeling well, into my cups already
Just until my hands are steady…"

Standing outside the theater, Aidan holds his injured side as he stares. The coffee in his hand is more than just coffee, despite what the doctor's suggested. He sees the auditioners come out, two with big smiles on their faces. He could have done it better. He should have been in there. It should have been his part. But it's not. Closing his eyes, he turns away, adamant in his newfound beliefs. Pulling the phone out of his pocket after he wipes his eyes, he coughs, straightening himself up as he calls home, "Happy Birthday, kiddo." He says to his brother.

"…The spins are setting in
I swear I'll never never feel like myself again…"

Elena is in one of the guest rooms of the Petrelli mansion, and the camera is shifted slightly so an out-of-focus image of Peter can be seen stepping out of the bathroom behind her. There is a UPS box that has been dropped to the ground, Mrs. Selvaggi's return address apparent on it, the young woman sliding a hand over the black photo album that she had placed on the desk in the room.

"I'd like to go back ten years
And show you a picture of yourself now
But I'm afraid that it might kill you then
You used to be such a loyal friend…" Lee's sardonic tone adds to the cutting lyrics.

Elena flips the top open to see a picture of her getting piggybacked by Nadia sometime after Dance Corps practice. Other photographs of herself, Nadia, and the team are apparent in the fringes. She slowly sits down on the chair near the desk.

"Once again
It's all about me…"

Kitty is looking at a mirror in her apartment. The bandages are not covering the burns on her face and tears well in her eyes and fall down her face. Never really being a vain person but now concerned about what people will say about her face, anger enters the young woman's eyes and she takes a large book and throws it at the mirror. The mirror is successfully shattered.

Meryl stands precariously on what is obviously a surfboard in water. Everyone knows surfing isn't easy, especially for someone who's never done it - or hasn't done it in a long time. As she falls off, it becomes obvious that she was standing on a surfboard in a largish hotel bathtub.

"And pride is not a factor, no…
Once again
It's all about me…"

Mariska sits somewhat limply on a couch in the middle of a sparsely-appointed apartment, her injured arm elevated, expression vague. When the camera pans to reveal a suit and coat clad Felix coming through the front door, the woman turns her head and they engage in a brief, wordless exchange in the form of a meaningful (and perhaps hopeful) look. There's a black-and-white movie playing on the television and the scene on screen seems to mirror the moment shared between them.

"Third person in the inner monologue again
It's all about me…"

Cam sits in the computer lab at school. Kids around him are having fun or working on homework, while he just stares at the screen, biting his lip. On the screen is the FBI wanted page of Daniel Reynolds, wanted for multiple counts of theft and fraud, but, the one thing that Cam's focusing on: One count of third degree murder.

"…Yeah
Yeah
Yeah…"

Lee lets his voice trail off into the music, lets the band wrap the notes around the room, lets them lead the song into silence. A smattering of applause from the audience of musicians echoes up from the darkened seats.

"You don't suck." comes the first critique, out of the black, "But you have to work on your breath control for soft singing, that middle section was shit."

Lee bites back a retort. He thinks about it. He looks back at the other band members. They shrug. The middle section was kind of bad.

"Yeah?" says Lee.

"Terrible." comes the same voice from the darkness.

"Huh." says Lee, like being terrible was something he hadn't considered before.


Lorenzo (narrating): The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.

"Moral Centralia" - Harvey Danger

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