Participants:
| Scene Title | Awkward Olive Branch |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Devi goes to make ammends. Richard doesn't make it easy. |
| Date | July 30, 2019 |
Raytech Housing: Richard's Apartment
A rhythmic thud and clinking announce her down the hall. The bass beat the steady paces of her broad knee-high buckled boots, the clinking of what sounds like glass tick-tacking muffled from the messenger bag bearing a skull and crossbones knocking against her hip. It all comes to a stop, along with her breathing, as she stands outside the door. His door.
Devi turns her tattooed knuckles over and raps them, quietly, upon the door.
At this hour, how many people would just show up at the door of Richard's apartment to knock without sending some sort of digital message or call first? It's a fairly short list.
This is why Richard hasn't bothered with a few things that normally he'd do when he opens the door, and why he's only wearing a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair's water-slicked back.
He has quite a few tattoos, as it turns out. He also clearly works out.
"…oh. Devi." A pause, and he rakes a hand back through wet-dark hair, eyes slightly widened in surprise as he focuses on the woman, "Uh. What's up? Is everything alright? Do I need a gun?"
“Fuck me.”
An exclamation of disbelief? An invitation? An- Wait, was that her outside voice?
The hand stuck hovering before the open door comes to the top of her head and just… sits there momentarily before tangling itself into an anchor of black, disheveled locks. “Wait. Whaa-?” As in, what the fuck did she come here to do, because… There was something other than wanting to CENSORED.
It takes a moment, but the gears kick back into high gear. “What, you aren’t packing under that already? Coulda fooled me.” Devi’s gaze slides to the towel and back up again. “May I? The question hangs in the air a moment, ambiguous as ever, before she disentangles the hand atop her head and gestures past Richard into the apartment.
The exclamation brings one eyebrow upwards. “And here I thought you’d ruled that out,” Richard comments in dry tones, even as he steps out of the way and gestures with a hand to invite her in.
“Give me a minute to get some pants on, would you,” he asks, turning to head across the room towards the bedroom over the bland beige carpeting of the apartment, “Be right back.”
There aren’t a lot of personal touches to the room; a few tech industry magazines scattered on the coffee table, a single picture of Liz and the kids standing on an end-table, but otherwise the place is oddly empty of anything but utilitarian furniture, lamps, and an entertainment center that doesn’t seem to see a lot of use.
To her credit, Devi’s expression is unchanged by that dry, harsh barb sent whipping in her direction. She tips her head to the side to stretch out an ache in her ink-kissed neck before stepping across the threshold. As she slinks along towards the sofa, her gaze wanders back towards Richard. “Doesn’t really sound like a question,” she points out, regarding the topic of pants, but a openhanded gesture of ‘have at’ is given nonetheless.
She flops onto the couch and sets the bag on the low coffee table with a fresh clinking of glass. Forearms on knees, fingers laced, she looks around the room with an exaggeratedly thoughtful purse of her lips and a slow pointless nodding of her head. Yup. Yup-yup-yup.
It’s through the open door into the bedroom that Richard vanishes, although his voice carries back as he does so.
“So what’s up? Gotta be some reason you came by,” he calls back, the sounds of fabric rustling in the next room.
Meanwhile, a small ginger cat slinks out from under the couch and strokes his body along Devi’s ankle in a feline ambush.
Lean. Devi stops mid-tilt towards the ajar door in a perfect Leaning Tower replica when the cat reels her back to reality. Cateye’d lids lower, dark irises dropping to the feline attention whore. Because, come on, they’re all attention whores. The biker leans forward and gently holds a hand out towards the cat to await its almighty judgment per feline ritual before offering any scritches. “Didn’t know you were into redheads,” Devi’s husky voice carries back.
“But, actually, that’s kinda what I came to talk to you about.” … “No, not a threesome. Unless you were into the Good Doctor, too…” Her free hand turns back the flap on the messenger bag and begins digging out a few things. The first of which are a couple beers.
“The good doctor?” There’s confusion there in Richard’s tone as he comes walking back out, a pair of black slacks and a red t-shirt pulled on; not tucked in, just a loose fall over him, and he didn’t bother with a belt.
Glancing down to the cat, he breathes out a chuckle. “What can I say, Richelieu swept me off my feet. Or rather, I did, when he got tossed at me.”
Richelieu - for that seems to be that cat’s name - leans in and sniffs the offered fingers before butting his head up into her hand in demand for scritches and affection, judgment given.
“Cat catapult? Sounds like a Warren thing.” Devi gaze slips from cat to man, from toe to head. She holds up an unopened beer. “The good doctor - your new pet: Zachery.” She slides her beer over, too. Richelieu must not be denied, and she’s not mastered a one-handed beer opening technique. Yet.
“So, I wanted to… clear the air.” She tips her head back and scratches the raven tattoo on the front of her throat. “And bring a peace offering, too.” Back into the bag and out again, she pulls gout a metallic orb, four wiry sticks dangling limply from the deactivated device: Spyball.
“No, it was one of the Ryans girls. Decided that I needed a cat, so literally threw a kitten at me and then left before I could give him back,” Richard admits in good humor, reaching over to pick up the beer as it’s slid over before sinking down onto the couch. Not too close to her.
As the spyball’s pulled out, he arches a brow, glancing from it to her in wordless inquiry.
Devi pivots a bit in her seat on the couch, one hand cat-scritching, the other dangling the limp-limbed surveillance bot. “Before we go into all this.” Spyball’s legs clatter as she gives it a little shake. “I’m sorry, ‘kay?” She chews on her tongue a moment. “Back at the garage - What I meant to say and what I actually said, clearly didn’t jive.”
“Mn.” A slight, unconvinced sound from Richard as he watches her for a moment, and then he shrugs one shoulder, glancing over across the room as he opens the beer. “Look, not everyone gets my lifestyle. That’s fine. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about anyone that I’m involved with— and hell, right now that’s just Liz, so.”
He shrugs, and brings the beer up to take a swig. Lowering it, he looks back to the Spyball, “Don’t worry about it.”
Dark lashes press to pale cheeks. Devi shakes her mane of dark hair, sharp and quick. "No, Toots. That's what I sayin'. I wasn't judgin’ your lifestyle, damnit. I was…" Fucking words! Come on. She grits her teeth and opens her eyes. "I was coming to terms with my own shit. 'Boyfriend', 'girlfriend', ‘partner’. These things have… weight, to 'em. I-… wasn't ready to call him what he is, and I lumped your situation in with my own shit." She brings her hand up to rest, steepled, against her sternum. Poor Richelieu, so neglected.
She finally manages to look Richard in the eye after weeks of avoiding doing just that. “I know you care, Toots. About a lot of people, and a lot of things. You see somethin’ lots don’t and you friggin’ care. I get it.” Her word vomit slows to a trickle and finally falls to silence upon which she lofts a dark, penciled brow.
The word vomit's listened to, Richard's hand dropping to rest to his knee. Richelieu, neglected, hops up onto the couch and pads over to nuzzle at that hand, whose fingers automatically rub under his chin in affection.
"Sure used some pointed words if you weren't judging, but…" He shrugs, "I get it. It's hard to work out relationship shit. So— you and… Zachery?"
He brow furrows a little, "I mean, I didn't see that one coming."
It seems he extrapolated from the 'Good Doctor' and 'Threesomes' comment.
“What?!” Devi’s eyes widen to disconcerting circumferences. “Fuck no! Muh.” Shudder. “Ugh.” Twitch. “Da fuck, man.” Gag.
Devi nearly shoves Spyball at Richard. “Nah. He’s got a redhead.” … Right, let’s work on words again. “Spyball’s been tracking him like we discussed. Dude takes a lotta trips outside the mobility radius.” Look! She’s learned some of the technical speaky. “Little commune or some shit out in the boonies. Spyball attaches to the car, but outside the five-mile radius of the controls,” she taps her blacksteel cuff, “It becomes immobile. So, GPS gives us a ping, but once he leaves the car we got no visual or audio away from the vehicle.” She waves a hand. Yaddah yaddah.
“But, what he’s been doin’ in the Zone’s been pretty interesting.” She reaches over and taps a compartment on what must be the butt of the contraption. A little door pops open and she pulls out a small card. “There’s this redheaded chick on there he’s been visiting a couple times. There’s some footage of them taking a trip to some dive bar out in Sheepshead, but nothing about what went on inside. Now chicky-poo seems to be having some bad reaction or some shit. Got some footage of them in Yamagato Park.”
She holds out the card to Richard between thumb and forefinger. “Dunno what, if anything, it all means. But, consider it my olive branch.” A pause. “I care about some things, too, ya know. We good, Toots?”
The card’s taken, held up between Richard’s fingers as he considers it. “A redhead, hm? Interesting,” he muses, reaching over to set it carefully on the table atop one of the magazines so he doesn’t lose it. Then his hand drops back down to stroke over the cat’s fur.
He offers her a wry look, “Well, you did all this so we could track the guy, so I don’t know if it counts as an olive branch when it was something you were doing anyway, but— “ He shrugs, “We’re good.”
Devi takes a deep breath and lets it out, matching Richard’s shrug with one of her own. “A girl can only bring a guy so many beers before he questions if she’s just tryin’ to date rape him.” She holds out her hands helplessly as a devilish smile starts to warm the contours of her lips into something more familiar and charming. With a little nod, she snatches up Spyball and clears out several more beers to secure the device back into the bag. Pushing to her feet, bag slung into place. “That being said, keep the spares.” She nudges her chin towards the beers with a wink and slinks towards the door.
“See ya around, Toots.”