Participants:
| Scene Title | Cognitive Dissonance |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Deckard runs into a familiar skeleton with an unfamiliar face, Dantes plays the innocent, and Miles goes for a joy ride in Deckard's pants. |
| Date | December 8, 2008 |
This is not a game of 'who the fuck are you!'
Although it's not very uncommon, tonight however is one of those rare nights when Lucy's building is lined with motorcycles, about a foot in length from one to the next about half way around the front side of the building, and then there's several parking spaces filled with bikes near by.
And inside, there's the man of the hour! The acne-plagued youth stands on the bar, hand holding his crotch, beer in his other hand he hoots and he hollers,"I am KING of this bar!" A big grin on his face, the bar filled with a certain kind of patron — the rough riders of new york all piled into one place tonight it seems, as they all have their eye on a certain someone. "No body can knock me off my throne," he calls out again, shaking his junk at everyone. The bartender/owner, Lucy, just gives the man an odd glance, shaking her head, she doesn't do nothing — figuring he's going to get what is coming to him soon enough, she's just more worried about the collateral damage this might cause, but hopefully she can direct the majority of it outside, if something should go down.
Painfully inconspicuous by contrast, the man currently in the process of folding his coat over his arm near the door hardly warrants a second glance. Tall, lean, and long in the face, he's clean-shaven and old enough to be the King of the Bar's highschool principal. The fact that he has to fold away a pair of sunglasses despite the hour is the only notable thing about him. Once they're tucked into his coat and he's headed for the bar, he's just some old dude cramping everyone's style in a grey suit and shiny shoes.
And into this particular carnival of drunken debauchery comes a smooth-faced young man, with angular features and very short, dark hair. He looks rather mournful - he's clad in jeans, leather jacket, and t-shirt, on his way to the bar. The farthest possible end of the bar from where the would be exhibitionist is performing. "The bouncers must be on break," he observes to no one in particular, trying to find a place where a bartender might eventually notice him. So much for Sonny's suggestion that Dantes run buck wild while he's wearing someone else's face. Whatever his innate flavors of assholery, that's not one of them. Yet.
The shit has not hit the fan, not yet anyways, but it's close … /very close/. Right now, he's just sort of entertainment to the leather-clad thugs of the evening, they're all drunk and laughing. One of the biker's at the bar takes it upon himself to clothesline the youth's feet out from under him while he prances about on the bar.
First he goes up! … Then he goes down! His feet fly straight up in the air and he falls flat on his back! Ooof! For a moment, he just lays there, then he starts laughing, for some, possibly a familiar maniacal laughter escapes him, but in a more high-pitched tone now.
Never mind that no one asks how the hell this young man is old enough to even drink, that's not the point here, but Miles, aka the drunken showboat, the nutty one, that's right, the one dancing on the bar and provoking everybody. Miles then turns over on his side and flat-out punches the man that tripped him up in the nose.
Of course, the biker thug takes the punch and just stares at the youth rather intensely for a second, then he bursts into a bellow laugh at the kid, cause his attack really had no effect on the stout man.
Miles just smiles slightly, looking rather devilish, he then takes the bottle that is in his hand and smashes it over the other man's head rather bluntly, and then he starts laughing again as the man falls out of his chair. But that's when the shit-eth, hit-eth, fan-eth; figuratively speaking. The man wasn't too pleased about that manuever. Now he's looking a little peeved…
It was all fun and games until blood was drawn.
… Now it's on …
Deckard has seen, started, and been otherwise involved his fair share of bar fights, with scars to prove it. But there's something about getting into a fight with big scary biker gangs that screams 'stab me,' and with all the effort he's been putting into not getting killed lately, it seems wise to steer clear. So, after taking a minute to watch the early stages of what promises to be a big bloody mess, he hangs a left and goooes around. Blessedly, there is at least one bar tender at the far end who's still serving drinks despite the ruckus. Dantes and the other patrons nearby are given a glance. "Crown and water."
Ed doesn't precisely quail, but nor does he seem inclined to wade into the brawl. Sonny would be so mad if he put a scratch on that brand new face so fast. He orders a gimlet, unthinkingly, and keeps out of the way, more or less taking up station along the wall while his drink is served. "That kid is gonna get turned into a bloody pulp," he observes, with only the mildest of disapproval.
Miles spins and slides off the bar quickly, standing there to greet the rather large biker with a huge grin on his face. He's definitely asking for a body bag, that's no lie. The youth shrugs his shoulders at the large man, placing a hand on his shoulder and says with a bit of a drunken slur,"Sorry about that, man. My hand slipped. Those damn beer bottles are so slippery these days…"
Standing upright and next to the craterfaced youth, this over six foot, 300 pound plus man is a giant in comparison to the scrawny, wimpy-looking youth. A tiny stream of blood rolls down the large man's forehead, he reaches up to wipe it off with his hand and then looks at his hand and laughs lightly with a bit of a smile before he frowns and cocks his fist back, aiming to knock the youth's block off, literally.
It doesn't take much for the youth to get sent sprawling across the bar room, but amazingly he's not out for the count, must be all that alcohol giving him superhuman endurance or something. This kid starts to rise up to his feet, and that's when the bouncers grab him and retain him. The biker dude just watches from that point, he scowls and goes back to his seat.
The youth's face is now covered in blood of course as it just pours out of his nostrils profusely, Miles looks at the bouncers rather pleading,"Awww come on.. the fun was just getting started! .." And they start to drag his tiny carcass out the door at that point, kicking and screaming,"I'll behave! I promise! Just let me go back in!" The bouncers shake their heads refusingly and out the door he goes..
"He'll be lucky if he doesn't wind up with a rusty pipe rammed up his asshole." Where cleanliness and a razor have altered the character of Deckard's face, his voice remains unmistakable. Particularly in its current mutter, while he drops himself down onto a bar stool and watches the removal of Miles sideways over his shoulder.
"No kidding," Ed agrees, making a face. He doesn't claim a seat, merely sets a booted foot on the rail of the bar and leans on it a bit. "Ah, well, one less fool in New York City," His tone is philosophical.
Miles stumbles out as he's shoved into the street by the bouncers. He turns around and immediately sends them a rude gesture by slapping his arm with one hand and raising his fist in retailation with the other. He scoffs, and then sighs. "Bastards, don't know how to have a good time."
Miles then moves over to sit on the curb of the street, folding his arms over his knees and laying his head down on his arms. "Not what am I supposed to do for a little fun around here," he mutters to himself as he sits outside in front of the building.
"You would think idiots would work their way up from stray dogs and homeless people. Bikers are a hell of a place to start." Back to a mutter again, Deckard sweeps a more deliberate look over the more dangerous-looking clientele in question, cold eyes washed flat in the warm light of the bar. His whiskey is sipped, then sipped again. When he finally sets his glass down looks back over at Dantes, it's with a hand lifted as if with intent to offer an introductory shake. But he doesn't…quite get there. His jaw slacks. He stares.
Welcome to the land of cognitive dissonance. Ed glances behind himself, as if he were very sure he's not the subject of Deckard's amazement, and then looks back, puzzled. He glances down. Yeah, he's properly zipped. And then he looks up and meets Deckard's gaze, the picture of innocence. "What?" he wonders, tone puzzled.
Skulls can't look innocent. Neither can bullets. Deckard says nothing, the aperture of his frigid glare shuttering from near pin points to dilated black more blatantly than the man might like, were he more self-aware at the moment. Normalvision is a last resort — a double check, almost, when his eyes lift away from a slower sweep down 'Ed's' person. The fuck. "What?" he repeats back. Dumbly.
The skull is different, really. Sonny's done his number on the bone structure. But….there's the tracery of old fractures in the ribs, and in one leg. And that bullet, hovering there like a little leaden ornament right in front of a scapula. "Listen, if you're going to look at me like that, we should be in another kind of bar entirely, and you should be buying me a drink," Ed observes, tone mild. The voice is different. The face, the eye color, the hair.
Deckard, in turn, is the same. Or at least, similar. Lines flat across his brow and long around his mouth, cold eyes, angular jaw. The fact that he looks like he works in an office building as opposed to the curb can only do so much. There's no misreading the stark bafflement on his features now — he doesn't even flinch at the suggestion that he has the gay.
"…How about a cosmo?"
Deck can penetrate skin and bone. But the dark eyes remain opaque - not even a flicker at that comment. "No," he says, with a faint laugh, "Not my kinna drink. Not into the girly cocktails. Jack and coke's about as fancy as I get." He's perfectly blase, gaze meeting Deckard's without flinching.
Good in a staring contest. That's Deckard. He doesn't blink, blue eyes stark against darker brown for much longer than is strictly polite. When he finally does blink, it's to look down and away. Back to his whiskey, which he downs in a couple of long swallows so that he can reach back around for his billfold in irritable silence.
Ed lifts his glass in amiable salute, downs the remains of the drink, and leaves a decent tip before turning to head for the door. Apparently the trade here is a hair too rough for his tastes. Deckard doesn't get another glance.
In some kind of weird silent agreement, Deckard doesn't look at Ed again either. He pays, sweeps his coat up off the stool next to him, and heads out for the door, making as little eye contact as possible with the scary biker people scattered along the way.
The dark haired man wasn't waiting for Deckard. He neatly sidesteps Miles, pausing only a moment as if amused to see that he's alive, whole, and apparently unpulped. He paces along, hands in the pockets of his jacket, humming cheerfully to himself.
The bloodied, pizzaface, aka Miles is still sitting out on the curb. In hand is one of those cheap, disposable prepaid cellphones. He holds the cellphone up in front of him, just staring at it frustratedly, he mutters,"Are they ever going to call? I guess they're having a little trouble with my background, considering I'm dead and all." He laughs at his own comment, shaking his head. "Oh well. I'm sure they'll get back to me soon enough."
Miles slips the phone back into his inside jacket pocket, he reaches up to wiggle his nose around a bit. He winces, groaning in pain he grumbles,"Yep, it's broke." He sighs, and looks around for a moment longer.
Finally deciding to get up, Miles rises up to his feet and moves out toward the bikes, looking around a bit mischievously,"Well… isn't this an interesting predicament," he scoffs.
Miles glances toward the other two questionably, raising eyebrows as he calls out to them,"Hey fellas.. do any of these belong to either of you?"
"Coward!" Deckard raises his voice to not-quite-shout once he's out the door, ill-suppressed anger steam-blasted out into the cold after Ed's retreating form. The whole pot-kettle thing evades him. Maybe he's too busy shrugging his overcoat on to bother with the extra thought that would be required to cover it. And…there's Miles, anyway. "Do you have a fucking death wish, kid?"
Ed glances back at Miles. "Evidently he does," he notes, as if agreeing with Deckard. No comment on the insult - it's as if he just didn't hear it.
"Death wish?" He scoffs, shaking his head,"Maybe I do, maybe I don't." He shakes his head, laughing, probably seeming just a little off his rocker as he does. Miles glances between Deckard and Ed, he tilts his head to the side slightly, giving them both a funny look. "You guys about to fight or something? Can I watch?" He asks, smirking a bit sheepishly.
Coat lapels snapped down into place so that he can set to buttoning himself up, Deckard gives Miles the stink eye while he does it. He is unhappy. Not that he's ever really one to skip around spreading good cheer or anything, but. "We're not going to fight. Don't you have school in the morning or something?"
"No," says Ed, matter of factly. "I'm going home." He shakes his head. Talk about one born every minute. With that, he heads for what's presumably the nearest subway entrance.
Miles gives Deckard a disgusted look,"Don't you have a funeral to go to or something? Like your's maybe. Looks like you're 10 years late there, old man." He smirks mischievously, folding his arms over his chest, he glances over toward Ed again and then back to Deckard,"Man, I hate the fucking cold."
Not to say that Miles has a good memory or anything like that, but he has noticed some familiarity with Deckard, although it's not enough to exactly register any mental alarms or any such like that, it's just like a passing recognition but he doesn't ponder on it too much, probably because he's too busy insulting him, and well, being the rebellious youth that he is.
However, Miles does take a moment to inquire briefly since it's come to his attention,"Do I know you from somewhere?" He narrows his eyes slightly and shrugs his shoulders,"I could swear I know you from somewhere, dude."
Mockingly he follows up with,"Is that you grandpa?" He scoffs.
Gloves come next. Deckard drags them out a pocket and tugs them on, jaw clenched against Miles' ongoing assault. He declines to watch Ed or the kid while he works his fingers in through black leather. The sunglasses are last, black as everything and possibly more expensive than his coat, if only because he didn't have to pay for them.
There are only so many old guys that walk around wearing sunglasses at night.
"Kid, I have no idea who the fuck you are, but you don't want to get into it with me."
Sunglasses? At night? Are you kidding me? Miles gives Deckard a quizzical look, and then that's when it's like a light bulb goes off, figuratively speaking. Miles' eyes widen, his grin broadens twistedly, he then points a finger at Deckard, "Hey I know you!"
Well, maybe that's not the best approach. "You're friend shot me in the leg, fucking assholes," he says angrily. "And I was really enjoying that body too." Ah well, he's probably not the best at keeping his secret, but then again he's not exactly trying to at the moment, perhaps it's the influence of the alcohol still in his system.
"Yeah, that's right, motherfucker, think long and hard about it." He nods his head agreeingly as if urging Deckard's thoughts about this point,"Heh. Of course you don't remember me, cause well. Let's just say I can be whomever I wish to be and leave it at that, and I think I'd like to play an old geezer for a while." Miles reaches out to Deckard, trying to grab him by the shoulder. He does so casually, not exactly exerting himself to touch the man.
"You're off your goddamn nu—" Friend shot him in the leg. Enjoying that body. Don't get near him. The end of whatever Deckard was going to say puffs out in a hazy little cloud of foggy nothing, and his brows twitch down while he does the math. By the time the lines around his eyes can tighten into a more classic, 'Shit.' type expression, the kid's hand is on his shoulder. His chin tips down after it, and his right hand goes immediately for the interior of his coat, but he buttoned it, like a moron.
"Too late," Slips from the youth's mouth just before the 'jump' into Deckard's body is made. It's almost instant, a strange feeling, like an unnatural force entering into Deckard's body at this point, the conduit being pizzaface's hand and it washes over Deckard's entire body.
The youth's head lowers as the transfer is made, the kid hasn't come to yet, but Miles is all too aware of what is going on, he quickly reaches over and strips his black leather jacket off of the Starbuck employee's back and begins to head off down the street, folding the jacket over one arm — some valuable belongings that he can't lose in here, namely the contact cellphone for the group dubbed 'Phoenix'.
"I told you, we'd meet again, you old fuck. Now it's time for a little payback. Don't worry thought, I have no intentions of getting you killed…" But that doesn't mean something /accidentally/ won't happen.
 December 8th: Check-Up and Pie |
 December 8th: How The Cracks Begin to Show |