Participants:
| Scene Title | Hetero Care Package |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Deckard swings by Raquelle's salon-in-progress in hopes of getting himself cleaned up a little before he's fully back up on his feet. Raquelle is ready and waiting with beer and underwear. |
| Date | June 21, 2009 |
Cambria Salon
Okay, so there are quite a few things that need to be put into place before the salon can be opened. Like more employees, special bed things for waxing or facials, all the normal things. Big-ass sign reading 'Cambria' isn't lit up for once and painting is still going on and the floor is a mess but soon, very soon the disaster zone will be a Salon. Someday and Somewhere over a glittery gothic rainbow.
This evening, however, the doors are indeed open as people come and go and go and come and Raquelle is shooing people out with flicks of a wrist. He's dressed like a gay hair construction worker prepared to go clubbing, hairstyling toolbelt around his waist, black jeans with a few rips in them, black docs and a white wife beater, hair covered with a purple bandana and he's opening up boxes of hair supplies with a box cutter.
"Anything for you…though you're not here…" Yes, he's singing softly, he's mostly alone so he ignores the way his gift opens up a can of whoop-sincerity? Seeing as the song has nothing to do with ass. Occasionally, he takes a swig from a bottle of beer.
Deckard is dressed like a man that has finally found cause to buy a new leather jacket. Water damage and scarring is one thing — the thick black blood stains and gasoline stench that soaked in as a result of his most recent bout with fate crossed a line. So here he is, scuffing his way through the door of an unfamiliar salon with a business card in hand in blue jeans and a jacket that hasn't had a chance to get too beaten up yet, brown leather worn around the edges from secondhand use.
He looks like he might be lost, tired and out of place. Underfed and pale, blue eyes bright as a homeless dog's in the shadows cast into their deep sockets. His stubble collection is well on its way to beard status, iron and slate bristled into raggedy patches on either side of his chin amidst darker browns and occasional sparks of white. His hair is similarly unruly, grey wired into dusty brown, more distinct around his sideburns than it is elsewhere.
Rather than come all the way in, he hangs like a shadow in the open doorway, awkward and standoffish should anyone happen to glance inquiringly in his direction. Maybe he should have just done it himself.
"I can pretend each time I see you! That I don't care and I don't need-" Raquelle pauses where he was holding one hand up clenching his box cutter and waving it like a lighter at a rock concert, while holding his beer bottle to his mouth like a microphone, crooning Gloria Estefan's classic. But he has to pause, frozen like a rather inappropriate living room statue catch a glimpse of somebody in the doorway, twisting half-way around to look over and around his shoulder.
"I'm sorry honey, we aren't-" Another cut off moment! Always fun as he recognizes the scraggly stranger, lips forming a tiny 'o' and he drops his box cutter on top of a box of strawberry passion nail polish. "Oh my sweet jesus, don't you look like Santa's little shitty helper."
Lashes flutter and beer is set to the side as he moves forward backing beckoning gestures. "Come on in, come in, don't argue with me, come in before you catch your death of - is that a new jacket?" He hasn't seen this one, okay? Easily distracted. "It is simply dahling…"
Honey. Pet names are something Deckard will likely never get completely used to. He proceeds to look mildly dismayed, chilly glare cast off sideways to note whether or not anyone heard or cares if they did. He follows directions at least, one booted foot clodding before the other until he's nearly met Raquelle halfway all hangdog, jutting bones and stripped wire muscle. He has the look of someone whose mom made him come here or else, but he's alone. And old enough to be a parent himself.
"Yeah." It's new. And dahling, apparently. He glances down as if to see what, exactly, about its practical cut and weathered siding might be construed as such, but it's a hopeless effort. To him it looks like a jacket. "…Thanks."
He thinks. Unsure again, he looks Raquelle over with all the usual reservations about the state of his existence (actual or not) but the salon is here and there are…other people. A distracted glance over his shoulder confirms as much.
Raquelle's eyes roll a bit but he looks vaguely amused and very concerned as he sighs and snaps his fingers a bit, pointing to the boxes and muttering in Spanish, content to let the help see to them if they are so inclined. Smoothing a hand down his shirt he looks Deckard over once more. "Mmm, taking good care of yourself as usual, I can see." He eyes the stubble and the hair and sighs, hand going to his hip.
"Well c'mon, we'll head to the back. I've got some pizza waiting and a few brews all nice and cozy in a cooler. I was meaning to come track you down either after working today or tomorrow so you might as well come and get your Hetero Care Package now." He looks to Deckard to see if he'll follow before making his way around boxes towards the offices in the back.
"Busy week," says Deckard, dry gravel and dryer dust ground caked thick into the rough of his voice the only indication of understatement. …Unless you count the touch of gasoline stink that continues to cling to him two showers and a bottle of whiskey later. It hangs in his nostrils and clings to his hair like the smell of death, hard to shake.
His hands tuck down into his jacket pockets when he steps to follow, bandages crinkling faintly about the left. He keeps pace in typical silence, a few steps behind and one to the side.
Office door is unlocked and held open for his guest as Raquelle nods slowly, almost wearily. He does so care for people. He already has his mini-fridge though set up in his office and there /are/ indeed pizza boxes on the desk. A few shopping bags crowded together against the wall and of course chairs. Because it is an office and offices have chairs.
"Have a seat, close the door behind my little busy stinky bee. You sound parched, I knew a guy who sounded kinda like you and he has a speech to give he had to miss due to his throat…"
He bends over to select a couple of beers (Japanese most likely by the sleek bottle design) from his fridge before straightening up and looks off at nothing in particular as he recalls this fellow from long ago. "He too had a busy week, shacking up with Jack O'Toole, poor baby." He shudders and turns back to Deckard, holding out a beer. "Always good to have plenty of fluids."
Wow. It's like — a real office. With chairs. And other office-relevant things. Surprise etches out across Deckard's brow in a fashion that might be flattering if it wasn't clear he was expecting something more along the lines of zebra print walls and bejeweled furniture. Reluctant to venture too far into unfamiliar territory once he's closed the door, he occupies the floorspace nearest his only straight shot at escape until there's the offer of a beer and he's forced to tramp deeper in to take it.
On step, two steps, three. Once he's near enough to reach for the bottle, he peers at it a little uncertainly. Future beer? Fairy beer? Guardian angel beer? The idea that it might simply be foreign doesn't occur to him until he's rolled the brown of the bottle over in his coarse palm and squinted at the label. …Oh. So it's just. His brow knits again. What's wrong with American beer?
He sits, too, again automatically and still peering at the beer bottle when wood and cushion creak beneath his weight. It looks like Japanese. But it could be alien hieroglyphics.
The beer doesn't start glowing or turn anybody into a pretty fairy. Raquelle takes a swig from his bottle after screwing the top off and tossing it onto the desk. He narrows his eyes at Deckard, thoughtfully. "Contrary to all popular porn movie belief, sweetie, I didn't bring you back here to bang you over my desk." Lips twist in a wry smile as he sighs softly.
"Okay, you smell, you haven't shaved, you look worried about something…shit's still rather fond of you isn't it?" He cuts straight to the chase, pushing the pizza boxes over on the desk to place shopping bags on top of it as he occasionally drinks from his bottle. "Okay. 2 pairs of jeans, a package of white undershirts in white t form, a package of boxer shorts - don't ask me how I know what size, I'm an expert on asses." He gives Deckard a look before continuing. "A pack of cigarettes, a pack of razors, some deodorant and shaving cream…it'll probably be not helpful and I didn't have time to pick up some more Absolut but you caught me by surprise." He gestures to the bags on the table and yep, another swig.
"I don't watch that kind of porn." Why Deckard feels compelled to be defensive about such things in the presence of Raquelle, the world may never know. Whatever the reason, his affect is unusually flat. Kind of a big deal given that the tone of voice he regularly speaks in is level enough to be paved over and developed into industrial property.
At least one of them is patient.
He watches the distribution of clothing and hygiene items with a similar absence of feeling, mouth half open to comment until Raq says the thing about asses and he closes it again. Jaw hollow and teeth clamped. It's not quite a seethe, really. He can't force himself to actually be mad, or even all that annoyed. But he sure as hell doesn't have anything to say, and resolves to sit there in silence while Mr. Mom methodically scraps at least one part of his disassembled life back into some semblance of order again. A glance down and aside later, Flint finally sips his beer.
Raquelle watches Deckard carefully to make sure he isn't about to shoot, hit, yell, flip out, claim not to be gay, cry, any of those things. He nods firmly and settles down in his seat, crossing his legs and bowing his head as he continues. "The most I can afford at the moment is…" Raquelle, opens up a desk drawer, pulling out a small envelope as he peeks into it and counts the bills with a small frown. "200? Now I don't know if you're gonna blow it on drugs, booze, or cheap hookers."
He shrugs and slides the envelope across the table. "And I really don't give a fuck what you /are/ going to do with it anyways. But at least you'll be clean and have a better chance with the hookers who won't give you crabs." He grimaces and waves a hand vaguely as he takes another sip from his bottle. "How long this shit will last, I don't know that either, but at least you'll have a memory or reference of at least one thing in life that isn't trying to fuck you over. Comprende?"
Deckard does not seem about to do any of those things. He is decidedly low key despite the crocodilian clamp of his sunken jaw, quiet if not necessarily 100% lucid or attentive. Another sip of beer, a shift of his weight in the unfamiliar seat he's occupying. It's a while before he says anything, and when he does speak his voice is softer. Softer like sandpaper is softer than rubbing a shark the wrong way. But softer. "You don't have to give me any more money."
The beer is growing on him, either because he thinks it's alright or because he's thirsty enough to trick himself into thinking so. "I haven't done anything for you. I haven't — helped you or…" he trails off into a vague shake of his head, brows lifted.
"I also don't have to play with my mini-me but I do that too." Raquelle drawls with a hint of a leer, pursing his lips and waggling his eyebrows before snorting and waving a hand vaguely. "Take it, I don't care if you keep it or give it to somebody else."
He sighs and closes his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tries to consider how to reply to that. He cares, yes, but how to explain care. He takes a slow sip of his beer. "Nope, you haven't. But this isn't an eye for an eye or favor for a favor. I just give a shit." He focuses those eyeliner rimmed baby blues on Deckard. "After all, if I wasn't meant to, I wouldn't have found you. We all have fairy godmothers or guardian angels in one form or another."
He blows a kiss and takes a couple of quick swallows of the beer that never ends. "You do like pizza, right?"
The color of Deckard's eyes has nothing to do with babies. Ice and hail and naked rock stripped bare by both gleams dull in the the polished steel range of blue to grey that peers evenly back across the office, scraping around through eyeliner and proposed kindness for the bare mechanical bones of a motivation that makes sense to him. He doesn't find anything.
After a long moment that reads somewhat like concession, he finally reaches to take the offered cash, bandaged hand fumbling thickly around at the back of his jeans after his billfold. Mention of guardian angels draws his eyes up again, fixed upon Raquelle even warier than before. Then he's moving again more slowly, focus back cast down to follow the mash and press of green bills into the previously empty span of leather where they go, beer balanced in his lap. "Are there people who don't like pizza?"
Raquelle scratches his jaw as he quirks an eyebrow and studies Deckard quietly. "Mmhm, there are actually." He waves a hand vaguely. "Take a box with you when you go, but the top is cheese, the bottom's extra cheese, help yourself."
He leans forward, elbows on the desk. "Before you go, do you want me to shave you or get your hair washed or something? Other than that, unless you need a manicure or a bikini wax, I think that is stretch of my magical fairy princess powers." He flashes a grin.
Yes, actually. Deckard dragged himself here to get cleaned up and he hesitates accordingly, beer dawdling on its way back up for another sip once the wallet is tucked away. But there's something about the way Raquelle asks — the phrasing, maybe — that triggers a rankle at his nose and an avoidant glance elsewhere rather than an affirmative.
"I'll get it taken care of." Probably. Hopefully soon. The beard thing isn't really working for him now that it's promising to pick up steam. He eyes the bags indirectly before he pushes creakily to his feet, all clean underwear and promise of a few days feeling reasonably clean and fresh and not stinking of flammable liquids. "Thanks. Again."
Raquelle sighs and shakes his head slowly. "Have it your way Scruffy." He frowns and starts to push to his feet, setting his bottle down. "I'm pretty sure I'd only chase you away if I just tugged you to a styling chair and got to work." He gestures towards the door. "The sinks are already set up and the plumbing works in the bathroom, go ahead and shave at least, okay?" His voice softens a bit, coaxing even as he tilts his head to the side.
"And you are welcome. At least I'll know even if I don't get to get you cleaned up, you'll have the tools needed to take care of yourself, hm?" He smiles a bit sadly before smoothing down his shirt and idly cracking his neck as he stretches.
"Sure." Plumbing, sinks. He'll probably feel better after he shaves. Cleaner. A glance cast off in the direction of hte indicated door, Deckard dithers with his beer at his hip for a few seconds more before he resolves to shuffle around in the offered bags for a razor and shaving cream. He takes his time, procrastinating like someone a fourth his own age on his way to setting down the beer and tracking drearily off to fix the bottom half of his face.
Who knows. By the time he finishes up and emerges he might have decided a haircut isn't such a bad idea after all.
In the meanwhile he has the effort of not making a mess of Raquelle's shiny new sinks to focus on, one last wary look tipped back at the hairdresser on his way to closing the door behind himself.
Another wry yet reassuring smile and he waits until that door shuts before Raquelle just slumps down in his chair, covering his face with his hands and muttering softly in Japanese, before letting his hands fall and he takes a deep breath and then another. All his poor babies, what is he ever going to do!
It is a filthy habit, it really is, but he has to indulge himself occasionally when stressed out or emotionally touched in one way or another. So the Hairdresser, Father of 2, Retired Singer, Helper of those in need…pulls a cigarette out of a pack, lights up with a glittery purple lighter and takes a long and badly needed drag.
As he stares at the door…he exhales a stream of smoke and just mutters, "Well. Just one won't kill ya." - He's probably not talking about the cigarette.