Participants:
Scene Title | If Only It Were Raining |
---|---|
Synopsis | Toru seeks out Logan after an extended and unexplained absence. |
Date | August 18, 2010 |
As is his usual practice, Toru has concocted a plan that is ultimately far more complicated than necessary to get the same results, though at least this time that's less because he thinks it's a genuinely good idea and more because he really couldn't think of anything better. Stress. He'd been in line for a bit of a while before actually gaining entrance to the club, with the brief roadblock of an awkward conversation with a bouncer. 'Don't I know you from somewhere?' 'We all look alike.' 'Uh huh.' But Toru's ID checks out — he's gone and turned 22 by now — and he's in, he's paying a cover charge that may be a bit higher than he remembers, and he's looking for familiar faces.
Though not too familiar. He doesn't really want to run into anyone who'll actually remember him, and this trip is awkward enough for him. Rather than heading for a table, he makes his way for the bar, waiting a moment before he catches the attention of a 'tender. "Hey, man. I got a message for your boss." He even goes so far as to reach into his pocket to pull out a piece of paper and a pen. And scribbles. "I need you to tell 'im to go up to the roof in half an hour on accounta there's a guy wants to see him." He writes this down, though a bit less wordily. "And I need a rum and coke 'cause I paid the damn cover to get in here to tell you that, right? You got a phone back there or somethin', you can call 'im, it ain't that much of a hassle, right?"
"Kid," seems a little unfair, seeing as Toru's ID did check out, and all, but the bartender is turning his back to collect the bottle of rum up off a silvery shelf, a glass bottle of coke in the the other hand. "Just pass it to the bouncer next time." Which is actually a better way of getting lol'd at, but Toru knows that, and the bartender doesn't know he knows that, and an expect upturn of both rum and coke bottle over ice has the drink forming before his eyes.
The drink is nudge his way and the note taken up by glittery fingernails, the 'tender glancing it over with a cynical eye before jolting a shrug. "Careful if you're going outside," is all he says on the matter, before moving off towards the phone.
"Bouncer can't leave the door, G." Yep, Toru's entirely aware of that. "Figured you'd have a phone or somethin' here." He shrugs, sliding in to take a seat at the bar, his drink pulled closer and stirred with swizzle stick before being sipped through same. "Nice nails, by the way." It's only mildly sarcastic the way he says it. He swishes the drink a bit more as he watches the bartender do his thing, then turns to give a look around the club.
He's actually dressed a bit nicely for being Toru, though definitely not upscale. Jeans, rather than cargo pants, and a buttoned-down shirt in lieu of a tee. Thin gloves on the hands, which is a bit unusual for him, though not necessarily for the Burlesque clientele. They don't quite match. The hair has been re-oranged recently enough that roots are almost unnoticeable, and he's got it cut down to only a few inches in length now. While the bartender's on the phone, Toru does think to interject, "Why careful?"
The bartender twists at the waist to glance back, a look up and down — for as much as he can't see anything of Toru from about mid-torso and below — and a brief smile. "It's where the wild things are," he explains— explains— before turning his back on the presumably younger man, setting down the written note and smoothing it out. Then, he's on the phone — with his voice low enough beneath the music to not catch attention. An irritated shrug a few seconds later.
There's a brief odd look from Toru with that reply, as if he's not quite sure how to interpret it — a flash of is he coming on to me? oh jesus that is not— well— flits through his brain before he shakes his head dismissively, at himself really since the other man has turned away by now, and he sits back a bit to finish off the drink in a few big gulps. And then a wince at having drunk it so fast, but— well, now we're all good.
Once it's clear that the phone has been answered, Toru pushes himself off his chair, digging around in his pocket to slip a couple bills under his empty glass, and turns to vanish out of the club even more quickly than he'd entered.
It does take half an hour.
Maybe it feels like more, by the time the sound of footsteps rattling up the fire exit reaches Toru's ears. Probably not the grizzled shape of canine lying miserably curled up on the pavement, fortunately not directly in the path of getting to the rooftop, sound asleep and only giving a twitch of one large, batwing ear when he made his ascent. No, two feet, ones not attempting to be very quiet, but taking their time. It's not raining, but it's been raining recently — light pollution from the city defines the shape of clouds in the night sky, and left over puddles make mirrors on the concrete.
Two hands, then, pale and gripping, find metal railing and pull after them the long and lithe frame of the man invited to be up here. It's dark, but Logan's long-limbed silhouette is reasonably distinctive, and ambient light catches on gold-blonde highlights, glances off pale flashes of skin, his forearms where his black shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbows, buttoned in place. The cinch of a waist coat hugs his torso, and even from here, the holster at the small of his back is visible.
Even more visible is when the silver revolver is slid out of it even before he's completely swung a leg over the rooftop side.
Fortunately, Toru was warned about the dog. Or at least, something. Either way, if not for some vague sort of warning, he probably would have ended up panicking and making even more of a mess of things if he hadn't known to be cautious.
It took him just about half an hour to make it up himself; after leaving the club, he wandered up a block or so to pick up a stashed bag, change into a t-shirt and light hoodie, and take the whole business with him up the fire escape. All very bulky, but he's got everything he needs, anyway. He also decided, ultimately, to come unarmed, even despite knowing that his companion most likely wouldn't show that same courtesy. He's not really certain if Logan got a description of who gave the message. He's — not certain of a lot of things.
When Logan does finally come up, quiet footsteps notwithstanding as Toru'd been waiting to hear them anyway, he finds the tiny Azn standing on the edge of the roof, looking down at the street and, if it was anyone else, probably looking like he'd intended to jump. Which he doesn't. He really is just enjoying the view. But once limbs make their way over the edge, about twenty feet away or so, he looks over almost balefully. "Hey," he offers, not really trying to pretend to be someone else. "I, uh, guess I kind of fucked up in a bad way." Let's just.. not panic about the gun just yet.
There is a pause, then. A little ridiculous. Logan kind of straddling the steel supports and concrete ledge of a rooftop, a little gracelessly in that he did not mean to stop here, precarious. The revolver is held as it should but the muzzle points off lackadaisical. The rise and fall of shoulders denotes a breath, before motion sets back in, more determinedly, other leg winging over to plant both soles of leather shoes onto the concrete. He doesn't move much farther — leans back against the edge, and doesn't put his gun away.
Scratches its silver, casually, down the swoop of his jaw as he tilts his head to consider the sight of Toru standing on the other side of the rooftop, content with their distance. More than. Content with the distance.
Toru turns a bit more, facing Logan a bit more properly, turning to hop off of the edge and back to proper roof-level, though he doesn't move any closer. Logan, or rather the vague silhouette thereof, is regarded for a moment; his own face a bit more visible via ambient lighting from nearby businesses casting their neon tendrils over his form. "I," he starts, and then stops, uncertainly. 'Expected this to be easier' certainly comes to mind.
"probably don't got a right to be here. I can explain, if you wanna hear it. I just — y'know, I figured… something." He shakes his head, slumps down onto the roof edge, and unzips his bag to pull out a small package.
"It's kind of a shitty explanation, and the more I think about it the stupider I've been, and anyway I got you something and if you stop pointing that gun at me I didn't come armed, okay? I just wanted to apologize."
Logan glances away, partially down, gun weaving in the air for a moment before he leans forward just enough to comfortable tuck the revolver back into its holster, feeling no particular animal desperation to lay those six bullets into the man standing across from him. Not to say that he wasn't waiting for it. There's tension, though, making hollows beneath high cheekbones, making his familiarly pale gaze wander away and still any and all flippant remarks. At least for now.
Eyes adjust to the dark, eventually, and Logan's features aren't that hard to make out. Pinched with some reproach. "Remember," he starts, no slur or throaty drunkenness to his voice, so there's that, probably a little harsher than Toru remembers — he smokes a lot more, now, "back when the Triad got me and broke up my hand. You wouldn't guess that the man who collected me for them, he came back to apologise."
Shaped eyebrows go up. No lie, is the expression. "Didn't bring me anything though. What you got? Besides your explanation."
Presents always seem to lighten the mood, don't they? Toru shrugs, standing up again for a moment, debating whether to walk close enough to hand the box over. Ultimately decides to close the gap to a slightly less impersonal ten feet, and from there he tosses the present underhanded and carefully. It's a small package, wrapped in a zebra-printed silk handkerchief and tied at the top, though the item inside is a shallow box, not terribly large though not small, either. About big enough to hold a wallet, appropriately enough. "People surprise you."
He lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose before he drops his bag onto the roof, sitting down on it, leaning forward with elbows on knees. "You sound kinda.." But that thought is pushed out of his mind as quickly as it starts. "Look. My ma dragged me to Japan to take care of her ma and I didn't know how to get ahold of you with my cell not working. And every time I say that to myself I think of something I coulda done better if I thought harder about it, and I didn't, and there's.. just a lot of shit's been going through my head."
"I never thought I'd be gone this long."
Logan catches, between the clap of two hands, mouth twisting as if wrestling aside a smile when he sees the glimmer of zebra in the dark. Chic in all black though he is, the texture of satin in the back of his vest and threaded through the material of his shirt to give it a sheen harks to the fact that his fashion sensibilities aren't entirely drowned out in Madison Avenue access and shiny credit cards. "You missed the winter," he notes, and it would be hard, even in Japan, to not have heard of the savage, Evo-created snowstorm that raped New York City for six months. "So good on you."
He tugs at the ribbon, all pragmatic movements, and winds the zebra striped stip around his long fingers as he goes, though the box is destined to fall away should the contents within prove to allow it. And for someone who is being opened up to, with thoughtful words arranged like a bouquet, apologetic language, he's being cold.
Probably is aware.
"Yeah, I — heard about that." Probably more than he's letting on, but he didn't come here to discuss the news. Logan's being cold, Toru is entirely aware, but it's… better than expected, really. He's still a little bit surprised that the gun went away when requested. For a moment, he just watches Logan open the gift, instead; the box falls away to reveal a billfold wallet wrapped in tissue paper which, once removed, reveals a slick and bumpy texture, unmistakably snakeskin. What little light there is reveals a pointillist palette of vivid colors, taken from a snake that apparently shared Logan's taste in clothing. It's real, of course. Toru isn't so crass as to try and pass off faux snake leather.
"It's just.. y'know, boss," and he uses the title as more of an odd term of endearment, "I think I kinda.. back when all that stuff happened before.. I think I kind of freaked out more than I thought. You've pretty much done more for me than anyone else ever has and I — " he shakes his head, looks away. " — I don't know how to deal with that. I don't know how to care about people. I think there's something wrong with me."
"Yeah." This is spoken down at the wallet, which is inspected with the sweep of his thumb over the snakeskin texture, paper and box all to fall and litter the rooftop. When Logan looks up again, it's not at Toru, regarding instead the computer-chip pattern of city in the distance, as the building they're on is too squat to really appreciate a good enough view up close. They can hear the individual textures of car tires as they drive by, still, the music leaking up from the dance floor three levels down.
The wallet waggles in hand like a shaken polaroid, coming to land against his other palm in a fidget. He likes it, which doesn't show in his expression, or words of thanks — but a possessive clasp and ownership of the present. "Serves me right for dragging a boy like you into shit like that and back out again. I would have fucked off too.
"Doesn't make it any better, you little tosser."
"If it wasn't for fuckin' Japan, I would've been back months ago." Verbalizing just how long it's been puts a bit of a cringe in Toru's tone. Months. Yeah. Shit. "Cooldown after a week or two and sure, I mean, maybe not be in the best brain place but — " he stands, with a more fluid motion than he'd ever make before, and starts to turn, but ultimately slumps back down again. "Not a boy. You're just tryin' to get a rise out of me." And not the good kind.
"Which — you got every reason to be mad at me. I wanna make it better. I — I just wanna square things up. I don't know how to care about people 'cause you're the only person who's given me a reason and that freaked me out and it still kinda freaks me out but I'm not running away anymore." He slumps a bit, there, and a hand is run through his hair, tangled a bit as his head rests in the palm. "I don't really — I basically owe you pretty much anything you could ask for, at this point. I want to make things right."
"Did you ever work out that I don't just negate people?"
Slight deviation from the conversation, but at least Logan is talking with a modicum of feeling, edged tension, maybe some version of hurt flaring in his voice, in spite of Toru's words. His weight on both feet, glaring down at the younger man. Boy. "Because it's not that, 's just a part of it. I also make them feel good. Or psychotic. Or panicked. It's not even empathy, it's the science behind it, like addiction, and don't think for a second I never used it on you. I did, all the time, until I didn't even need it anymore, until your body just responded the way it was trained to and—
"And maybe you don't care about me, and it wasn't fucking Japan. Even heroin addicts won't feel it so 'ard if they keep off it for long enough, in't that right. Maybe you just— snapped the fuck out of it. Maybe I did too. Yes, you do owe me, because I make people owe me. It's how I keep them at all."
With his head still in his palm, Toru shakes his head almost with disinterest at that first question. No, he didn't figure it out, and he doesn't really care, that's not what this is abou —
— oh. "You — " It explains a lot. Certainly explains why Toru doesn't feel as good now as he usually does when they're talking. "You didn't have to — " and he even has to stop there. Maybe he did have to. Slowly, the boy (man) lifts his head to look up at Logan, his expression utterly blank as he tries to just wrap his mind around what he's just been told. "Why would you — " 'do something like that? to me?' That line of questioning doesn't even occur to Toru; instead, he jumps straight to, " — why would you tell me that? You coulda just told me to leave or bloody fuck off or something more British or — "
He pushes himself to his feet, nudging his bag behind himself, though not quite ready to go for the storm-off just yet. "If I didn't care about you in some freaky-weird way I wouldn't be here and I wouldn'ta bought you a damn snake wallet. Maybe detox is why I never wrote you a fuckin' letter but now I can track you down in person I'm here, ain't I?"
Problem with storming off the rooftop: there's really only one way off it, and the man with the gun strapped to his back is monopolising that space, though not actively blocking the way. "It's called a relapse, sweetheart," and this is said with venom but not conviction, and they've had enough fights— even so long ago— that Toru might be able to pick the difference. "I didn't tell it to you to make you leave. Figured I'd throw it out there, see if you still wanted to owe me everything, and make things right.
"'s a dare." Logan is picking at the print ribbon, tugging a thread loose from where he still has it wrapped around his hand from when he'd initially untied it. "Look. Whatever. I've been through things too. I don't need you owing me anything. What do you want?"
'Sweetheart' almost has Toru's hackles raising, but he just makes a grabby gesture at the air accompanied by sound of frustration. He can tell the difference, but in a way — the fighting makes it better, a little. It's more familiar, at least, as awful as that is. "I don't even fucking — in my experience people don't usually reveal shit like that and let you just walk away. I don't know what I want now. You don't drop something like that in my lap and figure I can make up my mind this fast. I don't know anymore, you just — you do that every damn time, you just have to drop one little thing like that and I don't know what to think anymore." He isn't even angry, really, just.. frustrated at his sudden loss of any control over the discussion.
"You know what? Just — just not even thinking about that for right now, I really just.. I wanted to see you, okay?" That's not something he'd really ever have said out loud before. It'd be too gay. Could be he's grown up, a little. "I missed you. Except apparently maybe not, but I don't mind just going on thinking it was you for now."
"Oh whatever— you can't expect to just show up with a gift and an apology and bullshit explanation and expect me to know what to fucking think either," is spoken in the form of a snarl, as close to it as Logan gets, which involves some showing of teeth, pale eyes flaring green, briefly, in a way that spikes warmth through Toru's blood. Adrenaline, as opposed to anything of a nicer vibe, but it cuts out immediately, eyes going back to chill grey with a rapid blink.
Petulant, is how he sounds, dies off like soil spilled on embering flames. "I did too.
"For a bit." With the height of Logan's romantic generousity thoroughly plateaud, he folds his arms as if to contain prior outburst, seal in this minor admission.
"I didn't expect this to all turn out fine, just for the record!" Toru waves a hand angrily, makes grabby motions at the air. The adrenaline spike is almost welcome in a way, but it leaves a sick sort of feeling when it cuts back out, like taking a sudden dip on a roller coaster. "Just 'cause I'm stupid doesn't mean I think I can just make everything okay by saying I'm sorry!"
"I just want you to maybe think about it!" It's still said angrily, though he's edging into less-angry territory. Tiny kitten teeth bared, defending his pride or something equally stupid. Shouting makes everything easier. "It isn't like I fucked off to have fun, and anyway I'm not gonna let my family drag me into shit like this anymore. I just — all I wanted was to — it isn't like there was any way to show up here and have it not be totally out of the blue, man! I just figured — well like I said, I owed you an explanation, right?! If it's bullshit it's bullshit but at least it's something."
It would be better if they were physically slapping at each other, like in the movies, and also raining!! and then things might resolve themselves faster. Instead of— stagnant awkwardness and Logan locking himself down. It's not like they've never left before. It's not even like they've never come back. He's probably been here more often than Toru has. "Then we've both got things to think about," Logan says, a hint in the lean of his body that implies that it's time to walk away. Doesn't.
Not yet. It's dim out here, which only serves to illustrate the kind of thing that Toru never really noticed before — might be looking for, now, the rush of happy, chemical based, simmering in his bloodstream and in his gut. Twin points of illuminating green stare out at him, shift a little in a glance up and down, before slowly fading — a demonstration of the kind of thoughts Logan expects him to go away with.
"I don't know," he says, as if to break the spell, eyelight dwindling back down into discs of paleness. "It cost— " Fff. Pride has Logan shutting his mouth, but only for a second. "It cost a lot for me to bring you back. Not money, I mean. I don't think I can care like that again — so now there's something wrong with both of us, I suppose. But we could talk." He turns his back, now, an elaborate flip of his hand before it comes to rest on steel and concrete. "Have a conversation or two and see where the night takes us. I do like the wallet."
The rush of happy comes with another sick feeling, though this time it's purely psychological. It isn't so fun, now that he knows he's being manipulated. The instinct, though, however disused it may be, is not to fight it, and he does go with that instinct, as much as it suddenly makes him feel used.
So. He rides a nice little high, if just for a minute, and rubs his arm awkwardly now that the shouting is over. He's never been good with the talking part. "I know it.. couldn'ta been real cheap. And I know even if it was a long time ago that there had to be somethin' to make you willing to do that. I'm not tryin' to jump back into everything like it's all okay, I know that's stupid." He looks down toward the ground, rubs the back of his neck, and lets out a resigned sort of sigh. "I wanna maybe come back eventually, but I know it'll take a while. I just don't really know how to do much other'n be a dumb thug." He's not fishing for sympathy, there; he simply knows his place in the world~.
"I just figure I may as well stick with what I know. And I'd kinda rather do that without havin' to restart everything all over again."
"I could find you work. Even in this economy."
Logan isn't really looking at Toru anymore, pride dictating he doesn't, or something, or just content to regard the square of parking lot down below, the spill of light on damp asphalt and the shapes the staircase makes as it zigzags down the side of the Brooklyn building like a vine. "I dunno if I want you back," he admits, possibly oblivious as to why that might be hurtful, or secretly— not. "These conversations— I mean, fuckit. We should have kept it simpler. I should have kept it simpler."
He shrugs, as if to say, there. Admitting fault. "So if anything happens again, it won't be like before. And like you say," and now he moves to get himself over the edge, moving with about as much grace as he can manage for all that it's an awkward thing to do when you're wearing a suit with a gun strapped to your back and your hand trying not to scratch real snake skin against the hard edges of the building, "it'll take a while anyway."
His feet find the other side, his weight on the steel platform, and he glances back at Toru, adding, "There's someone. Sort of. I mean, you know, there usually is, but there wasn't for a while. I had— well. She died." Another shug, another there. It's been an interesting year thus far.
"I was always the one makin' everything complicated. Kept makin' things more'n what they were. I didn't really know what I was doing." He reaches down to pick his bag up, dragging it a little behind himself as he strolls over to the edge of the roof, off to the side a bit so's not to be too near Logan. Watching the older man pull himself over the edge. "Maybe that was all just the chemical thing. Don't know anymore. It explains a lot."
He sits back down on the edge there, straddling it so that one leg dangles out over empty space, leaning forward on both hands. "It's not that i need a job, really. Easy enough to find delivery work, part time, whatever. Couch surf for a while, pretty much everything I need fits in a bag anyway. Crime stuff's what I'm no good at. It's when they torched the Dagger that everything started going to shit."
He's quiet for a minute when Logan mentions the someone else, doesn't even show a characteristic flare of jealousy. Maybe the rehab, maybe he just knows better by now. "I, uh. Sorry to hear that. And that — that I wasn't there. If — if you do decide you wanna talk to me, I still got the same number, and.. and it'll work now. I won't come by here again probably."
There's a certain English stoic quality in the nod that that receives, and in the way Logan's attention didn't waver even when he says it explains a lot because— it does. It's meant to. There is an awkwardness in the linger of his presence, though his stance is casual, at ease in his own skin, in this setting, before he answers, "Yeah. I've still got it. Your number." A judge of distance between them, minor assessment, more wistful imagining because he's moving a second later, a constructive exit.
Never one for goodbyes or proper greetings or other trivial social conventions, and extended absence proves that neither does Toru, Logan turns then and makes rattling descent down the fireexit, winging around the zagging curve to hit the next zig, disappearing beneath the cage of steel and iron.