Participants:
| Scene Title | Now That We're Alone |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Logan's claws find their way back into Toru's hide. |
| Date | July 25, 2009 |
Somewhere in Chinatown — Satoru's Apartment
Distinct absence of samurai swords.
Despite Bebe's attempts to put on a little show for Toru, he ultimately ends up just turning away from her and Logan as they make their last embrace, heading over to slump down in the couch until the girl leaves. He holds that baseball glove in the crook of his right arm, rubbing it absently, allowing it to act as a metaphorical sort of security blanket. He'd probably bark a derisive laugh at Logan's comment about Bebe having hurt him, had he heard it; the irony would be amusing.
But alas, most of the conversation being made in hushed tones, Toru doesn't have the benefit of knowing what's being said behind his back. For once, he mightn't care; at the moment, he's more concerned with getting attention. Once the door is opened and closed, he looks up to confirm that Beebs has actually left, and his baleful expression is turned over to Logan.
"You didn't have to bring her here," he grumbles, dejectedly. "I don't care if you wanna.." a hand is waved, there, idly. Glossing over details. "But bringin' 'er over 'ere's like.. like if you went to a bar and brought your own booze, or somethin'. It's.. it's rude." Oh, yes, he's obviously okay with sharing. Really. "'S not like I ever said no to you, and if it's 'cause you like girls more then I dunno why we do anything anyway."
Logan is wandering away as Toru speaks— not away away, but towards where a few of his effects had been left on the coffee table, such as the silver rectangle of his cigarette case. He sets about the quick motions of lighting up, attention back on Toru as soon as the younger man is finished, for the moment, wandering on over closer, although some distance is maintained.
No effort made yet to do up his shirt, comfortable as is as fading afternoon light continues to slant in through the open windows. "I'd love nothing more than to bring her to someplace I could call my own," Logan states, smoke wisping out of his mouth between words, the remains of a deeper pull from moments ago. "Unfortunately— I don't have that option quite yet.
"Besides." A flicker of a smile, one that's almost impish; another inhale from his cigarette, and another step closer. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I did want you to see it."
"There's hotels," Toru spits. "Or she coulda had her own place, y'know. They usually have somewhere you can go." He is, of course, still assuming that Bebe is a regular working girl and not someone Logan is already quite intimately acquainted with. "I know you want your own place and all but we also both know it's gonna be a while. I ain't askin' you for money or anything, I just want some kinda.. some kinda consideration for that, y'know?"
The boy has actually maintained eye contact for most of this discussion, which is a far cry from his usual rants that involve him talking to Logan's knees, or a section of wall several feet to his right. "My mom baked you a fuggin' cake," he reminds his employer. Who isn't, strictly speaking, employing him at the moment.
That last comment gets a bit of a grimace from Toru, and in protest he reaches out his free hand, grabbing onto a flap of shirt and tugging with annoyance and the smallest hint of faint amusement. "Don't joke about that, s'not funny."
"The only hotels I can afford right now are shit, and the day I'm reduced to that is the day I'm going celibate," Logan mutters, coming to a halt a few feet away from Toru, one hand on his hip and the other arm dangling from the shoulder, cigarette pinched neglectfully between fingers. "If I can spare the cash, I'll gladly take the girls to whatever place they so desire. Your apartment is nice, Toru, but it's not that nice. Besides, she's not a hooker. Not anymore, anyway, so wash your mouth out with soap, young man."
Apparently, Logan is the only one out of the triangular connection of lovers that isn't taking this entire situation so seriously, although his smirk finally fades away. "But think about it." He takes a seat back on the couch, reaching to ash his cigarette into the ceramic tray on the coffee table, before resting a long arm along the back of the sofa in a recline. Bebe's perfume has left enough of an impression that it mingles with the scent of smoke. "We were putting on a fair show for you here, weren't we? With me here, at your financial mercy, being fed and sheltered and clothed, perhaps I wanted to show you that you didn't own me, just in case you were wondering."
The smile returns for a moment, teeth catching on his bottom lip in a soft bite before he adds, "And maybe see what happens if you cared to prove me wrong."
Toru looks over at Logan as he sits, considers the commentary, scratches the back of his head in thought. "All girls are hookers," he notes, after a moment. "You gotta pay for it somehow." The wisdom of every stand-up comedian at Toru's beck and call, here. "I've invested a few times myself without gettin' what I paid for, y'know." There is a defeated sort of smirk at that insight, however vague, and then, rather abruptly, he shifts about in his seat and moves to lie sideways, head resting on Logan's lap. Hello there.
Facing outward, thank you. "Didn't work very well, did it?" His tone is fairly level despite the fact that the words themselves could be taken as gloating. "Got you to get rid of her. It's not that I.." And a pause, there. It kind of is that he. "…I guess I would've maybe liked some warning. I like knowing that if I want you, you're pretty much going to be here. It's.. it's just nice having someone to be with." … Kind of creepy. One hand is lowered to lazily rub one of the legs his head is resting on, in a gesture meant to be comforting more to himself than to Logan. "… Anyway, I guess maybe I was a little jealous."
Hello there. Not quite the hello there that Logan was going for, but, it'll do. He leans back against the arm of the sofa in lazy recline, and his free hand comes to rest on Toru's head, fingers carding through bleached strands as his other hand brings the cigarette back to his mouth again, angles the smoke away as Toru mutters whatever it is he has to say.
Meaningless, in the end. Logan still has them. He still has them both. "Yes, just maybe," he says, a mild tease and a soft, low chuckle. Two fingertips tap against Toru's skull. "Tell you what. How about I not ever do that again?"
Now there's an idea.
"It'd be a nice start," Toru replies, humoringly. "If, y'know, you could manage it." There is a bit of a sigh there, but at the same time, he opts to discard the glove — nudging it to the edge of the couch to fall onto the floor — and rolls onto his back, looking up at Logan probingly. A more appropriate angle, perhaps; Toru looking up at Logan whilst Logan looks down on him.
"Could you at least maybe put a rubber band on the doorknob or something next time?" Going, of course, with the assumption that Logan can't reliably keep it in his pants. "It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't just walk in and.. and bam, there it is right in my face." A hand gestures to illustrate this 'bam', though it's just a vague sort of wave.
"'Cause, I mean, like I said it's okay if you're doing that, but I think if I walk in on that again I might end up killing somebody and nobody wants that to happen." He laughs as he says that, but it isn't the laugh of someone telling a joke so much as the laugh of someone who is making a nervous, paranoid confession.
Pale green eyes roll a little, but such a show of disdain has to compete with the way Logan's fingers continue to comb, as if soothing, through Toru's hair, even as he turns to look up at him. Fleeting, predictable. "You'd kill someone?" he responds, voice a mix of morbid fascination and amusement. "Blimey. You're right. We certainly wouldn't want something like that to happen, now would we? Though I suspect, knowing what you do, it wouldn't be so messy. I don't have that luxury."
He moves his hand again, simply leaning back with the weight of Toru's head on his thigh, bringing the smoldering cigarette to his mouth again, letting curls of smoke escape his nostrils in a short burst. "I wouldn't worry, anyway. I can always stop you."
And as the combing continues, Toru makes small, subtle sounds of contentment at it. Mm, yes, very nice, thank you. "Y'know, I dunno if it'd kill somebody." He's actually considering that matter, closing his eyes a moment in thought. "I guess eventually it'd stop blood from flowin' right and your brain'd go bad, but I dunno if maybe it'd like, do a suspended animation thing." But ultimately he shrugs, opening one eye and smirking. "Anyway, even without it I'd be able to do somethin'. Not that I wanna, but. Y'know."
He rolls over onto his side again, facing Logan this time though without any horribly lewd intent, his head, in point of fact, angled up so that he can look into the older man's face, more or less. "Y'know, I know a lot of it is 'cause I got a place and all, but if you think I'm so silly about how I act about the stuff you do, I don't get why you keep putting up with it."
He isn't slipping back into upset mode, there, though his voice is in a bit of a mumble again — only this time, it's due to comfort leading to a false sense of fatigue. "I mean… like the girl said, it ain't like there aren't plenty of other ladies you could get with."
"Because you put up with the things I do, don't you?" Logan says, hand coming to rest on the side of Toru's neck, a soft scratch of blunt, neat fingernails, palm warm. "I mean, you might yell, or cry, or go storming off into the bedroom and have me get reacquainted with the fucking couch on occasion, but you always come around in the end, and that's precisely what I need. Girls— they're higher maintenance. And they like having power over men too much. It's off-putting when they get it."
His shoulders go up in a short shrug, gaze tracking over Toru's face rather than his eyes. "Anyway. Are you fishing for a compliment or something?" A flash of a smile. "Or trying to get me to tell you I'm a fairy? Not going to happen." A fingertip makes a line down the slope of Toru's neck. "Split down the middle."
"No, I think that's enough," Toru replies with another faint smirk, lifting an arm up to loop around Logan's waist, however awkwardly. And despite the explanation making Toru out to sound a mite pathetic, it's apparently a state he's content with for the moment. Although, that last remark does get a bit of a pained twitch, coupled with a tightening of his grip — intended to be somewhat threatening, though in this position it doesn't work very well in that regard.
"A fucking fairy, is that what you think of me as?" He frowns, not quite with anger but certainly with growing irritation. For a moment he had thought Logan meant something rather more literally magical, but it only took that brief moment to work out that oh, right, different slang in different parts of the world. Funny how so many of them start with F.
"'Cause I mean, if that's — I mean, I might be a fucking fag but I'm no damn fairy." Now may be a good time for that compliment, or at least some backpedalling.
Logan's body goes a little rigid when Toru's arm tightens, as ineffectual as it might be, smile vanishes in the next moment when predictable heat and anger is sent his way. The hand resting on Toru's throat is just as light and casual as it was before, though he drums the pads of his fingertips against the nap of Toru's neck.
"That a fact?" he says, with a laugh bordering on a scoff that doesn't really do enough to make him smile, though his mouth upturns into a smirk as he adds, "Actually I was calling me not a fairy, so I wouldn't worry, Tinkerbell." Because really, Toru makes it easy— like waving red at a bull, or a drop of blood in shark-infested waters.
And as is custom, Toru grumbles and accepts the teasing, since it is obviously only meant as a joke~. So he has no reason to be offended. Right. "You were calling you not a fairy," he repeats, in that patiently condescending tone, though as he says it, he rather abruptly lifts himself up, pulling Logan down underneath him, and resting on the man's torso to look down into his eyes. No anger there to match his tone, but slow amusement instead.
"… But you were kinda saying I am." One hand comes up, the backs of fingers grazing along Logan's cheek, and he dips in for a quick kiss before pulling away once more. "Maybe we should rethink that whole business about who's got who in whose pocket here, huh?"
Logan's hands come up to grip onto Toru's shirt in finger-curled vice-like grasps as soon as he's pulled down, though it's a show of a protest rather than a true one, unmoving when kissed and mouth twisting into a half smile. "Should we," he says, legs moving, the sliding fabric of his slacks against Toru's jeans as they come to lock around, twist into a closer configuration. "Let's figure it out together."
There's a pull, Logan coming up to meet the kiss just as he drags Toru down into it, biting, residual impatience of something started on this couch not fifteen minutes ago. Whatever it is there to discuss, Logan, as ever, takes the route that does not involve words.