Participants:
| Scene Title | Strike-Out |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Alexander makes a declaration and Teodoro is skeptical. It goes to shit— again. |
| Date | May 18, 2009 |
Staten Island — Old Dispensary
On the outside, this sprawling multi-level complex has not seen use in many years, its walls covered in greenery and stone exterior and glass windows showing evidence of disrepair. Surrounded by a chain link fence, a drive leads from the street to a large dock, and around the back one can expect to find more sprawling greenery that eventually leads to a concrete drop off into the Atlantic Ocean.
Passing through the chainlink fence and into the dispensary will reveal that the aged and crumbling outside is a facade. The loading dock is kept clear for the most part of everything save vehicles and supplies, though a section has been quartered off and transformed into an open workshop. The dispensary itself has been transformed into something akin to a makeshift dormitory, complete with common areas, a sizable kitchen and eating area, with various rooms converted into bedrooms for the residence. One room has even been set up as a makeshift clinic, amply stocked with supplies.
The back lawn and garden of the dispensary is surprisingly well tended, green and lush during the right months. Vegetables have been planted in accordance to season closer to the building, though someone has indulgently planted a plots of flowers - notably sunflowers - here and there. Further out, the ground drops a little and makes it to a concrete edge from which opens out into deeper water of the Atlantic.
In this timeline, in this version of the world…..Al has nothing. Unless some enterprising Phoenix member stole his cab while he was gone and hid it for him, it's been taken. He doesn't really live with Abby, not yet. It's like it was last fall, when they first met - Al's basically a squatter, living even less than hand to mouth. In one of the smaller makeshift bedrooms, there's his cot. His couple of trunks' worth of clothing. A crate that functions as a nightstand, and books stacked here and there. He's not been much of a presence at all, since his return. Hiding out, like having anyone around him is an insupportable weight. He's reclining on the canvas like a Roman dining, reading 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'.
And Teo remains Teo, too. His feet make noise as he crashes them into the kitchen floor and then beats the stairs in with them, breathing through his mouth because he had been doing a lot of running, hoodie hanging worn-soft off his shoulders, jeans scuffed ragged at the cuffs, and a certain shade of quiet lurking obfuscation in the wintry pale of his eyes.
He remains blissfully unaware of his weight, or at least indifferent to its impact. Barges in on Al's room with a thunderclap of door on wall, mumbles a monosyllabic salutation, chugs his heels across the floor until his knees bang into the edge of the cot and he pinwheels about, falls over. Landing on Al's stomach with about as much sophistication as your average retriever pup, or football hooligan, in equal parts blond and brawn, his arms go up to throttle a hug around the telekinetic's neck.
Al's arms come up around him, as they both summarily tumble over the other side of the cot. It's not sturdy nor broad, but it doesn't collapse under their twinned weight, nor does it tip over. He's latched on to the Sicilian like a loris to a branch, and nuzzles into the hollow under Teo's ear. "Teodoro," he says, and there is a mixture of jubilation and sorrow in his voice. "I missed you. I love you."
There's a shout of surprise when falling happens, but the sudden stop does neither of them harm. Teo ends up steepled between a hand and an elbow on either side of Al's head, a huge grin on; large enough that it actually shifts his ear up half an inch on either side of his head, clearing the hollow that the redhead's nose nudges into. He doesn't get the ex-soldier's meaning, quite. Doesn't seem to. Breathes laughter instead, a rumble that starts at the chest and ends in a gust tendriling through Alexander's ruddy hair.
"You too, asshole. Don't you ever fucking pull that shit on me again, okay? Draw a penis on my face or clingfilm my toilet if you want— but getting arrested and tortured and kahunaed into 2019 on temporal manipulator's explosive diarrhea? Unacceptable."
"My hand to god, I won't never," says Al, grammar deserting him. "It sucked. I can't even tell you how much. About the only thing that -didn't- happen to me was getting raped in the showers." And then he reaches up to palm the back of Teo's skull, and kisses him avidly. Let's make this abundantly clear. Maybe the heat of reunion will smoothe over teh bumps a little.
In the land where Alexander and Teodoro hadn't spent a whole month deconstructing a whole series of hotel beds with frictive force, Alexander and Teodoro had spent months alternately punching, shouting, ignoring, moving out from, and sullenly making up with one another whenever they weren't having sex with other people. The kiss, while not unprecedented, is heralded by about a half dozen other episodes of heartbreak.
And it ends with a snick of saliva and ruptured suction, Teo's head jack-knifed sideways on its stem. He looks at something else, while other things war in the tangle of his brows. At least one of those is pain.
Or maybe not so much. Al doesn't grab him back, with hand or power. He just looks up at Teo, and sadness fills the pale eyes, like water welling up from a spring, as he relaxes, slowly, under Teo. No tears, not yet. "I love you," he says, quietly. "I don't know if Hel or anyone told you, but in that future we visited, we were lovers."
The last word rings in Teo's ears. If you could hear the smell of blood, that's what it would be like. Another, newer line appears between his brows, consternation: which one might easily, and without overmuch creative license, construe to be the jealous kind. He closes his eyes tight enough that wrinkles run spidersilk through them, shattering the smooth flat of membrane; his head drops after a moment, his forehead meeting the stretch of pillowcase beside Alexander's head. He fails entirely to notice the book crushed under his knee.
It's a ragged paperback. Easily replaceable - Al owns no nice things beyond his Glock, which is now residing in some HomeSec evidence drawer. He's quiet. Hey, blondes do take a while to think about things. Especially important things. He's a lean, muscled mass by and under Teo. For all his outward calm, his heartbeat gives him away.
The length of time Teo stays hurdled over his best friend's prone body is probably alarming on one level or five. His fingers go white on the linens and, after a moment, he pitches over sideways, drops his back onto the narrow slot of floor between Alexander and the cot's squared monolith. The back of his head conects with the chalky floor with a dull noise of impact and greater force than gravity by itself: sometimes, he does that.
The ceiling is unremarkable except for the stain that looks a little bit like the shape of the state of Arkansas and the jagged spew of wires out of the socket where a fan used to fit. "You know, wanting to fuck somebody doesn't mean you're in love with them. I'm not sure you're aware, but I'd understand the confusion."
…..that stings like a lash. "I know that," he says, with unwonted meekness. And leaves it at that. This isn't going well, and somehow he always loses these arguments with Teo. Maybe surrender via declining the battle will go better. He sits up, and there's that slow flush climbing out of his collar, touching ears and cheek bones and brow with pink. He pulls himself upright, stands, and stays…..not sure precisely what to do.
The Sicilian remains in a heap on the floor, his toes turned up and eyes circling at… Alexander's candy-colored face, he decides, after a moment of considerable difficulty. The lack of resistance disconcerts him, more because it is unexpected than because Teo was honestly looking for a fight. He doesn't know what to do either. After a protracted moment, he moves his arm with an awkward lack of strategy, pats the point of Al's knee in uncertain apology. That couldn't have been easy. He knows.
Cigarettes. That'll give him something to do with his hands. He absentmindedly scoops them out of the air, along with their lighter wingman, as they leap to him from the nightstand. And then Al heads for the door - even in such a relative ruin, the etiquette of not smoking indoors remains. Apparently that interview's over.
It's either the wrong time to remember Sonny or the right one. Anyway, that and being walked out on, combined, make Teo's throat close up. He clears it with a rough-rope cough and waits for the sound of footfalls to recede out of hearing before sitting up, unsteadily. Unaccountably ashen, he pulls himself up using the edge of the bed and wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. It comes away dry.