The Girls Are Gone

Participants:

bolivar2_icon.gif raquelle_icon.gif

Scene Title The Girls Are Gone
Synopsis This is what they mean by broken family.
Date September 3, 2009

Between


The boat engines grumbles underneath the wood, making Bolivar's slight frame hitch and sway as the engine noise channels up, through it, into the dense caramel rubber and leather of his Timberlands. Spindrift coughs by, makes his lips taste like salt. The little boat put-put lurches across black water, skimming swiftly toward the distant glitter of the abandoned docking area. Man, this is so fucking illegal. This evening has been so fucking illegal. It only prickles the nape of his neck now, however, with paranoid guesswork after the worst of case scenarios, now that he's getting back to civilization. No one gives a fuck what you do on Staten: nothing's illegal there.

The sudden sing-song shrill of his phone almost startles him to jumping, but Bolivar spares himself both this indignity and the possibility of physical harm bumping into shit on a moving vehicle. He braces his hip on the railing, scowls into the wild swing of the lamps. Digs up his phone, flips it open and pushes it up on his ear. "Bolivar," he says, perfunctory greeting.

…he had just laid there for a few, made a phone call, got to his feet and made another phone call as he blinks in the bright lights of his living room. Eyes taking in powder and broken glass, spilled vodka and of course his skillet and he dials another familiar number by heart, pressing the newer phone to his ear and closing his eyes when he hears the familiar voice. "Hey…Bolibaby…" Voice soft and raspy, only due to needing to get something to drink now, edged with weariness and full of loss, he can't quite repress. "I didn't wake you did I?"

Oh the question of being awakened causes the hairstylist to start laughing almost desperately, snorting a bit and coughing as he collects himself. "Wouldn't want to wake you…"

"Kelly?" The nickname is instinctive, but undercover, all nicknames and initial instincts seem immediately suspect, only in this case the nickname is, frankly, safer. Raquelle's nickname winds up split in two over the strangled contours of that query. "It's" He glances down at his wrist, but he isn't wearing a watch; no one owns watches these days anyway. That's what old men do. Bolivar isn't so very old. "It's like five in the fucking morning." Four, actually, but it'd only be a little better if it was already five. The wind whistles and runs past. "What's up?"

"Nnnng, me? But the bastard actually drank my vodka." A deep breath into the phone. It isn't like he hasn't done heavy breathing into the phone before, but this isn't echoed by 'what are you wearing?' Kthnx. Instead it is just. "I wanted to say…" Raquelle just trails off, breathing for quite some time as he works on rummaging through cuboards and letting things fall to the floor, tossing things out of the fridge to find a Capri-Sun packet.

"Hm? Oh yes…I was right you know. I saw it. You know what I was saying with the vision thing. I was right so um, we don't have to plan to go to the beach or the zoo." More heavy breathing, he stabs a straw in the pack to start sipping. "Yeah…"

For a long time, there is no noise except what Mother Nature spools out behind them. Hydraulic hiss and spatter, the rump-a-dump and pounding of mechanical parts through the wood. Bolivar forgets to blink, doesn't quite feel it when cold salt ticks his eye, and then the rest of him goes cold, suddenly and all at once, spiking his skin from the roof of his scalp to the thickly wadded socks on his feet. It takes him a few seconds to reassemble fragments of memory, words, words, actions—

"What?" It's almost a shout. His hand closes on the railing, his good hand, and rust bites in through the calluses bridging the insides of his fingers. He can't tell what Raquelle's dropping, but it doesn't sound right, has the mindless rhythm to it of shock, or some form of— "Raquelle, sweetheart, it's going to be fine. Where are they? What happened? Who— who drank your motherfucking vodka?" Is that a metaphor? What

Raquelle sighs softly as he sips his capri-sun, he finally speaks softly. "They're gone…bitch came in blowing cocaine around, knocked me out, couldn't move…got my girls." He tears up about here. "I'm fucking useless you know. Still brained her a good one with that skillet mom sent…"

He babbles and sniffles before continuing. "Hm? Oh…Skeletor drank my vodka. Snow white and her ninja dwarf were here, my girls are now gone." He swallows once more and continues. "I just needed um, didn't want to bother you…but when you get shot with a tranq gun thingie, and there's a dart? Do you take it out or just leave it there? Don't know if I um, should pull it out. The dart?"

"You pull fucking it out!" The squawk across the phone is difficult to mistake for actual rancor at the barber himself, despite that Bolivar rarely sounds anything other than rancorous at whoever he is caps-locked and bold-fonting at. "Jesus fuck— Sk— have you called the police? There is no fucking way we are missing the Goddamn beach and the zoo because a troupe of obnoxious nicknames trampled in through the door and made off with your fucking children. There is no fucking way.

"Look, Raquelle," his popo bed-side manner could use work, it's been said, but this time the urgency of his voice alone seems to seek to compel the younger man to cooperate, half strident, so much a plea. "You just have to stop— drinking— whatever you're drinking, call the police. Tell them someone took the girls. They'll send someone over, so you drink a lot of water, try to get a description together and fuck. Fuck. I'm coming over as soon as possible, all right? We will get them back."

Ungh. Raquelle is quick to pluck the dart from his chest and toss it onto the counter. He really hates fruit punch flavored capri-sun, so the packet is quickly tossed into the sink after a few seconds of listening to the man on the other end of the line and he just…gives a manly little giggle, snorting softly into the phone before freezing up at something.

"NO! Not yet…24 hours, 24 hours before I can call the police…Skeleto-Diogenes. I think that's his name. He wanted to play…skinny bitch just needs to eat. But…he can do something. Something I…just no okay, just 24 hours, then the police." He does sound a tad scared. "I'll um, get…okay, I'll be waiting. I'll be here. I promise."

The keening razor-winged harpies of Bolivar's rage wheel against the sky and arc unerringly toward this new target, risen out of the mist. Skeletor-Diogenes. Who the fu—? "Twenty four fucking hours before you can call the fucking police doesn't count if you watched a trio of sick motherfuckers come into your house and take them. Who told you that? This — 'Diogenes' shitbag?

"Who the Hell is he? Some PI, idiot next-door-neighbor with delusions of vigilantism?" Suspicion, the questions clamor around like greedy children into the curl of Raquelle's ear. "That was the shittiest advice I'd ever heard. He didn't even— don't lose track of that dart, a'right, querido? That's evidence. They might be able to get something off that." If it would help in the slightest, he'd lunge off the rim of the boat right now. Manhattan has never seemed so far away, mocking him with the distant, bovine blink of lights.

"Just two…took 'em I think, Dio-Skeletor came later but he took a picture of the girls. I don't know him or who he is…" Raquelle's voice grows quiet for a few moments…maybe even minutes before he just murmurs softly. "I'll find a ziploc for it." Deep breath. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry and fucking useless. I'll be here though." Then he doesn't quite hang-up just lowers the phone from his ear to stare at the dart where it lies on the counter of the semi-dark kitchen and well…stares. He's good at that.

Distance reduces it down 'til it's barely audible, muffled by the skin of Raquelle's neck and the fabric over his sleeve. "You're not." Bolivar blinks with some difficulty. He'd been about to talk about his dog, ten minutes ago. That is separately unbelievable. His throat works for two, three seconds, stagnating in its ineffectivity. "Do you have medical insurance? If they— he— hit you with darts and knocked you out with them, we'll need to get you to a hospital."

Raquelle hears things vaguely and offers softly. "Poison then darts. But I just want to shower and rest, really okay? Just…I miss them, I want you here, and I'm really fucking mad, sad, and just really thirsty. No hospitals yet. Just…give me a couple of days or something okay, I just…or maybe a couple of hours." He swallows hard. "I need to sit down, call if something comes up okay?"

Poison? Disconcertment almost spills the phone into the sea. Bolivar says nothing for a moment, and doubtless, somewhere in the haze of shock, confusion, and mourning. "All right," he says. "Okay. I'm going to hang up. Call if you need." He scrawls his fingers through his hair, glances over his shoulder at the boat's pilot. The boat's pilot doesn't even deign to spare him a moment's eye-contact, the wind beating through his gnarled features and loose shirt. He tilts with the axis of the boat and breathes slow through locked teeth. It's almost a mumble: "'M on my way."

And then it's an all but indeterminable age, when there's finally a running step in the hall, a scarred forefinger on the doorbell, screeching its electronic melody through the limpid air of the apartment.


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