The Sun Never Sets On The British Empire

Participants:

kase_icon.gif logan_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Also featuring:

eloni_icon.gif
Scene Title The Sun Never Sets On The British Empire
Synopsis Logan pays his lads and asks them for one last exercise in fire.
Date September 23, 2009

Staten Island Shore — The Dutiful

Yacht.


Much like this evening had started, The Dutiful has come to quiet idle in the shallow waters of the Staten Island coast, the water gleaming reflections right back up at her, pristine white in all the murkiness. There's a waiting van of indeterminable shade idling on dry land as close as it can get, to make light work of unloading the reasonably small but precious shipment of drug from boat to vehicle. Eloni, a large Samoan man with dreadlocks chopped above his broad shoulders, works alongside Kase, whose been tasked with the heavy lifting McAvoy was meant to do. He also hasn't been paid yet - none of them have. Besides Deckard.

Logan, of course, isn't risking breaking his back (or a nail) to help them. Perched upon a gleaming silver railing, his ankles caught secure around the metal to steady himself, his hands clasping the dealer's briefcase to his lap, he's watching the waters as if expecting pursuit. Possibly not an outrageous paranoia, all things considered.

Alone, also, having sequestered Toru in the comfier bedrooms of the yacht to bleed into sheets and possibly drink himself into painless unconsciousness, although Logan doesn't appear to feel vulnerable for the lack of company.

Clopping, and then a skittering scrape of wood chips kicked blithely across the deck. Teo comes out of the saloon room, his stride defaulting to a thuggish swagger that doesn't look quite at home underneath the utilitarian blacks and minimalism of his tactical gear, even if his tactical gear is in its version most lite.

His sleeve is still wrinkled where he flattened it down after prying up the chipped brown edges of the newest of his scabs, and there's blood under his fingernails, but he looks little the worse for wear since he showed up in the afternoon to approach the dock with his cohorts. Even his voice— "How's it going?" —seems to have recovered the proper depth and volume, after a half hour spent with the knob turned up aggravatingly near red to offset the temporary deafness of squatting and ducking inches from semi-automatic discharge.

He halts his clip at the railing, cranes his head to see Eloni and his lankier companion marching like ants across the jetty. He blinks at the van.

That bandana around his hand is bloody now and dirty, Kase could care less though. Manual labor, wading through guts, getting to play find the bomb so nobody else ends up blown up…he is not in the best of moods.

But he's finishing loading the last of the load into the waiting truck so he can just stare at Eloni a bit and give him a quick chin-up in greeting.

"Dude…so uh." He flips his hood back up though and takes a deep breath, turning on his heel to head back towards the boat slowly but surely, he glares towards Logan though. "Your boots still scuff free then?" He mutters under his breath.

Foot steps on the deck have a kind of vibration that travels even up the railing, enough that Logan doesn't necessarily have to rely on his own hearing to detect Teo's approach. Which is good, because while sound is filtering back with normalcy through the right side of his head, the left is muffled and drowned without the high pitched squeal of before, and is a little leaky. Three miniature bottles of vodka only cure so many ails.

He tilts his head in an angle that could be quizzical as Teo asks that question, and hikes up shoulders beneath shining leather in response. "Dunno. Kase!" Logan's voice knifes through the air, a little too loud, towards the approaching younger man. His own boots make twin thuds against the deck as he goes to stand, briefcase swinging loose in his hand. Ever since wrenching it off the tattooed of the two women, he hasn't parted with it, despite allowing the crates to be handled.

Moving across towards where a nailed down table juts from the deck, Logan lays out the briefcase as he asks; "Are you done yet?" Eloni is otherwise silent as he follows, giving Kase a slice of a smile, dark eyes crinkled at the edges.

Suddenly, the whole class is looking at Kase. At least Teo has the courtesy not to shoot spitballs or otherwise make himself more of a nuisance than the rookie— or so he assumes, rookie— would want to deal with. He rests his elbows on top of the railing and leans into them, lazily canting the axis of his long torso forward, triangling his balance against it. If he has sympathy to spare for the sorry state of Logan's eardrum, he doesn't show it. If he feels guilty about staying Deckard's hand from healing it, he wouldn't show that, either.

"Looks pretty full up from here," is the only thing he adds aloud, verbally, a token compliment — constructive — about the progress that's been made to load up the mysteriously-pigmented van. It takes him another moment to remember to give Kase a once over, see how much McAvoy's still left on his clothes. "All in a day's pay," he finishes, in semblence of idleness.

Kase isn't one to use the most traditional method of getting up on anything really. He glances back towards Eloni and offers an arch of an eyebrow before he grits his teeth and runs a bit to head for the side of the boat, vaulting up and over the side and clearing his throat once his feet are firmly on the deck. "The shit glows man, it glows. And people willingly shoot the stuff up them like it is a good idea. You know what be glow natural? EELS and ugly fish that be at the bottom of the ocean. PEOPLE we don't glow natural, it is wrong. I mean hell, glow in the dark dildo? Okay, freaky but girls will be girls, this just wrong."

He points at Teo, and yes he's hooded and such but he's glaring. "You can just blow me!" He snaps before looking back to Logan. "Mickey Mouse exploded all over me. Does Tide to Go get fucking kidney juice out of cotton? Do you know?"

A deep breath and then another deep breath. "I mean. Hi." He waves a hand.

Logan narrows his eyes across at Kase. If both this one and Toru were in the same space and speaking for a long time, space might fold in on itself, and Logan has enough of a headache. Fortunately, he only really heard about half of that, too. "I'll take that as a yes," he says, with an edge of impatient severity, with a glance towards Eloni, who simply gives a chin up of affirmation. Casually, he flips open the briefcase, with glows luminescent blue, a hazy aura of eeriness of unnatural vibrancy. Much like the glow of bottom-dwelling fish that Kase alludes to.

A glance to Teo, and a wry twist of his mouth communicates a smirk at that observation as Logan takes out leather wallet from a zipped pocket, fingering through it to take out slender envelope, neat and prepared. "This should about cover the dry cleaners, too," he states, his voice dry, holding it out towards Kase to take.

Bringing the payment out into view in social circles as these is to chuck chum in shark water. Teo's posture shifts, and he lifts his head, eyes sharpening in their pits and a subtle realignment in the curve of neck, the axis of shoulders. That would be the goods. An adequate distraction from the young man skittering spiderman up and making angry chinchilla noises in his direction. He opts not to pick a fight— or else, to make overmuch ceremony of the fact he'd been concerned.

It doesn't escape his attention that the envelope being forked over in Kase's direction is done so with elaborate ceremony and rookie first, which is nothing overly alarming in and of itself. Sneaking suspicion picks at the corner of his mind; he interlaces his fingers, pushes himself upright with a superficial artifice of nonchalance slapped on over the polite interest that delicately conceals his magpie-eyed suspicions. "Dry-cleaning isn't extra, is it?" he inquires, with the briefest grin.

Husky blue eyes look even weirder when there are blue glows around, which might be why Kase is uneasy and intrigued at the same time by the damn glow. He is however, quickly distracted by the envelope, reaching out to carefully take the envelope offered and even open it up and peer into it to check something before his eyebrows shoot up and he closes the envelope and tucking it away somewhere on his person with a soft cough. "Thanks man. Sorry about Mickey."

He narrows his eyes at Teo though before opening his mouth and closing it quickly. Opening his mouth-and closing again once more. These crazy mothereffers carry guns, like he's going to toss out a yo mama joke.

They do carry guns, and Logan still has his, fresh clip and all and tucked somewhere beneath his jacket. His hand lingers in the air for half a tick when Kase relieves it of envelope, casts a smile across at the younger man before fingers slip back into the folds of his wallet— and pinch there rather than relieve anything else in the meantime. "McAvoy and I weren't close," is thin reassurance. "If you don't mind, I'd appreciate your expertise for a little longer yet - no doubt you'd like a boat ride back to the mainland, anyway."

No clarification as to what Logan desires of Kase's time, not yet, swinging his gaze back towards Teo, all three of them lit up a little by the expansive cast of the glowing drug set out at Logan's hip, Eloni mostly shadows where he waits at the railing. "And I'll need you to make the trip back, and destroy the boat when you get there." This is spoken in a tone of and pick up bread and milk on the way home, blithe casualness skimming over the words.

Mostly he just expects people to get things done, and continues with, "You can take the dealer with you. I'm sure New York's finest would appreciate it."

Teo has a gun too. Like: he wouldn't just whip it out on somebody for a yo mama joke, but Kase's wariness is both recognizable and understandable, and it's Teo's best but half-hearted effort to crook him a smile that is supposed to be reassuring. Probably winds up looking like a preadolescent shark reassuring a diver, instead. 'Don't worry. I only have half my teeth in so far.' The smile tilts back even, shrinks when he shifts his attention back to the erstwhile pimp.

New instructions, dismissal of poor McAvoy, in lieu of discussion of payment. Teo is about to voice yet another reminder when his attention is snagged by that lattermost statement, and he finds himself — distracted. A gift for the popo. That's surprising. Funny. Helpful to everybody involved, with the possible exception of the Triads themselves. He closes his mouth. Opens it again, glancing over at Kase. "I think your detonators and shit are in the bag on the coffee table." He hooks a thumb over his shoulder: at the saloon room he'd just come out of.

Kase idly scratches his chin and shifts his weight from one foot to another as he listens. "Well, I feel McAvoy and I bonded for sure during this…" Grumble grumble. He mutters before just falling silent and tilting his head back a bit. He takes time to study Teo out of the corner of his eye but focus stays on Logan.

His eyes however light up when he hears the words 'destroy' and he just looks over to Teo now more attentively at the word 'detonator'. He's quiet for a few moments before offering and asking sloooowly and carefully. "You want me to blow up the ship?" A hint of a smile now.

Kase gets a quick wink across the table; encouragement, in some ways. "That would about do it, wouldn't it?" Now, Logan's long fingers spider-walk through the syringes set out on display, pale skin cast something alien as he works out the mechanism in which they're attached, and there's a ripping sound of velcro coming apart. Ten, fifteen syringes are quickly hidden from sight as the strip they're attach to rolls inwards, gathered in the erstwhile pimp's hand in a bundle of fabric and glass.

There's another envelope, also, held out a fractional distance towards Teo, the bundle at equal distance, although there is something clear about the positioning: one or the other. The offer is simple and wordless, accompanied with a few inquiring blinks from Logan. Then, "Oh—

"Toru is downstairs as well, sleeping off his ails. I've arranged for him to be driven to a clinic when you get to Red Hook. Wouldn't do to forget about him, so, don't."

Distractions cloud in, short out, and Teo stares at the balancing scale of Options proffered out to him by the half-deaf pimp. Temptation's older than Catholicism, or so some part of the Sicilian has come to believe. Not that he was particularly conservative about his substance use even before he had his falling out with God; morality may have warranted some imposition on the killing and theft that had come before, but in accepting form of payment, it is completely irrelevant.

Equitable value. There's a brief, sudden show of teeth, a saccadic hiss of unfinished laughter, almost rueful: you got me. Teo closes a hand on the velcroed Refran batch, buckles his fingers close around the huddled syringes, weighing them briefly against the musculature of his arm. He pops the zipper of his jacket, stows them away. "Thanks."

Kase is already going through his head about what he has to do and what he'll hook up first and then he double takes with a 'hunh' at the mention of somebody being still on the boat. Blink. Right, don't blow up the hurt guy too, gotcha. He's now distracted though as he shifts his weight from foot to foot and takes off in the direction of where they said the blowy uppy fun happy times stuff is. MWAHA-minus the insane cackle, mind you.

"You're very welcome." Zip. Logan closes and seals the briefcase without another glance, tucking away what would have been Teo's wages (along with McAvoy's, and Deckard doesn't get any) as he hefts it off the table and steps back. Balance is negotiable in this state, makes him sway, but not stagger or stumble, briskly shaking his head as if to clear it of damage - it doesn't work the rest of the time and doesn't now. Regardless, Logan spares a second to watch Kase head off towards the explosives, a critical look to the younger man's back.

If he's looking for Teo's opinion— well, it doesn't seem as though he is. Briefcase swinging from its handle, he offers the other man a one-shouldered shrug. "Until next time," is wry, before the Brit is making his swaggering gait towards the gangplank, Eloni silently following a moment later.

Always one to be polite, cooperative, inobtrusive, Teo doesn't make a fuss. Kase is squirreling off to paly with explosives, and Logan is leaving with his blue gold, imploded eardrum, and coy evening plans. Things seem good. Will be better once he's washed the blood off his fingernails and quelled the residual unease from his impulsive choice of payment; it's not like he's hurting for money, or would if he dealt with the Refrain on separate circumstances. It's only a little wrong.

All in all, a rather successful business venture.

"Good to see you back on your feet," he tacks on, a footnote to the epilogue, an afterthought after the briefest of self-conscious checks Cardinal isn't within earshot, a compliment and salutation for the departing Englishman. It's morbidly funny because it's true, a small and morally bleak surprise in defiance to the odds. The sun hasn't set on John Logan's empire.


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