Aubrey Rois & Briar Rose (pricked) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-05-16 00:03:00 |
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Talk about a rough few days. The fortune cookies and Dylan's usual brush-over with online horoscopes hadn't clued him in to a goddamn thing as far as near-death experiences went. Which figured. All in all, he'd always suspected that things like fate were as secretive as they were shady. It really had to be fate, as far as Dylan was concerned. There was just no other way that he could have been detected by the cartel in so little time. His methods bordered on flawless, and the fact that there was potentially someone on the other side that was better than him? It was enough to drive a man to drink, honestly. But he didn't, and he only sometimes took the medication that the doctors had prescribed. The pills had made Dylan mindless and too willing to sleep when sleep was the last thing he needed. What he needed was to work, to unearth who had done this while the evidence was still fresh. Honestly, he didn't know how Max worked with her head full of pills half the time... but he understood it. Now he did. Getting hit by a truck had to feel just about the same, what with the bruised garden of black poseys taking up his entire left side. Scratches mottled the cacti prick of an unshaven jawline, and some more bruising was concealed by the aviator sunglasses and the drawn up cotton hood of deep black. All in all, he kind of looked like the Unibomber (after perhaps getting their ass handed to them by Mr. T) except for that the cotton sweatshirt was unzipped, and the tee-shirt within boasted an archaically pixelated tri-force of goldenrod across his broad chest. He walked with several limps at varying angles. It was a kind of decrepit pimp shuffle that nibbled at his fucking mind, he could feel the deterioration there too, the whispering rhyme of unending nonsense that just wouldn't go away and now functioned as too much of a distraction. He knew it couldn't be the witch, her creep-book of spells had gotten destroyed in the explosion apparently, and an entirely new book had been waiting for him when he'd finally threatened that doctor for early release from the government sanctioned hospital of spy secrets. And now? Dylan wanted the singsong voice to go quiet, just for a day, goddamnit. Just a day so that he could think, so that he could make some progress and get this ghost of a half-shattered bombshell casing of a memory off of his back. By the time that he made the stairs, he was ready to collapse. An ache pervaded his body without the fuel of adrenaline to push him onward still, and his palms slapped against the hallway wall to steady himself once he'd made the landing in a last ditch push for success. He felt like one of the beaten dogs of death, and it was while making a less than perceptive twist to stretch the now-wrecked muscles in his back that Dylan took notice of the other man. Everything became that weird and instinctive motive for pure shade when eyes were upon him (he'd always thought that was what gave him a leg up in the competition of a spy-eat-spy marketplace.. but now he wasn't so sure). He immediately dropped his arm to dissuade the rise of that tee shirt hem, which for a moment had surely boasted above the treacherous ridge of Sailor Moon boxers, exactly where the stark and black grip of a loaded handgun was tucked. Discretion was probably a good idea, and his posture righted with some effort as he tried to think of something to say while simultaneously hoping that his awkwardness had gone unnoticed. "Shit, if I'd known the wine dinner was tonight, I'd have brought the brie..." Despite the wine that lulled his senses into some semblance of false security, Aubrey was alerted to the approach of unfamiliar footsteps as they sounded at the bottom of the nearby stairwell. They were soft in a way that suggested caution and an awareness of subtlety, but not so much as to go unnoticed. It was a hollow sound, with the soles of boots (or maybe some fancy loafers; he was too half-drunk to distinguish Timberlands from Gucci) slapping against each step and echoing on the slanted walls of the staircase. Some distant part of him formed words, maybe something his mother had said one hazy, far-off day in her lilting accent. “L'escalier est le cœur et l'âme d'une habitation,” he muttered, half-bleary as he aimed a sideways glance at the man who emerged from the stairwell. Hazel eyes did not miss the stagger in his step, or the way that his guise shifted from pain to nonchalance and sent a wayward hem falling over a conspicuous waistband. Aubrey’s glance did not linger long enough to catch the Sailor Moon font that stole a contrast against bare skin, but no way in hell was he going to miss the butt of a stashed gun. Either this guy was like him, or this guy was trouble. Fan-fucking-tastic. Aubrey frowned, but at the same time he resisted the urge to rise and meet the unknown in a defensive stance. Only his right hand disobeyed, slipping under his jacket and coming to rest on the P226 Equinox that sat in his shoulder holster. It was a brief gesture, barely half a second in the grand scheme of things - yet he corrected himself, and turned the move into one that fished his iPhone out of his inside breast pocket. And still he wasn’t quite fast enough. “Good thing for you that wine-and-cheese dinners happen almost every night beyond the fairy door,” he intoned solemnly, putting on an affected accent at the word ‘fairy’ and wiggling the fingers of one hand. With the other he lifted the bottle from his lap, pointing the neck in the other man’s direction for extra emphasis, before he downed another sip or three. “You’re fine. You’ve still got time to pick up all the fancy cheese your heart desires.” Was French happening? Dylan felt like there was French happening for some reason, and his eyes wanted to close to imagine it because his body was hurting, but he kept one eye wide when he acknowledged the voice at full. There was a half-pivot there, and the truest part of his brain swore that if he ever went crazy he'd go after doctors because this crooked mindlessness was worse than torture. Dylan managed not to reach for the gun, he wasn't that paranoid yet. Or perhaps the demerol had done its job in more ways than just pain relief. Despite the drugs and the surgery, the most intrinsic part of himself absolutely fucking had to take notice of the other man's fingers when they pressed beneath the classic, dark fold of a jacket. Dylan didn't stiffen, and he did not alter his stance when paranoia sang in the back of his brain's alley. He only waited. Drugged or not, part of him had to rely on the fact that he was a better shot than the average bitch... and contrary to that, he was enough of a competitor to try and break the record anyway. In the end, he didn't reach for the gun. His slumped posture bordered on wholly trusting when blue-green eyes watched the other. Even with talk of the fairytale door, Dylan wasn't the type of person to nod along and leave a wide trail of his secrets behind him. That kind of shit was obvious, spy or not. "Really? Do I need a reservation?" His smile, half pained, was all teeth. There was no point in faking it considering the way that he looked. When Dylan sighed, the exhale was heavy. The knotted joints in his fingers rolled, pushing himself up from the weight of the wall at a slow ease. He liked the slow stagger that life was giving him. The weird pace that hospital drugs provided. "Or do I have to Parlez vous the francais?" Aubrey made a sour face in response to the tang of medieval-brewed wine on his tongue, peering down the neck of the bottle and giving a slight shake of his head. “Royalty,” he snorted, quirking an eyebrow and curling his upper lip in a disapproving semblance of a sneer. “God, you think they’d have better wine than the swill that ten bucks can buy at the grocery store. Otherwise what’s the point of being a goddamn princess, besides leaving my masculinity in question?” He lifted his gaze to the stranger’s face with a curious expression, gesturing once with the bottle as if to make clear his exasperation. And it was in that moment that he took in the sight of the bent, broken man who stood before him in a demonstration of trust that was neither earned nor deserved. Actually, from what Aubrey could see of his face behind the mirrored aviators and the days-old stubble, he looked sort of cute. The effect was somewhat offset by the violet bruises that marred his skin, but his shoulders were broad in a way that would have drawn Aubrey’s attention regardless of the situation - and there had been that brief flash of hip and happy trail to send his eyes lingering just south of where might be technically appropriate. “You look like shit,” he declared unequivocally, dragging his gaze back up to the man’s face where it peered out from beneath his oversized hood, and wincing sympathetically. Using the bottle against the floor for leverage, he hauled himself to his feet in a less-than-graceful way and eyed the other man in contemplation. “Though I do like the shirt, gotta say. But seriously, you think it’s a good idea to show up here looking like a pile of raw hamburger meat? With the villains and the beasties and the brutes running all over the place?” Aubrey frowned with no small amount of skepticism evident on his face, but he made the (clearly wise) decision to trust a stranger with more bruises evident than skin. He took one shuffling step closer to the place where the man slumped against the wall, simultaneously wondering if he might have to catch an unconscious body and holding out his half-empty bottle, eyebrows raised. “Drink? You look all kinds of pill-happy, but I never trusted those ‘avoid alcohol’ labels on the little orange bottles, anyway.” Continue to part 2 here. |