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Tweak says, "How do you like my eyebrows?"

Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in jh_corporation,
@ 2008-02-15 15:24:00

all the world's a stage (meredith, leander)
Holding cells were prisons for dreams. They made you think about every step you'd taken in life to get where you were. And so after being processed by the police - all his exclamations about being a bounty hunter hadn't really done him any good - he was left with the same predicament as the guy who killed his dealer for an extra bag of coke. Only like the thug Skandra wasn't one for self-examination. The news that one of the tranny hookers had been an AIA didn't sit well with the cops, who now had a huge incident on their hands, but Skandra didn't really care. AIA or not - when fired upon, return the fire. Simplest and most easily understood ethos of the Marine Corps. Sure, nobody liked it when the shit hit the fan. However, shit having hit the fan, Skandra wasn't about to start begging for mercy. He carried a gun for the same reason his government had trained him to be a lethal weapon. What was the good in threatening people with death if you never followed through?

Those were easy thoughts.

Common thoughts.

Meant to take away the nerves he was still feeling.

Some guys, they got used to wiping out a life. For them it became a reality of existence. The fact that you - having become a weapon - were intended for one purpose only, and the purpose wasn't to tuck people in at night. Cold soldiers, winter soldiers all of them. Every day was frigid for them. Skandra couldn't buy into that philosophy. Even if somebody deserved to die the period afterward where you thought about all the dreams you'd stolen from that person, all the warmth and joy they ever had left to feel, was a difficult one. It helped that one of them had been a goddamn robot. Robots didn't dream, didn't care. They were manufactured psychopaths. They couldn't feel or love or fear or hate or hope. And because of that they weren't the same thing. He'd have felt just as guilty for shooting a toaster. But the others... it didn't need to come to that, shouldn't have come to that. Blaming Leander wouldn't do him any good. It wasn't Leander's fault.

That didn't make it easier to deal with. Nor did the fact that everybody in that fucking holding cell was eyeballing him hard. In a grim sort of prison-flick mood, he was now to fight their leader and establish dominance. Or maybe talk him down. Skandra didn't talk shit down. He played shit up. They were still eyeballing him. Failing the sudden urge to be teabagged by a huge black drug dealer Skandra only had one plan to deal with it. Just one. And it didn't involve playing nice or smiling a lot and talking about God. He was going to fuck up the first person that made a move on him, hard enough to put them in the hospital. And when that finally happened he'd spend the rest of his time in a cell in peace. One way or another. That was yard violence but since he didn't have any problem with yard violence, he didn't really care. Still eyeballing him.

"You got a problem, man?" Skandra demanded irritably.

"Fuck no man. I know you from somewhere though."

"You in the Corps?"

"The what?"

"Nevermind."

A long pause as Skandra dragged a cigarette out of his coat. You weren't supposed to smoke in these magical dream-boxes. Nobody fucking cared. Lighter was gone, though. Confiscated along with his gun and his liberty. Cops these days didn't sort things out on scene. They arrested you and processed you, then sorted it out later. Fewer gunfights for them. Bigger inconvenience for the common asshole. Skandra was surprised at how quickly his processing had gone. And even more surprised that Leander and Meredith weren't here yet. Sooner or later everyone came to the dream-box. And when they did they usually forgot pretty quick about everything else and just hoped they could still claim to be anal virgins when they left. The guy was still staring at him, but now with a smile. What was that smile all about? Didn't matter. Closed fist hitting like an iron in the face usually wiped the smile clean. And then the rest would follow.

"You was on TV."

"Me?" Skandra asked, cigarette hanging from his lips as he stared in surprise.

"Fuck yeah man. Uh, Bob Skandra, right?"

"Robert. I prefer Skandra."

"You kicked that robot off that fuckin' roof right?"

"He didn't give me much of a choice."

"Fuck no he didn't!" the guy reached into his pocket and came away with a disposable lighter. "That shit was gangster, man. You need a light?"

Gangster. Skandra smiled. Laughed. Nodded. Gangster, right.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks."

"Yo, 'Ton, check this out. We got us a celebrity here."

"Yeah, I heard. Shit, how tall was that building?"

"One hundred and ten stories," Skandra replied as the first man leaned forward, lighting his cigarette. "Thanks again."

"No problem man. Hundred and ten stories? Long time to think about whatcha done."

"I guess. Never tried it myself."

That put both of them into knee-slapping fits of laughter. Skandra didn't see what was so funny about it. A joke, sure. Meant to be a joke. But not that fucking funny, right? Where the hell were the cops? He could be sitting in this cell entertaining a bunch of drug-dealing lowlives with stories of all the AIA units he killed until noon tomorrow. That thought was enough to send chills up his spine. Probably better to just punch one of them in the throat now and have done with it. They lit his cigarette. And they hadn't shot him or raped him. That made them okay for the moment. For the moment. 'Ton and his more talkative buddy were finally putting the brakes on that hyena's laugh they shared.

Thank the God he didn't believe in.

"Yo. Whatchoo in here for man? They lockin' up celebrities tonight?"

"If they were lockin' up celebrities I'd be taking a shit on a solid gold toilet about now."

Another fit of laughter.

"Man, I heard you pistol-whipped one so hard you took his head off."

"I didn't take his head off, I just unhinged his jaw."

"Unhinged his jaw? Damn, son, that shit's for real."

Skandra exhaled a cloud of smoke, and didn't answer - just tossed the lighter back and leaned against the concrete wall. Metal benches were about as uncomfortable as it got, but after a while you got used to it.

"'Ton, 'Ton, check it out man. I heard this motherfucker got into a fight with ten of 'em at once. And what'd he do?"

"There were only six."

"Six, right, right. So tell 'Ton what you did man."

"I shot five of them with one bullet."

"God damn! Whatchoo packin' man?"

"Taurus Raging Bull. It's the .500 Magnum."

"Do what you do man. I'm rootin' for you every time - fuck those robots."

Skandra didn't make any reply - he knew the faces walking down the hall toward him. Leander and Meredith, both of them okay. And thankfully not wearing any handcuffs. That didn't mean they weren't coming in the can. But as bench space cleared up on either side of him Skandra had to wonder what had taken so long. Clean-up? What? He guessed he'd find out in just a minute.

Less, even. The door slid open open with a heavy metallic sound to admit them.

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clerical
2008-02-16 01:49 am UTC (link)

Meredith's processing had taken forever. She'd been in shock when they took her in, covered in someone else's blood, brains, and skull.. Shock kept her from speaking for the first ten minutes. It slid off her over the time it took for her to clean herself off. They were nice enough to let her use the bathroom, with a guard of course, and clean her hair in a sink, then gave her some new clothes to wear. Meredith didn't -like- the jeans that didn't come close to fitting her, or the very plain shirt and jacket. But she'd hated the blood. So it'd do. Then she sat in a room for awhile. They'd taken everything. Her keys, her PDA, her music player, her purse.. Her cigarettes.. She put her head on the table while waiting for them to finish putting her into the computer.

And then it glitched out. Cussing ensued as they beat the computer with bare fists. As if that'd make anything better. Meredith heaved a soft sigh and turned her head. "I can fix that." The cops turned around and waved at the computer, like 'Go ahead, try it.' They had nothing better to watch anyway. Meredith got up, hands still black with ink from being printed. She sat down in the chair and went to work. Really, it was quite simple. "Oh this is easy. You just.." A few keystrokes, rapidly changing into hundreds by the second.. "And then you.."

The cops stood back, bewildered. They weren't dumb, but Technology was technology, and for whatever reason, the state'd upgraded the software, but not the hardware, they weren't compatible. Nothing a few things she knew wouldn't fix. For the next ten minutes she explained everything, cleared out useless crap, and made it so they could get online but no one could tell they were online. She earned coffee for that. Sweet coffee. Meredith had keystroked her own info in, and then Leander's in minutes that could have taken the cops hours.

She felt pretty good about herself.

Until she was walking down the row of bars and looking at Skandra. Her employer who announced she didn't have medical right before shooting someone. She'd almost been killed. Uzi to the head. She'd cried in the cop car because of it. Facing away from them, but she'd cried. Blood was all over her then. Someone was dead and she couldn't.. calculate how someone did it with no feeling. Whatever happened to wounding people and then getting away?

Although at the time, what she'd mentioned was 'Gore isn't really as realistic in counter strike as I thought it was.' She wanted her PDA. She wanted his cigarette. Instead she sat down heavily beside him with enough room as to not touch him and went to staring out the bars. Don't think about dead people Meredith. You're alive. She was covered in goosebumps. One might expect her to be an insane pile of mush and tears over it, but as they say.. You start to turn into the things you do day to day.

Maybe she really was becoming a computer.

"It's cold in here." Was all she said, not looking at anyone in particular.

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fight_star
2008-02-19 03:41 am UTC (link)

As soon as they were put under arrest, Leir did exactly what he had done the past four times he was arrested. He stayed absolutely silent. He stared the cops in the face. He turned around, extended his wrists, and let them put him in the squad car. This was learned behavior from the first time he had been arrested. The time he had beaten the absolute shit out of three of them, had an entire team of Japanese lawyers called in, and spent three months in legal hell trying to justify putting three police officers in the hospital for asking him to empty his pockets.

But what the hell were you gonna do.

He had tried to explain to the lawyers: look, I know what this looks like. I look like a fucking maniac. But the truth is, I just can't stand some cocky little prick putting his hands on me.

It wasn't even that he hated them for doing a job. Fuck it, the world could only have so many bartenders; someone had to hire those useless pigs, right? It was the assumption they all acted under, that they were in charge, and that he was scared of them. Because he wasn't. He wasn't impressed with their uniforms or their badges or their guns or their oaths. It meant shit to him.

When you were trained--and not the kind of training you get at a women's self defense class--to dominate and control any physical altercation, then who the hell were they? It was very hard to let go of that pride. It was almost impossible for him to allow some overweight cop to get the upper hand, to feel like he'd done his job.

But anyway.

They'd spent hours like that. The police talking to him. No lawyer, of course. Just a Good Cop/Bad Cop routine. Some short guy with a mustache and his tall buddy. Like a comic duo without the jokes or talent or wit.

"This fucking guy," the tall one sighed. "You -do- know why we arrested you, right?"

"Because you got all C's in high school?" Leir finally spoke. He smiled broadly.

And now here they were. He walked behind Meredith to the holding cell. He doubted he'd see Abbot and Costello again, considering how worked up they'd gotten. Throwing a chair at the suspect usually caught the boss's attention.

"Hey," Leir said as he entered the holding cell. "Aren't you guys the Wu Tang clan?"

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roll_the_bones
2008-02-19 04:38 pm UTC (link)

Skandra could have sat there for hours and not said anything if not for the fact that Meredith was obviously upset. Upset that he blew somebody's head off in front of her, or upset that he blew somebody's head off less than an inch away from her face? It wasn't like he missed that often, and if he hadn't taken the shot she'd probably be dead right now. Skandra sure as hell wasn't gonna lay down his gun for a couple of hookers who had just recently tried to blast his fucking brains out. Leander didn't seem to be holding a grudge, but he also didn't seem to be able to stop himself from pissing people off. Shuffling further down their bench and glaring daggers at the young man, Skandra's friends were now unfriendly as hell.

And his employees were going to drive him to drink.

...more.

"So what did we learn today?" Skandra asked with a sigh, exhaling a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling on the tail end of it. "We learned that it's not okay to punch people in the mouth for making a statement that is proved true when you punch them in the mouth for making it. And it's definitely not okay to get pissed at me for saving your life."

Cigarette burned lower. This is why he didn't want employees. Leander was an all right guy, but for fuck's sake - was he going to just punch anything that didn't suck him off? And what about Meredith? It wasn't really her fault that she got grabbed, but those were the rules of the game when you had this job. She had to figure that out sooner or later, and he wasn't going to get the cunt-eyes for two weeks while she did. Fuck, he hated his insurance company. If he could remember the name, he'd have cursed them out loud.

Fuck, it was on the bill, wasn't it?

Oh. Right. Meredith was doing the bills now.

"Come on, cheer up people. It's not like we're dead. Could be worse than it is."

Not by much, though.

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clerical
2008-02-19 06:06 pm UTC (link)

Meredith scowled out the bars. it could be worse. She couldn't think of a situation in her life which had been worse than this. Skandra should speak for himself. But the moment she said something like that it was likely her employment would have been ended. Although, Skandra seemed to dish it as much as he took it which was a good enough reason to enjoy working for him. But this wasn't. She didn't like it in here at all. She knew she was the only girl in there. At least she hoped none of the 'guys' in here were actually girls.

She needed to stop watching TV and Movies for awhile. This place was creeping her out. Meredith looked back at Skandra. She kept her face as calm as she could, the twist to her lips was a tad sour. "I can't think of a worse situation to be in. Although, getting the brains out of my hair might have been." Meredith rolled her eyes and went back to looking out the bars.

"I don't give my employees health benefits.. You think I'm going to hesitate?" Every word more annoyed, eventually she just got up and moved to stand near the bars. he was going to pay for her counseling later on, and he wouldn't even know about it. She paid the bills after all.

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fight_star
2008-02-20 10:45 pm UTC (link)

Leander stood for quite some time. His shoulder leaned into the wall, one foot crossed over the other. The oxblood leather of his shoes was splashed with tiny flecks of red. Blood he hadn't been able to scrub off with a paper towel.

He nodded to Skandra. He understood.

"I really didn't expect all the...guns."

And that was all he said on the matter. So far, that was the worst result popping someone in the jaw had gotten him. Usually they fell over cold. And then their friends either dragged them away, or you had to kick the shit out of them too. Sometimes they had bats.

He cleared his throat and walked to the bench with three slow steps. He turned and sat next to Meredith. Bats could really change the tone of a fight, so you had to take that guy down first.

Guns though? That was definitely a first for him. His hands had been shaking in the squad car. Usually they did after any fight, but that's what bothered him about it. He wasn't any different after blowing someone's legs off at the knee than he was after boxing some 200 pound Japanese kid. Maybe he was sweating more, maybe he was a bit more surprised at the quickness of it all.

But basically? He felt exactly the same.

He won, they lost.

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roll_the_bones
2008-02-20 11:34 pm UTC (link)

Skandra only nodded in reply to Leander's statement. It didn't make him stupid, just inexperienced. When you fought in a ring that didn't allow people to bring in guns and shoot their opponents - or on the street where the average joe didn't carry shit like that - it was easy to think the rest of the world didn't know a fucking thing about guns either. Well, if he'd been pressed he would have admitted that he had been surprised by the transgender black hookers himself. For a number of reasons. All those guns would be near the top of that particular list of legend.

"We'll get out in a few hours," Skandra finally said, and then his eyes shifted back to Meredith. "Do you want health insurance? I wouldn't blame you after tonight. You can set it up when we get back to the office, assuming you're still in."

There were a lot of really great things about having Meredith around. She made coffee. She didn't try to get rid of the booze stashed in his desk anymore, and she didn't snoop into anything that was locked. She took care of the bills. Handled incoming phone calls. Handled paperwork. All of the day-to-day shit that honestly bored what little was left of his brains out, she handled like it was her calling. Of course, she also slammed file cabinet drawers to wake him up. She turned away in disgust when he took his shirt off - probably because of all the bullet scars on his chest. She definitely wouldn't go out and have a drink with him, even if he offered to sell the business to somebody.

Life was a series of trade-offs.

"Are you?"

He paused, took a drag of the cigarette, and then offered it to her.

"Still in?"

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clerical
2008-02-21 01:33 am UTC (link)

Meredith didn't expect Leander to punch that guys..girls...whatever's teeth into it's throat. Which was gross, it sounded gross. That never happened that way in movies or in games. It never sounded like that either. There were a million things wrong with that situation and if she had her PDA she would have listened them off. But Meredith didn't care that much, not really. In fact it was kind of cool that her Boss and his assistant could do things like that. A Younger Meredith would have latched onto that and intended fully to be like that when she grew up. Not now, no, well, maybe shoot a gun a few times.

Maybe.

Everything had been chaos so fast, and really, if she hadn't been with them she'd likely be dead, wouldn't she? Or would she have even been in a situation like that? Not likely, she would have still been working at Starbucks and writing code in her free time. Boring, in other words. Well not the coding, that was fun. Meredith crossed her arms and listened to Skandra talking to her. She shouldn't have been so mad at him, but really? That was a fucked up thing to say while a gun was against anyone's head.

But it caught the.. thing off guard and Skandra had saved her life. She turned her head looking back at him, offering his cigarette out to her. She turned completely and took the cigarette from him. She took a puff from it and nodded her head, exhaling.

"I'm still in. I'll set up health insurance when we get back.... And thank you." She sat back down, between him and Leander and offered the cigarette back to him.

"So what are we going to tell them?"

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fight_star
2008-02-21 05:24 am UTC (link)

Leander leaned back against the cold wall. It felt refreshing, the cold, hard concrete against his shoulders. Like leaning into a refrigerator after a long run. He rubbed a hand against his chin and glanced at Meredith as she sat.

"You have any chapstick?"

They'd confiscated his. Along with his money clip, his phone, and his keys. And quite obviously his brass knuckles (which were actually a lead filled plastic). He thought he'd probably get the phone and the money clip back. And of course it would be missing the five hundred dollars he had folded up inside.

Unless somehow they had managed to find Honest Cop's shift, which he doubted.

He wanted to go back to the office. He'd grab his overcoat, hop in a cab with the fifty or sixty bucks he had stashed in his desk, and go back to his apartment. He lived a good distance from their offices, in a "better" part of town. Not that their office was in the slums, and not that any of New York was really brilliant any more.

And then he'd so five or six hundred sit ups, take a shower, watch The Learning Channel, and fall asleep.

"Hey Rob," he said quietly. Wu Tang didn't need to listen, because if they said anything, he was still in the mood to knock people out. "We need to go to a firing range or something. I killed that guy on accident."

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roll_the_bones
2008-02-21 04:04 pm UTC (link)

Skandra barely heard Meredith's question, because Leander... Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on a god damn stick. Jesus Christ breaded and deep-fried, served with a side of tater tots and a cherry fucking limeade. That guy had been pretty fucking close to Skandra. And Leander had blown his fucking legs off. So some kid who couldn't aim was pointing a mother-fucking shotgun at him, and only now confessing that he had no idea how to use a gun. Skandra had known that going in, but then why the fuck had he grabbed the gun? The ex-marine had figured that dad took him hunting once, or something. This was bullshit.

No wonder Meredith wanted health insurance.

"I..."

He waved the younger man off. Took the cigarette from Meredith, lit a new one of his own, then handed it back. Half-gone, but she would live. Jesus. He didn't know how to use a gun but he was pointing a shotgun in Skandra's direction and squeezing the trigger.

The shakes were coming back, if only because he was realizing how little he knew about his 'squad'.

"I... yeah. We need to go to a firing range. And get you a gun that you're comfortable with."

Meaning one that Skandra and Meredith could feel comfortable with their associate possessing. Definitely would suck to put on one great show after another, only to get taken out by your supposed friend's lack of aim. Then again, he hadn't hired Leander to be a gunslinger. He'd hired him because the kid was hell on wheels when it came to bare knuckle brawling. Skandra had known Marines - including himself - who didn't tear up that much ass in the same amount of time. Kid had a gift.

"You want health insurance, too? Between my elephant gun and your profound lack of experience with firearms I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it always helps to be prepared."

"Word!" one of the Wu Tang boys affirmed his position from further down the bench. "Man's got brains!"

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clerical
2008-02-22 01:23 am UTC (link)

Chapstick? He wanted chapstick? Was he vain? Did he think he had dry lips? Was he one of those guys? Meredith patted down her pockets and found a small tube of it. Plain, hopefully he didn't prefer lipsmacker or something like that. She held it out to him just as he went on to say he didn't know how to use a gun.

She was doubleing up her health insurance.

She turned to Skandra, looking slightly alarmed. Didn't he check into his employees before hand? How had Leander gotten a gun? but then he held out his cigarette and Meredith went to smoking that instead of looking panicked.

Meredith didn't know how much danger she actually was in with the two of them, and she really needed to research it. Run their names through databases. She made mental notes about it. If she had her damned PDA this would have been easier.

Her silence spoke for itself. She really didn't know what to do with either of them today.

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fight_star
2008-02-22 03:18 am UTC (link)

There really wasn't any thinking involved in needing chapstick. It was February and he was dehydrated. So he put the chapstick on and passed it back to her. What a bitch.

"I have insurance, actually. Don't we have some sort of authority? I mean we're not cops obviously; but do the cops always treat hunters like shit?"

He knew that firemen hated cops and the cops hated the FBI and even though everyone was supposedly on the same team, they just loved to fuck with each other's lives. Why should being a Bounty Hunter be any different?

He laughed. Good job so far.

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roll_the_bones
2008-02-22 03:23 pm UTC (link)

"Can you think of a compelling reason for them not to treat us like shit?" Skandra asked, very dry. "We're the scum of the earth to them. Getting paid twice as much as them for the same job - if I were a cop I'd treat me like shit."

"It's all about eekanommiks," Wu Tang and crew agreed.

"You guys going to night school?" Skandra asked, with a glance at the criminals down the row.

"Sure thing boss."

Boots clacking on the painted concrete of the corridor. Paint job was fading away. Like a goddamn relic. Hard not to think of himself that way. A relic. Fucked if he knew how the hell to deal with that. Even if he was trying to bring himself into the modern age, they didn't teach kids to hand out ass-beatings like they used to. That was the reason they ended up here in the first place. If you dusted somebody old-school you were part of the problem. Dusting somebody new-school was wrecking his credit, ruining his life. Skandra didn't ruin lives, he just took them.

And oddly enough, the other mother fuckers were the ones who slept better.

He didn't think Leander would get it if he tried to explain.

"Come on," one of the cops said. "You three are going to the interview room."

"Keep your noses clean," Skandra reminded the Wu Tang crew as he dropped his cigarette. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Five black men erupted into riotous laughter as Skandra, Leander, and Meredith filed out of the cell. Their raucous howling could be heard down the hall, through two secure doors and even after the second turn, which led them toward the dingy interview room. Skandra couldn't help smiling. Even if they had been forced to throw their cigarettes into a tray.

No pleasing everybody these days, but as long as he still got a laugh, he was fine.

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