InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "stop making me say bollocks!"

Sascha Connolly, Ph.D. (bohemiarhapsody) wrote in nosuchplace,
@ 2009-09-04 16:47:00

Entry tags:

sascha connolly, zach kitano

Friday: February 8, 2008
Who: Sascha and Zach
When: Mid-day
Where: Market Square, the Park
What: An unexpected rendezvous

Sweeney was starting to develop a phobia- not that Sascha could blame her, exactly. After all, quite a few nasty incidents had taken place in some of the very public spaces of Helicharis: the encounter with Danté just a few days prior, for instance, or the harpy attack the previous fall. Brasco hadn't been around for the latter, but Sascha could tell from the way the muscled black mutt stalked along beside his female companion that the both of them were more alert than usual.

It was a cold and relatively gusty day for a lunch in the park, but that's exactly what the trio had planned. Sascha and the dogs munched and mingled their way around the Fresh Food Pavilion, charming various delectables from the vendors (and even a few fellow shoppers) before heading out onto the open grounds for a little romping. They'd eaten very light, so the telepath wasn't too concerned about upsetting any stomachs.

Sascha raced back and forth with the dogs in hot pursuit, laughing and darting away when they drew up on either side of him. He dug in his coat pocket for the tennis ball he'd stashed there earlier, and with a flick of his wrist he sent it flying across the stretch of dead grass, watching in amusement as Sweeney and Brasco raced to beat the other to the prize. It was rare that he took the time to enjoy simple pleasures like this, and he began to entertain the idea of not returning to the library at all that day. It would be terribly unprofessional, of course, but he was dangerously close to the point of not giving a damn. He just wanted to play with his dogs.

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coalintodiamond
2009-09-09 09:49 pm UTC (link)

Zach was out for a walk today, even though the weather wasn’t exactly perfect walking weather. Zach considered himself odd in that he liked to walk around outside when the weather wasn’t perfect. The scenery was much more interesting with strong winds blowing about or overcast skies up above. Things looked more alive and in motion on days like this, and the peaceful stillness of a too perfect day tended to bother Zach. He dug his hands into his pockets and reveled in the scent on the air. There was something unbelievably fresh about the smell of windy skies on a cool day.

He spotted a familiar face up ahead playing with his dogs, and Zach couldn’t help but grin at the canines’ antics. Sascha looked like he was having fun with them, and Zach had to admit he’d never really seen that side of Sascha before. The man was always so professional most of the time, excepting the moments when he wasn’t. But the playfulness was new, and Zach never thought Sascha was the type. The dogs looked like they were having a hell of a time, too.

“Hey there,” Zach called out, walking over to the group. “Long time, no see,” he added, a faint smile to his lips. “Have you been busy lately?”

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bohemiarhapsody
2009-09-11 12:41 am UTC (link)

Had Sascha been attuned to Zach's thoughts at that moment- the dogs were too much of a distraction, really, and it took a few moments for him to realize there was even another person there- but had he been attuned to those thoughts, he probably would have broken into uncontrolled fits of hilarity. Him, not playful? Now that was a riot.

Sascha waved with one hand at the approaching figure while trying to pry the coveted tennis ball from Brasco's mouth with the other. "Bonjour, mon ami," he said with a grin. "No busier than usual, really. Just tryin' to decide when to turn in my letter."

Sascha had missed the irony of Zach's words because, in fact, he was still having difficulty piecing together all the parts of Danté's rampage. As it was, he couldn't even recall Zach as having been the victim of the attack; he only knew that he himself had somehow been involved, and that there was an uncomfortably lingering void where a memory should have been. He was a little nervous that it had lasted this long, but he tried not to dwell on the fact in hopes that the memories would return on their own; they were awfully slow about it.

"Heads up," he warned a little belatedly as he tossed the ball in Zach's direction and watched the dogs barrel toward the smaller man. It had been awhile since they'd last spoken, and Sascha was perfectly content to share some of his afternoon frivolity. Something about the quiet, brooding air surrounding the boy told him that a little playfulness might be well appreciated.

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coalintodiamond
2009-09-15 11:48 am UTC (link)

Zach wasn’t even counting the night with Dante. He tried his best to push most of his recollections out of the window from that encounter, choosing to pretend that it didn’t really happen in his own way. It wasn’t like he and Sascha shared a conversation or anything else that evening. Zach pled to him for help, but the older man couldn’t do anything. He tried, of course, but it wasn’t until the end of the night that Zach managed to escape the madman’s grasp with help of friends. Zach pushed it all to the back of his head. He’d deal with it later when he was ready.

Luckily, Zach possessed quick reflexes and he caught the ball thrown his way by Sascha’s hand. The dogs tumbled after it, one of them colliding into Zach’s legs and both of them hopping up to try and grab it from him. Zach held it up out of reach and laughed at them, reaching back to throw the ball far across the grass. He smiled as the dogs barked and dashed off after the ball. Zach wished he could get that excited about something as simple as a ball, and he chewed on his bottom lip as he looked over to Sascha.

“Kinda makes you wish you could be as simple as a dog sometimes, eh?” he asked, gesturing out at the pups with his right arm. “It’d be nice, that’s for sure.”

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bohemiarhapsody
2009-09-20 07:09 pm UTC (link)

"Life would be a lot less complicated, this is true." Sascha pulled a pre-rolled cigarette from his shirt pocket and slid it between his lips, watching the younger man approach. "Course, people don't always give 'em the credit they deserve. I've never met a person yet who could match a dog's capacity for love and devotion. It's not an effort for them...it's just natural."

He exhaled a puff of smoke through his nose and shoved his hands into his pockets, slouching casually as he smiled at his companion. "So what's been on your plate? Does seem like it's been a little while since we talked." Sascha paused for a moment before plucking the stick out of his mouth and holding it out to Zach in offering. "Smoke? Wouldn't feel right if I didn't ask."

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coalintodiamond
2009-09-26 12:04 am UTC (link)

Zach’s head fell downward when Sascha mentioned the dogs’ capacity for love and devotion. It was simpler that way, loving without the worry and never backing away from someone, but being a human ruined the simple things in life sometimes. Too many thoughts in one’s head made it hard to see the forest for the trees. “Isn’t making life a lot less complicated a praise for them?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow as a small smile came to his face. “We make life too complicated. All these things we’re supposed to do, all these ways we’re supposed to act . . . dogs just be themselves.”

Zach’s smile twisted a little as if he knew he wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question. Then, it just came tumbling out. “Trying to get my feet back on the ground in some place firm. It feels like everywhere I step is clouds.” Zach took one look at the cigarette and realized Sascha was the only person who ever offered him a smoke that he could remember. He shrugged his shoulders. “What the hell, I’ll give it a try,” Zach replied with a laugh. He had never actually tried a cigarette before. It was something new.

He accepted the cigarette and wondered exactly how it worked. Zach fumbled with the stick and put it in his mouth, sucking inward but not breathing. He didn’t cough like people normally did, but the smoke didn’t really go in. “ . . . Am I doing it right?” he asked, glancing over at Sascha.

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bohemiarhapsody
2009-09-28 12:50 am UTC (link)

Sascha returned the smile as Zach spoke, shifting the cigarette to the corner of his mouth with his tongue so he could mumble a reply. "Mm, touché."

It was definitely amusing, to say the least, watching the younger man handle the unassuming brown stick. His inexperience was obvious, and it sent Sascha on a brief nostalgia trip to his own occasionally awkward adolescence. It had been so long since he'd picked up the habit that the action of smoking had become thoughtless and automatic, but if there was anything he could do well, it was teach.

"Well, you've got it half right," he said with a chuckle as he withdrew another cigarette from his pocket and lit up, leaning in and pressing the tip of his own stick against the smoldering tip of Zach's cigarette and sucking. Close proximity, yes, but he assumed the boy was comfortable enough around him by this point not to pull away. "I rolled these myself, so you don't have to worry about packing anything. 'Course, they're unfiltered, so you'll get a stronger dose of tobacco than you would from a manufactured brand. It's a different taste, but since you don't smoke much, it probably wouldn't mean anything to you. So then."

Sascha puffed out a cloud of smoke and gestured to his own mouth, inviting Zach to watch. There wasn't much to see from the outside, but Sascha couldn't quite resist having his companion's undivided attention; just to show off, he exhaled a rather impressive-looking smoke ring and grinned as he pulled the stick away from his lips. "Keep doing what you're doing, but once you have the smoke in your mouth, don't stop inhaling. You want to pull it all the way into your lungs, otherwise it'll hit the back of your throat and you'll just cough it up."

He demonstrated the process again and gestured for Zach to give it a try. "Suck, inhale, withdraw, exhale. Take the stick out of your mouth to exhale, it's an easier way to start." Ahh, what a beautiful development. Kelsey definitely wouldn't be pleased to hear that his least favorite colleague- soon to be ex-colleague, actually- was teaching his son yet another unhealthy habit. Corrupting the youth, as it were. Sascha snorted amusedly at the thought.

"I've been doing this since I was 14, so it's pretty much second-nature. My little bit of teenage rebellion."

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coalintodiamond
2009-09-30 07:53 pm UTC (link)

Zach surprisingly wasn’t bothered by the close proximity because Sascha didn’t saunter or anything. His eyes did narrow themselves onto Sascha’s face, making him effectively cross-eyed for a moment. It didn’t last long before Sascha demonstrated how he was supposed to smoke a cigarette. Of course, the idea struck Zach as funny that he needed instructions on how to smoke a cigarette, but such was life at times. Sometimes you needed help even with the simplest of things.

Zach followed Sascha’s instructions and breathed in a little longer than he really had to; he felt the smoke come in and it caused him to cough slightly, although it was more like skip in breathing with an outward puff of air instead of a regular cough. It happened twice, and Zach pulled the cigarette away to look at it funny. He glanced over at Sascha as his mouth twisted at the corner with amusement. “So, is this really a fun pastime?” he asked, and this time he really did cough, nice and firm. Zach brought his hand to his mouth to shield it.

It shocked the younger man to hear Sascha started smoking at fourteen. If Zach had been caught smoking at that age, his father would have tore him up good over it. “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “I never would have gotten away with that. My teenage rebellion pretty much consisted of sneaking out to see my girlfriend for thirty minutes or pulling a prank on the neighbors. Or, well, my friend’s neighbors. We kinda lived in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of town.” Kelsey’s way of protecting his son from the outside world that would, according to him, never understand his abilities.

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bohemiarhapsody
2009-10-21 11:34 pm UTC (link)

"It's an addictive pastime," Sascha corrected with a grin, trying not to laugh at the younger man's difficulties. He gave a firm pat to the back of Zach's shoulders, trying to help him clear out his airway, then took another drag from his own cigarette.

Sascha was surprised to hear Zach speak about his life, and he listened thoughtfully to the young man's account of his earlier adolescence. For all the encounters they'd had with one another up until this point, he knew surprisingly little about the Kitano boy; hell, Sascha usually ended up doing most of the talking, and he hadn't offered up many details about himself, either.

"I can understand why. Kelsey certainly seems to like cracking the whip, doesn't he? If I'd had parents like that, I'd probably have gotten my ass kicked a few times over." Or if he'd had parents at all, really. Brasco had returned with the ball clenched firmly in his teeth, and Sascha played some half-hearted tug-of-war with him as he continued the conversation. "You're from California, right? That's...about all I know, actually. Where in California?"

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coalintodiamond
2009-10-27 11:57 pm UTC (link)

He grinned at that and supposed it was an addictive pastime for people who got addicted to it. Zach was thankful for the pat on the back; it helped get the rest of it out of his lungs. He stared with a scrutinizing gaze at the cigarette afterwards, wondering if he really wanted any more of it. He figured one cigarette wasn’t going to end his life or get him hooked, though, so he shook the ashes from the end of it and took another drag.

Zach snorted aloud. “Metaphorically speaking, or literally?” Zach asked with a funny look on his face. He loved his father, but he didn’t always have the fondest memories of the man from his childhood. Zach amused himself by blowing out smoke from between his lips. “Yeah, my dad was like that. Still,” he corrected himself, “is like that. We lived in town when I was younger. By the time I was five, or six, we moved into this big house in the forest. Well, it was surrounded by a forest. Our nearest neighbors were well out of earshot and eyesight.”

Despite the amount of times they talked together, they never really talked about their pasts. Zach figured it had something to do with the fact that it just never came up. “Crescent City,” he stated a little louder than usual. “Tiny nowhere town in California, up in the north and close to the coast. It’s not that big — or interesting.” Zach glanced over at Sascha with a curious expression on his face. “Where are you from again?”

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bohemiarhapsody
2009-11-08 01:06 am UTC (link)

"Originally? I was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, but most of my life after 16 was spent in New York City. That's where I went to school, taught at university...had a family." He was quiet for a moment as he turned the tennis ball over in his hand, then reached down to hook his fingers under Brasco's collar. "Let's have a seat, hm? My dogs are barkin', and I don't mean this fella here."

Sascha nodded toward the fountain and began to tug the muscled black mutt in that direction; Sweeney, who had learned her obedience years ago, didn't need a collar and trotted happily along at her master's heels.

"I've been to Crescent City, actually," Sascha continued, waiting expectantly for Zach to follow his lead. "I took a year-long sabbatical to travel the country and do some research on road novels. Spent a few days in Eureka and then caught a ride through on 101 up to Oregon. Beautiful place. Everything there was beautiful, really."

He seated himself on the edge of the fountain and smiled up at the younger man, rubbing at both of the dogs' necks in the process. "So you lived in Podunk, USA and basically skipped over your rebellious teen years, have I got it right?" Sascha exhaled a plume of smoke through his nose. "Anything else? Sounds like an awful short summary of...what, eighteen, nineteen years' worth of living?"

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coalintodiamond
2009-11-10 04:24 am UTC (link)

Zach had never been to Georgia or New York, and he could only imagine what they looked like. He knew New York City wasn’t even standing anymore. It had been one of the first cities to go from what he remembered on the news and radio. His ears perked up when Sascha said he had a family; the news genuinely surprised him. Had was the keyword, though, wasn’t it? Zach was afraid to ask about it, even though it was mentioned. He had no idea Sascha had a family of his own. Seeing as how they weren’t here, he didn’t have to ask to know where they were now.

“You have?” Zach asked, following Sascha’s footsteps toward the fountain. Their paths might not have crossed before, but Sascha came through his town while he still lived there. The little things like that amazed Zach easily, how they came in such close contact but never met until now. “Yeah, it’s really beautiful up there. The one good thing I can always say about the place.”

For eighteen years of living, Zach really hadn’t done all that much. His mouth twisted at the corner, and he sat down on the edge of the fountain across from Sascha. “Basically,” Zach answered with a shrug of his shoulders, a grin crossing his face. “It kinda does sound short, doesn’t it? I never got a chance to do much with my life. The only interesting thing that happened to me is when I went to this foreign school a couple of months after I turned eighteen. My grandmother told my parents about it. She said it was a place for people like me—with strange, freaky abilities. My father couldn’t wait to ship me off.” The bitterness in his voice was obvious, but his short time at the school had been perhaps some of the best months of his life.

“But I liked it there. It was nice,” he added, raising an eyebrow. “And then I got the kicker of it all: I discovered vampires, werewolves, and other weird shit. On top of that, my best friend Nico turned up and I found out he was a sprite.” Zach grinned as a chuckle escaped him at the memory. “It was kinda funny, actually.”

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