Cristobal Rodriguez ♦ Coyote (coyoti) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-04-17 11:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | coyote, maui |
just an ordinary day becomes adventure
Who: Chris & Kal.
What: Kal's coming back up to the third floor for equipment to look for Anaise, and runs into Chris, who has things to say after visiting the sixth floor.
Where: The third floor.
When: April 16, following this thread.
Notes: Gdoc, now complete!
The elevator doors closed quietly on the seventh floor, and Chris leaned back against the far wall as he waited for the thing to descend to his home level. He'd tried to find the coyote again on the fifth floor, with no success, and had then decided to explore a few of the other floors while time was on his side. Each was so different that it was almost culture shock each time he stepped out of the elevator; the sixth floor had an oriental cast, and he'd spent longer looking at a strange wall of plates that had words written on them. One he quickly recognized as his own, which he moved to take down, but the plates were stuck fast in their moorings.
His jaw ground, and he finally let well enough be. At least his name wasn't attached to that one. But it was on another.
believes that he is to blame for Chris's involvement in his father's gang
"The fuck...?" There were only two people in the building that were aware of Chris' family history, and only one of them would go far back enough to merit such worry. Brows set in anger, Chris couldn't quite believe the arrogance; that was quickly followed by guilt, and the wish that Kal had said something, but then the memory of the distance between them reared its head and he was set back at square one.
He'd tried to cleanse his mental palate by heading up a floor, but the curiosity about everything had dwindled in the wake of encroaching guilt. Changing his mind, he moved back and resumed the journey down to his home floor, where he came upon Kal entering the level via the stairwell. He looked ready to go hiking, and Chris arched a brow in his direction as he took Kal's outfit into consideration.
"You getting ready to check out the whole of the building, amigo?"
There was the briefest hesitation in Kal’s movements. He hadn’t bothered to correspond with his friend since they argued the other night and now was no different. Annoyance passed over his expression quickly before returning to determination. Kal moved down the hall to his apartment door without pause.
“I was going hiking, but now I’m doing a search and rescue,” He replied clearly but there wasn’t the normal cheer to his voice. Unlocking the door of his apartment, he moved into it without bothering to close his door behind him.
Chris' brows shot up, and he couldn't stop himself from tying that admission to the one he'd found upstairs. "Oh yeah? You already got someone else you feel personally responsible for? Shit, that was fast. Better hope you don't fuck them up like you did me."
Kal had reached a deep shelving unit with various supplies sitting on it when he heard Chris’s harsh words. He paused, his back straight as he handled an ice pick in one hand. On the one hand, Kal had no idea what brought this on, on the other, Chris’s words rang a little too true for Kal’s comfort. Better hope you don’t fuck them up like you did me was a direct blow to Kal’s gut. Something that nestled into a wound created by worry deep in his heart and slowly, Kal turned back toward his apartment doorway where Chris stood. “What the fuck are you even talking about? One of our neighbors has a kid and she ran away and no one can find her in this fucking maze that’s our apartment building. Where the fuck is all this coming from?”
Chris pointed up. "The sixth floor appears to be a bit of a tattletale. They've got this big board with plates, and on 'em looks like secrets from everybody. And you know how I know which one was yours? Because it had my name in it." He softened, arms shifting by his sides.
"Do you really think that? That if you'd been around, I wouldn't... You knew how badly I wanted to know him, Kal. I don't think you staying here would've made any difference."
Kal knit his brow and looked back at his wall of supplies. He shoved two glow sticks into his pocket and picked up two more, turning to Chris to toss to him; Chris caught them, looking back at his friend with a questioning brow. “Keep those with you, you might be able to get Anaise’s attention with them.” He turned back to his wall of supplies and grabbed a box of chocolate protein bars before turning toward his kitchen island and sitting the box down. “Yeah, I guess you could say I really think that,” Kal began, his voice low but clear. “We were good, you were happy, and yeah, you wanted to get to know that asshole but you were still you when I left for college. It wasn’t long that I was away that you reached out to him and then suddenly, bam, you’re a totally different person. You’re distant, you’re no longer happy, you’re not longer interested in getting into stupid hijinx.” He turned and pointed a finger at Chris. “And don’t say you just grew the fuck up. I mean, I’m not going to go pants my friends or anything now. We both grew up. But you used to seem to have… I don’t know… a better spark at life.
“Everything changed when you met your father and I know you weren’t thrilled about me going to college, let alone in Hawaii, so maybe if I had just stayed behind… maybe I could’ve convinced you…” He fell silent as he moved the ice pick between hands and glanced at the window of his apartment with interest.
"Did you just legitimately use the word hijinks?" Chris palmed the glow sticks and put them in a pants pocket; they still jutted out, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned against the doorframe. "Yeah, things might've been different had I had someone else to tell me to knock it the fuck off. My grandparents never did, and my mom tried, but..." He shrugged; he and his mother had been at odds for years, though he knew she was trying to do the best for him, and he just kept turning her down, over and over. Just like a lot of other people in his life.
"Look, this isn't on you. I made my own choices. They were stupid choices, but who's to say that I wouldn't have dragged you along with me? Who's to say you wouldn't have been the one to get hurt, or worse?"
Kal shrugged, somewhat childishly. “I don’t know, but who’s to say I didn’t get hurt? Who’s to say that you could’ve avoided fucking up your leg? It’s just…” He rolled his eyes at this. “It’s weighed on me for years, Chris. You know how I’ve known all along? All that time I kept asking myself if I could’ve helped you avoid all this, if I could’ve done more after you got hurt. I know your grandparents don’t say much and you and your mom’s relationship isn’t the best… but maybe… I don’t know. We could’ve had you stay with us, kuku and I.”
He moved away from Chris then and stepped closer to his dining room window, sizing it up and pressing fingers against it. “You’re family to me, asshole. My dad didn’t want me, he practically gave me away, but you wanted me, just the same as kuku. How else would I feel if my braddah was fucking his life up?”
Chris watched Kal's actions with some interest, but he didn't move away from the door. One hand rose, raking fingers back through his hair as it ended at his nape.
"Well, for one, you don't have to take my fuck ups as your own. I know I should've reached out to you sooner for help. I get that now. But I... Things were rough. I couldn't just go spreading around..." He sighed, stepping into Kal's apartment and closing the door. There was no need to spread this around the hall.
"I can't just pop up one day and be like, hey, I'm in a gang, can you help me get out? You know? I mean... I won't lie, I liked it at first. I felt good at something, I was making good money, I was keeping a roof over my family's head. I didn't think it was a problem until it was too late.
"But that's not your fault, Kal. I get that I can't erase years of you guilt tripping yourself, but I'm saying you need to stop it, now. And I get that won't be easy, just like it's not easy for me to just..." He waved his arms. "Start spitting up all the secrets and shit I do, because it's not a switch I can just throw on, but... we really don't need to keep doing this to ourselves." He stopped, regarding Kal's movements again with a new eye.
"What the fuck are you doing? Also, who the fuck's Anaise?"
“Anaise is this tiny little kid. She’s the daughter of a new person, Laura? She lives here with her brother John. We were going to go hiking. The kid’s damn cute though, but she ran off, went right into one of the empty apartments on the first floor. Door locked behind her, we finally got it open, and the kid’s gone.” Kal took a step back and looked at the window again. “Front door of the apartment complex is fucking locked too. We can’t get out, so I figure I’ll break a fucking window and climb out.”
But he didn’t break the window, he turned to his friend and looked at Chris seriously. “What’s your secret have to say? Since you know mine now. And, like, I’ll work on it. I’ll work on not feeling guilty over it all. Just the same as you working on being honest, on not keeping shit from me. I just can’t promise I’ll immediately be able to crush that guilt I have.”
Chris ruffled his hair, glancing down at the floor. Of course the stupid thing on the sixth floor presented the worst possible secret that others could have known; it would have been easy to say it was something Kal was already aware of, that there wasn't anything more to reveal. But it seemed like there always was. And after how Kal had reacted to Chris' non-explanation of the phone call, he felt like he was treading on thin ice. He certainly hadn't meant to accuse Kal regarding what he'd discovered, but things had happened the way they did, and now...
"It's...ah... it's stupid," he replied, doing a poor job of saying he didn't want to talk about it. His cheeks reddened, and he ambled forward as much as he could into the far more built out space of Kal's apartment; it was still sparse, but looked more lived-in now than it did when it was covered in boxes. "It's not important. And what do you mean, she was gone? Did she crawl through to something, somewhere?"
“No fucking idea. We checked cabinets and looked for ductwork, but nothing,” Kal answered with a frown. “Her mother is freaked out, obviously. We split up, the two of them from me. I was going to grab the stuff to try and get Anaise’s attention and to break through a window. Figure it’s better to break one of my own than the front door--plus I get an excuse to climb down the side of a building.” He flashed a smile at Chris and elbowed his friend lightly. “And a secret isn’t stupid. If it’s a secret, it’s something you find important enough to keep hidden. What is it?”
Chris clenched his jaw, the desire to chase after the other topic pushing to the forefront of his mind. He swallowed, glancing over to the window, wondering if it would be at all possible to escape that way. He spoke as he was looking.
"Just that... Everyone would be better off if I wasn't around. Mom wouldn't have gotten pregnant as a kid, maybe abuelo'd be alive because he didn't have the stress I put on everyone, you wouldn't feel guilty about my mistakes..." He shrugged. "I told you, it's stupid, don't worry about it. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't think breaking the window is gonna work."
Kal frowned and his gaze at his friend turned into a serious stare. He let out a short breath and looked back at the window. His silence stretched long enough as if to say he had nothing to say, but finally he moved to step in front of Chris and look him directly in the eye. “It’s not stupid,” he said quietly but sincerely. “And I used to think the same when I was younger, how much better my kuku would be if I hadn’t been born. Hell, maybe my mother would be alive. And it may not mean much, Chris, but try not to think that way. My life would be a hell of a lot more dim without you in it. I don’t even want to fathom how boring it would be.”
He reached both hands forward and framed Chris’s face, not at all caring about entering his friend’s personal space. Kal leaned forward, pressing his brow to Chris’s, keeping his eyes open all the while. “I love you, asshole, and you’re my brother, got it?” Chris' eyes were wide, but he recognized the seriousness of the gesture; he did not pull back, at least, not before Kal was ready to let him go. After a beat, he found himself pressing back against Kal's taller, broader forehead, feeling a sense of peace from it's small token.
Kal pulled away from the honi just as suddenly as he had moved in and offered a small smile. “Now, let’s try and get back into some of those old hijinxs, aye? Help me try to break this window.”
"By doing what, exactly?" He eyeballed the tall panes that reached nearly from floor to ceiling. They were only on the third floor, but there had to be safety precautions in place to prevent any breakage, intentional or otherwise. Of course, no one had bet on the floors altering as they had; a pink tongue bubbled over Chris' lips as he looked away from the glass to his friend. His brother.
"And then, what, you're just going to belay everyone down?" It was, after some thought, a fairly solid plan. But Chris had it on good authority that escape from the building was unlikely, even if it was only a small voice in the back of his head.
“I’m going to use the ice pick, try for a central point. I bet the windows won’t shatter if the full weight of someone were to go against it but if we have something small and pointed, maybe it’ll crack.” He lifted the ice pick with a devilish smile. This was more like how they used to be. Kal and Chris, always up to no good. Except now they were lumbering, boring adults looking for a little girl. “Once I get out, I’m going to the police. I’ll report that we’re locked inside. It’s a fire safety issue, right? We can’t evacuate. So surely they’ll help. Then, with the police we can maybe find Anaise.”
He stood a little straighter, his smile eager and giddy. This was as close as they’d get to apologizing for their fight a few days ago, but it was how they normally worked. Argue then make up through chaos. “You want the first swing at the glass?”
Chris shook his head, taking a step back as though to ward off bad juju from what Kal was suggesting. He shrugged, one hand languidly motioning to the window as if to say it's all yours.
"I'm just gonna stand back here and savor the words I told you so for when the time's right."
Kal laughed before raising the ice pick over his head and arranging his feet as if he were ready to wield a baseball bat. “Here goes nothing,” he murmured before swinging the ice pick in a perfect arc and having it crash down onto the glass.
It hit home and created a spider web through the window--at least, that was what Kal imagined would happen. In reality, the ice pick bounced back and out of Kal’s hand, flipping backwards and across, between Chris and Kal, and across the room. “God dammit,” Kal growled, turning to watch the pick bounce across the floor and nick a dent into the side of a cabinet.
Chris darted to the side, too slowly to actually avoid the path of the flying pickaxe, but he was already standing well away from the scenario before it played out in real life.
"So... I told you so?" He looked away from where the tool had landed, arching a brow softly toward Kal. "Is this going to be one of those insanity things where you keep trying and expecting a different outcome? Because if that's the case, I'm gonna go grab some beer or whatever's in those kegs and come back and make myself comfortable." He jerked a thumb back toward the hallway, a smile moving over his mouth when he knew it shouldn't be. Of all people, one might think he'd be on the list of those trying to get out, but he seemed invariably calm.
“Yes,” Kal growled, not angry with Chris but at the stupid pick axe. He lumbered over to it and picked it up, shooting a glare at the window as he stomped toward it again and went to hit the glass once more with the same result as before. “Get me beer too, particularly the shit in the kegs. I’m curious about that.
“This fucking window, what the hell is it made out of?”
"Fuck if I know," he replied, ambling into Kal's kitchen and helping himself to two mugs he was sure Kal had acquired somewhere on his travels. He dipped out the door again and came back with both glasses full to the brim, a quarter inch of froth just bubbling over the lip of each. After offering one to Kal, Chris did just as he said he would; he sat, legs spread wide, looking relieved to be off his leg once more.
"So maybe a chair....?" The suggestion was half-joking, but Chris wouldn't be surprised if Kal actually took him up on it and the pointed look Kal gave one of his chairs seemed to indicate he would.
“I don’t understand why it won’t even chip,” Kal murmured, bringing the drink to his mouth and taking a gulp. He paused and held the mug out. “Wow, this is… strong.” He looked at his friend and raised the drink. “Have you seen the other floors beside this one and the sixth? I’ve only been down to the first. Do they all look different and have booze on them? Laura said theirs had a bog.”
"Laura?" Chris questioned before answering his friend in turn. "I've been up to the fifth. Looks like when abuelo took us camping in Leo Carrillo," he said. "I'm guessing she lives on the seventh? I stuck my head out of the elevator long enough to take a look, but that's all."
“Yeah, she’s on the seventh,” Kal replied, lifting a chair and holding it near the glass, judging it warily. “This shit is so weird though. Also? I had the strangest fucking dream recently. I think I dreamt about Maui. I know I’ve been missing Hawaii but damn, that’s a first.”
Chris' brows shot up; he took a long, slow sip. "Really? I mean, it's not that weird to dream about places you're missing."
Kal put the chair down and grabbed for his mug again, opting to take a seat as he leaned forward toward Chris, eager to tell the story. “No, it was so much different than that. I was Maui. I was on the beach with manaiakalani, laying in the sun, proud as hell that I pulled the islands from the ocean. Then this coyote came up and started talking to me. Like a man, Chris. Just gesturing and chatting like a fucking human.”
He couldn't help it; Chris laughed, mostly to hide the lack of surprise he felt. "And how much did you smoke the night before? Be honest." He put his mug to his lips again, the alcohol making him feel loose and amused at Kal's descriptions.
“No! That’s not it!” But Kal leaned back and laughed. “Okay so I did smoke but you gotta understand that it was a legit fucking dream and it felt so real. The coyote and Maui slash me talked about humans.” He stopped suddenly, his brow furrowing as memory hit him. “No, they talked about us. About our fight.”
Chris went quiet, the memory of the dream ringing clear in his head. "Yeah," he said, the first acknowledgement that he knew exactly what Kal was talking about. "And it -- he, the coyote -- explained that they're...inside of us?" His voice went a little high pitched, trying to sound more disconcerted than he was.
"Yeah, I had that same dream, too."
Kal’s eyes bulged and he sat back. “Man, I don’t know if it’s this liquor or what, but...I almost feel like I’m believing you. Which is strange, but fuck, everything that’s happened recently is strange. The gifts, the hallways, these dreams? And yeah, that was the sound of it. The coyote was saying they’re… attached to us, I think.” But a small smile appeared on his face. “So you’re secretly a coyote? Can you turn into one? Like the wolfman? Man, I’m almost jealous that I don’t get to have some wild animal in me. But Maui is pretty cool.”
More laughter bubbled out of him; the liquor was putting him in too good of a mood, and everything coming out of Kal's mouth in that instance just sounded insane. Though no more insane than the rest of the circumstances they currently found themselves in.
"Dude, it's just a dream," he said, carefully holding his mug so it didn't tip over, even though it was already half empty. "I think being stuck in here is getting to you. Cabin fever sets in quick, huh?"
“Man, shut up,” Kal replied with a laugh as he drank more of liquid from his cup. “God, we’re fucking idiots. Taking mysterious booze from the hallway and drinking it. It’s like highschool all over again; like that jungle juice at that one homecoming party. We could be drugging ourselves for all we know. Maybe those gods will come out and chat with us in a little bit, it’s only a matter of time.”
Chris shrugged, sinking further into his chair, chuckling. He felt perfectly comfortable and, for lack of a better word, felt entirely at home.
"Hey Kal?" He glanced over at the other man, his eyes projecting far more contentment than he had previous. "I'm glad you moved in here. Seriously."
Kal met Chris’s gaze and smiled, “Yeah, man,” his voice was full with sincerity. “I’m glad I’m here too.” He grinned and held up his mug as if to toast before taking another swig.
Chris rolled his eyes, but his smile did not abate. It was then that his mind reminded him of the task Kal had originally ascended to this floor for. "Hey, weren't you supposed to be helping someone look for a kid?"
Kal looked at Chris and stared at him for a moment before hissing, “Shit.” Jumping to his feet he went to grab his gear again, but paused to down the rest of the contents in his mug. “Yeah, I should go try and break the front door down or something, although I bet that shit is just as solid. You’re welcome to just hang out here, but don’t drink up the rest of the hallway booze, alright? Save me some.”
"Dude, have you seen the size of those kegs?" Chris made no move to rise, though he did arch a brow. "Unless you want me to die of alcohol poisoning, I'm definitely not making the attempt. I'm not as young as I used to be..."
“Younger than me,” Kal responded with a pat on Chris’s shoulder. He left his mug on the table and stuck the pick axe into a loop in his belt. “And hey, if you see the little girl, her name is Anaise. Just tell her I’m looking for her. She has light up shoes, seems pretty proud of them, so, I don’t know, just don’t lose her. She’s… she’s a cute kid. Maybe keep her away from the kegs.” He grinned as he pocketed the chocolate protein bars.
Chris raised his mug, nodding. "Will try, but no promises. I'm not exactly in a position or the shape to be chasing after kids," he replied. At the very least, his offer could potentially mollify his friend. "Good luck with breaking down the doors. You know what I'd say about it." He drained the remnants of his mug, in the end letting it hang loose from his fingers as he watched Kal prepare to venture forth into the depths of their bizarre building.
“Every time the glass doesn’t break, I promise I’ll repeat your sage words of I told you so,” Kal replied with a grin. With his supplies, he continued to chat as he walked toward his door, leaving Chris sitting near the tall window.
“I’ve got my key, so just lock the door on your way out. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” He called out as his apartment door swung closed, making Kal disappear into their odd hallway.