Russ C (greasemonkey) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-01-25 16:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !ocean's eleven, *log, russ campbell, sam alexander |
Log: Oceans Eleven
Who: Russ Campbell & Sam Alexander
When: Fuzziest of fuzzy timelines but the other side of Micah.
Where: Ocean's Eleven
Warnings: Language from the start
He had to look up the place on a piece of paper. Hand-drawn map because 2001 didn't come with no fucking data-plans on the smartphone zipped carefully away into an inner pocket of the jacket - for Nathan, who was with a friend at a birthday party and who was being watched real careful since that message from his mom showed up after days of nothing. But it was still Vegas and Russ had lived there long enough that he knew the streets like they were veins criss-crossing the map of his palm and coming back in felt, in a weird way with all the newspapers in store-fronts out of date, like coming home. Warmer than Gotham. The wintery sun was watery as shit but it was desert daylight and after months and months of Gotham's thin sunshine filtering through smog, Russ didn't have a goddamn problem with watery. He made one stop on route, a pawn shop he knew real well who took shit that was only months old here and could be bought as junk on eBay back in the real fucking world and he folded cash into his wallet - enough.
He expected something like a hospital, showing up. Antiseptic, maybe a couple starchy women in crisp white and the sense of transition that came with places people passed through, instead of staying long. Yeah, he didn't like hospitals but on the approach, car at the curb and boots over the tarmac and his hands shoved into the pockets of the heavy leather jacket it looked less and less like a hospital and more like someplace people actually fucking lived. He got stopped at the door. That felt less like Vegas and more like right after Ian and he didn't have any problem palming over his old driver's license that looked real fucking out of date, although given he was supposed to be fucking twenty five in this world, he figured the guard on the door was justified in looking at him real long. But he'd looked same way, from the day he'd grown into his skin and they moved out the fucking way long enough for him to be greeted by a starchy woman, no crisp white, and a guest-book.
That felt like a fucking hospital.
He signed his name, signed Sam out as well and he let the place settle in around him as he loitered in their clean hallway. It felt less like a stopping place on the inside. More like somewhere with atmosphere. There was noise, but it wasn't loud and it wasn't fucking screaming. And yeah, he didn't know what the fuck to expect from a group home. And he didn't know if this kind of place would have made a dent in Lou's shit, if anyone had even dropped her in one. This was Neil. And even if Russ thought the fucker didn't know what to do with a good thing in both hands, this was fucking solid.
He dug hands in the back of his pockets, gave his most winning grin to the starchy woman in the cardigan behind the desk who eyed him like he was walking trouble and was unimpressed, smile or not and waited, cab idling outside. "I'll have her back by curfew. Promise." He couldn't even fucking remember taking someone out who had a curfew and if he had, he sure as shit hadn't been real square on getting them back on time.