Peter Kelly (nylonghorn) wrote in bellumlogs, @ 2010-06-08 18:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | beast, dr. watson, ichabod crane, jonathan harker |
Who: Daniel, Cole, Micah and Peter
What: Getting some things done
Where: R1
When: 8 PM as requested
Warnings: Beware of flying cushions-and the occasional flying accusation
Daniel was mostly sober by the time the first guest tramped over his carpet (which had now been reinstalled no less than five times in the last six months). It was clear that he was only so by specific request and effort, and as such that meant that while he was unshaven and as rumpled as ever, he didn’t smell and his eyes were focusing properly.
R1 was the better part of a wreck. It showed signs of recent invasion in the form of workman’s boot prints leading from the front door to the side study, which now stood open and depressingly empty. Spare newspapers in strange languages were stacked on most available surfaces. The place smelled of whiskey and neglect, and very, very faintly of the green herbs still struggling away in the kitchen. The dead garden outside was now hidden by the heavy curtains that were drawn all the way across the circular living room, and illumination came from glowing globes on the ceiling.
Cole couldn’t help but feel as though he was intruding as he was let inside R1, even though Daniel had agreed to host their meeting - although it wasn’t really as though he had any choice, considering the way Micah had announced it like a done deal. He was visibly awkward despite trying his best to appear otherwise, greeting Daniel with a sheepish “Hi” and noting the smell of whiskey that made him think of a seedy half-empty bar after midnight. What exactly Daniel had to contribute to their plans, he wasn’t sure, since it seemed apparent that there was no love lost between himself and Trenton; but Micah wouldn’t have chosen R1 as their meeting place without a good reason.
Somehow he sensed that attempting to start friendly conversation wasn’t really needed, Cole stuck his hands in his pocket and waited for the others so they could finally figure out what the hell they were going to do about the guy currently locked up in the catacombs.
Micah had chosen R1 for one reason, and for one reason only: Rosalie.
When the woman had messaged him on the forums, Micah figured he could kill two birds with one stone. Now, he wasn’t sure it was such a great idea. The apartment, which had (thankfully) started to smell of fresh air and sobriety, was now back to being filled with the sickly sweet smell of booze. He wanted to personally drag the blinds open, but he forced himself to stay his hand for now. He dragged a hand through his hair, and he sat down on the arm of one chair. “Can we get some windows opened there, big man?” he asked Daniel, as if it was a casual request. “Pedro should be along any minute, and he has a list of items we need to go over.”
Pete had high hopes for this meeting, perhaps higher than he should have given the circumstances, but after talking to both Cole and Micah in detail and knowing they were, at the very least, in the same mindset as him he hoped that they would be able to come to a reasonable solution.
He had more than a list of things to go over, and he only hoped they made good headway. The meeting in R1 struck him as odd, but he didn't dwell on it much, as long as they had a place to chat it was all that mattered. Fixing this situation was all that mattered. He showed up at R1 laptop and notepads in hand, when he was let in he wasn't feeling as reserved as most might have, he was in the zone. "Hey guys," he said happily to the room in general. The room was stuffy, but he didn't make much of a deal out of it, he could hardly judge. He had an authentic Green Lantern lantern hanging from a sconce in his hallway.
Daniel, who looked as if he would be no less impressed by a Green Lantern lantern than the next guy, gave all three men a very sullen look that said he would have very much preferred they had their meeting somewhere else. Like City Hall. He did, however, make some effort, and he had a big enough coffee maker that when he pressed the button there was enough for all of them to drown in if they so chose.
He reserved a very intense look of dislike for Micah, but he also made the effort in response to his request, shrugging and shoving at the curtains to open the glass door. The thick scent of decaying flowers before the sharp urban scent of New York swept inside. “What exactly are you people trying to achieve with this?” he asked, grudgingly curious about how these three idiots planned on saving the world, and whether it would involve further invasion of his privacy.
Once Pete and Micah showed up, Cole felt less like an intruder and more like he at least somewhat belonged in the apartment. He opted to lean against a couch rather than actually sit, secretly grateful that Daniel relented and opened the curtains. Normal ones would have been fine, but these heavy things just seemed too Edgar Allan Poe for his liking. He waited for a brief moment after Daniel’s question before deciding to be the one who answered. “Well,” he began, “We’re trying to decide how to deal with Trenton rationally, for starters. Considering that we’re basically living outside the jurisdiction of the police, finding a way to deal with crime that deals with building residents is kind of necessary now.” He shot a glance at Micah. “I guess we’re trying to achieve organization, and... discourage vigilante justice.” A one-sentence answer probably would have sufficed, he realized too late, and fell silent. Pete really was a lot better at this sort of thing.
The dead flowers were better than the stale and stagnant air that was in the apartment a moment earlier, and Micah had found his way to the kitchen and poured himself a mug of decent-smelling coffee while Cole and explained their purpose to Daniel. By the time he came back to the living room and resettled himself against the arm of the chair, he’d already made note of where the alcohol scent was strongest in the kitchen, and he’d filed it away for future use.
“I’m sending someone to clean up here tomorrow,” he said to Daniel, taking a sip of the coffee before continuing. “We’ve got a few things we need to address first, right, Pedro? Election of a building sheriff, but that can wait until we get the tribunal shit figured out, and the tribunal itself. I told the lawman here that we had a list of unbiased people, Cole, so maybe we start by sharing that? First things first - we have to get Trenton out of the damned basement. He got attacked down there the other night,” he admitted. “It’s not safe for him down there, and we don’t want to be responsible when everything goes fucking south.”
That observation got a dark chuckle out of Daniel, who had flopped into another chair, empty handed.
When vigilante justice was brought up he half wanted to throw up a mea culpa to the comic book Gods and beg for forgiveness for not following in the footsteps of the Great Ones. With the impact super heroes had on his upbringing it was a shock to the system that he'd be doing anything other than being a vigilante. "Not that vigilantes aren't cool..." he said hoping it made up for it all.
Peter sat down and opened his computer on his lap as Cole and Micah explained what they were trying accomplish. He was about to open his mouth to agree with the proposed goals for the evening but when Micah said Trenton had been attacked his jaw dropped. "Definitely item one on the agenda is getting that guy out of the basement. If ya'll guys don't then it'll be anarchy around here sooner than later. I worry that it's an inevitability at any rate, but hopefully the system we come up with avoids that course for the time being."
He looked over at Daniel and nodded, "I'm Peter Kelly by the way," he said realizing he hadn't introduced himself to the one stranger in the room.
Daniel gave Peter an extremely amused, lazily predatory grin. “Vlad’s headache.” Then, without waiting for a response to that, he turned his attention (slow and bleary though it was) back to the others. “Explain to me how you two are different from vigilantes? Breaking down people’s doors and dragging them down to basements to get attacked?” His eyes wandered around the apartment. He didn’t see what they saw, but that’s because he didn’t care to change his perspective. Whoever Micah hired wasn’t going to see the other side of the front door, and as soon as they left he’d just have another drink and go to bed. He failed to see how the proceedings were likely to change that, even if he would very much like to find out who hurt Ella and do something permanent about it.
Like locking him into the study and waiting for the full moon. He might have to replace the carpets again, though.
As if things weren’t already awkward enough, Daniel just had to go and bring P3 into the conversation. Cole knew from the forums that Vlad was Pete’s former boss, and he instinctively looked at him to see his reaction to being called the man’s ‘headache’. He decided to pretend that the comment had never been said and skip to the important part. “Does anyone else know that Trenton was attacked?” That question was directed to Micah, because if word got out that he’d been attacked before even being proven guilty, things would only go from bad to worse. “Unbiased people... right. Well, there’s Oliver, Jonathan, Lotte, James, Eliot, Iris...” He trailed off, trying to remember. “Stefan, although I’m not sure if I-- er, he’d be interested; Will, and... Ella.” He did his best to avoid looking at Daniel once he mentioned her name, since rumor said they were together - or had been or something. He couldn’t really keep track anymore.
“We’re not vigilantes,” he retorted, unable to keep from sounding defensive. “Yeah, we overreacted with Trenton, but it was a mistake and we both recognize that - and, by the way, we did not drag him down to the basement to be attacked. That was the purpose of having someone there to guard him, but clearly it wasn’t very well thought and we need to move him. House arrest seems best, but how do we keep him there?”
“He might have told the blonde who keeps visiting him,” Micah said, referring to Isobel, when Cole asked if anyone else knew. “I know the redhead was down there when I left, so I’m guessing it was her wolf,” he said, and he glanced at Cole’s leg when he said it. He was starting to think the damn wolf, despite Iris’ approval of the man, was more trouble than he was worth. “So, once we get out of here we move him,” he added. “Easy.” He put the coffee cup on the table beside him, and he ran Cole’s list through his mind. “We can probably add Oliver to that list,” he said, “and Mrs. Kelly,” he said, shooting Peter a shit-eating-grin. “And if it wasn’t about the redhead, Daniel would work too. Here’s the question; is the tribunal group a pool, and we weed out biased parties? Or is it selected on each infraction?” he asked. “Whatever we do, we have to do it fast. We’ve let this go too long already. And, for the record, we still don’t know if he has any abilities, Trenton.”
Pete looked up at Daniel at the mention of Vlad his eyes moving from the notes he was taking on his computer to Daniel for a quick second before looking back, "That would be me," clearly pleased with himself. Being a headache was better than being gone and forgotten.
He took notes while Cole listed off the unbiased people they had to choose from, and truth be told there weren't many. That wasn't looking good at all. "I think the unbiased people are going change on a case by case basis so the tribunal should as well. I might be unbiased in one instance, but either a victim or even completely biased in another. Human reactions, loyalties and emotions fluctuate, and so should this."
He left the worry about what to do with Trenton to Cole and Micah, he was more concerned that he needed to be in a place safe for others and safe for himself. As big of a dick as everyone said he was, and the crimes he'd been accused of scared him enough, but nothing scared him more than word getting out that been attacked. "Keeping him safe hardly seems like it should be our problem, but it should be a priority, it isn't fair but it keeps all of us from becoming the target of an angry mob going off half cocked."
He grinned back at Micah at the mention of Helena and while he didn't like to think of getting her involved in things like this he knew that keeping her out of them wasn't going to be an easy task either. "We need to make sure that this doesn't become something that no one can support, or have no confidence in. We need to make sure that everyone feels like they have a say in what goes on. We want to keep people safe, but we want to make sure that those who want a voice have one. We have a lot to consider here and it can't just be the will of the people in this room."
Daniel, who had been brewing for quite some time, finally burst out, “Not Ella.” When he successfully got their eyes and attention, he scowled at Cole, who had the audacity to mention her first, and then at Peter, in case he had typed it down on his stupid little meeting minutes document. “Not her. Your stupid little tribunal is going to be walking around with unbiased targets on their backs and if you want to drag me into it then... then it’s not like I have anything else to fill my fucking schedule. But not her.” After this speech, which was rather long considering how often Daniel actually spoke to anyone, much less strangers, he slumped angrily back into his chair and glowered.
Cole just sighed, since it didn’t surprise him that Shane was likely the one who had attacked Trenton - especially not after he admitted to getting him to confess to raping Boyd through less than desirable means. “I agree with Pete. Case by case basis is best, since all of us know people here in one way or another, and eventually a situation might come up involving one of them.” Getting Trenton out and back into his apartment was easier said than done, since he was pretty sure no one had taken it upon themselves to get the door fixed. “Moving him is our best bet, but it’s where that we need to figure out. I guess maybe the higher up, the better? If we can find a way to keep him from leaving his apartment or even any apartment, that is.” He agreed with Pete’s reasoning, since keeping it as fair and rational as possible was the only way to fix what he and Micah had started with their vigilante actions.
He winced at Daniel’s outburst, berating himself silently for even mentioning her name. “Okay,” he said quickly. “Ella won’t be involved.” After the fables list, he should have known better anyway.
“Wait a minute,” Micah said as soon as Cole capitulated, and he gave Daniel a look. “This isn’t about any of our personal feelings. If it was, I would have Iris off that list in a fucking heartbeat, entiendes? Pedro wouldn’t his wife on it either. We have to be fair about this shit. That means you take your relationship problems out of it,” he said bluntly.
“She was a victim,” Daniel all-but-shouted. “She’s not neutral. Take her off the damn list!”
“Not of Trenton’s,” Micah insisted. “Nick can get added to that list too,” he said, just to prove the point.
“How do you know it wasn’t Trenton?” Definitely shouting now.
Micah sighed. “Pedro, keep going,” he said, ignoring the shouting Beast in the corner. He didn’t want Iris on a damn tribunal with Jonathan any more than Daniel wanted Ella on one; that wasn’t the damned point.
Pete didn't care much for yelling, and he'd seen too many well meant and well planned negotiations go down hill once the yelling started. "I'll tell you one thing," he said looking between the three of them, "Hollering isn't going to get us any-damn-where."
It was easier to remain calm and that is exactly what he intended on doing. "It has to be as random as possible and if and individual doesn't want to be involved then that is their call," he said speaking calmly and firmly. He knew having Lena involved terrified him, but he couldn't let that get the better of him. Everyone here had a right to an unbiased judgment and the pool was small enough.
"This is in the interest of keeping the people we care about safe." He looked over to Daniel and regarded him for a moment, "Do you have reason to believe that it was Trenton who attacked, Ella? If so then that needs to be part of this as well," he asked not willing to let the possibility drop if it was indeed a real possibility. If it wasn't Trenton then they had another crazy person running around here and they needed to get things done quickly. “
Cole really didn’t feel like getting pulled into an argument, which was why he decided to relent on the Ella issue, but apparently he was the only one who felt that way. Personally he didn’t think Evie would like her brother being on this list either, and even though she was young her temper was something to be reckoned with. “It... uh, what happened to Ella, it was because of the fable list,” he offered with a touch of hesitation. “Trenton’s fable wasn’t listed - none of us knew what it was, so he wouldn’t really have had motivation.” A brief pause was all he allowed before plunging forward. “We can ask Ella what she wants to do - but going back to the topic of Trenton’s fable, I think it might be Dorian Gray. I was looking over the forums and I found a conversation between him and Rapunzel, and she called him Dorian. Not only that, but what he said... she cut her hair and he got upset, saying it was what made her beautiful. It reminded me of what Dorian said to Sibyl about her acting.”
“It wasn’t Trenton,” Micah said with absolutely certainty. He didn’t have any idea who it was, because his ability was the sort of thing that was almost useful without ever being quite useful enough. “Even without my-” he motioned a hand, not knowing what to call what he could do, “the MO is wrong. Trenton is self-absorbed, selfish, a liar, the sort of man to commit a crime of passion, but not the sort to plan and be methodical. What was done to Ella, that was carefully planned, and she indicated the man had killed before. Trenton just doesn’t fit,” he said.
As for Dorian Gray, Micah’s knowledge of the text was cursory at best. “So, he’s immortal and an asshole?” he asked, because the asshole part fit, and the immortal part he could do without. “If he’s Dorian, there has to be a painting,” he said, even though it was completely unrelated to where they were going to keep Trenton or what they were going to do. “Listen, we need to get back on fucking track here. We take Trenton back to his apartment, and we lock him in somehow, then we contact the tribunal potentials, let anyone bow out that doesn’t feel they can be unbiased, and then we have a trial?”
Pete was listening carefully to everything everyone was saying, but it suddenly occurred to him that he really needed to be paying better attention around here. Ignorance was not really his forte, and clearly his idea of "ignoring the weirdness" wasn't going to work any longer. He was okay with that, if he could help people, if he could protect people then he was willing to take the blinders off.
Pete nodded when Micah said they needed to get back on track, "How are we going to keep him locked in his apartment?" he asked plainly, "And we need to work quickly here, you're right. Everyone needs a job to do, and we need to make sure they get done. Do you want me to contact these people? I can do that if need be. We also need someone to defend him and someone to handle building a case against him, he should be allowed to choose who defends him if he doesn't want to then we'll find someone, but he gets a say in it. And we need someone watching his door at all times for God's sake before we get another hot head attacking him, do we want to integrate that into the neighborhood watch one way or another?"
Daniel didn’t care for being railroaded about his opinion concerning Ella, but he was in the process of convincing himself that he could find some other way to protect her from the proceedings, and there were probably few in the building who would understand how far he would go to do that. The entire function of Daniel’s tale revolved around one person, and though he was not the most impressive person in the world, sitting there in his haze of whiskey, he had very little to lose. He wasn’t quite willing to kill anyone himself, but he was more than capable of engineering things to go the way he wished.
“He’s a dead man already,” Daniel said, flatly. Even if he wasn’t involved, enough people hated Trenton that he was going down one way or another. Micah and Cole aside, someone had already tried to off the guy and it had only been a few days. “Unless he really is Dorian Gray, in which case someone is just going to torch it, then off him.” He showed his teeth in a very unsympathetic, even Beastly, grin.
Cole recalled that Micah had asked him to contact a Joanie to make a cell for Trenton - if she could do that, maybe she could manage some sort of lock that only a few trusted people would have a key for. “Well,” he said slowly, “Maybe someone could... make some sort of lock that can be opened from the outside, but it’d have to be strong enough to withstand any attempts to break it. It there’s a key, only people we trust should be allowed to have it.” He hoped Micah got the hint without needing specific names. “If you want to contact these people, Pete, and you don’t mind... I think it would be better than if I did. Just tell them you’re helping us out. I don’t know how possible it’ll be to watch his door all the time, but it could be part of the neighborhood watch - people are already signed up for that, after all.”
He nodded. “Alright, so we see if Trenton wants anyone in particular to defend him, and meanwhile we can try to find someone to take the role of prosecution.” It didn’t sound easy by any means, but at least they were getting somewhere. He shot an annoyed look at Daniel, making a mental note to try to avoid involving him in this situation again. It was clear he didn’t give a damn whether Trenton ended up dead tomorrow or not - although Cole couldn’t bring himself to care as much as he should have about the man’s well-being, he wasn’t that callous. “No one is going to ‘off him’, and if there is a portrait then we make sure no one can get their hands on it.”
Micah grabbed a cushion and threw it at Daniel’s head, and then he very maturely turned to Peter. “Get the ball rolling. In the meantime, Cole and I will get Trenton into P4 and get a lock made.” He immediately thought of Joanie, of course, but he’d sit his own ass in the hallway as long as it took the get the thing built. “Start with Boyd and the tribunal members, since they’ll probably take some talking to, and we’ll worry about more permanent things later. Most important thing is that we get this shit taken care of before the full moon, since it’s our only chance to have Aaron speak at the tribunal.”
Pete felt like they were making some sort of progress, Daniel's antics not withstanding, and he was hard pressed not to laugh outright when Micah threw a cushion at him. He kept his amusement to himself but went about tasking himself with contacting everyone. He understood that Cole didn't want to do it, he didn't mind leading himself like a lamb to slaughter, but Cole had already been there and done that.
"Fair enough, I'll contact our unbiased parties and see who is willing to be in the pool. You two work on moving him as gently as possible please," he added even thought he knew he didn't have to. "And lets all keep our ears to the ground about a painting. Once he's moved let me know and I'll go talk to him and find out how he wants to handle his defense. We do need someone to prosecute him, I would offer but I'm not sure I should be interviewing him and trying to prosecute him as well, that isn't fair. At the same time I'd offer to defend him, but again, I think I'm a little too involved in the background here. Really it's up to him to find someone to do it, and up to us to find someone willing to argue his guilt, if he admits it we don't have as much of a problem. Once we see who all we have on board to hear this case we can have whoever is defending and prosecuting choose the final five. Unless we only five willing to do it. Cole you said you had someone willing to run some tests? Micah do you have the ability to do the same if need be? If he doesn't admit it can't all be witness testimony, there has to be some kind of hard proof that is on the table." He didn't want to mention that circumstantial evidence wouldn't hold up in a court of law, but he was pretty damn sure it would hold up here as sad as that fact was.
Daniel ducked, and the pillow bounced off the edge of his chair. He scowled at Micah, but made no more comments. He made little mental notes to himself about the painting, and then dismissed them to the back of his memory almost as quickly. Information kept Daniel quiet more than anything else, and he’d said almost everything he wanted to say. He wanted a drink, and gave the kitchen a wistful look before going back to his own thoughts.
Cole quickly turned his laugh into a cough at the sight of Micah throwing a pillow at Daniel’s head, because it was so childish that it just seemed entirely out of place and more amusing than it should have been. “I’m sure they’ll be someone willing to argue his guilt - there’s a law student in 608, I think her name is Isabella or something. She already offered to help, so maybe she wouldn’t mind being our prosecutor.” He nodded at Pete, glad that he’d reminded him of the doctor on the first floor. “Yeah, a Dr. Archer in 102. I read some articles he sent me, and the guy seems pretty smart. It’s all about genetics and... stuff I really don’t understand, to be honest; but he’s willing to test whatever we need or have. Of course, Aaron’s testimony would seal the deal.” In the real world dead people stayed dead, so whether or not his word would stand up in a normal court really didn’t apply here. “Micah and I will move him, then.”
Micah nodded, and he stood. “Better get started.” He looked at Daniel. “This is where we’re holding all our tribunal meetings, since you’re so concerned about tribunal safety,” he told the man, and he walked toward the door. “Come on, Cole. Pedro, we’ll let you know once he’s moved.”
Pete closed his computer and put it back in his bag once it looked like they were done with this particular discussion. "Sounds good, we might actually be making some headway here," he said hoping he wasn't feeling overconfident.
"It was nice to meet you," he said to Daniel as he stood to leave.