Hell Beckons (shiftingplates) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-05-28 01:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | aidan hartley, mason matthews, p: mena, p: mj |
Who: Aidan Hartley & Mason Matthews
What: Just two friends hanging out
When: After this
Where: Limbo grounds
Rating: Low
After having spoken to Mason over the network Aidan had pulled on his boots and loosely laced them before he'd made his way to the Shopette. He couldn't get the alcohol or cigarettes but would he could get was twizzlers so he made sure to grab some of those before he headed out to the spot they'd agreed to meet. The weather was warm but cloudy so Aidan tugged off the hooded top he had been wearing down to the dark t-shirt underneath before placing it one side and opening up the first pack of twizzlers. His hair was back, roughly secured at the back of his neck, but a few strands escaped the band and draped over his face when he ducked his head to make a selection of a twizzler. Now with one picked out he took the first bite and chewed slowly. It wasn't supposed to be raining, but the air was sort of thick and heavy and with his cigarettes stuffed in his back pocket he walked over to their agreed meeting spot with a large bottle of alcohol hanging loosely between two fingers. Aidan was sitting down at the base of a tree that had sort of become their 'hang out and chat shit' spot and was already snacking on twizzlers, or red vines, or some shit like that. "Alright?" he asked, coming to a halt beside Aidan and putting his shit on the floor, tugging his own hoodie off and dumping it on the floor, sitting down on it. He didn't like getting grass on his jeans, and it was an old habit from sitting in parks in the UK where you weren't a hundred percent sure what it was you'd be sitting on. Since that blind chick appeared, there was a hundred percent increase in the possibility of sitting in dog piss, too, so he wasn't about to make that mistake. Aidan looked up at the arrival of Mason and he gave the other guy a warm smile that very rarely came out except with people that Aidan knew and trusted. "Twizzler?" He asked, presenting the open packet to Mason. He knew the other guy happened to like twizzlers which was why he'd gone for them over everything else available to choose from. "What did you end up getting?" He asked, gesturing to the bottle. "Fuck knows," Mason admitted, lifting the large bottle by the neck. It could have been anything, turns out he'd been lucky. Whiskey. "Eeh, it's all good. Drinkable. I didn't get drain cleaner or any shit like that." He reached out and helped himself to a twizzler, thanking Aidan for it and chewing on it absently as he leaned back against the tree trunk. "So how's therapy treating you?" Aidan snorted quietly and lifted his eyebrow. "Fair enough." He took a further bite of his twizzler and then leaned over to open up the bottle at which point he took a sniff. "Phew, smells strong. Perfect." He gave a razor sharp grin a moment later before taking a sip. "Therapy is..." What was the right word for it? "Boring and seems pointless but apparently I have issues to work through. Go figure, right?" He offered the bottle to Mason. "What you been up to?" "So sure I should be buying you cartons of juice and drinking that shit in front of you until your birthday," Mason teased, taking the bottle off Aidan after he'd taken a sip and sniffing it himself. "Jesus fuck," he muttered, lifting the bottle to his lips and knocking his head back, taking a sip and then clearing his throat as the bottle hit the ground again. He wet his lower lip, stuffing the rest of his twizzler into his mouth. "A blind man could tell you that you got issues, Hartley," he said, just stating the obvious. "Don't we all? I mean, fuck we're stuck in a government run prison for fuck all reason." Well, it wasn't really for no reason, but there was no need to arrest them for some property damage and condem them to a life of being leashed like animals. "You think you'll get your powers back though?" At the question of what he'd been doing he just shrugged. "Not much, mate. This place is boring. I think I'm going nuts." Aidan snorted quietly and rubbed a hand over his bicep as he picked at a couple blades of grass. He didn't rip them out but rather just twisted them before he eased his touch. "Aside from the fact we were born different and in my case levelled a building after being spooked by the people who were there to bring me in." He glanced over at Mason. "But who's counting that, right?" He blew out a breath and shoved a hand into his hair as he leaned back against the tree. "I don't know, hope so. I mean I laid it out pretty clear to my shrink that it's my ultimate goal. I mean shit I got my powers turned off years ago and I'm definitely not the same person now and I was then." Aidan helped himself to another sip before he reached into his pocket for a lighter so he could light up a cigarette. "You seen any more of that girl?" He asked, curious. Mason snorted. "The rules are a lot more lax in the UK. Fucking wish I'd never left, you know." But he hadn't been able to stay; everything reminded him of his mum. His expression dipped for a moment, that crushing grief sweeping through him like a tsunami. He picked up the bottle and took another sip. Fuck that. Go away, grief. Go away fucking thoughts of his fucking arsehole twin brother who apparently wasn't even adopted out or some shit, who played the victim so fucking well. "I got arrested for breaking some asshole's fist with my force field." He lifted a shoulder, "No property destruction, hardly even a fucking misdemeanour but here we are." He looked at Aidan and nodded. "At least you've been honest. Means you guys can work together or some shit. What's she like? I'm assuming it's a she. Never see any other names on the network than girl ones." He huffed out a breath and shifted, pulling the cigarettes out and offering the packet to Aidan, glad that the other dude had a lighter. "Who, Dove?" He nodded. "Yeah, we do power training once a week and shit." He arched an eyebrow. "You been hanging out with Raven? She's Dove's best mate, you know." Aidan turned his head in time to watch the look of... absolute devastation that passed over Mason's face and his brow furrowed, even more so when the other guy took a pull from the bottle at the same time as that expression passed over his face. "Why did you leave?" He asked, figuring if he didn't ask then he might never know and Aidan fucking hated not knowing stuff, especially when it related to people he actually gave a damn about. "She's alright," he affirmed as he took a cigarette from the offered packet, slipping it between his lips before dipping his head to catch the flame of his lighter. "Pretty straight talking, no bullshit." Raven was Dove's best friend? "Huh, small fucking world." Mason didn't reply for a long moment, his jaw working. He lifted one foot to his chest and leaned forward, draping his arm around it and shaking his head. "I- My mum died." He wasn't looking at Aidan. This was the first time he'd said it alound, the first time that he'd verbalised it. It didn't hurt any less. "Some- Some shit I was in followed me home. Shot up her house." His voice was distant as he talked, like trying to separate himself from it made it easier to handle. "That's when I manifested my force field shit. Saved myself. Let her-" He cut himself off and took a long pull on the whiskey, ignoring the burn. "Couldn't stay there." He'd killed everyone involved, it had been a fucking massacre and he didn't regret a moment of it, except ... a part of him did. He'd just done what everyone would have expected from a gang member, from a kid from the wrong side of tracks. He snorted. "She is that," he agreed. He'd not properly hung out with her but he'd seen her on the network, and the two of them flirted pretty publicly on it. "You guys, y'know," he waved a hand. "A thing?" Aidan had no strong feelings about his own mother, not after his upbringing and the fact she had been one of the people to sell him down the river, but he could understand Mason's grief. He'd clearly had a good relationship with his mother and how that had then turned into him having to leave everything he'd ever known only to make his way to the States and for him to be arrested. Shit. He wasn't always the best at knowing what was or was not the most appropriate reaction to things but given what Mason had told him, confessed even, Aidan couldn't exactly leave him hanging. He reached out, closing his hand around the back of Mason's neck and squeezing firmly and reassuringly. "Nah, nothing like that," Aidan said with a shake of his head. "Pretty sure girl like her, guy like me, never meant to be." Of course they were making out whenever they had the opportunity but that didn't make it a 'thing'. Mason leaned over a little when Aidan's hand clapped agains the back of his neck and squeezed. He didn't speak for a moment, just appreciated the comfort and the unspoken words. And then their agreement that this wasn't something that would be spoken again in a hurry. Though his eyebrow did arch when Aidan spoke and he snorted. "What kind of bullsht is that?" "If we were on the outside," Aidan pointed out as he offered his cigarette to Mason, "pretty sure she wouldn't look at me twice. We would sure as shit run in very different circles." He gave Mason's neck one last squeeze for good measure before giving his friend's hair a playful ruffle as he picked up the bottle again. "But we're not on the outside," Mason pointed out, throwing a small clump of grass at Aidan for the hair ruffle before he helped himself to another twizzler from the packet, this time eating it a little more slowly. "So cut the crap." But he wasn't wrong. Dove and Raven weren't the girls that spoke to the guys like him and Aidan. Hell, even on the inside they probably shouldn't do. "At least we'd have been friends if we met outside, that's something, innit?" He took the offered cigarette and took a drag, watching the tip flare to life, passing it back a moment later as he breathed out, the smoke getting caught in the lazy breeze. "Hey," Aidan objected as he put up a hand to try and swat away the clump of grass which was thrown at him. "Just 'cause you think it's crap doesn't mean it isn't true." He took a sip from the bottle and then rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. He did agree however that he and Mason would have been friends if they'd met on the outside. "That is something, yeah. Definitely." "Yeah," Mason murmured, "I know. Doesn't mean that you don't wish it wasn't true." He supposed limited options were something; the choices here were limited and that... that actually sucked. Especially for someone like Aidan who was probably more interested in that bullshit than he was. He leaned back against the tree, since Aidan hadn't taken the cigarette back he took another drag and tapped ash off into the wind. "And I'm not going back to England if we ever get outta here, so I'm relying on you to make sure I don't end up homeless." Aidan had to concede to Mason's point, there was a difference between something being true and wishing that it wasn't. "It is what it is, not gonna let it get to me." He settled against the tree beside Mason and reached over to steal the cigarette back so he could take a drag. "I got you covered," he assured Mason with a smile before he exhaled smoke. "I won't see you out on the streets." Mason snorted. "Better fucking not," he muttered, finishing off his twizzler and pulling another one out of the packet. "I'd kick your arse." "Promises, promises," Aidan drawled with a smirk aimed in Mason's direction. He took a further drag and then blew the smoke out in circles. "I think we're stuck with each other now." Mason rolled his eyes, "What a trial that is," he knocked Aidan's foot and then took a sip of the drink. "We should probably think about eating something too, not really sure I'm in the mood to get pissed under a tree..." "Exhausting," Aidan replied as he knocked Mason's foot right back though the grin which pulled his lips apart suggested that he didn't mean that. "But yeah you're probably right, we should think about getting something to eat so we aren't those people." He flicked ash to one side and helped himself to another twizzler. "We gotta wait until you're at least 21 before we become those people," Mason replied with a grin. "C'mon, pretty sure I smelled pizza earlier, and I could murder some chips. We'll bring this," he gestured to the bottle. "Can pick it up after." "Stupid fucking laws," Aidan grumbled though he finished off the cigarette and stubbed it out so he wasn't leaving a still smoking butt outside where it could catch fire. He might be destructive at heart but not towards shit like nature when nature had done nothing to him. He pushed himself to his feet and rolled his neck, twizzler hanging from his lips. "If there's no pizza? I'm blaming you." |