francisco javier es una (pesadilla) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-18 15:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | hoban washburne, robin hood |
Who: Russell Campbell & Lin Alesi
What: A fight, the attempted break-up of said fight, the loss of an iPod, and an unlikely pair
Where: Back-alley of a seedy hick bar -> Russ' place
When: Saturday, March 16
Warnings/Rating: Swears, punches, and Star Fox being a BAMF
It was a disagreement. That was it, a disagreement. Russ had the kind of liquor-mellow on, the amber blurring of annoyances that boiled themselves down to a kid in town who oughtn’t to be and a kid who’d looked like a broken doll last time he’d seen her and now ditched out on a job he’d put out for. The kind of grievances that a man didn’t take to heart but he took down to an establishment in town, the kind with trash-cans out back and the ambiance that said people didn’t come by to enjoy the music or the dancing, and he got good and drunk and maybe he got lucky. Russ had been halfway to both; he’d sat at the bar and he’d not looked across his shoulder for three shots, one after the other until the back of his throat burned and he’d counted out enough bills to put under the bar for the night and to keep the bartender real attentive. He was an old guy, grizzled-looking, the kind who kept a piece to hand in case of trouble and didn’t make eye-contact if he didn’t have to. Russ was prone to liking him, the way Russ was prone to liking anyone who kept their mouth shut and brought him his drink, and he sat long enough for the place to fill up and the music to take itself off from the pisspoor country listened to by drunks the world over to something people listened to. She’d slid herself on up to the stool beside him, silky kind of shirt pooling the way women’s shit did, all interesting folds right in front of her, like they wanted to get looked at. She had a necklace, tiny thing on a gold chain and it kept sparkling when she moved, caught the light and caught his eyes until he was looking in the general vicinity and she smiled. Russ knew the smiles of bars clear across the state line. Women didn’t do a lot of propositioning, they just smiled like you knew the words to say and he was two beers down, following up, when this woman had her hand on the back of his arm and he had his hand on her thigh and then they’d been interrupted just before it got good. Seems she hadn’t thought to tell him (along with how she’d moved out to Vegas to go to school and now was working as a dancer, club along the Strip; women gave their fucking life-stories and Russ, he nodded his head and he smiled like he gave a damn) that some guy thought he was exclusive, thought he had rights to the thigh Russ’s hand was on and he disagreed real hard with Russ’s hand being there that minute when he walked in and put a hand on her shoulder. Disagreement. Taken outside at the kind request of the bartender who took exception to blood being spilled in his bar (fuck up the floor before the night got old, and he made his case from behind the bar with his hands hidden like he had hold of his gun if they argued). The air was still warm but chilling, and Russ - going ass-backwards into a metal trashcan with a clang and the disagreement on top of him, blood dripping down his chin and his fists in the guy’s stomach wasn’t so sure he didn’t like disagreements as another way of getting rid of life’s annoyances. It was Saturday and Lin was just leaving the arthouse movie theater (he’d seen Altman’s Short Cuts, because that shit was fly and he’d seen it alone, because fuck you), hands in the pockets of his cords, cardigan lying open and unbuttoned, and sneakers scuffing the sidewalk idly, when he heard the commotion. Of course commotion wasn’t terribly uncommon in Las Vegas come the weekend (tourists + bright lights + copious amounts of alcohol = you do the fucking math), and it was almost a rite of passage come the night before St. Patrick’s Day, so it wasn’t surprising to see two grown men tussling with each other behind a shady ass country bar the boy only knew existed because some of the patrons literally wore full outfits of denim, so much as it was just kind of disturbing and scary. No one else seemed to mind, however. They strolled on by - or stumbled - whichever, blithe and oblivious. Not a head turned. Not even when the blond white dude was basically thrown into a trash can with a sound that rang out like thunder. Lin swore under his breath. He knew he was going to regret this. Stuffing his ticket stub into his back pocket and pasting a wide innocent grin over his mouth, attempting to hide the ubiquitous smart-ass curl that hung there, he crossed the street. The boy, unfortunately, was more than aware of how a kid like him, scrawny, in an old Space Jam t-shirt with a fucking cardigan over it, rings on his fingers and one earbud plugged into his left ear, looked to men like those that fought behind bars with their fists over the honor of, no doubt, a lady. But, that didn’t stop him. “Uh.” Winding around the tipped trash can and its ...fucking week-old contents by the smell of it, he blinked at the men, both of whom had red streaking down their faces. God, why? He rocked on the balls of his feet nervously, careful not to get in the way of any flailing body parts. “What are you guys arguing over? Who’s better - Hank Williams or Hank Williams, Jr., because I’ve got to say - that shit is pretty fucking obvious.” The disagreement was turning sharply into the kind of out-and-out brawl where you fight with your teeth and your fists and you dump the idea that this is all the woman who had her hands where she shouldn’t and wasn’t real verbal about having the kind of boyfriend who objected to his woman’s choices, and it becomes about the blood singing in your ears and the copper-salt taste of your own blood in your mouth. Russ wasn’t averse; there were some things you exorcised in the sheets and some that were about the sharp hit of pain in places that would be sore for work the next day. Stank to next Tuesday, trash spread out on the ground and rolling in it - and some tourist wandering in like it was a scheduled show, like a fight was something to stand by and watch. Russ had an eyeful of cartoon t-shirt and skinny-kid cardigan and he was about to say something, something dismissive and withering but he got a fist in his stomach for taking his eyes off the point, and he threw a fist back, all furious concentration until the disagreement objected to the side-show audience. Really objected. “This your friend?” he said, like Russ’s friends were the kind that wandered around Vegas dressed like they wanted to get hit, and bloodied in the mouth and Russ was working up to ‘no’ around the point the disagreement stepped up close like he had a problem with the peanut-gallery he was going to make physical. He was toe to toe, big - Russ didn’t have a problem with big, he was big enough himself and he liked a challenge but the disagreement loomed the hell over the objector like his attention was directed elsewhere. Lot of trouble and a lot of fight to lose it by default; Russ liked to win or he liked to walk away by choice and he hurled himself toward the guy, barreling like he’d take him down. He was vying for Hank Williams. Even with Siouxsie and the Banshees pumping through that lone earbud, he'd definitely was going with Hank Williams, Snr. And he was about to say so when blondie got falcon punched right in the gut. Only in Super Smash Bros., if you got hit with that shit, you'd fly away and turn into a small sparkle in the background. It was uglier in real life. The fist made a meaty sound when it collided with the stomach, and then the other fist, from the guy with the aforementioned stomach, made a butchery sort of slap when it met the uglier dude's jaw. (Okay, he was going to give them names. Blondie would be Star Fox (he looked like he could handle a laser gun) and the ugly dude would be Captain Falcon.) Lin winced, like physically curled into himself out of both fear and empathy. The empathy vanished in a jiff, however, as Captain Falcon peeled himself away from the tussle and strode up to Lin like he wanted to practice his combo moves. Lin's eyes went coin-round and his hands went up in the rapidly shrinking space between himself and the fucking giant of man. "Fuck off, bro," he managed to say with a good amount of defiance, however forced it was, trying hard not to quake under Captain Falcon's bloody glare. Lord, he did not want to get socked. He needed his face. The boy considered running for it, then. If he split now, he could probably make it to the end of the street before half-a-brain here had any idea he'd gone. He'd be like the motherfucking Road Runner. Meep, meep, motherfucker. Yes, good - Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucknoooooooooooooooo. Lin's elbows met the rough cement of the sidewalk hard, saved from shattering, likely, only because his ass went down first and lessened the momentum of the tumble. The palms of his hands left skin behind and he was more or less spread eagle under the weight of two Jolly Green Giants, legs akimbo and dizzy as balls. He heard himself whimpering when shocks of pain ran through him, though it was entirely involuntary. Motherfuck. "Get - the - fuck - off of me!" He struggled to break free, words eeking out through gritted teeth. Motherfucking Star Fox. He lashed out with one sneaker. Why hadn't he just gone home like a good boy? Why, oh, why did he always have to butt in? "I'm not playing fucking football with you losers." Russ could hear the kid still yammering and squeal like a guinea-pig but Disagreement - this time ass on concrete (and kid, but that couldn’t be helped) seemed to think the kid had helped in this ass-on-concrete state he was in, bleeding freely from a busted nose. Russ wasn’t the cocky kind of fighter, didn’t seem all that much sense to get off on other people’s broken parts but there was a certain kind of satisfaction in making the point that disagreement had picked the fight but he wasn’t going to walk away easy. Right up until disagreement laid the blame for the takedown (which Russ figured was unfair, given that the kid looked like 150 pounds soaking wet) on the kid and started in on him. Wasn’t going to fly. It was Russ’s fight. Russ had begun it (albeit a little uncertain that this was how the evening would play out) and Russ intended to finish it and even if he was a little unsteady as he got himself upright, it was with the distinct intention of getting between disagreement and the kid, if only because he had the damndest desire to send disagreement back to his girlfriend looking like a butcher’s window. Yammering was what Lin did best. He wasn't about to stop now. No. "This is why I always used Link, you motherfucker -" He was yelling now, even though it hurt his chest to do so. The tiny pricks of glass around his fingers told him a sad story and Lin knew, without having to look, that he'd just crushed his fucking iPod. He'd had that shit for like six years. What the hell! As Star Fox somehow managed to extricate himself from the web of tangled limbs, offering some relief to Lin's lungs, Captain Falcon took the time to twist and jump to his feet, one fist full of Bugs Bunny's scrunched face, and brought the boy up with him. Lin's words were left on the ground. C-c-c-combo breaker! Something hard, like an iron rod or something - something that could not have been anything so soft and simple as a fist (it was a fist), slammed into his stomach and now Lin was wincing for real, because oh, my fucking God, that hurt. He was going to be sick. Popcorn and fizzy pop sick. Why. He was currently being held up on his toes, the tips of his shoes, as the man still had his shirt in his fist like some schoolyard bully shaking a classmate down for milk money. Tears sprang to the boy's eyes then, but he couldn't seem to find any words, nor the breath, to ask for mercy. He did the next best thing. One foot came up - intended for Falcon's balls, but landing instead on his shins (ow). The man didn't drop him, but his grip loosened. If there was one good thing that came from Lin's encounter with the supernatural at Gwen!Sam's apartment that one day, it was that there was very little scarier than a monster made out of the entirety of Noah's Ark or a murderous angel with a knife. An ugly dude with a mullet, however mean and ugly with a mullet he was, he was nothing. Though Lin still wanted down. His eyes swivelled to Star Fox. Disagreement wanted to pick fights that was real fine, Russ liked fighting much as the next man and the sting above his right eye said he’d got busted up enough to look real pretty for the next Saturday night in a bar, but he liked his fights tied off with a nice little bow when the both of them limped home like alley cats spatting in the night. Picking fights with other people, skinny little geek kids or not (Russ had an eyeful of Space Jam and of broken electronic on the cement) was like saying Russ was done, and Russ, he objected to that about as much as Disagreement objected to the whole point of the damn fight. He inserted himself, and it wasn’t to stop Disagreement from wiping the floor with Geek Boy, because Russ, he fought his own fights and he let people fight their own shit out, figure out what they were doing wrong themselves, but it had the side-benefit for Geek Boy of Disagreement’s hands being too busy to hang on to him like he was Disagreement’s favorite teddy-bear. Disagreement and he exchanged opinions a little while longer and it was a tussle that ended around the time Disagreement’s girl reappeared and started yelling. What she got to say about it, Russ didn’t know, seeing as she’d started the whole thing, but Disagreement snapped to, like a cadet being called into line (or a pussy, Russ was going with pussy) and it was him and Geek Boy, breathing hard and bleeding in the back alley. Captain Falcon let Lin go as soon as Star Fox stepped up to the plate, ready to go all Fire Fox (that was his up-special move) on the man's ass. And Falcon was all 'show me your moves.' Unfortunately, the boy hadn't been expecting to have to deal with his own weight so soon, and all he managed to do, once released, was stumble backwards half a step and then land on his ass again. He swore. But he still felt like he was going to be sick and his palms were bleeding. Lin slowly dragged himself to his feet with the world spinning around him like a top. He couldn't even watch the Real Men have their Masculine Debate With Fists because if he looked too hard at any one thing, there would be popcorn upchuck on his sneakers and he was trying to avoid that. Someone else came outside then and there was shrieking and more hitting and, urgh, he didn't care. His fucking stomach hurt. It wasn't until it was quiet again that Lin opened his eyes - and very, very slowly at that. He was leaning against the cool brick of the bar, as far from the garbage as he could be, and he squinted, trying to peer through his own disorientation, as well as the dark, to look at Star Fox. "I was fucking going to say Hank Williams," he said, words sliding together a little bit out of nausea. A hot hand moved to his forehead. He wasn't scared of Star Fox. It had been the ugly dude who had hit him. Star Fox, he didn't think was a threat - at least not yet. “What?” The fight was done. The way it went, you fought, you crawled home and you slept off the worst of it and in the morning you looked like death but you’d chased down and licked your demons. There was no intermittent stage, where you leaned against the wall and you caught your breath and Geek Boy was talking again, like he’d not done enough of it to begin with, like he hadn’t gotten into it because he’d been mouthing the fuck off. Russ glared, bloodied eye and cut lip and the slow, interminable drip of blood down his chin, and he looked at him like maybe he didn’t understand what he was still doing there or as if he didn’t get why Geek Boy had got involved in the first place. He looked like he was about to heave. “Aim behind the trashcans,” Russ advised, bar owners got less pissed if you didn’t fuck up where they had to walk. His head was beginning to reel, like liquor and like he’d gone down too hard, and his voice had the rasping, liquid flow of those who were drunk enough for it to show. Oh, he looked bad. Lin's face under the yellow back-alley light showed surprised and concern and, okay, maybe a little bit of disgust. But Star Fox's face was cut, swollen, bruised, and bloody. He'd won the wound lottery. And that was a bad thing. And it was kinda gross. Opening and closing his eyes again, the boy rocked to his feet. The motion made him groan, but he pressed on, slow footsteps on the cement and through trash, until he was closer to the man - the man, he was coming to realize now that less was going on, who was very drunk. It was true that Lin didn't know the different stages and acts of bar brawls. He didn't know there was some accepted way of limping away. So, he was improvising. "What the fuck were you fighting about anyway?" Asked the kid. He tried to stand there, but it wasn't working. It was way too much effort. Without another word, he sat on the ground, ignoring everything that was absolutely disgusting about it, and drew his knees to his chest. He gazed up at Star Fox. Weren’t much that you could do in a back-alley that needed more than ice, and more liquor and sleep. Russ prodded the place above his eye where it stung, and he felt the fire of it radiate down across his cheekbone, slick with blood that looked black in the dim light of the alley. He cursed, disgustedly and he spat, into the corner and he looked at the kid like he was an afterthought. “A woman,” Russ said, briefly. It was a truth burned down to its bones, one that didn’t invite further questions. His head was pounding something worse, and maybe it was just the liquor and maybe it was the fight, one too many hits in a row, but he leaned against the cool of the wall and he stared down instead of up. “Why the hell did you get involved?” Russ’s voice was a demand but there was no heat in it. He was tired, and he was still drunk and it showed. Star Fox, Lin could see clearer now that he was closer, looked every inch like the kind of man Clint Eastwood would have lauded (if Clint Eastwood, you know, did anything that involved smiling or not squinting meaningfully into the sunset) for his obvious, chiseled masculinity. Not like the little pipsqueak in the Space Jam shirt. Or maybe he looked like the kind of man that would've been seen as an Aryan paragon back in the day, strapping, blond, weird facial hair. Yeah, that seemed right. Lin blinked at the man, leaning away a little as a wad of spit flew by him, but otherwise, unmoving. A woman. Of course. The boy smiled smugly then, if a little queasily. But, he didn't say anything else about it. Star Fox seemed worn and propped himself up against the building. "I was jonesing for a fight, obvi," replied Lin facetiously, though his voice was still weak. One hand left his knees to settle on his aching stomach. He frowned. "I dunno, man. I thought breaking up the fight was the right thing to do? Because I'm fucking stupid?" Ugh. His fucking iPod too. Lin dropped his face to his knees and sat there. “That was breaking it up?” Disbelief rang loud in Russ’s voice, for all the fuzzy edges and the pounding in his head. The kid looked half-beat despite the fact he hadn’t hit anyone, sick with it. He knew that feeling, of the wind being blown sideways out of you by someone else’s fist or their elbow, until you were gasping like a fish flipped out of water and your eyes going black round the edges and sick to your stomach. Fucking stupid sounded right. Russ stared at the kid, his finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose like it could staunch some of the bleeding, and he watched him curl in on himself like that might make it better. “Walk it off,” Russ said, against his own instinct for self-preservation. “You curl up like that, it hurts worse.” "How was I to know of his deep-seated hatred for adorable fuckers such as myself?" Lin continued to curl into a ball. (The fetal position was the best position.) He didn't look up as his spoke, so his words came out muffled, after squeezing past his knees. Maybe he'd only managed to land a couple kicks and maybe the flat of a hand on Captain Falcon, but Lin was not a fighter - nor was he the type of person who was often socked full force in the gut. His body was still reeling and his mind was woozy with pain, brackish thoughts, and technological mourning. If he looked half-beat, it was because he was - by his standards, in any case. His chin lifted a few inches when Star Fox gruffly told him to 'walk it off.' Lin peeped over his knees, then unfolded, as directed. His stomach complained at the stretching of bruised muscles, but he ignored it, and brushed his gritty palms off on the sweater. He coached himself under his breath. He got to his feet then, literally punch-drunk, unsteady and hesitant. "Do you need help?" Lin shuffled a few steps closer to the other man and offered him an arm. There were two ways a fight could end and Russ knew them both. Some, you were left still itching to hit someone and your head reeling with adrenaline still pounding in your ears and your heartbeat banging like someone on percussion. Others (this one) all that drained away until you had the cool air kissing up against you, lousy with sweat and blood and the mean sense of wanting to take it out on someone gone. Russ laughed; it was a wet kind of sound like maybe he was choking on blood for a second as his throat worked around laughter and breathing, and it was tired, but he looked at the kid, earnest and dizzy like a prizefighter instead of an idiot bystander and he laughed. “No,” Russ said, because he didn’t, keys were hung up at home, the way they always were when he intended to drink himself steadily into something like a stupor, burning through the cash in an envelope at the end of a week. “You even capable of giving it?” Rude. Lin let his arm fall back to his side heavily. He slid the back of his hand against his forehead and gave Star Fox a corkscrew of a smile, simpering and mocking. Then, he turned to pace a few feet, back and forth, shoes combing through old food and worse. He was walking it off. Both hands, however, still felt it necessary to hold his stomach. It didn't help in any way whatsoever, but, you know, if the shit randomly fell out or something, at least he'd catch it. "I always forget that accepting help is weak," he said in a light tone that belied his annoyance. Lin frowned at the ground and kicked a half-broken bottle into the building as he walked by. Dark eyes shot to Star Fox, leaning against the bricks. "You look like you can hardly stand and you sound like you're going to drown in your own blood. I could at least call you a fucking cab. Then, if you died, at least I wouldn't be a witness." Russ made a sound that would have been dry, like a snort, except it was damp, and he turned behind him and spat once again, like it was casual. He looked at the kid, who - when the light caught him right, wasn’t fifteen or sixteen but older, old enough to be grown right out of wearing stupid shirts and old lady cardigans - was pandering like it was some kind of sideshow act, and clutching his belly like that might make it better. “I ain’t going to die,” Russ informed him, feeling around inside his mouth experimentally, to see if a tooth that felt loose, was. “You look worse than I do.” "Okay, that's just rude." Lin glanced down at himself, at the dirty spot on Bugs' face where Captain Falcon had held him, now a smudge of brown on gray, then down at the litter, food scraps, and debris that colored his cords a lighter shade. He brushed off the front of his cardigan again, checked the chipped polish on an index finger, then circled the alley to find the corpse of his iPod. "I look fuckin' fab, asshole." Squatting by the dented metal body of his former MP3 player, the boy sighed. It had lived a good life. He scraped the thing off the pavement, careful around the sharp edges of glass, and he slid it into his back pocket. Lin straightened himself up and rounded to face Star Fox again. His stomach was hurting less now, so that was good. But it still felt like the Titanic had collided with it - and we're not taking that metaphor any farther because thinking of thousands of dead people in one's stomach does not ease nausea. Lin drew up in front of the bleeding man again. "And you will die. Eventually." He blinked and smiled. "Come on. Let me get you a cab. ...Assuming my phone wasn't crushed under the weight of like, three fucking tons of men." Lin felt at his other pocket with a slightly alarmed expression. The phone was whole. Whew. That was his only way to access the comms, and, god, what would he do if he couldn't troll the other crazies? Russ didn’t find that kind of thing funny much, but the kid, skinny and self-important and somehow well aware of how fucking ridiculous he looked at the same time, was at least good humored about being knocked on his ass when wading into a fight no one had asked him to. He was mourning over something on the sidewalk, like his dog had died or something, and Russ didn’t feel bad about it the way that’s obvious and solid and he kicked down any sliding sense of guilt that he might be partially responsible. “You want to get me a cab.” Slow, measured. Russ blinked, like this was disbelief. The blood had slowed some, a sluggish trickle from his nostrils and from the corner of his mouth. “You think a fucking cab driver in Vegas is gonna let me bleed over his upholstry? You’re new to this, kid.” But it wasn’t quite as hard as it could be. Lin was fiddling with his phone, just to make sure everything was in working order, when Star Fox spoke. He glanced up from the glowing, little screen and squinted in the much darker night at the beaten man, as if he was giving his words serious thought - which, for once, he was. No doubt he was right. The boy's teeth caught his bottom lip again as he glared back down at the phone, clicking the screen off with an air of frustration. Goddamn. "They certainly let people do worse all over their upholstery," said Lin with a shrug and a meaningful raise of the eyebrows. He put his hands on his hips and squared his shoulders. "Alright, I'll give you a couple options. One, you can limp home and maybe get the police called on you because you look like fucking Dr. Caligari's somnambulist on his way home from a poorly gone boxing match. Two, I can give you my sweater and you can use it to staunch ...things. Or three, I'll drive you home." So, maybe Lin was a little bit bossy. He folded his arms over his chest. Russ didn’t take kindly to bossy. He was the kind of man who took it from women now and again, because it interested him and because it could be stopped - either by walking away or making certain that bossing him wasn’t high on the list of priorities. He took it from men when it was work, and he ducked his head and he worked against the line because he’d learned from being the kind of angry teenager who fought it, and lost. He didn’t understand one damn word after ‘doctor’, and his head was aching like he was seeing stars on the inside of his head. He hadn’t fought that badly and he hadn’t had it go down so wrong in a long time, and he mostly blamed the kid in front of him in his stupid t-shirt but the kind of blame that was half-hearted. “What would you know about worse?” Russ asked, because it didn’t look like the skinny kid got drunk, let alone laid, and had never been stopped by an annoyed cab driver who demanded the fare plus tip and to be done, because of what was happening in the back-seat. He ignored the options, because he was wiping blood from his hand on his jeans, and there wasn’t bite in his voice at all. Russ had lost what mellow he’d had in the bar, the hazy-warm feeling of being drunk and content at being drunk, but he wasn’t riled any more. He was off-guard and he was relaxed in so much as having every muscle in one’s body beaten into submission is relaxed, and he swayed back against the wall and he laughed. So he was skinny and geeky and more than a little abrasive. But, Lin also happened to be the kind of pretty a lot of men, and some women, liked, all big, dark eyes and pouty lips. And he worked it when he was in the mood to. Geekiness and sexiness, or just geekiness and sex, were not mutually exclusive, and the expression he made, one that was the flat sort of indignation that just asked 'are you srs rn?', said as much when he turned his eyes on Star Fox. "Baby, you don't want to know," Lin replied with the same mocking smile as before, giving the man a very intentional looking over just for funsies. Because pretending to check out drunk, likely straight macho dudes in dark back-alleys behind bars was always a smart choice. Then he sighed. If nothing else, Lin was persistent. And he wasn't going to drop it, even if the fox wanted him to. "You're not going to make me carry you, are you? Because I don't want to. But I will if I have to." It didn’t bother Russ the way maybe the kid intended it to, being looked over in Vegas was as likely to come from a guy you were stood too close at a bar as a woman and Russ didn’t care, the solidity of his own sexuality didn’t need defending from those kinds of looks. It gave him a piece more about the kid, along with the bizarre shirt and the cardigan, and he half-closed his eyes because he didn’t care and because closing his eyes felt a little like heaven would someday, and he didn’t look at the kid when he spoke. “Couldn’t if you tried,” he said comfortably, his head was tipped back on brickwork, and maybe the alley was comfortable enough to wait it out til his head cleared some, no one else seemed inclined to make use of it, night was still young enough. “Why the hell you bothering, kid? You got smashed up enough?” “No, I want you to kick my ass, please. Me feeling like I’m going to vomit up the entirety of my digestive system has really got me wanting more. Why not throw in my respiratory system?” The words sounded earnest enough, though they, uh, obviously, were not meant. There was a little laugh. Lin came close to the reclining man with the swollen eye. (Intriguing that the dude didn’t seem to mind being checked out. That was pretty cool. Not that Lin wanted to, you know, like, have sex with him or anything. Vikings weren’t really his thing, but. Still.) He stood on his tiptoes in a relatively vain attempt to get a look at the cuts and scrapes on Star Fox’s face. But, the angle he had his head back at, reclining as he was against the building still, was too high and Lin was too short, so he dropped back down onto his sneakers and added a foot of space between their bodies. “I’m bothering you because my very evil and ulterior motive is to get you into my car and to your house so I can steal your iPod to replace mine. Definitely not because you’re bleeding from your fucking face. That’d just be weird.” Russ cracked one eye. Once the kid had stopped trying to get at him - to get an idea of what being pulverized looked like? he didn’t know, he was still a voice, specifically far too close to be ignored, and the headache setting in was like death-metal without the music. “You trying to breathe on me?” he asked, without any heat to it, but more like he thought perhaps the kid was weird enough to try it. He was still talking about iPods and cars and Russ went a little rigid at the words steal your - but the kid, skinny and weird and also male wasn’t a tiny blond in an extremely short skirt and highly unlikely to make off with what cash he’d scratched together for the stake next week. If he was still pestering, then maybe it looked worse than it felt - Russ gingerly tested his nose and it wasn’t broken but it felt like fire, webbing across his face, and up his cheekbone. His head was pounding like he wasn’t walking anywhere for some yet, and finally - “You want to play fucking taxi cab, be my fucking guest,” begrudging, like gravel over glass. “But I ain’t got an iPod for you to make off with.” “Not ‘fucking taxi cab.’ Remember, I know nothing of such things.” He spoke lightly, airily, and as if he wasn’t giving anything he was saying much thought. Which was the truth. The stiffening of the man’s body had not gone unnoticed, but Lin wasn’t going to say anything about that. Maybe he’d been mugged? Or robbed from? It didn’t really matter. It had been a joke. Lin wasn’t really the thieving type. “But, if I am going to be your chauffeur, then I insist you call me ...uh, idk, Jeeves? Or Lin. Lin works too. That’s what everyone else calls me.” There. A proper introduction. The boy smiled at Star Fox, treading backwards as he did so - just a silent suggestion that they get the show on the road. It wasn’t late, no. But, well, as good a Samaritan as he was, Lin also kind of wanted to go home and lay his iPod to rest in the backyard and then remember all the good times they’d had without interruption. His car wasn’t so far away. He’d managed to nab a spot near enough to the theater - just around the corner from the bar and its shitty back-alley. Lin, Lin was a name that couldn’t really be disremembered once you heard it - there weren’t many guys around named what Russ considered to be a girl’s name - but he couldn’t put it into perspective for a long second and his mind was a muzzy slide of liquor blurring out the absence of adrenaline, and pain settling in where it could. “Russ,” said Russ, short and to the point and the walk might have been short but it listed and it pitched like a boat-deck rather than a flat piece of pavement out in front. He gave the kind of directions that were terse and brief, the kind used to driving rather than being driven, and he leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes like he could pass out right there and then. He didn’t give a shit for the car, could have told Lin he was driving a piece of crap on wheels and he shifted in his seat, head on the glass and said without opening his eyes, “Shocks are gone to crap.” Of course. Everyone in the fucking city was short and to the point, save for Lin. Why was that? Why did everyone insist on being boring? He blinked at the man - Star Fox/Russ, and nodded by way of accepting that as his name. ‘Russ.’ Too bad. He’d really wanted it to be something like Björn, Bringer of Halitosis (why the fuck not?), or Ortygg the Fearsome. Oh, well. For once, he didn’t say anything more. Not until they were in the car, had their destination mapped out, and his phone (sniff) was playing Kid Sister (quietly), and Russ thought to inform the boy of the faults of his car. Shocks were gone to crap, eh? Not a very gracious customer, was he? Free fare and all Lin got were insults. - Or maybe it was a consultation. He couldn’t tell. The boy flashed the poor man a very wide, innocent smile when they bumped over an especially rough patch of pavement, dotted with shoddily-repaired potholes, going a bit over the speed limit. (Lin had something of a lead foot, it was true. Though he drove well.) They jostled in their seats and Lin laughed. Because maybe he was a little, teeny bit evil. And maybe it was a little, teeny bit on purpose. “I guess you’re right.” Another laugh. The car was old. Older than Lin, if only just. A chocolate brown Volvo from the 80s. Fly as hell. And the boy loved it. He got a lot of shit for it, because, apparently, what he drove mattered to everyone else, but he didn’t give one single fuck. They pulled up in front of Russ’ place. Russ’s place was squat, dirty concrete and dull, dark windows and no one would have called it nice. It was the wrong end of town for nice, sitting square up against places where people turned up and they left, and that was the best that could be said about them. It was dirty, like neglect on the outside, like a landlord who didn’t much care if the place went to shit and it looked like all the others in a line, gray boxes that people didn’t call home as much as live in. Russ knew he was damn right, he’d been in enough cars to know and he’d have called the kid on it if he’d had an ounce of spit left in him, but he was tired and he was liquor-fuzzy and just about everything that could ache was bitching and complaining, given he’d gone out expecting to bring someone back for a whole other reason. He didn’t take people home for anything other than that, and he brought them home good and distracted so they weren’t looking at the piece of shit lawn and the weather-worn porch step out front. Russ didn’t like people in his space and he didn’t like feeling he had to make excuses for what he was and what he had; he didn’t bring people back and that was damn fine. The kid had shaken them all to hell on the way back, Russ would have said something about the driving but he was the fluid boneless of the too drunk to care, and he was a dead weight folded into too small a space, his head knocking on the cool glass of the window. He didn’t look at the kid, but he opened the door, and he walked like he wasn’t going to look back toward the dark of the house. It was quiet, the kind of quiet that came from it being too early for the trouble to start, and the pause at the door was one for multiple locks, the security of living in an area that didn’t lend itself to ease of mind. The car idled outside of a low, dark building, the kind that showed up as the homes of the poor, disenfranchised, inner city children of color in every white savior movie ever, the kind that was maybe a little bit scary. Lin blinked as the man climbed out of the passenger seat, leaving him alone in the car. He wasn’t one to judge - not really. He’d grown up in a securely middle class home in a shitkicker town, and he could recognize things for what they were pretty quickly. But, he didn’t let that cast any kind of shadow over a person, or he tried not to. It just added to his knowledge of them. Like, for example, Daniel living in a gigantic bear cave, devoid of light and love. It didn’t make the man a vampire, no, but it sure as hell said a lot about him. Russ’ place was the same. Mostly the boy was just curious. Though he’d been no given indication he was meant to follow, Lin did it anyway. Because why not. He unsnapped his seat belt, turned the car off, and hurried after the drunk man, up the crooked plane of the front porch. He listened to the metal sounds of ...um, like, 20 locks being opened. “I’m just going to make sure you don’t slip on a knife and stab yourself before I go,” was all he said, his hands finding his pockets and shoulders curling against the light wind. “Otherwise, I wasted gas, and I’ll need to siphon some from your car. Or a car. Or whatever.” Russ turned from the door - now ajar - and he gave the kid a look, all hazy drunk skepticism and he leaned in and flipped the lights. “Gas is out back. Take what you fucking want.” There was a musty smell, like trapped air and emptiness and the hall was the peeling magnolia of rentals, of charmless impersonality. There were no pictures on the walls but there were hooks; Russ shrugged himself out of his jacket, and he didn’t seem to care about the blood down the front of it, crusting darkly now - he moved past it, to a cramped kitchen with a pile of dishes in the sink but normal, if normal was the dull evidence of an obvious pattern to life. There was one ring on the cooker that looked like it was used much, and the smell of coffee, much faded, still hung in the air. The dishes in the sink were few and the place was clean - clean enough; Russ pulled a glass from a cabinet like it was routine, and he gulped at water as if the ingestion of it didn’t interest him other than the consumption of it, and he shouldered past the kid - Lin - like it didn’t matter to him if the kid was there or he wasn’t. The room beyond was larger but barely so; it was a couch, the springs looked as though they had collapsed and given up long before, and the blanket tossed over it was the sort bought in plastic packaging from Target or Walmart, picked out because it was the first thing to offer. Russ sagged onto it with the kind of groan that was pleasure or pain, possibly both and he closed his eyes and he shuffled his head into the saggy pillow propped against the end-rest with a comfortable sort of movement that looked as though it was routine. “Take anything,” he said, eyes shut, “And I’ll fucking beat you to death.” Russ yawned. Though the outside, all cracked walls and black windows, had earned Lin’s wariness, the inside of the little abode was actually pretty clean. He blinked in the sudden light. There weren’t many homey touches, no pictures of similar-looking, but smaller people (“children”), no doilies, not even a hatstand, but, well, Russ didn’t exactly seem the knickknack sort and the boy remained unsurprised. He trailed along behind the broad-shouldered man, eyes sweeping each room, left to right, like scanning a page in a book, as he took in his surroundings. The kitchen was small, but orderly in its own way. And Lin leaned against the refrigerator as Russ rehydrated himself, only to be jostled out of the way when the man wanted past. He stepped aside and followed along to the next room. It was ...kind of a bedroom/living room. A couch, ugly and drooping, took up most the space. There was a thin-looking blanket shrouded over it - at least until Russ dropped himself onto the thing with a sound that worried Lin. “Oh, no. Don’t mention. Happy to give you a ride. Anytime,” scoffed the boy, pretending to have been thanked as he circled around the room idly, looking at everything, but touching nothing. He paused to glance down at Russ, all huddled up on the sofa, eyes closed, brown blood scabbing over the cuts on his face. He supposed he should go. Lin sighed. “Alright, sleeping beauty, it’s been real.” “You waiting for something?” Russ curled an eye open, looked at the kid who was circling as if there was something more to see. The bedroom - where the cash, what little there was in the house, was kept - was upstairs which was, in Russ’s present state of mind, entirely too far away to much bother with. The couch was as comfortable (or as uncomfortable) as the bed, and in a handful of hours, he would need to go to work making the trip up the stairs as much of a waste of time as it was a bother. He didn’t ask if Lin wanted anything and he didn’t ask if he wanted him to spot him gas-money; as far as Russ was concerned the kid had offered and he wasn’t going to deprive him of Good Samaritan-ing him home. His wallet was wedged between his ass and the couch and he didn’t feel like fishing it out, either. “Thanks.” A sharp grin, pleased with himself and warm, teeth and bloodied-stubble and the creases at the corners of his eyes, in Lin’s general direction. Russ was amiable, when he was drunk. Lin wasn’t waiting for anything. He just looking, alright. He didn’t need the money and he had most definitely insisted on Russ accepting his offer for a ride, so, even if he did need it, he wouldn’t have asked for it. But, okay, it would be a little creepy to hang around after someone passed out from drinking and/or head trauma, so, yeah, he should probably go. “You’re welcome, princess. Don’t forget to lock your zombie-proof door after me,” Lin laughed, at the grin and how self-satisfied it was, and the fact that a huge Nord of a man was under a cute blanket on a couch, looking pretty fucking snug. People were so fucking weird and so fucking adorbs. The boy wiggled his fingers in a wave, and followed the hallway back to the door with its 9,000 locks. He needed to go home too. Though the pain in his stomach had subsided some, it was still uncomfortable as fuck, all knotted up in his muscles. Still, he had faith in himself and figured playing Super Smash Bros. was really the only way to end his night, and that wouldn’t aggravate it. Not a minute later, the flare of the engine of the old car starting up and the wash of yellow headlights across the front of the house told of his departure. |