Who: Laura and NPC(?)!Orin (blast from the past!) What: A phonecall request for a loan that will never be paid back Where: Laura's room When: Right after her journal discussion with Gabe. Warnings/Rating: Angel begs Epi to haul Orin out of retirement for a log. Orin and Laura are fondly cranky at each other, as usual. Some angst, not too bad.
Laura sighed as she set her journal off to the side. She honestly wasn’t sure what she had been expecting from checking in with Gabe, but if she was honest, she supposed that it wasn’t a complete surprise. It had just been more exhausting than she’d anticipated. Men were infuriating, but she had at least been back to a place where she wasn’t writing all of them off altogether. She couldn’t even blame him. He was being a good guy, even if it did hurt and suck. A lot. She flopped back on her bed with another sigh. Eyes closed, she could hear the quiet movements of Ella and her baby downstairs. It hadn’t been bad so far, and she was willing to admit that. It maybe wasn’t ideal, but it was do-able. Just like almost everything else in Vegas, save one thing.
Her job had continued to grow more and more unbearable. The daily tedium was mind-numbing, the pay was awful and a fraction of what she was worth, the shop itself was so poorly run it made her want to scream. And her boss. Her boss continued to be an idiot on good days and verbally abusive on bad days. It was taking its own sort of toll, sinking in just from the repetition, and she knew that it would either blow up in her face soon, or drag her down until she felt like she couldn’t escape at all. She’d been putting out feelers at other places, seeing if anyone was hiring, and while she was at least getting better responses in general, everyone’s employee roster was frustratingly full. Or “full” when she came asking, at least. It didn’t matter which, not in the long run. It just left her without a lot of options.
There was still one left, though. One she’d been trying to ignore because it involved sucking up all of her pride and making a phonecall that would likely include an infuriating “I told you so”. But it was better than watching herself waste away in a dead-end job. And her only other option now, the one that was looking more and more tempting, was to leave the city. But she was trying not to give up quite that easily.
Orin’s number was still saved in her phone, and with only a minimum of fumbling through menus and buttons, she managed to get it to come up. Curled on her side, propped on a pillow, she listened to the ringing on the other end of the line.
Orin Monarch had sowed his damn oats all around the United States of America in his youth, and he'd ended up with a whole mess of shit to show for it. He had Laura, who was that one ex he felt all kinds of guilt about. He had Nell, who Anton did more fathering for than he did, despite him being the one that shared DNA with her. He had a whole bunch of failed relationships, East and West, and he'd got tired enough to settle down in Georgia when Anton's company went bankrupt. He had enough money to buy Manhattan, thanks to a family business of silver spoons and nukes, and he had a whole shitload of guilt to go along with that cash. These days, he was a man just over forty, blond and fit, and he liked rocking on his porch as much as he liked driving fast and finding something way too young to sink himself into.
This month, he was sitting at Anton's bedside, watching the fool man be an idiot about his damn heart, and there was nothing that made a man feel his mortality more than staring death in the eye. Anton had been sick since Seattle, and this was five good years coming, but Orin didn't like it any better for being logical. Anton's boyfriend hovered, which Orin didn't like. But Nell hadn't been talking about her mafioso boyfriend, which Orin did like. Orin liked throwing his money around and making the world listen, but he couldn't do a damn thing to move Anton up in the transplant lists. He was a hard and fast Democrat, and he believed no one should have a monetary advantage when it came to health, but it still pissed him off like there was no tomorrow. He was a man of two moods, and he pushed away from Anton's bedside when the phone rang.
He looked down at the number, and he didn't wonder which Laura was calling. He'd bedded down with plenty of women, but not many of them made it into his contacts. He set himself near a window, far enough away from Anton's listening that the man wouldn't lecture him about settling down once he was off the phone.
"Sweetheart," he greeted, all South and the rumble of a man past thirty that liked smoking too much for his own damn good, or for anyone else's. "Calling to sell me a ficus?"
The rumble was more familiar than anything in Vegas save Max, and it made Laura smile with a fondness that had grown from shared history. Stupid small things, like the voice of a man she’d known for a surprising number of years, made the nearly-constant tension leech from her shoulders, even if it threw a lump into the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, put it down to a strange sort of homesickness, and tried to pretend like it wasn’t there. “Like you could afford my ficus after all these years, you ass,” she replied, settling more comfortably curled on her bed with the gentle sound of springs and shifting bedding. There had been long years that she would have disbelieved ever having the ability to develop the warm feelings for him that she had, and it still amused her. “You had your chance.” The refusal was soft and delivered with a smile.
“Not why I’m calling, no.” She hesitated, not wanting to jump right into requests, like that was the only reason she would ever call him. It might have been the reason this time, but she’d called for other reasons in the past. “How’s your life partner?”
Orin chuckled, and the sound carried a tired grin with it. "Don't go challenging a man over a ficus, Laura," he told her, good natured and easily falling into the banter from all those years ago. He hadn't gotten into anything serious since Seattle - well, except Anton, and that didn't even come with a damn reacharound. He listened to her settle, and he gave her time to go on and say whatever she wanted to say, before he went asking other questions. "I figured as much," he said of the ficus, because what would he do with a damn tree anyways?
"Anton's going to get himself killed for being a damn nuisance soon, and then we won't have to worry about a heart transplant," he said with fond exasperation. He was too old for BFFs or any of his daughter's other catchphrases, but Anton was the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother, and the worry seeped through that fond exasperation. He left Anton's room, footfalls on cool tile, and the sounds of outside filtered through the call. He exhaled, and it was the kind of breathing that came from being cooped up too long; he'd always hated closed up spaces, and he still couldn't stomach the damn things. A match hissed, and there was the sound of a deep, rumbling inhale. "Go on and tell me what you're calling for. You never just call, sweetheart."
“You like being challenged. Over a ficus or anything else.” Still smiling and filled with a gentle sort of assurance that stated that she knew exactly what she was talking about. “But maybe I’ll get you something that suits you more than a ficus would. Something flowery. Delicate. How’s that sound?” The laughter never quite made it to the surface, but it was laced through her words as she actually tried to think of something that would be the complete opposite of what he would want. She wondered how long it would take him to kill it. By accident or on purpose.
Talk of dying and transplants made her go quiet though, seriousness layered on top of an already subdued mood, and she frowned. She knew Anton, but not well. That didn’t mean she wanted any of them to have to deal with the problems and backlash of a heart that had decided to give up on him. “Like you’d let anyone kill him,” she finally said softly. “You’d figure out a way to bring him back just to yell at him some more.” She looked around her room as she talked to him, her eyes falling on the stained shirt she’d worn to work the day before, on the tiny budvase she kept on her dresser (filled this week with a random bunch of cut orchids that had snuck into a bucket of roses). She sighed when she heard the match, the long breath in, and she could picture him on the other end of the line, pacing around outside with the cigarette in his hand, hospital in the background.
“I can call for no reason if I want to. Maybe I’m checking up on you because I know you’re not getting enough sleep and not taking care of yourself.” She’d seen it happen before, when things in Seattle had gotten rough at times, and she remembered the way his face would go lined with the exhaustion, skin sallow and dull. It was easy enough to forget when wrapped up in all her own problems. She didn’t have a lot of friends, and there were long enough periods of time where she wasn’t very good to the ones she had. Her mind flashed to her recent sickly pale skin, fingers dug into rich soil that went dry and barren under her hands, everything dying around her as she cried acid tears. An image that seemed even more apt and accurate after the conversation in the nearby journal. It took a long moment to pull herself back, stubbornly changing the original intention of the call. “When was the last time you left to get any sort of rest?”
"Woman, don't make me hang up this phone," was Orin's deep-voiced response to the idea of flowers. Woman had always been too fond of blooms for his liking, though he didn't mind the thought of knocking over some potted plants and getting dirty with a woman. But that had been a long time ago, and he was older now. He wasn't supposed to be a randy old goat these days, but then he'd never been one for following the rules that were set. "Send me a cactus, if you think I need something green in my life." He chuckled at her very correct assessment of him not letting Anton die; he'd bring the man back just to kill him with his own, very capable hands.
"You're not checking up on me. You haven't checked up on me in years," he said, a heavy exhale and his voice going more southern growl thanks to the tar and nicotine. "I sleep plenty," he assured her. It wasn't lying really. He slept more these days, now that Nell wasn't talking about Sebastian, than he had while waiting for word that she'd gotten killed as some mafia casualty. He was glad she hadn't married Sebastian; he would have disowned her for that, and then Anton would have disowned him, and it would have been a world of mess all around. But Orin couldn't stomach killing, and he couldn't hold onto a child that married into a life of murdering. But now there was just Anton to worry about, and being near made it easier to sleep, like he could keep Anton from dying just by being in the room.
"Spit it out, woman," he finally told her, another inhale of the cigarette punctuating the command.
“It’s a new, resurrected habit. Checking up on the most infuriating man in my life.” Her voice held a smile, but it was still soft and concerned, even though she tried to push that part down and away. But a disbelieving sound snuck its way back out, an automatic reaction to the thought that he was getting enough sleep. Not that she was one to talk, but it wasn’t about her in that moment. “You sleep some, don’t you?”
She let the question hang for a long moment, listening to the prolonged exhale of him smoking and the growl of his voice. She closed her eyes as she turned, resettled with her back propped against the headboard. With the sight of her room blocked out, she could almost see the smoke around him, the exasperated frown. It made something warm down in her stomach and reminded her once again why she didn’t call more often. Beyond that, the warmth was familiar, not just from him, but from someone more recent, and she pushed that particular thought away as quickly and forcefully as she could before the Max in her head could accuse her of having a “type”.
“My job is killing me,” she finally sighed out, giving in to the question that had formed itself as a command. “I’m going to punch my boss one of these days, and she’s going to deserve it far more than she deserves to be called a business owner.” She paused, swallowing hard and sighing. “I hate her.” It came out soft, too honest and too intense, the rush of feelings from more than one direction coming to the surface.
"Seems to me some things should stay dead, sweetheart," Orin said, sure as sunrise coming in the morning. It wasn't any secret that he wasn't good for Laura. He hadn't ever been good for Laura. Didn't change the fact that there was chemistry there, and enough of it to light a whole slew of things on fire. He was a selfish, hard man, and he wasn't made for loving a woman for more than a night at time. He'd tried, and he'd tried plenty, and he'd only ended up leaving a trail of heartache behind him. "But I sleep plenty," he assured her, a slow grin settling into his voice. "Glad you're still concerned about what goes on in my bed."
He listened to her moving about, and he let her take her sweet time to get to whatever needed getting to. He wasn't in any hurry. After all, he spent his days watching Anton sleep or tantrum lately, so waiting on Laura to spit out her reason for calling was something novel, new, and he never minded talking to an attractive woman. Once she said her job was killing her, he grinned, but he didn't say a damn thing until she finished up. "You're calling me for money," he said. And he would mind it from some folks. But Laura was different, and their history was deep enough that he didn't mind in the slightest. Plus, the damn woman was proud as they came, and she must have been fed up to come begging at him. "Funny, but I was just thinking of investing in a flower shop. While I was at the hospital, I saw all these arrangements walk by, and I thought it would be good for money." Which was a lie, and that came out clear in his voice. There was even a grin there, a smug old thing that was rough and familiar. "What were you thinking?"
“Yes, they probably should,” she replied, more a whisper for herself than for him, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. A reminder. Past histories staying in the past, and futures being far, far from it. Poison leaching into everything around her. Fucking hotel, for showing her something that felt so true. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she attempted to recover with a twisted smile and a shake of her head. “Like I care what happens in your bed.” It was a lie, at least part of it, but she wasn’t going to admit to that any more.
She groaned at the almost gleeful tone of his voice. The tone that said she was never going to live this down. “I’m calling for money,” she admitted, though it grated her throat to do so. She hated that she’d been brought to it, to be just another one of the crowd that asked him for things. She’d never wanted his money, even years ago, even when he’d practically thrown it at her a time or two. That wasn’t why she’d looked in his direction to start with, and it wasn’t why she continued to hold him as a friend (no matter how strange and slightly fractured that friendship sometimes was). “I didn’t know what else to do, other than head back to New York and go back to my old room in Gwennie’s place. If she’d even agree to it at this point.” She ignored his ramble about flower shops and get well arrangements, knowing he was just playing into the situation, and her own words came out more serious than they should have in the face of his teasing prodding. The sound of the gravel grin in his voice was almost too much to handle, a familiar thing that she wanted to crawl inside of, and she prayed that he wouldn’t call her on the slight wobble of her own voice. “I was thinking of something good enough that it would keep me here for a while. ...give me a reason to stay.” It wasn’t any sort of description of a shop - he knew the sort of places she’d had before and would likely lean towards again, if he agreed to the funding.
He chuckled when she told him not to flatter himself. Age hadn't taken his confidence away, and he could be a smug bastard of a man. He didn't have any doubt that he could get Laura back into his bed, if he tried for it. But he wouldn't try for it, because he was a bastard, through and through. He was too damn hard, too damn set in his ways, too damn unbending. It had taken him awhile to get comfortable with those things about himself, but it was what it was, and there wasn't anything that would change it. He'd stopped thinking the woman would come along to make his eye stop wandering. Orin Monarch's gaze always wandered.
Her groan made him smile; he always had liked getting her goat. "You know I'll give you anything I got that you need," he told her, because he was generous that way. Even bastards had their soft spots. "Leaving New York and Gwen was a big move. Don't go backtracking," he told her. He knew about leaving safe and steady places, and he knew how dependent she'd been on her friend after Seattle. "You got property in mind? How much collateral are you looking at?" he asked, because he'd been born to business. As much as he hated that his silver spoon came coated in the blood that came with being a weapon's manufacturer, he was still a businessman - a liberal, politically minded businessman. "Vegas is probably a good place for blooms. Lots of weddings, lots of people falling in lust."
There was a pause as he stubbed out the cigarette, quiet as he exhaled that last puff of nicotine and tar and heat. "You keep an eye on Nell for me?" He sounded concerned, for the first time in the conversation. It would make her feel better about asking him for a favor, he thought, if she was giving him something back. It wasn't any secret that he was a damn terrible father, and Anton had other concerns than a twenty-something girl that couldn't get her heart right.
The truth of the matter was, he was frustratingly right about his ability to get her back into bed if he wanted. Even in the years when she’d shied away from people, there was still enough attraction there that could have drawn her back in. Now, when things had started to settle even more, it wouldn’t take much. She ignored it as best she could, a weird sort of unspoken knowing between the two of them. She knew, in her memories from Seattle, that there had been too many times (between the bitter anger) where it felt that she’d just about thrown herself at him. It had taken a stern self-focused talking-to to stop, and she was stubborn enough to not go there again. Didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the rumble over the phone and the broad-shouldered view on those few occasions when she saw him.
The problem with having her shop, was while she could run the hell out of it, the set-up was always a little dicey. It had been difficult enough when she’d had money and merchandise and a good idea of what she was doing. A plan. But that was years ago, and she’d lost everything in Seattle, including a good bit of herself. She knew she still had it in her - she had to, didn’t she? - but the foremost thought in her mind was ‘give me something to throw myself into’ and ‘get me away from this hellhole of a job’. Neither one included information on capital, locations, collateral. She had just enough money to make her portion of rent (most months), and that was about it.
There was a heavy silence in response to his questioning, and creeping panic snuck in to fill the void where answers should have been. “Fuck,” she whispered, the sound of bedsprings coming again as she sat forward and rubbed at her eyes. A laugh snuck out, bitter and sharp-edged as a blade, and she shook her head, remembering the sound that acid made when it hit rich, healthy soil. She bit her lip against the laugh and swallowed hard. “Maybe...” she stopped, swallowed again. “Why don’t you just buy the place I’m working at now and hire me a new boss? Maybe bump me up to some full-time hours?” It wouldn’t be hers. But maybe it would be better that way. “I can probably deal with the shitty store if I don’t have to work for her.”
And as far as Nell went. “I tried looking her up when I got here.” The absolute lack of communication back to Orin should have indicated how well that had gone. She let the statement hang, listening to the sounds of Beth fussing from downstairs, Ella comforting her, and hoped the crying didn’t carry over the line to him.
"Come on now," he chided, warmth and grit in his voice. "You were doing good there for a few minutes, sweetheart. I'll buy you a location on the Strip, somewhere near a big hotel with a good chapel. I'll get you a financial manager, and I'll fill your coffers. In return, you check on my kid. She doesn't have a mother, Daniels, and I think she needs a woman in her life. I trust you. Your head's on straight, which is more than I can say for Anton and myself sometimes. Her boyfriend's a menace, and she won't come crying to me about him, because she knows I still can't stand the thought of him. I help you, and you help me." He was quiet when he heard the baby fussing. He considered asking, but he didn't really have any right, and he knew better than to open doors that might end with her tangled in bedsheets with him between her thighs.
He moved, the wind rustling against the earpiece. "Financial manager will be will in touch in two days, sweetheart, with locations."
Silence hung in the wake of his chiding, and she sighed as she rubbed her eyes again. It was a strange mix of odd and familiar, his brand of support. “You know I’m never going to be able to pay you back, right? If you get me a location like that...” She hadn’t given more than a cursory glance at the real estate prices in the city, but even off the Strip they were high. “I’d be happy with a crumbling hole on the outskirts of the city, at this point.” A hole that had a few nice, healthy plants, but a hole nonetheless.
“Orin... You know I’m the least maternal person around. Even Max has more mothering in her than I do.” It wasn’t a no, though. She owed him. And she remembered Nell, remembered the sort of concern that she could carry for someone else’s kid. She sighed again and shook her head. “I don’t have a good track record with other people’s kids. I can try, but no promises I won’t fuck everything up even more. That’s been par for the course lately.”
Her smile started to sneak back in though, thoughts (however tentative) of a shop of her own helping. “Two days. ...don’t go too crazy with it. I can’t handle something big right now.”
"I can't take it with me, sweetheart," Orin said of his wealth. These days, he wasn't sure he'd have a daughter to leave it to, either, and he'd accepted the fact that he was going to outlast Anton. Either way, what Laura was asking was a piss in the pot, and he didn't give a damn about being reimbursed. He would make sure the places the financial manager pulled to show her were upscale, high-end. It was the least he could do, seeing as she'd swallowed her pride to come asking. No crumbling hole on the outskirts of the city, but he didn't tell her as much. She'd figure it out once she saw the options she was given, and it was enough to imagine the growling look on her face. It made him chuckle slightly.
"Good thing she's not a child," he said of Nell. Nell was past needing mothering, but she needed a woman. "She needs someone older, Laura, who's been through it. Not one of her damn flighty friends, and not that mafia son that keeps making her show up with puffy eyes. I don't want my daughter marrying into a family of killers, and I think this boy's wrong for her, even if he turns it around. He's made her cry too damn much. She needs someone who knows what life's really like, and I trust you with her." He scoffed when he said she didn't have a good track record. "Don't make me growl, woman. I'm giving you the damn greenlight."
"I won't buy you a hotel. How's that?" he asked, teasing and fond and a door opening in the background. "You just make yourself happy, you hear?"
She already knew that his planning was miles ahead of her, ahead of where she even intended to be, and she rolled her eyes at his quiet chuckle even though he couldn’t see it. She was certain he’d know, remember what it looked like. “Please don’t go too crazy. I mean it. I’m...” she paused, thinking, not quite sure how much she should actually drop on him in one unexpected phone call. “Things are a little weird. I just want something familiar and steady. Not overly ambitious.”
There was too much hesitation, too much what-if and can’t-do in her mind, but she finally swallowed hard and sighed again. “I’ll try. I can’t promise anything. That she’ll even talk to me or that I won’t fuck it up more than it already is. In fact, recent events show it leaning that way. But I’ll try.” She paused, and though she tried to continue with the same tone, it came out softer and wary. “Don’t trust me with stuff, Orin.”
A moment of silence hung there, words echoing down the line before she cleared her throat. “No hotels. Nothing big. I’ll... do my best to not run it into the ground.” Nothing about happiness, no comments there at all.
"You're making the choice, sweetheart," he told her, and he'd make sure the places she saw were rich and upscale, but not huge. Something she could make a name for herself with, like those damn tiny cupcake stores that kept popping up all over the damn place and making news. As for fucking things up with Nell, he just snorted, because no one could do worse with Nell than him. "Woman, I can trust who I damn well please," he informed her. And he would, because no one could tell Orin Monarch what to do, not when he'd set his mind to something. "And you'll do what you want with the place, because it's yours. This isn't a loan. I don't want money back, and I don't want to see your financials, woman. I want you to enjoy it, and if you run it bankrupt, I want you to at least have a good time doing it." Because all that blood money, it ought to bring happiness somewhere. "It was nice hearing from you, Laura. Now go and fuss over a sunflower," he concluded, fondness thick in his rough voice.
She sighed at him, and there was something comforting in the history and familiarity of it. Being exasperated with him was a constant, able to be counted on when everything else was turned on its head. He didn’t make it easy, and he was more difficult than anyone else she knew. And it was good that way. She listened, smiled at his stubbornness, and shook her head. “You’re an idiot,” she said, and it came out as ‘thank you’; it came out as care and affection. It came out as warmth and yet more proof why it was better for them to be in different parts of the country. “Get away from Anton’s room for a while, okay? Find something too young and lure it back to your old man bed.” Another pause, filled with all those warm, unsaid things. “I’ll call sooner next time. Phone works both ways though, you know.”
Orin grumbled, because the man was good at that and always had been. "Don't like phones," he admitted, sounding old and ornery. He felt old and ornery, and he thought it was fitting that he let himself sound like he felt. He'd quit pretending to be something he wasn't years ago. Seattle had been nothing but anger for him, and Georgia was soothing and familiar and comfortable rockers on the porch of his childhood. "You go tell that boss of yours to go fuck herself, and make it good," he finally said, a grin in it, and then he disconnected the call, figuring he had enough time for one more cigarette before he had to keep Anton from trying to get out of bed again.
His grumbling actually pulled a laugh from her. It wasn’t loud or boisterous, wasn’t any sort of free like it used to be all those years ago, but it was a solid reflection of who she was now. “I don’t like computers, but I still manage. ...sort of.” The thought of telling her boss off made her nearly breathless with something that bordered on giddy glee, and she laughed again. She opened her mouth to tell him something else, to say thank you for real, but the phone had given a click and gone the sort of quiet that meant no one else was on the line. “Asshole,” she whispered to herself, but the smile was wide across her face for just a moment before reality settled in again and she went serious. The call hadn’t changed everything, and things still ached in ways that would last long past the smile on her face. But it was enough to keep her in the city and save her from sliding back into the broken, bitter thing she knew she could be. For now.