loki laufeyson (toberuled) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-01-22 18:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | loki, mal |
Who: Louis (but mostly Loki) and Chloe
What: Loki plants the final piece of evidence and does a good Louis impression for Chloe.
Where: Chloe's apartment.
When: When Louis goes back to the apartment to get a change of clothes.
Warnings/Rating: None!
Louis had been at the hospital for almost 24 hours. He had arrived as soon as news broke of the shooting, and he had stood, motionless, in front of the blaring television.
He mostly worked from home these days. He had let his lease on the office go, and communicated with his assistant by email. She sent him cases, and he pursued them with less and less passion. His conversation with Saint had allowed him to admit that private detective work, or even detective work in general, was not, perhaps, the profession for him. He had liked things about them, namely the authority and usefulness they conveyed to him, but the work itself was beyond dull. He was good at it, make no mistake, but not good enough. Not enough that leaving it behind felt like a waste of some great talent. He was not a great detective. Merely a good one.
With that acknowledgement had come fear and denial. If he wasn’t a detective, what was he? What else was there? He had only ever pursued one profession, be it in an official or a private capacity. He looked after Casey and he ran down leads and he tried not to think about what finding a new purpose for his life might mean. His love life was in horrific shambles, and he had cut off family and lost friends. He was the problem, and he had no idea how to fix it.
When the news report about Sam Alexander began to scroll across his television screen, it was an incredible thing, really. His anxiety, his apathy, his depression, they all disappeared. They were there, and then they were gone, dissipated like so much mist under the harsh light of what was happening, what had happened, what he had been too late to stop. There was a moment like a stone dropping through his skull and into his chest, and then it was over. Ears buzzing, he gathered his coat and called the hospital the news report had declared his sister was now lying in with a hole in her head.
24 hours. In that time he had done a lot of writing and not much speaking. He felt calm, he felt cool all the way through. He didn’t feel much of anything, really. He made decisions, and he looked critically at what had happened, and he accepted certain realities. He liked this. He wished catastrophe was more often like this. They wouldn’t let him see Sam, so he stayed in the waiting room, almost bored, really, and mates notes to himself. Chloe...he felt somehow satisfied that she would be taken care of. Jude Murphy, though, would require a good plan and a strong hand to stop. He had a lawyer’s tenacity. Whatever happened to Alexander would need to be carefully architected so that suspicion fell away from Ash. He knew what he could rely on his family for. Neil would be well suited to anything that involved brute strength and physical tenacity. Joey might be good, in a pinch, if he could win his trust back - after all, he had spent most of his life in prison, and those skills could be an asset. Casey could talk just about anyone into anything. Dair could seduce his little coworker right back, if he could get the right proof to show she was in league with the rest of the monsters, though he might be more difficult to win. Lin could be trusted to keep a secret - much as he wouldn’t like it.
He felt self-possessed and thoughtful, and very sharp. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe there was something he was good at.
When he went back to the apartment and retrieved his clothes, he didn’t make it two steps in the door before he slowed, straightened his clothes, and detoured into the living room. He knelt down beside the table and felt beneath it. There, taped neatly in place, was a small, highly ordinary silver key. He ripped the tape off and polished it clean of adhesive on the sleeve of his coat, then pocketed it. He collected his things, then, for appearances sake, changing into fresh clothes and packing a small bag with a few essentials.
He was out the door again in twenty minutes. But he didn’t go to the stairs. He walked through the building instead, to a door he knew well. He’d walked past it, of course. He’d walked past it a few times, checking for security cameras (none, if he stood just shy of the corner while he knocked and didn’t come from the other end of the hall) and quietly scoping the tenants. No, he had no plans to dirty his hands with anything so gauche as murder. He had something far more fun in store.
He rapped sharply on the door to the apartment, and slid his hands into his pocket. He glanced up and down the hall. His posture had been stiff and tall since he stepped into the apartment a few minutes before. Now it slumped, ever so slightly, and sharp eyes went glassy with exhaustion.
It wasn’t quite Louis, but you would be hard pressed to tell. It was very nearly flawless, a portrayal that even his mother (bad example) might not have seen through. The wan, staring, empty shell at the hospital had been Louis. The person who stood at Chloe’s door, looking defeated and ruined entirely, was not.
Staying inside was easier, Chloe thought, than going out and facing the reporters and paparazzi that lurked like vultures, just waiting to get a look at the people involved in the latest headline story. She didn't want to be seen, to have more of her history dug up and put out on display; she had lived through it once already, and seeing it all laid out for the public's perusal was a nightmare in and of itself. So Chloe stayed inside, safe in the protective walls of the Aria penthouse, talking to no one save her family.
So when the knock came to the door, a sharp rap to draw her attention, Chloe was slightly suspicious. Reporters come to bother her at her door, or perhaps her family unannounced? It wouldn't be strange for Alexander, or even Jude, to drop by, though she would have thought they would have let her know they were coming. No matter, Chloe didn't want to let whomever was waiting linger for long. "A moment, please," she called out as she unfolded herself from where she had been curled on her couch, the television turned off and silence filling the air moments later. She wasn't dressed in anything to be seen in public, pajama pants and a tank top with a long white robe covering all of it. It was the later that she tugged around her protectively, one hand tucked beneath the other arm as she padded to the door in bare feet.
The lock was released, the chain unlatched, and without looking through the peephole, she tugged the door open. And for a moment, she simply stared at the man who stood at her door, not quite recognizing him. It had been years since she had seen Louis Donovan properly, her dealings with the family having mostly revolved around Neil, but she recognized the man who stood there. "Why are you here?" she asked after a moment, instantly wary, drawing herself back into the apartment with the door open only a foot to allow for interaction.
He looked completely spent, and he knew that would work on his behalf. Far from seeming angry or capable of great violence, he looked disheveled despite the shower and fresh clothes, thanks to a sharp hand run through his hair to muss it and his decidedly, painfully hangdog expression. It was an excellent impression of Louis. It really was.
Loki had, of course, never met the subject of his plot face to face. She as a person had really been inconsequential to his plot, aside from the small fact that tricking someone who fancied themselves a clever manipulator in their own right reaped its own, very special rewards. No, he had been bored, and was interested in his continuing survival and comfortable place with a man generally incapable of defending himself when Loki wanted to go through the door or had his own business to take care of. Plus, it was just...fun. The idea of the authorities carting Chloe off on drug charges brought a spring to his step and a smile to his face. It was a fresh challenge, completing a plot in mortal form without magic to rely on. And he did so love a challenge.
Louis himself, buried and unaware, would hardly have recognized Chloe. It had been a very long time since she'd come by to visit the family for Christmases, and the monster he'd built her into in his mind had no resemblance to a human being. For his part, Loki stood a little straighter, as if he were trying to compose himself. "I wanted to speak with you," he said, carefully, softly. The accent was perfect. A shapeshifter wasn't much good if the voice didn't match, and there was more to mimicry than morphing the voice box to match a tone. "Just for a minute." He hardly looked capable of violence. He didn't look capable of anything, really. "May I come in? I won't keep you long." If there had ever been a beaten, defeated, miserable man, it must be this one.
The unsurety in Chloe's expression remained, even with Louis' worn down appearance, the look of a man defeated and lost. She bit her lip for a moment, taking in the words that were offered, pitched quiet and easy, and bit by bit, her guard started to come down. She was far from relaxed, knowing the sort of things that were being shouted about her family, the sorts of feelings that had been thrown their way by the Donovan clan, but Louis didn't look to be a risk right then. Chloe wasn't an expert in knowing if someone was armed or not, but he didn't look to be carrying anything visible, at least not easily seen.
Flashes of what had happened when Lin visited went through her mind, but this wasn't Lin, and she knew she couldn't think of them acting the same way. "Only for a moment," she finally said, pulling the door open a bit further to let him come in, though she was careful not to close the door behind him. Let it stay open, for their conversation to be heard by anyone on the floor. "What is it that you want to talk about?" Chloe asked, moving towards the small kitchen off to the side, pulling herself up to sit on one of the stools that sat alongside the breakfast bar.
That was all that was required. On her way to sit down at the bar, Chloe turned her back to him for a moment, and a moment was all the was required. He had already wiped the key clean of prints, and tucked it inside the pocket of his coat. He plucked it out with the corner of one sleeve and deftly pressed it beneath the edge of one of the end tables in the living room. The table was in a slightly darkened corner, and he swept by it so quickly that he was already a few feet away by the time Chloe settled in, facing him again. The small amount of adhesive on the key and the decided hiding place rang true to him. Yes, it would do.
He did not sit with her, only stood in the center of the floor, his hands slipped back into his pockets. "I wanted...to talk about a truce," he said, slowly. He glanced down, then back up at her. He seemed nervous, gauging her reaction. Loki would have been highly surprised to hear her admit to anything, even in the privacy of her own home, but her reaction could prove interesting all the same. He had done what he had come to do. The rest was simply window dressing, a convincing shade to pull over his purpose in coming. It only made sense that a defeated Donovan would try to negotiate terms with one of the triumphant Murphys, didn't it? Sam was in a hospital bed. What ace could they possibly play now?
Louis' actions went unnoticed by Chloe, her back turned to him for those handful of moments on her move to the breakfast bar to sit. "A truce?" she echoed, surprised by the mention of such a thing. She didn't respond at first, looking him over, his nervous disposition, and there was something about it that made her even more wary. She had known the Donovan family for longer than ten years, and she had never known a one of them to be anything but forward and confident. But tragedy did strange things to people, and Chloe wondered if that was why Louis was acting so cowed, so beaten and defeated.
"I think we've all proved incapable of anything close to that," Chloe said after a moment, her hands folding together in her lap, the picture of a calm, composed woman. She was a good liar when it counted, especially when it counted. There was not a sign on her face that she was guilty of anything, just a woman who was perhaps a little more tired than normal, but otherwise calm. "But perhaps we can just pretend that the other doesn't exist and get on in this city as best we can without crossing paths." It was another lie, thinly veiled, because Chloe knew that wouldn't happen. Their lives were too entwined, what with her desire for Neil and her siblings' affairs with those of the Donovan clan. "I, at least, will refrain from contacting any of yours, so long as they do the same to me." That she could do, at least for the time being. She hadn't said a single word in public to any of them since the entire mess had started, and she was smart enough to keep quiet given the circumstances. The last thing they needed was a blow up on the journals, as was par for the course when she said a single word where the lot of them could see it.
Louis had never been confident. He had always put on a good show, but it had only ever taken him so far, and his often hunted look and unsurety when making decisions betrayed his crippling feelings of inadequacy in almost every part of his life. But that was neither here nor there. Loki did a good facsimile, adding to it the spice of the disheartened and the broken. In reality, Louis had been nothing but cold and efficient since his sister was attacked, but that was simply the edge of sanity splintering under him, allowing him to fall. At any other time, if the past two years had not involved tragedy after tragedy, Louis would have been as Chloe saw him now, slumped and beaten. He had only gained brittle hardness since the continuing onslaughts on his family had begun, a hardness that was slowly calcifying into something unhinged and dangerous.
Chloe's words hissed of lies, but Loki let his face lift just a millimeter, his mouth setting, tight and hard with suppressed hope. The white flag was up, and he seemed as if he'd seen a ray of light, that mercy would be extended to him. "Yes," he said, quietly, with a hint of the reverence one held for the vengeful god who passed over one's house without taking their firstborn, even though they could. From his demeanor, she held the power, and he was only grateful to hear she would withhold from using it. "That would be...amenable to everyone, I think." He nodded, and took a slow breath. "I'll tell them."
He hesitated awkwardly in the center of the floor, then nodded to her, audience over. He edged away from her, toward the door. "Thank you," he said, turning his face away. Oh, the shame of begging at her feet like a dog! He swallowed. "Thank you." He didn't look back up at her, or meet her gaze again. "I have to get back to the hospital," he said, moving slowly toward the hall. "That was all."
With the agreement made, even if she wasn't sure she would be able to keep it, Chloe's shoulders dropped slightly, some of the tension from the past days draining from her. "Thank you," she said after a moment, sliding from the stool to follow him towards the hall that led to the door out of the penthouse. "I'll let my family know that we spoke. And perhaps we can put this behind all of us and move forward with our lives." A hint of a smile, soft and sad, lifted the corners of her mouth, but it didn't linger for long.
She lingered in the mouth of the hallway as she watched Louis move closer to the door. "I'd tell you to send my best thoughts towards everyone, but I don't think they'd be well received. But I hope she gets well, Louis. I really do." And those words, they weren't entirely false, ringing with a hint of honesty though there were layers upon layers laying beneath those words. "Take care of yourself."
'Louis' walked out into the door and shut the door softly behind him, slipping directly into the stairs. And by the time he'd reached the third step, he was smiling - he was laughing - and he was reaching for the phone in his pocket. Time to knock loose the first stone.