Who: Luke and John What: Casino security in action. Where: Caesar's Palace. When: Some recent point in time. Warnings/Rating: None.
Luke held out no great expectations when he arrived for his shift, having spent most of the previous hours leading up to now in bouts of fitful sleep plagued with nightmares that were a mix of familiar things and the unknown. He could remember pieces of it; an alley, the smell of blood and metal and smoke, his parents splayed in poses of death. As he changed into his customary uniform he attempted to shrug off the fragments of his dreams, and by the time he reached the casino floor it was nothing but an unwelcome distant memory. He kept his ghosts tucked away where no one could see, and he almost had himself convinced that they’d never existed to begin with. Usually the first few hours were routine and uneventful, but in a place where money was thrown every which way and tempers were fueled by alcohol, it was always a good idea to stay on guard. Luke had an unfortunate tendency to react negatively, even violently, to unwanted or unexpected physical contact, so he ensured that he remained sharp and alert to avoid an incident that might get him fired. So far, his system had worked quite well. For all his demands and morals, Bruce was quite shrewd and noticed things that even Luke himself missed. Work was one of the few times when he could grudgingly accept the unknown man’s presence.
He thought of something the bartender at the Luxor had said as he prowled the floors, weaving between slot machines and card tables. Sometimes people did smile at him. Drunk women, usually, who seemed to equate his position with something desirable. He just wasn’t so good at smiling back. While Luke may have lacked the bulk to be intimidating, he made up for it with a stony expression that could freeze a person in their tracks on even the hottest Nevada day.
Bruce, who had until that moment been relatively quiet, chose that moment to begin a lecture about paying attention and being less concerned with smiles from strangers. Luke frowned and turned to find a spot from which he could watch the floor undisturbed, but caught sight of a familiar face on the way. His co-workers were, for the most part, tolerable. He might even say he liked some of them. His version of a greeting was a slight incline of his head as he approached, but it had been a long time since words were something he counted as a strong suit.
Even for a man who didn't remember the full constraints of his own reality, John knew that Las Vegas was strange. It was an adult candyland, a steel & neon diorama on hallucinogens and injectable steroids. Time travel was possible here, and teleportation. On one block you could be at the circus, the next Paris,and then New York. The streets had an easy layout and were identifiable to even the most green of tourists, and John appreciated that. He got these creeping feelings sometimes, especially in the massive and quiet aisles of grocery stores, that he'd never get back. That he'd become lost or forget his way. But the streets didn't do that to him, despite their sprawl and chaos. This was a city of drunks and gamblers, after all, can't let them wander off too far on their own. John used to meander and case new paths to the same destinations. It was a means of testing his memory in a way, but more than that.. it was the ever present yearn to stumble upon something that he remembered. Something, anything that could jar loose a memory not from yesterday, but from the murky swamp of lost years. It never happened, and after awhile John resumed his standard map to Caesar's with no deviation.
He adopted a similar method when patrolling the casino. John made it the same every day, with small blips of interruption depending on what he encountered. First, track the perimeter, then oscillate inward. Punctuate the completion of every cycle by dismounting to the main office where techies sat behind computer screens boasting a hundred scenes at once. The eye in the sky regularly proved to be a more useful tool than himself, but there was no resentment there. John enjoyed the security patrol in a way that he could not remember enjoying anything. It was steady and stimulating because even now, everything felt new to him. Women in nothing skirts sashayed by with trays of multicolored drinks, and the slot machines tittered like expensive machine gun fire.
Mostly, John liked the ear piece that connected him to the main office. It was loaded with the voices of people in charge, directing him to a floor of the hotel or corner of the casino whenever an incident arose. John appreciated the tangible reality of radio static and familiar voices. It was different from what was usually on his mind these days. The boy in his head was entirely quiet, but John knew that he was there. He heard little things now and then, trains of thought that escaped through muffled shouts or grinding teeth. But tonight there was silence.
Crossing paths with a coworker was not at all unusual, but on this occasion John paused in passing to address one of many men he'd never spoken with. John had a tendency to keep to himself, and as a result, he took a strong notice of that trait in others. "Luke, right?"
Perhaps it had something to do with the realization that his conversation skills were severely lacking, or maybe it was a simple interest in someone who reminded him a bit of himself, at least from what he’d seen, and circumstance took care of the rest. Whatever the reason, Luke deviated from his usual routine of silent acknowledgement before continuing with his patrol and decided to actually utilize words. Bruce thought it was a waste of time, but then again he usually viewed most forms of conversation as such unless there was some purpose or goal to be obtained from it.
“Yeah,” he said, and while he didn’t smile, his demeanor was slightly less solemn than usual. “And you’re John?” He knew him in passing, really, like he knew most of the others who worked here; he made a conscious effort to memorize their faces. This man was, perhaps, one of the most capable security officers working here, at least in comparison to some of the others. He kept an eye on the floor while he spoke, but there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary yet. Perhaps they were in for another uneventful shift. “Pretty quiet so far,” he remarked, even though it wasn’t actually quiet in the most commonly understood sense of the word. In comparison to how it could be, particularly when someone decided to cause trouble, it made sense.
"I am." even as John confirmed it, his attention moved away from Luke and roamed the sea of tourists and guffawing drunks milling around elaborate carpets and make believe pillars replicated from something called the temple of Athena. In the beginning of his stay in Vegas, John had spent a great deal of time investigating the various gift shops and reading brochures. Not because he had any significant interest in consumerism or the casinos themselves, but because their minute trivia was as good as a history book to the man who remembered nothing of the world he now lived in. Even though he owned up to the name John, there was a subtle diversion of his eyes and interests because he could never be sure of the truth. The realization bothered him less and less these days. Maybe it should have.
"That's good.." Although the words were more of a search for confirmation than any declaration on his part. His tone of voice lacked conviction, and was a little bored in the way a student's could be when reciting the national anthem. ".. for things to be quiet, I mean." He glanced at Luke, obviously on the same page that while it wasn't good for business.. the visceral evening element of dealing with unsavory customers was preferred over this.
John’s wavering attention didn’t bother him in the slightest, mostly because Luke often did the same thing. He rarely became fully engrossed in conversation, whether it was simply idle chit chat or a little more serious, and always had some amount of focus on what was around him. In a place like this, where a misstep might seriously screw up his job, distractions were more of a luxury. He might have thought it intriguing if he knew about John’s memory loss, but since he was unaware he simply nodded at the confirmation.
The casino’s success ranked very low on Luke’s list of things he concerned himself with, though considering it was his place of employment perhaps he should have cared a little more. This was Vegas, however, and one slow period hardly meant disaster. As long as money existed there would always be those willing to spend it on slot machine and card games where the house usually came out the winner. “Good for us, but not so much for business,” he shrugged. Bruce cut in sharply to inform him that a man at one of the (many) blackjack tables was had significantly increased his volume over the past fifteen minutes, but Luke spared merely a glance before deciding it was nothing to worry about. Put alcohol and disappearing money together and you were bound to have some raised voices, but he preferred to avoid making a scene unless it was necessary. The guy would probably claim a minor victory in about two minutes and shut up pretty quickly.
John nodded along with Luke's simple words as if they were gospel, sound with timeless wisdom rather than something to fill the gaps of silence. Silence for John wasn't necessarily awkward, although his grasp of what was awkward for others was pretty slim. Social graces were not a strong suit for a man with amnesia, although John very quickly discovered that the less people knew about his condition, the more comfortable they were around him. Something about trauma or injury seemed to make the general public walk on awkward eggshells and second guess themselves. John preferred to skip all the mess entirely and keep quiet about the personal things.
His attention moved with Luke's to the same blackjack table. Something so inherent and tactical that it bordered on predatory. Even when Luke's glance traveled away, John continued to watch the table thoughtfully. "Have you always done this kind of work?" Luke seemed a few years younger, and John wondered if everybody stumbled into this line of work just like him.
Luke may not have been watching the blackjack table, but he was watching John, albeit in a subtle enough manner that it wouldn’t be noticed, and the way the man’s attention shifted suggested experience that not even he possessed. Once he’d been taught by a man he thought of as the best, but he’d been young then, and he was still young now. He liked observing people, mostly because it didn’t tend to involve a whole lot of conversation. Words could easily be lies, but body language, that was a little harder to fake; especially when people weren’t aware they were being watched in the first place. “Not exactly, no,” he said after a pause. “I used to do something a little different. I kind of fell into this.” In his head, Bruce frowned at his use of something a little different--he considered that a gross understatement--but Luke brushed it off. “Have you?”
John gave no sense of discomfort over being watched, or maybe he just didn't notice. As attentive he could be to his surroundings, and despite the solemn severity that regularly overtook his eyes, there was an unexplainable air of naivete - or maybe just newness - when it came to John. It was a puzzle piece that clashed. Or was it his predatory alertness that was the unfitting piece? Something just didn't fit, but again, that was just one more thing that John didn't notice.
"No." Although his reply was for Luke, John's attention remained on the blackjack table for a moment longer. Although several of the players were intoxicated, nothing serious seemed to arise yet from the tension of the game. John drew a breath and glanced up, clarifying. "This is my first job."
Luke had the other man pegged as someone who was experienced in this general type of work, even if it wasn’t specifically security, so his response came as somewhat of a surprise. Even more surprising was the revelation that this was John’s first job. There’s more to it than what he says, Bruce decided, and while Luke always hated to agree with him he couldn’t help doing so now. There was something about him that was difficult to discern, but it was something else, something different. “It’s not a bad first job, but why this?” He wasn’t exactly the best at subtly prying for information. Most of the time he used threats or actual bodily harm to learn what he needed to know, but neither were an option right now.
This was turning out to be a surprisingly lengthy conversation for John, but he didn't quite realize that just yet. He wasn't accustomed to talking about himself, but not because he found it uncomfortable.. there just wasn't much to say. He was operating on two years of fully retained memory, and that just didn't build a strong basis for shooting the shit with a stranger. John scratched the back of his neck, still trying to find comfort in the suited security uniform. He knew that the truth in regard to his past could make people uncomfortable, and that wasn't something he really wanted to do. "I don't know, honestly.. it just.. kind of called to me." Which was the truth, even if he brushed over the details of his previous life in the homeless shelter. "It was something I had a feeling I'd enjoy." He glanced at Luke. "You ever get a hunch like that?"
They weren’t being paid to stand around and talk, Luke knew, but he so rarely carried on a conversation of more than three words that he felt himself almost entitled to a brief reprieve. Soon enough they’d fall back into their usual routine, and he would revert back to his usual somber self like a sort of endless cycle. He didn’t necessarily expect the truth from John, since he had difficulty trusting people he knew these days, never mind strangers, but regardless he was interested in his answer. It didn’t sound like something fabricated, surprisingly, and Luke found himself wondering if there might be some semblance of truth within his response after all. “That’s a better reason than some might give,” he said dryly. It was true. He was sure there were those who liked the sense of authority, or simply wanted a weapon; there were certainly enough police officers on the streets with similar mindsets. “Once or twice. I haven’t always followed it, but maybe you were smart to.”
"It's turned out alright so far." John had no reason to believe that things would change. He enjoyed his time in Vegas and he enjoyed his job. Initially upon waking up in the hospital, his only mindset and focus had been on rediscovering the life he'd forgotten.. but after giving up on that, all he had to do now was live. The job was more than a job. It was far from mindless clerical work, as it at least exercised his focus and memory retention. John found that he noticed things others did not. Like the middle aged man with the shaking hands who was choking down his fifth jack & coke while pacing near the door. A slot machine in the corner sparkled and sang, and the man set down a tumbler glass with rattling ice cubes in swift pursuit of the elderly woman hefting a victorious bucket of casino coins. John nudged Luke with his elbow to direct the younger man's attention to that corner just as the drunk knocked the silver-haired woman to the floor and snatched the token bucket in a race for the door.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Luke had once held higher aspirations, or that he’d had the entire world at his fingertips only to lose it all, but he saw his job as stability and little else. It provided a paycheck which he needed to survive, and he was better suited to it than he would be to something in an office, for example, but that was about it. Had he believed he had a choice, he would have chosen something different. He was about to make some meaningless comment about how it was a decent job, but then came the first real distraction of the night. Bruce didn’t need to point this one out, and while Luke was admittedly a little slower than usual to notice, his gaze was already moving when John nudged him. Alcohol and wasted money made for a poor combination indeed. He sighed inwardly, but outward was all business, and he nodded to John before breaking off to the right in an attempt to cut the man off. He assumed Jon would go the opposite way, since it would be useless for them to run straight ahead together. Other patrons of the casino were flocking to the elderly woman’s side, so Luke was able to ignore her for the present moment. He called out a warning, just one; a loud Sir and Stop immediately that went unheeded. Luke put on a burst of speed and reached the door first, his sobriety playing in his favor. With him blocking the doors, all John would have to do was execute a nice clean takedown. This part of the job, the exhilaration, however brief, was what he liked best.
Moments like this exposed everything, it was one of the few times when reality exploded bright on the retina. This exposed the animal and the truth. They say that a leopard doesn't change it's spots, and in so many ways there were parts of Loren that lingered in John. The military tactics; the wordless formation of strategy, the flanking of their target. The complete disregard for humanitarianism, or victims. John never even cast a second glance upon the fallen woman, his only attention was spent on the fleeing man with the stolen bucket. Of course, both man and bucket were soon slamming into the elegance of high-thread carpet. Coins spilled in a wash of bronze and silver, and John had his knee forced into the back of the man's neck. Alcohol made the thief a fool, and he struggled briefly briefly losing the facets of a winning smile at the tail end of a methodical fist. John pulled back, knuckles busted and bleeding, remembering that his only real duty was to recover the money. He worked for the business, and their priority were the coins. If the woman wanted to press charges, that was something else, but John stood and hefted the drunk up by his arm, pushing him toward the main door, where the neon streets rested on the other side. They weren't police and there was no need to file reports when you remembered faces.
In most situations, Luke preferred to be the one who acted. He was rarely willing to play the passive role unless observing was necessary, yet in this instance, his role had been complete. The thief had no escape. He did not normally strike a particularly intimidating figure, since despite his height and stony expression he lacked the bulk most people assumed was necessary to mark strength and capability; now, however, was different. Both he and John were in his element. The spark of something like triumph in his eyes when the thief hit the carpet would go unnoticed by spectators, yet had anyone who truly knew him been present they would have had the knowledge to see it. The scattered coins were of no concern to him, though he sent a chilling look towards the few customers that dared step forward as though to collect them; it was enough to send them backing away in retreat. He didn’t flinch when John’s fist made contact with thieving flesh; they served the casino’s best interests, and they were certainly not police officers bound to a rigid code of honor. As long as John knew when to stop, which he did, there was no harm done. Luke gave John a brief nod as he forcibly directed the drunken thief towards the doors that now served as his exit, and moved to check on the fallen woman. She was shaken, understandably so, but had not appeared to have suffered any serious injury. Luke helped her to her feet, aided her in collecting her coins, and sent her on her way to presumably seek medical attention, just in case, and take any further action if she desired.
He returned to the front doors afterward, watching as the thief was deposited unceremoniously onto the streets. “You’re good at this,” he told John once he re-entered; it was simply an observation, albeit a rare genuine one. He knew it would be logical for them to split up and continue their shifts on opposite ends to cover more ground, yet he seemed to be in no hurry to do so.
Violence was not always a guaranteed part of the job description, although even John was forced to admit that he'd known it would play some part before he'd actually applied. He used to wonder why he'd taken up with such a profession when it felt like more of a past time. At times reckless and stressful, he enjoyed it in a way that felt all too familiar. He must have done this before. John certainly felt a dizzying deja vu in his blood when the adrenaline kicked in, when the animal side took over and the brain became all logic and maps, skeletal-muscular diagrams detailing pressure points and easily dislocated joints. But more disturbing was what lingered: the brutal desire to continue, to beat someone with a methodical and unyielding rhythm, not stopping until they went limp with unconsciousness, and maybe not even then. It was something that John was inherently aware of, and made a great effort to steer clear from. He even patted the man on the shoulder in a display of no hard feelings before pushing him out the doors.
He returned dusting off his palms and wiping the blood from his knuckles onto the dark knee of his slacks, and Luke's compliment made him smile with a glimmer of uncertainty, as if he wasn't entirely sure if what he'd done could qualify as good. "We make a nice team," he said, obviously brushing off that doubt.
Luke knew all too well what the temptation to cause pain felt like, and he’d already gone too far multiple times. He had his own set of morals, of course, ensuring that he doled out punishment to those who deserved it, but some might call that self-delusion. Regardless, he knew it, and he knew what it was like to succumb. Never here, of course; drunken gamblers and men like the one now on the opposite side of the Palace’s doors were hardly deserving of something so extreme and he had little patience for them aside from completing his job. Which, incidentally, they’d both just done. There was always a sort of triumph that came with a nuisance being ejected or tidying up whatever issues arose, and he felt it now.
He found it interesting that, for all John’s capability and skill, he seemed either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge it. “We do,” he agreed, and that earned a rare smile. For a moment it seemed all activity in the casino had stalled, highlighting their chase, but that had passed and now it was back to business as usual. “If I need help taking down another one of those, I’ll let you know.” He meant it as a good thing, almost like an offer--or perhaps affirmation--of comradeship, something he rarely had.
"I'd like that," John assured him with a strict nod that came along with most business-related compliments. He didn't take it to mean a full promise on Luke's end, and besides, they worked together in a relatively massive complex. The chances of them crossing paths at a similar point in time for a chance to take a similar degree of perpetrator down was rather minimal.. but John appreciated the offer. The radio piece in his ear buzzed to life, giving him instructions about some security detail needed on the other side of the casino. John touched the ear piece, listening, and then casting Luke a glance with a brief smile but no other true sign of farewell, he took off in that direction.