Who: Cam Harper (NPC) and Mischa Lenkeit (NPC). What: Brief comfort. Where: Apartment building across from the Highway. When: Monday. Warnings: Talk of drugs, death.
Looking out from Dave's - not Dave's, his - window, the flash of blonde hair from below had something in Cam's mind easing. There was too much to do; runs to schedule - they were a man down and that man was truly down - but Cam's main priority was, according to the protocol binder, getting the apartment packed up, cleared out, and ready for the new second to move in and take his rightful place in the chain of command and in the apartment building floor that served to house Marc's inner circle.
But the apartment, Dave's for nine years and not even close to being Cam's yet, felt too much like a tomb. Packing Dave's possessions away felt like a betrayal. And the worst feeling of all was the baggie burning a hole in his pocket. Merely a gram of cocaine, but once Clark'd had it delivered, Cam hadn't been able to stop himself from sticking his hand into his pocket every few minutes, both to remind himself that it was still there and to comfort himself; his best friend had died but cocaine was still an option.
It was not, however, an option he wanted to take.
Oh, of course, he wanted it, wanted it with every breath he took, with every inhalation through his nose, with every book of poetry he packed away to mix with used needles that Cam didn't have the heart to throw out.
What he didn't want was to betray Marc so early on in his tenure as the second-in-command.
That glimpse of blonde hair had his hand withdrawing from his pocket and, leaving behind the box and note left for Mischa - there would be time for business later - Cam hurried out of the apartment, closing the door behind him and only contemplating the silver and green weed leaf on the door for the split second it took for him to lock the apartment up so no one could steal any of Dave's belongings. Not that it mattered, Cam thought cynically to himself, the boxes would just end up in storage anyway.
The elevator would take too long; Cam hurtled down the stairs. By the time he had walked through the heavily graffitti-d lobby only to become shocked by the frigid air and the falling snow - white, white, pure, just like what he had in his pocket - thoughts of boxes were long gone. No, there was only Mischa and, although he had thoughts of trying to hide the fact that his eyes were rimmed with red, he could let himself display emotion in front of her. If he did in front of Matt and Wes, they would lose respect for him as their superior but Mischa...
He tried to speak. He couldn't. Cam only reached out, sleeves of his t-shirt whipped by the cold wind, hands bracing against her upper arms as he bowed his head to rest it on her shoulder. There was nothing else he could have done in that moment; he could comfort Wes and Matt, but no one was around to comfort him. No one but Mischa and Mischa was more comfort than any of them could have given, a close second only to the baggie of white powder in his pocket.